Ricky and the Kastel Shoe team came to Honolulu in late 1999 for a vacation and to get a little coverage. The video from the trip appeared in 411 Video Magazine Issue 32.
There was a magazine article from the trip as well, and the photo of Ricky at Kapahulu came from Transworld. However, I remember a different photo of Ricky from back then that I could not for the life of me find, no matter how hard I searched. The photo in question was an ad that was shot at A'ala Park during this trip where he was doing a backside ollie grab off the lip. I was certain that it was an ad for Kastel, since it was after all a Kastel trip that they were on at the time but it turns out I was dead wrong.
Super stoked that the homie Justin from Vert Is Dead dug into his extensive crates and finally uncovered this long lost picture that I had been looking for since the beginning of the 2000's:
Turns out it was an ad for Destructo Trucks, not Kastel as I had always insisted. I didn't know that Ricky ever rode for them.
Anyway, mahalo to Justin for going deep and pulling this obscure pic from his files.
This has been floating around the Internet for a little while and I haven't had a chance to properly process it all and speak on it yet but since Lil Wayne is performing here in Honolulu this Saturday night I figured now is as good a time as any.
First of all I have to preface this by stating that I absolutely cannot stand this dude's music, I think his shit is fucking terrible. I also think he has quite a lot of nerve referring to himself the greatest rapper alive. I know part of the whole hip hop lifestyle persona is to proclaim that you're the shit, which is actually okay as long as you are the shit, but Weezy is out of his mind claiming greatest rapper alive. KRS-ONE, Rakim and about a thousand or so more talented and interesting emcees need to fucking die before this dude is even close to being the greatest rapper alive. How about most prolific rapper alive or dude that puts out the most shit? Fuck outta here with that bullshit son.
Anyway, music aside, I think Lil Wayne is awesome for getting into skateboarding lately. Obviously he's not very good at it yet (still better than Pharrell or Lupe) but he looks like he's having a blast trying:
Even sessioned with Malto, and Malto is a small dude so how tall do you think Wayne is?
This guy is always tweeting about skateboarding, even when he busts his ass.
Whoops.
Speaking of busting his ass, Wayne made the news when he ate shit recently and had to get stitches. I can't front, if you are a multi-millionaire entertainer and you're getting stitches from learning how to skate, you're alright with me.
Also, I'm curious as to whether or not Weezy will be getting his shred on here in Honolulu this weekend. If you check out his Twitter, he sure seems like he's doing a lot of skating lately while on the road, notably hitting up the Venice Skatepark and sessioning the Supreme Bowl while in L.A. a few days ago. I'm guessing maybe A'ala Park sesh sometime Saturday or Sunday with the Plan B dudes, or maybe Hickam perhaps, we'll see.
Anyway, if you haven't already seen the videos, judge for yourself:
Saw a commercial for this shit on fucking ESPN the other day while watching Sportscenter:
Town and Country is bringing down the entire Plan B pro team to Honolulu for a demo and signing and some kind of thing where people can win a private session with those dudes.
Not too sure about the signing but I think it's on Saturday the 24th and they haven't announced which T and C location they're gonna be doing it at, but on the poster in fine print it says only Plan B merchandise will be signed. Huh? So if I bring a pair of Paul Rod's signature Nikes in there or an old PJ Ladd Flip board like my man Kenny did back in the day, they aren't going to sign that shit for me? Fuck outta here with that bullshit, son. That's some foul horseshit right there, but that's their prerogative I guess.
Also, the actual demo itself is going to be on Sunday September 25th at the Manana park in Pearl City, kind of a weird choice but I'm sure they'll rip it regardless. Also Town and Country is doing a collabo deck with Plan B and they will be releasing it the weekend of the demo and signing.
Boards look kinda wack but I didn't expect much from T and C in the graphic department. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of chain stores at all and I would never cop skate gear in the mall but I have some love for Town and Country because we go way back like Lebron James' hairline, I got mad history with the yin and yang working for and skating for them back in the day.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing O.G.s like D. Way, Colin McKay and Pat Duffy shredding and also dudes like T-Puds and PJ, of course Paul Rodriguez is going to destroy it. Sheckler I have already seen skate at Manana a few years ago but dude has gotten a lot better and seems a whole lot less douchier these days so we'll see.
A couple of days ago Thrasher announced the skaters that will be participating in this year's King Of The Road challenge and it's pretty rad to see that Maui's Ryan Spencer will be one of the guys representing the Dekline team.
Having a hard time embedding this, but you can check out the announcement video here.
This year for KOTR it's all shoe teams and with Dekline going up against Nike, Lakai and Vans, the competition is going to be especially fierce. Bummed that braddah Andy Henrie is no longer the Nike team manager, they definitely got some big swooshes to fill there.
And oh yeah, any teams feel free to hit me up if you need somebody over 40 to do a flatground 360 flip.
The other night I was chilling at home wearing this t-shirt and I was surprised that my wife immediately recognized the Kool-Aid guy.
It was funny to me because she's from Japan and they don't even have Kool-Aid over there but it turns out the only reason she's even seen the Kool-Aid mascot is because of Family Guy, which believe it or not is one of the few English language shows on TV that she watches regularly.
Anyway, I wanted to show her where this dude came from orignally so I went to YouTube and looked up some of the old commercials from back in the day that featured the Kool-Aid guy busting down doors and smashing through walls to promote that good old sugar water.
Wouldn't you know the very first commercial I found was skate-related.
Peep this classic:
Jesus, even for back then that's some seriously low budget shit but hey, at least the little boy wasn't pushing mongo.
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.
