Koston

I know he was just here in Hawaii last month but the title of this post needs nothing else but his name.
Seriously.

With his pro model shoe from Nike recently dropping, take a little look at just how fucking absurdly this dude is living these days:



What the fuck???
This video is straight up ludicrous but I love so many things about it.


First of all, custom job or not, I need one of these for traveling.


A pole jam to severely tweaked method on something like this would be a career highlight for someone like me but for Frosty it's just another drop in a seemingly bottomless bucket of dork tricks.


Speaking of dorky, I find it curious that one of the best all-around skateboarders of all time feels the need to wear a rubber bracelet with a low budget hologram on it that supposedly enhances balance and performance.
Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit, son.

I mean really, Eric Koston needs help with his balance and performance?
Seriously, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit, son.

Also, this is the guy calling on the phone and asking him for shoe hookups?

Hahahahaha, what else did they talk about?

The sweep?

Nah, I do love the swoosh but this Kobe/Koston collabo shoe is on some fugly shit though.

Shake Weight in the middle of a trick?
Only Koston could get away with shenanigans like this.


Braddah Andy Henrie is still the rippingest and most motivational TM in the industry, but how much longer will Sergeant Skate be behind the wheel?
As far as a replacement goes, they're gonna have to at least come up with a guy like this to match Andy's intensity and passion for shredding, hopefully the Nike troops get somebody close to his level that can keep these maggots in line even half as much as my man does.

Jef Hartsel on Crailtap Front Page

Stoked to see this photo of Jef and Lil' D on the front page of tha Tap today.



Looks like this pic was taken on the streets of Kaimuki in Hartsel's old hood, glad to see Daniel remembers who first put him on to the game back in the old World days, respect!

Mike Carroll @ Kapahulu Skatepark

Looking at the usual skate sites the other day I was beyond happy to see one of the best of all time getting the royal Chrome Ball treatment.

Mike Carroll is a fucking boss.
Literally.
VP of the company and still killing shit after being pro for nearly twenty years, I would rather watch Mike go grocery shopping than look at eighty percent of skate video parts that are produced these days.

But I digress.
While viewing the stellar crop of photos that the homie Chops put together, one of them jumped right out at me real quick.
This black and white photo of what has to be one of, if not theeee most proper looking backside Smith grinds to ever take place on something other than transition.



That and the fact that the photo was shot here in Honolulu at the now defunct Kapahulu Skatepark back in 1998.
There was a Girl demo that day and it was memorable for many reasons, I mean shit, it was Carroll, Koston, Jeron, Gavin, Guy and Keenan, bless his soul, that right there is a heavy lineup for any time and place in skateboarding history.

Lots of ill shit went down at that demo and this was also the same day that Chad filmed those guys doing APB shout outs for the intro of his first video, Midnight Mauriders.


Young MC.


Guy threw up the infamous half shaka/half fuck you and then threw down a big ol' switch hardflip on the steep flat bank while Jeron killed the tech manual shit.


Koston straight up murdered the demo of course and a few days later came really close to crooked grinding the lip at A'ala Park.
That didn't stop Transworld from running the photo in a future issue that would document this trip, one of two non-makes that they printed in that memorable Hawaii article, the other being Jeron's crooked grind at the Bishop Street gap to ledge.


Tim Gavin at the tail end of his career was still pretty fucking good, even though he was starting to get a little chunky.
Shaka for the camera.


RIP Keenan, he shredded Kapahulu so hard that day and then went big that night at Femme Nu.
Homie was so psyched to be in Hawaii, and if you got the chance to see him skate in the flesh then you are truly blessed.

There's a photo out there somewhere of all of these guys taken in front of the sign at the Like Like Drive-Inn, I can't remember where I saw it but it is a really, really great picture and if anybody ever runs across it hit me up because I would love to be able to see it again.

ANYWAY, that was awesome seeing the Carroll pic from that day at Kapahulu and being there to see it go down in person was a real treat.

On a related note, Ben Colen has just posted some nicely shot photos from last month's Fourstar trip to Hawaii which included another one of these demos that people like me will no doubt be waxing nostalgic about for years and years to come.

808 Promo Video Thoughts

First of all, sorry for such a long gap in between updates.
I'm sure all eleven of you were wondering what the fuck was going on.
I sprained my ankle 2 weeks ago, and you would think that being injured would lead to more chill time hence more blogging but that's probably how a normal person would do it.
I still have to work at a job that requires me to be on my feet all day so the foot is definitely not recovering the way it should be, and as far as skating goes, I probably shouldn't be telling you this but I really don't miss it that much.
True story.
Anyway, until this shit feels one hundred percent again, I'm chillin.

I was however really stoked last week when I received an email from my man Chuck letting me know that there was a new 808 Skate promo put together by the one, the only, Sean Patrick Reilly.

Check out this little slice of shredding that was filmed and edited in very low definition by the Bedpan himself.



Glad to see that the 808 Skate tradition lives on with a revamped squad that joins O.G. team riders Reilly and my tall man bredren Sean Payne.

I do have a couple of questions after seeing this though.

First of all, is Kyle Smith the new Sam Clemens?
And if he is, does that make Jason Park the new Anton Glamb?

Is Nate Nahina the best moke skater since Jarret Bush?

Is that Tiny Bubbles moment with Mikey Albert and his wine the best edited thing I've seen all year?

Did Bernardo Bernard go and get a boneless teri chicken plate at The Heights after he boardslid that kinked rail?

Do I not care that all of the Sean Payne clips are recycled and old as fuck because any Payne footage is gold footage?

The answers to all of these queries are irrelevant, but I have to say I am excited about the prospect of another 808 film directed by Chuck, and since we will realistically never see a local skateboarding video production filmed as a shot for shot remake of the 1987 classic North Shore, a new 808 video should prove to be an interesting hodgepodge of cinematic styles.

Also, have to mention my absolute favorite part of the whole thing.
The moment at the 8 minute mark of the video where my man Kenny, rest his soul, is filming Reilly and his Jackson chameleon attempting some fingerboard shenanigans and you can hear that laugh.
THE LENNY LAUGH!
Appropriately enough, this clip ends at the 8:08 mark.

Aaaaaaaand scene...

Kento Takahashi on Lesque Skateboards

Super stoked to see that our Japanese homie and former Hawaiian resident Kento Takahashi is now officially riding for Lesque Skateboards.






Check out Kento-san's smiling mug in the mid-lower right.

If you didn't know, Lesque is one of if not the most elite skate company in Japan.


A couple of years ago the readers of Transworld Japan voted Lesque the best overall team in the country.


Also that same year they voted Lesque's Shinichi Ito a.k.a. Itoshin the best street skater.

Really hyped that Kento is now teammates with some of the raddest skaters in Japan!

Here is the latest clip in Lesque's "Skate With Us" series, this is number five and features the debut of Kento.



Really sick skating by the whole team and an overall good fun vibe as always.
Working on doing an interview with Kento now and that should be posted up here in the near future so be on the look out for that.

Aaron Lee BayVI Hawaii Commercial

Holy sheep shit!
I guess Aaron posted this on Facebook already and this video was uploaded to Vimeo like ten days ago but it's new to me and if you haven't seen it yet you should check this BayVI Hawaii clip out because
SUNSHINE DID A FUCKING McTWIST ON THE VERT RAMP AT HICKAM!



I don't know about you guys but I've never known anyone personally who has done a McTwist on vert until now.
Maybe you hang out with amazing vert skaters who shred so hard that McTwists are no big deal but me, I think that shit is fucking amazing.

Shit was so legit, he actually got upside down like you're supposed to and didn't do one of those phony 540's where it's not an actual McTwist, this shit was a hundred percent genuine.

Huge congrats to Aaron for landing that, definitely something we're not accustomed to seeing in Hawaii that's for sure.