Tattoo Age Series on Vice TV - Grime Part 2 of 3

Grime gives us a little back-story on how he transitioned from a young skateboarder in Grand Junction, Colorado who thought his future was in mathematics to one of the world’s most accomplished tattoo artists.



Grime Part 1 of 3

bali bagus by Taj Burrow

bali bagus from Taj Burrow on Vimeo.

Lousy edit by TB , Filming Shane Dawson. Song: The Faint - Posed to Death.

Party Favors by youngwisetails

We were saving a bunch of clips for Transworlds Surprise Excitement party, but they didn't all end up fitting in the part. Perry put them all together, and included some of the ones from the movie to create this Surprise Excitement party-favor.

Party Favors from youngwisetails on Vimeo.

5boro

New York’s Urban Aloha by Thad Ziolkowski - The New York Times

WHEN the world’s best surfers come to Long Beach, N.Y., next month to compete for a record million-dollar purse in the Quiksilver Pro New York, a new event on professional surfing’s world tour, they might be forgiven for using Google Earth to locate the place. Compared with Australia and California and Hawaii, where Quiksilver established its pre-eminence as a beachwear company, New York barely registers on the surfing atlas.

There’s good reason for that: the waves are typically pretty meager here, the winters long and stoke-extinguishing. The competition is scheduled for the first two weeks of September, when the odds of hurricane swells are at their statistical best. Still, as locals will tell you, that’s quite a roll of the dice. If showcasing the underappreciated athleticism of surfing is the goal, why not hold the contest in, say, Fiji or Mexico, where the waves would be far more likely to prove worthy of the surfers?

Perhaps because Quiksilver is coming to town less for great surf than for greater market share.

In the past decade or so, surfing has undergone a worldwide boom in popularity, especially among women and urban professionals in their 20s and 30s. Tom Hanks surfs; Cameron Diaz, too. Surf schools and spa-like resorts, the fastest-growing segment of the surf economy, have sprung up, further altering the character of a sport that was once the realm of working- and middle-class adolescent males and young men whose initiations at local beaches were typically prolonged and humiliating.

Meanwhile, older surfers, who in previous generations would have put aside this childish thing, have kept on surfing or returned to it after a hiatus, in large part because of the renaissance of kinder, gentler designs like the longboard and stand-up paddleboard.

As if suddenly remembering that it’s a coastal city, New York has been swept up in the urban surf craze along with San Francisco and Los Angeles. And why not? New York may not have abundant, grade-A surf but ridable waves are as close as Far Rockaway, Queens, about an hour from Manhattan on the subway.

In New York City, slipping off to ride waves virtually within view of granite Gotham provides a unique, slightly illicit, dreamlike pleasure. Surfing shouldn’t be possible here, and yet it is.

Artists, writers and others in trend-conscious fields are plugged in to New York’s surf scene now, but most of the rest of the city is not, and riding the subway with a board clasped to one’s chest like a dance partner still elicits smiles and queries from otherwise game-faced straphangers. There is something disarming about the sight of a surfboard in New York, where it has a nutty, quixotic quality, like a pair of wings.

When New York City surfers cross paths, they greet one another, exchange notes. Because so many of them are new to surfing, having taken it up in adulthood, they are less like seen-it-all New Yorkers than surfers in pre-“Gidget” California, who would pull over when they passed another car of surfers and introduce themselves. Anyone who has surfed in Santa Cruz or Huntington Beach — chilly, xenophobic “surf cities” — knows how exceptional this urban aloha is.

And if surfing has a soul, it is aloha: welcome, hospitality, generosity without thought of recompense. The word is Hawaiian, of course, and Hawaiians are the ones who gave surfing to the rest of the world. The bitter irony is that the rest of the world returned the favor with a vengeance, and Hawaii’s storied line-ups, flooded by outsiders, are now as famous for being jam-packed and short-tempered as for the waves.

Which is why Quiksilver’s descent on Long Beach is so ominous. Imprinting the Quiksilver brand on New York’s burgeoning surf scene makes perfect sense from a business perspective, but the corporate siren song threatens to sour the mood of surfing in New York, which for the moment remains a bastion of surf spirit. It’s a spirit that companies like Quiksilver claim to value but have in fact helped degrade elsewhere, peddling a vision of surfing’s blithe, blue allure that studiously omits the ugly realities of overcrowding that such marketing abets.

Come what may in the way of waves next month at Long Beach, Quiksilver will do its utmost to lure more people to the sport — and to the cash registers. In an atmosphere of staid, commodified carnival, tents will be emblazoned with sponsor names; top pros will sign posters of themselves riding waves that bear scant resemblance to the nearby surf; and swag will be given away to a milling crowd. There will be a few media types and the odd celebrity, including the 10-time world champion Kelly Slater, and young Balaram Stack, a homegrown star.

Even with such talent on offer, the contest itself may well prove a somewhat dull, obscure affair. Surfing just doesn’t lend itself naturally to formal competition: waves prove too fickle in the best of conditions, and the judging criteria, periodically rewritten though they are, tend to produce relatively safe, conservative performances. The most avid fans of pro surfing are former pro surfers.

And should a good hurricane swell grace the event, a sizable portion of the audience will probably be catching waves of their own rather than spectating along the boardwalk. From Breezy Point to Montauk, the breaks will be stippled with the seal-like forms of surfers celebrating a spontaneous pagan holiday, work and school happily spurned.

It’s not hard to imagine New York’s urban aloha going the way of its Polynesian progenitor, but for the moment a genial, just-folks atmosphere reigns. That’s because it’s still possible to find a bit of ocean to oneself here. And if living in New York proves anything, it’s that it only takes a little — quiet, green, surf — to suffice.

Would that Quiksilver and its confreres learn the same lesson.



Thad Ziolkowski is the author of the memoir “On a Wave.” He directs the writing program at Pratt Institute.

source: The New York Times

Red Bull Minor Threat: Episode 3

"We woke up, it was sunny, beautiful, hot, sheet glass, not a boat around, and absolutely perfect." – Conner Coffin

The third in Red Bull's webisode series, focused on their Minor Threat boat trip (aboard which was Kai Neville, with camera and a goal to make these clips), don't surprised if you black out after watching this, then come to and realise you've booked a boat charter for Lance's Right. No one's gonna blame you.

Episode 1
Episode 2

Brazilian Storm

In one of the most important and biggest surf events of the year, the Brazilians were on fire to face the North-American waves, showing everyone that the new generation of 6.0 surfers from Brasil have all it takes to compete with the best in the world.

We followed our newest surfer in the 6.0 crew at the Nike US Open of Surfing 2011, Filipe Toledo, who won the Pro Junior category, at the age of 16.

Join us with Filipe on his wild week in California. Side by side with Alejo Muniz, Pedro Scooby and Gabriel Medina, from the arrival at the airport, meeting new crew members, behind the scenes and all his accomplishments up to the final heat, when he managed to beat a few of the greatest names of the new generation of surf: Kolohe Andino, John John Florence and Conner Coffin.

NIKE US OPEN 2011 - Filipe Toledo - "Brazilian Storm" from Nike 6.0 on Vimeo.

It's Better in the Wind - Soundtrack Announcement

As the last trailer to promote the film 'It's Better in the Wind,' it is only proper to announce that to accompany the short will be an original soundtrack written by Chuck Ragan, including the track 'The Fire, The Steel, The Tread.'

This teaser includes footage from both a vintage Super 8mm camera, and HD digital.

It's Better in the Wind is a photographic and film project by Los Angeles-based photographer, Scott G Toepfer. All footage is recorded and edited by him. The music is written and recorded by Chuck Ragan.

It's Better in the Wind - Soundtrack Announcement from Scott Toepfer on Vimeo.

Peter Ramondetta in Seeing Double

No one really knows what drives Peter to skate like this, but he's been at it for the past 10 years and isn't slowing down. Here's his part from Real's 2002 video.

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Electric - Something For Your Eye | Part II

Still your pounding heart, steady your busy hands and force upon yourself this opportunity to free your office-numbed mind. Let your bandy legs run from the four white walls and enjoy the wanderings of Electric's Craig Anderson, Jay Davies and Ry Craike as they guide their sleds through, over, and under some of Indonesia's multi-colored carpet rides.



Part I