Sunday, December 26, 2010

Eby’s 2010

There have been so many ups and downs this year I am unsure what make of it: good or bad. It has definitely been the rockiest year yet. But I made it through and am still here to tell the tale. It wasn’t easy but I have compiled a list of the 10 best and worst parts of 2010. I selected a photo from my iPhone photo library for each thing listed. Some are directly related, others were a stretch to be relevant. Let’s just jump into it…

10 Best


10. Meeting New People
Each year I meet new people and this year was no exception. I met a ton of new people this year, some of which I haven’t spoken to since our first encounter and others whom I’m in regular contact with. I sometimes go years without meeting anyone new worth mentioning, but this year was an anomaly. I would name names, but I don’t want to forget any and make any feel any less important.


9. High School Reunion
My high school wasn’t big by any means. There were about 250 students in the whole school and 60 in my graduating class. Because of this, they do not have a reunion every year for each class; instead they have one every 5 years. I decided to go down to Tallahassee, FL for the Sail High School Reunion a week and a half ago to see how everyone has been since I graduated 9 years ago and I am so glad I did. Most people look exactly the same; they just have babies, marriages, and masters degrees. I felt like I stepped back into a fun/innocent time in my life and all was good…


8. New Jobs
In this economy, anyone should be happy to even be able to hold on to their old job (which many weren’t), but I have been fortunate as of late and managed to procure 3 additional jobs…all of which I enjoy. I get to work for some fun companies and do what I love doing: Integrated Marketing for Break.com, writing for Complex.com, and Product Management for ICE (project to be announced in about 3 weeks). Plus, I get to keep running Naysayer Skateboards without any creative limitations. Work is good…


7. Naysayer Tour
While I have gone on plenty of skate trips with a friend or two, I had never gone on an actual tour before. So this past summer we set off on the first ever Naysayer Tour. It was hot, it was stressful, it was tiring, but it was an amazing experience. We got to skate some epic spots and meet some rad people. You can read more about it in the article I wrote for Focus here.


6. Forgiveness
I am not one to hold grudges generally, but it does happen. People do things that are telling of who they really are and you alter your relationship with them, which is natural. However, you can usually forgive them, depending on what the things were. Someone, whom I trusted very much, blew it and did/said some harsh things to me. I didn’t think I would be able to forgive them, but with time and attempts at making amends, I was able to, which was a pretty big deal. While I may never trust them as I once did, I do forgive them. There are other instances of forgiveness throughout the year that I won’t get into for the sake of being concise, but I think it is telling of my personal development as adult.


5. Good Friends
I cannot say that I am a good friend to anyone. I mean, I want to be. I try sometimes. But at the end of the day, there is not too much specific proof of me being one. However, that hasn’t stopped my friends from being there for me when I needed them. When I had to get out of my living situation a few months back, a few of them had my back without hesitation. Shout out to Raffie, Phil, Jimmy, and especially Budi & Tanty. You all are the best. There are so many other instances of friends looking out for me that it will be impossible to list them all, but even though I don’t see them that often, I know they are there and appreciate them all.


4. Jah
My sister, Parvaneh, gave birth to my 3rd nephew this summer. His name is Jah and he is the cutest little guy. He was born only a few days after seeing my sister in passing on tour, so I just missed him but finally got to meet him last month. Sure, I did try to make sure my sister knew all her options when she got pregnant on accident, and the abortion option was made to sounded the most appealing, but it was her decision. While I don’t regret doing what I did, I do love the little guy as much as my other nephews (and my niece from my other sister) and am glad he is here…just would have rather him showed up later when situations were better. He is a happy baby though…all smiles.


3. Kocik
I love my cat. Well, she is my ex’s cat, but I lived with her for over 4 years and spent a lot of time with her. She used to snuggle up to me all the time and kept me company hour after hour each day/night. She is an amazing cat and she is going to be 18 years old in February. I still get to visit and spend time with her regularly, which is amazing. She makes me happier than any person. My next tattoo is going to be a portrait of her.


2. Some Girl
Boy meets girl. Girl lives far away. Girl visits boy. Things are great. Boy visits girl. Things are great. Things end. Was a great highlight of the year, but I won’t get into any details. Thanks for the memories, girl.


1. Skateboarding
I am pretty sure this has been the top thing of every year for the last 13 year. Well, at least it has been in the top 2. Bboying may have beaten it out for a year or two. A girl may have beaten it out for a year or two (though she wouldn’t agree with that…I suck). Either way, Skateboarding is amazing, even when it is bad (isn’t that what they say about sex?). Most of the monumental moments of the year have involved skateboarding, and it has kept me grounded and sane through some pretty intense stuff this past year. It is always there for me and always will be. Skateboarding = <3.


10 Worst


10. Filming
I do like filming. I may not be the best at it, but I enjoy it on my own terms. However, some people like to take advantage of that. It is my fault for allowing that, but perhaps I saw these guys as homies and wanted to help them get footage, but at the end of the day, why? They never want to just skate or hang otherwise. It’s pretty lame. I am over filming now, though that is mostly because I have no time to do so.


9. Waiting On People
I have grown extremely impatient with age. I hate waiting on people to do things, which is why I do not have a specific group of regular friends. I go to events alone and go skating alone a lot because I want to just make moves and I know I will run into other along the way or those I would have been waiting on can catch up. While NYers can be pretty slow to make moves, it is nothing compared to people from the south or California…so I guess it could be worst. I want to say that I need to work on my patience, but I don’t have the luxury of time to do so…not sure how everyone else does.


8. Bus To Charlotte
While I do occasionally take the bus to Philly to skate, I haven’t really taken a long bus ride in a while (Philly is 2 hours), other than that trip to Boston where a 4-hour bus ride took 8 hours due to traffic. A month ago I decided to take the bus from NYC to Charlotte, NC to visit family. After all, it was $70 round trip. You couldn’t beat that price. However, it took 12 hours each way and I couldn’t sleep either way. Then, halfway back the driver falls asleep at the wheel and almost flips the bus. I though I was going to die. Not doing that again. Only flying and renting cars from now on for anything over 4 hours away.


7. Autumn Bowl Closure
I miss the Autumn Bowl. After 7 years, it finally shut it doors about 3 months ago due to issues with rent. I was a key holder and while I didn’t skate it as much as I should have, it was always there for me to skate when I had the urge. Be it 4am alone, on a rainy/snowy day, or at a party with a thousand people crammed in there, it was always a good time. I got broke off more times than I care to remember, but I also landed some things I am so stoked on. There was nothing like the feeling on long 50-50s on the worn in pool coping or 5-0ing around the hip.


6. Lacerated Kidney
I have been fortunate enough to go 13 years of skateboarding without ever requiring a hospital visit due to an injury (I have had to go to the hospital for other injuries, just not from skateboarding). But this year broke that streak. Amy, of KCDC, ask about 18 of us to go skate this 8 foot miniramp in this art gallery in Chelsea for this art installation, so it looked skated, not as performance art. We were to skate it for 4 hours or so. During the last hour my foot slipped off while on the coping and I fell from the top straight to flat with my elbow into my ribs. It knocked the wind out of me and I could hardly breathe for 5 minutes. I went home and was peeing blood so decided to go to the hospital. Turns out I lacerated my kidney and was bleeding internally. Had to stay over night for tests, observation, and to flush my system out. I got to keep my kidney though and was skating again after 3 weeks.


5. Instability
This past year has been a year full of instability. While I am not resistant to change generally, this year was full of change. The only constant was change itself. It can be a bit much at times. Going through change with someone else is much easier, but this year I had to do it all alone. Was pretty draining and lonely at times.


4. Stress
I kinda let Organized Konfusion down this year. “Crush, Kill, Destroy Stress!” Stress came from all angles this year, many of which were mentioned in other points in this list. I was able to handle the stress pretty well over all, but there were times that it was overwhelming. I typically cry (at most) once a year, but this year the stress (some of which was emotionally driven) caused that number to be multiplied many times over.


3. Creativity Lost
I like to think of myself as a creative person. Both personally and professionally. While this is a side effect of other things, it is still an occurrence worth mentioning…I have been creatively inadequate this year. This includes ideation as well as artistically. I have not done any art I am happy with this year and I have struggled for creative, unique, & original concepts in 2010. I know too much other stuff on my mind has clouded the creative process.


2. “Relationships”
I have always sucked at relationships, but this year was an all time low. I wrote about this before so I will not repeat myself, but this is something I do plan on remedying. Or trying. Though that is probably useless since I should just accept how I am and find a girl who can also…poor girl. Though I really need to not have a relationship for a while for my own good as well as the good of the girl.


1. Love
I can’t handle it.

2011
This coming year is to going to be a great one. I see it coming. Everything is already set for this to be my best year yet. Productivity is at an all time high, I only have myself to take into account when making any life decisions, money is good, and skateboarding will be there as always. I also plan on doing a lot of traveling, perhaps even going abroad a couple times or so (Indonesia again, maybe, and France…maybe Japan?). Plus, lots of domestic travel, hopefully monthly. 2011 will be the year of me. Looking forward to it.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Work, Skate.

Life has been pretty wild lately, but this is only the beginning. As of tomorrow I will technically have 4 jobs, which will be intense, but the good kind of intense. They are all very different will all give me varying degrees of professional fulfillment (I enjoy all of them). While I have been trying to update this blog more, I am worried it will suffer another lull, however. One of my jobs is doing freelance writing for the Complex Magazine Art Blog. My first article went up the other day for that: The Top 10 Skateboard Artists Right Now. It was a fun article to write, albeit a bit difficult to find good graphic resources to pull from. Also, since it is to reflect the Complex branding, my intro was altered a bit to be in the Complex voice, which is understandable. Perhaps I should integrate "put on ice" into my vernacular? I quite enjoy writing and and stoked on the opportunity to write for them on the side, most of which will be about skateboarding and art.

Aside from work stuff, I have been trying to skate as much as possible, though the rain and cold are always conspiring against me. On Thanksgiving Day, I met up with my homie, Tarela, and we went out to skate, only to be rained out of the first spot, so we went with plan b and headed to some covered spots, the first of which was in Brooklyn and the second in Manhattan. I just threw together a quick edit of some footage we were able to get.

Thanksgiving 2010 from Eby Ghafarian on Vimeo.



I had some other stuff to write about, but since that clip^^ is finally done uploading, I am going to take advantage of my time and go skate some spot safe from the rain for a bit and perhaps I will find some time to get back to it. I am going to Florida in a few days, so expect more content from there...

Friday, November 26, 2010

Skate Journalists

Remember when skateboard magazines had writers? As in they actually staffed people with a specific journalistic skill set to write interesting, coherent articles that held their weight against the photos. They went on tours with teams and while sometimes their writings had nothing to do with skateboarding at all, it was usually at least entertaining. To me, Dave Carnie was the pinnacle of skateboard journalists. In his Big Brother days, many times his articles were better than the photos that accompanied that (not to discredit the photos). However, in the last 5-10 years, probably in an effort to cut costs at the sake of synergy, the skateboard journalist has become a dying breed. There are few left as magazines have been tasking photographers to write the articles in addition to taking the photos. If not the photographer, they will pawn it off on the team manager of whatever them the article is about or skateboarders themselves. While this may seem like a good idea from a cost perspective, it is a terrible idea when weighing the hit on quality the magazines have taken. But skateboarders don't read the articles anyway, right? Sigh. The thing about having photographers, TMs, & skaters write the articles is that most of them never even finished high school, much less went to college or know anything about writing. I know that doesn't mean they can't write a good articles...but have you read an articles in a skate mag lately?! While I used to look forward to the photos AND articles, now I, sadly, only look forward to the photos. There are some photographers that write good articles, like Kevin Barnett (Thrasher), but it is pretty rare. The same goes with TMs and skaters. There are a select few that I get stoked on, but if I read another article about not knowing what to write about, I am going to go crazy. The standard is something akin to:

So and so hit me up to write this article/intro about [insert subject matter]. I couldn't figure out what to write. Blah Blah Blah...

I may be a bit of a hypocrite, because I'm not the best writer, but I do love to write and try to put a real effort in. I have my first article published in the latest issue of Focus in regard to the Naysayer Tour. It isn't a master piece, but I tried to at least make it entertaining. You can read it here. And that is all I ask for in an article. We need more Dave Carnies, more Chris Nieratkos...and someone, please hire Kosta (from Quartersnacks) to write for a skate mag (Skateboarder?).

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Football Culture



So this past Sunday I was visiting family in Charlotte, NC and decided to accompany my dad to the Carolina Panthers vs. Baltimore Ravens game. He has had season tickets for the Panthers ever since they were first established and I have gone to games with him in the past, but I was younger and was less suspect of organized sports and the fan culture clinging to them. This time was different. I was well aware of the bizarro world of the NFL by the time I even entered the stadium. Here are some of the observations I made.



While sitting in the stands it is easy to get confused and think there are other football players sitting amongst you. They all have the jerseys on with their name and numbers (lots of people with the same names and numbers, though), and most of them are big guys. I would think: Why are they sitting here? To be accessible to the fans? To enjoy the game while they are off? I was sure they were players from the teams because they kept saying "we" when referring to the team. However, do not be misled, as I was. These are not actually football players. They are fan that just dress like them. And the bigness is fat, not muscle. These people might touch a football once a year, on a good year.



As a kid, my mom used to yell at people in movies to warn them of impending danger. I never understood this tactic because 1) they can't hear her through the TV, 2) it wasn't live, & 3)they were just actors. At these football games, all of a sudden everyone is a coach. They are yelling at the players to do this and to stop that. While this is live, there is no way the players can hear them, though that doesn't deter these fans from screaming what they would have done if they were a bit younger with a higher muscle/body fat ratio.



I guess you cannot enjoy football sober. Beer is a huge part of the football culture. I guess that is why everyone enjoying it was drunk, and as the only sober person, I did not find it the least bit entertaining. This drunkenness led to nonstop sexual harassment of the fairer sex. Every woman was a target for advances and requests to take their clothes off. But instead of being insulted, it genuinely seemed as though these ladies enjoyed the attention. I guess if you are a woman going to a football game, it is par for the course.



"Why would you wear a Steelers jersey and not expected to get boo'ed?!" I know competition is the hugest defining factor of sports, but the fans are ruthless. They trash talk each others team (Panther fans called Ravens fans Dirty Birds). They take everything personal and each victory and failure of the team is that of each fan. What your team did is what you did.



Football is a gender identification. Most of these fans need it to prove that they are men with testosterone. They need the cheerleaders, the beer, the tailgating, the big men in small tights, etc. I think most of these men would be lost without sports. It gives them "athletes" to live vicariously though, enabling them to feel like real men.

Obviously there are exceptions to these rules, but I do not see the appeal and am lost as to why so many people enjoy it. But I guess non-skateboarder can say the same thing about skateboarding.

I'll leave off with some of the remaining photos I snapped with my phone while at the game.









Sunday, November 21, 2010

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte - 11/20/2010 from Naysayer Skateboards on Vimeo.



With Thanksgiving approaching and being unable to visit my family at the time, I decided to come down to Charlotte, NC a week early. I meet up with Drew and some of his homies today for some skating and filmed a few things on my digicam before it died...and, of course, I left the charger back in NYC. So I decided to just edit what I got from today since I won't be able to film anything else with it during the trip. I also shot these photos at the last spot after bashing my shin real bad, making me unable to skate at the time. Blogger is uploading the photos weird, so just click on them to see them bigger. Enjoy.





Thursday, November 11, 2010

a count down to failed success...and vice versa


As time moves on, the count down to failed success and vice versa has become more apparent. Failure is inevitable and has become more of an expectation than a possibility. It all goes back to the start of my career and adult relationships, but has been on full blast the last year or two. Now before I continue, I should state the obvious. This blog has traditionally been heavily skate focused, though there has been some coverage of culture, music, art, etc. However, it has also been neglected. That is mostly due to a lot of skate focused things being posted through Naysayer and so much coverage all over, that why would anyone care what my take is on it? So moving forward, while I will still cover some things about skateboarding, this blog will also be a bit more personal. So be warned. You may not know me and thus not care, you may know me and still not care, but maybe you are a bit voyeuristic (as I would assume most are) and follow along out of pure curiosity. With that said, let the show begin.

Failure. Not succeeding. At least it implies going for it and trying, right? I definitely would admit that I put effort into anything I do. Some might say I put too much effort in and try too hard, but I try to give everything all I have. After graduating NYU and beginning my career in advertising, I immersed myself so much into it that I worked unnecessarily long hours for years, learning all that I could, and trying to advance my professional growth at the quickest rate possible. And with that I was successful. I was rewarded and validated. Things looked optimistic. However, for all the effort I put into my career, something even more important was not being properly cared for. At the time, I was simultaneously starting what would become my most long-term relationship to date. Things started off amazing and progressed well. After a year, we moved in together, we were in love, and were building a future together. However, I have a way of ruining things that were or could have been great (failure, this will be a reoccurring thing). As I focused on work, and made time to skate outside of that, she was left with my scraps. We had our ups and down, but as the years went on and my career advanced, our relationship suffered. I don’t know why she hung around for so long. I guess it comes down to love. She loved me, and I loved her. It was apparent. But as she always said: love is not enough. After 5 years, love really was not enough and we broke up. She did nothing wrong, she simply wanted more of my time and I remained selfish and refused to give it to her. I ruined what could have been a great thing.

Fast forward 6 months and I meet another girl. My life is very different, she is very different, and our situation is very different. I have more available time, but she lives 700 miles away. This time she is the busy one. Work, a band, hobbies, social life. Things were great, despite the distance. We communicated regularly. She visited me, I visited her. Things were looking up…but the roles ended up getting reversed, in a way. While there were strong feelings involved, we were not a couple and agreed to not set any expectations. This is where I fail again. As her times became less available, I grew antsy and demanded more of it than she could/cared to provide (sound familiar?). Instead of allowing things to be and accept them as they were I felt the need to confront her with things we agreed wouldn’t be issues. I had created expectation without her consent and made a natural, yet inconsistent thing into something serious and unnecessarily finite. So my knack for ruining thing had reach a new low of spoiling something that shouldn’t have even been spoilable. How about them apples?!

I guess I could segue into my fails in other aspects of my life. Like some bad career choices, lost friendships, an alienated family, and, most recently, somehow killing the firewire port on my MacBook (chill, even the small things count). But I will not delve any further into those things. I will just accept the fact that life is but a count down to failed success…and successful failure (vice versa)…for me. This is the thing. I am successful and good at certain things. In my career, I am a great marketer and know how to strategically engage an audience with an advertiser through media platforms. In skateboarding, I know how to work my niche and have built a brand with a ton of potential. I may not be the best skateboarder, but I go for it and find success in the failures I make. Those are the two things I have going for me. Despite all my failure, I have marketing and skateboarding, haha. Now to figure out how to not ruin great things with great girls…

Friday, November 05, 2010

Eby's Clearance Rack Footage

So I was going through my footage and realized that I had a bunch that I would not use in any real part or anything, mostly because it was too old, sketchy, or whatever. So I decided to do what I periodically do with my footage and that is purge it in the form of a "throwaway" clip. The irony is that this is my third one and I have still yet to put out a part proper...not sure what that indicates exactly. Well, here it is...

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Vehicle City

If you have ever seen a Michael Moore movie or show, or have read one of his books, you are familiar with his hometown of Flint, Michigan. It was a town booming decades ago due to General Motors presence but was left without a leg to stand on when they abandoned the city for foreign soil, to save on costs. Anyway, while the town has suffered a slow death, there are still people there that keep skating, despite the condition of their boards. I went over there recently and some really rad people. I decided to throw together a clip from some of the skating I found myself among. This clip features myself (Eby Ghafarian), Christina McCollum (Polly), Stephen McCollum, & Kickflipping Kurt. I used the first recorded track from Polly's band Cheerleader. It is called "You're Not That Comfortable." You can find them on Facebook. Enjoy!

Flint, MI from Naysayer Skateboards on Vimeo.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

How You Philling?

Here is a clip from a trip I took down to Philly last weekend to drop some Naysayer boards off at Exit Skateshop and skate with the Gnarhammered Crew. Nabi came through the second day from NYC to skate. Enjoy!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Beware of Sasquatch Review



The Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Yeti, whatever you want to call the beast, has reportedly been spotted in the Pacific Northwest as far back as the 1800s. While shunned by the scientific community and tarnished by hoaxers, there are still so many unanswered questions about this ape-man. Twenty-three years ago, the Henderson family from Seattle unconventionally befriended and domesticated one of these creatures, naming him Harry. While things seemed great at first, this was a creature of the dark woods, not a human, and the Hendersons reluctantly acknowledged this. They heart-breakingly sent him on his way, crushing his spirit and trust of humans. He hasn’t been seen since…until the skateboarding documentary “Beware of Sasquatch” emerged the other day! Harry was back for retribution and the crew of Seattle skateboarders, headed by Brandon Jensen, was an unfortunate casualty to his broken heart. One by one, he slayed each skateboarder mercilessly…and it was all caught on film!

However, the documentary sheds light on the skateboarders, themselves, laying waste to spot after beautiful spot in the Northwest, leading up to their demise. First on the chopping block was Ken Takayama. What a wasted fate. Ken was an amazing skateboarder with a clean laid back style. It was as though he wasn’t even trying, just floating down big sets of stairs and gliding across ledges with ease. Perhaps that was his problem. Sasquatch can be a bit insecure. Plus, his frontside tailslide hardflip out (don’t ask) was the icing on the cake. Next came Dan Ching. Have you ever tried to smith grind a brick out-ledge? Dan Ching actually did successfully. I understand that murder. He must have been a witch or something to land that, and the world is better off. The next victim was Andy Tomich. He never had a chance to escape with how slow he went. However, his techy many maneuvers and reverts out of a lot of his tricks I am sure stunned sasquatch momentarily…not to mention his 360 shuvs out of his nose mannies. Mike Lind almost escaped when he crooked popped over the inside of that “L” ledge. He even dazed him with some nicely executed bigspins out of his ledge tricks, but alas, it wasn’t enough to spare him from doom. Then in a strange twist of fate, Vince Del Valle was forsaken by the movie gods by resembling Adam Alfaro very closely. See, ever since Sasquatch appeared on screen and never got a nomination by the Academy, he declared war on the industry…an industry Adam Alfaro is a part of. So while Vince was never mean for the kill, he fell as a great ditch skater. He skated through life fast and confident, smoking the whole way…and he crashed and burned in a similar fashion when he encountered the sasquatch. It was a pleasure watching the lead up and was disappointing to see his downfall. In another strange twist of fate, the sasquatch was enchanted by Merritt Harburg Little’s amazing kickflips over shopping carts and ally-oop backside flips on banks. But what set him off was the music. He was not a fan of 1349’s “Sculpture of Flesh” and it’s unsavory juxtaposition with the pleasant skateboardery…so he made a sculpture of flesh of his own out of Mr. Little. Adversely, he dug “Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” resonating from Casey Geldermann’s skating. However, there wasn’t much memorable about the part and the switch mongo pushing set Sasquatch off. Casey tried rubbing his own head for luck when he switch flipped 50-50ed the hubba as his ender hoping for mercy, but that mercy never came. Josh Gunnerson tried appeasing the beast by nollie flipping off the side of a ledge to manual a sidewalk, but his switch mongo pushing was also his demise. Sasquatch is not down with that. Brendan Bonney came out strong with a nollie double flip to fakie on a bank. The beast couldn’t figure out how that was possible as he had trouble with single nollie flips. Brendan was strategic with his trick selection for any given spot and it was a great implementation, but you can’t out think this yeti. Good try, Brendan, but so long. Then along came David Gravette who actually had the gall to put out 3 parts in something like 3 months! So what if the footage was still sick (even though most of it was probably leftovers and recycled footage), so what if the ender trick was very impressive. Bigfoot doesn’t like a showoff! You could have spread it out, but now look at you…just a stain on the forest floor. Next to appear was the less gnarly, more tech Garrett Hill: Sean Harris. While he tried to expedite his flee by taking the quick route down stairs (handrails), backside noseblunted ledges along the way popped out of frontside nosegrinds on flat rails and backside bluntslid through hubba corners, he was eventually apprehended and dealt with. Resistance is futile, Sean. Lastly was Girl’s new wonder kid, Cory Kennedy. A little known fact is that he is a wizard and every sasquatch hates wizards. You want to know how I know he is a wizard? He can casually kickflip bs noseblunt/bs smith/fs crook things in lines, he levitates and gets his tricks to get higher as he is going down things (you are going down the stairs or gaps, Cory, stop pretending you are doing them over something…well, don’t, really). You know those weird flatground tricks he did in the Battle at the Berrics like nollie front-foot flips, or switch frontside 360 heelflips? Well, he does them over and down things in the real world. Wizard!

It was a great production and while the deaths were tragic, there was a lot of happiness spread throughout. Crook pop-overs, big heels (fakie, nollie, switch), and ledge to ledge trick combos were scattered about. While some of the filming was over-exposed or sketchy, a lot of it was filmed very well and the aesthetics of the Northwest (ivy, nature, brick, etc.) made up for anything in excess. There is something magical about that area. Tragically magical. I know I will Beware of Sasquatch next time I am in the area!

I recommend this video to be added to any skateboarder’s collection. From banks to tranny to rails to manuals to ledges to gaps to flatground and everything in-between, there is something that will appeal to everyone. Support a rad independent video and order one here. I’m stoked I did!

Here is a clip from the bonus section of the video:

Friday, January 29, 2010

A Present

If you haven't been following what I have been doing with Naysayer, check out the site or Facebook. It has been eating up most of my computer time, leaving very little for this old dog, er, blog. Well, I have a present. I finally got around to capturing some footage from a night of skating the mini at the Autumn Bowl last month and put this clip together, sans music.



Also, if you haven't been following Naysayer, you probably missed the promo that I put together. It is the biggest video project I have undertaken solo (editing-wise, others helped film) and I am pretty happy with it. Watch it, please.

Naysayer Skateboards - In An Asian Accent (A Promo) from Naysayer Skateboards on Vimeo.