Table of contents for Dec-12 Jan-13 in Skateboarder

I learned frontside slappies recently. That’s right, I’m bragging about a trick I can finally do on a curb. It’s that kind of intro this month, so settle in. Slappies are the first new thing I’ve learned in quite some time. The last trick I figured out how to do before these, I can’t really remember. It’s been a while. My skating, I admit, has hit a bit of a plateau. Skating has never come easy for me. In my early days, it took me a long time to learn all the basics: ollies, kickflips, pop shoves, heelflips, grinds, grabs, you name it. None of it came naturally, so I just skated with my friends all the time and slowly but surely tricks started showing up. They took a minute,…

LEFT SIDE BIKE RACKED When I was younger, we had this sketchy launch ramp going up to the top of a bike rack. I was launching up one time and trying to grind it when I sacked. The way my hand landed on the bike rack when I was trying to catch myself broke my wrist. I remember it was all mangled and shit. My friends were sitting there as I was screaming and were doing the full, “Oh, what the fuck? What do we do?” So my friend ran to his house because it was right across the street. He got his mom and they drove me to my house. I was freaked out because I’d never hurt myself like that before. I was kind of younger, so I…

IN HOMETOWN PRIDE Nothing wrong with putting on for your city. FANTASY FOOTBALL It’s a good excuse to watch football with your friends. POKER It’s a recession; just trying to come up. GOLF Because my dad doesn’t skate. FULL-LENGTH SKATE VIDEOS It’s a dying breed, and it’s sick when someone makes one. Everyone remembers his first skate video. FAMILIA It’s all in the name. OUT PEOPLE LAGGING Don’t tell me you’re going to meet up at noon when you know you’re not going to show up till one. ANNOYING TRENDY HASHTAGS #saveit TRICK REQUESTS AT DEMOS No, I don’t want to do a nollie hurricane. SELF-PROMOTION No need to blow smoke up your own ass. DUBSTEP I fucking hate dubstep. Maybe it’s because I don’t do ecstasy. TMZ GOSSIP I…

This past April, Supra gathered together their ams along with their newest pro, Neen Williams, and headed into the American south for a few demos and a lot of street skating. The benefits of taking an almost entirely amateur squad on a trip is that they’re all still hungry and hyped and roll with the punches if and when they show up. Having the likes of Spencer Hamilton, Kevin Romar, Keelan Dadd, Boo Johnson, Nick Tucker and Pat Rumney, who lay waste to all manners of terrain with relative ease, as your “amateurs” is also always a bonus. What follows is a second-hand account of some of the events spanning the Supra Three Amigos Tour from Austin through, Dallas, Atlanta and St. Petersburg en route to Tampa. It was a…

Age: 17 Home: Rochester, MN Sponsors: Flip, Volcom, Vans (flow), Spitfire, Thunder Years skating: 8 Favorite movie quote: “Why the fuck would it be between that [McLovin] or Muhammad?”—Superbad Video part to start your day: Geoff Rowley or Arto’s parts in any of the Sorrys. Ultimate meal: Jimmy Johns Dream vacation destination and crew: anywhere with the Flip crew. No matter what, we always have a good time. How you first got hooked up: Remy Stratton from Volcom saw me at the Wild in the Parks contest three years ago. Thing that annoys you: Cops and people with bad attitudes. Person you look up to and why: Geoff Rowley, one of the nicest, raddest dudes ever Guilty pleasure: Call Of Duty Thing to do when not skating: Chill with homies,…

Please allow us to introduce a few of skateboarding’s newest pros this month with Kevin Romar getting a signature board for Blind and Nick Garcia getting the nod from Element. Congrats guys, it’s well deserved...Steve Durante who left Habitat a bit ago has moved onto a new upstart brand from the East Coast called Politic. He and Brian Brown are their flagship pros and have Curtis Rapp and Jason Slivey on the am squad... In other Habitat news, Tim O’Connor has parted ways with the brand and it seems Mark Suciu has departed from the footwear program...Ben Raybourn is no longer on Slave and has found a home at Birdhouse...In shoe news, Kevin Terpening is riding for Gravis, Ramondetta is officially off Circa and on Huf and Luan Oliveira is…

Metro Skateshop’s spoof s news show Skateline, featuring Gary Rogers, exploded into the skate world earlier this year via the world wide web by putting a hurting on a lot of pro skaters’ and companies’ feelings. What started out as just a shop video segment that poked fun at the skate industry quickly became an instant hit across the internet landscape and had everyone talking and anticipating each new episode. It even caught the attention of one Tony Hawk who scooped it up immediately and added it to his growing roster of Ride Channel programs making Gary Rogers an overnight “skate celebrity” who’s already signing autographs. Not bad for just a local shop kid. So, we caught up with Gary and found out more about how the show came about…

“Oh, we call them titties,” Theotis Beasley calmly stated to Ida, the Norwegian Skullcandy marketing girl in the van with us. She was talking about what they called boobies in Norway, and that was Theo’s response. Those kinds of conversations were pretty normal between Theotis and Ida. They had struck up a playful rapport since she was always bugging him about geo-tagging his Instagrams and making sure he hashtagged them properly since Skullcandy spent so much money on a Facebook app that allowed kids to follow the trip live and be able to come and meet up at spots. But all the nagging started taking its toll and was seriously driving the happiest and nicest guy on earth crazy and making us all think that Theotis might, just might, get…

The pressure is always there. For every skater filming a video part, veteran or rookie, it doesn’t matter if you’re working on your first part or tenth part, the stress is the same but how each guy handles it is always different. And being a part of such highly-anticipated and groundbreaking videos like the Girl family has always produced over the years just ups the ante that much. It’s been almost 10 years since their last team video Yeah Right came out. That’s a long time between videos and although a lot of the guys had parts in Fully Flared, this will mark the first time a lot of the team will have a chance to be part of a Girl/Chocolate team video or even have an official video part…

Age: 19 Home: Spijkenisse, the Netherlands Sponsors: Element (flow), Volcom (flow), Vans (flow), Thunder (flow), Spitfire (flow), Swiss Bearings (flow), Stance (flow), Monster, Ben-g Skateshop Years skating: a decade Favorite movie quote: “Sometimes you’re flush and sometimes you’re bust, and when you’re up, it’s never as good as it seems, and when you’re down, you never think you’ll be up again, but life goes on.”—Blow Video part to start your day: John Cardiel, Sight Unseen Ultimate meal: Mom’s Moroccan dishes Dream vacation destination and crew: Morocco with family and friends. It’s been too long. How you first got hooked up: I was skating this indoor skatepark near my house and a homie who used to be sponsored asked me if I wanted to go with them on a skate trip.…

COLD WAR FILMING The filming for me, personally, has been a stop-and-go process. The summer was so packed and so busy, and now I’ve built up all the things I have to do so that I have so many responsibilities that I end up not really filming until I go out on a trip. When I’m out on a trip, I’m usually filming. And when I’m not, I’m usually not filming. So I’m trying to get back into your everyday filming missions. I don’t even know what I have, to tell you the truth. I forget all the crap that I’ve done. I have to look at the timeline and see what is saved up so I know what I have so I don’t show up at a spot and…

If the words “Fuct,” “T-Dog” or “White Shell Toes” don’t ring a bell, you probably should go back to re-tweeting Lil Wayne’s latest skateboarding exploit. If they do, welcome to Big Dirt’s Memory Screened page, a thick slice of heavy Droors-talgia. “Back then, companies were just good at making graphics that summed up a kid’s personality,” Kelch says. “It’s totally lost now. The designs, they’re just for whoever nowadays.” Back in Cincinnati since 2001, the former EMB gentleman’s club bouncer is a bit more domesticated these days, but he’s stoked that skateboarding never really forgot him. Some people are in the hammer program, but Kelch provided the nails that preceded it. Here are James Kelch’s favorite pro-models, live from Cincinasty. 1. Real, The Flyer (1992) We always called this board…

Imagine having to constantly problem-solve around the flippant worries of people forever living in the moment. Caring for all the minutiae and tedium so someone else can take part in an utterly carefree lifestyle. Taking the long way so that everyone can take the shortcut is a task requisite of only the most patient man, happily punching names and numbers into various websites and packing slips, content to drive a van of raving ego machines all over the world, doing his damnedest to command a herd of cats. This man for Toy Machine is Mike Sinclair. Every year, Sinclair makes an autumn pilgrimage to the triangle situated cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill in North Carolina, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’s a native of the Tar…

Age: 24 Home: Pleasanton, CA Sponsors: Lurkville Skateboards, Bones Wheels, Theeve, Brixton, Pile Hardware Years skating: 11 Favorite movie quote: “You ain’t leading but two things right now: Jack and Shit and Jack just left town.”—Army of Darkness Video part to start your day: Lee Yankou Business as Usual Ultimate meal: Steak and Legs Dream vacation destination and crew: Bells Beach Australia with Keanu and Swayze How you first got hooked up: I got hooked up with Diabolical Skateboards from George Nagai and Mike Santarossa. That was the first company I rode for. Thing that annoys you: Parents who yell at their kids while they’re skating like it was football practice. Person you look up to and why: My mom because she is the best human ever. Guilty pleasure: Big…

1. Hollywood High started off in 1903 in the upstairs storeroom of a Masonic Temple—two months before Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality. The school’s building that is there now was built in 1908. 2. Some notable Hollywood High alumnae include actors Lawrence Fishburne (The Matrix), Robert Carradine (Revenge of the Nerds), Ione Sky (Say Anything…) and Judy Garland (The Wizard of Oz) which some are portrayed in the mural that overlooks the handrails. It’s also the alma mater of Sharon Tate, the actress slain by members of the Manson family. 3. Pat Duffy had the first cover at Hollywood High with a 180 nosegrind down the 12 for SLAP magazine in February of 1993. Duffy later had another cover at Hollywood High, popping a kickflip down the eight-set on…