Bearded and Slightly Beweirded

Every now and again Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction in the western sky. Rare shit like that occasionally coincides with me getting a trick that might be worth dropping off at Zero and dumping into the Cold War folder. In between those scarce moments, in order to avoid plunging into the deathly-dark pit of boredom and depression, I tend to make videos inspired by skateboarding. The above video is a collection of self-portrait clips shot over the course of a 3 month period in which I completely forgot to shave. The more observant among you may glimpse flashes of severe joy and inner pain throughout.

P.S. It doesn’t have to be Jupiter and Venus, it could be any rare celestial configuration, a blue moon for example. Music used with permission from Johnny Common.

5 Great Reasons to Fail to Qualify at the Annual Tampa Pro-Skateboarding Contest

When you deplane at Tampa, Florida, you might walk over this mosaic of a spiral galaxy but that’s not one of the reasons to fail to qualify at the contest.

Keegan might pick you up in a Chevy Malibu, rented, ultimately, by Vans Shoes. He might drive you to his hotel room all the way explaining that he really wants to skate for as long as possible on practice day. At the hotel you’ll camp out on the floor despite Keegan’s persistent and tempting suggestive propositions to share his bed. These are not reasons to fail at Tampa either. The reasons will come after the failure since we can’t predict the future with any great degree of clarity. Continue reading “5 Great Reasons to Fail to Qualify at the Annual Tampa Pro-Skateboarding Contest”

Investigating Skateboarding Episode 2: Div

Very recently an interdepartmental crossed wire at one of skateboarding’s most esteemed publications (a crossed wire regarding presentation style, format and the repressing constraints of mail order co-promotion strategies) resulted in the unshackling of one man’s video trash. Lucky for you, team Predatory Bird are the type of waste-not, want-not skaters who regard this type of trash as solid gold. When fate sent this video gold over to the office here it was immediately clear, “Aha! This is part 2 of the series Investigating Skateboarding!” we all yelled in unison. Perhaps we subconsciously manifested it, perhaps that’s some hippy bullshit. Either way, in this episode the lesser spotted, ever energetic Div Adam takes some time out of his busy day (generally spent helping to market affordable beer with unorthodox wit) to talk frankly about his current skateboard, please listen carefully and enjoy.

Following Up with Friedberg

As requested here’s the rest of a conversation I had with 411VM founding father Josh Friedberg regarding the history of 411 video magazine. You can check out the first half here.

Who composed the opening music, how did you guys find the band and did they get residuals?

A salesmen at New Deal named Ken Wood was in the band Sol. He gave me a couple of DATs of their music and I picked The Boxcar as the opener song. We eventually bought all the rights to the song before we went through the acquisition so they got a decent check out of it.

Who designed the little blue section icons and where did the inspiration for those designs come from?

Andy Howell, Johnny Schillereff and Jose Gomez designed the first batch when they were working together in Atlanta. They were trying to create universal icons based on the article names. Later on our various art guys spruced them up when we decided they needed updating.

Some sources claim that later in 411s tenure it became harder to get footage from the top pros because they felt like they were just getting lost in the mix. How true is this? Continue reading “Following Up with Friedberg”

411 Video Magazine – The YouTube of it’s Time and The 411 Conspiracy Theory.

In talking about 411’s roll as an accelerator of skate-video content production is it safe to say that 411 was just the logical result of what the major electronics manufacturers were doing at the time? Would it have been impossible for 411 to have existed before that time because video camera equipment was strictly for the rich?

In the late 80s/early 90s Sony and Panasonic were growing their businesses by, for the first time in history, designing decent video camera equipment that was affordable to the average consumer. 411 didn’t do that, they just naturally emerged as the de facto platform on which all this content, that was coming into existence anyway, was viewed. The 4 horsemen that started it up were Josh Friedberg, Steve Douglas, Paul Schmitt and Chris Ortiz and although the opening music might have felt hackneyed after issue 64 it still makes me nostalgic for a simpler, more innocent (read “innocent” as naive if you like) time.

The 411 conspiracy theory began when Continue reading “411 Video Magazine – The YouTube of it’s Time and The 411 Conspiracy Theory.”

All in the Best Possible Taste

The good folks at Deluxe were kind enough to send over a bottle of the highly sought after, limited edition, Dylan Rieder with the Hobo Wine Company, collaboration Cabernet Sauvignon. We here at the Predatory Bird are fascinated by this type of trailblazing action-sports meets fermented-fruit-juice idea. Here’s a short video presentation about our experience with this rare Continue reading “All in the Best Possible Taste”

A conversation with the author of The Impossible

Hoping to bridge the gap between how sports illustrated might cover skating and how the specialist media covers skating comes Cole Louison. It is a perilous, cracked interchange to traverse but, armed with a deep appreciation of David Foster Wallace, Louison has articulately crossed that precarious structure. Those details he saw from up on that treacherous overpass have been carefully compiled in his book The Impossible (you can read the review from issue 9.4 of Color magazine by clicking here). Continue reading “A conversation with the author of The Impossible”