| "A
pro skateboarding event of enormous proportions came to pass in
the middle of this last spring. The various sparrows, robins and
blue jays who had recently made Jacksonville, Florida their winter
home, migrated north to wherever they're really supposed to live.
The little winged thingies were almost immediatley replaced by an
intense wave of heat and humidity. The locals at the Kona USA skatepark
are no strangers to this type of heat overdose and know what its
like to skate on baking concrete and blistering metal for hours
on end. The pros who attended the event didn't, but they skated
anyway. Sunburns were collected, water was drunk, and some of the
best skateboarding ever to take place was flung out for all to catch.
We obtained a whole bunch of the weekend's happenings and thought
you might want to see a few of the better flung our way.
Omar Hassan is pretty good -- as far as good things go -- so why
don't you take a look at him grabbing his foot on a backside ollie
tail-grab? Nice huh?" |
| "Known
to some as the Master, Mr. Tony Hawk has consistently blown minds
for more years than we'd care to mention at this time. What we would
care to mention is the fact that Tony won this contest. Although
you may not recognize him at first, the twisted mass you see before
you is none other that the aformentioned Hawk spinning yet another
version of the 540; this one is a stalefish grab. Hurts just to
think about it, doesn't it?" |
"The
park seemed overcrowded at times due to skateboarding's high profile
in Jacksonville and the public's awareness of the event beforehand.
But even with the thick contest-day population, Chris Miller most
likely had solitude in his hip pocket. When you're floating seven
feet in the air, you really don't have many outside distractions,
anyway. Although there is a momentary frighteningly close kinship
between you and the surface that you hope not to bond with too harshly.
Here Chris enjoys the privacy of a solid grab and a bio bowl-to-snake-run
flight in-between cross-country practice sessions." |
"Chris
Livingston spent his weekend in Florida disturbing the airspace
around the orange steel ramp and abusing its lip. Although these
might ultimatley sound like bad things to do, abusing, disturbing
and similar negative-sounding activities are rewarded at skateboard
contests. It's a pleasant twist. The only thing that's even remotely
related is winning at golf for scoring low. Livingston doesn't golf
too much, but next time you see Lee Trevino sink a smooth thirty-footer,
keep in mind that there's no way it could be as finespun as one
of Chris' head-high tail-grab vaults
"Left Inset: Justin Lynch is a solid skateboarder. He is also
very white. After prolonged exposure to the Florida sun, his skin
turned red. Barry Zaritzky applied aloe to his charred flesh, but
it was too late -- the damage had been done; Justin's skin was burned.
Later it would flake off and he would have to start all over on
his summer project. Here we see Justin extending a kicked-out air
into what resembles a backside boneless one. If you want, carefully
cut out Justin and glue him back on the page with his left foot
on the coping of the ramp. There, its 1985.
"Right Inset: Sporting the newest in space-age helmet design,
Florida native Mike McGill is no stranger to the trials and tribulations
of vertical contest skating. In fact, he and vertical contest skating
are like this (cross your index and middle finger now for
full effect). So if you thought Mike wasn't going to do well skating
vert, in a contest, in his home state, and with the added advantages
of his Darth Vader headgear, you were dead wrong. This here's a
photograph of McGill jumping and catching a NBA-sized stalefish
under a cloudy sky that instead of offering shelter from the sun,
only seemed to hold the heat and humidity closter to the Earth." |
