UNPRECEDENTED

In celebration of Mind Field premiering tonight, here's a little photo of Omar Salazar in the midst of a line at The Boneyard, aka Wet Willy's. I won't spoil it for you by blogging what he did there, but suffice it to say that when I mentioned it to Worful, he replied with a look of disbelief, saying only: "That's unprecedented!"

Indeed it was. Kudos also to Benny Maglinao (seen here filming Omar), who's amazing camera work there was also without precedent. Can't wait to see it again...

LOCK YOUR DAUGHTERS UP

Looks like someone made some new friends at work. Will the beard be making a comeback? Bob and the Georges, prowling soon in a town near you.

¡VAMOS A PATINAR!

Continuing the global theme this week, check out this documentary about the Cuban skate scene from British filmmaker Phil Brown.

Mr. Obama, tear down the embargo.

THE BOARD IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

North side might be a warzone, but how about skating in Afghanistan? The Taliban ain't got shit on this.

Check out skateistan.org for more info. Pretty tiiight.

Photo from the New York Times, post title courtesy of Worf. Now go put away your AK.

SKATE VIDEO IS ONLINE

...and i'm not going to get much work done for a while.


SKATE VIDEO from Kevin erst on Vimeo.

DAE BO SIMS SKATES

Apparently the Pretty cult of personality has become so excessively popular that cheap Korean knock-offs pop up within a week of the unveiling of a new graphic. I mean I know we are "blowing up" but this rip-off of our own "Jacky Law" Donze as envisioned by Dae Bo "Jason" Sim is just a little too much. Will Jack kick Jason's ass for calling him a pussy? Will Worful sue for intellectual property infringement? Will Bobby ever finish his house? Will I "quit" Pretty and roadie for the rock-a-fire explosion like i've always dreamed? Will these lovable characters gain your allegiance by sneaking themselves into your everyday conciousness via repetitive iconographic propaganda and then form a neo-communist revolution? Or is the time already here? The plot continues to thicken...

MIDWESTERN EXPOSURE

Bobby took Jake and I to a spot yesterday that we'd never been to before. He proceeded to demonstrate to us how to skate it by doing this 180 nosegrind revert. Meanwhile, Jake demonstrated how to push like a champ. Bobby wasn't quite picking it up, but he was happy he landed his trick. -Worful

AN OLDIE BUT A RANDY

Ironically, after he grinded this flat bar Randy didn't order anything at the Courtesy Diner at which he was skating. Instead he drove all the way to the other Courtesy Diner, because that's the one where Chingy eats. Photo by Worful.

PATENT PENDING

Bobby, performing his patent pending "Bobby Hop." Photo by Worful.

NEW BOARDS COMING SOON

New boards coming soon! -Worful

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

Gabe looks a little embarrassed by his brother Alex's "wardrobe malfunction." But we might be wrong.

IT WAS WRITTEN

It was cold out yesterday, but it was also deceivingly sunny. So we met up at the tennis courts to skate some of great new and improved stuff that Goeke's been working on there. Randy tried out the new rounded ledge with a frontside bluntslide. Drew took to the bank to ledge with a back tail, as well as the steep wall with a back lip and a blunt to fakie. Then Alex Kehoe wallied it. Hood and Goeke skated the parking block over the gumball gap, with a front blunt and ollie to lipslide. Finally, Randy finished things on the Joe Herbert pole jam of doom, and Drew and Alex followed suit. Someone else did the pole jam too, but I missed it unfortunately. But you can read the list if you want proof. -Worful

NO COMPLIANCE WITH THE RULES

We're sure Randy would be annoyed to know that they do NOT allow no complies in The Battle at the Berrics. That's a double negative for sure. Photo by Matt Price, via Skate Arizona.

THIS OLD BOB

Bob's house is coming together really nicely. He's been working hard, on the siding most recently. He said he wanted to film "some Daewon roof gap type of stuff" on this scaffolding, but he was kind of tired so we put it off for another day.

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

Bobby noticed this sick photo of our pal Jabari over on the Transworld site. Switch back tail, photo by Dave Chami. Word!

COULDA... WOULDA... SHOULDA?

What if we had this instead of the Arch? Okay, okay, okay, the scale is all wrong and it would've been made out of grass and earth instead of concrete (not to mention that park rangers would arrest you for skating it anyway), but Isamu Noguchi's plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial looks a helluva lot more fun than the JB park, or any other skatepark we have for that matter. Ugh.

While we're speaking of hypotheticals, let's just throw this one out there... It's surely a pipe dream (pun!!!), but who is interested in signing a petition for trying to get a public skatepark or skateplaza in the city? Better yet, who's interested in getting petitions signed, talking with the aldermen, helping secure funding, writing proposals, all the bureaucratic crap that we would have to do to get a publicly funded park? Let's gauge some interest, if you're up for doing ANY of those things, write to stlskatepark@gmail.com. Maybe it's worth a try...

THE SLIDE

Our pal Kyle Beachy wrote a book! It's called "The Slide" and we highly recommend it. You can find it online here or ask your local bookseller to order it if they don't already have it. He's going to be giving a reading on February 5th here in St. Louis too, at Left Bank Books. For more information and for some sick footage of Kyle, go to his new website.

A CALL TO ACTION

We met up at the Webster "action" park again today. Schwartz was on fire, as always. Here he is with a kickflip to flat from the hip. Since it was so cold, Randy had to warm up a little before he blasted this air from the quater pipe to pyramid. He also floated a nice front flip over the hip. David was there with his trusty Pentax K1000 to capture the rare Joe and Troy sightings. Unfortunately Joe and Troy's skating was almost impossible to capture due to its fleeting nature. Speaking of impossible, check out David's impossible over the hip. Jake was there and so was Joel, who was ready to defend his choice of plaid on plaid no matter what. Photos by Worful.

SOGGY HAY BEER: MORE NEW YEARS NIGHT

Lucy Zhang posted some more of the gritty action from the White Flag New Years Eve party on her Flickr.

BANGING IN THE NEW YEAR

The new year started off with the appropriate bang of metal ramps at the Webster Groves park yesterday. Schwartz kicked it off with a textbook 360 flip, followed by a feeble to fakie and one of his insane backside shifty flips. Hood lamented the cold ground, but did a feeble transfer for the kids anyway. Jeff and Reggie were in town on break too. Jeff treated us to a bluntslide and back smith grind, while Reggie showed us what he's been skating lately as well as what Jeff's really been up to lately. Last but not least, Justin showed up at the last minute to remind us that he's really good. Long nosegrind 180 out. Photos by Worful.