Anthony Demascio skates for Gyppo Army

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Unluckily for me I wasn’t able to hook up with Kevin McKeon and Aaron Sweeney a few weeks back in Belgium to get some photos taken but Kev is good at keeping me informed about what the Gyppo Army is up to.

The team has new t-shirts made which come from Nicaragua and buying them supports the livelihood of many underground companies/skaters so show your support and buy some. And their latest addition to the team is one Anthony Demascio, here’s a video showing some of his moves:

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adidas skateboard clash 2008 in the fourth round

I had this in my inbox for a while already so it’s time to get the news about the fourth adidas skateboard clash out which will be taking place May 31st and June 1st at the Berlin Skatehall in Germany. The street and bowl event will see 60 invited street skaters and around 15 bowl riders from all over Europe fighting it out for the $10,000 ($9,000 is going for street so if we do the difficult mathematics you’ll see a whole thousand bucks left over for the bowl riders…)

15 further riders will have the chance to qualify for the street event through the open pre-qualification. Current European bowl champion Juergen Horrwarth (GER), last years winner of the Street- Event Philip Schuster (AUT), Bowl- Shredder Seb Daurel (FRA), Daniel Cardone (ITA), Ivan Rivado (ESP), Alain Goikotxea (ESP) and Nicky Guerrero (DEN), Street- Ripper Lem Villemin, Alex Mizurov and Jeremy Reinhard have already confirmed their participation.

Live broadcasting on Freecaster.com and Place.tv Besides the skateboarding action there will be enough extra activity going on at night for everyone who loves to party. Saturday night will be dominated by beats. After the premiere of the latest PLACE release, the „born to roll“ crew will play just about anything between the good old styles of hiphop to the latest styles in grime. Moreover, The Tom and El Pogo will rock the second floor.

Schedule:
Friday 12:00 – 24:00 Open Practice
Saturday 10:00 – 12:30 Pre- Elimination Street
14:00 – 18:00 Elimination Street
18:00 – Open End Juergen Horrwarths Bowl Jam

Sunday 12:30 – 14:30 Semi Final Street
15:00 – 15:30 „Dirty Ticket“ Street
16:00 – 17:00 Final Street
18:00 Prices

Get all of the information you need from the skatehall website : http://www.skatehalle-berlin.de/

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Cexa’s Poolrider Podcast Paradies

CeXa's Podcast

This link had to get it’s own little post to make sure it gets the recognition it deserves - I love watching pool videos. These are the videos in which one gets to witness some of the craziest and most contorted skating there is. Pool skating at it’s rawest.

The site is hosted at Brasilskate.com and runs under the name CeXa’s Podcast. Currently there are 26 podcasts which means 26 different pools. So get yourself something to eat and drink, sit back and enjoy. Just wish I could speak the language to understand a bit mroe about Cexa’s biography - he seems to go back a few years!

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King Of Skate video contest with Alex Mizurov

King Of Skate

Playboard Magazine and BestTrick.com are starting an international competition in which everybody can get involved and win 2.500 Euros + an exclusive interview in the German magazine/catalog from Titus. What’s the deal? Well, you probably have heard of Alex Mizurov, the German tech skater who won the eS Game Of Skate 2006 finals. Him and some friends will be doing some tricks and it’s up to anybody entering the contest to imitate the tricks the best they can.

I’ll waste no time and just give you the official rules, make sure you register for the contest right here! before May 12th.

How it works:

1. A new trick, that must be redone, is presented by a top skater every Monday.
2. You have seven days to redo, film, and upload the trick on www.king-of-skate.com. An upload countdown on www.king-of-skate.com will announce the time left.
3. All tricks must be done on flat ground!
4. If you land the trick, you are moving on to next round.
5. As soon as you don’t upload the trick within seven days, the trick is not clearly visible or not landed properly (hand or foot touches the ground, no clean rolling away), you will recieve a letter.
6. If that happens to you five times and you complete the word S.K.A.T.E., you are out of the race.
7. To become the King of S.K.A.T.E, you have to survive the whole starter field and be the last competitor left.
8. You can enter the competition until the fifth week, but you will get a letter for every so far completed trick. If you enter in the third week, there will already be two completed tricks. Therefore you recieve the letters S and K, but you still have the chance to become the King of S.K.A.T.E. and win 2.500,- EUR cash + an exclusive interview in the Titus Magalog.
9. The weekly prize is yours, when you get the highest rating for your landed trick after the upload closure on Sunday evening. Furthermore you will be mentioned as winner of the week in the playboard.de news.
10. The landad tricks can be rated without exception by all registered BESTTRICK-users. Independent of the fact if they are entering the competition or not.
11. The voting for the tricks ends with the upload-closure. To increase your chance of many votes and a high rating, you should upload your trick as soon as possible every week.
12. For the competition entry you need an own BESTTRICK-Account.
13. All uploaded tricks must be done by you in person.
14. Already uploaded tricks on BESTTRICK are not accepted. You should redo and not present the tricks.
15. The decision if a trick is landed or not is exclusively made by our unbiased judges. Their judgement is correct and final.
16. If you are violating these rules, you are excluded from the competition.

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Pennywise - Reason To Believe

I grew up listening to Pennywise. They completely belonged to any good mix tape during an afternoon skate session back when I was growing up in South Germany. The music just had this sing-along, good vibration feel to it which always gave me the extra energy I needed/wanted especially when I wanted to try new tricks.

Okay, this isn’t about me, it’s about Pennywise, a band which started up in 1988 with singer Jim Lindberg, guitarist Fletcher Dragge, drummer Byron McMackin and bassist Jason Thirsk, signing up with Epitaph Records. Jason Thirsk left the band to get over his alcoholism, succeeding but then died from a self-inflicted gunwound in 1996. Now eight albums and two EPs later Pennywise has come back to release their 9th album “Reason To Believe” and I have to admit - it’s pretty darn good!

Sure, some of you will be saying it sounds all the same, they’ve turned pop-punk like but I’ll have to disagree with you on these points. The sound is crisp, to the point, good old school melodic punk rock and it makes me want to get up and go. My favorites include “One Reason”, “The Western Wall”, “We’ll Never Know” and and and…just one good album.

Pennywise also took a different approach towards marketing and selling this album. They have moved on to a partnership with MySpace in the United States which made the album available for free for a week or two on the release date.

If you ever liked Pennywise or melodic punk music from the “early” days, then get this album, it’s worth it!

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Zoo York team skates UK June 11th - 14th

Zoo York UK tour

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DVS Switch Ollie contest series in France

New idea? I haven’t heard of a switch ollie only contest before. So what? Sounds good to me and if you are somewhere in France and you want to strut your switch skills, here are the places to be at:

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eS Game Of Skate 2008 schedule out now!

eS Game Of Skate 2008

The eS Game Of Skate 2008 schedule - or parts of it at least - have been made public. It seems that the list is far from complete on the official website (Game Of Skate 2008 website) but with all of the different skate shops and companies organizing these contests, it can be a bit difficult to get them all. To make sure you don’t miss out, check your local skate shop or media of choice to get the dates.

I was contacted directly from the guys organzing the German Game Of Skate events so here they are!

- May 3rd in Bochum: Location info: Plan B, +49 234 6870038, shop(at)plan-b-funsport.de
- May 10th in Hamburg: Location info: Mantis Lifestore +49 40 20943910, info(at)mantisshop.de
- May 17th in Leipzig: Location info: Rollmops Skatemall +49 341 4625821, info(at)rollmops-skateboards.com
- June 14th in Stuttgart: Location info: Hall Eleven +49 711 2365195, info(at)halleleven.de
- German Finals June 15th in Stuttgart

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Skate park to be built in downtown Baghdad?

I almost thought I was reading another bad taste joke when I came across the post about an American businessman who is planning to build an amusement park with an integrated skate park in downtown Baghdad. Whhhhhhaaat?!!! This is definitely one of the strangest business plans I have heard about in a long time and of course this topic can easily get a heated discussion started up.

One side of me thinks immediately “why would the war weary people of Iraq want to have an amusement park which represents the values of the government/country which is occupying their country?”. Why build it in the middle of a zone which still gets hit by bombs and mortars? The part of the article from which I find a bit dodgy to understate it is :

“Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, is equally optimistic: “There is a shortage of entertainment in the city. Cinemas can’t open. Playgrounds can’t open. The fun park is badly needed for Baghdad. Children don’t have any opportunities to enjoy their childhood,” he said, adding that entry to the park would be strictly controlled through tight security.”

Sure, I support the fact that children need a place to play, to enjoy their childhood. A playground/zoo/skate park would be great. But if all of those extra troops can’t stop the bombings up until today, how are they going to do it at a playground park which openly represents what so many people of Iraq obviously dislike or even hate: the American way of life. Well, Mr Llewellyn Werner already has been granted a 50-year lease for the 20-hectar area of land next to the Green Zone with the Baghdad Zoo so it sounds like he is quite serious. Is Disneyworld coming to Iraq? Only time will tell but it looks more like a great target for the so-called insurgents.

On the other hand I love the idea that kids possibly could get a chance to do something they would never have the possibility to try, most likely because the financial possibilities are missing and a skateboard is most likely not at the top of their list of needs. As more than half of the population in Iraq is under 15, this could be something they have long awaited. I’m not so sure though. A lot of these ideas of getting investors into Iraq sound pretty crooked to me, a perfect place to make a quick buck off of a country which has little or no chance to say no.

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Ali Boulala gets jailed for two years

Ali Boulala can not be a very happy guy right now. It is still and will always be a tragedy what happened March 7th, 2007 - Ali Boulala and Shane Cross decided after a few drinks to take a ride on a motorbike and unluckily enough also without wearing a helmet. Bad luck doesn’t come alone and Ali crashed with Shane Cross into a hotel wall, himelf suffering severe injuries and Shane died from his. Shane was only 20 years of age.

Ali already spent over three months in hospital recovering from his injuries and has now been sentenced to 4 years with a non-parole period of two years.

Here’s a link to the Australian Daily Telegraph article (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23596008-5005941,00.html) which I myself find as a bit theatrical and stressing the idea that Ali killed Shane. I have to agree with many of the comments that this was simply a terrible accident in which Ali was involved. It’s not like he forced Shane on the bike. There’s enough pain already for Ali but that’s my humble opinion.

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