My youngest son has always had an eye for composition.
When he was 4 and 5, oftentimes I'd catch him wandering around the house with the digital camera taking pictures like this.
It's awesome, and refreshing, to see your child's artistic bent through their creative lens.
So last weekend, when he suggested his brother ollie over him at the skatepark while he filmed it, I said why not.
Spencer was afraid he wasn't going to clear him. So we put a skateboard in as Cole's dummy and shot a segment so Spencer could see just how much room he had.
Anyway, this is just plain fucking cool.
Showing posts with label skateboarding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skateboarding. Show all posts
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Monday, April 07, 2008
And Now For Something Completely Different*
A gratuitous plug for my friends over at:
jackassworld
My association with jackass goes back to when I was a teenager and used to ride BMX bikes and skateboard with jackass creator/director Jeff Tremaine.
We'd ride around in his station wagon that was plastered with Meatland bumper stickers ("The Meat That Can't Be Beat") going to jumps/skate spots drinking Dr. Pepper's and eating Slim Jims. We'd steal plywood in the light of day from newly-birthed subdivisions and spray paint the walls of the local high schools with Black Flag logos. We'd go to matinee punk shows at the old 9:30 Club.
Basically your typical '80s kids with Thrasher subscriptions and weekly trips to the local surf shop to ogle the cute girls who worked there.
Early on it was apparent that Jeff had a fucked up sense of humor as I was one of the first to be subjected to it. Jeff used to blame his stinky ass farts on his dog until one day his dog passed away and the farts still came. He tried to convince me, Joey and Andy that the band on the back of the Dead Kennedys record - the record where the back cover has a '50s band with Danelectro guitars - was indeed the Dead Kennedys. He talked me into going to the beach guaranteeing us a place to stay only to wind up sleeping in his wagon. That same trip he convinced me how cool it would be to pierce my ear and wear a fish lure in it like Darby Crash. Man, that shit fucking hurt.
He also forced me to watch Heavy Metal and Monty Python's Holy Grail*.
College came.
Jeff went to St. Louis and joined a fraternity while I went to Baltimore and started to play rugby.
We stayed in touch and eventually both of us would end up living in Los Angeles. At the time he worked at a BMX magazine that I would end up writing music reviews for and so began a music journalism career I've had for over 15 years now but that's a whole nother story.
Eventually Jeff ended up as the creative director for Big Brother skateboard magazine and me - after bouncing around through various Hollywood jobs (Restless Records, writing radio promos for Baywatch, being a proofreader at DIRT), I found myself working as the pool boy at the Beverly Hills Hilton.
For real.
It was a brainless day job that allowed me to write for magazines like Transworld Skateboarding, Warp, Blunt, Bikini and Big Brother.
I wrote some great articles for Big Brother: the malt liquor review, buying drugs at the parking lot of a Dead show, how to bet on horse racing and a beastiality porn review to name a few. Ah, good times.
Things get all James Frey'ed fuzzy somewhere around the mid-'90s.
I was living in Los Feliz which turned out to house a hot skate spot and found myself shooting footage of people like Paulo Diaz (clip below which isn't mine by the way), hanging out with photographer Rick Kosik in some sketchy areas all in the name of skateboard photography or trying to convince Jeff and Marc McKee to not call the cops during the infamous Bong Olympics.
I moved to North Carolina and got married while Jeff continued to ply his warped sensibilities on the world mixing Howard Stern, Monty Python and a few reads of Terry Southern's Magic Christian into the brand we know it as today: jackass.
jackass took over television and the big screen and now they are setting their sights on the internet (i.e. new media).
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
My association with jackass goes back to when I was a teenager and used to ride BMX bikes and skateboard with jackass creator/director Jeff Tremaine.
We'd ride around in his station wagon that was plastered with Meatland bumper stickers ("The Meat That Can't Be Beat") going to jumps/skate spots drinking Dr. Pepper's and eating Slim Jims. We'd steal plywood in the light of day from newly-birthed subdivisions and spray paint the walls of the local high schools with Black Flag logos. We'd go to matinee punk shows at the old 9:30 Club.
Basically your typical '80s kids with Thrasher subscriptions and weekly trips to the local surf shop to ogle the cute girls who worked there.
Early on it was apparent that Jeff had a fucked up sense of humor as I was one of the first to be subjected to it. Jeff used to blame his stinky ass farts on his dog until one day his dog passed away and the farts still came. He tried to convince me, Joey and Andy that the band on the back of the Dead Kennedys record - the record where the back cover has a '50s band with Danelectro guitars - was indeed the Dead Kennedys. He talked me into going to the beach guaranteeing us a place to stay only to wind up sleeping in his wagon. That same trip he convinced me how cool it would be to pierce my ear and wear a fish lure in it like Darby Crash. Man, that shit fucking hurt.
He also forced me to watch Heavy Metal and Monty Python's Holy Grail*.
College came.
Jeff went to St. Louis and joined a fraternity while I went to Baltimore and started to play rugby.
We stayed in touch and eventually both of us would end up living in Los Angeles. At the time he worked at a BMX magazine that I would end up writing music reviews for and so began a music journalism career I've had for over 15 years now but that's a whole nother story.
Eventually Jeff ended up as the creative director for Big Brother skateboard magazine and me - after bouncing around through various Hollywood jobs (Restless Records, writing radio promos for Baywatch, being a proofreader at DIRT), I found myself working as the pool boy at the Beverly Hills Hilton.
For real.
It was a brainless day job that allowed me to write for magazines like Transworld Skateboarding, Warp, Blunt, Bikini and Big Brother.
I wrote some great articles for Big Brother: the malt liquor review, buying drugs at the parking lot of a Dead show, how to bet on horse racing and a beastiality porn review to name a few. Ah, good times.
Things get all James Frey'ed fuzzy somewhere around the mid-'90s.
I was living in Los Feliz which turned out to house a hot skate spot and found myself shooting footage of people like Paulo Diaz (clip below which isn't mine by the way), hanging out with photographer Rick Kosik in some sketchy areas all in the name of skateboard photography or trying to convince Jeff and Marc McKee to not call the cops during the infamous Bong Olympics.
I moved to North Carolina and got married while Jeff continued to ply his warped sensibilities on the world mixing Howard Stern, Monty Python and a few reads of Terry Southern's Magic Christian into the brand we know it as today: jackass.
jackass took over television and the big screen and now they are setting their sights on the internet (i.e. new media).
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
"C'mon Dad!"
I spent the better part of Saturday morning teaching my 7-year-old how to ollie.
An ollie is a skateboard trick that involves smacking the tail end of the board on the ground with your foot (or front end... that would be a nollie) and making it pop up into the air. It is to skateboarding what the bunny hop was to BMX.
He's got this obsessive nature and is an imprintable freak which can be both adorable and annoying at time so he was thrust into this early morning ollie session after spending a week play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on PS2.
We did a lot of this type of stuff over the summer where I would use a stick as something innocuous to jump over. So we found a stick in the yard and put it in the middle of the street.
One of the older neighborhood kids rode by on his bike and decided to watch and see my son practice his ollies. My wife came out to watch as well. At one point I was getting aggravated because he refused to listen to the instruction I was giving him when all of the sudden my wife chimed in, "Well let's see you do it!" And then my son came at me as well, "C'mon Dad!"
Game on.
I nailed it on my second attempt but my son was up the street and claimed it wasn't a "clean one." But his friend said that I made it.
So I did it again.
The neighborhood kid seemed impressed.
An ollie is a skateboard trick that involves smacking the tail end of the board on the ground with your foot (or front end... that would be a nollie) and making it pop up into the air. It is to skateboarding what the bunny hop was to BMX.
He's got this obsessive nature and is an imprintable freak which can be both adorable and annoying at time so he was thrust into this early morning ollie session after spending a week play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on PS2.
We did a lot of this type of stuff over the summer where I would use a stick as something innocuous to jump over. So we found a stick in the yard and put it in the middle of the street.
One of the older neighborhood kids rode by on his bike and decided to watch and see my son practice his ollies. My wife came out to watch as well. At one point I was getting aggravated because he refused to listen to the instruction I was giving him when all of the sudden my wife chimed in, "Well let's see you do it!" And then my son came at me as well, "C'mon Dad!"
Game on.
I nailed it on my second attempt but my son was up the street and claimed it wasn't a "clean one." But his friend said that I made it.
So I did it again.
The neighborhood kid seemed impressed.
Monday, October 01, 2007
A Good Ol' Fashion Grub Kick
So I've caught a few games of the rugby World Cup in the past week and I've got to say that rugby is - by far - the best sport I ever played.
Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Redskins football in a family that had - and still has - season tickets. When I was a little kid, the youngest of four, my father helped start the Olney Boys Club with some other men he knew at the time and went on to become a high school football referee.
So I like to watch me some football.
Growing up it was football, basketball and track (my dad coached me in track in 8th grade). I stuck to that formula for a long time. Then bmx entered into my world. I rode my bike everywhere and anywhere. I raced a few times but found it too boring in its quickness. And as much as I love to ride my bike over jumps, bmx racing just didn't interest me to watch unlike football, basketball and track.
Bmx led me to skateboarding and the concept of sport as an individual. I have to say that I still enjoy watching a good skateboard competition but after a few rounds I'm done.
By the time I got to high school, I opted out of my traditional spring sport for lacrosse. I loved lacrosse. It was like a combination of basketball, soccer and hockey. But it was also a sport of privilege much like polo and that turned me off of it. Plus I got kicked off the team my senior year.
College introduced me to rugby.
And to this day i still have a fondness for it. I played my freshman year for a university on the Eastern Shore and it was like that movie Dogtown- all a bunch of characters. Naked beer slides were involved but that's a whole 'nother story.
I went on to transfer to a college north of Baltimore and played fall and spring seasons for the next three and a half years and when I graduated and moved to Los Angeles I ended up playing for the Pasadena/Crown City Rugby Football Club for a handful of seasons.
So when I found myself with the rare opportunity to watch top-notch rugby during this year's World Cup, I gladly welcomed it: it's like my Olympics, my Tour De France, my Winston Cup.
While watching a game the other day with my boys, I said, "Ah man, nothing like a good ol' fashion grub kick" after a play by the New Zealand All Blacks, who are like the Yankees, Bulls or Patriots of the rugby world, and smiled.
A couple of days later we caught another game and my 7-year-old randomly belted out, "nothing like a good old fashioned grub kick," after a guy kicked the ball.
I tried my best to explain it but this rugby site does it better:
"a grub kick is using your feet to get the ball rolling forward. Important in the grub is that it actually touches the ground. It should not be a low drop kick. A grub kick should be done on the run with either foot. The classic grub will bounce twice close to the ground and bounce to waist level on the third. I have seen it, but very rarely. Like a drop kick, timing is very important, as you want to contact the ball just as the point of the ball hits the ground. You want your foot to make contact with upper third of the ball, essentially kicking it into the ground. A grub kick should be used when an opposing player is committed to making contact with you and is no closer than five meters. Do not kick to him, but off to his side (that ability to kick with both feet is very important). Grubs are useful because the opposing player has forward momentum towards you, is unlikely to react quickly enough to a kick, and cannot hit you if you do not have the ball. You should be able to cover your own kick."
Another site compared it to a grounder past the short stop.
Damn.
I could have summed that up quicker.
Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Redskins football in a family that had - and still has - season tickets. When I was a little kid, the youngest of four, my father helped start the Olney Boys Club with some other men he knew at the time and went on to become a high school football referee.
So I like to watch me some football.
Growing up it was football, basketball and track (my dad coached me in track in 8th grade). I stuck to that formula for a long time. Then bmx entered into my world. I rode my bike everywhere and anywhere. I raced a few times but found it too boring in its quickness. And as much as I love to ride my bike over jumps, bmx racing just didn't interest me to watch unlike football, basketball and track.
Bmx led me to skateboarding and the concept of sport as an individual. I have to say that I still enjoy watching a good skateboard competition but after a few rounds I'm done.
By the time I got to high school, I opted out of my traditional spring sport for lacrosse. I loved lacrosse. It was like a combination of basketball, soccer and hockey. But it was also a sport of privilege much like polo and that turned me off of it. Plus I got kicked off the team my senior year.
College introduced me to rugby.
And to this day i still have a fondness for it. I played my freshman year for a university on the Eastern Shore and it was like that movie Dogtown- all a bunch of characters. Naked beer slides were involved but that's a whole 'nother story.
I went on to transfer to a college north of Baltimore and played fall and spring seasons for the next three and a half years and when I graduated and moved to Los Angeles I ended up playing for the Pasadena/Crown City Rugby Football Club for a handful of seasons.
So when I found myself with the rare opportunity to watch top-notch rugby during this year's World Cup, I gladly welcomed it: it's like my Olympics, my Tour De France, my Winston Cup.
While watching a game the other day with my boys, I said, "Ah man, nothing like a good ol' fashion grub kick" after a play by the New Zealand All Blacks, who are like the Yankees, Bulls or Patriots of the rugby world, and smiled.
A couple of days later we caught another game and my 7-year-old randomly belted out, "nothing like a good old fashioned grub kick," after a guy kicked the ball.
I tried my best to explain it but this rugby site does it better:
"a grub kick is using your feet to get the ball rolling forward. Important in the grub is that it actually touches the ground. It should not be a low drop kick. A grub kick should be done on the run with either foot. The classic grub will bounce twice close to the ground and bounce to waist level on the third. I have seen it, but very rarely. Like a drop kick, timing is very important, as you want to contact the ball just as the point of the ball hits the ground. You want your foot to make contact with upper third of the ball, essentially kicking it into the ground. A grub kick should be used when an opposing player is committed to making contact with you and is no closer than five meters. Do not kick to him, but off to his side (that ability to kick with both feet is very important). Grubs are useful because the opposing player has forward momentum towards you, is unlikely to react quickly enough to a kick, and cannot hit you if you do not have the ball. You should be able to cover your own kick."
Another site compared it to a grounder past the short stop.
Damn.
I could have summed that up quicker.
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