…for a limited time only…

Get your popcorn ready to see Hammond on the boob tube… Drive will be on at 7pm (Central time) and will be back on at 10pm in case you missed it.

H-Town on the map!

I should have scanned this in a long time ago, but here it is:

(Click the pic for a larger version)

Drive… Sunday April 22

EPISODE FOUR “SOUTH PART II – SMALL TOWNS”
Mike continues his travels through the southern United States visiting a series of small towns along the way. In White Hall, Arkansas Mike meets up with 18-year-old Todd Givens who created his own skate scene by building ramps in his driveway, so local skaters would have a place to ride. In Hammond, Louisiana Mike meets up with skaters Kerry Simpson and Neal Boyd to discuss the impact Louisiana’s first public cement park has had on their skate scene. Finally, Mike stops in Oxford, Mississippi to skate the cities public park with a group of local kids.

If you have the new issue of Tangi Connection, then check out our new ad… or just look at it right here:

Click it for a larger version, boyeeeee.

A few months ago, I sat with 225 Baton Rouge Magazine and spent some time talking about the state of skateboarding in Baton Rouge versus the one in Hammond. BREC, the Recreation & Park Commission for the parish of East Baton Rouge, is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to the city (in my opinion), and I was able to tell the reporter just that.
See, a number of years ago, BREC spent somewhere in the area of $23,000 purchasing ARC ramps… some of the worst ramps ever made unless you’re a brand new skater… and you’re three years old. The problem isn’t so much that BREC wasted thousands of dollars on a shoddy product, the real problem is that more street skaters get prosecuted (persecuted, even) for skateboarding in a city when there’s a park in town… “now ya’ll don’t be skating here in downtown! We dun built ya’ll a park, now ‘yer gonna use it whether you like it or not!!!” The fact is, years after the park in BR was installed (versus being built), crackdowns on skaters in the city escalated (at least from the stories I heard while I lived in BR). On top of that, Baton Rouge, the capital city… home of a much larger skateboarding population than we have, needs a skatepark built for a capital city.

You get the idea. Anyway, I basically spoke my mind, and was stoked to see that in the article (link below), Mayor Mayson Foster, Tony Licciardi, Joey keener, and the City of Hammond got all the props they deserved. More props go to Gary Patureau (the head of the Skatepark Association of Baton Rouge, he’s pictured in the article wearing a sharp tie), and big Reno (owner of Urban Nine and a close, personal friend of many of us here). I think everyone did a great job at clarifying the problems with BREC, and if I come across as bitter in the article, it’s because I was. Lucky for me though… I live in the best skate city in Louisiana.

Click Here to Read the Article

Skateboarders aren’t a fringe group of people that you’ll never come across… at least here in Hammond, we’re a visible and vocal force. In some cases, skateboarders are taxpaying, property owning, business-running adults. In most cases, the parents/guardians of skateboarders serve those roles. It should be obvious to anyone that travels in Hammond that there are hundreds of people that are directly tied to skateboarding, right here in the city limits. If you’re a politician seeking some sort of elected office here in Hammond, ponder this…

Today, in the Wednesday, August 9th issue of the Daily Star, our official endorsement of Mayor Mason Foster, Tony Licciardi, and Joey Keener was published in the “Local News” section.

Click the image below for a larger version:

(…or click here for a PDF of the above article.)

As I’ve mentioned before, this website gets 2,000 hits a week (more than that during our busiest months). Granted, most of those hits are generated by skateboarders looking for skate-related content… but the newspaper is a different monster. At some point today, nearly every reader of the Daily Star opened up that paper and read our endorsement. All I’m saying is that you better keep us in mind if you want an elected job in this town. Hammond, besides being a college, historical, arts, and eating hub… is a skateboard city. Hammond is the only city of its kind in this entire state when it comes to skateboarding… it is in fact, the skateboarding capitol. We know who we have on our side… we suggest that anyone running for elected office (especially City Council) talk to us and find out what we’re all about. We’ll be getting to know you at every public forum we can attend.
Oh yeah: MAYSON FOSTER FOR MAYOR.

Kerry and I are on a mission to find, scan and post every news/magazine article we can find concerning the southeast Louisiana skate scene. We have a few articles online, but we still have a lot more to put up. Each post we put up will feature the scan itself (sometimes cut up so that the articles will fit on the page and still be readable), and we’re providing higher-quality Adobe PDFs of each article so you can print and share them. Make a special note of our Local Skating in the Media section of the site… the scans will be placed there according to the dates that the articles were printed, so they won’t show up here on the main page (unless they’re new articles). We’ll also be mentioning any television media in the same section. Get busy, it’s ya burfdaaaay!

If you live in southeast Louisiana, then issue #308 of Thrasher Magazine is a must have… I just got it in the mail, so it should be at your local bookstore now. Here’s the cover:

Inside is a photo essay by Shawn Macomber called “After the Storm,” featuring skating by our friends Todd Taylor, Alex Nunez, Ryan Watson, Tim Lightfoot, Dave Mitchael, Little Jaedon, and our very own locals Big Trey and Thomas Beach. Buy two copies… read one and save the other, it’s a keeper.

Chances are, if you’re reading this… you already know what went down. For those of you that don’t know, here’s the scoop.

Mike Vallely came to Hammond today with a film crew to tape for his show Drive (a program on Fuel TV). Before hitting the park, me, Kerry, Bankhead, Eric and a few other locals had a little mini ramp session… after that, Kerry and I walked around downtown with Mike to discuss skateboarding,the Hammond skate scene, and how great it is to be a skater here in Tangipahoa. We talked about how much the scene has changed over the past few years, and Kerry discussed some of the ways he and Chris helped to kick start a skateboard community that was just waiting to explode. Most of all though, we all just talked about how great skateboarding is… like all of us (and I mean you too), Mike eats, breathes and sleeps skateboarding. He’s one of the nicest and most down to earth people you could have the pleasure to meet, and we’re extremely thankful… grateful even… that he came to Hammond to skate with the locals and listen to us talk about our adoration for skateboarding.

I want to give a big shout out to the production crew as well… all of the fellas involved with Drive are really nice people, and they’re probably the most patient cats I’ve ever met. You rock, guys… all of you. We wish you a safe trip through the south.

Another huge shout out goes to all of the skaters that came out to see Mike today… you really showed our guests how big of a skate scene we have. Props to you, skaters… much love.

We have the two batches of photos from today’s events online… as usual, I put up both the good pics and the crappy ones as well. Props to Jilt3d who came through with a nice grip of pics… check out our new Photo Gallery under the “Demos and Pro Visits” category.

Note: The episode of Drive that Hammond is featured in will appear in early 2007. We’ll keep you up to date.