Chey Grace

March 10th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in photos, video

I originally took these photos for the 2008 New Zealand Skateboarder Annual #20, a sequence got in, but these didn’t make the cut. I’ve had them in the gallery on this site for a while, but I thought I’d post them along with some nice footage of Chey from that time.

The photos…

…and of course the video.

The video was filmed mostly by Daru Susilo-Knox with other footage filmed by Simon Radford, Ratty, Arthur Kay and lots of Chey’s friends whose names I don’t know. Chey and I edited it up in 2008. Chey was keen to get it out on the web. Look out for Part III.

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School Shoe Rant

March 7th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in shoes

School Shoes
I recently was in our local skate shop and one of the staff was mentioning a conversation he had earlier over the phone with a Principal of one of Dunedin’s local high school. He was complaining about the shoes they were selling and how they weren’t suitable for wearing at his school as the weren’t “formal black lace up shoes”.
School Shoes
Now I looked at the shoe above and thought that maybe it might fit the criteria. Now I wouldn’t wear this around myself because they look too much like a school shoe, but it looks like it might be comfortable and I think if I were still at school I might choose this. Apparently it’s made out of leather and you can see it’s a lace up type. Globe have gone out of their way to cater for this market and designed a shoe accordingly. I was thus a bit confused as to what the Principal might be on about.

So I thought about if you had a strict criteria what would a “formal black leather lace up shoe” look like? Google images is your friend, so I looked for some black shoes and in some posh overseas stores I found these beauties. Yes, these are probably what he was talking about.
Black dress shoe
Black Dress shoe
Now they are probably leather and I can see they might be a little different in small details than the Globe ones above. They are more pointy and the lace holes are quite small, but I don’t think there is a significant difference. So I was a bit puzzled, but I thought may it was in the detail that I was not akin too. Sure I wear my black skate shoes to Weddings and Funerals and they certainly don’t look as mainstream as the Globe ones, but that’s me and maybe it’s a generational thing and I don’t have a clue.

But then I was walking around and I saw kids wearing these things.


Surely they can’t be “formal black leather lace up shoes”. They look like industrial safety shoes. Surely school isn’t that hard core that students need to wear black safety shoes. Maybe they need protection so that falling heavy text books don’t damage their toes, and they need that thickness of rubber underneath because of all the miles they do traveling between classes. I’d hate to wear those things, imagine how sore your feet would get lugging these lumps of rubber around.

Now I was really confused. So I typed “formal black leather lace up shoe” into Google Images because, well things had obviously changed and my idea what people wear on formal occasions is different to what Principal’s think. I didn’t get too many hits because it was a full phrase rather than key words but these were the ones that turned up.
Formal Black Shoe
Formal Black Shoe
Now I’m really confused. There is obviously quite a wide criteria in this whole “formal black leather lace up shoe” thing, but I still can’t see why the Globe shoe at the top doesn’t fit into it. So I thought things have changed and I wondered when that happened, so I looked at some old school photos. Now I thought these kids might be wearing skate shoes.

But then I saw these ones.

I realized they were the dreaded Nomad shoes and Treks. These were senior students so obviously things are a little more flexible in what they could wear, but the juniors could wear those hideous shoes without any problems. So I thought I’d search google images for a decent picture of these ugly Nomad shoes to show people who’d never seen them. I went through all the images and all I could find was this one photo to show them off.

The teacher in the picture is wearing Nomads and looking through some other pictures teachers seemed to be wearing them too, mostly the beige ones. On reading a bit more of the web it seemed that some teachers were a little slow to adapt to changing fashion and eventually teachers wearing the beige Nomads became a source of amusement, and beige Nomads disappeared from popular culture. The fashion gods sighed a sigh of relief.

I digress.

Here’s another interesting fact, The New Zealand Medical Journal in their article titled Interest and participation in selected sports among New Zealand adolescents reports that 20% males aged 12–17 years in their sample participated in skateboarding. Skateboarding was the 6th most popular activity for those males. For females it was less at 5%.

Globe are not constructing shoes that are as hideous as Nomad shoes or those safety shoes or even as bad as the Google Images defined “formal black lace up shoes” and the variation that that encompasses. I think the Globe and most of the shoes on the desk above would fit into the “formal black leather lace up” category and would definitely fit into the “black leather lace up” category. I can only conclude that because of a skater bias, some Principals and Boards may find it difficult to welcome such shoes with skateboarding brand names into their schools. Some of the people who make and enforce these footwear rules may have some sort of cultural baggage associated with skateboarding and skateboarders; maybe they were made fun of at their local skateboard park. They would like to think that the 20% males aged 12–17 years in their school that had some sort of skateboarding affiliation simply did not exist. There are no evil skateboarders at their school. Apart from that skateboard shoes are comfortable and I can see why students, even if they didn’t skate, might choose to wear them.

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skate4cancer videos

March 2nd, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Dunedin, competition, video

Here is some video from the skate4cancer competition held at the Dunedin Central Skatepark.

Open


1st Nick Bright
2nd Chey Grace
3rd Ryan Clark

16 & Under


1st PJ Wybrow
2nd Joel Stirling
3rd Micheal Robertson

13 & Under


1st Ben Hotton
2nd Semisi Maiai
3rd Riley Stirling

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skate4cancer Video

February 26th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Dunedin, New Zealand, competition, tour, video

Here’s a video of the skate4cancer tour, and the Comp in Dunedin that marked the end of their New Zealand tour.

I have some footage from the day that I’ll post once I have it sorted.

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On the Girl Outbackwards Tour Bus from the Crailtap Camera

February 25th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Auckland, tour, video

Insightful.

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Girl Outbackwards Tour 2010 – Manukau, New Zealand

February 21st, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Auckland, tour, video

The Outbackwards Tour hit Manukau on Friday.

Here’s some bunch of footage I found on YouTube.

Autograph Signing

I played them all at once, it’s intense. Great day, great skaters.

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skate4cancer

February 20th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Dunedin, competition

Results of the skate4cancer competition held at the Dunedin Central Skatepark.

Open
1st Nick Bright
2nd Chey Grace
3rd Ryan Clark

16 and Under
1st PJ Wybrow
2nd Joel Stirling
3rd Micheal Robertson

13 and Under
1st Ben Hotton
2nd Semisi Maiai
3rd Riley Stirling

Here are some photos of the day on the skate4cancer blog.

Lots of great skateboarding went down and everyone had a fun time. Video to follow.

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Wellington Bowl-a-rama 2010 Footage

February 20th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Wellington, bowl, competition

Been waiting for some Bowl-a-rama footage to appear on the net so I can see what I missed. Here’s some great filming by Nick Bennett.

Open

Masters

Prizegiving

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Disposable

February 17th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Interview, book, history, industry, nostalgia, web page
Disposable

The Disposable Skateboarders Bible

A few years ago I picked up the softcover version of Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art from the PSC in central Melbourne. It was written by Sean Cliver who worked for Powell-Peralta when they were Powell-Peralta, and later for World Industries, when they robbed Powell-Peralta of their industry crown. He is responsible for some of the most iconic skateboard graphics to hit the underside of a skateboard. I flew to New Zealand and read the first book pretty much cover to cover in the airplane. When the hardcover The Disposable Skateboarders Bible, also by Sean Cliver, came out in 2009, I ordered it as soon as it hit the online bookstores. Both really cool books that should be in a skateboarders library. Here is the link to the Disposable the web site giving some more information about the two books.

Anyway, there is a page off the book site called Disposable: random essays on skateboard art. It features mini articles about items of skateboard art and board collecting. It’s where Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art finished. I’m sure some of the entries will be incorporated into the next edition of the book… but why wait.

Sean Cliver has this very good interview on the Slap site and this amusing Fives on the Crailtap site, both make good reading.

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Talk Turkey Tuesday with Nick Bright

February 16th, 2010 by william | No Comments | Filed in Dunedin, Interview

Went out before the rain on Sunday (14 Feb 2010) and shot some stills of Nick Bright that you can see over at the Manual web site in Talk Turkey Tuesday with Nick Bright.

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