I gaped. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen. He’d ridden the wall. I jerked my head around to share with everyone else’s amazement, and no one, not one single person seemed to have even noticed what Christian had done. Stecyk knew though, and said, “You’ve got some catching up to do.”

There’s an excellent in-depth interview with Jim Fitzpatrick interview on I Skate, therefore I am blog. It’s five parts long ( 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5) ! Fitzpatrick has seen some interesting times in skateboarding, including being involved in two hugely influential companies like Makaha and Powell Peralta, and spearheading the fight to have skateboarding classified as a hazardous activity. For those of you who scratch your head at that one, it’s one of the reasons that municipalities don’t have to carry massive skateboard-specific insurance riders for skateboard parks. Because, as an inherently dangerous activity, the rider assumes a certain amount of risk while engaging in the activity. The interview covers other aspects of Jim’s life as well, from surfing to being a Montessori school teacher. There’s even a Surf Punks reference. Definitely worth reading if you enjoy learning about key figures in skateboarding history. The picture on the left is from another interview on TEDx.

– Thanks to Jerome for the tip.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Chanukah, Kwanza or whatever it is you celebrate. The board on the right is this year’s Powell Peralta x-mas deck. The Frosty Ripper is still available at a handful of shops if you’re in the market. The one on the left? I’m not sure when it was made, but I found the picture here. I pretty much completely slacked on it this year but it is easy enough to peruse skate paraphernalia from Christmas’ Past.

So many titles to chose from. There’s For Life, or For Now, and Fall On You Own Sword, or Victimized Again? What am I talking about? it only took six months for Mike V. to bail on By the Sword, the skateboard company he started after ditching Element. By the Sword heavily used the slogan “DIY or Die” in marketing and products. So what beats doing it yourself? Vallely has signed with Powell Peralta again, a company he complained bitterly about on several occasions. It seems every skateboard entity is intent on making Mike a “pawn” and exploiting his hard work and reputation, but I guess time and money heals all wounds. One can’t help but feel bad for all the shops and distributors that fully got behind Mike V. It’s almost like he used them like… pawns in his game. I realize this is a scene from Sid & Nancy. Somehow a reenactment of Sid Vicious singing “My Way” is more appropriate than the actual footage embedded on the official By the Sword web site, with no offense meant towards Gary Oldman.

Wanna see the motherload of old Powell stickers? Check out Rohan James’ Powell Peralta sticker flickr set (say it three times fast…) for 193 Powell stickers. That’s almost as many Powell stickers as I have in my entire collection of skate stickers.