he's in the digital finals... click here to watch his video (columbus) and vote please...

THANKS!

o.j. hayes takes first place at manny mania this year!!!

he wins a trip to woodward, a trip to the finals in NYC and a chance for an HD camera, macbook pro, etc... his video will be on the red bull site. make sure you vote for hime.

the competition was stiff. o.j. kept his head on straight and rolled off with some techie fun including; fakie ollie - fakie manual to fakie 3 flip. front lipslide to fakie manual, bs nose grind nollie to nose manual, nollie nose manual nollie flip out, etc...

later....................

effort team held it down again this year @ the warped tour.

1st morgan - not sure sponsor

2nd ali calis- effort

3rd billy craig - effort

billy, you can use some of that extra spending money to pay off your new ride & remodeling

gabe getting sum...

ali painted the ships out of the ramp... then delivered the goods.

pics by pat ch*ck

footy and pics here

Best Trick Presented by Skateboarder Magazine: OJ Hayes ( manny up the euro pad, fakie manny back down to fakie 360 flip out)

we're moving into our next chapter.  fortunately it's not chapter 11.

ali and moss are taking control of the ship while i step aside and try to take control of my life...

4 new boards are dropping.  new shirts.  new stickers.  new new...  stay tuned for the most productive summer yet!

./james

great weather! great music! great park! great skaters! great community!

the key to this demo's success is the supportive athens skate community.  all the skaters, parents, kids, dogs were awesome to be around.

thanks to flipside skateshop! athens student organization! (UPC i believe) and red bull for the support!

athens rippers!

stormy - bs blunt...  we lost this kid.  if you see him, have him call home.  really!

coyne fs hippy flippy

more pictures in the gallery!

go here...

oh yeh...  new video *should* be out this fall.  stay tuned.

todo list from jason lytle on Vimeo.

cornify

athens ohio on saturday may 30th @ 1:00p.m.  if it rains, the back up date is sunday may 31st.

Dear Mr. Kenney,

It has come to my attention through the skateboarding grapevine that you plan to open a large indoor skatepark in the greater Cincinnati area.  I have also heard that you plan to use pre-fabricated 'snap-together' ramps from American Ramp Company.  The people I've spoken to told me that you've been advised against using this company by several individuals.  Recently I've been forwarded some of the emails that James from Suburban Rails has sent you, trying to persuade you to use a skate park builder instead of the lincoln log company you've contracted.  I was urged to write you a letter pleading you not to use American Ramp Company for your park, and after some thought, I decided to send you a message that is somewhat different from the ones you've no doubt been getting from other skaters in the area.  Here it is.
    Go ahead.  Open your American Ramp Company park.  Please.  I have been skateboarding for 21 years, and I've learned a few things about people over those years. 
    In the decade between 1987 and 1997 skateboarding was little more than a blip on the radar of American culture.  It was the pariah of athletic activities.  Skateboarders were associated (wrongfully) with loud music, drug use, and a dropout mentality.  You couldn't go anywhere wearing a Vision Street Wear shirt without someone stereotyping you.  A McSqueeb haircut would get you nothing but dirty looks at any Kmart, McDonald's, or public park.  Skate Rags shorts with the skull on the pocket? - forget about the school principal giving you a break for being tardy or skipping school, even though the quarterback got a free pass to go to Red's Opening Day, and got to take the US government exam over so he could pass the class and graduate. 
    We were persecuted, cast aside, kicked out, beat up, spit on, made fun of and threatened by people in every conceivable strata of society.  Not that I expect you to understand this, as it seems you weren't around during this time period.  I'm not sure how old you are, but the content of your weblog and the presentation of your website are indicators that you were nowhere near skateboarding during the late 80's and early 90's.  That's OK though.  Skateboarding needs people like you now.  We need people like you now for a couple of reasons. 
    First of all, during these 'dark years' between '87 and '97, even though we were ostracized and treated like scum, no one else was skating.  Everywhere we went, we had the spot to ourselves.  It was like a 'Garden of Eden' period.  Aside from rednecks twice our age chasing us down in trucks with lift kits and KC lights, skateboarding was a very peaceful and personal activity.  I remember driving hours just to go to some crappy skatepark that probably wouldn't be open in three months because there weren't enough skaters to keep its doors open.  There were hardly ever any skaters there.  10 skaters at the most, usually.  We practically had the place all to ourselves.  On top of that, the skaters who were there had a special kind of respect for one another.  We knew that at that time, if you were skating, you were a special kind of individual.  If you were skating during that time, it was because you loved it and you wanted it.  There was no outside influence from the media or society for doing what we did.  In fact, it was kind of like how Stacy Peralta described being pro in the 70's.  It was like we were spray painting graffiti all over the city.  Some people were getting (very small) paychecks for it, but most of us were just considered pains in the ass.  These days, there are parks everywhere.  There are probably 6 parks within 20 miles of my apartment right now.  Of course, most of them suck, but at least they are there.  In Oregon, Dreamland and other companies have created a kind of skater's Avalon, with over 90 parks in the state alone.  Most of these parks are quality parks, but this is beside the point. 
    Parks in this era of skateboarding are populated by too many kids.  From teenagers who try to be the outcasts that we were in 87-97, to toddlers with helmets and full pads whose parents don't understand that they should learn to push and kickturn in the driveway before they come to the park where they need at least basic skills to get by.  These barneys and grommets are clogging up my space and ruining my good time.  If you can draw at least 20% of these know-nothing posers away from the decent parks in the area, then you have improved my session by probably 50%!  This would make a huge difference in my life.  One might even say that I'd be indebted to you.  It wouldn't matter that your pre-fab park would suck enormous donkey balls, because if you put it in the right area of the city, all of the rich kids with rich parents would pay whatever they had to just so they wouldn't have to drive all the way to Florence to skate that indoor park.  This could really make the difference between a good session and a shitty one for me.  There's nothing worse than a bunch of oblivious little kids sitting or standing right in the way of your line at the park, and you could really cut down on this factor for those of us who actually know what we're doing.  If you haven't figured out that this part of my argument is sarcastic, then now you know.  Here's the part that's not.
    The other reason that I could use this park in the Cincinnati area is a little more abstract.  I've probably beat this issue to death already, but when I was growing up skating and a person could get beat up just for wearing an H-Street Tshirt, you really began to figure out who your friends were.  Your friends were the people who saw past the skateboard, or they were those who rode with you.  They were the people who didn't pass their narrow-minded cowardly bible belt judgement on you and your friends.  They were few and far in-between, and often, they were social outcasts just like yourself.  They were nerds and punkers; they were the disenfranchised kids.  They came from broken homes.  Their parents were alcoholics or abusive.  They were poor.  They learned to take care of themselves at a very young age.  Their parents did not drive them 50 miles to a skatepark, hoping that one day they would get sponsored and be on Fuel TV like Bob Burnquist.  Growing up in this time, you quickly learned who was a decent person and who was not.  It was very simple.  The decent people treated you like a human being, even if they were kicking you out of their parking lot, and everyone else treated you like the scum of the earth.  These people were not your friends and they never would be.  They were usually cops, jocks, coaches and church-goers.  (this last one seems paradoxical, but it's true I swear) 
    It's funny how a little television exposure can change the public's perspective almost overnight.  I remember in 1995, I first became aware of the X-games.  All of a sudden, the football players at the college I was attending were talking to me like a human being and giving me beers.  These were the same people who, just four years earlier, were trying to beat me up in the locker room.  Weird, huh?  Amazing how people can change just because the television told them to.  Amazing how stupid and phony people are.  You might think I'm jaded or cynical, but I was there.  I saw the popular shift that occurred over the years with respect to skateboarding.  The X-games and the Vans Warped Tour changed everything.  Fuel TV changed everything.  Tony Hawk and dumb-ass Bam Margera changed everything.  From an outsider's perspective, this might seem like a good thing, and in some ways, it is.  More parks than ever are opening up.  Skaters are gaining more acceptance in  society; kids in high school who skate are almost in the popular crowd now.  I've heard of schools that have 'skateboarding clubs' that take field trips to skateparks.  Imagine how different my teenage experience might have been if I had resources like this?  These are all, without question, positive effects from the mainstreaming of skateboarding by big media.  There are, however, other more insidious consequences of this boom in skateboarding. 
    Nike has introduced an entire line of skateboarding shoes, and is now in competition with many of the older skate shoe companies that have been dedicated to the culture since before there was money in it.  Skate shops are opening all over, but not all of them are skater owned or have good intentions towards the skate community.  Mall stores like Bad Boards and Cosmic only seek to make a dollar off of skateboarding, and when the money's gone will only be a bad taste left in the mouth of skaters nationwide.  Their owners never cared about skateboarding until there was money in it, and they won't care about skateboarding after the money's gone.  Hundreds of companies and private business owners are trying to capitalize off of skateboarding's popularity.  It's only business, and it's a marketing technique, but skateboarders who've been around for long enough don't want to be used for capital.  These businesses who roll in with big dollars and no roots threaten the small, independent skater owned businesses who have been there from the beginning (so to speak). 
    We're a separate culture, and we don't readily take in outsiders.  Sure, some big people in the industry have been won over by the money from sponsors like Nike, but those aren't the people turning the gears of the skateboard machine.  You see, even without Nike, FuelTV, ESPN2 and the X-games, there would still be skateboarders.  In fact, I've got a feeling that another downturn in skateboarding is not too far around the corner, and when it comes, all of these 'sponsors' will disappear, along with the Bad Boards and Cosmics of the world.  When these outsiders realize that there's no more money in the game, they'll move on to something else.  You won't find them building ramps in backyards, or running skateshops out of closet sized storefronts in terrible neighborhoods where any other business would fail.  You won't find them sinking their hard earned money into things like these for no other reason but to keep the fire burning. 
    If you think you know what I'm talking about, I assure you you don't.  I'll bet that you and your friends never sank half of your paychecks into a mini-ramp that might only last a few months until the city told you you had to tear it down because you didn't have a permit.  I'll bet you never went to a skateshop that only had ten boards on the wall because that's all the owner could afford without being evicted from both his storefront and his apartment.  I'll bet you never had to stand your ground against people twice your age who just wanted to fight you because you skated.  I'll bet you just think that this pre-fab skatepark is a good business opportunity, and apparently you've convinced a lender of the same.  You might even have good intentions, thinking that you'll create a positive environment for young people, and you just might do that.  The problem is, you wouldn't be doing it if there weren't dollars to be made.  No one opens a 30,000 sq. ft. skatepark just because they want to have a place to skate.  People who open skateparks of this size either have insane amounts of money, or don't know the first thing about skateboarding.  You've probably done your homework and realize that there are already 2 indoor parks in the Cincinnati area, and I'll bet you're not trying to compete with Ollie's in Florence.  Rather, I'll bet you're trying to draw business from the other indoor park, which is skater owned and operated, and was one of the first skateboard parks in Cincinnati since Club Soda and Mike's Skateland, two places that I don't expect you to remember, since I'm sure that you're not a skateboarder.  If by chance you were around during this time period, and you actually did skateboard, then shame on you.  Shame, shame, shame.
    If this email seems offensive, it's because I'm offended.  Your business plan to open a skatepark of this size and contract with American Ramp is the equivalent of outsourcing American jobs to Korea or India, while the unemployment rate in America goes up.  It's offensive to the skateboarding community.  So go ahead.  Open this crummy erector-set skatepark that gives nothing back to the skateboarders who kept skateboarding alive so that you might have this opportunity.  Show all of them that you don't care about them or what they want.  Show them that you don't want a relationship with them, and that you only want their money.  Make them wear helmets.  Charge an outrageous fee to skate.  Play shitty music and hire some stupid kid with an attitude to work the desk.  Continue to pretend to know something about skateboarding, because eventually, after half of the little kids who skate your park quit because they can't get sponsored, the other half who actually like skateboarding for the sake of skateboarding will realize what a total pile you and your park are, and they will never go there again. 
    Oh, I guess that even if no one picks up on any of this, it won't matter, because once these kids get old enough to travel to other parks on their own,  they'll realize that those crappy pre-fab ramps suck, and that no matter how many of them you cram into some warehouse, they'll still suck to skate.
    Don't know if you talked to Chad Bowers yet, but I'm sure that he thinks American Ramp sucks, although he's probably too nice to tell you that.  I know Chad.  Chad knows me.  Chad knows all of the people that I know because we are a relatively close community.  Obviously if you're calling him to get his opinion on your park, you don't know him, which means that you are in no way plugged in to the skateboarding community, and are only in this for a business opportunity.  I guess you probably have a son or daughter who skates, and this has been the precipitant for several parks in the area that have opened.  I respect this, but if you want to contribute to your community and give your son/daughter support in skateboarding, build them a ramp in your backyard.  Invite their friends over.  Grill out and create a good environment for them.  Show them that you care enough to give them your personal time, and not just some place in a warehouse where they'll hardly ever see you.  Most importantly; don't expect a single dollar out of it.  Things like this should be done from the heart, not from the wallet.
    I don't want this to seem like a hate letter, even though it probably does.  I'm just tired of trespassers waltzing into my backyard, taking fruit out of my garden without planting anything in return.  Maybe you don't see what you're doing in that way, but then again, you're not looking at it from the inside.

Respectfully,

Rob Ford
Cincinnati Resident

P.S. - I wanted to send you an actual letter, because I think it might communicate the seriousness of my sentiment, and also because I feel that email is a somewhat lazy way of communicating, but your blog site didn't list a mailing address.  Just know that I am writing this with all due respect, and that I am speaking from my heart.  I wouldn't feel so strongly about these issues if skateboarding didn't mean so much to me.

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in reference to SkateDojo.com coming to cincinnati soon

the good ol days...

old man style:

ali calis @ able projects hooked us up with this awesome shirt design. find yours at your local shop...

new lumber.  check your shops...

design by an old friend, ryan kapp ~ ryankapp.com

more here