It’s good to see that skateboarding on gravel is finally catching on. This picture is part of a feature called Day in Pictures from the international version of the BBC News. You can see it larger here, but you’ll have to manually select picture number 5 once you get there. More skateboarding in Iraq after the jump.
Skateboarding In Iraq
I heard about a Time Magazine article about life in Iraq. It included a photograph of an Baghdad youth with a skateboard, or skateboard branded apparel. In any case, he essentially looked like any other American teenager. I couldn’t find it online. If anyone has it, send in a scan. It would have been late 2006 or early 2007.
Skateboarding on Saddam’s Palace
There was a video circulating about some soldiers who had built a ramp on one of Saddam’s palaces. It seemed fake because the voice over was laughable and more cheesy than Bob Burbanks, the This is a skateboard character from the Bones Brigade Video Show. The whole thing had a “small time local news crew goes to Baghdad” feel. It didn’t make sense or feel real. Turns out it was legit. Apple Computers featured it as part of case study on KTVX TV’s use of Final Cut Pro titled Everybody Can Edit, about how it allowed just that; a small time news crew to go to Baghdad.
Of course, we’ve appropriated it. We had too, since it has Apocalypse Now footage in it. Man, oh man. The voiceover on this piece is so obnoxious.
Here’s a couple links to the KTVX piece featured by Apple.
The story: Everybody Can Edit. See the side bar.
The video: Palace Skateboarding.
The video: Palace Skateboarding on a site called Zango (Link removed, no longer active).
Transworld Skateboarding
Transworld has some photos a soldier sent in. Transworld? Come on. I was in email contact over a year ago with a soldier who said he’d send in some pics of skateboarding in Iraq, but never did. I can’t seem to locate the email though. I hope it’s not this guy. If you follow the link, make sure you scroll down. The crappy page layout of their site makes it look like just one picture, comments and adverts when it first loads.
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2 comments
Collin Rasmussen
Funny seeing this stuff pop up. I thought it was sort of funny when the reporter came and filmed us. He’s a pretty cool guy, was a local reporter from Utah, had prior service experience, and had broken some ribs dropping in at a park in Park City a while before going to Iraq.
As is evident, neither Kilough or I were very serious skaters. We had both skated back in school, and decided after getting back from leave to build a half on our team house. It wasn’t actually a palace, it was just down the road 1/2 a block from the palace, one that was bombed out in the back at the beginning of 2003, I think the palace was built as a victory over Iran some years earlier, but was never finished. We actually had to relocate since our team broke up, and built a much nicer set-up on some smooth marble floors across camp. We had a few quarters and a spine, a rail, ollie-box and a launch we never really used. We spent a lot of time skating that though, had to move it every now and then so the sport-o’s could play basketball though.
Kind of backwards, but I haven’t skated much since getting back, despite all the parks that have been built. Cool that other people are skating over there though.
Nima
Awesome =]