Only a few skaters have actually made it big when transitioning from skateboarding to the silver screen. Well there’s the obvious, with Willy Monaloto Santos and his breathtaking performance in “The Skateboard Kid II” starring Dom Deluise as the voice of the skateboard. Then you have Andrew Reynolds in a daring role as the “Snaked Skater” in one of my all time favorites “Cop And A Half” starring Burt Reynolds. I wonder if Andrew is related. And you can even go as far as calling Tony Hawk’s part in “Gleaming The Cube” a pretty important role as the “Pizza Delivery Kid”. He had the perfect look on his face as he drove those skaters over the hill to get revenge. After those roles, you have only a few minor roles for skaters like Mark Gonzalez, Steve Berra, and Jason Lee.
So it looks like Paul Rodriguez is getting into the acting game now with his new film “Vicious Circle”, which follows an 18 year old kid (P-Rod) running the streets of Los Angeles with a gun in his backpack and a blood stained shirt. I wonder if it’s as good as his dad’s Los Angeles based classic “A Million To Juan”. Read this press release for more info and details on his new film.
It was the local surfers who stood out at the Association if Surfing Professionals World Qualifying Series 6-Star Mr. Price Pro in Durban South Africa. The elite group of five South Africans made it on to the next round but also scored the highest as well. Number 4 ASP ranked surfer Travis Logie who happens to be from Durban scored a very impressive and nearly perfect 9.33 out of 10.
“I knew that the tide was ping so I sat a bit wide and it paid off,” Logie said. “As the siren went I got that bomb and then I backed it up with another good one. My boards are amazing, I’m feeling strong, and I’m just looking forward to having fun in this event.”
The next top scoring surfers were the other South Africans including number 31 ASP ranked surfer Royden Bryson of East London who scored himself into the second place position.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good result in Durban,” Bryson said. “I’ve had a bit of a slow start on the World Tour but things are just heating up, there are still a good couple of contests to come. I started with two 33rds but with a 17th in Tahiti and in Fiji hopefully I can keep building on my campaign and keep making heats.”
If you missed your flight and missed out on the $70,000 cash prize event in Copenhagen Denmark presented by DVS, luckily you have this press release to catch you up to speed.
DVS’ 2nd annual CPH Pro went down this weekend at the Copenhagen Skatepark in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark. For local Danes, international travelers, and the loads of pro skateboarders who made the trip across the pond the contest provided an amazing venue for world-class skateboarding and industry comradery.
“The CPH Pro is quickly establishing itself as one of Europe’s premiere skateboarding events, says DVS Skate Team Manager Gabe Clement. “This year’s event was bigger and better than last year’s with more pros, higher attendance, and a higher caliber of skating. This is definitely the contest to be at for 2009.”
If you’re up to it and you still have your fingers left after the 4th of July holiday, you should go to one of three Actives playing host to the Girl and Chocolate teams. They are calling the mini one-day tour a Menage A Active. Not sure if I want to know where they came up with that name but nonetheless, it involves two awesome team and prince of skate shops. Number one will always be Shut Up And Skate on La Brea in my book.
The three southern California Active locations taking part of this July 6th tour are Active Brea, Active San Dimas, and Active Rancho Cucahmonga. All three of these locations are relatively close so if you want to be as creepy as this Menage A Active, you can follow the teams to all three locations.
Just days after we see how Riley Hawk, son of Tony Hawk is doing these days, we see how Lance Mountain Jr. son of Lance Mountain come onto the scene. I remember the first time I saw the kid on an issue of 411 Video Magazine maybe 13 years ago. Not exactly sure what Lance Mountain was doing, but Jr. was sitting right next to him. I thought, “Wow, that kid has some amazing eyebrows.” Anyway, it looks like he’s really into art and he’s really good too. Lance Jr. and Riley Hawk should start a club.
A new auction has been set up to help support the recovery of Mike Vincent, a former pro BMX rider who was badly injured in an accident last January.
Vincent is a popular figure in the BMX scene and has served as a judge at most major events. He was struck by a car while riding his bike to work on January 18 and suffered major injuries including the possibility of loss of sight.
While there have been a number of local fundraisers held to raise money for Vincent, who did not have medical insurance, this is the first major coordinated effort to raise funds for his care and recovery.
The auction will be held on eBay and start on July 18, the six-month anniversary of his accident. Items from athletes and companies from across all action sports will be up for bid, including autographed items by Ryan Sheckler, Ryan Nyquist, Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg, Bucky Lasek, Jake Brown, Jeremy Lusk, PLG, P-Rod and Tony Hawk.
See a full list of the items up for auction here and check out the full press release after the flier.
It was an unexpected day as an East South swell and on shore breeze drove an uncharacteristic left over the sand bank at the ASP World Qualifying 6-Star Mr. Price Pro in Durham South Africa today. Of the overwhelming contingent of 18 South African Surfers, only six of them remained after the day’s competition was over. Former South African surf champions Quinton Jones and Roseanne Hodge were among those who made it onto the next round with their amazing performances.
“It’s kind of weird, I’ve been surfing at New Pier for about 20 years and I’ve never surfed an event where I’ve gone left,” Jones said. “A lot of the guys were sticking to the rights but the swell direction was pushing it down the beach, so it’s kind of running away from you the whole time while on the lefts, it’s coming towards you so you have more of a lip to actually come off the bottom and off the top.”
Tomorrow’s action continues with Jeremy Flores, Glen Hall, Sunny Garcia, and Corey Zeims all still in contention for the championship
I don’t follow sports that much but I’m willing to bet that any association’s draft day is pretty exciting. More excited are those being drafted. Like I was watching a bit of the NBA draft the other day and after the player got drafted, their families started to jump for joy and would start crying. It was pretty emotional. The biggest problem with amateurs jumping into the big leagues is their egos. For example just days after being drafted by the Chicago Bulls, number one pick Derrick Rose already got into trouble with the law when he was charged last night for driving 106 mph in a 65 zone. I pray for his soul.
I don’t expect to see that kind of behavior from amateur skaters going pro. They’ve already caused all the trouble they could as kids in the street with skateboards. They’ve already thrown gotten thrown down by policeman (Officer Rivieri), stole their parents car to go skating or meet up with a fly honey, or even been to prison for skating on a freeway. Being in trouble with the law is no new thing for the younins are skateboards.
So the exposure that these Sun Diego Slam Am events are giving to the amateurs is pretty amazing but I’m sure it’s not going to their heads. Check out this press release from the Sun Diego Am Slam and check out how well these soon to be pros are doing.
The Finals of the Cricket Campus Rail Jam took place in Portland as the best snowboarders in the event from seven states duked it out for a piece of the $5,000 prize purse. With a snow base of over ten feet, Mt. Hood was more than ready to see some action with 5 dump trucks of snow in preparation. Anticipation was building as the dump trucks roared into downtown, and the crowd continued to swell as the tricked-out Scion tC and xB’s showed up on the scene. Local shops, US Outdoor Store and Hillcrest were both on-site, providing a serious amount of free loot to shower over the crowd. Both shops were immediately swarmed with groms with the hopes of getting their paws on the mounds of product, possibly snagging autographs from Darrell Mathes & Brett Butcher, snow legends who were holding down the US Outdoor Store tent.
Thanks for checking out Lat34 and the the Quick Hits Action Sports New Blog -- if it happens in skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, moto, BMX it'll be here. Even some other stuff will make it in.
You have info? See something? Someone? Got Questions? Fire away - we'll add it.
