In this video we document the skateboarding lifestyle. It is composed of the type of lifestyle skateboarding we endorse and encourage. All skating is on The Predatory Bird Lifestyle Item, available here.
Tag: Skateboarding
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The Predatory Word
Color magazine have asked me to write a regular sidebar on their book review page Inspiration Bound. They suggested it be called The Predatory Word, which I think is quite funny but I’m still a little self-conscious about it and have no idea what I’m writing for their next issue. Below is a piece I did for Color a while back about my experience with an electronic book that contains various skate-themed craft and design projects. It continues with the endless theme of designing the ultimate skateboard. Warning: It is mainly words.
Build it, Hack it, Skate it.
An account of what could happen if you decide to pursue the path to a home made lifestyle board.
You download a free kindle app and buy some book called Build it, Hack it, Skate it, for 99 cents. You are possibly the type of person who looks at the Ikea shelves and thinks “120 bucks! Pfff. I could make that myself, easy.” You might do your own oil changes and intrepidly replace drum brakes on old trucks. You are not alone. (more…)
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Peter Brings the Shadow to Life
The title of this post comes from this essay. If you can’t be bothered to read it that’s fine but if you can then your life will be a little richer; although maybe not in the diamond earring sense of the word. It sums up some of the themes that might possibly be floating around inside the following amazing video by Joe Pease. Let us know in the comments if we’re reading way too much into it and should probably just chill (‘n’ shit).
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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.
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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. (more…) -
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.
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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 (more…)
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The Riding the Long White Cloud post
Below, in 5 parts, you should hopefully find a film of a muscle-powered tour that a group of skateboard enthusiasts undertook in New Zealand one summer. My idea was to use the trip as a speculative platform from which (more…)
