Skateistan

A very cool article on a skate school in Pakistan:

whoop there it is

Independent's 30th Year Anniversary Tour DVD

This is the DVD that came with the last Concrete Wave. Today, due to the boredom of sick days, I finally got around to watching it.

All I can say is bravo. These guys are really pushing the mold. They are so cool, and this DVD is like no other the skating world has ever seen. The skating was ok, but the style was bar none! A couple people had pretty bad style and skating though, like Lance Mountain and Christian Hosoi, and the DVD had a little too much of them in it. The other skating was so progressive though, it was amazing. It really shows what amazing things can be done with Independent trucks, especially their carving abilities.

The lifestyle shots really showed me how cool skateboarders are. This would be a great DVD to show to people who have a negative rep about skateboarding, to make them learn how good it is. From close-ups of trashy girls trashily dressed, to nearly hitting cars, to a large amount of fireworks in nearly every scene!

The videography in this was definitely something to write home about, but was nothing compared to the amazing music. Really, this music was the least cliche music in a skateboarding video ever. I could just listen to the music and it would make me happy.

/sarcasm

Don't waste your time, this movie sucks, period.

Amazing Day, So Happy!

Well, today my ceviche arrived. I will have a review up soon as I get a good feel for the board.

But, as surprising as this may sound, that was not the highlight of my day. Here's the story:

So, a couple of days ago I sent Adam Colton the link to this site in hopes to get it on the loaded newsletter. This is the email I received on sunday: 

hahah sweet blog bud,

You know what I like about it.  You are honest and down to earth.  Very good.  Shall have Louis post this in the newsletter to give you some more traffic.

Tigers,

Adam

So yesterday (January 5th), Longboarding with Philip was in the Loaded Newsletter! Oh Joy!

In other news, here is a great dancing video. Definitely the best I've seen in a while.

See ya later alligator!

Western Sessions

Well, here it goes, a review of the Original Skateboards mini-series Western Sessions. Find it here.

Well, there were some great points to Western Sessions. The scenery was amazing. It has beautiful shots of the pacific coast, mountains and great sunsets. The roads and skate spots were amazing. Tons of ditches, banks, perfect turns and traffic-less roads. Western Sessions takes you through some of the best skating locations and cities in the world. The music was pretty good. Some songs weren't very good, but skating classic 'West Coast' by Coconut Records was included, and that alone made up for any bad songs.

Now that sounded like a pretty good review, didn't it? GOTCHA!

Sum Western Sessions up in one word? Boring. Sum it up in two? Boring boring. This pattern doesn't break. Nor does the pattern of the riding. Back and forth. To and Fro. Like a metronome. There is one trick. It's a nose manual into shuv-it down a bank. That was cool. It was also the only trick. I could count the amount of slides on my fingers and toes. Take away my toes? That leaves me with the top speed of the video.

We can't blame the riders though. I truly believe that it's the trucks fault. They turn too much, plain and simple. I know I wouldn't want to go over 10 mph on one of those things. Nor would I want to land anything on them. So let's decide to forgive them for that part, ok?

Something unforgivable though, is the amount of 'lifestyle' footage there is. I would say it's over half. For instance, let's take the sixth episode. It is 8 minutes and 10 seconds long. There was no longboarding in the first 4 minutes and 46 seconds of the video. That means in the first half of the video, there was NO riding. This would be ok if the riding was amazing, or if the 'lifestyle' shots were funny, interesting, or even entertaining. But they weren't. At all.

The last part of the review is on the post series, but I'm not even gonna talk about it. I'm just not.