You guys and gals be safe… you have a lot of skateboarding to do in 2007.

Best wishes from the STS crew!

Just a reminder!

Don’t order online, don’t buy skate gear at the mall, don’t walk into stores owned by kooks with no connection to skateboarding… read this.

My parents used to live in Jena, Louisiana (they now live right next to it in an even smaller town called Olla). Jena, as small and remote as it is, actually has a pretty good (if not new and growing) little skate scence… which brings me to the photo below… signs like this are how you can tell if your skate scene is healthy or not:

1. Ignorant city council bans skateboarding from a strip of pavement in a public park? Check.
2. Same ignorant city council makes skateboarding illegal in all other public areas? Check.
3. City council, while creating idiotic and moronic rules, is outnumbered by families in audience that support skateboarding? Check.

I’ll say this as gently and as subtly as I can…
The mayor and city council of Jena Louisiana are retarded, and they have a collective IQ less than that of an empty jar of mayonnaise.

When I used to visit my parents here, I’d often skate in one of two huge public tennis courts located behind the house they lived in. Now, skating in those tennis courts is outlawed. The sad thing is, for the kids in Jena, there’s no legal place to skate anywhere around them. It’s funny (in a terribly sad sort of way) that the city would prohibit using public property in a way that the public obviously wants to use it. Jena’s concerns lie soley in its senior citizens (who recently aquired the use of Jena’s old town hall as a new senior citizen’s community center). It’s especially striking because the mayor and council there know damned well that there’s no reason for skateboarding to be outlawed on public property.

In 2001, (then) Governor Mike Foster signed in Act 1199,  which removes liability from government bodies for possible injuries that skateboarders, bikers and rollerbladers may recieve while taking part in their activity of choice. The city of Jena is well aware of this, thanks to the work done by a skate mom named Phyllis Alexander (mother of my friends Will, and my late friend Sid). Even while trying to educate the city council, they still went out of their way to pass ordinances to make the act of skateboarding illegal.

Most of you reading this probably won’t ever need to visit Jena for any reason, and with this I hope to ensure that you actively avoid the place should the opportunity arise.

This kind of stuff get me so stoked… one of our biggest ‘lil homies, Trey O, recently took a trip to Disney World and sat down for a charicature… even while chilling and having a good time a few states away, our bro stayed true to the cause:

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again… Small Times isn’t some crooked business suit trying to milk people for whatever they have…Small Times is a family of skateboarders. Having said that, Trey is one of our family members. We sincerely appreciate him and the rest of our people out there keeping skateboarding alive. See the smile in this illustration? That’s what it’s all about.

Oh yeah, surprise Trey… you’re on the website… hehehe

I was on the phone with Kerry today and he told me he was surrounded by boxes… I immediately ran outside, plowed through some puddles, and skidded my car all the way over to the shop… the new stuff looks dope!

First the shirts:

White with red text outlined in black, bright blue with white text outlined in red, dark blue with white text outlined in baby blue, bright orange with white text outlined in black, olive green with tan text outlined in dark red, aqua with white text outlined in black, and tan with red text outlined in black.

But that’s not all… now the shop has shirts especially for the ladies…

These are babydoll cut shirts in baby blue, sky blue, and.. I guess I’d call that a peach. Peachy. Yeah, the one on the bottom is straight peachy. Ya heard?

OK, I’m pretty sure that this is the stuff you really wanna see… the new decks. Check ‘em:

Natural wood with pimpadelic gold text:

This is a slightly lavender-ish blue with white text…

This one is candy apple red (if you’re into the goth thing, I guess you could call it blood crimson or something… it’s all good), again with the white text:

But that’s not all… we also have a new graphic deck, done by our very own Randy Muller (the creator of our last graphic)…

How sick is this thing? If you can’t tell in the photo… the teeth are blinged out with gold… so tight.

Now I have some bad news and some good news about the Coloniel deck above… you can no longer be the first to get one:

…but you can be the last! There’s a ton of them at the shop in every size, so where you at? Get over here now… you have to see it in person to truly appreciate how good these look.

I just got an email from a guy named Rick McElrath… Rick skated all around Baton Rouge back in 1977 when he was 17. As he told me in his email, now he’s 48, skating with his kids, and working on a committee to get a proper park built by next summer. Check out his blog here.

If you’re reading this and you’re lacking a place to really ride, stop reading and start getting to work! Nobody’s going to just give you a spot… you have to either build your own or force your government to work for you like they’re supposed to.

Props to Rick.. keep rolling.

Is it American? Is it Chinese? Does it matter? Read this letter (link and provided by our friend John with Skater’s Alliance and SPS). The letter goes on to talk about the inferiority of Chinese wood, as well as the effect that Chinese wood has on the American economy. It’s a somewhat lengthy read, but well worth it.

After you read the letter, check out the rest of John Bracken’s site… lots of news and opinions from a real skateboard activist.

My friend Jilted took this photo last night after working at the park with Chrissly Bear:

Note the corners on the mini… so tasty.

Kerry gave me this pic from another workday:

Tranny for days.

Anyone who can pick up a hammer is free to call the shop and volunteer!