Dipskates John Stephens Visits Flatline skate shop

Yesterday myself,(chris) and Dipskate pro John Stephens stopped by Flatlines Skateshop on our way out to film, to chill with owner and operator Rob Czajko.




left to right-Rob Czajko, John Stephens

While in the store we talked to Rob about the shop and also his experiences as a young person growing up in New York City back in the day. Honestly after talking to Rob i feel as if the movie of his life could be one of the best movies of all time. New York City was a very very interesting place during the mid to late 80's and early 90's. Especially if you were a teenager. (Footage containing more info on Rob and Flatlines Skateshop will be posted in a future entry).




(John Stephens in front of the very impressive fitted cap collection at Flatlines)

After we left Flatlines me and john met up with a few others and skated Manhattan.(stay tuned for more on John Stephens and Flatlines Skatshop in future posts.)

Flatlines Skateshop is located at 766 Morris Park Avenue 10462. Or you can call 347-398-8970.

Stay tuned and Stay informed.

-chris

Waiting...

So we have to wait to get these test shirts done. I'm working and training 6 days a week, so I'm generally unavailable. And of course my only day off, and the shop is closed! But I've actually got a free slot on Monday, so I'm taking it. Expect photos that night or the next day
-T out

Last Man Standing Finals 2008

Last Man, Trevor Johnson. Photo sucks but winning $500 and being backed by Denial doesn't.

In short, there's too much to say about the comp from the ups and the downs but it still went down with quite a bang. Trevor Johnson was the Last Man Standing and $500.00 richer after throwing several disaster spin tricks on an uncertain down box that held its own amidst the hammers.


Franco; moments before he suffered from head trauma.

Franco Cammayo took an early fall at Spot 1 that devastated the 100+ crowd leaving everyone speechless for several moments. Thanks and much respect to Franco for always giving it his all and never holding back when he skates. Big thanks to Timothy Ramos, fellow skater and EMT who always carries a set of supplies for these situations. Franco did go the hospital eventually and is now recovering nicely in the comfort of his friends and family and says that he should be back at it before long.


Hyper Mike_Bank to Fish to Fakie

Amidst the massive gathering one could find Matt Andrews, Davee Blair, Mike "murda" Johnson, Billy "fish" O'Neill, Alex Nunez, Ramelle Knight, Mikey Cancel, Ray Mendez, Julian Bah, Ralphy Herrera, Rob G, John Stephens, Sam Grimm, Tato Gonzalez, the Brown Brothers, Jon Ortiz, Ryan Jacklone and countless other NYC originators that I have not had the pleasure of meeting. Joey Graziano was also on site handing out free "Casualty Killers" T-shirts, and the ohh so lovely Red Bull Girls made several rounds throughout the afternoon until their little vehicle was cleaned out, so big thanks to these Free Promotions. NYC local and Puerto Rico native, Josh Diaz or Jose also kicked in several free items from his budding clothing line that can be seen at PyskoClothing.com and Craig Benabu was around sporting and hustling the hot new foil "I Roll NY" T's that should be available soon through http://www.myspace.com/irollny.

Craig Benabu, wondering where the ball went?

Host and founder Victor Callender out did himself this time around with help from MC, Rah and go to guy, John "fry guy" Ortiz, not to be confused with Jon Ortiz. Product tosses were held several times throughout the event allowing loads of kids to get their hands on some new threads, wheels, frames, backpacks, and many other items. Heck, a shirt practically flew into my arms during one of these sporadic product tosses.

right to left: Victor w/ his child, Rah, & John.

Though Trevor won all, several skaters deserve notable mention for their efforts & for pulling off some difficult shit. Among these guys I can recall Julian Bah with a deep gap from the ramp to the rail to drop, Robert Guerrero, Tato & Ariel Suron skated extremely fast and clean, Justin Benson had a lofty 'kindgrind from flat' at Spot 2 and Lavelle Wimberly cleared Spot 2 with a massive 180º, mute, i believe. Evan G was also reported to have been getting more than just air by gapping to the ledge at Spot 2 with tricks like fishbrain and sweaty. Some other key skaters were Mike Kazberuk, Will Torres, James Perez, Hyper Mike & a few others who's names I failed to catch, so sorry if I missed you.

Julian Bah, with biggest stunt of the night_Launch from ramp to Royale on rail to Drop.

Thanks to all of the supporters and sponsors including Rollerblade, Razors, Eulogy, & any others that I missed.
Thanks to Victor for putting this together and for all those that made it out.
Thanks to all the skaters that paid to enter and busted their ass to represent Rolling.

Here's a link to more photo's: http://photobucket.com/LastManStanding2008
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http://flickr.com/photos/echohtp/sets/72157607443112101/detail/


Thanks to Craig Benabu for getting the Julian Bah "gap to rail" sequence as well as the Hyper Mike "fish" and countless other shots in my photobucket album.

As well...

It was great hanging out with the RB guys at blades. I haven't been doing anything skate related ('cept shirt designs, of course) for a while and it was cool to be around my old shop spot, reuniting with old friends and making new ones. I finally got to chat with Rob G. who is one of my absolute favorite skaters! I asked him what the hell was going through his mind when he did his Fiziks Masters of Delusion section (showed below), and he gave me some cool insight as to what he was going through while trying to bang out this section in less than a month with no car or camera. Truly a testament to what skating can be if you think outside the box a bit.



I spoke to Tom Hyser (Skatepile.com\RB lead skate designer) as well about the fall of Fiziks frames (my favorite frames) and he basically explained it just wasn't financially feasible anymore (most of you should know about this already). They had changed the company responsible for building the parts and though they were told it would just be a month of downtime it ended up being around 8 months! As well the skating industry is not big enough to charge skaters 100+ bucks for a frame (though the frame lasted really long and had swappable/replaceable parts). All in all I still miss Fiziks, and it would be cool if it were resurrected at some point so more skaters could check it out and hopefully love 'em like I did. Much props to Tom

Getting some shirts made tomorrow!! I'll put some pics up when I get back and you guys can check 'em out!

Peace
T out

Team Rollerblade @ Blades 9-19-08

Tom Hyser and Team RB, Rob G & Julian Bah, made they're way into Blades Downtown of NYC to promote the new Estilo skate from Rollerblade. The skate is scheduled to drop sometime within the 1st quarter of 2009 and it looks promising.


New RB Estilo Skate

Thanks to Tom for his undying efforts to create another evolutionary step within the small but diverse world of rollerblading. The skate is truly one for the ages with the extra light shell, the massive 72mm wheels, a spacious frame groove which is "EPOCH" and all the other innovations that can be seen if you follow the link, http://photobucket.com/teamRB-EstiloSk8



Ray Mendez Getting the Word from Julian Bah


Tom Hyser (left), Victor Callender (right)- Founder of the Last Man Standing

Ohh and apparently Rob G loves NYC (see the signed flyer above).

Rob G giving Ray his 2 cents

Additional pics of the RB meet & greet are up as well, http://photobucket.com/teamRB-EstiloSk8
Last Man Standing Competition at the Brooklyn Banks this Sat, Sept 20th, 2008, 12 noon
I'll see you guys there.

good night

Saw n Screw: Preparation for the Comp

I spent about a week of building to prep for our 1st comp which required approx $280.00 in materials and supplies, a rented Uhaul for 2 days w/90 miles, & help from my youngest brother, Yohance, who made a lot of this possible by funding the cash and helping to take these pics.






More of these pre-comp pics can be found at my myspace photo album; www.myspace.com/adonistnt , or you can go there directly, http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=7032984&albumId=2294743



Stay tuned for more updates

Evolve Responsibly®

This was late...

Guh, I feel like crap. I've been sick today and yesterday, and that actually gave me some time to slow down and smell the roses (if I could indeed smell). Evotek threw a skate comp called Why So Serious on September 7th, 2008, and it was a great success! Much respect to Ado for single handedly putting this shit together, and actually getting it DONE. you can see the edit below;




Anyways until the site is done, or started for that matter, the evotek.tv url will send you here (as I'm sure you've figured out). It's easier to keep a blog up to date than a site, so bear with us for now. You should get a close enough peek into our lives to eventually find out that you don't like us!!

This new show "Fringe" is not doing it for me right now. The script is wordy, but that doesn't actually mean smart, or even good in this instance. I might give it one more shot, then forget it.

T out

As the world turns...

Took some pics yesterday. Twas cool. Did some other stuff.





Ok bye.