Ow, what a week. The ‘Cool Companies’ list has been making the rounds and I’m stoked. I even managed to “Totally Offend” Someone! Yeah!
Anyway, look for a permanent home to the list in the near future. In the meanwhile, check out mentions on:
Thrasher Boards
Slap Boards
and a mention on my new favorite site:
Skateboarding Sucks
Also got a bunch of reviews coming up, including Real to Reel, Video Days, and Chomp on This. Lemme just say this: Froston!
Session Start (AIM – sassbert:ArtLung): Fri Apr 25 09:55:05 2003
ArtLung: we should make the analogy cop shows
ArtLung: and have PHP be Law and Order
Sassbert: hmmmm
ArtLung: reliable. extendable
ArtLung: ubiquitous
ArtLung: perl is like hill street blues
Sassbert: CSI would be Coldfusion
ArtLung: classic. kind of old fashioned
Sassbert: slick and packaged for the masses
ArtLung: CSI is totally coldfusion!
Sassbert: hah
ArtLung: but lacking
Sassbert: no real depth, but it works
ArtLung: i like this
Sassbert: lol you’re killing me
Sassbert: JSP is CourtTV
ArtLung: lol
Sassbert: “The real thing”
ArtLung: but tedious
ArtLung: powerful, real, but tedious
Sassbert: and you need to know a lot to get into it
ArtLung: that still leave us with ASP
Sassbert: hmmmm
Sassbert: Columbo?
Sassbert: maybe….
Sassbert: MATLOCK?
ArtLung: PERFECT!
ArtLung: for some reason, people watch it
ArtLung: damned if i know why
ArtLung: sometimes, you’re forced to watch it
Sassbert: this is going on the blog
Session Close (ArtLung): Fri Apr 25 10:25:22 2003
Finally, validation of the Law & Order / Sopranos connection:
Law & Order Meets The Sopranos (Watch out for the pop-ups)
From the page:
In the criminal justice system there are three separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders; and the actors who appear on both Law & Order and The Sopranos. These are their stories.
Note: new additions 4/17!
So, you’re new to skateboarding and you’re confused by all those companies and their crazy images. How are you supposed to know who’s cool and who’s not?
Well, fear not! You’re Unca Sassy has done the research, compiled the info, and now, here it is, in easily digestible HTML!
| Company Name | Defining Characteristic | Coolness Factor | Key Rider(s) | Notes |
| Girl | Quirky LA Flave | Very High | 90% of the best riders in skateboarding | Partially owned by Spike Jonze |
| Zero | Hesh Punk | Very High | Jamie Thomas | Despite losing almost all of the original crew, the chief still sells. |
| Baker | Glam Punk, Rock star | Very High | Andrew Reynolds,Jim Greco,Erik Ellington | Wastoids gone millionaire. |
| Flip | Euro-Punk | Very High | Arto Saari, Geoff Rowley | Heavy Hitters galore. |
| Alien Workshop | Modern Techno-Urban | Very High | Heath Kirchart, Steve Berra,Jason Dill | Pretty much responsible for the whole ‘alien craze’ of the mid-nineties. Best graphic design in skateboarding. |
| Habitat | Modern Techno-Urban | High | Kerry Getz | Alien spinoff. Fred Gall? |
| Element | Naturo-Urban | High | Bam Margera,Kenny Hughes | Good Wood, I’ve ridded plenty Element decks. |
| Krooked | Misspelled Scrawl-style | High | The Gonz | Pioneering the concept of “guest boards”. Long live Gonz! |
| Shorty’s | Urban Vulgarity | High | Chad Muska,Ol’ Dirty Smolik | Used to make bolts, used to have a sexy mexican chick in the ads. |
| Birdhouse | Cartoons, Tony Hawk | High | Tony Hawk | Tony Hawk, Tony Hawk, Tony Hawk |
| Chocolate | Ethnic Urban Flave | Medium-High | Kenny Anderson,Scott Johnston | Close affiliation to Girl, otherwise, no one would care |
| Toy Machine | Artsy Literate-Punk | medium-high | Ed Templeton | I love Toy Machine! |
| Real | San Francisco | medium-high | Keith Hufnagel,Nate Jones | Good Wood. Love Nate Jones. |
| Anti-Hero | Hesh / Fucktard | medium-high | John Cardiel | Frank Gerwer is from Long Island. Good ads. |
| Enjoi | Quirky Cynicism, poo humor | Was High, steadily lowering, currently medium | Was Marc Johnson, now Jerry Hsu | Could have been great, but Marc Johnson AND Brad Staba Walked! |
| Foundation | Currently Punk, changes yearly | Medium | Ethan Fowler | Known for getting, then losing great riders again and again |
| Hollywood | Glam / Punk | Medium | Kris Markovich | Latest in a long line of Tod Swank spin-offs. Should be gone in a year. |
| Dogtown | Old School | medium-low | Eric Dressen | Back from the dead! Again! |
| Black Label | Old School Hesh / Punk | medium | Kristian Svitak, Chalba, Jason Adams | Lots of old-school flavor. John Lucero’s company |
| The Firm | Old School / New School | medium | Bob Burnquist | I can’t figure it out. |
| 151 | Straight Hesh | medium | Darren Navarrette | I had their first video, it was repulsive. |
| City Stars | Straight Ghetto | medium-low | Kareem Campbell | Holla! Why is it that ‘Reem’s companies keep falling apart? |
| Adrenalin | SF Art-Punker | medium-low | Chris Senn | They come, they go. Who buys em’, nobody knows! |
| Vision | ummmm…. | low | Tas Pappas | Tas is a crackhead! |
| World Industries | Whatever Sells | Low (unless you’re 12) | Chad Fernandez | Used to be the shit, then sold out and went corporate. |
| Darkstar | Evil Monsters | Low | Chet Thomas | Another slick, overproduced SoCal skate company courtesy of Dwindle/World |
| Blind | Vulgar Cartoons | Low | Gershon Mosely (now GMOS?), Ronnie Creager | This is the company that made Video Days? |
| Santa Cruz | Milking long-time history | low | Stacy Lowery | Good wood, bad concave. Concentrate on Snowboards and Mountain Bikes |
| Powell | Sqeaky Clean,Milking long-time history | low | Steve Caballero | Boorrring |
| Think | San Fran Hesh/Punk | low | Pat Duffy | Usually manages to find a hot am, then lose him to a bigger company. |
| Zoo York | New York Stee | low (although there are certain devoted fans) | Danny Supa | Not even really a skate company anymore, half the riders dont even skate! Big in japan |
| Consolidated | Political Punk | low | Karma Tsocheff? Scott “Black Arms” Bourne | Does anyone even care? What is up with the black arms? |
| Arcade | Gangsta Skate | low | Daniel Haney? | Whatever. |
| Lib Tech | Fiberglass Decks | low | Dan Pageau | Shoulda stuck with Snowboards |
| DNA | Techno-Cartoon? | low | Jason Maxwell | Used to be Zorlac, ’nuff said |
| Natural Koncept | Hawaiian Stoned Grafitti Cartoons | low | Choppy Omega | Somehow, some way, they’re still kickin’ |
When I was seventeen,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small
town girls and soft summer nights.
We’d hide from the lights
on the village green
When I was seventeen
When I was twenty-one,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city
girls who lived up the stairs
With all that perfumed hair
and it came undone
When I was twenty-one
When I was thirty-five,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded
girls of independent means
We’d ride in limousines,
their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five
But now the days are short,
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage
wine from fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
-Kingston Trio, 1961
SWM Web Developer seeks employer for long-term relationship. Let’s make beautiful Web together.
You:
* Live, breathe, and eat “the deal”.
* Are impeccably organized.
* Have a rolodex ten inches thick- and know how to use it.
* Are supremely cool and confident.
* Are a natural leader.
* Promote a healthy, happy workplace by example.
* Prefer face-to-face interaction over email.
* Understand what I do- and let me do it.
* Know when to work and when to play
Me:
* Punctual, committed, professional.
* Genuinely enjoys his work.
* Works hard, takes care of business, and gets home by 5.
* Lifetime learner – constantly building new skills.
* Really knows what he says he knows. No faux expertise.
Well, a boy can dream, can’t he?
 Lenny |
 Tony |
| Cop | Goombah |
| New York | North Jersey |
| 50k / year | 50% of everything |
| Lies to Crooks | Lies to Everyone |
| Chili Dogs & Pizza Slices | Capocollo & Sfogliatelle |
| Quick with a One-Liner | Quick with a Meat Cleaver |
| Likes Langston Hughes | Likes Ducks |
| AA Meetings | Therapy |
| Rides with Eddie Green | Rides with Chris Moltisanti |
| Runs Your Plates | Runs You Over |
| Daughter in Pinelawn | Daughter in Columbia |
| Crown Vic | Suburban |
Ummmm… (Quicktime)
* Slow to load : 10 seconds on a 2ghz Athlon?
* Ctrl + N opens a blank page
* Cannot view Source in my text editor.
* Cheesey UI, cannot consolidate taskbars into one single line.
* Can’t remove icon text or make icons small. I KNOW WHICH ONE IS THE “BACK ARROW”
* Cannot use alt+d to select the address bar.
* Security Icon in bottom-right interferes with dragging.
I’ve given up on Chimera as well, instead I’m using Safari on my Mac. although I whole-heartedly support Mozilla, I find their browser to be clunky and slow, and slowness is my major pet peeve on computers.
The best thing Moz has is the Javascript Console, which has become an absolute necessity. Also interesting is people making little mini-Moz apps using XUL- I think this tech has a lot of promise down the road.
For now, on a PC, it’s IE. There is simply no comparison. People saye rendering engine speed in Gecko is better, but who cares if the app takes 1000x longer to load in the first place. And really, aren’t we talking about 100th of a second here and there?
Please like to use the ‘alternative’, which is fine, but that’s not real criteria as far as I’m concerned.
The little-kid explosion in skateboarding has produced a pack of new riders who seem to have come out of nowhere. These kids are insanely good and are scaring off the less-talented pros in droves.
TWS In Bloom gives a few of the hottest youngstas their very own full-fledged video parts. In typical Transworld style, this vid is slick, well-filmed, creatively scored, and certainly on the top-of-the-heap in production quality.
Each rider gets their own part, with guest skaters and commentary from their bosses: Dustin Dollin, Andrew Reynolds, Kareem Campbell, and John Cardiel. There’s also a nice interlude featuring the homemade Turkey Banks, and a little montage section which is very well done, with some great footy from Bob’s ramp in Fallbrook. Also watch out for a nasty slam section, where Mikey Taylor slashes a 6-incher in his shin. I fast-forwarded past that.
* Evan Hernandez
Evan gets the opener, and it’s non-stop hammers for this kid. He’s really small, but skates grown-man shit. Evan takes out 12 stair rails for breakfast, and has a mean flick. He caps it with a 20+ stair FS board. The only problem here is that with so many hammers, you kinda lose perspective of what he’s doing. Evan’s spots are also pretty much stricty So Cal schoolyard, so the terrain isn’t too interesting either. As for style, Evan’s so little, he doesn’t have much power of flair, so he looks a little stiff.
* Chris Cole
Chris’ part is nutso, bonkers, banannas! This kid has it all, rails, ledges, massive gaps, tranny, parks, hubbas, blah blah. He’s a street natural on the level of a Koston. Definite tech-gnar guns: switch flip Rincon, FS and BS flips down Love Fountain.
* Tony Trujillo
You watch Tony skate, it’s as if he was just made to ride a skateboard. This kid is an absolute natural. He’s just smiling, flowing, and getting maxed out off every hit in the place. It’s really good to see full park sections, as the terrain in these new parks is really amazing, but TNT also kills plenty of real street spots with legit flips and grinders. L’il Duece is gonna be huge! Oh yeah, he skates to Motley Crue (of course).
* Mikey Taylor
Again proving that there’s no room for mediocre street pros, l’il MT blasts through mile-long rail crookies, switch buttas, nollie everythings, all with good style and a money flick. MT goes huge and gets tech, he has mastered crookies and flick-crookies.Yeah, he’s a wigga, but we’ll just have to overlook that.
* Paul Rodriguez
P-Rod (son of the comedian with the same name) got himself on Girl by being better than 75% of the established pros. That’s it, basically. Watch Koston in Mouse, then watch Paul. Effortless, natural precision. Smiling, humble, no ego bullshit. We like P-Rod.
* Alex “Trainwreck” Gall
Trainwreck has tattoos, that’s apparently important to note. He skates to Slayer (Agressive Perfector). His whole thing is basically that he’s clinging right to the ragged edge of everything, which makes for some burly hammers at top speeds. Trainwreck is a ‘stuntman’. If that’s your thing, you’ll love it. Personally, I’ll take Heath Kirchart any day.
Overall, this video is tops. After my disappointment with Label Kills, it’s good to see that street skating doesn’t have to be monotonous, filmed-from-the-pop rail grinds with sketch landings. These kids are gonna be huge. B-level pros, think about college, your days are numbered.