Salon.com has an article on why ESPN’s efforts birng the X Games to a worldwide audience aren’t as successful as they’d like. Are the unsuccessful? I’m not sure. Are you paying attention? That’s the main part of the article.
Essentially, what ESPN seems to miss, is that that the statement “I am a skateboarder” is a far different one than “I am a basketball player”.
The author Matt Reevy get’s it. There’s are a couple good quotes in there (like this post title) that sum it up pretty well. I guess my mission here at S&A is finished.
I just saw this Red Bull commercial on TV sunday night, and couldn’t help but noticed they covered everything except the glring omission of skateboarding. I mean, they had down hill ice skating races for the love of Hosoi. I don’t know whether to laugh with joy or weep. Oh yeah, on second look, there doesn’t appear to be any snowboarding either. But again, they’ve got “Ice Cross” and parkour.
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Hey, it’s Pierre Luc Gagnon at the X games in Los Angeles back in June. He won. I guess you should go buy some Monster Energy drink. Tune in next month for this month’s Street League results.
That’s right S&A readers. I’m taking this opportunity to bravely throw off the shackles of oppression and let everyone know that I… Well, how do I put this? I like Ellen Degeneres. OK, her TV show doesn’t appeal to me but as a stand up performer and showbiz personality, I’m a fan of her. Ellen had Tom Schaar (no relation to Max Schaaf) on her TV show shortly after landing his 1080. Ellen’s is a bit out of her element, and it’s not a very interesting segment, but at least Tom got a few minutes of fame. Whoever came up with the idea of a mini-mega ramp for a live TV segment should be demoted. There’s nothing that makes for more exciting TV than watching a kid trudge up a ladder a minute for each second he actually spends on his skateboard. Fortunately, Ellen pulls shouts out a bunch of random skate terminology while this is happening.
UPDATE: Tom landed a 1080 X Games Asia in Shanghai, China, beats Burnquist. Video after the jump.
[Source: CA Rampworks]
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A few people have 900′s under their belts but the first kid to land a 1080 is 12 year old Tom Schaar (no relation to Steve Claar) who did the whole thing in front of a few people and not a televised sporting event packed with spectators. The asterisk comes from the fact that it was done on a megaramp specially modified just for the occasion. The feat is spectacular, amazing and Extreme!™ but it would seem harder to accomplish on a regular size ramp. Of course, your beloved author can’t even land a 360 on a regular ramp, much less attempt anything on a megaramp. Tom landed it on his fifth try!!! (!!!!!) Where did it happen? Woodward West, with a little help from Red Bull. I kind of feel bad for this kid, like he got robbed of his chance for a spectacle. He’ll never get a Pizza Pocket endorsement now. Tom needs a better agent. Video after the jump. WARNING: both videos autostart. I can’t turn it off.
- Thanks to Boy Ipoh for the tip.
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This little bit of would be viral social marketing has been pretty heavy handed, the pr firm has been sending clumsy emails trying to grease the wheels before the event. The whole thing is just so awkward and forced, but here it is on Skate and Annoy, so it worked on some level. I know that the auto makers in Detroit are in a tight spot, but maybe the money would be better spent trying to design a car that doesn’t look like a half a turd on wheels instead of paying Rob Dydrek to do a barrel roll over a skateboard and call it Extreme™. I just looked at some other pictures of the Chevy Sonic online and I guess it doesn’t look half bad sometimes. Looks like they’re going after the rice burner racers.
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The Maloof Money Cup is leaving permanent skate structures on each stop of their tour. This facility is scheduled to be built in South Africa by California Ramp Works. The mini mega ramp isn’t going to stay, but the vert ramp and street course will remain. Interestingly enough, I recently heard from a contract employee of the Maloof Money Cup that they let a bunch of people go due to an alleged… money shortage. True or not, this is some good news for the South African scene. Between skatepark donations and alternative construction methods, this is like the arms race of arena skatepark extravaganzas.
This segment from fuel TV is kindof old actually, but still amusing. Sometimes I don’t post things like this because I see them as a a reminder of my failure to produce more original content on SNA. As soon as I win that lottery I’ll make up for it.
- Thanks to Sarib Khalsa for the tip.
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I’m kind of taking the week off from posting on Skate and Annoy, but I’m not being lazy. I’m actually working on the back end of S&A, cleaning up some code and CSS, preparing to dump all the old static content into the the database. It’s annoying and slow going, but also long overdue. So watch this video of wacky germans who have invented a sport that combines streetstyle and freestyle skateboarding with the art of sitting on a stool. And not just any stool, it’s got to be a stupid expensive sport stool. Anything goes as long as you land on the stool. I thought it was a well executed parody, but a search on Youtube reveals way too many Hockern enthusiasts to be a hoax. Extreme sports stool! You will feel like loose stool after watching this video.
[Source: Gizmodo] - Thanks to Seth Grossman and Aaron Polansky for the tip.
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More tarp surfing, this time from the folks at the Mountain Dew ad agency. I haven’t actually seen this one on the air, but a few months ago there was an iPhone ad that featured an Iphone (duh!) playing a video of tarp surfing. Mountain Dew takes it to the next level by employing the largest tarp to date and combining it with a large bank in a ditch.
- Thanks to Boy Ipoh for tip.
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