This site and this company will not be updated anymore. Ever. If you bought a board from a store you need to talk to that store because they bought it from us for less than you paid and we no longer exist. If you are looking for a loose screw deck you better check ebay because they are not being made any longer so the ones that are out there are all there is. Good luck and you should have bought a board when we were offering them.
~Chairman of the Board
At a time when skateboarding was taking on a more professional attitude, but still trying to rid its tag of teenage triviality, a marketing war was about to erupt. The nineties were the glory days of subversive and provocative skateboard graphics and the definitive decade in the evolution of skateboarding.
For those unschooled in this subculture, here is a brief synopsis. In the late ’80s the market was being dominated by corporate giants who, although not stagnant in their approach to the sport, controlled a niche market that was ready for transformation. Enter the creative genius of Steve Rocco and the collaborative minds of Marc McKee and Sean Cliver, who created the controversial World Industries brand and its other popular subsidiaries. They conquered the market and traditional corporate hierarchy, rewrote the rules and they are the reason we see the sustained breaking of creative boundaries in contemporary skateboard graphics. But it is just a sport, you ask? True, but like all brands, they have an identity and aesthetic that sets them apart from their competitors.
Traipsing around the world is Mr McKee, who has just finished showcasing over 50 of his and Mr Cliver’s original works in one of the largest skateboard art retrospectives ever seen in Australia. Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast have been privy to these works that had previously found their way to our shores via acclaimed shows in America, Japan and Germany.
World Industries were not afraid to tackle mainstream issues in the public arena and opened many eyes with their graphic’s addressing of racism, gun control, globalisation and censorship. Mr Cliver and Mr McKee in particular were known for being the first skateboard graphic designers to enter in to the reproduction of cartoon character images, a departure from the stock standard skulls and “punk” images dominating the market at the time. This introduced an element of parody, wit and humour that went so far as to mock their competitors’ designs.
Popular culture icons were distorted and had censorship red tape all over them. Mr McKee and Mr Cliver bordered on copyright infringement on numerous occasions, but rather than derail this “by mistake” company, renegade public relations and the resulting advertising campaigns ensured cult status among collectors and skateboarders alike.
A testament to the serious nature of skateboard art can be seen at online art websites with bidding reaching over one thousand dollars for first issue pieces. Collectors around the world trade in the iconic Powell, Alva and Vision skateboard decks and many other brands, along with original skate decks that have been individually painted on by unknowns to names synonymous with skateboard art – Ed Templeton, Mark Gonzalez and Jason Lee. If you are in Brisbane in June, look out for “I used to skate once”, a skateboard art collective of over 30 artists at The Outpost gallery in Fortitude Valley. In its fourth year, it is gaining momentum as a must-see exhibition of this unique subculture.
Steve Rocco is famous for once saying: “Only in retrospect can we now look back and see the thin line we walked was closer to insanity than the premeditated genius that people often give us credit for. However, success quickly transforms pea-brains into prophets.” Steve Rocco is loved and hated by industry insiders, whether it be through jealousy or genuine detest, but there can be no denying the foresight Mr Rocco had and his ability to guarantee record sales figures, and at the same time keeping all guessing. What will he, Mr McKee and Mr Cliver do next?
from http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-4-16/69139.html
The FBI says a man suspected in four bank robberies struck again Tuesday at a Roseville bank they believe he robbed exactly one week ago.
The so-called “X-games Bandit” because he flees the crime scene on a BMX-type bicycle or skateboard, robbed Placer Sierra Bank at 1259 Pleasant Grove Boulevard about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, according to authorities.
The robber (seen above in a surveillance photo) is described as a white man in his 20s or 30s, was wearing a dark blue baseball cap, sunglasses, T-shirt and jeans when he went into the bank. He approached a bank employee, handed over a note demanding money and rode away from the scene on a black BMX-type bike with an undisclosed amount of cash.
The Roseville Police Department, which is also investigating the crime, said the robber mentioned a weapon in the note but no weapon was displayed.
No one was hurt in the robbery.
The robber is believed to have targeted the same bank branch September 4, as well as three other banks recently in Sacramento and Woodland. In each case, the robber left the scene on a bike or skateboard.
When Michael Paulus got his first skateboard in the mid-1980s, he probably didn’t consider it an extension of his interest in the visual arts. At the time, it was a fun way for him and his friends to get to class at West Junior High School.
Now, more than 20 years later, Paulus is a Web master and graphic designer for a company in Toledo. He and a friend, Ryan Shull, recently produced “Just Inspired,” an art exhibit in honor of the 10th anniversary of a West Toledo skateboard shop. The exhibit opened Aug. 18 and is to remain in place through Sunday at Space 237, 237 N. Michigan St., Toledo.
A feature published Aug. 16 explains Paulus and Shull sent out maple-laminate skateboard decks, each measuring 7 1/2 by 31 inches. Artists who received the decks were asked to decorate and return them for the show. When contacted by e-mail, Paulus said about 20 boards were returned.
“Some of the artists did more than one and most sent other work they had besides the decks. There are more than 40 pieces total in the show, ranging from painting, printmaking, sculpture and photography,” he added.
Paulus said the show’s opening reception had “an amazing turnout” of more than 500 people. He said he does not know how many viewers have stopped in since then, but the Toledo Arts Commission is having an event Thursday through Sunday, Artomatic 419 Lite Weekend, during which Paulus said he expects hundreds more visitors to see Just Inspired. A “meet and greet” event is planned Friday evening.
“There is a gallery hop during that event that will bus patrons from Maumee Bay Brewing company to 10 different galleries from 7 to 10 p.m. in downtown Toledo. Space 237 is on that list. This event is part of the Artomatic 419 Lite weekend,” Paulus said.
Liz Paulus of Tiffin said she and her husband attended the Just Inspired reception and were impressed with their son’s evolution from skateboarding adolescent to professional artist.
“Mike has always had a desire to draw since he was a child. He always drew on everything. He had quite a few drawings at the Tiffin Mall when the schools used to have art shows there,” Liz said. “His skateboarding started in about the sixth grade, I believe. He had just the usual scrapes and bruises that skateboarders usually get but no serious injuries. Then it was on to Bowling Green and now a digital designer.”
Michael said he “took every art class possible” at Columbian High School. Paulus said his art teacher was “a great influence” on his career choice. When he graduated from Columbian High School in 1992, he took his skateboard along to Bowling Green State University.
“Absolutely — it was a big part of my life and a viable mode of transportation around campus. Without it I don’t think I would have met all the creative people I know today,” Paulus said.
One of those people was Ryan Shull. Paulus said they met through skateboarding on the BGSU campus. At the time, Shull was still in high school and Paulus was just a college freshman.
“He eventually went to BG for computer art and we worked together for a couple years in Maumee for an ad agency doing interactive media. He eventually moved to LA and came back recently. That’s when we started planning Just Inspired. It was great partnering with him to make it all happen,” Paulus said.
In addition to organizing the exhibit, the Tiffin native created a computer-art collage for the show. He also designed a skateboard deck on the computer and converted it to a silkscreen that was applied to a blank board. The exhibit was timed to be included in Artomatic 419. It turns out Paulus was partly responsible for organizing that citywide event. He shared some of its history.
Paulus, now 34, said he lost count of the number of skateboards he has owned. So does he still get on a skateboard?
“Yep, at least once a week I try to get out, usually at Highland Skate Park, since it’s five minutes from my house,” Paulus said. “But honestly, I don’t get out as much as I would like to. Usually my workload keeps me pretty busy, so I try to spend more of my free time with family and friends or working on my art. I plan on spending a lot more time snowboarding this winter, though.
When Just Inspired closes, Paulus said it will be kept together for a tour around Ohio. He said he and Shull hope to add the works of more artists at each stop.
“Current plans include Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Then eventually we would like to bring it home to Toledo for a final show with all the art from every city,” Paulus said.
Updates are to be posted online at www.justinspiredohio.com Pictures of the some of the art also can be viewed on the site.
“His dad and I can truly say we are proud of him and his work,” said Liz Paulus.
Hours this week at Space 237 Art Galleries & ClaySpace are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday. The gallery is located at 237 N. Michigan St. in downtown Toledo. Free parking is available beside the building and admission is free.
MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. – A teenager on a skateboard was struck and killed Monday afternoon by a dump truck.
Dustin Moore, a 16-year-old student at Tahoma High School, was killed. He was riding his skateboard when a dump truck came out of the Rock Creek development and hit him.
King County dispatchers say the accident happened at SE 268th Street and Witte Road SE at 3:41 p.m.
It’s the second deadly crash involving a dump truck in four days. On Friday, a bicyclist was killed in Seattle after being hit by dump truck.
Boarders still skating well into their 40s
MICHAEL J. MOONEY The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Wind lashes Greg Stubbs’ cheeks as he whips his skateboard down a concrete embankment at 35 mph.
He balances himself and rides the force of gravity.
Stubbs is 40 and still as intense a skateboarding enthusiast as they come. He started skating in the 1970s, when skateboarding was first popular, and he never let go. Not when he got married. Not when he had a daughter. Not when he started a job as a business-suit-wearing legal consultant.
He shreds with more than 30 veteran skaters — almost all in their 40s and 50s. Often ducking the police, these middle-age thrashers jump the fences of closed motels to sip beer and grind their boards across the empty pools. They trespass into back yards. They swarm local skate parks, speeding past kids half their age.
They also own their own businesses. They have families and mortgages and disposable incomes.
“I vote Republican,” said Stubbs, who lives in Dallas. “I’m not your typical skateboarder. There is something about being out there, that feeling of freedom. Even if you wanted to give it up, you couldn’t.
“We kept growing up, but we couldn’t give this up.”
Older skateboarding groups like Stubbs’ are not unusual, said Dave Swift, a writer at The Skateboarding Mag, a national magazine devoted to skateboarding culture.
“All across the country, there are guys in their 40s and 50s who either became enamored with skating again or could never shake it,” Swift said. “It’s part of the subculture. They’ve grown up with this lifestyle, and they live for it. Everything about their lives is surrounded by that culture.”
There are more than 11 million skateboarders in the United States, according to Board-Trac, a marketing company based in Orange County, Calif., that specializes in research on “action sports” like skateboarding. Of the 11 million, an estimated 5 percent are older than 35, and 2 percent, or about 200,000, are older than 45.
Stubbs’ North Texas group includes real-estate developers, chiropractors and lawyers — ages 36 to 61. They get together in the early hours, before the ramps and public parks get crowded. Some of them even skate with their children and grandchildren.
Al Coker, a 51-year-old CEO from Highland Park, can’t get enough time on a skateboard. He started skating in the ’60s.
“We’re just adrenaline junkies,” he said. “When you’re on a skateboard, you’re not thinking about a client, about bread and milk, about that tax check. You’re just in the moment. It’s all about that thrill.”
A regular gang of venerable skateboarders gathers most Tuesday nights after work. Some bring their children or grandchildren. If they can’t find a pool, they go to skate parks.
On a recent Tuesday, Stubbs had to watch his friends dart around on their boards for almost 30 minutes while he dealt with a parental crisis. His wife, Corbi, had called him on his cell phone to say their 11-year-old daughter, Chloe, was unhappy at basketball camp.
“She’ll be OK,” Stubbs told his wife on the phone. “Tell her she can go over to her grandma’s house at the end of the week.”
“Greg is a good, levelheaded guy,” his wife said later. “He is a good father. But sometimes he just needs to get away and go skateboarding. Some men go golfing. My husband goes skateboarding.”
One of Stubbs’ friends, Steve Flusche, 39, says he took a short break from skateboarding in his late 20s, but picked it up again after his daughter was born. When she was a toddler, he would put her on the skateboard as he rode.
“I’d put her up there at the front,” Flusche said. “I’d hold her hands, and we’d cruise down the street real slow, just to get a sense of balance on the board.”
Stubbs says one of his favorite activities is sneaking into “cracked-out motels” — abandoned structures inhabited by drug addicts and homeless people. One night earlier this summer, he and his friends hopped the fence of a shuttered motel. They removed a couch someone had thrown into the pool. Then they took turns flashing around the smooth surface, their boards grinding against the pool edges.
As Stubbs recalls it, their fun was interrupted by the flashlight of a police officer. The officer laughed when he saw how old the skaters were. “When your license says 1967, that’s your pass most of the time,” Stubbs said.
His favorite tool is Google Earth. He can scan a satellite view of neighborhoods around his house for dirty pools. When he finds one on the map, he calls his buddies.
“I wear my slacks and nice shirt, and sometimes I carry a clipboard,” Stubbs said. “I even have a sign for my car that says we are a pool-cleaning company.”
He explains to the owner of the dirty pool that he and his friends have a pump and can clean their pool, free of charge. All he asks in return is a few hours to skateboard in the clean pool. He even brings liability release forms he’s had his lawyers draw up.
“Sometimes we get run off,” he said. “Sometimes we end up mowing the grass and scrubbing the pool and skateboarding all night. We’ve even had people bring us beer and sit and watch us.”
When he does finally get to skate, as he did on a recent Tuesday in Irving, Stubbs starts by pausing on the edge of the pool. He takes a breath. He drops in. Then he takes off, zipping up and down the gray walls. He shifts his weight slightly to steer as he carves invisible arches in the concrete like a surfer leaving a trail of white foam in a wave.
“He’s good,” observed Daniel Torres, 16, one of a group of teens watching Stubbs. “For these guys to be able to do those types of things, at their age, that’s true skill.”
Sessions Presents The 9th Annual Tim Brauch Memorial Contest
By Press Release
Aug 29, 2007For the past eight years, Sessions has held the Tim Brauch Memorial Skateboarding Contest in memory of Tim Brauch who was one of the most respected skateboarders and beloved Sessions’ team riders of all time. His love for skateboarding, friends, and fun inspired everyone who met him. Tim’s untimely passing in 1999 at the age of 25 (read more about him on www.timbrauch.com), led Sessions to create the Tim Brauch Memorial Fund, which donates 100% of the funds towards skateboard park development and scholarships.
One such donation went to create the Tim Brauch Skateboard Park in Scotts Valley, CA that hosts this event annually with Sunday’s bowl contest being part of the World Cup of Skateboarding’s “Concrete Bowl Series.” Every year riders from all over the West Coast come to this contest to have a great time and skate in Tim’s memory. Registrations for the 9th Annual Contest can be made online through www.sessions.com or at the event itself, but make sure to arrive early as the competition fills up fast! See the website www.timbrauch.com for details on scheduling. Come check out this years event taking place September 29-30, 2007 there will be plenty of food, music, raffles/prizes, and pro appearances.
ABOUT SESSIONS: Founded in 1983, Sessions is a leading snowboard and action sports company that designs, merchandises, sources, and distributes high performance snowboard apparel, accessories and apparel for the core, youth-driven sports segment. Sessions was the first snowboarding company to incorporate Gore-Tex fabrics and Recco avalanche reflectors into their products. Today, Sessions has placed itself at the cutting edge of the music, snowboard and skateboard culture. Sessions is one of the last remaining independently owned brands. More about Sessions at www.sessions.com
ABOUT THE TIM BRAUCH MEMORIAL FUND: The Tim Brauch Memorial Fund is an independent scholarship fund and skateboard park development fund established in 1999. The fund was created to continue to keep giving back to the kids and the sport of skateboarding that Tim loved so much. By giving scholarships and donating to skateboard park development we are promoting kids to get off the couch and be active outside. Our vision is that through skateboarding kids develop discipline, confidence, motivation, and other traits that encourage success.
Paul Schmitt, a world-renowned skateboard manufacturer, is scheduled to kick off this year’s Festival of Children with a pair of board-building workshops at South Coast Plaza.
The Newport Beach resident, who has brought his Create A Skate program to schools around the area, plans to offer workshops Saturday and Sunday at the mall’s Carousel Court. Participants must register for the workshops in advance at www.festivalofchildren.org.
Skateboarder Ryan Sheckler became friends with Tony Hawk at age 6 and turned professional at 13. Now the 17-year-old is set to conquer MTV with the debut of “The Life of Ryan,” tonight at 10:30.
“It’s not really that outrageous for me (having the cameras around),” said Sheckler of his reality series. “It was for some of my friends. It’s just another part of my life that is uneventful.”
Cameras follow the ups and downs of the San Clemente-raised skater as he copes with everything from his parents’ recent divorce to his own love life.
“I think everyone is just going to be surprised as a whole to what goes on in my life and how many problems are going on and how much fun is going on. Nothing is staged and it is all there,” he said.
Growing up a skateboarder in Southern California is not that unusual, but Sheckler’s situation is. He began wheeling himself around on his father’s old board as a baby and began landing tricks by the first grade.
His stunts were enough to capture the attention of one of the world’s most famous skaters.
“Tony Hawk came to my sixth birthday party. It was a pretty crazy experience, and he was skating with us like we were part of his crew,” Sheckler said of the legend who is from nearby Carlsbad, Calif.
Sheckler is now a four-year veteran of the professional circuit. (Most skateboarders don’t qualify for professional status until they are 19.) Because of his hectic schedule, he has been home-schooled for most of his high school years.
As the show reveals, that has made for bumpy relations with his peers.
The senior juggles a full-time career and schoolwork while also acting as a father figure to his younger brothers Shane, 15, and Kane, 8.
“There are a lot of emotional scenes,” Sheckler said. “I’m putting myself out there, and hopefully, I didn’t put myself too much out there.”
Previews have shown Sheckler crying, something viewers have criticized on skateboard-centric chat boards.
Defending the show, Sheckler said, “I’m already a part of it now and I don’t care.”
The Milpitas Police Depart-ment is joining the effort to keep juveniles safe on their bicycles and skateboards. The Milpitas Police Department, along with other police agencies in Santa Clara County, is joining the “Traffic School for Kids” program. This will mean stepped up enforcement of juvenile bicycle and skateboard traffic laws, including the proper wearing of a helmet.
Since October 2005, middle and high school students from Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Cupertino and Los Altos Hills have been attending special traffic school classes, a “ticket to education.” The class, a product of the Juvenile Traffic Diversion Program, is a joint effort between Stanford University Medical Center’s Trauma Service and the Traffic Safe Communities Network of Santa Clara County.
The Juvenile Traffic Diversion Program’s goal is to increase citations for juveniles that violate traffic laws, such as not wearing a bike helmet, riding bikes on the wrong side of the street or other bicycle or pedestrian violations. Youth then have the opportunity to attend a two-hour class in lieu of paying more than $100 in fines and fees.
The classes, taught by law enforcement officers, are attended by the ticketed youth
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and their parent or guardian. In class they learn rules of the road, information on common traffic safety violations and bicycle and pedestrian safety. Participants also have the opportunity to hear “first hand” from a trauma survivor why it’s so important to protect your head and prevent head injuries.Now, through a grant from the California Kids’ Plate program, students from cities of Santa Clara, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Gilroy will be joining these north county cities in receiving the special safety classes. California Kids’ Plate is a unique license plate that uses four symbols a heart, a hand, a star or a plus sign. Proceeds from these plates fund child injury prevention programs such as the Juvenile Traffic Diversion Program.
An estimated 540,000 bicyclists visit emergency rooms every year. Another 67,000 suffer head injuries, according to the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute. Safe Kids Worldwide estimates that bike helmets can reduce the risk of serious head injury and death by 88 percent. Yet, despite the mandated law requiring children less than 18 years of age to wear a helmet, observations confirm that more than half of the children in Santa Clara County do not routinely wear helmets.
For more information, contact Ellen Corman at (650) 724-9369 at the Stanford University Medical Center Trauma Service.
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