StrangeLove

how they matter

August 25, 2024 • Sean Cliver

Did you know we have a YouTube channel? I barely do. But get off my back, jerk, because so many different StrangeLove hats are worn between Nick and I that we're lucky if we can even remember our own names, much less what we did or did not say to each other a week ago. Yes, Moleskins would behoove our beleaguered and forgetful synapses, but that's more of a personal matter between the two of us and not something to be aired out in public spaces such as this… which I apparently already did. Hmm. Anyway, the pencil point of today's post is not our bottomless well of shortcomings as occupational human beings, but rather the great lengths we went to this summer to share the stories behind our newly expanded line of "Pro Series" boards and how they're all now uploaded to that Great Digital Garbage Gyre in the Cloud, aka YouTube.

me and you and everyone we unofficially know

August 16, 2024 • Sean Cliver

If there was ever an embodiment of a spirit animal in skateboarding it would undeniably be Mark Gonzales. Unofficially speaking, of course, because why would you expect to read anything about the mythical Gonz here? But that, my friend, is precisely where the blooming onion begins in our professional world of many layers. Let’s take a dip in the Outback deep fryer to unpack.

one louder

July 08, 2024 • Sean Cliver

My dear friend Megan Baltimore once interviewed me for an issue of Wallride, where she asked, "On a scale of 1–10 how uncomfortable are you in your own skin?" Without skipping a beat, I replied, "This one goes to 11." Yes, the very same number on Nigel Tufnel's infamous Spinal Tap amp. And it's true. So much so that I can be an exceptionally awkward and uncomfortable human being to be around or interact with at times—some may even say most times. All depends who I'm around, what exactly is happening, where it may be publicly or privately, and how many other humans are involved or in the immediate area. The why, however, is probably the most important variable of all, because if the scenario happens to be a recorded interview, say for a documentary or a podcast, well, then this number of mine ratchets straight past 11 into unnerved territories best not triggered because the only thing to be echoing throughout my vacuous brain pan is, "WHY THE FUCK DID I AGREE TO DO THIS?!" Hence my near bulletproof policy of passing on any and all such recorded invitations. Some, I think, may take me for dick because of this, but trust me: it really is best for all parties involved that I don't dunk my psyche into any further tanks of stress and anxiety than I already experience on a run-of-the-mill normal average old day—my basket case just isn't woven properly. End of story.

a matter of size

June 28, 2024 • Sean Cliver

Several months ago I stopped in at Kingswell to have a look at the board wall and wound up shooting the breeze for a good while with shop owner D.J. Chavez. Throughout the course of our scattered conversation the topic of wheelbase eventually came up, at which point D.J. rolled his eyes to the sky and recounted the time when a couple of Baker and Deathwish riders first zeroed in on these mysterious incremental measurements and how their synapses immediately exploded into uncharted levels of mind-spinning OCD.

what if... anita tessensohn had turned pro?

June 19, 2024 • Sean Cliver

Off-the-nose kickflip—a give or take 3.5" nose, mind you. Ask any kid who watched Powell-Peralta's Public Domain, aka Bones Brigade Video 4, when the VHS tapes first hit skate shops in 1988 and that's one of the highlights they're sure to remember from Anita Tessensohn's 15-seconds of instant video fame. This was, I believe, an on-video NBD at a time when most skaters were still learning how to do regular ol' kick flips in the mobbest of eras. Oh, not to mention the fact that hardcore female street skaters in the '80s were the equivalent to spotting hen's teeth in the mouth of a unicorn—or at least so it was in my red neck of the Midwest woods where skateboarding was frowned upon in every single imaginable sense. So, to see a girl seriously kicking ass on street made the fantasy of the West Coast… well, even that much more fantastic.