Brian Krans's Blog, page 17
August 5, 2013
Blader Digest: Those Skateboard Jeans Look Good On You
You’d have to be new or dumb to think the blading industry isn’t more broke than the average rollerblader.
But before you go investing in your sport, let me tell you the importance of always reading the labels.
Case in point: the “skate” in Bulletprufe Skate Denim is now meant for skateboarders.
That really sucks because they were stepping up the game in terms of blade denim durability and they were showcasing some good blading talent.
They were though, as most blading products typically are, not without their faults. I’ve bought three pairs and been extremely satisfied except for one large flaw I’ve never experienced before with jeans: the fly goes down on its own.
Not cool if you look like me and there’s a child around. People look around to see if you own one of these…
Again, not cool.
Despite that, I was a set to order a few pairs off their new line because while they are pricey, the money’s going into rollerblading and that’s more important than anything else.
That was last Tuesday—also payday, or I as I like to call it “hood rich day”—and I went to their site and was given a huge reminder…
Bulletprufe doesn’t do rollerblading.
(Which has since changed since last Tuesday. Rollerblading images are now featured with skateboarding and biking, as you can see in the screen grab below. Their Facebook page, however, is split between Bulletprufe Skate Denim [rollerblading] and Bulletprufe Skate Denim Worldwide [skateboarding])
Kind of sucks to realize that the limited money I have has been going to now promote skateboarding as well. It’s bad enough I’ll eagerly ride Eulogys, which do the same thing, but maybe there’s something to say about that formula.
So, last Tuesday night, I sent Will Fisher, owner and proprietor of Bulletprufe a few select questions…
No. 1: Am I wearing skateboarding jeans right now?
No. 2: If not, why is there no blading on your site an(Y) longer, nor why do you post such things on your site? The only photo I saw of a blader on http://www.bulletprufe.com/ was Gripper and he was in a chair.
No. 3: If Bulletprufe is a skateboarding company now, what do you have to say to bladers who paid full price (including the problems that went with $80 jeans with zippers you wouldn’t dare go commando in) so you could test your products on a poor industry to run to a richer one?
No. 4: No one doubts money is an issue in our industry, but why? Really, why?
No. 5: How do you plan to make money in skateboarding when your brand can so quickly be associated as a blading brand?
No. 6: How many times do you walk by Black Sheep Skate Shop in your home turf of Charlotte, see your jeans there, and not fall over laughing thinking of the old Mindgame ads where skateboarders were all the white sheep and blading was the… the uh… You know, I can’t think for the life of me what the rollerblader was right now. Do you remember, Will?
No. 7: What’s the hardest part about rollerblading?
I should make a very important note about my line of questions to Will, who has never been anything but a nice person to me, came as a customer and on the same night two of my friends were hospitalized by a group of skateboarders.
Also Last Tuesday…
That Tuesday night, two of my friends—Omar Ontiveros and Rob Antaki—went to a skate park in Walnut Creek, Calif. I used to be fond of that park because that’s where regular Tuesday Night Skates occurred when I moved NorCal four years ago. Went there, met tons of homies, always had a good sesh.
What’s worse, is that in preparing for the Oakland Blade Jam and then hanging out after the Valo V premiere, I spent extra time with these guys. Real funny dudes. Hella hard workers.
For fun, here’s his entry for AMall’s Cash Clip contest…
So, when I received texts that they were jumped by a truck full of skateboarders who specifically who came to the park to blader bash, well, I didn’t like what I saw.
You already know the words they said to get shit started.
You know those fucks used their boards as weapons. And you know they had the numbers.
Good thing Rob already had steel in his head.
Last Tuesday wasn’t one of those nights where we hit Walnut Creek en masse. Rob and Omar were the only two bladers at the park. This Tuesday, you can sure as hell know they won’t be.
I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, you show up somewhere specifically to beat people, for whatever reason, that’s a fucking hate crime. Pure and simple and should be viewed with the same tolerance as bigotry.
What happened to Rob and Omar was simply nothing more than a continuation of bullshit defensive mockery from a sect of people who’ve been told one too many times that they’re the kings of counterculture.
Seriously. Think about the realities of life in American culture—skate parks aren’t where the bad kids hang out anymore. It’s where negligent parents leave their four-year-olds unsupervised usually without incident because no matter how much we adults think we’re fucking bad asses, when a little kid rolls in, we all have to work to keep the little thing out of the hospital.
It’s a shame we haven’t quite figured out how to do that to other adults.
We’re too busy endlessly talking shit (guilty as fuck right here) to the point where anyone thinks it’s even reasonable to mob up on people. That’s how far it’s been going—because I know of enough stories to know this shit isn’t isolated—and it fucking disgusts me.
Why do that shit? To teach someone a lesson?
Here’s the lesson: that shit ain’t going to fly very far.
It’s hard to stomach the reality that someday a group of guys may jump out of a truck looking to hurt my friends and they may be wearing the clothing that got its beginning from the very sport they’re bashing.
That would be too much sweet fucking poetic irony for me to bear.
Just thinking of it makes me fart.
But neither the blader bashing or Bulletprufe have anything in common, right? Nah.
This just all conveniently happened last Tuesday when I was looking to buy some skate jeans.
That’s why my questions to Will were more loaded than Paco Ass Dre and The Steel Seagull on a Sunday.
Will had sent the following response by the next morning…
Brian, it’s purely a business decision. There were two options: 1) close the doors or 2) start fishing in deeper waters. Bulletprufe, or any company for that matter, is not a hobby; it’s a business and has to be run as such.
Running a denim company is not like selling t-shirts; you can’t just get five or ten pairs printed up whenever you need them. You have to order months in advance and there’s real money at stake. Nor am I a single 22 year old anymore; I have a wife and three kids to support and I can’t spend my time, or risk my family’s money and security, on a project (a small niche blading company) that not only does not make a profit but rather loses money.
So, if you were me, what would you do? Pack it in and look back fondly on the times you lost tens of thousands of dollars trying to run a blade company or buckle down and do what needs to be done to make your company successful? Yea, it sucks that the sport is not the size it once was but there were two options and I chose not to go the way of the dinosaur, like so many other blade companies before us.
I understand people’s concern and I am more than happy to discuss this in further detail via email, over the phone, etc. any time.
Thanks – Will Fisher
In all reality, I feel like a dick for passing judgement on this because were I in Will’s shoes, I may have come to the conclusion and I know Will didn’t make it without seriously considering personal longevity.
That’s smart because he has a family and I don’t, but what from I’ve learned from parents my age is that “you won’t understand until you’re a father.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to pad myself away from as much responsibility as I need to mainly because I’ve stuck to my guns. I don’t believe in many things in life, but those causes I feel like are worth fighting for, I’ll sacrifice more than I should for them.
I’m probably just too overprotective of my sport, my friends, and the people who I genuinely believe that if we continue to stick together, we’ll be better off at the finish line.
No matter what, I still stand by the statement I made on this site that Bulletprufe uses on theirs…
I know I can be an overzealous idealistic at times, so take all this in after you filter it through your own reasonable thinking skills. And don’t neglect the power of your gut instinct.
At least from now on if I’m going to buy skateboarder jeans, instead of shelling out $80 for a pair that could get me an indecent exposure ticket, I’ll walk down the street to the sporting goods store and pick up a pair of clearance Volcoms for $45.
I do have to be smart with my money, after all.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — Want to make me sound like a complete hypocrite? Buy my books. Will has already been nice enough to do it.
July 30, 2013
Blader Digest: The Real Truth About Valo 5
There comes a time when everyone should stop everything and take stock of what they’re doing with their lives. This includes accomplishments, failures, lessons learned, and knowledge lost.
Right now, the members of the Valo team should be really fucking happy with themselves.
This is not meant to be an objective review of Valo V because I’m incapable of such a thing. I’m fortunate to call many of the people involved in the making of this video a friend and I’m proud of what they accomplished.
However, I rate this video like I do all others: if I don’t have something nice to say, I won’t say anything. Scroll down and you’ll see I have plenty of words to say about it, so take that as an indication how this article will go.
I will say this—since viewing the video, I’ve eaten shit twice skating to work because I took the time to skate things in ways I wouldn’t have normally bothered. That’s important to note.
If something makes me want to skate, or better yet, skate better, then I consider it a good video/edit/photo/article.
With that said…
Valo V embraces the full spirit of what it means, to me, to be a rollerblader.
The Valo Kids Get It
Powered by Ivan Narez’s documentary style film making and the team’s outstanding talents, the video documents three years of travels, hijinks, camaraderie, and the brand’s powerful influence in the visual and fashionable style of our sport.
Much as the trailer demonstrated, Valo V broke away from his last Valo video, Valo 4Life, and brought in more rough stylistic use of physical film to juxtapose against his smooth and crisp digital filming. Of course, it goes to mention that the closing athlete Victor Arias (more on that later) is also one of the video’s primary filmers, a staple in the Narez-Arias brotherhood since they were using palm tree branches to play roller hockey in Brentwood.
(There’s one part in the video where a $2,000 lens bites the big one—Ivan’s second in his career—which is enough to make any filmmaker shed a tear.)
Valo V documents the last three years of Valo’s 10-year contribution to rollerblading, backed by all the years their team has been improving our sport, whether through their talents or simply the presence of their dynamic personalities, eclectic talents, and continued progression of a sport tied together with a communal passion to strap wheels to their feet and forget about the rest of life for a while.
In a Recession, Always Buy
This video should adorn the video shelves of every blader, right along Valo 4Life and every other video the Valo Brand has produced. Then again, if you’re smart, the photo book the DVD and Blu-Ray come packaged it should be proudly displayed on your coffee table alongside Shred ‘Til You’re Dead II so every dinner party guest you entertain is impressed with you collection of blade media.
If all else fails, when you bring a girl home, and should she adopt this philosophy, you’re at a better chance of getting laid.
The Goods on the VidValo 4Life ended with a song whose refrain repeated “…it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
If your relationship with blading hasn’t been the same hasn’t been long.
In my opinion, Ivan has been one of the few film makers who took the time to document the full spectrum of what it means to be a rollerblader.
Outside of that statement, here are other reasons you should purchase your own personal copy of Valo V:
The video comes packaged in a photography book on film by Ivan Narez and Brandon Smith, so the previous John Waters quote should be important.
Erick Garcia, who doesn’t wear Valos, has the trick of the video with a single image of being towed by fellow JSFer and Harley badass Brandon Smith through 6 a.m. Bay Bridge traffic and then cess sliding longer than most mortals can comprehend.
David Sizemore hung out with the Valo crew for too long that there’s any surprise he had clips in the video. As Ivan said, “He chose us.”
Soichiro Kanashima not only continues to impress you with his perfectionist technicality, but he has the best explanation for a gaping butthole
Jon Julio is a 36-year-old shop owner still holding it down and showing those idiot 24-year-olds who claim to know “bad knees” that end a career.
We finally get to see the video of Erik Bailey’s gigantic sweaty around the curved ledge that’s twice as tall as him at one point.
Victor Arias — The guy has so many big clips his section could have ended half a dozen times before it did. Honestly, I didn’t expect him to put together such a big ending to such a large video and as a fan and a brother, I’ll never make the mistake of mistaking it. It’s a section for the books, so file it under “Holy Shit.” His is the only Valo pro boot I would ever consider skating besides Brandon Smith.
Besides certain parts of the video that I won’t even bother trying to explain with my limited education and even more limited vocabulary—and because it’s better you make up your mind for yourself—I’ll spend the remainder of this column discussing why the entire weekend in San Francisco was one of the best I’ve had since I moved here four years ago.
Shit You Don’t Care About Unless You Were There
Personally, it was great to see the rest of the Valo family like Mike, Tiff, Leah, Justin, Leon, Jayson, Miguel, the other Mike, the other other Mike, Cameron (via mail), and everyone else I’ll forget to mention because fuck you, I was hella drunk (you know, for a change). I am glad, however, the Intuition boys were able to stick around for a minute. Congrats, Matt.
Coupled them with the rest of the usual Bay Area characters, which includes those wholesome Shredweiser boys, and, of course, my JSF brethren I don’t get to see enough now that we’re all slowly and inevitably becoming grown men. The luckiest of us are traveling and delaying the inevitable.
God bless you all, you overly-glorious bastards.
Valo, which made it’s namesake with some of the most fashionable blades in the game, didn’t skimp anywhere in the opening night festivities. They filled the historic Victoria theater in San Francisco’s Mission District, which just so happens to be three blocks from my house.
The whole weekend, there were plenty of festivities to be had and all were accessible with a few stumbling steps from the theater to art gallery where the video was for sale, along with B. Smith-made prints from the book. It was something too classy to hold the likes of my ilk, so that’s why some of us closed down Friday and Saturday night chilling in the backyard and lighting shit on fire.
I can’t thank everyone for stopping by. It was great to have you all late into the morning hours, whether catching up on important things or talking too much about stupid stuff.
Then again, to me, that’s the best part of being a rollerblader.
Oh yeah, and in case you missed the outcome of the AMall bet, Paco Ass Dre lost. Hard.
(Irregardless of it, make sure to check out his blog posts for AMall. He put together one of the best poor-man diners’ guides for my neighborhood I’ve ever read, just to support fellow broke homies looking to have fun.)
While those who missed the SF premiere—but Aussie Blade or Die correspondent Zac Hutchings told me theirs was fucking sick!—may have felt you lost out, you still have two coast-or-coast options so far…
And, of course…
Even if you hate everything about Valo, you should at least attend the premiere to honor fallen blader Alex Nunez. Any reason to continue to gather in his memory, much like the yearly gathering for James Short, is a good one.
That, to me, is the real truth.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
June 19, 2013
Blader Digest: Oakland Blade Jam (Or Why You Should Help Your Skate Park)
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: there’s nothing quite like getting all of the homies together.
Brian “BFree” Freeman put together one hell of a contest last weekend in lovely Oakland, Calif., the current home of skaters like Mr. Freeman, himself, Chris Dafick, Erik Stokely, Matty Schrock, Sean Salazar, Yeeter D., Kennan Scott, and generations of hometown bladers ranging from grey hairs to offspring too young to realize they’re bladers yet.
And, of course, mother fucking Steve Gasstation…
The talent who came out to this first-time contest could be given a month and churn out the best video you’ll see this year. As far as I know, this is not happening quite yet.
Instead, they were given three hours on a warm California day to blade their best in a neighborhood skate park started by a nostalgic art teacher and fixed by some nine-to-fivers with itchy livers.
Enigmatic skaters like Sean Keane, Kevin Yee, Korey Waikiki, Erik Rodriguez, Michael Braud, Jon Julio, David Sizemore, Chris Smith, Jon Vossoughi, Tad Treagle, Hayden Ball, Carson Starnes, Blade or Die’s resident Chef in Chief Michael Obedoza, and others skated Town Park like a 1998 X-Games course, but with the style, finesse, and magnitude blading has found in itself since then.
After Saturday, no self-respecting rollerblader can enter that park and not reminisce about best-trick-winning Boss Voss Hog’s fishbrain stall on top of nothing but splinters…
…or Victor’s sweaty up on the tennis court walls…
…or Sizemore’s mockery of what we used to think was hard there. There is, of course, the trick in question: outspin 270 royale, which only involved pushing out and away from a 10 plus-foot vert wall and spinning blindly away from a hubba ledge that’s meant to separate handball courts.
Out of all the tricks we tried to predict, we never saw Voss or this coming…
I could go on and on about Sizemore’s skating and how the aforementioned trick challenged my knowledge of physics, but if you’ve been reading this drunken gibberish long enough, you can recall my Sizemore fandom after his WRS edit (I happily declared him The People’s Champ), so there’s no reason to say more than this: my reaction to witnessing the glory of the whole contest unfold before my two eyes consisted of nothing but sins violating the Second Commandment.
But much like all skating contests, there was skating and none of my words could adequately describe the athletic talent displayed during it. You can make you own assessments by watching the edits as they come.
You can watch the one from Ivan Narez…
…or from Justin Eisinger from ONE, who traveled the eight-odd hours from San Diego with his wife Jen to attend…
No, the real spirit behind the Oakland Blade Jam was the effort to make it happen. That smooth-talking sweetheart BFree mustered up collateral from inside and outside the blading community to turn it into something worth attending.
Town Park was a notorious haven for shaky ramps, expose screw heads, and edges of chunked concrete, sunken coping, or shin-slicing angle iron.
It was started by a high school art teacher we all know as K-Dub. He saw the need for a skate park in the neighborhood and got the spot from the city, who highly doubted the project would proceed. In a heart-felt introduction to the contest, K-Dub said the contest was an obvious testament more than a little something with his project was working and more things like the Oakland Blade Jam needed to happen in Oakland.
Not bad for a bunch of rollerbladers drinking Four Lokos from a shopping cart on a nice June Saturday in California.
But long before Saturday, our weekly Wednesday night blading sessions turned into building sessions. From adding supports to patching holes, hard-working, day-job-having bladers like Omar Ontiveros, Mike Currier (yes, that Mike Currier), and others dropped everything to pick up a power tool.
It should be noted that third place-taking Michael Braud showed up Saturday morning, built ramps, kicked ass, shredded that afternoon, and took third, proving that, yes kids, karma sometimes works out.
Then again, there’s only so much preparation you can do before the real day comes and it’s time to put in work for the crowd.
The Oakland Blade Jam wouldn’t have been the same without its voice, Kennan Scott.
Kennan MCs lots of contests—including the Blade Cup and the Panhandle Pow-wow—but you could tell he was in with all of his politically incorrect energy that Oakland is the city he’s raising a son in.
I know he’s never had a pro skate, but I’d argue like Atticus Finch that he deserves a spot in the Blading Hall of Fame (And thanks to everyone a part of that project. It’s not only honoring those who served our sport so well, but also an important history lesson for our youngest crowd.)
The second his mic was turned on and put on full volume, Kennan called out like a pirate radio station DJ to all who could hear him to come together and celebrate something in their neighborhood.
That thing, the uniting factor for all of this, was that weird thing we collectively know as rollerblading.
I’ve spent some time in that neighborhood, the same as all the infamous Shredweiser guys live in, and, in case you don’t know, West Oakland isn’t the idealistic wonderland for a kid to grow up.
I grew up in a neighborhood with nothing to fear except for Mom’s reaction when I came home with yet another ruined pair of jeans. The best we had to skate was a roller rink but we worked with the owners to get ramps and Hot Rails.
West Oakland is filled with kids who could use something to focus their energy on before it gets them into trouble they can’t get out of. Town Park is one place they can do that and that could make a life’s difference for a lot of people.
Building and maintain something like that, under the guise of a rollerblading contest, makes it all the better reason to help make the next year’s contest even better. I’ll put in a few hours swinging a hammer for that.
The neighborhood is getting some legs and it’s going places, but large public events like the Oakland Blade Jam don’t happen there regularly. At least not the kind that make people fly from the other side of the country.
The contest was actually quite an anomaly. But since that’s what blading has become since the hey-day Barely Dead claimed we were walking into, it was a larger thing to be a part of than I’m afraid I’m incapable of fully stating.
It was as “grassroots” or “organic” or whatever catch phrase people use to pervert a pure idea through the political process of bureaucratic bullshit that prevents more people from creating something like Town Park.
If you want to know what’s good in your community, ask the guys in Oakland who are at their best when shit’s at its worst…
BFree did Town Park, West Oakland, and rollerblading a favor by stepping up and getting things together. He rallied the right sponsors and people with tools and vehicles to make everything come together for a damn fine day of watching some quality skating on ramps that would have splintered to pieces if not for his influence. And I can’t agree more with one of the reasons he did it.
“Since we lost a big US contest (Bitter Cold), figure we might as well replace one where we lost one,” he told Eisinger in an interview earlier this month.
I’ll miss my yearly trip to Detroit as much as anyone else so it’s great to give bladers another reason to hop in the car or shuffle through the cattle-call of airline travel and come have a few too many beers with friends, whether you know them or not yet.
This weekend, there’s a skateboard contest at Town Park. They’ll be putting down a fresh coat of blacktop to make the falls a little bit more manageable. After that, K-Dub is moving forward to built a concrete park—with help and money from people who see the worth in it.
If you missed the Oakland Blade Jam this year, you should come out for the next one. BFree would love to have ya’ over.
Until then, come visit us here in the Bay at the end of next month. Valo’s throwing the premiere for V and you shouldn’t miss it. If you need new skates and you want to come, buy a new pair of the VX Broskow’s and Julio and the gang could fly you out and pay for you to have a good time.
Since I’m dumb lucky enough to skate by the theater on my way to work, I know I’ll be enjoying myself with a few friends.
It’s going to be just like the Oakland Blade Jam except for in a San Francisco neighborhood known for its burritos, bars with strong drinks, and human feces on the sidewalk.
This time, though, the rollerblading with not be live. It will be televised.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — When not writing about rollerblading or how your body is trying to kill you, I also write books. You should buy them, if you haven’t already. They both have over four out of five stars on Goodreads, so you can be rest assured you’ll most likely get your $17 worth out of them.
May 15, 2013
Blader Digest: Here’s to My First Drug Dealer
I got me a case of the itches.
In proper diagnostic terms, I’m suffering withdraws.
I often blade before and after work about four times a week. However, I made the rookie mistake of leaving the skates at my girlfriend’s apartment and I haven’t had them on in five days.
My palms are sweaty, my legs are restless, and I’m having flashbacks of when this horrible addiction started.
When I started skating, there was a bike/exercise equipment/hockey/skate shop called Bring’s Cycling & Fitness in lovely Wisconsin Rapids. This was 1996 and I was sheltered as fuck when it came to anything outside Catholic school, the Eycylopedia Britannica (Yeah Mom and Dad for giving a shit about knowledge!), and looking for boobs in National Geographic.
Besides the Extreme Games, Hoax II, and In-Line Skater Magazine, my buddy Corey and I didn’t know jack shit about blading other than it was a good excuse to wander around town causing trouble.
If you’re wondering how long ago I became addicted to this drug, I’ll put it this way…
I bought Daily Bread at my local bookstore.
Daily Bread is gone and your children probably won’t ever set foot into a bookstore. Both are sad facts I cry myself to sleep to daily.
Bring’s, to Rapids skating in the mid-90s, was the mecca staffed by messiahs. It was there we learned that wax made curbs slide and two weeks later we were selling own brand of wax. Once we figured that out, we skated around town and hovered around the shop as much as we could.
For a period of about six months, we were “sponsored” in that we could buy skating gear at cost. We thought the hook-up was fattier than the K2s we bought with the discount.
And you and I both know there’s no better feeling that when your drug dealer starts hooking you up.
Every skate shop is essentially—or at least should be, if there’s any good left in this world—every blader’s first drug dealer.
Oh, they have the good stuff: skates with grind plates, your first pair of antirocker wheels, overly baggy pants with a stripe down the side, and shirts with knives on them.
They have everything you want before you know you want it because all the cool kids are doing it. They’ve got guys with blonde devil horns French-kissing blue rails as kinky as the rails themselves.
You want the cool stuff like the guys on ESPN, MTV, and VG? Oh, they’ll get it for you, but you gotta pay. Since you’re young, dumb, and hooked on that sweet, sweet candy, you’ll probably get some job like pushing carts and cleaning bathrooms at Wal-Mart to pay for it along with the latest 311 and Biohazard CDs from the mall.
Like a lab rat hitting the feeder bar to get a food pellet, you’ll cash your hard earned money and run screaming until you’re given gear that only deals in pleasure and pain, with little in the middle.
They’ll sell you the comb for your back pocket and the lanyard for your keys. They won’t stop until your life is a series of stories that only other junkies can share.
They know all this because they see you feening for more. They know you always want one more. One more try. One more freebie. One more sesh.
They also know about the last time you went too far and got lost in the typical delusions of grandeur, a common side effect of their tarry black death.
The kind you want so badly that you don’t understand how people can enjoy anything outside of it.
And they know you want it all so badly. You like the way the first taste made you feel. It made everything else go away long enough you could breathe and feel alive. Sure, it’ll leave you with sores, scabs, scars, bad joints, and other signs of premature aging, but you can’t stop. None of us can.
We know the risks and continue using because we were hooked young and experienced freedom of the mind in the process.
It’ll get so intense you’ll see it everywhere.
Where normal people see normal people enjoying a lovely park plaza, you and your dirty junkie mind will only see lines, rails, caps, and gaps.
Even at church you’ll be thinking about porn stars. In your one tract mind, Senate will only be the legal authority you’ll ever recognize. Before you know it, you’ll cowboy up and grind rough while dropping acids on the sidewalk during a sunny day or cloudy night.
Hell, the obsession and addiction might even land you in jail or at least with a ticket in hand to the point it’ll torque the soul off your training wheels. But don’t worry, your case always ends in a mistrial.
It’ll be so bad you’re drug slang is the only reason anyone says “Fahrvergnügen” anymore, but the younger generation of junkies will call it simply “farv.”
But grab yourself a Royale with Cheese and a Rocket Pop, suck down a pint of stale Japan, smoke some Kind, and Liu Khang kick backslide on down to good ol’ Mizzou while Toe rolls on mute.
Admit it. You’re a junkie, baby.
If you don’t think you’re hooked, realize that, like a junkie, the second one dealer rips you off, you go right into the arms of another, hoping this time it’ll be different.
So here’s to you, skate shops. Thanks for peddling that smack. Sure, the quality of the product waxes and wanes, but we’d rather taste the sour than under-appreciate the sweet.
Here’s to the shops that run a good business and think of the customers and share with us—instead of shaming us—a collection of junkie track line-like markings on our skin, deteriorating health, and empty wallets.
Here’s to the men and women that take those cute little kids with their hopes and dreams and turn them into withering bags of garbage laid out on the curb on a humid New Orleans afternoon.
Even after the war on the drugs you peddle are declared victorious with a single banner claiming victory, the battles for the hearts and minds of the impressionable will wage on in the streets and neighborhoods believed to be immune from your addictive presence.
Thanks, Bring’s, which stands as a flag-waving beacon of hope in my hometown. Me and my fellow junkies salute you.
By the way, they still have unsold—as in never sold from when they were originally purchased from the manufacturer—Senate Nuts & Bolts, Arlo Senate Pros (the ones with the cat pooping) in original mock VHS tape packaging, and some 976 shorts in the color of homeless junkie poop on the sidewalk in my neighborhood.
They are the last unmolested artifacts of a childhood gone and may they forever rest on the hangers and in the glass cases of Bring’s for eternity.
Or at least until they go on sale. I stopped holding my breath after 15 years.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — Wrote books… chasing the dream… order… click in this general vicinity….don’t do drugs… if you can’t handle them.
May 7, 2013
Blader Digest: Whining From an Aging Middle Class Rollerblader
Getting older really kind of sucks. Outside of the fact you slowly learn the limitations of your once Wolverine-like healing abilities, it’s about realizing the preciousness of time.
Shit runs out every second you’re alive. The friends and family that have died before us are shining examples of that. They’ve left behind their legacy and we’re still here trying to make our own. It may be one with an ultimate goal somewhere or it may be doing everything as much as you can.
No matter where you are now, at some point, you may need some kind of day job. It’ll suck to answer to another person’s whim, but hopefully it keeps the roof over your head and some decent food in your stomach.
Since I shared a paper route with my brother when I was 11, I’ve always had some form of employment, most often more than one. From having three jobs in college to enduring 14-hour long working and volunteering Fridays in my late 20s, I’m familiar with the idea of working for a living.
I come from a strong stock of hard core blue collar mother fuckers, so I’m not afraid of a little work. I think it builds character. How you’re doing that work and under what terms, defines your character.
If you’re one of those people who will do anything for money, keep going and have fun. If you’re not, if you possess a bit of personal conviction that money can’t buy from you, then I applaud you, sirs and ma’ams. Gold bless you and carry on proudly.
I’ve worked about two dozen different jobs in the best 20 years of my life and I’m glad a reasonably decent chunk of that money went to keep wheels on my feet for the last 16 years. From cleaning bathrooms at Wal-Mart to buy Senate wheels to making appetizers for Tim Gunn and Stifler’s Mom to buy Street Artist wheels direct from AJ at Bitter Cold, I’ve been continually investing in the people who make up this sport and I will happily do it until youngin’s like Dylan Davis and the rest of the Haitian kids have to retire from old age.
Blading gives me a break from it. It keeps me surrounded with great people from all over the world who are dieheartedly supportive, unrelenting, and know how to chug some beers and fuck things up properly.
Because after 60-hour working weeks you gotta let the beast out somehow and society really frowns on unjustified homicide. Blading is a much better alternative. Let the pain from healing weekend injuries serve as a reminder under our work clothes of the one thing we’ve loved the longest.
Fuck it. Let blading be your Fight Club. Cut your hair short and trim your fingernails.
Always keep some wheels close to your feet. And, no, it doesn’t matter which of the umpteen new wheel brands you choose. It’ll never stop being about blading. It is, after all, the only reason you’re reading my bullshit.
There is nothing I love more than writing about rollerblading, but until there’s a day I can keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach by making a living on my own, I have to keep a day job.
My 9 to 5 is a cubicle job, but I’ve basically earned a bachelor’s in medicine and get to write some interesting stuff that can possible help people understand the basics of how the human body works and how we’re regularly fucking it up. It’s also made me a hypochondriac and I think I have rickets.
See, I really love this shit. It kills me that months go by without an update. Too often, I feel too disconnected with the rolllerblading world—outside keeping up with the latest edits and articles—but no matter what, I’m always thinking about the next sesh, whether it’s a quick one by myself on the skate home or getting one in on the weekend. All I can think about right now is the Wednesday night skate, which I’ve been foolishly neglecting.
No more! See you boys after work tomorrow and, of course, the JSF BBQ!
I’m working on that thing. I’m working on creating my all-or-nothing shot in hopes of someday being no one’s employee but my own. It means putting in a lot of unpaid hours, but that’s nothing anyone doing anything productive in blading isn’t familiar with. Hopefully it pays off enough to buy me a little more time.
For many people—the names you know—blading is that thing. And as we all know, blading isn’t some mega popular skate park clogger like the societal sponges like fresh-from-the-womb kids on scooters. (Remember from the kitchen: sponges are absorbent, so the more they’re flooded with positive behavior from rollerbladers—think mentor status people!—the more they’ll soak in.)
These aging realities of our median age is why it’s even more important to market ourselves like 1985 Marlboro and start hooking kids on the ideal that blading makes you look like you can light a match on your stubble.
Then again, rollerbladers are kind of like cowboys.We’re a dying breed.
Just like high school smokers, not all are going to fall for it.
Until we are all working for each other, let’s at least make sure we’re working with one another. Bladers have been hooking each other up with jobs before the ball bearing was invented.
Here in the Bay, we can find you something, depending on your skill set or willingness to take some shit. This town was built on the transient lifestyle, but the only time in my life I’ve been without a job for two months. Considering this economy, that’s still a fucking miracle.
Let’s face it—there’s no better job interview than skating with someone. You know how they handle their temper, how punctual they are, and what it’s like sharing common space with them. Other than that, most monkeys could be trained to do most of our jobs with enough chow. However, if you work in medical research, food handling, or any aspect of the education, military, or criminal justice system, it’s best we keep monkeys out of the mix. We let them into the government and they’re shitting all over us.
For the liberal arts majors like me, we know how replaceable we all are and that’s why we have restaurant or bar experience we can always fall back on.
If you have the power, hire a blader.
I’ve watch what’s happened to truly talented, creative, and happy people when they’re shoved into doing work against their will. You ever watch someone knowingly walk into their own rape? It’s sad to watch and I’m sick of seeing it happen over and over.
Maybe by the end of the year if I work and get my shit right, I can afford to hire on one part-time worker to help me with that big project. And you know it’s going to be a blader.
If bladers can stick together and come up together, we can make like Loc Dog and run some shit properly, on our own terms with two-hour lunches for skate seshes and the ability to write off skate shit on our taxes. You know what I’m saying.
Figured we could get us jobs at the post office, you know, maybe at a bank. You know what I’m saying.
Work real hard. Work our way up to managers. You know what I’m saying?
Learn the system a little bit. Then we’ll rob that motherfucker blind.
Break all y’allselves.
But no fucking suits!
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — To be a completely selfish prick, this is where I plug my books. I write about life and shit in those as well. There may or may not be more mentions of good reasons to have fun in life, but there’s more reasons why drugs and alcohol may be, as the great philospher Homer once said, the cause of and solution to, all of life’s problems.
A Constant Suicide: a book about going to college, getting drunk, and killing yourself.
Freeze Tag on the Highway: a book about summer camp, prescription drugs, and underground beta fish fighting.
Shred ‘Til You’re Dead II: a book about the importance of going on a road trip with no plans other than blading, camping, and getting drunk with your friends around a campfire. Oh yeah, and aliens.
Assault Rifles and Pedophiles: An American Love Story : coming soon.
April 30, 2013
Blader Digest: Then Like Pow-WOW! It’s Fucking Summer
Hells yeah, it’s summer up in this bitch!
It’s time for barbecues, brown bagging beers in the park after a sesh, the girls in their sundresses, and weeknight blading.
Well, except for a lot of people who saw snow in the last month. Y’all gotta wait a little longer. But that’s what you get for living in affordable places surrounded by nice people. Cold weather—especially the kind that’ll try and kill ya’—builds character. If there’s one thing living in California has taught me, sunshine attracts a whole bunch assholes.
But fuck them. For people with cabin fever or seasonal depression, it’s starting to feel like China Beach, but, you know, with less war…
This weekend is the Panhandle Powwow VII, the unofficial start to the summer contest season.
If you’re not a chump, you’ll be there. Me, I’m a fucking chump and should be publicly shamed and flogged for it. For those of you going, stop by the JSF booth and say hi to the family, whom will be representing hard by doing it properly and chilling at maximum levels. Talk to ESG for some of the best cessing and skitching advice and ask Kennan Scott about the White People Bucket. Yeah, out of context it sounds weird but the man has a point.
And he’s good on a mic…
Besides the Powwow, there are a ton of summer contests you can easily travel to, get together with the homies, and log some hours in the boots. From the Colorado Road Trip to the Iowa River Rumble and ending out the summer season with the Blading Cup in September, perfectly sandwiching together what’s going to be yet another dope summer blading season.
Keep a tent in your trunk. You’re gonna need it.
(If there’s a contest you want people to know about, drop that shit in the comments.)
Here in the Bay, we’ve been able to throw out the p-rails at Sunday Streets. Thought it was going to be the last one we did, but fools like B. Free and Gene Steagall shredding hard for the crowd. Gene, however, was at a slight disadvantage because they probably didn’t understand that full cab tru miz on a p-rail in front of a few hundred people isn’t always the easiest thing.
They did, however, appreciate his unities, which may be switch…
The cool side note was re-meeting Nate Herse. He recently moved to the Bay and came to sesh. Through some fuzzy memory searching, we looked familiar to each other because we both were in the same two-week work study at Lake Owen in the summer of 1999. We took right on where we had left off.
To me, that proves that blading friendships never end.
The next event out here is B. Free and crew’s contest June 15th, like it says right there…
The park is run by one dude whose out painting flower pots for the community center while making sure all the area kids have a place close to home to skate instead of getting caught up in dumb shit. The spot is fucking legit.
B. Free and the boys are going to be fixing up the park for the event, so it’s going to be even that more dope, thanks to donations and support from the sponsors.
Fuck yeah, doing stuff for a good cause!
Fuck yeah, sponsors!
Make that blade money!
If you haven’t figured it out yet, the best parts of your life are the ones you do for free or with a personal cost. If you can give without expectation of return, then you can experience happiness. And no, I’m not talking about the collection plate at church.
Don’t get me wrong: the money in our game is important as there’s still not enough going around to support those putting in the work, whether in front of the camera or behind the scenes.
Just like real democracy, you vote with your dollar. That includes who survives and who thrives and what they’re doing with your money.
That’s why the support behind the Create Originals project gave me all the tingly feelings my beard would allow.
I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical when I saw the total. As the number burst up quickly and topped off at over $37,000 I realized how big rollerblading is. We’re not big like seeing a blader you don’t know at your local skate park is a normal thing, but we’re still big. There are a lot of us all over the globe and when a company puts out a professional presentation, we put our money where our online comments are.
Look at that, 370 backers with $37,211 pledged. Now imagine what would have happened should those 5,607 people who gave it a Facebook Like would have chipped in the same $100 each.
Even UNICEF is getting tired of that shit…
Because, in this country, money buys freedom. The current structure we have is that we spend our entire lives fulfilling a function in a society where those with the most money are untouchable and a ruling class of smart, cutthroat motherfuckers have us locked in so hard they’ll shoot you in the head with a gas canister should you say anything against it.
Speaking of that, be careful where you plant that tent this summer. The punishment for illegal camping in this country is pretty severe.
So, when you’re voting with that buck, don’t forget to support your local skate shops. They’re the ones arranging sessions, sponsoring comps, keeping gear on your feet, and keeping a face on blading. So buy some shit from them.
If they’re not doing all that, boycott them until they do or find somebody better.
See you fuckers around this summer.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — If you could be so nice and support my other bad habit, you can buy the three books I’ve written from The Mick at Intuition or Justin “Terminator” Hertel at Aggressive Mall.
March 20, 2013
A Sign of the Times: ‘Fear’ Language in Books Is on the Rise
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper,” poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou wrote in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. “It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
Since the 1970s, fear language appears more often in literary works than language pertaining to any other emotion, and books written in the second half of the 20th century contain less emotional language overall than those written in the first half, according to a new study.
Read the rest I wrote for Healthline here: A Sign of the Times: ‘Fear’ Language in Books Is on the RiseBrian Krans
March 11, 2013
Kevin Yee Intro by Wolfman Found in Shred Forest
If you don’t know Kevin Yee, you should take the time to do so. When I got back into skating after a college-themed hiatus, I rented every skate video on Netflix. There was Kevin Yee in VG23, skating trees, his shins, and negative makios down big ledges. My mouth stood agape as it appeared rollerblading was really all over the map.
When I moved to San Francisco four years ago, I was fortunate to spend time with the tall kid from Minnesota who sees an insane city’s terrain in ways no one else does. We’ve had some really deep, dark, and light conversations in that time. He’s knocked me out at the skate park. The guy rips in every sense of ripping.
On Jan. 7, 2013 Kevin stopped by my apartment in the Mission district of San Francisco. He only lives a few blocks away. He sat down on my computer and wrote the following column for Blade or Die. Other things we wrote that night appeared in the latest issue of the Radvocate.
Here, without further ado, are words from a man juiced on life, inspired by all of us, and ready to shred…
Kevin Yee Intro by Wolfman Found in Shred Forest
My name is Kevin Yee. I had a section in VG 23 and the man standing to my left, hammering away at a typewriter and sharing a spliff with me, says that I opened his mind with that section.
Well fuck it, I’ll just say that you can kill me now and I’ll die a happy death knowing that I contributed to another human being’s love for rollerblading. You see, I love this activity. I quit soccer 15 years ago to rollerblade and I never looked back until last Thursday at around 8:15 pm.
I went home to visit my family for Christmas and New Years.
Ever since I started blading I have felt distant from my family. My sister had a baby named Elanor Nori Johnson. This baby has given me the gift of grace. I never thought I would be able to feel comfortable around my family again.
Blading was the only thing I held onto when I left Minnesota. But Nori has given me the opportunity to become a new person. My family has always been a heavy weight, Nori is as light as a feather. Thus it is with all family, our parents perspective on us predates ours.
The process of western individuation demands the human being to define themselves against a perspective with an unfair advantage. Yet the individuation process succeeds insofar as the human being has the discipline to dream of being from another family, a family of superheroes.
The rollerblading community is my family of superheroes. But now I see that in order for me to know this little girl, Nori, the seaweed baby, I have to accept that the mediocrity I see in my family is a projection of the mediocrity I see in myself.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
What a relief it is to be a little normal, which makes me more weird than crazy. A much more fulfilling life, oh to be weird!
Art by John "The Baptist" Hall
8:15 p.m.
Sooo at 8:15 pm I got in a van to go to my first soccer game in 15 years. After 20 minutes my co-worker Arup engineer needed a sub and I was put in at center forward.
I always wanted to be a star forward. But once I was on the field I felt lost in an intense warp and so I tried midfield.
I always wanted to be a midfielder cause my friend Caley Lawson in middle school got all the girls and wore girly-looking Birkenstocks and threw me into the goal at a soccer practice when I was fighting him / getting attacked by him.
But once I got in the midfield I felt anxious. I realized that the midfielder has to be a social extrovert and keeping everyone in mind was for an introvert, like myself, a super awkward undesirable position. By then my lungs were 2 miles away so I subbed out.
So I thought, while raiding my coworkers water jug, “At least I’m getting a workout I thought, and also WTF I used to be an Olympic development soccer player—I really fell off! Damn cigs!”
After the Arup Ninja soccer team started the second half I got subbed back in as a defender. Damn, just my luck I always had to be the defender! But then I started to realize that at least this way nobody bothered me and I could be lazy.
It was a beautiful night in the mystical broccoli forest and just beyond the glowing green turf soccer field was a mushroom patch of psychedelic concrete transitions. Seeing that reminded me of the time when I was transfixed by some skateboarders ollieing over a trash can in a tennis court while I was at a a soccer practice.
But then I snapped back into the present moment and defended an attacker.
After clearing the ball, one of my team mates said good job and I thought, “this is fun!” Then I realized that I had always been a defender and will always be a defender because it is a position most suited to a spacey, aggressive, focused introvert.
I remember one thing I said to Pat Lennen that he liked. I told him that I had always been a defender in rollerblading but now I want to be a striker. Well, he liked that because he believed that I was better than I knew and told me so.
Shit, I’d like to be a striker at Soccer too. But it ain’t goona happen cause I too stoked on being a striker in blader. Fuck traditional sports anyways. But maybe I could have been a millionaire skateboarder…
NAH, I live with two skateboarders and they agree with me that MAINSTREAM IS ICE.
Still of an upcoming Yee edit for Xsjado filmed by Matt Rice of San Francisco.
Xsjado and Other News
In other news, the Xsjado 2.0 is the hottest european ninja blade on the market. The toe straps are a bit long if you have a ninja sized foot, however, a sharp scissor can easily remedy.
The first trick I did on the blades was a California Roll down the capped china ledges in San Francisco, er that was the third. Anyways, the 2 piece cuff system reduces the strain on the velcro top straps while simultaneously allowing for perhaps the greatest negative and positive ankle extension and reduction along the lateral plane of the body (sorry did that make sense?).
Furthermore, the plastic added onto the instep and ankle strap creates the support that the previous Xsjado desperately needed. I have high hopes that this will also create a blade that retains its support for a longer period of intense savage creative ripping.
Finally, the one piece soul system eliminates the intrinsic rakettyness of moving parts. To be honest, I never replaced the soul or the royale plate individually so this just makes sense.
Finally, the entire blade is something like several centimeters slimmed down, and is ipso facto more ninja my ninjas.
In conclusion, the Xsjado 2.0 is absolutely superior to the Xsjado 1.0 and I will never be interested in blading on the 1.0 again. However, I am told that Powerblading frames do very nicely with the thicker padding of 1.0. That said, the 1.0 parts are all interchangeable with the 2.0 parts. Thus, the 2.0 is the release of a variation of possible blades.
The theme of Xsjado has always been difference from the herd but not a fucking hippie. The hipster artist athlete! And that means a blade that subscribes to relativism, as opposed to the absolutism of a traditional mold.
Therefore, I thank you to Jeff, Chris, JC, and those dudes in Germany for making blading more exciting for me that it has been since the first time I tried the 1.0.
Love happiness and a bit of Phish in private:)
Brian Krans 7 pulls Interview:
Books
X-Men comic books
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Heroes Journey by Joseph Campbell
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
Every Haruki Murakami book ever written.
The book Brian Krans is writing to my left on that loud fuckin’ typewriter.
Musicians
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Siouxsee and the Banshees
Gillian Welch
Adam Robert
Brian Eno
King Creoste and John Hopkins
Jean Marie
Addictions
Quitting smoking
pot-atoes
Girlfriends
drawing
rollerblading
mint green
myself
Cities you Blade
San Francisco
Oakland
San Diego
LA
Minneapolis
New York City
Sarasota
Places you want to Blade
Barcelona
Tokyo
Melbourne
Beijing
Mexico City
Vancouver
Current favorite INTERNATIONAL Bladers
Dustin Werbz
Richie Eisler
CJ Wellsmore
Rian Arnold
Gav Drummmrollll
Jochen Smuda
Chiaki Ito
Stay Fakey collective Members
John Voss
Tyler Noland
Tomas McGovern
Czar
Danny Malm
B Krans
Gene Steegal who proved that anyone who is willing to come to my stoop and go into the hood with an open mind could get a section in my video, especially if you are down to 180 off of a 10 foot high victorian house stoop across from Philz Coffee.
Mission District 4 Life
Kevin would like to thank all of his illustrious sponsors including Xsjado, Ground Control, Circolo, Rise Above, Stay Fakey. He also extends thanks to Matt Rice at Dealwithitsf.com for filming for and editing 3 or was it 4 Yee sections this year.
Happy New Years from Blade or Die, and look out for Brian Krans’ section in the upcoming blade flick by the Stay Fakey Collective!!!!
— Kevin Yee
March 6, 2013
Blader Digest: Creating an Original
Never confuse popularity and talent. They are rarely synonymous, especially when it comes to public perception.
Take for example the top three videos of all time on YouTube: Gungam Style, Justin Bieber, and Jennifer Lopez.
Rollerblading may not be popular, but damn does it have talent. Whether technical or burly, the sport has produced a level of skill and finesse that rivals anything under public consumption.
If high school teaches us anything, it’s that popularity is almost tied to money. It creates opportunities you don’t rarely see. Hell, growing up well off is a scientifically-backed predictor for future entrepreneurial success. Then again, guts, confidence, and a willingness to challenge the norm is equally important too.
While we show a certain level of ballsy confidence on our skates, blading is overdue for some serious risk-taking to benefit the future.
Our current climate is a prime petri dish for taking a risk.
A Statement on the Industry
Now that we exist inside a Bitter Cold-less industry, it’s time to start having some serious conversations about what’s going on in the industry.
Sure, it’s happening on message boards and behind closed doors, but the loss of the only U.S. competition with a trade show—and a final one filled with more holes than police testimony—means there’s some work to be done in the industry, if you can call what we have an industry.
And the work is being done, but there’s no denying the sport needs some new blood. We’re so busy promoting inside our own industry, essentially scrapping for the same $5, that we’re failing to secure a financial future within realistic view.
But it’s never as doom-and-gloom as it feels if we focus on what’s going on in the sport—the progression of tricks, style, and talent—instead of comparing ourselves to the industries we share skate park space with.
Brian Lewis, of Create Originals, from his Facebook page. (Fuck you, I'll take what I want. I don't give a fuck.)
Brian Lewis, co-owner of Create Originals, made one very important fact clear when we talked on the phone Monday night: go to any big sporting goods store and you can find a pair of aggressive skates. Sure, they’re probably made by Airwalk—maybe a K2 Fatty if you’re lucky—but amid some 20 different kind of recreational skates, there’s still an aggressive skate.
That’s a sign of customer demand. Without it, they wouldn’t have any shelf space, whether in a warehouse or a store front.
From dickssportinggoods.com. Yeah, you won't find any pro riding these skates, but fuck it, you can still fishbrain in them, so they count.
Products and service drive industry. It’s plain and simple. Since rollerblading’s services come by display of talent, we’re entirely dependent on money coming in from products going out to paying customers.
Even the trolls of the internet can’t help but discuss every single detail of every new skate company. Then again, after years of bad, expensive gear that’s come and gone, you can’t blame people for being pessimistic and protective of their compliments and money.
Lewis, the rest of Create Originals, and everyone else in rollerblading has felt this pessimism more than once.
“No matter what you do, you’re wrong,” Lewis said of the general tone of the dominant online discussion surrounding rollerblading. “People always have a tendency to say they know what’s best for others.”
Lewis said, more or less, is that he doesn’t give a shit if…
you call him a fag.
he doesn’t make a million dollars in his lifetime.
anyone likes blading.
he can’t make a living in blading.
“If you can’t rise above that, you’re not going to be anywhere,” he said. “That’s what blading is—having the balls to do what you love to do.”
Brian Lewis and Hakeem Jimoh, co-founders of Create Originals, at the first NYC Invitational
That’s why he and co-owner Hakeem Jimoh have spent years working at a moving company, saving up money to make the original CO frame mold. The idea behind getting the patents for their work, Lewis said, is to sell the technology to other applications, such as roller hockey or recreational uses. It’ll fund the aggressive end of things on their own.
That’s been a model for companies that aren’t go to fold in the near future, but manage to get their bladers all over: Valo, Razors, Rollerblade, etc. Even Powerslide is doing it with Powerblading and Doop skates. Seba is the latest boot manufacturer into that market by snagging CJ Wellsmore as their aggressive spokesman while the funding comes from a diverse, inline-focused background.
Basically, right now, blading is in it’s Wild West days—a time of chaos, lawlessness, and huge potential.
“That’s my favorite thing about our industry: we get to build it,” Lewis said.
CO’S CRS: A Kickstart in the Ass
I’ll admit one thing: when I saw the $30,000 price tag for the Create Original Custom Ride System Inline Skate Frame project, I thought they was smoking some shit that’s illegal, even in Colorado. But that’s the cost of doing business in the injection molding business, even if it’s not all of it.
With limited dollars and a heavily-pessimistic online culture, rollerblading as we know it doesn’t sound like too solid of an investment on paper. Then again, if you’re in it at this point, you know there’s not much value on paper since we can’t even support magazines so they can print more than four times a year.
But Lewis doesn’t give a shit about any of that either.
“You invest in things because you believe there, someday, may be a payoff,” Lewis said. “You can’t invest with some kind of risk.”
And it appears a ton of rollerbladers are currently into investing in Create Originals’ latest risk.
The project took off. As of the writing of this article, there were…
And Create Originals is one of those companies worth supporting. Entirely blader run, they’ve not only changed what frames can do with their line of graphics frame, but they’ve amassed an impressive pro team that demands a video in the near future.
The project was immediately compared to Fiziks and with good reason: it’s a suspension frame. This, however, has no arms, fewer parts, and gives skaters a better chance to perfect their setup.
Broskow called them a “game-changer.” While Broskow has a personal interest in the project, that’s a statement the CO family is ready to stand behind their product.
Personally, I’m excited as hell about it. The steel spacers meet a faster, more solid ride. The urethane spacers will be easier on my old joints, make crappy pavement a non-issue, and create a ride as original as the name on the side.
There’s no need to go into all the specs of the products. Brian, Hakeem, and Billy O’Neill did an overly-professional job of doing it on the Kickstarter page. If you’re dead to blading and haven’t seen it already, go there now and check it out. All you have to do is click here.
I’m excited to hear everyone’s reactions when the frames come out in October or earlier. So is Create Originals. Brian and Hakeem will be your personal customer support team when the frames launch, so hit them up and give your feedback. It dictates the future of the company and they welcome comments. It’s not like they plan on going anywhere soon.
“We are the guys that will ensure things go on,” Lewis said. “We’d do what we have to do to make sure that happens.”
That mentality sounds like one worth supporting.
The Last Few Words
You don’t have to be as ga-ga over the frames like I am, but at least respect the idea of making an investment into the future of blading. As many times as I’ve heard people use the phrase “this isn’t what our sport needs right now,” I’m confident this kind investment strategy is exactly what our sport needs right now.
If CO’s Kickstarter project can work, it shows that bladers have found a way to invest in their sport without waiting for some outside corporate sponsor to fund—and ultimately dicatate—its future.
Take a stand. Make an investment.
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — If you want to make an investment in your upcoming summer reading list, I appreciate any support of my book publishing company, Rock Town Press. It’s what I love to do as much as rollerblade.
February 26, 2013
Blader Digest: It’s Never Been Colder in the D
My Dearest Bitter Cold…
I’ve hoped I’ve never had to write this. I imagined us growing older together. You have, after all, seen me from youthful optimism to the harsh reality of the gray hairs in my beard. I was hoping to one day usher in a son through your doors and explain, “Yes, my young lad, this is where it all happened.”
I know I’m not the only man you’ve ever courted, but like all men and women that have coursed through your path, you changed me. I’m not sure whether my doctor would agree, but you’ve changed me for the better.
I must say I was surprised by your note. It was abrupt, but not without cause.
My first reaction was to be mad that you could leave me like that. Then again, I understand. Things just haven’t been right lately. I know things haven’t been the same, but I always held onto the idea that things would always get better. You were right in knowing I was wrong.
Before I go any further, I want to let you know how heartbroken I am. I know we’ve only been apart for mere hours, but I already miss you.
The minute I washed the cigarette-clogged stench of Bar-Bar from my hair and clothes, I missed your smell. The minute my voice returned, I wanted to lose it all again with you. I slept only in airplane seats and loveseats to be with you, but I’d do it again just to have a wristband scratching at my skin. My liver quivers for your embrace.
Right now, I’m wearing my Valo sweatshirt and think of you. You may not remember, but the day B. Smith gave it to me, I was with you and before the end of the night, I was choke-slammed by the police at the Econo Lodge. It was an interesting day, to say the least.
That was one of the many memories I have with you.
The first time we met, I rented a 15-passenger van from Davenport, Iowa, and made a break with my best friends in the world straight towards you. You were living in Ohio then, but when we arrived, it was love at first sight and it was only 2008.
Damn, Bitter Cold, were you beautiful. I’d never seen anything like you. You were filled with the names on our skates. The people that had seemed untouchable from such a far off place as Iowa were there, in the flesh, and friendly as hell.
That was the year it made all the sense anything could.
I had released my first book and that’s when I met Justin Eisinger, the head of the best rollerblading mag I’ve seen since what Daily Bread meant to me in high school. He said a review of that book was going to be in the next issue. That, to me, was as good as a pro skate. I gave him a CD (that’s how long we go back) I brought with me: Chuck Palahniuk’s best readings.
That same year, I also made a huge breakthrough in terms of gromming: although I didn’t need new skates, I made sure to buy a pair of JJ Velcros off of my childhood hero, Jon Julio:
Two years later, that same guy would be bailing me out of jail along with the same guy pictured in the sign as one of my friends held the following year.
Photo by BJ Bales for www.iowa-connection.com
Isn’t it funny how life seems to work itself out when you’re around?
But that’s what made us great. We worked so well together, and so many other people did too.
We watched Broskow become a champion twice. We saw the controversy of the Haffey-Bolino year. Hell, if there wasn’t a year we didn’t see controversy, then you weren’t being yourself.
We saw the last year as CJ Wellsmore snagged yet another U.S. title—three, if you count the Aggressive Mall bowl comp as a separate event—in less than six months.
We’ve learned so much in that time.
We’ve learned the people in the stands have always been just as important as those on the ramps. The competition would never have amounted to anything without the excitement from hoarse voices screaming bloody hell and havoc all over the walls.
We’ve learned no one hypes up a crowd like Montre and when we deliver for him, he delivers for us…
We’ve learned so much together that it’s hard to ever see us apart.
I know it’s hard to go through all these memories, but please bear with me, there’s a point to all this. Whether it be catharsis or anything else, please remember our time together because it’s meant so much to me.
I’m going to miss you more than anything else in this world. You’ve always been the one thing I could ever know to be home because when I was with you, all was right in the world.
From the first minute to the last, at our bests and at our worsts, we never failed to show ourselves a great time. Together, we were afraid of the consequences to our actions, the extent of our bravery, and the excess of our excesses.
No matter the hours I had to slave away behind a desk or in a cubicle, you were the one thing I could always look forward to seeing again. Memories of us together were enough to make the pain of being apart worth every agonizing moment until we could be together again.
Each minute we had together was more perfect that anyone could have scripted. From the moment you opened your doors to me to the last when I said goodbye from a tarmac, I knew that those days together would be more perfect that either of us could have imagined.
You were rated a five stars with the World Rolling Series but you were worth all the 9 sextillion stars in our observable universe. If you would have ever asked why, I would have spent my dying days continuing to list those reasons.
You were about friends. You were about visiting old ones and making new ones. You were one of a kind. You were the kind you don’t forget. You were memories you couldn’t recall and ones you could never create. You were about creating new friendships instantly because when we were all together, nothing else mattered. You were about escorting a friend to you for the first time to three days later he could go to prison a happy man. You were about giving us arrest records if we acted out and boundless brotherhoods formed inside those jail cells. You slid your way into every membrane merely and affected our genetic makeup.
I know this is a breakup, but I want to stay in the dream and never wake up.
I may get reminders from my bank that my checking account went below its balance, but I don’t regret a single penny spent on you. I’d gladly endure the cold of one more night with you to know the warmth you’ve brought my heart could never grow cold.
Just like T Baby said, “It’s so cold in the D…”
And in the words of the great Beavis, “I’m lost.”
But you know, as well as I do, the last time, like all the rest, was the best.
It was 12.5 hours of red-eye flights to hustle to a trade show for a booth that fell through—because that’s what we do—to spend the day bouncing around talking to friends and seeing what’s the latest with everyone while slinging books. Then it was a new bowl comp that was like watching everyone you wish would join the Shred ‘Til You’re Dead tour.
It was watching Mike Froemling (Fromley, if you watch TV) kicking ass in the ams and never quitting with the pros. It was watching a 35-year-old professional blader compete. It was watching CJ Wellsmore come to this continent for a second time in six months and collect yet more trophies he can’t take on planes and enough cash to buy a house in Detroit.
It was knowing that no matter who would leave with a sledgehammer in his fist (and in years past that could have been a girl, too), it was going to be one hell of a ride.
No matter what happened at you, My Dearest Bitter Cold, there was always Bar-Bar to look forward to after.
You truly let me be a child as long as I could. Now that I live in a world of impossible corporate structure and idealistic political correctness, there are few opportunities to yell my voice off a map and rampage with the best people on the planet. You let me scum out.
You let me say FUCK IT ALL!!! for a few days a year. You let me drink enough whiskey to question my longevity, forsake responsibility to the point of homelessness, and never made it more apparent what’s important in real life.
You’ll always be the best and worst thing to ever happen to me.
And for that, I can’t thank you enough, but at this point in my life, it’s better you’re gone.
While you’re gone, I’m glad we spent the time to build for the next generation. Wake’s a fine example of that. I’m glade we’ve made the sacrifices we’ve made. Give me the chance and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d never be so lucky to do it the same way twice.
It’s the last time I’ll shave off my Bitter Cold beard, but as those unwanted chin hairs fall into the sink, I look at each as the best memory I could hold.
Without you in my life, I know things will feel a bit different for now, but know I will leave this stronger.
Should you be given a proper burial, this is all that would be left to print in the obituary section…
BITTER COLD SHOWDOWN
The Bitter Cold Showdown died Feb. 24, 2013, in Royal Oak, Mich. It was 13 years old. Bitter Cold—known more affectionately as BCSD—was born in 2001, the son of Daniel Kinney. True to its name and spirit, BSCD was a competition of Boot-Fruitish fury and mettle forged in the depths of hellish cold in the desolate metropolitan Detroit area. it served as a home to many wandering souls, countless memories, and endless arrest records. Survivors include Winterclash, Blading Cup, Panhandle Powwow, and others. It was preceded in death by Barn Burner and others. Services will be held in the hearts of grown men and women across the globe for decades. In lieu of flowers, remembrances should be served by ordering from businesses that have supported BCSD over the years, including, but not limited to, six one six, aggressive mall, roller warehouse, scribe/con artist, vibralux/street artist, Valo/Themgoods, the conference, and other people that don’t suck.
Don’t think you left me completely devastated though, Bitter Cold. You’re not the only competition I’ve been seeing.
You should know I’ve been looking under the ramps of the Blading Cup.
And My Dearest, it’s warmer under there.
Blade and let Die,
— Brian Krans
P.S. — Thanks to everyone whose made these Bitter Colds so great for me. I’d try to list you all, but it’d be the honor roll of blading and that’s too many people to mention.
Thanks to my family connected back in Iowa and those Juice Sucka Foos keeping me in trouble here in California. Without you, I’d be more lost than I am now.
A magnificent thank you to the Bambricks for being excellent hosts. Sorry my foot stank made everyone think someone threw up in the house.
Of course, thank you Daniel. I’m sure we’ll see even more from you soon.
