Vintage Whine

More premiere night coverage, a few years late.

           Isaac got all extraterrestrial for his big night.

          The Brothers Lutter.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Seeing this pop up on a roll that's two years old was like stepping into a time machine. This was the night of the Whine Country premiere. It was a good night to be a skateboarder in Santa Rosa. We miss you Joe(left).

The Industry

Saif Assuz. Health and Harmony Festival 2011.

Ups

Switch and Regular F/S Flips. All in a days work for Pat.

Hot rod this!

Wes Allen Day in the Life from The Nielsen Ratings on Vimeo.

In the wake of a slew of fictionalized versions of the life of a skateboarder in a suburb of a former skate mecca, Isaac and Wes bring the world a dose of the really real.

Catching Feelings

skart after-black hammer.

Skart Beach 4

The location changes, but the dilemma remains the same while on a skate trip. When night falls, do you go out and have a few drinks and enjoy some local music in celebration of a full day of skating? Or do you keep on pushing the skate session because you realize you have only filmed one trick all trip? The ever-committed Pleasant team decided on the latter, after much debate.

Santa Cruz is not an urban skate playground like your NYs or your SFs so the whole night mission thing was not as productive as we imagined. Wes did one of his patented steel grate lily pad lines, but that type of thing can happen anywhere across this decaying country. The bench spot that we went to was too sandy and there was a car parked in front of the manual pad nearby. This is typical of Santa Cruz street skating. There are only a handful of interesting spots to skate but they are usually unskatable for the most mundane reasons. It's hard to remember what we did next.

It would be easy to say that things took a turn for the worse on the last day of the trip. In hindsight though, the trajectory of the weekend is clear. Things got off to a slow and strange start the first night, warmed up the next day, and peaked that afternoon at Derby. From there, spirits had nowhere to go but down, and continued this way into the morning and carried the crew out of Santa Cruz. Which makes this trip exactly like every other skate trip ever made.

The next morning started off with a trip down to the shoreline for some low-key skarting. Nobody really knew what to do with themselves as we sat around and laughed at nothing in particular, soaking up the rays. Skateboarding had to happen eventually but the group was beginning to fracture as the gung-ho tour vibes inevitably declined.


Wes and Peter headed to the skatepark for a sure session. The rest of us chanced it on the streets. The streets did not pan out all that well filming-wise, Pat focused his board, but it was a good time nonetheless at the now defunct Safeway ledge.

We convened back at the skatepark and the "over it"ness of the group was clear. I think the irony was lost on everyone but me when the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" pulsed through the speakers as the car started. Maybe they were just happy Rhianna's "What's My Name" had not been recorded yet. We got back to the house, gathered up the stuff, snapped a quick group photo, and they were off... oh, na, na, na, na.

Cup Caking

These appeared here, in this, for these guys, but may still be unseen by some.

Genre Fiction

For whatever reason, the sponsors were pulled from this article. I'll post it up here because a.) I already typed it, and b.) I can. If you could put up with parts one and two, you might just be ready for Part Three of Skart Beach: The Pleasant Skateboards Valentine's Weekend Tour. Now 50% more dated.

...The next day started out like any good day of skateboarding should. I woke up and found a note under my door informing me that my friends left for the skatepark without me. No matter, the park was only five minutes away and obviously the talent needs extra time to find their skate-legs in the new and more chill nautical environment.

When I eventually made it down to The Mike Fox Skatepark (The Wave Park)[The New Park]{The Park}, the action was well underway but it was obvious the kinks were not quite worked out, as stated by Wes’ wall jam attempt to accidental hesh rock to fakie crumble. After a liberal amount of skating around and snide skatepark gossiping we left our gated community for the sandy streets.

We started out at the first of at least three known rock spots in the area. This particular one was recently made famous in Lowcard Magazine's Pissin' In The Wind film. Not much to speak of here other than the arrival of the foremost scholarly but nonetheless ripping skater of the group Brandon Getty. Not long after, a one Burger Face also showed up to the spot to balance the delicate flip-in/wallie ratio. From there, we moved up the street to a tall white sidewalk banister that P. Gould proceeded to cut down in perceptive height. The gutter gap and uneven grinding surface made an already difficult obstacle impossible for anyone else to step to, but Pat racked up the first clips of the trip in a matter of minutes.

As we got ready to move on a middle-aged man slowly approached us without saying a word. After a few beats of awkward silence we started to walk away. Then he told us to leave. The most pointless kick-out in history.

As we travelled down the road we happened upon a scenic handrail spot.

Brandon tore it apart, literally straight out of the wall. When the rail fell dismantled Brandon was so angry that he could no longer get the trick that he picked the rail up over his head and slammed it against the wall. The outburst left a small crater of wrinkled stucco, the mere sight of which seemed to enrage Brandon even more, as he continued to abuse the structure. Before anyone had time to react to the scene a nearby curtain drew back and a bug-eyed Samoan man gave us the ancient look of death. We bombed the hill out of there with the sound of a door busting open in our wake. At the bottom of the hill a sandy brown Escalade pulled up. Our friend Robbie Valencia motioned to get in, as if the preceding events were all planned long ago. In the passengers seat was a guy they called Deedee. Deedee threw up a deuce and I could tell he had alot on his mind...


****

We were at this, like, spot with some rocks and it was pretty good. Wes was launching off this green pole thing and getting some pretty good hang time. It was aight but I mostly chilled on a bench and scoped the scene. Peter was bluntsliding like whaat until nature called. When homies looked my way I smiled, to stoke the session, you know? But sometimes I was thinking about my kids back home so I got a serious face, you know?
From there we split up. There was only one car and like twelve heads so I joined the street shredders to peep some spots on the way to the high school while the other prissy fools cruised over in the Escalade. We rolled up to some grimy Santa Cruz banks and some other cutty spots. When we got to the high school the session was going off! But that shit's boring so we went to Derby.


****


It was just reaching the hallowed Golden Hour at Derby. There was a small selection of local rippers there but they welcomed us with the famous Derby hospitality to out-of-towners. Pat grabbed some large melons over the hip headed downstream. I took some great photos but unfortunately there was a camera malfunction. I love film. We wiled away the sunlight on the grassy banks overlooking the snake run.

L'art Pour L'art

I wonder if anyone who visits this site has not seen this poster yet. Should be an interesting mix, though I expect at least half the people listed aren't going to be in it. I'll be there, but only due to legal coincidence...

High and Dry

More stuff that didn't really work out.

Inactivity as Doing

I swear it's coming to me.

Marmoleum

Pleasant fun in the sun.

Eye Blue It

This pleasant mistake of a triple exposure pretty much sums up the Pleasant Santa Cruz Tour Winter '10. Cruising, hanging out, and a barely visible skate spot with nobody skating. Tour article of lifestyle hammers forthcoming.

Years Underpassed

This postcard is too good. Here's to an even pleasanter oh-10 with more guap and shawtays for all.

.blood

pleasant skateboards is on top of the world these days.



casual lemon thief

Ominous

last image courtesy of Jay Masonek. I hear there are 10 people in the graphics department over at Pleasant. Combination of "art driven" with a team of heavy-hitters, one of whom is pictured in center, another is "milkin it" on his bike above. I believe this Pleasant ad is unofficial, future collectors item.