Big Brother skate mag is no more… Long live Dave Carnie!

The mag was great for a while, but LFP didn’t seem to be able to prevent the brain drain to MTV (if you can consider Steve-O and Pontius ‘Brain’)

Despite earlier reports, Overload Skateshop is NOT closing – seems like an outpouring of customer support has revived the shop! Cheers!

Markovich is off Hollywood. Wasn’t it his company? Yet another example of the Tum Yeto “Get a Pro, Lose a Pro” syndrome…

A sad note today is the demise of not one, but two San Diego skate shops, Hanger Eighteen and Overload.

Both struggled with bad locations and new competition from the mall shops. They’re both having liquidation sales- so cruise down and stock up while you can.

The Pit has been knobbed. Viciously knobbed. Even unskateable sections of the ledges are done.

Some secondary stuff remains, but the pit is over. Back to being a decripit shit-pile like it was before, I guess.

You know who I blame? Firstly, The people at the AA meetings. They needed to clear the area so they could have an unobstructed cigarette-smoking platform. Bitter people, angry people. Hey, have a drink, you’ll feel better.

Secondly, I blame every skater who smashed a board,
talked shit to a pedestrian,
or divebombed right in someone’s way.
This includes
sticker monkeys,
sawzall jockeys who cut down the railing,
and the wax taggers.
I blame the kids I saw trying to pull the ‘No Skateboarding’ sign out of the ground.
I blame the dipshits who roll to the spot and leave their garbage all over the place. Fuck you, too.

I got a new spot, and I’m not telling anyone about it. It’s remote and vacant. There’s a few natural obstacles, so I’m gonna need a port-a-rail or somethin’.

DVD is out. Get it. I got it. You want it? You can’t have it. Best Ever? Maybe. Even Tibs liked it.

Spike Jonze, you a winner.

In the ‘rumors a’ flyin’ category:

From Overload

Gideon Choi and Gershon Moseley have been released from Blind …

Dogtown and Artafact at the Dwindle camp and Vallely Skateboards at the Giant camp have both been eliminated from existence.

Toan Nguyen, Peter Smolik, and Jesse Silvey no longer ride for Shortys.

This is a rad vid, gnarly as they get. I’ll be honest, Jamie Thomas is the shit, Welcome to Hell kicked ass, so I’ll watch anything he’s involved with. The bonus here is that the current Zero crew has John Rattray and Chris Cole, who are pretty freaking rad as well.

John Allie
Lots and lots of handrails. Kickflips into rails of all sorts. Slayer. FS Board El Toro, Noseblunt Hollywood High. This shit is gnar; why don’t I really care?

John Rattray
Steezy Brit. John skates a few lines, some tranny, parks, weird terrain, and raw sreet, all at 100 miles an hour. We get some lines too, which is really nice at breaking up the monotony.

Matt Mumford
Gotta admit, I’m not really a fan, but Matt’s park & pool stuff is just super fun to watch. On the street he’s a ripper too, but I could watch lip tricks in a pool all day. A couple of friends, and Queen on the audio, make it another solid part for the Aussie vet.

Ryan Bobier
Another rail-filled part, lots of hammers, but not much here to differentiate the kid from the other rippers.

Adrian Lopez
This guy is so underground, he’s chillin’ with earthworms. Finally, I get my street line fix. No hammer programs here, just street skating on all sorts of terrain. Techy, big, gaps, a little of everything. Short part, caps with a proper handrail bluntslide and a big half-cap railer down 20 or so.

Lindsey Robertson
Just when you thought you’d seen it all, here’s the suprise of the vid. All I can say is huge, massive gaps are the order the day. These are some real leg-breakers. Plus, he wears glasses, and the song is White Rabbit, so that’s cool.

Ryan Smith
This kid’s one of those Red Dragon goons. He’s pretty damn gnarly, but at this point in the vid, it’s really starting to get monotonous. Big rail crooks caps a short part.

Chris Cole
Style guy Chris is all casual, Appleyard stand-up flips and all, mach speeds, lots of variety in this part. Assorted nollie and flip-in maneuvers keep it interesting, capping with a tre flip down Rincon’s big 4. The Styx song has got to go.

Jamie Thomas
I’m like a little kid when big chief comes on. This guy defenitely brought huge street skating the forefront some years back. The best thing about JT is how he stomps his landings, everything is just 4-on-the-floor. Kinky rails galore, huge gaps.

Only complaint I have is the filming. The from-the-pop, nonstop hammers thing is seriously getting old. Can we see some pushing, please? Some lines? Some regular skating? Maybe a dork session? You just can’t get any sense of the style of a rider without some pushing about. Jamie himself filmed most of this, and his trademark is just sticking that death lens right in the middle of things.

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!

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!