Friday, December 13, 2013

MagPile: HBD BCD ! ABD/NBD ?


 Stories are cool, here's one......     Back in 97' I went on my 1st ever trip to California with my good friend Ben Demoskoff. We took the Greyhound from Reno, where my family was living at the time, over to San Fransisco for a few days of skating with Ben's friends Lucian and Jesse.  I think the 1st spot we skated was the old jersey barrier one that was popular at the time, and I rolled my ankle good right away. Not the best start, but SF is an amazing place so I made due. 

  Ben seemed like he was made to skate there, having the same sort of eye for creative skateboarding that Lucian and Jesse clearly possessed. I spent most of the time filming on account of the ankle, which turned out to be some of my favorite footage I've ever shot. We skated all over the city for several days, checking out classic spots such as Fort Miley, where we met a young Brian Wenning and his buddy Tim Achille. They ended up calling us every day at like 8 in the morning to skate.... I think they must have been about 15 or 16...... ripping. Got some good clips of those boys. 

  So what does all this have to do with a Sonic skateboards ad of Louie Barletta Hurricane Grinding Hubba Hideout ?  Well.....

  We convinced Lucian to begrudgingly bring us to Hubba one day, pretty much as skate touristy as you could get. I know the more recent generations of skaters can casually ollie over cars off flat, but Hubba is massive. My mind was blown that people could pop their tricks that high. The ground was perfect, but you've gotta have whatever trick you're trying on choad-height ledges to get on there. Lucian, Ben, Brian and Tim were all skating... that one session produced a lot of clips, including a Hurricane grind by Ben. Wenning and Tim even had a photo dude with them who shot it, but I have no idea what ever happened to that guy.... I think his name was Joe. Wasn't Hammeke or Brook though. 

  So we got some good clips, had a great trip, went home.... pretty much end of story. But then yesterday at work I'm looking through some old magazines that were going to be thrown out, and I find this Louie ad in the September 1997 issue of Transworld. I don't think I ever saw this, or at least I don't remember it. I could care less about NBDs, ABDs or whatever.... skating is fun, do what you want. Louie is the MAN, one of my personal favorites. Still, I had to wonder if maybe Louie had actually beat Ben to a trick we thought hadn't been done.... we were always so stoked that one of our homies got a new trick on an iconic spot we grew up watching pros skate in videos. So I asked Ben if he knew, and he said that he wrote his initials "BCD"on the ledge before we left. I looked at the ad again, and lo and behold, there it was. Ben is a tagger ! Hahahahaha ! Happy birthday buddy ! 

  Wait..... didn't Brian Anderson do a Hurricane on Hubba too ? Who cares.... all awesome skaters. Great minds think alike. 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Park Report: No Country for Cold Men


The white devil destroys all that he touches.