If you pick up this month’s issue of Thrasher:
Look for this pic:
…that’s Chet Childress skating our very own Chicken Coop. And before you ask: the ‘Coop is not open yet, but it will be soon enough. Don’t worry, we’ll let you know.
In the meantime, go get that Thrasher and own a piece of history.
Sorry for the short notice, nobody contacted us about it… here’s the info:
Friday, November 09, 2007 | 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
You are invited to attend Skate Jam at BREC’s Perkins Skate Park, 7122 Perkins Road from 7-10 p.m. Onstage: King Square. Onscreen: Guitar Hero? BEST TRICK COMPETITION…FREE HELMET REGISTRATION. For more information contact Jason at 218-0918.
7122 Perkins Rd
Sad news: Fastlane Skatepark out of Harvey, Louisiana has closed it’s doors for good. The land lord/owner of the building doesn’t want to rent it anymore, as he’s trying to sell it and cash out. This is really lame news to pass on, as that place had one of the most epic mini ramps ever… hopefully all of those ramps will find a new, comfy new home.
An anonymous messenger sent me this link of a skatepark being built in West Feliciana parish (about 15/20 minutes from Baton Rouge). I’ll refrain from any commentary as it looks like it’s at the very beginning stages, but rest assured our crew of trained skate geeks will get over there to further document the progress.
Here’s what it’s going to look like. Sadly, it’s yet another ARC park, but as a person originally from the Felicianas, I’m glad they’re getting something. But still… ARC… the more municipalities use ARC ramps, the more we’re going to see those places spring up… while I’ve skated some ARC ramps that were indeed decent, they’re still far inferior to locally built ramps, and even more inferior to concrete. Not to mention, ARC overprices everything to such a degree that it’s almost as funny as it is sad.
(Reprinted from my personal site)
I started skateboarding when I was a 10 year old hellion, living in a really rural part of Louisiana known for its “rolling hills” (in quotes because the term is also the parish’s motto).
I’m 32 and ten twelfths now… the only time I haven’t skated for any significant period was because of injury (typically skate-related). It’s a little weird to look back and realize that you’ve dedicated over two thirds of your life to manipulating a wheeled plank of wood, but it’s weird in the greatest of ways.To the non-skating reader: for many of us that roll, skateboarding isn’t something that’s picked up and set down (like an office job that you forget about once you get home to your couch). At the risk of reusing the same word too much, skateboarding is the act of manipulating one’s self (in some respects, the same way a martial artist might), manipulating one’s skateboard (juggling and doing various balancing acts), and manipulating the terrain available to the individual that takes part.
The more experienced a skateboarder becomes, the more obsessive he or she becomes as skateboarding transcends simply being an act that someone simply taken part in… the more comfortable you feel on a board, the more you become infatuated with the act of riding. The correlation to skill sets on board and the following obsession is really easy to diagram:
If you can barely stand on a board, it’s probably hard to imagine doing a trick over a set of stairs in the middle of your city… but when you’re at a point where you know how to roll with speed, jump over things, and cruise with some authority and control, you see cityscapes (and architecturally functional spots in ‘lil towns too) as a puzzle to solve with your board.
An experienced skater knows the city you live in better than you ever will. Sure, you might know four shortcuts allowing you to get from point A to point B, but your friendly neighborhood skateboarder knows the little things often overlooked by the average civilian… from what kind of asphalt is used in every parking lot you pass by to the color (or lack thereof) of the parking curbs at any given business in your city limits (different colored paints, at least on concrete, have unique characteristics that manifest themselves when skated on… red’s the best, by the way).
The experienced skateboarder is always looking for something they might have missed… when he’s a passenger in your car and he’s gazing out of the window, he’s scanning for something he can skate on. The snake eats its own tail… as the skater becomes more skilled on the board, the more things he can skate, opening doors for that person to attack even more constructs that architects and business owners never imagined.
I can’t justify the pant chips, the scratch marks, or the paint (rubbed from our boards) left on the various things we ride on, nor will I attempt to. It happens, and it’ll keep on happening. I can say that for the skateboarder, the intent isn’t to damage, it’s to open up a potential experience on something that was never intended to be used in the way we choose to utilize it. We’re not trying to destroy anything, we’re trying to create tricks… even more importantly, we’re trying to have fun on things that most people don’t see the fun in. We see it, we extract it, and more often than not it’s simply not understood unless you’ve been there.
I’ve seen a lot of skaters come and go in the couple of decades that I’ve been on board. I often hear “yeah, I used to skate, but one day I broke my arm and quit…”. Though I can understand the logic here, I can’t relate. Over the years, I’ve broken ribs, legs, wrists, encountered multiple sprains, bang ups, cuts, concussions, hell, I even chipped a tooth. I’m not an especially tough person, but my obsession outweighs my willingness to succumb to the pain involved with my activity of choice. As I write this, I’m breathing with some effort as I just bruised half of the ribs on my left side, and I gave myself a minor sprain on my right ankle, but I plan on skating today anyway (after Ace-bandaging the crap out of my foot and supplementing the wrap-job with an ankle brace and some tightly-mounted high top shoes).
I don’t want this to come out wrong (or cheesy), but skateboarding is my religion… I’d even offer up that I’m more of a skateboarder than most priests are Catholic. There’s never a point in which I’m not a skateboarder, even when I’m about to get into a fight at the bar because of drunken political dialog.
Anyway, I just want to say that skateboarding is really, really neat.
Much love to Jordan, Thomas, Trey, Bankhead, Greg, Todd, Colin, Cody, Brandon, Chris and Matt for going to Mississippi and doing a parking-lot session demo in an effort to help our neighbor state in their park-building efforts. Basically, Kerry dropped some knowledge about how a good skate scene is built (especially with the aid of a bad ass park) and the rest of the fellas killed what they were provided with. Word has it that everyone was stoked.
After that, everyone went to a 7-stair rail and killed themselves… I heard a few sick tricks were landed as well. Were they documented? Only time will tell…