Manual #37 Web Extra

Lee Ralph, Smith grind.

WEB EXTRA

SKATER ART AT MANKY CHOPSEYES WIDE OPEN

AT MANUKAU SKATE PARKGIRL DEMO

OUT TAKES FROM THE TOURIRROM IN NORTHLAND

GUT FULL OF LOVEPAT NGOHO

WELLINGTON’S BIG LE-BOWL-SKIBOWL-A-RAMA

FOREIGN.indd 1 2/5/10 3:14:35 PM

manualmagazine.com MM#37 3

EXTRA

THE

CONTENTS

THE BIG LE -BOWL-SKI Wellington’s Bowl-a-rama GUT FULL OF LOVE Pat Ngoho EYES WIDE OPEN Skater art at Manky Chops Gallery GIRL! GIRL! GIRL! Girl Skateboards Demo at Manukau Skate Park OUT TAKES From the Irrom Northand Tour

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Reuben Baker, frontside 180, Whangarei. Photo: David Read

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WELL INGTON BOWL-A-RAMA 2010

Text by Dan Jacka


“doing it again in 2010,” Bowl-A-Rama went off once more at Wellington’s Waitangi Park triple concrete bowl. Saturday’s finals were nearly jeopardised by some rough weather early on, but thankfully the sun came out and fuelled a great afternoon of concrete stuntage.

Bona fide New Zealand legend Lee Ralph was there, prompting Sergie Ventura on the mic to declare “that’s history in my face” as Lee smashed a perfect layback grind in the deep end. Lee set the tone of the session with his huge smile, and his presence nicely bridged any gap between local talent and visiting pros. As Sergie put it: no competition here folks, these guys are just having fun, and getting paid to do it.

Chasing some of that prize money was visiting Brazilian Otavio Neto aka The Nollie Llama, who lived up to his nickname with back-to-back nollie coping smashers in the deep end, pulling out the nollie big spin and nollie shuvit five-0 in the finals. Wellington heads James McInnes and Diego Casal proved crowd favourites, James working hard for a meaty five-0 fakie amongst long lines of vertical prowess, and Diego with some sweet alley-oop feebles to fakie around the mid bowl.

Ever heard of Sky Siljeg? Me neither but this 15-year-old Seattle native was a real treat to watch, burning fast around the bowl and hitting the coping with speed. Sky had the look of fearlessness in his eyes, often starting his runs with a very scary-looking ollie into the deep end. He crunched a good dozen coping blocks with long stand up frontside five-0 grinds along the mid bowl wall off the hip into the shallows, and showed his versatility with a surpise back-to-back invert combo. Josh Borden had fun laying down backside tailslides, including popped over the hip and around the mid bowl. Rune had a bad day by his standards, but still killed it by mine, with super stylish frontside airs and frontside tailslide reverts.

During the practice runs, up rolled a kid dressed like Tom Penny circa Etnies High 5: mop of hair, khaki cargos, white T. In his first run, a beautiful floated frontside ollie made it clear that this lad shared more than just clothing choices with the young Teeps. “Who is that?” I asked the couple sat next to me. “That’s my son, Pedro,” said the lady. Pedro blasted an enormous backside air to cheers from the crowd. “He’s going to win,” said Pedro’s mum.

And how right she was. It turns out that fourteen-year-old Pedro Barros has something of a knack for the ol’ whizzplanking. At one point I noticed

Sky Siljeg, layback frontside air. Photo: Caleb Smith Lee Ralph, layback frontside grind. Photo: David Read

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Josh Borden, invert. Photo: David Read

Mike Bancroft, frontside air. Photo: David Read Otavio Neto, nollie stalefish. Photo: Kevin Francis


Pedro Barros, frontside tailgrab. Photo: David Read

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UP ROLLED A KID DRESSED

LIKE TOM PENNY CIRCA ETNIES

HIGH 5: MOP OF HAIR, KHAKI

CARGOS, WHITE T. IN HIS FIRST

RUN, A BEAUTIFUL FLOATED

FRONTSIDE OLLIE MADE IT CLEAR

THAT THIS LAD SHARED MORE

THAN JUST CLOTHING CHOICES

WITH THE YOUNG TEEPS.

Pedro launch into a backside lipslide, then—mid-slide—look down into the bowl at a snaking Chris Senn to judge the right moment to roll back in. Natural talent and then some. In the finals, destroying coping with the best of them, Pedro proved himself a cut above with huge backside air variations (including an amazing indy nosebone), a first-try frontside sugarcane and a kickflip varial indy. If all that wasn’t enough, the Brazilian sealed his win with back-to-back 540s, the first grabbed backside, the next stalefish. Pedro won the big dollars by a landslide.

Thanks to all the organisers and sponsors for putting on another great spectacle. Once again all the visitors had nothing but compliments for the city and its people, even going so far as to pronounce Wellington City Council the coolest in the world. If that’s the kind of sycophancy necessary to keep these boys coming over, then so be it. See you next year!.

Rune Glifberg, frontside nosebone. James McInnes, Texas plant. Renton Miller, Madonna.

All photos: David Read

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Pedro Barros, stalefish Mctwist. Photos: Kevin Francis


RESULTS

Pros1. Pedro Barros 2. Otavio Neto 3. Josh Borden 4. Rune Glifberg 5. Sky Siljeg 6. Chris Senn 7. Corbin Harris 8. Renton Miller 9. Sergie Ventura 10. Ronnie Yerman

Masters1. Pat Ngoho 2. Lee Ralph 3. Mike Spittlehouse

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Production was full steam ahead. Nails were banging, people were putting on finishing touches and hanging art on the walls. The sounds were pumping, the brews were flowing and the embers of the previous night’s party were getting started all over again. Manky Chops gallery on Cuba Street in Wellington looked to be recovering

PAT NGOHO

Text by Sean Buchanan, photograph by David Read

from a hard night and was putting together the pieces of a collaborative art show named Love and Guts.

Conceived back in 2005, the show exists to celebrate art made by skateboarders, many of whom are Pat’s peers, people such as Lance Mountain, Christian Hosoi and Steve Caballero. A younger generation of tranny rippers like

Chris Senn and Chet Childress share the lights too, and for the Wellington show, New Zealand skaters Rhys Campbell, Paul Cosgrave and Joel Middlemiss, to name a few, also join the bill.

I snuck into the gallery, dodging the chaos on the afternoon of opening night to catch up with legend Pat Ngoho and have a chat about his art and being part of the professional skate scene for over thirty years.

Rock ‘n’ roll boardslide.


How many times have you been to New Zealand now?This is my third time to New Zealand; we started doing the Bowl-A-Rama four years ago. It started off in Australia, then they expanded it to the park here (Waitangi) and it’s been a great addition to the whole Bowl-A-Rama festival to combine the two countries, two great skate parks and the Love and Guts art shows.

Awesome man, so how many of these events do you do a year? What gets you out of bed in the morning?Yeah, the bowl skating has progressed quite a bit in the last five years or so. It took a little bit of a hit in 2009 because of the economy and everything but normally we’ve got a full schedule. It starts off at the beginning of the year (here) in Australasia, then we go right back to L.A. Then there’s a huge event that Vans throws called the Protec Pool Party, then we go straight to Europe where there’s some contests, that takes us into July. Then we come back to L.A. for the X Games, then there’s a whole string of events right till October.

So it’s a pretty full time gig at the moment?It keeps us busy! It got to the point where I had to pull myself away, ’cause as an artist and also keeping busy in that world, I had to be a little bit more picky and choosy of where I was going.

You had to find a balance? Yeah.

Are you all about bowl skating or do you get out in the streets at all?You know throughout my career as a skateboarder we kind of did it all. I was lucky to be part of that first wave of modern skating that we saw come along, with contests, the beginning of bowl riding, etc. And the disciplines weren’t as strict as they are now and it was just skateboarding, so yeah, it was easy for us to say “Oh look, the next frontier is street skating, the next frontier is halfpipes,” just as we approached bowls. The group we were with like Hosoi, Mountain and Caballero, we were all over the place, so when it does come back and we do hit spots it’s fun to just hit everything. But for me not as much street anymore. I gotta say street is probably the toughest on the body, especially as you get older, it’s like wow, how these kids are able to do it... I was watching this video last night, ‘Prevent This Tragedy’ by Thrasher and what those kids do even when they make it, it hurts. It hurts me just to watch that!

Is your skateboarding still progressing and are you learning new stuff?That’s probably the reason why I continue to do it, because the pool of skateboarding, especially bowl riding, has gotten so big and so beautiful with all these skaters that contribute to it and all the tricks that they bring and every time you go skating you see new things, so it just makes me want to be a part of that and to

learn and evolve so I’m gonna answer yes, my skating is only getting better and progressing.

How many years have you been doing this, and are you still as pumped as the first day you jumped on a skateboard?I’ve been doing this since I was seven, then I got serious when I was 11 or 12, entered my first pro contest when I was 14, then I’ve just been dabbling in and out of it. I was real serious competitively for a while then backed off and then came back to it. But this time around with all the parks, skating with all the skaters I grew up with, I’d have to say it’s sweeter than ever, cause you just have a stronger appreciation. We’ve seen the skate parks go, we know how short it is and as you get older you have a better appreciation of life itself.

How do you view the current skateboard industry, through the eyes of someone that’s seen it all?I think skateboarding today is what people imagined what skating was going to be like twenty years ago, with the big sponsorships and kids doing it all around the world. I don’t think they quite envisioned, nor anyone could, that it would be so multi disciplined. Like halfpipes and BIG trannys, those riders are on their own mission and own direction. Street skaters, bowl riders, everyone has their own little niche and own little world. There’s a few skaters that can trans-migrate between all these different worlds. There’s a lot of companies that are in it and trying to get in it and it ebbs and flows but it’s something that’s really powerful to the planet.

I see you went to art school and you enjoy a career as an artist also.Yeah at least passionately! I think financially, artists and skateboarders struggle to keep their craft and their passions going but there’s been a lot of momentum lately with my art. There’s the Love and Guts show and my personal art as an abstract artist. I’ve had a lot of good luck and I’ve been showing at a lot of great places, so I just keep my fingers crossed and there’s no better thing to do than to do what you love to do.

The Eyes Wide Open exhibition focuses on skating’s fallen ones; is there anyone that you were inspired by that touched you personally that influenced your art in this show? Yeah. Well, I’ll just say two. I’ve skated for a long time and the great thing about skateboarding is being in touch with both the guys that’ve been doing it since the beginning to the young kids coming up. And that’s enriching to a person I feel, keeping in touch with all that’s going on and all these generations. And that said, I’ve seen a lot and I’ve been a part of a lot of scenes and unfortunately there’s guys that have fallen in that time and it’s sad and these guys had given a lot. So we’re trying to celebrate that and bring it to light.

Personally for me growing up in west L.A., particularly Dogtown, that was my stomping ground and those were the guys I grew up with. Those guys had a really strong influence on me. A few years ago we lost ‘Baby’ Paul Cullin and Polar Bear, who were huge influences to the scene and to me and that was my dedication piece to those guys. They’re Dogtown skaters, they were very unique, very artistic in the way they approached it, the way they adapted new tricks into what they were doing, it was so inventive and artful that they had a real strong influence on me.

How’s the body holding up with the slams these days?Slams hurt as much now as they did then! I don’t push it as hard as I used to. I skate with ‘equipment’ a lot more, but it’s still holding up luckily and I’ll say at 45 I continue to love it and it keeps me on my toes and keeps my mind aware, open and healthy.

Finally, what’s the secret to a long and fruitful career such as yours?It’s the same secret to a long fruitful life; just appreciate every day, do what you love to do and for me it’s worked out really well ’cause I love skateboarding and art is just my passion. Life is so short and regardless of what you believe, religiously or philosophically, it is short and just be good to people around you, the environment, animals and everything and that’s it. It’s a small task and sometimes it’s hard to accomplish but you have your life to do it.

loveandgutsart.com

...EVERY TIME YOU GO SKATING

YOU SEE NEW THINGS, SO IT JUST

MAKES ME WANT TO BE A PART OF

THAT AND TO LEARN AND EVOLVE...

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MANKY CHOPS GALLERY, FEB 11TH

Photography by David Read

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GIRL SKATEBOARDS DEMO AT MANUKAU SKATE PARK

Photography by Kevin Francis


Eric Koston, frontside flip switch manual.

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Sean Malto, fakie flip nose pivot.

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Brandon Biebel, frontside nosegrind.


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IRROM NORTHLAND TOUR

Photography by David Read


Reuben Baker, ollie, Whangarei.

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Christian Low, backside five-0 180 out, Whangarei.


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Reuben Baker, frontside five-0, Whangarei.



Mike Bancroft, frontside wall bash, Whangarei.

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Manual #37 Web Extra

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