Brian Krans's Blog, page 19

Blader Digest: For the Buds

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but I knew I would fuck it up until the time was right. Hopefully, this is the time and I give the subject at hand its due justice.

Buds. Homies. The Crew. The blader family.

Friends.

You fuckers.

You guys are the reason I still rollerblade and I can’t thank you enough.

Recently, I had a great reminder of the friends I not only have here now, but the millions of you across the world. That makes me want to shed a fucking tear.

Sunday, we were enjoying ourselves a session at the Novato skate park. If you haven’t seen or heard, it is an amazing place. There are gorgeous flowing lines, the perfect p-rail to perfect quarter run, long ledges, huge gaps, and an endless supply of creativity. Every time we go, one of the homies goes off. Real burning-off-steam or just-straight-flowing type of thing. And there are palm trees and shit.

Novato also has some of the harshest pavement in Northern California. While it’s great when you’re carving bowls, it’s also carve the ass off your jeans if you give it any shit.

I was so excited for the sesh, I didn’t drink on the Saturday night before. (This may not seem like much to your average, decent person that contributes to society, but for me it’s a big deal.)

We’d been skating for hours when another group showed up. They renewed the energy. It was awesome. Well, from what I remember of it. Shit is still a bit foggy.

The last thing I remember is seeing Kevin Yee not seeing me as we were headed in the same direction in a double-blind tunnel of quarter pipes and hips.

From my ability to reconstruct our collision using his method of travel compared with mine at a speed ratio of 8:9 and then using the abrasion and laceration patterns on my face, I was able to deduce within a margin of error of +/- 8.2 percent, Kevin’s head hit mine and I hit the ground like a fucking wet rag doll being thrown off a 83rd-story window.

I was told the best part of me being knocked unconscious was that I didn’t have to hear the noise we made as we both collided at full speed. I guess there was enough blood that Sean Keane’s shirt got a donation. There was a whole bunch of panic from all my friends at the skate park. It took me a minute to wake up, so it’s not like I was helping the situation.

While I was sort of aware of what was going on, my social media-whoring self made sure to take this picture on the way to the hospital.

If you look closely behind my eyes, I have no fucking clue where I am or what the fuck I’m doing. However, you can see my great homies Jose Fuentes and Chris Bjerre sitting behind me. If it weren’t for them, this site wouldn’t exist.

What you don’t see is Kennan Scott driving my fresh from Blackout Land dumb ass to the emergency room.

These are all important things.

I vaguely remember being too incoherent to tell Chris my address, but I was smart enough to text it to him, which only shows that the only thing my body can do on autopilot besides pump blood and breathe is use my iPhone.

Jesus Christ. Is that what I’ve become, a nonthinking texting douche bag? Pardon me while I finish the job Yee couldn’t and go kill myself.

Okay, not right now. I’ve got Sunday Streets this week. Maybe after. No, I want to see how this season of Breaking Bad is going to end. And there’s going to be another season. Okay, I’ll at least stick around until Breaking Bad is cancelled. After that, I’m out.

Kennan stayed with me to ensure I didn’t do anything too stupid. Once I started joking with the nurses about how funny looking I was to begin with, Kennan knew I was going to be okay. A CT scan confirmed I wasn’t about to be the next Terri Sciavo.

And that’s when my brain finally came back online. I was able to begin making memories again, so I had a clear grasp of what happened—I was knocked out and my friends made sure I got to an emergency room safely. Talk about a comforting warm blanket to wrap yourself in.

I, did, however make the rookie mistake of manning-up at a hospital. When asked how much it hurt, I told the good doctor “I’ve been through worse.”

I’m a fucking idiot.

Do you know what that means?

No painkillers!!!

Don’t fucking do that, man. Seriously, I’m old. I may only be 30, but I’ve had a degenerative joint disease for the last 10 years. My shit is fucked. I’m like that skit from Louis C.K. where he talks about how doing drugs at his age was like popping a few painkillers and then hanging out by yourself at a diner. While I’m not that bad off, I would kill your sister for a Vicodin and a beer right now.

Three days later, every time I blow my nose blood comes out, I can wiggle a molar, and my knee gives out at the thought of a stair. This shit sucks.

Kevin Yee fucks my shit up and then I have to pretend to be fucking Rambo while very much in the middle of a concussion?

If there is a Divine Creator, I would like to know what the fuck he was doing when he put me together. Seriously, I tell the truth at the dumbest times.

Words of eternal advice: you get fucked up, you pussy-down. You reach inside yourself and find your inner vagina, the one that makes you go “aww” when you see a kitten. You whip that thing out and slap it down on the exam table and bitch about every little single complaint you can think of. Fuck it, make up some repressed bullshit that’s coming back.

Do what you have to get the drugs. If all else, you know your friends will buy them off you for stupid amounts.

And before you go and do something stupid like say I’m advocating that you lie to doctors to get pills, that’s nonsense. I would never do that. Make your friends do that shit for you. This is America. No one does their own work.

What’s the point of all this self-loathing melodramatic bullshit, you ask? It’s a valid question because some of this isn’t making much sense to me either. (Remember, three days off taking a momentary dirt nap on brutal concrete.)

It’s a damn comforting fact that when I’m with my rollerblading, I should have not one damn thing to worry about.

Besides scooping parts of my face off concrete, I know my blading buddies have my back and there is nothing sicker than that.

I’m about to get my ass kicked? They’ll make sure it doesn’t.

I’ve got some bullshit? They’ll read it.

I ran out of beer? Someone’s got one for me.

These are very, very important to me at this point in my life. Actually, I dread the day when those things aren’t top priorities. (Note to self: get preemptive vasectomy.)

The point is that rollerbladers are the best people.

They’re just down to help out. They’re the ones helping the sport.

No matter where you go, there’s always that one point of contact for people from out of town who need a place to crash, looking to sesh, or just want to sit down with you for a beer at a bar with a good jukebox and a pretty bartender.

Those are the best rollerbladers, and if rollerbladers are the best people in the world, those with open door policies towards fellow bladers are the saints that walk among demons.

They’re the ones housing the touring skaters so they can travel farther with less money. That makes for better videos. Good skating videos make the world a better place.

(I mean how awesome is a movie with three—count ‘em three—taglines.)

They’re the bladers that allow us to vacation to cities we’ve never been to because we can only afford it if we stay with a friend.

Those are the houses that have more sleeping bags than they do actual beds.

They run blader houses, meccas to those who choose to wander and speak a language only few understand.

They are the ones donating their time and talent to something that may never yield a quality paycheck and they’re proud of it.

They are my heroes and idols and people I try to emulate as much as I can whenever I can because there aren’t many sports like us in many ways.

How many times have you seen people of other sports immediately begin talking shit on people—of their own goddamn sport—the second they show up to the skate spot or park? It’s fucking ridiculous.

How many of us here have seen rollerbladers anywhere—anywhere—that we didn’t know and didn’t instinctively feel this way on the inside: Fuck. I had a girlfriend who saw someone wearing a pair of skates “like yours but not like yours” and flagged him down to borrow his phone to call me. All she told him was “my boyfriend rollerblades.” His name is Seth Tate and I’m long overdue to skate with him.

That’s not only family shit, that’s random act of blader shit. Fuckers go to heaven for shit like that.

I’ve witnessed other people leave their friends when they get fucked up. I’ve seen friends stand and watch their friends get jumped and do nothing about it. I’ve seen people take some gnarly drunk falls and leave the person to fend on their own. I’ve seen college guys leave their passed out friend in a snow bank and never return.

We don’t do that. Bad drunks and assholes do that. Don’t get me wrong, we’re all assholes to one extent or another, but we’re not assholes like that.

One thing for certain is that we’re all fucking drunks.

We’re not addicts, like the usual analogy goes. We’re drunks. There’s a huge difference.

See, after a while anyone on most drugs will stop calling into work and not show up at all. Before you know it, they haven’t eaten so long they’re being cast as extras for the next movie about the Holocaust. At least that’s how all those after-school specials told me it goes.

Drunks, well, we’re a special breed. We can usually hide better inside society. We stand out a bit here and there, but no matter where we go, when we see a bar we think it might be time for a drink.

For us, that bar is a skate spot and the drinking part means skating the living fuck out of it until we’re satisfied.

We try to be romantic and whimsical when people ask about it, but we’re twitching on the inside to the point where our palms get a little sweaty thinking out it. We’ll be with girls or non-blading friends (which I only have because society tells me men over 30 should have friends from more than one social circle) and see a spot. Whether we choose to mention it or not to our company, we’re sure as hell daydreaming about it.

We’re all drunks, the kind that pictures sobriety from rollerblading as the quickest of slow deaths.

(And if you don’t think a picture of Bukowski fits here, you haven’t read enough of his work)

We can love so many other things in life, but if we weren’t for an addiction to one thing we wouldn’t need to keep coming back to it.

Basically, we’re all united because of one damn thing that means so much to all of us. It’s a freedom we cannot experience anywhere else in life and to live without us would make us slaves to something less tortuously beautiful.

And we all know this. And that’s why we all hang out. (And that’s why I drink.)

We’re a giant, self-adopted family. We all found each other at a young age when we had no idea what we wanted out of life until that moment we were hooked on rollerblading for good. Even if we have to be seen less frequently because of new-found pressures from school, work, girlfriends, wives, boyfriends, husband, kids, demanding dogs, and other shit that ties up all your time as an adult, nothing’s any different anytime we blade.

It’s really fucking sick.

Blading will never be more important than the people in it.

That guy right there is blader from Iowa, Dylan Huntbach. He was injured in a tubing accident last month to the point where they don’t know if he’ll ever walk again. As he is regarded as one of the best homies by those who know him best, word of his injury spread quickly.

And when a lot of pro skaters heard about the accident, what did they do? They fucking got his number and called him to wish him a speedy recovery. A lot of pros.

Who else has that?

No one.

Fucking no one.

It was amazing. His friends were excited to play him the messages. It cheered him up a lot during those crucial first days after the accident.

So here’s the sales pitch: a fund has been set up to help with Dylan’s medical expenses. This is America and our healthcare sucks. If you have anything to spare, donations can be mailed to the Dylan Huntbach fund to any of the locations listed by clicking here. If you don’t, no one is judging you. Shit is tough for everyone right now.

So, long story short is that I’m actually really glad I got knocked the fuck out this week. It made a lot of things apparently clear to me, namely that we are constantly surrounded by amazing people who wouldn’t flinch at the thought of helping out when shit’s fucked up. Just like the mother fucking Bat-Man.

And we’re all down to help each other out because we like running around with wheels attached to our feet. In all the things that could have been, imagine how lucky we are to be a part of that.

This is truly the best family anyone could be a part of and I will never be able to adequately thank all of you for being so fucking dope.

(Except for JSF. That shit’s better.)

And if any of you mother fuckers give SHOCK Posse member Kevin Yee any shit, look at how skinny he is and know that I’m 6-foot, 180 pounds of Viking legacy. He laid me out like a skank in a tanning bed.

Mother fucker is a god damn ninja and he will slice your bitch ass up anytime he mother fucking feels like it. He will purposely punch you in the pancreas so it will sever and you’ll have Type 1 diabetes for the rest of your life.

That’s right.

He’ll Diabetic Punch you.

Deal with fucking that.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S. — I’m always using this space to hock my books. For the next month, all proceeds from my book sales will go to Dylan’s fund. Order directly from me here. Fuck it, I’ll send you fake drugs, too.

Share on Facebook

Hutch: Progression

Just like it has always been, ever since the Big Bang…or Jesus…or the creation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster…or whatever it is you believe in, the world still turns, time moves forward and life as we know progress.

Progression in life is seen in many ways. Evolution is one of the best examples for all those who believe in it, but I really don’t want to start any arguments. However for those who don’t believe in evolution, this video should enlighten you:

Progression is also seen in technology advancements, social trends and yes, even blading.

Most of you, in fact, all of you should know your history about how blading used to be and would be able to compare it what blading is now. But progression is always forward. You can’t progress backwards so it’s safe to say everything that has happened to the blading industry has been a move forward. The latest big progression is the prolific use of carbon fiber and other materials, the new Xsjado skate, and release of the new Remz skate followed by a great edit by the Am team.

Since the start of the industry, blading has seen some amazing changes. Tricks were created and refined and we are now at the stage were you really can’t see anything that new. Except for whenever the Yasutoko Brothers touch a vert ramp and Dave Lang’s 1260, this is the first 1260 I have seen so I thought it was pretty cool!

If this is the truth then why do we still enjoy watching online edits and skate DVD’s?

It’s because more so than any other action sport, blading has progressed to be something further than just a sport. It’s a culture. There’s new terrain all the time and standing out as a blader these days seems to be about doing the same tricks that many have done before on harder obstacles.

The blading culture has become bigger than people can see. To those involved, it’s clearly the best thing the world has seen and those outside of the scene still don’t have a clue. However I personally think we are starting to get more attention. As Master Krans discussed in his latest article, he and his San Francisco homies are getting watched while they tear up a couple p-rails in front of many clueless civilians during Sunday Streets.

Street skating always attracts a couple of keen eyes of people who either used to skate or have respect for something that is clearly fucking awesome. And for the icing on the cake, in my local area I have noticed a lot of older men getting back into skating. Not too seriously, but they buy a pair of skates and come have a shred every once and a while. And if we have gotten to the stage where the older bladers have gotten the inspiration to get back into it then we aren’t doing too badly.

What I love the most about where blading is at now is that the blading culture has literally become a lifestyle based around not giving a fuck and having lots of fun.

For the last 6 months my weekends have consisted of convoying around Brisbane and the Gold Coast with some of the most down to Earth people I know just skating and generally having a great time. Most of the time we probably spend more time stuffing around and looking for skate spots more than actually skating and I couldn’t ask for anything more because I feel like thats what it really means by being apart of the blading scene.

Over this 6 months we have been helping our good friend Rob Kellet film clips for a full profile and the Roll the Edit Comp. Rob has skill for days!

I truly believe that this is what the crux of blading is at this point.

In the Brisbane area, we are 200+ bladers of all ages, backgrounds and skating abilities yet we all have so much fun! Going out on weekends and skating or just stuffing around, having spitball wars between cars in a car park and just generally living a fun life with some of the greatest guys you will ever meet! I feel that is where blading is at now, and its fucking awesome!

For those who don’t feel the same about progression in blading this is for you.

Progression can be seen in a positive or negative light depending on the opinion of the individual. Blading has changed in many ways. Contests used to consist of Street Jams, Vert Jams and downhill runs as seen in Airborne.

But a lot of that has been scrapped now and we have progressed more towards a street skating culture. Blading is now getting in the record books thanks to Chris Haffey. Old brands have died out, new brands have come through, and some have purely progressed (Nimh to SSM).

And blading has just become more about the people, all having fun tearing up park and street and living life to the fullest. This is clearly not a bad thing and for those who aren’t content with the blading scene then you need to get your doctor to look up your ass and see what you have shoved up there! Blading is siiiiiiiiiccckkk!

While we still live in a world where time can’t be altered to move faster, perseverance is key. Bruises, scars, broken bones, and broken hearts will all heal as long as you realize that you are here on this world living at the same pace as everyone else. You are in it for the long haul.

Whether you take this on board towards blading or not its still a good message to remember in life. No matter how bad things get or seem, time does what it has always done, it moves forward and your life will keep progressing…

Unless some weird ass Inception-cross-Matrix-crass-Doctor-Who shit goes down, but if it did, fuck blading! Imma be a Vigilante!!!

Blade or Die,
— Zac Hutchings

Share on Facebook

Food for Feet: Grilling Fish at the OG Sesh

This photo was taken by Ryan Northway, Steven Cortes in the backseat, and a loser that blinked.

This may have been one of the only moments in that car ride we smiled as we sat anxiously, in traffic for two accidents on the Five that blocked five lanes of a six-lane highway.  We patiently waited through bumper-to-bumper traffic, saw B. Smith pass us on his Hog, was cut-off by another carload of bladers, and—like at a family dinner—it forced the three of us that work too much to sit down together, shoot the shit, and catch up with our surrogate blader family.

Beginning on the left side are Aussies that came with: Blake Dennis (center) and then me and Keith Wilson.

Double glances were made as some of the OGs showed wear of age. White facial hair, some that had beards back in the day were clean cut with razored beards to deal with the corporate world and made it unrecognizable for people I could have spotted from the stands during an ASA competition.

Besides re-meeting old blading flames, we were introduced to new people of this world, daughters and sons, from blading father’s. Weird to think of the people that have shared the sweat and blood on the same concrete just a few years ago starting to settling down.

Watching the style on these individuals top-soul, royale, fishbrain, sweatstance, defined the generation they represented, the legacy they left, and how far blading has come along today.  Like riding a bike, they just had to shake off the rust, and everyone still  had it; B-Love backsides, JoeJoe’s royales, Julio’s mute to fishbrain, Roadhouse’s sweatstances, Louie Z’s backslide to truespin mizou.

Latimer had separated himself, in beach-shorts, and bladed kiddie pools that no one would imagine a trick on.  DL was the first brave blader that was too good and evolved an artistic style of blading, grinding obstacles no one would even consider, and only he was able to do.  His artistic eye has been a huge motivational force in what I believe the company he left, Xsjado, still delivers upon.

Walking back into the bladepark with Steve Zamora, we jumped in on his session. I had to play it cool and not let my ‘97 little kid jump out and ask for his autograph. I did what I did best, and like two musicians finding harmony while making music, I bladed with Dustin. I tried to jump different things, he made it to the end of a huge gap, I slid on my ass once or twice. Knock “share creative juices with the Xsjado founder himself” off of my blading bucket list.

After shredding and catching up with the old ones I got hungry.

Roadhouse came in with fresh caught fish as he is now a fisher on the side.  Rock fish, halibut, and some other white fish. Not working with much, I was able to be useful for once, and share my culinary skills with my blading friends, the people that were there before being a Chef.

Here are some grilling tips to make a well cooked fish:

Salt and pepper: Fish is delicious by itself, you may marinade it for an hour or two before, or rub it with a spice mix, but sometimes a properly salted fish cooked right can say so much more. I salted the fish like snow sprinkling, gently speckling the surface, and then coated it in olive oil for an even burn.
Find the hot spot on the grill: I cautiously placed my hand over the grill and depending on how far away I could put my hand to the grill without touching it, I was able to determine how fast I would cook, if I were a fish.  Knowing that fish is a quick grilling item, I placed the fish on a medium-high hot area. I knew that if I placed it on a really hot area I would have to rotate it and it would not allow the center to cook properly.
Rotate the fish: I placed the fish sideways and rotated it 90 degrees to create the hash marks. Besides making the fish look delicious, rotating the fish also allows more time to cook on a particular side.
Poke it: to test to see if the meat is properly cooked. A fish will flake when poked.  Anymore than that, and it will suck away all the juices making it hard, dry, and tough.
Lemon: Lastly, right before I served it, I adjusted the salt and pepper, and squeezed a few drops of lemon juice onto the fish to brighten up the grilled smokey flavors.

Happy summer and I look forward to visiting your blader BBQ.

Sincerely,
— CHEF MICHAEL OBEDOZA
Obedobe.com

(Michael Obedoza lives in Carson, Calif., and is a 2009 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He is sponsored by Xsjado. Check out his blog at obedobe.com.)

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: Bladevangelism

I don’t know if I still work here.

Someone cleared out my desk, or one of the other 15 employees that keep or Blade or Die running stole my shit when I was gone.

See, I’ve been out on a bit of a sabbatical.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been through both horrible and awesome shit. In that time, I’ve had plenty of time to examine what’s most important in my life right now. While those priorities may have shifted abruptly, I feel that, as always, shit’s going to work itself out in the end so you might as well relax, enjoy the ride, and get a few scars in the process.

That being said, let’s talk about rollerblading.

Shit’s awesome, right? It’s so damn fun going really fast, jumping off shit, and treating the concrete world around you not as a prison you cannot escape but a playground you never want to leave.

It’s about exercising that free will to knowing put your life and health on the line to feel the rush of the brain’s own mind-altering capabilities. Adrenaline is, after all, addicting.

“But what about the industry?” you ask?

Damien Wilson had his long article—but well worth the read—on Skatelife.tv about how Powerslide can fuck people over, how he swears by Fester Wheels, and all other sorts of interesting shit.

Adam Johnson tells his history of Vibralux, letting a lot of people know about the reality that is owning anything in rollerblading.

John Bolino got a pro skate, so that’s fucking rad because he’s earned the shit out of it.

“But shit man, the X-Games are on. I’ve joined the Facebook group to bring blading back to the X-Games, just like the one that said if an 8-year-old girl’s photo got enough likes a charity would buy her the breast implants that would save her life, so why hasn’t blading been saved?” you whimper?

Because, you fucktard, skating won’t prosper because of your meager efforts on Facebook. It won’t become popular if you re-post every edit you come across. There won’t be any money in the goddamn sport so pros can afford health insurance and companies can charge less for their products because they can turn a decent buck off of volume instead of counting on a dwindling number of cheap assholes who complain more than they purchase.

So, yeah, what’s been said that hasn’t been said a thousand times already?

The fuck if I know.

That’s why I haven’t been saying anything. I’ve been trying to put my fucking money and time where my mouth is by trying to do something for the sport besides coming on here and yammering on like yet another opinionated jackass with an internet connection.

We’ve been doing this really corny, but really fun event every first Sunday of the month here in lovely San Francisco, California on the West Coast of the good ol’ US of A. You know, the place where we aren’t afraid to punch you will a big freedom fist.

See, San Francisco is a weird fucking place. While everyone in America is dying of a heat wave, we’re bitching about fog. While people are losing their jobs all over the country, we’re hiring at near-record rates. While people are losing their homes to unforgivable mortgage payments, landlords here are raising rents by 50 percent just because they can.

If you visit San Francisco and go to anything we call a “festival,” you’re going to see some fucked up shit. We have a “Hunky Jesus” competition on Easter, a public S&M festival—as featured in the SHOCK Video—and everything between,  so long as it contains public consumption of alcohol, illicit drug use, and lax enforcement of any state, federal, or moral law.

You can buy your weed at a store here. There are cute lesbian couples here. Seriously, they exist outside of the porn videos made in a castle-like building just down the street from me, which also has some fun front stairs to skate on day where you need to break in a new pair of skates or blade at mach 9.

And, with all that going on, San Francisco wants people to be able to play in the street once in a while.

Photo courtesy of Nick Chapman, a local photographer who hung out for two hours in the May sun to take pictures of all of us blading. This is Tyler "Thor" Noland

So, to buy into the whole hippie, exercise-your-free-will thing, we’ve been setting up two lovely practice rails donated by Justin Hertel and the totally unsuspecting crew of Aggressive Mall. Armed with rails and stickers for the kids, we have ourselves a good old-fashioned p-rail sesh.

We just happen to do it in the middle of thousands of people who gather in clusters of 100 at a time to watch us do what we love to do most: push each other to do bigger and better tricks.

We have amateur photographers posted up for hours, sharing photos later on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, and whatever other social media will allow them to believe they are actually living their lives instead of constantly documenting it.

Click here to see Victor Arias and B. Free skating the rails last Sunday as part of #ValoMobile.

(And just to make sure you note how hypocritical I am, I’m on all that shit. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I fucking hate that I’m slowly becoming addicted to that bullshit, but, hey, it takes me forever to get to a point, so I have to spread your bullshit out if you want to grow a garden.

You? You reading this now? Fuck man, you’ve got some serious addiction to bullshit if you’re reading this.)

Anyway, the point is that a great organization, Sunday Streets, does this really hipster- and family-friendly event that I thought rollerblading needed to be at. People were doing yoga and rollerskating, so I figured rollerblading could be in there. Also, skateboarders there had a plastic kicker and a safety cone to jump over, so we had to do better than that.

The people at Sunday Streets aren’t officially down with what we do because of insurance reasons, but we’re invited back each month.

Say whatever this-doesn’t-make-blading-look-badass-enough all you want, but our Sunday Street p-rail seshes fulfills a major need that we weren’t seeing very of: rollerblading in front of the eyes of non-skaters. And they seem to dig it.

Jaren Grob skates with BMX dudes on America’s Got Talent and CoCo Sanchez is part of a multi-sport group for the same talent search show. Both groups keep advancing.

When we set up those rails and manage to get people to not walk right through our way with their heads up their asses, we’re able to skate in clusters of people a hundred deep at a time, I shit you not. Little kids are watching. They’re seeing what’s going down.

The self-satisfaction comes from that great feeling that every once in a while a skateboarder will come by and attempt a board slide on the lowest part of the two rails and his board, every time, slides out from underneath him. We’re cruising up these down rails and launching off and the skateboarders can’t handle a heavily-waxed round rail. To quote Mr. Food, “Ooh, it’s so good.”

And people ask tons of questions:

“What kinds of skates are those?”

“Where can I get a pair of those?”

“People still rollerblade?”

And my personal favorite…

“Are you guys part of a club or something?”

And the answer always is, “Nope. We just all like rollerblading.”

I suggest if your town does something similar to this, get involved in it. Get a few homies together and a do a cheesy-as-fuck blade demo like we do. You can look at is as doing charity work for your sport, or you can be like us and have a blast skating our p-rails for an assload of people who aren’t looking at the technical differences between rollerblading and other sports, but are generally entertained by athletic ability from people who also happen to be drinking and smoking while doing it.

But that’s kind of what we need a bit more of right now. Sure, you’re watching the X-Games and continually pouting over blading’s non-existence in it and you want more money in the sport, but sitting around for the money fairy to come and sprinkle her magic dust under the noses of corporate sponsors makes about as much sense as it would there’s an invisible man in the sky listening to you bitch and moan all of time you call him up.

Long story short:

Make Blading Seen

Many of you are working on that shit. Keep it up. The rest of you, get creative, but at least, do the bare minimum.

Carry your skates around with you. Even more now that I’m riding some crispy B. Smith Lights, people stop me and talk about the damn things. They talk about how they used to rollerblade when I’m holding them on the bus (Fuck you, I’m old and get tired, so I have to take the bus some days.). Sure, some people might crack some jokes, every once in a while, but if all those years of falling on concrete hasn’t thickened your skin a bit then you should really consider taking up something safer, like tennis.

And I know I’m not the only one feeling this.

Contact Your Local Media

If you’re planning a competition, contact your local media: television, radio, newspaper, or a blogger who actually generates his own content rather than solely stealing it from other sources, should one ever exist. In the insatiably  hunger for anything to put on the air that could create controversy, there are many angles the story could be played.

Fuck, I used to be in the news business. Here are a few story pitches you can add—should they realistically apply to your situation—to your email to these media outlets, that sound incredibly easy to fill the corny words coming out of some 60-year-old white dude who has fake tanned himself into the color and texture of my dad’s old baseball glove:

Local Daredevils Strut Their Stuff for a Shot at the Right to be Called The Best Local Skater (“Mmm, rollerblading. Sounds like something I could really grind with.” — Ron Burgundy, KVWN-TV Channel 4 Evening News, San Diego)
Inline Skating? Do You Remember Those? (“Asian Correspondent Trisa Takanawa delves rollerblading and other things Diane hasn’t done since the 1990s. Like give a friggin’ blowjob!” — Tom Tucker, Quahog Channel 5 News)


Rollerbladers: Satanic Devil Worshiping Terrorists? (“I’ve always told you rollerbladers were bad news. Now look at what they’re up to—their wearing black, they’re getting boozed up, they’re doing all sorts of drugs, and they’re making a disgrace of the American flag. They are terrorists and this liberal Obama administration is buying into this argument that all this perpetuated deviant, terrorist behavior is somehow an exercise in free speech. Well, Mr. President, if what they are doing is free speech, here’s my free speech: you crack down on these thugs now or we’ll have to tear down the White House when you’re done with it and start from scratch. Hey, these guys may be peddling smut, but these guys aren’t Larry Flint. Listen, we’ve already had the shoe bomber and that’s why we take our shoes off at the airport. Do we have to wait for the rollerblade bomber before we make them take off their boots?” — Bill O’Reilly, Fox News)
Rollerblade Competition Interrupts Mother’s Plans to Drink While Her Fourth Grader is Left Unattended at Area Skate Park (“Susan Johnson was planning having her usual four martinis with the girls on Saturday afternoon but she’s furious now because she can’t due to a ‘fruit boot orgy’ at the local skate park where she normally leaves her 7-year-old ADHD-ridden product of ‘a good time at a Nickelback Concert’ to mindlessly wander through the waves of poured concrete, an steel forest of blunt objects, and grown men with anger issues who harbor absolutely zero-percent of concern for her child’s safety. She says she’s planning to sue the city.” — The Onion)

Recruit from Within the Skate Park

Now before we get all dumb on the subject of scooter kids, I would like to say this.

With that said, fuck scooter kids. Fuck skateboarder kids. Fuck any kid who is left there without a clue on how to conduct themselves.

Growing up in a small, shitty town, we didn’t have a skate park. The first time I went to one, it was a horrible small slab of concrete with a few obstacles and some used syringes there.

Now, it’s strange for most cities—especially here in the skater utopia that is California—to NOT have a skate park. Hell, even some camp sites have skate parks.

While this is beyond fucking rad, it also means that the association between skaters and badasses are slowly dwindling down to the idea that skateboarding is “edgy” even though Justin Bieber does it. It used to be that if you fucked up at the skate park, there was a good chance you got your ass beat.

Or maybe I’m just an old man who remembers the older skaters and how fucking terrifying they could be and kids today are so full of this “you’re so special” parenting that they’re not afraid of adults like they should be.

As long as we’re forced to share the space with little kids on scooters or douche bag teenage skateboarders who spend more time sitting on ledges holding their boards than actually riding, we could take a few seconds to help make the world a better place. Or at least your local skate park.

Now, who should be responsible for teaching the kids on how to act at the skate park? The parents? Fuck that, they’re idiots. Just like our parents did with us, their parents did with them, and so on forever since we crawled out of the mud and learned that it felt good when our genitalia touched, parents have no clue what the fuck is going on with their kids. That’s part of the process. Anyone you knew growing up with a “cool” set of parents turned out to be some junkie asshole who will never do shit with his life and the depression since he’s realize that is crippling him.

Besides, if the parent isn’t skating at the park, they’re reading a book or doing other stupid shit. (There are, of course, the really awesome parents who support the shit out of their kids, know trick names, and push their kids to do what makes them happy. Thank a god for that.)

The point of the last patch of bullshit you just read is this: bullying scooter kids out of the skate park is fucking stupid. Let the skateboarders do that shit. They’re going to piss off enough people

That, and maybe they’ll figure they’re sick of being bullied by the same group of over-confident, entitled teenage douchebags that can exist anywhere in any sport and in every high school movie made between 1996 and 2001. Those kids will know they have friends in blading.

Don’t think that strategy will work to increase the number of people who rollerblade?

How the fuck you think churches get so goddamn big?

Evangelism, mother fuckers.

That’s right. They’re the kids in the white shirts and plastic engraved name tags knocking on your door. They’re the ones handing out pamphlets that either enlighten you to eternal happiness with every dead person you’ve ever loved, or warn of you eternal damnation in a fiery pit of pain, torture, and every crappy rapper’s mixtape on repeat. They’re the ones building mega churches, “curing” people of “diseases,” and having an uncomfortable amount of control on the American political process.

Those smart-as-hell Bible thumpers tell you, typically at the lowest point in your life (such as inside a prison cell), that there’s this guy you can’t experience with all the senses He supposedly gave you because He loved you but knew—because He was all-powerful and all-knowing from now until ten minutes after the end of time—that you’d mess up so He sent some really messed-up people who will continue to this day persecute its own members who are different (including a whole congregation who says their with Him and either sexually molests its most vulnerable congregation, or spews vile hatred on young dead men and women because they believe He started a war about a black substance made from the remains of animals from millions of years ago that even some of said congregation were staged there in fossil form to test their faith in him simply because some males, His first human creation, like to engage in sexual acts outside of marriage with other males, which is the same set of characteristics of the molestation cases mentioned earlier) all because He loves you yet can’t tell you Himself, like some dad in the aforementioned prison cell who got there because he exercised his Free Will. And the people He sent to tell you about Him call some of his own followers “fags,” while their use of that term could be directly applied to many dead and some alive men who underwent ordination to be known as “Father.”

And people give those fuckers money all of the GODdamned time!!!!!

Do you see that what we’re trying to do shouldn’t be that hard?

Doesn’t selling religion sound like a much more complicated and unrealistic argument to put out there than “Rollerblading Doesn’t Suck”? No. No it doesn’t.

Fuck it. Really, all we’re trying to say when we bitch about exposure and what our sport needs and how we need corporate sponsorship and companies need to work better and fuck, dick, cunt, asshole, and shit…you get the point.

Like churches, if we want money, we need the people.

Fuck it. Let’s sell blading like crazy fucking ideologues sell the idea that God gave us free will to do what we want, but he has a plan anyway, so fuck if you get a say in the matter.

Sure, since we’re small, they’ll call us a cult. At least then the quote earlier from Bill O-Reilly wouldn’t be made up. Put a certain way, our boundless dedication to the thing we love could border on obsessive delusions of grandeur. That’s fucking cool.

If you’re religious and take offense to this, I will say this and this only: I am God’s messenger. He sent me here to show you the way. He wants you to give me all your money so he can spread His word. Also, the world is going to end—and He means it this time!—so all your worldly transgressions don’t need confessions if you give all your possessions to Mr. Kransions.

Can I get a…

Halleluiah!
Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S. — Buy my books. Like this article, they cover religion, drugs, doing what you want, and the consequences of stupidity. There are even a few rollerblading references that you have to blade to understand. They’re sold at Aggressive Mall (which also gets you 100 Reward Points), Intuition, Amazon, The American Book Center in Amsterdam, and through our Big Cartel site, which is fun because then I get to send people weird shit with them. Also, we have them on sale, if you don’t mind if your copy smells a bit like cheap American beer.

You don’t really have to buy my books, but I always appreciate it when people do. Either way, I’m going to keep writing them. I got free will, bitches.

Oh, and pick up a copy of the next issue of Be-Mag. I have like 3 or 4 articles in there. And it’s got Louie Zamora. That dude’s dope.

P.P.S. — God bless America.

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: Brand-o the Beard-o

Photo by Ivan Narez.

If you’ve never heard of Brandon Smith, it must be like your second or third day rollerblading. So, yeah, welcome to the family.

This entire post is dedicated to the heavily-bearded, Harley Davidson-riding, world-traveling, bowl-crushing, spot-destroying, thought-provoking, JSF-juicing, (Level 3) and artistically-diverse Valo pro known as B. Smith.

B. Fucking Smith! (Check out the full feature on B. on Valo’s site.)

Here in NorCal, B. Smith is one of the living legends that evolved during the early days of rollerblading. He was there from day one in JSF, the longest-running crew in rollerblading. Taking a brief hiatus from heavy shredding to focus on his photography in college, B. put his effort back into blading.

From amazing sections in all the prime Valo videos to the road-tripping Shred ‘Til You’re Dead tours, B.’s skating continues to evolve to mind-blowing technical and burly shredding.

The only bad thing about the dude is that he makes it all look way too easy. I do not hold the monopoly on this opinion.

B’s skating is not only robotically perfect—earning him the nickname Mr. Roboto—but it’s also stylish to a point that the English language fails in necessary superlatives.

When you watch him skate, you know it will be good. The fun part is finding out how good it will be. He’s a consummate professional in the truest sense of the word.

Before I get all fan-boy gushy even more, I would like to point out some interesting facts regarding B Smith. Many of them are common knowledge, but for those of you who don’t know:

Chuck Norris only has a beard because B. Smith allows it.
The Most Interesting Man in the World dedicated his autobiography to B. Smith.
His skating is so clean, soap washes up with B. Smith.
The Hells Angels once encountered B. Smith on his motorcycle. They dedicated an entire chapter of their club after this experience.
B. Smith doesn’t do commercial photography so Annie Leibovitz can still get work.

Photo via http://blading.info

His Instagram account has been nominated for the Pulitzer in news photography.
Swiss bearings were invented so others could keep up with him.
His Dyna pro wheels were forged in the center of a dying star and are heavier than Thor’s hammer.

The video 8th Wonder was named after his beard before he even grew it.

He turned down the role of the Terminator and the office of the governor of California seven times.
His airs affect the tides more than the moon.

But enough of my bullshit, let’s hear from the man himself. B was gracious enough to take time out of his schedule of heavy shredding, motorcycling around SoCal, spending time with his lady, and filming for his pro skate edit to answer a few questions. (Again, please pardon my hardcore fan-boying.)

First off, huge congrats to your new skates. I think they’re the most badass thing ever.

There was a time when you were concentrating on your photography and then you went back to concentrating on your skating. What made you switch back?

There was no real defining moment, it just sort of happened because it felt like the right thing to do. I was a blader long before I was a photographer, so it’s built into my personality. Focusing on photography was obviously the right thing to do while I was going to college, but I guess I wasn’t done with blading after graduation and wanted to get back at it.

For your pro skate, you went the route of the work boot, a drastic change from Valo’s other boots. Why’d you choose to go that route and why the fuck does it look so badass?

Jon really let me do whatever the hell I wanted. Work boots are just what I’ve gotten used to wearing the past few years while on the bike and what not, so it made the most sense. I really don’t like any single shoe enough to want to base a design around it. I wanted to do a skate that was more my personality rather then just forcing a design because I had to. Plus, I wanted it to stand out a lot for my first, and potentially only pro skate. And, I’m not the only one on Valo who wears boots regularly so I think it’s a no-brainer.

If you were to join the Hells Angels, what would your chosen nickname be?

Maybe something like Brand-o the Beard-o. But that wouldn’t be too clever because all those guys have beards. How about all you guys get bikes and we start the JSF m/c, I’m sure the nicknames would start flowing then!

You’re notoriously known for being a man of few words. What are the things that get you talking? Cameras? Motorcycles? Blades?

Blading for sure. I generally don’t like talking about cameras because 9 times out of 10 the other person is going to say a bunch of nonsense to make it sound like they know more then you. Or they start bragging about what gear they own and I hate that. The same thing can happen with motorcycles because people are so opinionated when it comes to bikes and parts. So pretty much I’ll start talking more then usual if someone is actually trying to have a genuine conversation, which is sometimes hard to come by.

Your beard has taken many shapes over the years. What’s the secret to stacking a quality beard and can you share some grooming tips for us bearded fellows?

Just let it roll…don’t try to fight it! And shampoo/condition regularly.

From ONE Magazine's 'Best Facial Hair' Award in 2009

Do you prefer dudes who shred your pro skates grow a beard—as it is surely the sign of a man—or can babyfaces that can’t grow facial hair like Victor Arias wear them too?

I hope everyone wants to shred in them! I do have a feeling that the dudes that can and want to grow beards will probably appreciate them a little more than those who don’t.

B, being the humble guy he is, will be the first person to tell you that he wouldn’t be where he is today without help from homies, whether pushing him or just capturing his style on film and video. Here are some words from some of his best friends he grew up with in NorCal.

“Although I may be a bit biased, considering I am exporting out his section as I write this, and I happened to be there during the whole process of his pro blade project, I’m really proud of everything we have accomplished. But if you really come to think of it this is a pretty long time coming…I would have to say that B is one of my longest time friends that have been around since damn near the beginning.

I’m not sure exactly when I met him but I remember watching a video called California Heat, back when it was just like me and Victor blading, probably around 98? and B was probably about 12-13 years old, which is pretty much how old we were at the time and he had clips in the video, and he was alread budsing at that age when we couldn’t even jump on the high ledge at the OG Pleasanton skatepark.

Over the course of the 10+ years that I’ve known him, even before I came to be involved with Valo, we were blading, blacking out, bowling, budsing, and pretty much everything you could think of. From massive fights at Victor’s house, to traveling the world with Valo.

Come to think of it, I honestly have no clue where I am going here and this story doesn’t even make sense, if I had to explain why its not really a story or has much meaning its probably because there is too much shit that we’ve all done together and too many good times, so when I try and put that into a paragraph…it’s impossible, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t be more psyched that B finally got his deal, and am proud that I was able to be a big part of the release project…”

— Ivan Narez, videographer, photographer, vato

“Brandon Smith, otherwise known to his crew as ‘SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH’ has made most of his homies jealous once again. And when I say jealous, I mean it in the most supportive way possible. How does that work? Beats the hell out of me! All I know is that B has been nothing short of spectacular on his skates since day one. The kid I met back in the mid 90’s in San Francisco was quiet but a fucken ripper on them skates. I swear to this day when I met him, he had his hat turned backwards but to the side a bit and he had the bill of his hat flipped up like a taco holder. B still tells me to this day he never used to do that with his hat, but I insist on believing my memory. I mean seriously, what can you say about Brandon that wouldn’t be positive? I can not think of ONE thing that he has ever done that was negative (besides leave Vic outside to sleep haha but that’s just Brandon bossing up and getting faded, the way he should get so he can pass out in “great form”.)

B. Smith getting loaded circa 2007. Photo by Ivan Narez

B is the Ying to the Yang in the JSF Crew. While most homies are wild, desctructive and filthy…B is the complete opposite, yet maintaining the vibe of us filth bags.

He is a role model to me. I look up to him. I live vicariously through him. I in fact would like to be him at times and nothing more than his attitude towards life makes me proud to be one of his friends.

Getting a Pro skate is a big deal to me.

To me, it says, I AM A PROFESSIONAL.

When he moved to Santa Ana, I was truly bummed out because we were skating a lot before he moved and not having his presence at skate, bowling, drinking and BBQ sessions really had an impact on me. I just felt as if the motivation to skate hard was slowly slipping, but to my surprise, seeing him accomplish so much while living in Santa Ana area give me the motivation to keep things strong up here in Norcal.

He is an ambassador to the Norcal scene and he is doing it all while living in Socal.

I love Brandon with all my heart and will always be there for him.

FUCK! I am just so damn happy he is finally getting a skate with his name on it!!!!!!!! now, what else can be said besides….

JSF!!!! BRRRRRAAAAP BRRRRRAAAAAP BLOCKA BLOCKA BLOCKAAAA!!!!!!! JSF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling JUICED is an understatement, that is for sure.”

— Erick “el Presidente” Garcia, JSF level 3

On behalf of the entire Blade or Die family, a huge congratulations to B Smith for his first pro skate, a major milestone in an amazing rollerblading career that is still performing at Mr. Roboto levels.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S. — As long as you’re going to be picking up those crispy new Valo BS.1s, you should treat yourself to some literary bullshit that is my writing. You know, the kind on paper. Sorry, no pictures.

Intuition Skate Shop has the goods because they fucking rule.

Same goes of AMall, for the exact same reasons.

B. Smith bought my books. What’s your fucking problem?

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: Print Died With Daily Bread

Holy balls, let’s talk back-in-the-day type shit here!

Hokay, so…

Blading.info, Jon Julio via his latest Tumblr page, and a shitload of other places have been dipping their hands heavily into the sport’s hayday, especially retro ads from our classic magazines

ONE had slew of déjà vu-type journalism trend with some great pieces put together by Ben Rogers.

But the latest part of old-school news turned today’s news was Mushroom Blading’s podcast with former Daily Bread head Angie Walton.

If you haven’t listened to it yet, you’re about as far behind the news as this column and I feel sorry for you and it.

Check out the interview here:

How to be Unpopular Episode 86

Since you have about two hours to kill while you listen to it and since you have an internet attention span like the rest of us, here’s something to watch while you listen:

All you really need to know, as I’m learning with each and every How to Be Unpopular podcast, as that you should pull up and chair because…

As you listen—or recall if you already have—and you’re as big of a blade history nerd as my 30-year-old ass is, you’ll be listening to the most scandalous part of the whole ordeal and the one thing that’s only been floating around as rumors for so many years: what happened to Daily Bread?

Well, according to Angie, she felt like she was the backbone of the whole ordeal and when she needed some support, she felt she didn’t get enough.

The crux of it was that the last few people on the magazine—Justin Eisinger and Wes Driver—took content for the magazine, demanded their last paychecks, and walked the fuck out of there.

Then there was a lawsuit—which I can’t find as I’m not very familiar with the California legal system—that followed when ONE’s first magazine was on its way to print.

Listening to it, with all the juicy gossip and history, my face was stuck like this…

Then again, when Angie mentioned it, she did say so-and-so said, in rollerblading, “there can only be one magazine.”

Now there is ONE Magazine and no Daily Bread.

If one—no pun intended—were to view the whole ordeal from solely Angie’s perspective, you’d probably assume that some fucked up shit has been afoot.

As a person with a journalism degree and 10 years of journalism experience, if I can give you a complete 100-percent money back guarantee on anything in life or events that happened prior to this moment, it is this: there are way more than two sides to a story.

Angie made hers very clear.

It was scathing, it was endearing, and god damn if it wasn’t entertainingly well-told.

All we know for sure is that shit fell apart, Daily Bread died, ONE Magazine was born of it, and this was the last issue…

The question of ONE’s birth is as complicated as people who believe President Obama was born in Africa or wherever stupid shit they come up with—you either know the truth or are stuck somewhere else.

Still, that interview started some shit. Or reopened it. Or opened it for the first time. Or whatever.

Either way, shit was said.

The one thing we were all waiting for was to see Justin Eisinger, Editorial Director of ONE who was named many, many times in the interview and not once in a flattering way, had to say about it.

He initially made one post and somehow, for the life of me, cannot find it. It used to live at this URL http://www.oneblademag.com/blogs/counterpoint/, but there doesn’t seem to be anything there now.

The post was merely something like this:

You can find the exact same photo by yourself by Googling “horse shit.” It’s the first result.

When Justin posted that photo, I’m sure it was supposed to be all like…

But his comments that followed—which again, you can’t find anymore—showed that inside he was all like…

Then Wes Driver, who was also named in the interview and a founder of ONE, made a statement on the ONE site. He responded to Angie’s claims with such things with a let-shit-be-over tone like:

And damn it there’s that sick fucking part of all of us who want that, in the terms of the post-modernist poet Fred Durst, “he-said-she-said bullshit” to play out in public over and over and over.

Fuck it, I’ll say it. To a certain extent, the whole cat scratching shit from years ago makes me go…

But enough of that shit.

Really.

There was a lot of shit going on back then and the only people that know for sure are still clouded in a whole lot of emotion that is still to fresh to pick at.

Thinking about what could transpire for the longest time about who did what when and why would be like an painfully tortuous re-hash with an ex-girlfriend that you have absolutely no emotion for her except for the one that makes you want to see her cry a lot.

The whole idea of it, well…

And enough of this gif shit. Looks too much like Tumblr in this bitch and it’s impossible as hell to read my mammer-jammer.

The long and short of it is…

Everyone Misses Daily Bread.

Yeah, I’m sure that shit is raw with a whole bunch of people—namely its readers. Fuck man, I sent in my $18 for a subscription, got one issue, and it happened to be the last one. That shit hurts, yo.

Daily Bread was more than just a magazine: it was an instruction manual on how to be a blader.

As a wee lad, I would buy a copy from my local bookstore and page through it each and every study hall until the next issue came out. People would repeatedly ask me how I could look at the same magazine every day, but I was studying it. I was looking at what tricks people were doing, what the emerging styles were, and where I would be spending my Wal-Mart paycheck.

And no doubt such an influential publication would create some animosity amongst the ranks when they printed their last issue.

But the real story of Angie’s interview, all those old feelings brought up—some bad and the rest great—wasn’t what was going on behind the scenes, but memories of those shimmering glossy pages and hynotically toxic fumes from all the chemicals made to produce it.

It was unhinging the staples to make a new bedroom poster. It was that great series of photos of Erik Burke backside UFOing the roof of a building and dropping nearly two stories to the parking lot below. It was that being the last thing you saw at night hoping that someday you might be that good.

It was looking and what people were wearing, knowing that’s what you’d be shopping for next.

Culturally, nothing helped progress the sport like Daily Bread. It didn’t harness its true spirit and juvenile nature of blading quite like videos—especially the VG sagas—but damn if didn’t take iconic moments and plaster them forever into our memories.

It was Disinformation and editorials you didn’t want your mom to see. It was nonsensical gibberish and insightful musings.

It was art and photography and writing and attitude and style and posture and pose and grace and anger and fulfillment that is serious lacking in a rollerblade media.

Everyone who ever contributed to Daily Bread were the keepers of blade history and the gods that pushed its future.

The funny thing about the controversy of the print media is that it was done on entirely digital medium. It wasn’t like the hayday of print journalism when newspaper and magazine publishers attacked each other in the pages of their own magazines or papers, no this was done via podcast by a Canadian dude in his home.

So fucking fitting.

Print couldn’t have handled that story because of the amount of space it would have taken up and the cost to print such long-tail answers. And if it would have been a pissing match between blade mags now—say ONE and Be-Mag—well, their publishing schedules would leave us with a two sided argument that would take decades to pan out at a rate of four issues a year.

As someone with a little experience in the printing world, shit’s fucking expensive and if you do it you’ll never make any money.

Deciding to do anything in print in the reigning era of instant digital communication is a brave endeavor to keep with the traditions and fond memories of those center staples, that smell, and the chance to really make a lasting piece of history.

Let’s take this website for example. I’ve written 70-some columns on here, amassing a total of more than 140,00 words—about the same as a 400-page book—and one missed payment to Go Daddy and they’re all gone forever. To get rid of all the history Daily Bread recorded in those important years, well, you’d have to plan a shit load of house fires. It’d be like burning the baby book of blading.

Soon, and this will be the saddest day ever, there may not be skaters vying for their first photo in a magazine, their first profile, or their first cover. While I’m sure that’s a long ways a way, the pervasive attitude of digital media is that magazines aren’t as important.

But, as Angie said in her interview that smaller, more localized publications are reigning over the printing world. You would think that blading could at least put one magazine together that could come out every month, but with the price tag the price tag that would come with it, blading, in its current state, cannot support such a thing.

That’s why digital magazines—websites or blogs, as you kids call them—are having a longer, lasting effect on blading. Sites like IRollNY.com or Iowa-Connection.com are focusing on their scenes, their backyards and coming up with a better, more comprehensive look at blading merely by focusing on their own front yards. They offer free content to the user while providing them with the information they want and need. Their business model, well, let’s just say they’re more likely to file as a 501(c)3 than anything with a business license.

Print is expensive, plain and simple. Digital is free.

Digitial didn’t kill print, but it sure did shove a gag in its mouth.

Before I go on, I want one thing incredible Windex-polished crystal clear: I love the printed word. If you ever see me sporting a Kindle or some other e-reader, don’t creep up slowly behind me and slit my throat, call first and use a shotgun so I and everyone else know why there’s going to be a hole between my shoulder blades.

Now, blading has two major magazines—ONE and Be-Mag—and neither have an ounce of flavor, spirit, and spite that filled the pages of Daily Bread. Mainly, because each comes out with only a few issues a year, releasing articles on major competitions like BCSD and Winterclash a year after the contest is over. Now, by its very nature, magazines cannot compete with the speed of instant tweets on competition events and what have you, but with the right vision, a magazine could guide the sport not in a reactionary way, but in one that tells everyone which way the future is going.

I’ve heard numerous times that Europeans complaining about the lack of overseas coverage in ONE and Americans complaining about the lack of stateside blading in Be-Mag. Maybe that’s the problem. Both magazines seem to be vying for the title of the next Daily Bread, but neither the editorial policy, content, nor the subscriber base can support something like that in such a limited media.

But print is dying not because of the internet, but because it is failing to do what magazines do best: tell their readers what to like.

The major dominant blading media seriously lack a vision that represents not only captures the heart of the sport, but pushes it as well.

Our two main magazines—with other publications like Clac in France coming in distant ties for third—have their each and own editorial perspective, yet neither really have much to add to the conversation.

The last magazine piece—and I’m focusing on words here because, well, they’re my thing—I honestly felt that the writer had blades on his feet while typing it was Tommy Boy’s piece about the Colorado Road Trip in the last issue of Be-Mag. It was road trips and stupid shit and raw and captured that moment in our sport amazingly well.

It was what magazines should be completely about.

While I may write for Be-Mag and previously for ONE, I can’t honestly I could ever fully back either with a conviction I’d kill to have in a blading publication. When people complain about either magazine, I mostly nod my head and say, “You have a point.”

The hard part is that both are staffed by people who work really damn hard with a flaky culture of people because no one can afford to pay anyone anything. There’s no money it it, yet someone is always busting their ass to put the next issue out. That’s journalism. That’s print. That’s rollerblading.

Either rollerblading’s magazines and major websites lack what blading is truly about or I have no idea what blading is about anymore. I hope it’s the latter and this dumb fucking column is yet another scrap in the pile of digital junk that is the chaotic wasteland of the internet.

Rollernews doesn’t count as a worldwide media agency. It counts as a plague, like the Huffington Post to real news sites: they only pull the life from their sources, yet never give anything healthy back.

There have been numerous attempts at a rollerblading social media site, one like Facebook where users decide their own experience, yet there’s always something new to see, but not a single one has gained enough traction to stick around.

So thank God for Mushroom Blading and their How to Be Unpopular podcasts.

Todd and Joey at Mushroom Blading (seen below center and right in the greatest groomsman photo I’ve ever seen) are providing an invaluable service to blading at-large: their lengthy interviews allow for people in blading to really dive into the subjects of interest.

What’s the most impressive is Todd’s interview style. He’s amazingly talented in getting his subjects to share stories, discuss hypothetical situations, or get to the bare balls of what’s really going on. He’s like a combination of Walter Cronkite and Stephen Colbert and we’re all better off because of it.

While that magazine cover photo might be a dying dream, the new goal of rollerbladers just may be to have a two-hour Skype fest with some crazy Canadian skaters.

Then again when they’re digging into the demise of Daily Bread or interviewing the love-him-or-hate-him Julian Bah, maybe NOT being interviewed by Todd McInerney could be a damn good thing. You might end up saying a lot and starting some shit.

Angie Walton’s interview was a prime example of the podcast’s ability to allow a subject to tell his or her perspective into such an important subject: the demise of Daily Bread, blading’s most influential media ever.

Hell, it’s not too long ago—Daily Bread still has a Myspace page.

Oh Jesus Mary Mother Joseph that’s a lot to consider. Fucking MySpace.

In hindsight, it was insane to think you could pick up a copy of a rollerblading magazine at most major new stands. It’d be a total mind fuck to see that again.

I had an amazing time this week thinking about all the good times reading all of those magazines, keeping the latest copy in my skate bag, and passing them around to my homies.

Whatever bad things happened in the past, I hope we can let the sleeping dogs lie and let it all be over.

Sure, there might be some bad blood between a few key storytellers in rollerblading, but I hope we all can all seek couple’s counseling and let it be over.

To anyone who has ever contributed to Daily Bread in any way, shape, or form, thank you so much. You helped spread the word and no matter what happened, rollerblading was better off because of your hard work.

But we’re all part of it.

Without something like Daily Bread, we’re all the parts of blading and help guide its image, voice, and future. The status updates, the tweets, the photos, the edits, and everything else all matter.

Thanks to everyone who makes sure we all find out about cool stuff we couldn’t see in person.

Angie and the rest of the former Daily Bread staff, thank you.

Justin, Wes, and the rest of the ONE family, thank you.

Oli, Chris, and others at Be-Mag, thank you.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S. — I don’t know if I say this enough, which means I probably don’t, but I can’t thank everyone in the rollerblading industry enough for supporting what I love to do as much as I love to blade: write. You all fucking rule.

Also, I love print and I never want to see it die. I’ll never own a Kindle and will always print my books, even if my books are available on Kindle.

What can I say? I’ll be a slut for a buck.

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: When Angry Youth Gets Old

So there I was, drinking a beer, putting fresh wheels on my skates, and watching Pariah. Sometime after B. Free ends a trick by jumping into a motel room and before Erik Stokely proved he's got the best wall rides in the game, and I got to thinking, Man, this stuff is the shit.

Really, the youth in our sport has incredible talent, in both technical and buck qualities. And the image they're bringing with them is fucking dope.

I mean the hard rock 'n' roll, the shredded fucking duds, and the pure energy and speed of the skating involved.

And the attitude! Hoo-fucking-whee it's good to see some people getting pissed off about something instead of this apathetic, narcissistic bullshit that goes on everywhere else.

My personal favorite, which I hope continues to a certain extent, is the FUCK YOU OF THE DAY, brought to you by those lovable little scamps, Shredweiser:

That comment, to me, is hilarious. Honestly.

No one wants to get into rollerblading when we all look dirty and poor?

Have you ever heard of hipsters, one of the largest fashion/lifestyle trends of this century? There you have tons of kids purposely dressing like they don't have money when they have $200 to drop on a pair of Ray Bans?

Hipster bullshit aside, some people want that image.

Yes, people want that swag-laced Dubstep bullshit where you're awesome because you tell yourself you're awesome, but that's not for everyone.

And, in case I haven't been clear enough in the past, I personally do not want into that shit. It would wholly disgust me to see everyone in rollerblading conformed to a certain standard.

God knows where the Standards of Fashion, Appearance, and Music in  Rollerblading Committee (SFAMRC) would take us. Maybe the Powerblading thing would take off and all of our time at the skate park would be devoted to things like this:

(And Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick before you get your Internet titties in a bunch about Powerblading or anything else, realize I'm fucking joking around, something I know few are allowed to do anymore.)

For those of you too young to remember, rollerblading started off with dirty punks, especially here on the West Coast, the bi-coastal epicenter of rollerblading. (NYC, you know you rocked that shit hard, too! Jacklone, Ortega, and Rawlinson "The Johniest Nigga You Know" Rivera, what the fuck is up, boys!)

Personally, I was attracted to rollerblading not by dudes like Tom Fry and Chris Edwards (although they are dope as fuck), but the big belt buckle, big jeans, and graphic Ts worn by Arlo Eisenberg, Mike Opalek, B Love, Brian Smith, and Brooke Howard Smith. Yeah, Hoax II was like a training manual on how to live life: loudly and waving a pierced cock out the window of a Winnebago.

Senate was THE company to take the sport off of the boardwalk and into the streets. They celebrated angry youth in slogan, marketing strategy, and lifestyle.

Their claim to national news fame wasn't some polished bullshit, but rather from offending women's groups with the tag on their shirts:

So, yeah, they ruffled some feathers. I know there were some old school cats in other aspects of the business that maybe didn't like Senate's message, but you know who did: the fucking kids, man.

I was, and still am, one of those kids.

I had two bumper stickers on my first car. One, was SENATE in Old English. The other said, "My son beat up your student of the month. Senate supports angry youth." At it had this guy on it:

(For more history on Senate—if you need to see it for the first time or you just want to remember you history—check out the piece ONE Magazine did on it in 2010.)

Holy hog balls! Would you look at that? A shaved head, a wife beater, and bloody baseball bat? And those guys in those videos, with their funny looking hair and big pants. Seriously, what look are they going for? No one would ever like that.

That. That is what you fucking sound like.

You sound like a bunch of piece of fucking shit Valley Girls who snub their noses at anyone who does anything different that your perfect fucking existence.

Sitting there, hating on shit for no fucking reason other than the fact you don't like it—and no, I don't see the hypocrisy in saying this, thank you very much—makes you sound like an absolute bitch.

Just a punk fucking bitch with nothing better to do with his spare time than bitch and moan about things he doesn't like.

As someone whose tried to commit suicide—and then wrote a book about bit—I can only say this one thing to you fucking people who complain anonymously for days upon days, please, for the sake of all that is good and fun in this world, kill yourself.

Now.

Please.

Waiting…

Okay, great. Now that those guys are gone, let's get back to what really matters: style.

That's right, style. It'd be nice not to have to be worried about exterior appearances, but we're an artistic sport and style plays a very fucking important part in what we do, from how we do a trick to the clothes we wear to the music we listen to.

But, before I babble on further, I wish to offer the words of many of a wisemen: no matter what you do in life, you'll never make everyone happy. Never.

Senate never tried to make anyone happy other than themselves. And it fucking worked.

I remember buying only Senate T-shirts and jeans in high school. I still own some of the packaging. I want my blueberry-scented anti-rockers again. (Seriously, I'll pay good money if someone has a set.) I think I should start carrying my fat handle comb in my back pocket. Arlo, Opalek, and the rest of those guys are still gods.

That, my wee little babes, began a long time ago in a magical land called Spohn Ranch. My one regret is that I've never been there, but for what seemed like an eternity growing up in a boring little small town that was closer to both Canada and Mexico than Southern California.

Now, most of us that remember the red cores of Pleasure Tools and know what Team Paradise meant aren't so young, but that doesn't mean our anger has gone anywhere constructive.

We've grown up from hopeful little kids to grown men with day jobs, serious relationships, and personal business ventures. Some of us grew more than others, and others want nothing more than to hold onto the spirit of our youth.

When you grow older, you have to think about the future and what the payoff might be. When you stay young, you keep clinging to the greatest moments of your past and are eternally grateful for anytime you can recreate that feeling.

Still being able to blade today, for most of us old cats, can never be explained to a bunch of precious online-anonymous bitchy little shitheads, who have yet to learn anything about pain, disappointment, fear, rejection, or realizing that those daily aches and pains aren't temporary and the one body you're given in this life is slowly preparing to expire.
So if you have any problem with what I'm about to say, count your fucking permanent scars from blading and if they don't equal your age, I'll pay for your flight to come to California so I can show you fear and pain that would make Freddy Krueger shit his pants!!!!!

Whew. Now that that's over…

We need to get back to the dirt, and grease, and anger, and frustrations our grandfathers toiled through to make better lives for all of us. They drank hard liquor because they knew it'd work. They drove cars with big engines because they wanted the world to know they were on the road and there would be hell to pay for getting between them and their destination.

They worked their fucking asses off—just like every generation before you, I, or even the oldest person you've ever met—in hopes that the generations they left behind might have it a little bit easier than those before them.

And just like our hard-boiled, blue-collar grandfathers used to say, "If you don't like it, then fuck off!"

I think that is pretty much the motto of Shredweiser in all they do.

The difference between Shredweiser and real "drunken hobo/derelict" assholes is that Shredweiser is putting in work. You've heard of them for one good reason and one good reason only: they wanted you to know about them.

It worked on me and for damn good reason.

They're the guys that gave a dog—but not just any dog, but one named Steve that will acid drop from a van roof—their one and only pro wheel. You tell me there wasn't one pro with a wheel that didn't take it as a jest of some sort and I'll call you a liar.

They're the ones that sold their wheels for $19, pissing off others in the industry who use Labeda just like soooo many other companies, yet others charge more for their product.

They're the ones who have all their art hand-drawn by Austin Barrett, a fucking rad-talented dude who also happens to skateboard, completely fucking up your plans to wear a Shredweiser shirt and talk shit on skateboarding.

Fuck, I'm so sold on their shit that I'm proud to have my Blade or Die tattoo designed and inked by Mr. Barrett, himself, in the middle of the Shredweiser house while drinking beer, smoking hash, and Steve supervised.

Why? What makes their shit so great?

Mascu-fucking-linity.

One of the best conversations about blading I've ever had was with wife beater-wearing Damien Wilson. Of course it had to take place in the early morning hours of one of many nights at Bar at BCSD.

Basically, I fan-boy thanked him for really fucking doing something. For trying different shit, building shit, and destroying shit. He said the element of masculinity has been missing that was really fucking with blading's potential. Call me old (fashioned), but that's what I think being a man is about, now that we've civilized our point past our usefulness in the hunter-gatherer way of life.

When Senate lost itself in its image instead of its message, Fight Club—and, yes, it was a book before it was a movie—came into my life and telling me what, as a man, I was supposed to do with my life. Yeah, whoah-is-fucking-white-boy-me, but, like Senate, it gave me some kind of idea of what to do with all of this anger when I wasn't dumb enough to buy into the bullshit.

(Again, as part of your history, this was before commenting online, calling everyone you've never met a fag, and being more ballsy than your 3-D personality will allow was part of modern society.)

Yes, we are a male dominated sport, so maybe a wee bit of the testosterone could do some good.

When a real man sees something wrong, he doesn't sit behind a computer screen, pretending to be something he's not, and fucking complains.

What the fuck does he do?

He rolls up his sleeves, sucks up his pride, and puts in the fucking work to make things fucking better.

They start companies.

They host parties, BBQs, and competitions.

They make videos. They make Pariah (and you fucking buy it.)

They start blading.info.

The real heroes that do shit in blading—the shit anyone is going to remember—aren't online comments or stupid shit columns like this one, but the bladers who put in work in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

The message boards and other cool shit you useless piece of shit mother fuckers do day in and day out, calling out people for the smallest fucking shit, that's the shit that really fucking kills people and takes the enjoyment out of skating.

Seriously, fuck all of you.

If I had a time machine, I would use it for two trips. First, I would travel to the future to break into your home in the middle of the night so I could kill your children in front of you, and second, I would travel back in time and kill your parents so you'd never be born. I'd suffer the Parkinson's just to do it.

I say anyone who wants to invest any kind of money into blading should be able to fight for themselves based on quality of product so that others can decide, for themselves, who wants what.

Basically, what I'm saying is…

If you don't fucking like it, don't fucking buy it!

While you're not going to spend the $20 a week your mom gives you for allowance or the money you make working at Subway on skating stuff so you can make sure your ISP bill is paid so you can talk shit on Rollernews or Be-Mag, I will be. I'll continue to spend money on blading while you're out buying "swag," whatever the fuck that may be.

I challenge you put your money where your mouth is.

Blading needs money. Lots of it.

I challenge you to actually start buying blading gear in a good amount. I challenge you to try new things and then give honest product reviews based on your personal experience. I challenge you to expand your vocabulary beyond "shit's gay," and expand your vantage point beyond the six inches between your snobby nose and your computer screen.

Like all things in life, you don't really know something until you experience it.

That's what I always told people in high school when they asked me what Senate was about. I'm still not sure what Senate was about, but I know for sure it wasn't about keeping the status quo.

Shredweiser is the most American thing ever made, in the most tragic and horrifyingly beautiful way.

There's this crew from New Jersey—the same state that supplied us with celebrities like soon-to-be bestselling author Snookie—and they decide to relocate to mother-fucking Oakland, one of the toughest, most dangerous cities in America. Fuck, the other day some dude went nuts at a college and killed seven people. It was a bible college, for Christ's sake!

Oakland, when not busy being Oakland, is where cops in riot gear will routinely blast Occupy protestors like the Orkin man would love to do to your mother's crotch.

Oakland—much like Shredweiser—embodies the hate and frustration that boils under the skin of many Americans, which is why we're on so many pills and drugs just to get through the day.

When antidepressants are prescribed at a rate of 2.88 per 100 people, Shredweiser is the face unafraid to show its anger.

When Americans want everything sterilized and door handle-less bathrooms, Shredweiser wants to wallow in sweat and blood.

While everyone is chasing the American Dream, Shredweiser is attempting to construct the American Nightmare.

Sometimes, that's pretty easy to do. It seems all they have to do is pretend to not follow the mystical man in the sky, but rather follow the red guy living in the basement.

[image error]

Americans view Shredweiser like Europeans view American tourists: angry, loud, uneducated heathens that wouldn't know class if the Queen herself handed it out at soup kitchens.

And God bless the Queen for them.

This entire country is built on some bullshit perfection of rock star ambition for a soulless pre-fab home out in the middle of some -ville-named city away from the core of America's cities' biggest product: drug addiction and other vices used to cover up what scars this life has given them.

The image of the American man is becoming diluted with this swag-infused pockets of complete bullshit idiots who spend more time on their hair than they do creating something authentic. Or it's some kind of Vice-fueled smug sensibility that all you do is inherently better than everyone else because you say so.

Which, of course, is what America is really all about. Or, at least the view from the streets of San Francisco with its vegan, all-organic, yoga cult ideals and hyper politically-correct sensitivities.

I say enough of that.

If skating really takes off again it's going to be of it's anti-image.

Just as Senate's anger and image took blading from the idea of Spandex-clad Valley Girls to one of Frech-kissing Blue Beasts on national television with  bleach-blond devil horns, this anti-movement is going to be more powerful than anything else.

Now that everywhere you go there's a million clean-cut pretty boy skateboarders cruising around, those who want out of that shit might come looking into rollerblading.

And it won't be because of slow-motion cameras and poppy techno. It will be for speed, blood, and death metal.

They'll be sick of the action figures, Target clothing lines, and parent-approved Tony Hawk, Travis Pastrana, and Shaun White. These will be the new children of a new angry era who grew up privileged and want nothing more to do with it.

Those who rise will be the dudes who smell, yell, and dedicate their life to be anti-everything American, yet celebrating its worst parts.

This is the return of the new Senate.

It may be in Shredweiser, or Fester, or Southern Scum, or Low Life, or some other dirtbag company, but it's on its way.

Then again, don't listen to me. I'm just another 30-year-old white dude who has no idea what he's doing with his life and is just trying to find an entertaining way to die.

And that's why I'm proud to support Shredweiser and companies and personalities just like them.

At least they give me someone to root for.

TL;DR: Fuck you.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S.—If you found any of this entertaining, please support my longer rants, whether about college and suicide, or kids and drugs. All of my books are on sale from our Big Cartel site because I need to pay off the loan before I can afford to print the next one.

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: Blasted Crunk Shitface Drunk

I had been off the whiskey for a minute. I learned it let the devil out of me.

Last weekend at the 12th Annual Bitter Cold Showdown the devil didn't need to come out, I was already in Detroit.

It wasn't as cold as it was in years past. Fuck, there was barely any snow. Still, the rainbow of burned up abandoned houses streaming alongside the highway told me it was time for a drink.

And drink I did, and none of it was alone.

Over a course of four days, my travel companions (the Aggressive Mall crew) and I may possibly have consumed a daily average of 30 beers and a pint of whiskey, so if my account of things miss out on a few points or give a slightly-altered version of the truth it's only because I followed rule No. 1 in journalism: if you're going to do it, do it drunk.

I'm probably sure that most people going to BCSD have to put in long drives, obscene amounts of gas money, and save up what little money they have from depressing shit job to get there and I hope for damn sure you don't regret a thing about it.

I hope most of you got a chance to put your skates on and cruise around with some of the top professional athletes in the world. I hope you did something so awesome you got props from people while skating the same course that has been home to some extremely harrowing tricks over the year.

Hopefully you got to see the multiple signs posted along Stephenson Highway that proudly said, "Welcome Skaters." There were more this year than any other year before. Maybe you saw some cool signs at the contest, too.

Then again, if you went to BCSD, had a beer at Bar Bar, and had a good time, then nothing was in vain.

All of you guys made for yet another great year. It was dope seeing old friends, even doper making new friends, and the dopest to be surrounded by all those bladers. I mean, c'mon, if a dude randomly passes you in an airport and asks if you have an allen wrench, you're probably going to end up in Guantanamo Bay or scattered all over a field in Pennsylvania.

But not the weekend of Bitter Cold! Oh, frozen testicles no!

You show up on Thursday, you put some work in—not too much though—pick at a healing wound that needed stitches but you didn't get, hit the famous Bar Bar, guzzle $5 pitchers, hang out the side of a van plowing through snow and mud, do some other shit, and pass out and

Then you wake up too late for continental breakfast, violently expel the brown remains of the prior day's Steak 'n' Shake, shower, and go to the park to skate. At least that's what I did.

And that's about when my shin started swelling. It wouldn't stop until I got to the doctor's office on Monday. The anesthesia needles going into the would hurt like hell and I've never seen so much blood and puss come from such a small hole. At first the doctor thought it was staph, but after two days on highly-potent antibiotics, she thinks it's most likely MRSA, a drug-resistant form of the flesh-eating staph bacteria.

[image error]

Thanks, Bitter Cold Showdown. Only you could give me something so violently infectious that even the strongest drugs couldn't kill. You're a filthy, disease-ridden whore, and I couldn't love you more.

You're not only host to a great competition—despite people on the internet bitching about a venue change without offering up suitable alternative parks that can hold such a crowd and still provide challenging obstacles—but also a town that welcomes us with open arms, accepts our bullshit, and is nice the whole time.

Fuck it. Let's see what went down at the comp.

You have to check out Jason Reyna's from Rolling Mission because, honestly, I think his is one of the best of the bunch and because in the credits on Vimeo he thanked the lassies of Bar Bar "because you ladies put up with our shit year after year!"

Also, let's not forget about Hawk Trackler because his awards are never short of entertainment, especially the awards at the end.

I know I'm probably missing a ton of other good edits, but cut me some slack—it's Wednesday night. I've been awake in my own apartment for a total of about eight hours.

Let everyone bitch all they want—and they aren't waiting around for permission—but I thought the contest was another damn good one.

Dave Lang, Demetrious George, and Chris Haffey made the biggest obstacles look like curbs. Erik Bailey skated the deadly rainbow rail like he's been skating it in his garage all winter. Alex Broskow obviously did some technical shit I still don't comprehend. Franco Cammayo skated in full beast street mode, Jared Grob showed his still blades hard, Montre did a damn misty off of a top soul, and Aragon still skated strong following a head injury at Winterclash.

And that was just a few hours on Saturday.

As Daniel Kinney—the founder of BCSD—said this weekend, Bitter Cold is not about the contest. It's about the tradeshow, the gathering. It's about getting everyone together. It's about good companies offering their products at a huge discount to tons of people directly putting much-needed dollars into the industry.

I stood there, watching people flow in from a line that wrapped around from the front of the park and back again, envisioning that scene in Mallrats where Brodie walks into the mall and proclaims:

Then someone—namely Sam DeAngelis from Be-Mag (and other places)—thought it was a good idea to give me a microphone and put me in front of a camera. Oh, all the places that could go.

I went full retard.

It was fun.

The tradeshow debuted some dope stuff including new skates, new frames, and more. It really is the best time to see what's going on in the sport, meet the people who make the decisions, and make yourself known, if you so choose.

Then again, this year's tradeshow lacked its typical oomph with 17 booths. There are some hardcore staples, like Michigan-based SixWonSix, ONE Magazine, Valo, Aggressivemall (who easily won best booth with their boutique-inspired creation they shipped from California), Adam Johnson and his brands, Ground Control, Create Originals, Denial, Be-Mag, and more.

One of my personal favorites—besides Intuition's homemade cookies—was the new brand JUICED, a collaboration project with Aggressive Mall and those loveable scamps in JSF. Their Oakland Raiders-themed hats sold the fuck out at the tradeshow like Tony Hawk did in the early 90s.

(Read more on the collaboration and the history of the Juiced Sucka Foos at aggressivemall.com.)

The thing that was missing were booths from major companies Razors, Rollerblade, Shima Skate Manufacturing, and Eulogy. It was really strange to see those brands without a presence at the only tradeshow in blading.

From what I've heard from several sources, some of the brands had to skip paying for a booth and shipping product to and from to use it for travel and other necessary expenses.

Seriously people, buy some shit.

At the trade show, Justin Eisenger of ONE announced Nils Jansons as the magazine's Skater of the Year. There wasn't much clapping going on after.

Most people I talked to were stunned. A select few weren't.

Nils did a damn fine job in his skating for the World Rolling Series Uploaded contest this year. The clips featured in the edit were outstanding, especially from such a young kid.

The deal is that both ONE's voting system and the SOTY were based on online voting, just like those surveys from girls on Facebook who are trying to see if they should cut their hair.

Even if Eisinger attested to maximum professionalism in the voting process, it's not a flaw in procedure, it's a flaw in the premise.

While blading never sees any mass media exposure, Nils makes the news in Latvia when being nominated for a worldwide contest that's based on athletic merit. It's like the fucking Olympics or something. So, many non-bladers join the voting process and BOOM! It's more than just blader votes.

Again, before anyone gets their titties in a twist and accuses me of picking on a kid and attempting to destroy rollerblading because I'm a bitter old man, realize that online voting contests are never based on merit. They're typically based on exposure.

Still, there is no doubt that Nils was voted as ONE's skater of the year. Eisinger responds to the dissenters and gives his rundown of the weekend over at the new OneBladeMag.com.

Another site, Mushroom Blading, offered their Skater of the Year, and despite personally naming Brian Aragon as Blade or Die's Skater of the Year, I fully agree with those crazy Canadian kids:

There's more that went down last weekend, including a nice fight with bladers and a knife wielding Russian who offered to filet people in the wee morning hours at Coney Island, but nothing made the weekend more perfect that the Pariah premiere.

As he anticipated, Adam Johnson was wasted for the premiere of Pariah, his latest blade flick he finished editing merely days before.

After the premiere, a certain person—who will not be named until the statute of limitations has passed—threw a professional grade firework on top of the marquee. The thunderous explosion and subsequent in-your-face flash bombs cleared the sidewalk in front of the theater.

Adam Johnson stood there, wasted out of his skull. He leaned back and smiled, the kind of the way a man should after yet another cross-country van tour culminated in such a violent display.

"That was nice," he said before screaming and cussing at a car of bladers.

And that's how the video goes down. If you haven't seen it yet, you must buy it. It's a great blend of young American talent, insane tricks from some of the best street skaters, unbelievable spots you've never seen, and enough lost flesh to make Buffalo Bill the suit he's always wanted.

Buy Pariah from your local shop or straight from Straight Jacket Distribution. I've watched it twice since the premiere. AJ was even nice enough to publish the entire soundtrack for those of you who like to skate to skate video songs. I know I do. I highly recommend this one from Chris Farmer's section:

Now, I'm sitting here writing this, my infected shin throbbing in pain, listening to "Keep on Knocking," and know without a doubt that I completely failed in summarizing how awesome and amazing the whole weekend was. That's kind of why you should have been at the BCSD 12.

I can't wait for what lucky BCSD 13 will bring.

I at least would like to see someone make a sign with the number 13 from the back of the Roces Majestic 12. Or one, at least one, person wearing an old Roces 13 shirt, preferably the two-tone blue longsleeve made famous by Arlo's winning X-Game run in 1996 seen here.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans

P.S. — I'd really like to thank everyone who bought my books at the trade show. I only thought I'd sell a few copies, not all of them. That feeling of support from the blade community—and fans of this shit column—made one of my favorite Bitter Cold Memories. You guys are awesome.

Share on Facebook

Blader Digest: Blunts, Cunts, Strippers & Drugs

In 1966, a book came out that publicly displayed the inner workings of a fringe culture that involved regular gatherings that involved hundreds of slobbery drunked hulks of brawn and stupidity. They regularly risked their lives and safety to live and do as they saw fit, even if they didn't fit into the larger society. Most importantly, there was always trouble when the beer ran out.

That book was Hell's Angels by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

In it, the good doctor made this poignent observation that I personally believe can be applied to a certain sect of rollerblading:

A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit — no matter how often he's reminded of it — that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley… Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads… and they are going to stay that way… Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.

These men, these diehards, they are the population of the backbone of our industry. They are the ones with blood on the concrete and gas in the tank.

And never does our sport have such a spectacular exhibition—in contest and trade show form—of these fabulous creatures than the Bitter Cold Showdown.

The MOTHER….
…FUCKING…
BITTER COLD Showdown!!!!!

I don't give a shit how hard or hardcore you think you fucking are, this is Bitter Cold. If you're going to skate, you'll most likely try shit that would put you in  a wheelchair. If you're going to party, pack some bond money in your sock. If you're going to show up, you better be ready to rumble.

At this point, 99 percent of you know whether you are going or not. For those of you going, you have your million-plus-one reasons why you look forward to this shit every year. There are jobs, girlfriends, wives, and possibly some kids that require you to stifle that aggression and power inside that screams to get out every time you put your blades on. This is the only weekend you know that voice will be choked silence through debauchery served up by the good folks of Madison Heights, Mich.

Honestly, I don't understand it. We end up leaving the stretch of four-lane road from the skate park to the Econo Lodge stripped and beaten like a snuff film actress and every year they put out signs welcoming our arrival. We're the biggest cash cow of the year for the small town, but we try not to treat the good people like cheap whores.

(In all honestly, the people of Madison Heights and Royal Oak are far too accommodating for our antics and should be treated with nothing less than the utmost respect and civility we can muster. As far as their cops go, fuck them in the ass with a steel rod.)

As I say every year: if you're not going, you better have some damn good reasons. If you're in any way comfortable in your life and you're not going, you have my pity—you are on the slow decline to death and mediocrity.

In other words…

"Let's fucking take over weak ass Madison Heights (or whatever chump ass town we'll be in) once again this year and fill the air with phat chronic shmoke, Steak 'n' Shake farts and tons of beer puke (whiskey included too). Oh and a whole lotta SHIT TALKIN…..the skating will speak for itself."
— Erick Garcia, JSF el Presidente

Bitter Cold is not only a three- or four-day romp through the cold in a town where you can do nearly anything you want—short of rape and murder, which you shouldn't be doing anyway—but it's always the start of something.

I don't go to Bitter Cold because of the partying and the stories.

I go to Bitter Cold for the 15-year-old in me. That awkward kid from flat-as-fuck Nowhere, Wisconsin who pushed carts through the snow and cleaned public bathrooms at Wal-Mart to afford skates and whatever else he thought Hoax II—and not his Catholic school teahers—told him he needed out of life.

If you're one of those people who always sit around and complain about what isn't happening in blading and you're not doing anything about it, Bitter Cold is your chance to make that happen. You can talk to virtually anyone there—and every blader is down to hear a good idea—and you can start some shit. Not like sit at your computer like me and start some shit, but put a name and a face on your words and let everyone know what you feel.

Really, that's all it takes to make something already so awesome that much better. You could talk to someone in February and by March you could be working on some really cool shit in the industry.

I know because I'd been there.

In essence, if it weren't for regular trips to Bitter Cold, I'd be just another grom watching edits and writing shit in the comments. I'm fucking no one. I'm just another dude who has loved rollerblading since I was 14 years old. I studied videos like Hoax II and the VG videos as if they were pages of my personal Bible.

Here's an example of what I mean:

My first Bitter Cold was in 2008 when I was living in Iowa. We took a 15-passenger van at about 90-plus miles an hour through shit Midwest weather to Ohio so a few people in the van could make it for qualifiers. They barely did.

Logan Clark, Des Moines, Iowa—true miz. Photo by Bruce Bales.

Sure, I was 26 years old at the time, but I showed up to the park and grommed out fucking hard. I was running around, talking to pros I had never met—and probably never would—because growing up in Wisconsin and living in Iowa, well, you'll never see a pro tour coming through. Ever.

The hardest gromming I ever did was approaching the Valo booth specifically to meet Jon Julio. The guy has always been a legend, but even since I was 15, he was a dude with a style that seemed inhumanly natural. So, even though I didn't need them, I bought a pair of JJ Velros from Jon Julio himself. The 15-year-old inside me was fucking juiced.

The highlight of the trip for me, personally, was meeting Justin Eisinger from ONE Magazine. I geeked the fuck out because, well, I wanted to write about blading. It didn't hurt that he casually mentioned that my first book was going to be reviewed in the next issue of the magazine. All of my blackout drinking—which of course I don't remember—was in celebration of that fact. The writer in me was fucking juiced.

The following year, the caravan from Iowa gained more vehicles as we took even more first-time riders. This year, however, the party moved to Detroit and we took one of our homies, Tyler Noland, with us. A few days after Bitter Cold, Tyler reported to prison. Then again, if he wouldn't have gone to Bitter Cold, I wouldn't have got to known the metal-loving, hammer-dropping, Thor stunt double and he wouldn't be living on my couch in San Francisco. He's fucking juiced.

BCSD 2010, well, was by far the most interesting one. I had been writing for ONE magazine since 2008, but by the end of the trip, I would quit writing for them, have Mike Opalek and Arlo Eisenberg (my godfathers) discussing my first book, go to jail for standing up to cops who think choke-slams are a solid form of debate (and the same with putting a can of mace to someone's eye while they're sitting in the back of a cop car), watch Victor Arias keep his cool as a jailer basically pushed every one of his buttons (including talking shit on his family), get bailed out of jail by Jon Julio—again, my fucking childhood hero— and have Jon Elliot buy Erik Bailey and I lunch.

Oh, and then there's Bar (or Bar Bar to some). Oh there's something about a place with $5 pitchers and a karaoke machine that will really ruin a man.

I'm positive I was at BCSD last year, but I don't remember much of it. There was a lot of drinking in the bleachers, and some shit with some cars in the road, and something about some shit I said at a restaurant. Really, it's a fucking blur.

Wait, yeah, I remember something else…

JSF. That's right…JSF.

No one yelled louder or created more of a fucking ruckus than JSF. Those guys repped their fucking crew so hard the memories of my homies blasting the bleachers permeated my whiskey-soaked skull.

So, yeah, you can expect some shit from JSF this year.

Why did all that shit happen, the kind that now that I've been thinking about them all I realize there's no point in bitching about ? Because I went to Bitter Cold.

Yeah, I can out-grom anyone in rollerblading because this shit is so fucking awesome it makes everyone else's interest in any other sport seem depressingly tame.

Now, I'm a writer living in San Francisco that blades to and from a great-paying job and spends his weekends rollerblading and getting drunk with rollerbladers and there's nothing I look forward to more than freezing my ass off, drinking cheap beer, and eating lethally-deep fried food for three days.

The 15-year-old in me is still juiced.

Sure, you can watch edits later and think you know might have been the real winner of rollerblading when there's controversy in the judging—as there is every year—but you'll have no idea what really happened.

You'll have fucking missed it all.

You have my pity.

Now, thanks to Bitter Cold, I'm still writing this shit, blading is supporting the hell out of my books, and soon there will be a blading book coming out that many people who have nothing to do with rollerblading—especially other sports photographers—will be talking about.

Yeah, I'm fucking pumped to be part of something that awesome.

See everyone next weekend.

Blade or Die,
— Brian Krans, J.S.F.

P.S. — I'll be slinging my books this weekend at the tradeshow, but if you're one of those dudes with a good reason for missing, you can buy them direct from Rock Town Press' Big Cartel site. We have a few choice endorsements.

Share on Facebook

Hutch: Notes from a Love Child

Zac Hutchings is back again, this time even happier and more optimistic, a charming thing we hope our young Australian friend never loses, unlike the rest of us jaded old bastards here at Blade or Die. Again, he comes away with a strong, passionate message about what we all love. Without any other bullshit, here's our grom from down under:

Hi there, it's me once again.

Zac Hutchings here, coming to you with an optimistic viewpoint about a special day I hold very dear to my heart. That's right, Valentines Day is not only the day where the world is supposed to rejoice over "love," but it's also the day that marks my birth.

As I write this it's 1 o'clock in the morning, and I just got my laptop out after not being able to get to sleep. I currently listen to "Love Like A Sunset" by Phoenix (on loop) as I mash away at my keyboard about what currently seems like a good message.

Saint Valentines Day, according to Wikipedia is, "an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions."

Guess what?!?!

That's not the half of it. Essentially we should be spending Valentines Day celebrating love.

Most spend their day rejoicing love with their girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband, partner or anything of the such. However, understandably, the same as it has been for hundreds of years, not everybody will have someone like that to celebrate with this year.

If you are one of those people that believes they are going to be alone on Valentines Day, THINK AGAIN!

The Boss, Brian Krans, put it perfectly in an earlier article…

"Let's all agree on one thing: we exist to love. To love a person, an idea, an ideal, or a deity, it makes no difference. We love."

BAM! There it is, essentially the meaning of life, the basic foundations of a happy successful life in a line and a half…

The point here is that this Valentines Day if you haven't had luck with romance, or you have just suffered heart break, or you're scared to take the risk or whatever your reason is, your not alone.

You blade…

It's as simple as that.

Check out this trailer for the Ground Control DVD (which, by the way, is a must buy, it's brilliant.)

The voice-over at the end, in fact this film in general, proves my point exactly. Everyone that helped with this film clearly doesn't see blading as just a sport. It's more than that.

On Valentines Day this year, if you have someone that you can share this day with, then do so, spread the joy of love with others. If not, get some buddies together and skate.

Just because you don't have a significant other doesn't mean you don't have love.

When you put on your first pair of blades for the first time you entered a contract….

…a contract that doesn't need to be written down or said out loud. You entered a contract of love. The love for skating, the passion, the motivation all of this is your contract. You have found something that will never leave you, from that first day you put on those skates you gained a lifetime of love from what is more than just a sport. People outside the scene don't see it as that, they may think its dumb, or lame or uncool, but that never matters. It never has and it never will because YOU have found something that YOU love.

Even when blading pushes you down, whether it be a broken bone or some torn muscles or just a bruise, imagine it as a passionate kiss from the woman we call "rollerblading."

This Valentines Day, alone or not, rejoice in love, because as bladers, we all have it, we always have and always will….

Blade or Die,
— Zac Hutchings

Share on Facebook