IS VOTING DAY.

September 30th is voting day… make sure you’ve registered, and don’t forget that Mayson Foster is one of the main reasons that we have the best park in Louisiana! We have some of his brochures at the shop… if you’re not old enough to vote, at least give some to your parents or guardians. Mayson did a lot of good for skateboarding, let’s try to do something for him.

Terry just sent me his new commercial for Fuel TV (shot in New York)… there’s no other way to say this… it’s awesome. Most commercials that feature anything bike or skate related tend to come across as cheesy to me, but this was done right. The filming, the atmosphere and the riding just fit perfect. Check it out by clicking here (right-click and save as).
The file is an Mp4, so you need to have Quicktime or iTunes to play it… so do that and check out my boy. It’s a little over 2.6 megs in file size, so it might take a few minutes if you’re on dial up.

Really great article about our homie Terry Adams here:

http://www.lat34.com/bmx/the_katrina_kid 

Some of you may remember when I posted the announcement of Shawn’s baby (Portia) being born (Shawn is a great skater, a great person, and the owner of Aminal Skateboards). We recieved news that little Portia is undergoing a medical problem right now… I don’t want to get into the details, as I don’t think this is the right place to air such things, but I would appreciate it if you could do one of the following (depending on which category you fit in):

1. If you’re religious, please throw a prayer out for Portia to the being that you pray to.
2. If you’re a non religious spiritual type, take a moment to send some love out to Portia and the rest of the family.
3. If you’re not religious or spiritual at all, just post in the comments under this post and give a postive shout out. Actually, I encourage everyone to post a comment under this post… if only to wish Portia Rae some luck and to send a little love. The family will see this, and it would be really tight to make sure that they know that there’s some people out here that have their backs.

Thanks everybody.

A must read… Fat Tony (a nice fella who used to run a Louisiana-based BMX site, and who’s now running the website for Ride BMX Magazine) followed Terry around for a day and witnessed first-hand a day in the life of a local homie who is now basically a rockstar in the world of bike riding. Check out the article here.

On Friday the 18th, we’ll be celebrating yet another Hot August Nights.

For those of you outside of Hammond, Hot August Nights is an annual celebration that takes place on the hottest night of the year… most of the businesses in downtown become art galleries for local and southern artists, and most of them will be having “wine tastings” for the people that come in to gaze at the work.

We’ll be hosting some artwork from Bankhead, Michael Cangelosi, James Blanchard as well as myself. One thing we’ll be doing a bit different from other business is the wine thing… we will have some “tastings,” but those tastings will simply consist of cheap beer, ’cause that’s how we do.

…and no, you can’t booze it up at the shop if you’re under age.

Mayson Foster:
I know a lot of people tend to fall asleep once the topic of politics comes up, but this is important, and yes… it’s very biased. We here at Small Times Skates officially endorse Mayor Mayson Foster’s campaign for reelection. Mayor Foster is one of the main reasons we have our Dreamland skatepark,and he’s also very receptive to the skateboard community (all of us affiliated with the shop have communicated with Mayor Foster about various skateboarding related issues). In short, if you skate, or your the parent/guardian of a skater, then we ask that you help us support Mr. Foster and allow him to keep the job he does so well.

I’m well aware that many of you aren’t single-issue voters, so if the actions he’s taken for the skateboarding community aren’t enough, consider that he lead this city through a sudden population increase of over 20,000 people after Katrina hit, and was an important figurehead through Hammond’s own post-storm struggle. On a personal hurricane-related note, Mr. Foster was one of the first people I saw after the hurricane struck… once the storm passed and it was safe to venture outside, who did I see but Mayson Foster driving slowly (and around fallen trees) checking on everyone personally.

If you’re 18 years old, register to vote! You can call up the Registrar of Voters at 985.345.3717. It will only take you about five minutes to get signed up. If you’re already registered to vote, please cast yours for Mr. Foster.

If you’re from out of town… my mayor can beat up your mayor. Nya nya nya.

Tony Licciardi:
At the end of this year, Tony Licciardi will be leaving the Hammond City Council and gearing up to run for State Rep… we’ll be pushing for him as well. He’s been responsible for keeping funds in the Hammond budget for the skatepark, and not only do we need to ensure that he gets elected, we need to make sure that the person that replaces him is aware of the needs of Hammond’s skateboard community.

Joey Keener:
I don’t think he’s running for anything (I’m looking into that as you read this), but if he does, we’re backing him too.

The three people referenced above aren’t the only people responsible for helping out the skaters of Hammond (and in effect, the skaters of Louisiana), but they’re the most active and vocal supporters we have in Hammond government. The least we can do as skateboarders (or skate-friendly voters) is help them to maintain the positions they hold, or elevate them politically so they can better serve our interests. As voters and taxpayers, we control the government. It’s our duty to shape the government in a way that truly represents us. Cheers.

I made it back from my big east coast trip last night… New York is as great as it is insane… if you ever get the chance to go, do it i a heartbeat. I didn’t have the internet connection (or the time) I’d hoped for while out on the road, but I’ll make up for it by posting like crazy now that I’m back.

On to the News:
1. Shawn Fleming, our friend behind Aminal Skateboards, has figured out a method to expand his team in new ways… rather than sit through countless sponsor-me videos, he went and decided to create genetically engineered Aminals on his own. I’d like to introduce Shawn’s newest addition:

Portia Rae Fleming, welcome to the world. Little cutie.

2. As most of you already know, some throat-gagging bottom feeders dumped trash cans, kicked over the porto-potties, and poured motor oil all over Smallside on Friday night (possibly the same people that got their asses handed to them after trying to mug some friends of ours from New Orleans). Doug, Jilted, Adam and others (I’d name you all but I don’t know who was there) went out and cleaned up the mess. We need to be on high alert, folks… drive by the park whenever you can (even if you’re just out partying on the weekend) and look to see what’s going on every chance you get. This item leads me onto a couple of points that need to be thought about:

• A. The cops took over 20 minutes to respond to an emergency call after our friends from New Orleans had a run in with the mystery group (a mask-wearing group at that). WTF?
• B. With all of the homeland security cameras pointed everywhere, why don’t they just turn the one on the corner of Oak and Coleman around so that it looks at the skatepark? Little help?
• C. Where the hell are our lights?

Ok, that’s enough for now… me and Kerry have a lot of things we’ll be hitting you with in the next few days. In closing, as much fun as I had out in the big city, I missed all my homies and homettes and I’m super glad to be home. See ya at the park (or right here, even). w000t!

Network: ABC

Time:  8 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central

Don’t miss this, let’s watch Terry represent!