StrangeLove
hopping fences for the culture: a tampa recap
Sean Cliver
Remember when I was saying how there's a war outside your window for the history of skateboarding? Of course not. Nor should you. For one, I myself can barely remember anything I've tossed into this wasteland where words go to die; and two, it's an absolutely ridiculous and wholly cryptic thing to allude to. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say it rivals some of ithe truly esoteric bullshit that would find its way into a vintage "Trash" column of Thrasher back in the '80s—and that's saying a lot, because those were the smudgy newsprint days when the riddles were absurdly obscure and I spent way too much time trying to decode the lore of an industry I dreamed to one day crack. Anyway, just know that various factions and forces are indeed at work in the shadows and to beware of silver-tongued salesmen bearing snake oil wares. Question all motives. Trust no one. Be kind and rewind. I mean, the kids have got to know, right? Or am I wrong? So hard to tell these days, but that's half the fun of skateboarding. Otherwise it would just be some antiseptic Olympian pursuit and bollocks to that.
a chromeball excerpt with mike frazier
Sean Cliver
I remember appearing on what was basically the German version of Good Morning, America back in the ’90s with Tony [Hawk]. The most watched morning talk show in Germany. They invited Tony and I to come on and skate this ramp that they’d built in a park. We were supposed to shoot it all the next morning, and in our heads, we thought that we’d be able to get there early and skate the ramp a little bit first before the show. No, we get there that morning and they’re like, “No, you can’t skate the ramp because it’s the backdrop of our set.”
all roads lead to florida
Sean Cliver
A funny thing, history. To those who experienced the past, going back to a specific point in time can be a heady rush of memories not too dissimilar from mainlining heroin and sinking into a warm, fuzzy fog of nostalgia. To those who did not, these crusty reflections of yore can oftentimes be nothing short of an insufferable bore, because it is incumbent upon the young to punch that in the face which is fucking old. Unless, that is, you happen to be like Nick and I. Apparently the two of us were both born out of sync with own generations and share the peculiar compulsion to get down and dirty with the historical roots of our obsessions. Look, we just want to know how the past influenced the present, okay? Anyway, all of this brings us to… Florida. Well, I'm not sure any of that really did, but here we are now nonetheless.
a tale of two flyers
Sean Cliver
Not so much a grandiose tale in the epic Dickensian sense, but rather a quick heads up that a lot of our heads will all be in Tampa this April for the highly anticipated annual Tampa Pro Vert & Street contests being held at SPoT, April 4–7. As you know, every year they tap a new artist to decorate the course and all the propaganda that surrounds the Pro and Am events, and the offer ended up on my desk for 2024—an honor, to say the least, because I've always had a soft spot for the hardcore nature of Brian Schaefer's SPoT empire.
author! author!
Sean Cliver
Hmm. Not sure why I stopped at two author exclamations for this particular post title, because there are, as y'all should know by now, a total of four found under our reading rainbow from last year. So: Author! Author! And, now that I've come mathematically correct in this literary sense, I'd like to pointlessly ponder, "Why on god's greenish earth didn't I write a post about this series when it mattered?" With regard to the original release, I mean, because the sentiment itself—the reading of books—is a timeless necessity to being a functional human engaged in the day to day struggle of life. Or at least it once was, I suppose, considering the last several years have seen a bizarre anti-cultural movement seemingly hellbent on the decline of western civilization. How so? Through a belligerent denial of science, facts, history, and maybe even the very concept of reality itself. Why so? Fuck if the fuck I know. Never would've ever expected to see such a willful and giddy regression to the dark ages of ignorance and a song-and-dance two-step away from the next Grand Inquisition, but here we all are, fazed and bemused on the farcical edge of some fanatical dimwit's flat earth crusade.