Seems like every time there is a skate contest or big event of any kind, it's always taking place on the weekend. Since I work, baby... I am never able to make it out to these things to witness the proceedings in person.
Good thing there's little clips like this recent recap of the ASH Manny Mania contest held at the Kaneohe skatepark floating around to recognize and summarize.
No surprise that Danny Hamaguchi and Matt Chaffin represented hard by super-sizing their manny value meals up the high side of the Pier 7 block and of course Jason Park held it down on his home court as well. In the end though, it was not-so-little-anymore Danny that prevailed and won himself a trip to the mainland to compete in some kind of national finals in the Manny Mania series, not sure when that's happening or where, but keep your eyes peeled.
Big up and shout out to Kavet for posting this little nug on his Vimeo page, also peep out his site and blog for plenty forms of narcoleptic stimuli, and while you're at it also check out his partner-in-crime Lofa's shit for any kine random musings peppered with all types of medicine.
Recently I was over at APB setting up a new board (8.25" Anti-Hero, Deluxe wood is THE SHIT, by the way) and I saw a picture of local boy Dyson Ramones in the newest issue of Skateboarder Magazine and thought to myself "That is really fucking gnarly".
Today I was perusing the Stereo website and stumbled upon this picture once again:
Guess what? That is still really fucking gnarly.
Killer looking spot and big ups to Dice for not only getting a frontside grind on what appears to be many feet of vert, but also for standing up tall on that shit!
Go Skateboarding Day is actually every day, but I guess we here in Hawaii can celebrate the first day of summer by watching former Mililani local and APB rider now Los Angeles resident Jarold Webb drop a Mag Minute from The Skateboard Mag on the masses.
Super dipped backside Smithers.
Nice wall skidder.
KF overcrookie.
Bumper to front crook.
Feebs.
Anyway, really good shit here. Seen some of this footage before but a lot of it is new. Always psyched when local homies get put on display for the world to see!
Hell yeah, love to see that local dudes are still out there getting clips and shredding outside the skateparks!! Conor from APB and Treevisions is bringing that heat right here just in time for summer with his brand new edit of stuff that was filmed in the past few months.
Conor broke the March/April/May Visuals into two parts that are chock full of shralping by some of Honolulu's finest:
Part One:
Part Two:
Lordamercy. Dudes are seriously fucking killing it right about now.
Have you seen Kaikea Kimura lately? Little bastard done grown into quite a manly ripper these days. And how about Danny Hamaguchi? Dude has been on a serious killing spree for some time now. Like on some Predator shit, straight up killing fools in the jungle and collecting motherfucker's skulls for sport.
Anyway, get out there this summer and shred everywhere you can and then check out more good shit from Conor on the Downwithapb Vimeo page, and of course on his incredibly well done Treevisions website.
DOMO ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU or should I say MAIDO OOKINI to my dear friend Junji Murata from Soundboarding for filming not only this day of skating that Junji, Masa, Wataru and I enjoyed , but also for being the cameraman at my wedding reception party. Super stoked that he could make it all the way from Osaka and be a part of the festivities!
Also, Masa sent me some photos that he took of this day so here they are:
Junji grinding frontside on the main mini at the skatepark.
SUMIMASEN! Can I barge your playtime for five minutes?
Wataru rocked out frontside at Ueno.
Man, Wataru's pivot to fakie was waaaaaay too easy! Dude got 'em on lockdown.
Thank you sir, may I have another?
Feeble stall, this thing is not very grind friendly let me tell you. Plus, water on the other side if you bail.
Cutty Shimokita spot. Cruised a backside wallride outta there and straight to the bar. KANPAI!
I was really happy to get to skate at least once during this short and busy trip, and even more stoked that Junji was still in the Tokyo area on this day and was able to get in some skating and filming with us before he took the bullet train back to Osaka that night.
Also mahalo to Masa for driving us around and being his usual cool self, always a rad time when we get to session together. Oh, and GOMEN NASAI Wataru! I thought we were going to skate a different place after the skatepark, turned out it wasn't the spot I told you it would be. Sorry, dude! Hopefully next time we can shred that spot in Saitama, or better yet, just come to Hawaii, I'll make it up to you!
Anyway, super duper fun time all-around and I hope to make it back to Japan in October for Junji and Maizy's wedding in Osaka!
It's no secret that whenever I go to Japan I am always on the lookout for the latest in skate magazines and videos. My collection is fairly deep. This past trip however there were no new videos to cop but there was a new issue of Transworld Japan, which is always a must get for me.
Nice cover as usual.
I was more than stoked when I realized that one of the two check outs in this issue is none other than former Hawaii Tokai University student and In4mation team rider Kento Takahashi!
Hell yeah, love to see my Nihonjin tomodachi getting coverage, and in addition, Kento not only shouted out A'ala Park, Treevisions, and Contrast Magazine, but he also big upped the SKATE NAZI blog! DOMO ARIGATOU KENTO-SAN! You my man.
Man, everybody misses Kento over here. Dude needs to get back to Hawaii soon.
Missed out on skating with Kento this past trip to Japan, but we got to session together at the Interstyle trade show in Yokohama this past February, super rad to see him over there.
Also in this same issue I was happy to see some of my Osaka homies in the mix!
Element Japan rider Masashi Morioka is one of the tallest skaters I've met over there, here he demonstrates a nollie hardflip into a tall bank at the Kyoryu skatepark, where I got to session with him a couple of times at.
Also noticed that my man Tatsuya "Venix" Nogami is the subject of a little piece called "Live The Skateboard Life", which he does to the fullest, by the way.
Dude is running shit hard in Osaka. His Dorcus brand clothing is hot fire and he's constantly throwing big parties and events for the local hip-hop scene in addition to al the skate stuff he already does. Venix is a true b-boy since way back and actually knows how to rock a mic, not only that, his best friend is one of the baddest mixtape DJ's in the world: DJ A-1.
In addition to hooking up with Kento, I was super hyped to run into Venix and DJ A-1 at the Interstyle trade show last February. A-1 and Venix were handing out copies of A-1's Beastie Boys mixtape that FUCKING KILLS IT. Seriously. The dude is beyond amazing with his mixes and scratching. Bananas.
Anyway, the feature on Venix was a two-pager and of course there is a picture of my man in action:
Evening bluntslide to fakie on some Night Prowler shit!
Really happy to see Venix still throwing down in mags and videos, dude has been killing it for so long in the Japanese scene. ALSO want to give him a huge mahalo and DOMO ARIGATOU for the video shout-out/speech he gave to me at my wedding reception party. It was a huge surprise for me when my man Junji played a short DVD that had messages and well wishes from his soon to be wife Maizy and my little buddy Takashi Maekawa. Venix also told a little story about how we met and skated for the first time, shit was really cool and I was stoked that he took the time out to film that shit with Junji it was really cool of both of them to do that.
So the new issue of Transworld was really dope, but I was also looking to get the newest issue of BOARDKILL, which is always really rugged and raw.
BOARDKILL is a free skate mag that most decent shops carry over there, always a bunch of cool shit in there.
My man Masa of course runs an ad for his shop Phi Wi Spot in BOARDKILL every issue. This issue's ad features a bunch of homies rock-n-rolling at various spots.
Stoked to see that Masa included my rock and roll on the Volcom extension from the mini ramp jam at Interstyle last February!
Cross reference that shit right here:
Had to rock that shit!
Also, another free magazine that's out right now is this street culture mag called HARDEST that has a full page thing called "What Is Your Best Trick?". This monthly section is written by Venix every issue and this one is featuring my mainest man in Osaka, Murracho himself, Junji Murata!!!
Triple bonus score! This photo was taken in Hawaii when Junji and Takashi were visiting last summer and the picture was shot by the one and only Mako Ozaki. MAKOTOOOOOO! SO rad. I have a bunch of copies of this mag to give to Mako if and when I ever see him, he's so busy all the time.
GODDAMN. That was a lot of shit to cover, but I'm always super enthusiastic about sharing Japan shit so bear with me. Until next time, homies: JA MATA ATO DE.
With the wedding reception party out of the way and most of the tourist business already handled, it was definitely time to get in some shredding.
Last week Monday, the day before it was time to return home, my mom and my wife got to spend some quality time together while I linked up with Masa and Junji, who was still conveniently in Tokyo finishing up another freelance filming job, he would return to Osaka later that night.
I met Masa and Junji at Mister Donut in Shimokitazawa and then we jumped in the Cedric and headed to a new skatepark that was only fifteen minutes away.
Dudes were still sinking in some last minute screws on the featured mini-ramp.
Wooden ramps on top of black asphalt.
The flat bank connected to the mini ramp was the best one I have ever skated. Not too steep, not too mellow, but juuuust right.
The locals laid out the rules. Pretty simple. No beers, no doobs.
One of the highlights of the park for me was meeting this dude. Upon seeing him the first thing I asked him was if he was related to Shota Kubo, peep out his whole steez, it's pretty much Shota to the letter except that this cat is bigger, has huge mutton chop sideburns and he pushes mongo.
OH SHIT the fact that he pushed mongo was pretty funny actually. He called it "American push". I was like "HUH? American push?? What the fuck is that? Don't insult America like that, you're pushing MONGO. It's called MONGO." I had to correct him. Sorry dude, you're cool and everything and I feel your pain being a former mongo pusher myself, but I will not have the United States be associated with yours or anybody else's mongoism.
ANYWAY, the park was really fun but the weather was a little too good that day, and by that I mean it was very Hawaii-like with the heat and humidity levels on high all day.
We rolled around a little bit more but the heat was pretty intense.
Me and Ichiro. This dude has been a local at this place forever, they've been building and bringing their own obstacles here for a long time and now they are fully stoked that the city parks people let them have their own area there and they just finished the ramps only last month.
Junji,me, and Masa. We figured out the next spot to go to and just when we were getting ready to split, we ran into this guy:
I met Wataru last February in Yokohama at the Interstyle trade show, he killed it in the mini ramp contest then. I knew that he was good friends with Chris, who had stayed in Hawaii for a bit before going back to Okinawa. Wataru is a pretty heavy dude in the Japanese skate scene, definitely no lightweight. He's sponsored by Volcom and Black Label and some other shit I can't remember, but the dude is always in Japanese mags and videos and he RIPS. Also, Junji had filmed him when Conor and the Treevisions dudes visited Osaka last summer.
ANYWAY, we decided to go to a spot that I had skated before, a very cool park that was not a skatepark but a kid's playground that was skateable. Even though he had just got to the skatepark and hadn't even set foot on his board yet, I told Wataru that he should come with us and skate this incredible spot. He was totally down for it, HOWEVER he had no idea that I was totally confused and I thought that we were going to THIS place (which in actuality is about an hour and a half drive away):
When in fact, we were actually going to THIS place (which was like five minutes away):
Fuuuck! I felt really bad because I think Wataru hadn't skated the spot I thought we were going to (the one in the Fourstar video Super Champion Funzone, a pretty famous spot that is always in photos and magazines and videos) and I was stoked that we were gonna be able to take him there and shred with him. Basically it was a serious miscommunication between me and Masa and I thought that one playground spot was another one.
OH WELL, we went there and it was super crowded with little kids sliding down the area where we wanted to skate, so Junji busted out his camera and made like he was filming something really important and asked the kids to move over so that I could skate without running into any of them. I'm sure their parents were really stoked that we barged the kid's slide and were riding skateboards where we weren't supposed to but oh well, it's like that sometimes.
Wataru didn't want any of the slide, and Masa wasn't getting up there so I did a little demo for the little kids by myself while Junji filmed with his 4000 dollar camera. The session didn't last too long. It was really hard to do anything on that slide with a ton of little kids leaning all over it. I was terrified that I was gonna bail and hit one of them. The kid's parents didn't seem very stoked on this at all either, so we packed it up and headed to another spot.
The next location we decided on was Ueno park in the north part of Tokyo. The granite block and brick quarterpipes seen in the 808 Skate video "It's 8:08" are located in the middle of one of the biggest public parks in the city. I first skated this place roughly 6 years ago with Sean Reilly, Mako Ozaki, and Chuck Mitsui when Chuck was making "It's 8:08" on location in Japan. It was really fun but there were tons of people to weave through then, and there were still a lot of people this time.
Me and Wataru moments after the cops came and booted us.
Basically it was me and Wataru skating the whole time because Masa had to find a bathroom to take a big dump that he'd been holding, and Junji was filming. Wataru and I got to skate for a good 20 minutes or so. Several times we saw guys in uniform that appeared to be security or police approaching, but they just walked on by us. This happened like four times until the actual police came and made it clear to us that it was time to go.
After leaving Ueno, Masa took us to one of his local spots in Shimokitazawa, a little brick bank spot that I had skated once before in the freezing cold and at night. This time it was sunny and bright and we settled in for a fun little sesh.
I borrowed these next three photos from Masa's blog, VAMOOSE:
Me grinding frontside.
Junji grinding backside.
Wataru fronstide wallride to frontside 180 out to flat. Shit ain't easy, those banks are rough and steep.
After skating, we all went to a bar in Shimokitazawa for some beers and to meet up with my mom and my wife, who hung out all day and bonded. I was really stoked to get a chance to skate with Masa again, skating with Junji again was an awesome bonus, and getting to skate with Wataru was super sick.
The whole trip was insane. Life-changing even. I've never been happier than I am right now. SHIT IS DEEP! Talk to you later.
Eazy Duz It? Nah son, we want EZ...as in EZ Ryder Originalz!
Finally ready for public viewing online is the website of EZ Ryder Originalz, brought to you by the dynamic duo of O.G. Alva and World Industries pro Jef Hartsel and the even more O.G. Dogtown Z-Boy (and the original Skate Nazi himself) Jay Adams.
The koa wood completes they recently made came out looking incredible and sold out quick, and now you can peep their full website complete with photos, history and a cool little video put together by Conor McGivern from Treevisions that features the koa wood complete getting a little test ride from various heads at A'ala Park and also at the Makiki skatepark.
Stoked to see the website up and running and can't wait to see what the boys come up with for their next release!
ひさしぶり です! That means it's been a long time. As in a long time since I posted anything here or even thought about this shit. The whole week I spent in Japan I didn't even look at the Internet, and truthfully I didn't miss it one bit.
Japan was incredible as usual but this time was easily the most special of all the thirteen times that I have been there since I first went in 1995. My wedding reception party was off the hook and it was also rad to show my mom around on her first trip to Japan. Of course that and I got to go skate with my Nihonjin connects!
From here on in let each keystroke I now type be a black arrow of death sent straight through the hearts of all those who still insist on kooking it.
THE SKATE NAZI EXPLAINED.
First of all, let's just get this out of the way right quick. I mean, it should be fairly obvious to most people familar with modern American pop culture where the inspiration for the moniker "Skate Nazi" originates from. If you aren't a Seinfeld fan, or you happen to live in a country where the humor of Jerry and the gang doesn't translate well, the name has absolutely nothing to do with Nazi Germany or anything even remotely close or pertaining to anything Nazi related. It comes from one of the greatest supporting players on one of the greatest programs in the history of American television, the Soup Nazi.
In September of 2006 my dear friend Kenneth Brimer and I went to Chicago to visit our homie Chane Wilson who was living there at the time. One of our friends in New York City, Sean Kelling, suggested that we fly in for the weekend to hang out and kick it with a bunch of our other friends from Hawaii who now reside in NYC. The airfare was cheap so we went early on a Friday morning and flew back to Chicago the following Monday. Even our boy Chad Hiyakumoto trekked all the way from Hawaii to NYC for the weekend, also our friend Manny flew in from San Francisco, and with them and all of our other transplanted New York ohana from Hawaii, we had a pretty big posse in the city for those three days.
Anyway, Kenny and Chane on the loose together? With Manny in the mix? In Manhattan? Forget about it. They were all about getting fucking wasted. They brought their boards, but they sure didn't give a shit about skating that weekend. Don't get me wrong, Chad and I were also very much looking forward to partying, but to us skateboarding was definitely the more important aspect of being in town that weekend. I made sure that we hooked up daily with Andy Henrie and Sean, and I also made sure that they were not only taking us to places like Max Fish and Motor City, but that they were also taking us to some goddamned skate spots. I was so on top of that shit. I was the one who woke up first every day and cracked the motherfucking whip to get the shred shit going. In fact I was so militant about this daily business that our friend Rhandy Tambio said to me "Dude, you're like a fucking skate nazi, damn!"
So there you have it.
THESE PEOPLE ARE NEAR AND DEAR TO THE SKATE NAZI'S COLD BLACK HEART.
