Merde Road Trip – Summer 2010. Posted 9-28-09 By Mike Egbert Merde ceased to exist for a while, but like most every dead skateboard company that was ever worth half a damn, they have been resurrected. Every Summer I try and put together at least two, 3 or 4 day long Merde skate trips. It’s not so much a demo, or tour, but more of a footage compiling mission and an excuse to camp and drink a lot of beer. I mean, it’s skating, camping, and drinking beer. What’s not to like. With that being said, this trip was with Chris Nukala, Shane Bell, and Boomer Cisler, and our destination was Irrigon, Pendleton, and Yakima (namely). We were going to have two cars (8 or 9 people), but some things came up and a few Merde riders couldn’t make it and the weather forecast for the weekend looked bleak at best. We scrambled to fill the second car with guests, but the forecast got so shitty for Saturday that I decided to forego spending dough on that rental, and just barge ahead in my own car with only team riders. Sorry dudes. Weather forecasters be DAMNED TO THE FIERY PITS…

Guest Post by Peter Brown. Who Killed the Chromoly Truck?

Bacon Goes to Sweden – By Colin Sharp: Posted 7-02-08 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Bacon was in Sweden for 20 days – they flew into Stockholm to meet up with our distributor – Stalefish (and Coyote Grind Lounge) – and hung out for a few days before driving down to the QuickSilver Bowlriders Cup in Malmo (about 5 hours South of Stockholm) I went to meet up with them after the Malmo trip in Stockholm for a series of demos and events.

Old Is Cool 2008: Swell Skate Camp, Brazil  – By Luciano Peixoto and Gustavo Tesch: Posted 6-16-08. Photos: Swellskate This article was originally static html. Original comments can be found here. End of may, winter arrived strong this year, the “minuano” wind has started and the temperatures dropped. Winter in Brazil doesn’t match, but here in the south, we get rain and low temperatures on a daily basis. Fortunately the sun was shining and the atmosphere was perfect, a brand new bowl, nice vibes, beautiful people, a bunch of ladies, and (can i say?) aged skateboarders tearing up the bowl apart. The Vans Old is Cool 2008 was the event to celebrate the opening of the new bowl and the 30 year old birthday party for Swell Skate Park.

How to Fight for a Skatepark – By Todd Taylor. Additional photos by Mary Clare Stevens Posted 5-28-08 Reprinted with permission from Razorcake Magazine #41 This article was originally static html. Original comments can be found here. The Politics of Concrete I’ve never enjoyed anxious crowds, getting hit with flying objects, or cops, so going to large political protests has never been high on my priorities. Yet, I consider myself politically active and informed. Years back, Sean Carswell and I interviewed the historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States. Zinn reaffirmed what I’d been thinking for a long time: political resistance can be personal journey and it can take many forms. It’s not only the cocked arm ready to throw a Molotov through a window. It can equally be a writer, collecting the stories of the disenfranchised and threading them together into a varied banner of dissent. It’s been said that citizens can flex most of their political muscle locally. I have a lot of pride for where I live, Highland Park, Northeast Los Angeles. It’s like a small town surrounded by a big city. I don’t want to “improve” it, in the gentrificational, douchebaggish,…

2007 2007 ASR with OMA – By Mike Furst: Posted 8-26-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. 2007 ASR with OMA The Old Man Army crew decided to take off for a weekend to go down to San Diego to see what all of the hoopla was about at the ASR show. We also wanted to see a few of the people that we deal with in the industry who would be there as well as to see what new stuff people were doing in the industry. The only other thing on the agenda was to get a couple of pictures of the kooky skateboard gadgets for the Skate and Annoy crew.

2007 Brookings Weekend – By Egbert: Posted 8-23-07 This article was originally static html. Original comments can be found here. Brookings Weekend So a couple of weekends ago Dave Vieira, Pete Panagakos, Jeff Fryer, and myself set out for a little 3 day weekend trip to beautiful Brookings, Oregon. Our plan was to skate, drink some beer, and for me to shoot a machine gun in Eugene.

2007 Albany Oregon Summer Contest – By Danimal: Posted 8-6-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. This year’s contest was another fun one. The turnout was less than last year, most likely because it was on a Wednesday instead of during the weekend. Much like last year, everybody in each category got one run then joined into a 15 minute jam session to be judged. The 13 and unders skated first with Josh O’Sullivan coming out on top again this year. The 17 and unders went next, this year Robert pulled it out with a rad run. He grabbed some tall airs over the hips and on the bigger back wall. He also stoked everybody out with a backside lipslide up the escalator – sick! The 18 and overs came next and I forgot who got first, as if you care anyway. Last to skate was the Advanced group, open to any age. This was definitely the most fun to watch. Some of the skaters included Chris White who sported a purple ski outfit right out of 1987 skated fast and stylish, Rex Pearson local ripdog, Brian Summers local super ripdog, me, and Travis…

Palma de Mallorca, Spain – By Dean Tyrell: Posted 8-1-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Landscape Architects on LSD – Sadlands on Steroids How about this spot in Palma de Mallorca, Spain? It’s virtually made for skating, it even looks like a bunch of waves! Yeah it’s 100% real!! The site is called Plaza Bellver. This spot used to get skated all the time, but police always promptly turned up and moved people on as it’s in plaza of shops and residential flats (conveniently in the red-light district) Look closely and you’ll see a ‘love seat’/bench, plus rails and steps for the lollipop ollie-sliders. There’s also some well positioned chunks of wood on the banks, and a nice carpet the floor of the ‘half pipe’ section. The latter all added to thwart skaters I guess. Anyway, the town council made up for this by building two skateparks here last year, with plans for 3 more in the pipeline requested by the local skate association, (the Spanish kids are really militant about this stuff) so this site isn’t used much now.

Middle Age Shred Northern Mafia Jam, Leeds Works Skatepark, Saturday 28th October 2006: Posted 11-03-06: By Mattew Sefton It hung in the balance for a while – with tales of a simple private venue hire by middle-age-shred.com ‘Godfather’ Carl Arnfield for one of the regular gatherings of the UK’s more, ahem, ‘mature’ skaters being taken over by a BBC film crew and, even worse, PEOPLE UNDER 30!, the Middle-Age-Shred.com ‘Northern Mafia’ Jam at Leeds Works indoor park looked like it would be wiped from the calendar. It wasn’t. It rocked. Hard!