Jacksonville's soon-to-be Newest Skatepark - the Block

    Mike Peterson is an amazing skateboarder and a bartender, and I once heard he's even great at mowing lawns. Well, this summer Mike will have another hat to wear as owner of The Block skatepark, located in a warehouse on the corner of Clarkson and Tallyrand in downtown Jacksonville. I visited the new park a few days ago, and had the warmest, friendliest welcome a person could give while in the middle of building a skatepark. (If you talk to Mike regularly, you're probably used to that kind of thing)
      Mike took the time to chat with me about the park, and how the support and energy people are putting behind what is going on at the park has blown him away. "It's all word of mouth. People just show up and ask to help."
     When I asked how he managed to pay for the space, the wood and everything else involved with building a skatepark, he told me succinctly: "I've been saving." Between contest winnings and wages from his bar tending job, he's managed to put enough of his funds together to get the park in motion. And when I stopped by last week, I saw no shortage of people lending to his cause. Without giving too much away, I have to say Jacksonville has some good things coming as far as skateboarding is concerned, and I can't wait to see them materialize.

Stay tuned for more info and photos about the Block! You can see the gallery of construction images here!

Benefit for 1901 DIY Skate Spot, Friday May 3rd at Shantytown

Snaps - I think Thiebaud is playing favorites at Tampa Pro

Industry guy Jim Thiebaud shows some support for Malto.

Tampa Pro 2013

   My experience this year at Tampa Pro was pretty mellow. I'd already convinced myself that without a good telephoto, I probably wasn't going to get any next level action shots of the contest. So, I brought out my 50mm and just tried to take in everything that was going on.

   This year, the Skatepark of Tampa is celebrating their 20th anniversary. For me, that's a little hard to believe, and it makes me feel a little bit old. But it's not that bad, as there were famous dudes twice my age ripping on the vert ramp all weekend, and Ron Allen was ripping the street course at the ripe old age of 50.
   One of my favorite moments of the weekend has to be talking with Lance Mountain, who mid conversation, advised a wobbly looking kid who wandered onto the vert ramp to "Try Christian's board - It'll make you go higher". This kid looked like he'd never been on a skateboard, but that didn't stop him from picking up Christian Hosoi's skateboard and dropping into the vert ramp like it was no big deal.
   Ben Raybourn had my favorite run of the weekend, blasting huge ollies off of every transition and doing some high speed slides and kickflips too. Not to mention the sickest looking tweaked smith grind I've seen in 20 years.  I also enjoyed Evan Smith's skating, and he ripped pretty hard for a rookie pro. Can't wait to see more of his skating. BusStop homie Kyle Berard even won the Fan Favorite award, so I'm not bummed at all about the weekend. Actually, I think the fact that this is the second year in a row that I've hung out in the same room as Eric Koston, Lil' Wayne, and the blonde kid from Eastbound and Down is pretty cool. And I haven't even mentioned Erica Yary. 

You can check out the full gallery from the weekend here. I'll update this with more photos soon.
(top photo: Jeff Grosso getting upside-down) 

10 Questions with Kyle Parisi

1 - What's the first skate trick you ever learned?
The first trick I ever learned was an Ollie. I did it off a curb at the baseball fields at monument long before there was a skatepark.

2 - What's the most recent trick you learned?
The most recent trick I've learned is alley-oop switch 50 50's on tranny.

3 - If you could skate anywhere you wanted to, and with whomever you wanted to, where would you skate and who with? 
I would want to skate the black pearl park in the Cayman Islands with all my friends, plus John Cardiel, and Ben Rayburn.

4 - Who's the most inspirational skateboarder you know?
There are too many to name! Anyone who gets knocked down hard but wont let it stop them. And the skateboarders who do it for the sake of having a good time. Some people take skateboarding too serious.

5 - What's the worst you've ever bailed on a trick?
I've had some pretty gnarly falls on my skateboard but The worst was last January, while I was warming up at monument i was doing a slash grind and I fell in an awkward way. I tore my ACL and meniscus in my right knee.

6 - What's the best/most fun skateboarding event you've attended so far?
The chili bowl in San fransico was the best event I've been to. I didn't compete but I managed to sneak in the practice session. It only cost like 15 dollars to enter, it's hectic, and they play good music.

7 - What people do you skate the most with these days? 
I pretty much always skate with the o.g monument crew.

8 - What's your favorite park here in town? 
I'd have to say monument, because My friends and I learned how to skate in that park at the 2 and 3 stair back in the day. We always would try an get them to build a skatepark there. So it's awesome that the city finally did it, and it turned out to be such a good skatepark.

9 - If you could steal a trick from anyone, and do it yourself, what would it be and who from? 
Kevin kowalski does crail slide Saran wraps. I'd like to steal that one.

10 - What's the last spot you skated, and what are you going to skate next?
UNF's park. And most likely The next spot will be monument.

Transplants: Yousef Hussein

I was a little bit late to joining the Internet, I have to admit. Lucky for me, by the time I was able to move out of my parents' house and buy internet for myself, Yousef Hussein's Skatejax.com was there to help me get the most out of it. Between Skatejax and Julio Gonzales' 904skate.com, skateboarding in Jax fully had a presence on the net. The forums were full of greatness, with skate discussion and other randomness. In addition to the forums, there were also periodic skate montages. Some of these videos still live on through YouTube, and for that, I'm grateful. Recently, I interviewed Yousef to see how things have been since he's left. Hope you enjoy it. 

So tell me how you've been since you've moved. How long has it been since you left?

At first it was a struggle. This is a city where I had no family or friends, but after a year I got settled in. I now have a pretty cool group of close friends and am starting to lay down some roots here. I have been living in the ‘Nati for a little over two years now and love it!

What’s the biggest thing you miss about Jacksonville, and one standout thing about being in Cincinnati that you really appreciate over being here?

I miss the Southern hospitality bad. I miss sitting in line at the store, and some random dude just sparking up a friendly conversation with you. That just doesn’t exist here. I miss the always warm weather. I also miss Burrito Gallery, Bento, Emerson Skatepark, and all of my family and friends there!

With that said, Cincinnati has so much more to do. Everything is only 15 minutes away, you can watch Reds games for hella cheap, and the job market for marketing professionals is so much more developed.

You seem pretty successful now. Maybe that's because of your photos with you in suits. Why did you move?

Success is all relative. Skateboarding definitely taught me to look at things from a different perspective. I chased money straight after college, but discovered that I really should have been chasing happiness instead.

Funny story, I was actually interviewing with a company in Chicago and San Francisco, but the only opening they had was in Cincinnati. The job I was offered in Cincy was literally a dream job to me (I got paid to learn about some really cutting-edge store brands). I googled the city for a few minutes, saw they had a football team and a baseball team, and took the job without ever visiting.

What's skateboarding like in Cincinnati, and how is it different from here?

The skate scene in Jacksonville is so much more developed. The park system, the spectrum of skateboarders (beginner to pro), the companies, and the environment in Florida makes for a much better skate scene.

Cincinnati is actually a really conservative city, and skaters aren’t really looked at positively. Skateboarders in Cincinnati just try to learn tricks but they don’t focus on style. Jacksonville has so much more steez. Finally, the skateparks in Ohio are pretty poorly made. There is quantity here, but little quality.

The BMX scene in Cincinnati is actually really big. There are more BMX bikes at the parks than there are skateboards most days. Oh and for those cats trying to skate that DC plaza in Kettering, It isn’t some little kid park where you just do warm-up tricks. Everything there is pretty gnarly, lol. I got broke off trying to skate there!

Tell me about Skatejax.com. It was going pretty strong for a while! What's the most memorable thing you got from that experience?

Skatejax.com was really just an attempt to capture the amazing skate scene that Jacksonville had going for it. I was really psyched to see so many skaters using the site. The site actually crashed when my friend’s webserver went down. I didn’t have anything backed up so it went away forever. You can actually still see all the Skatejax montages on YouTube though!

One of the most memorable experiences was definitely being a part of the city’s first Go Skate Day. Channel 12 News ran a prime time story demonizing skaters for the event, so we encouraged users to voice their opposition to the propaganda on the website. Tons of people showed support, and the news reporter actually went on the Skatejax forums to try and defend himself after getting so many emails! The site also showed everyone all of the talent we had across the city (Nick Blanco, Jake Sykes, Bruce, Ty Butler, etc…)

So you came back to Jax recently, and I was wondering, did you do any skateboarding while you were here?

I HAVE to get a session in whenever I hit up Jax! You guys take that winter weather for granted man!

Since skateboarding isn’t as big where you are now, do you find yourself not doing it as much? Or is that more of an issue with your work schedule?

I definitely don’t skate as much. I don’t have the RLC (Red Light Crew: Ty Butler, Mauree Thomas, Jason Whittington) to push me out here. The older I got, the more I’ve become a filmer/photographer, rather than skater.
The weather and the parks here are also not as good. You really can’t skate here from November till March, and we don’t have any good street parks besides Kettering which is an hour away. With that said, I still get about 3-4 good sessions a month here. There are some nice bowls out here, and I definitely morphed into a bowl skater out here.

What spots do you miss most in Jax? If I had to guess I’d say it would be the skatepark on Emerson.

#1 Emerson Skatepark
#2 Monument Skatepark
#3 TIE: (UNF Campus/Hemming Plaza/Main St. Underpass/Kona)

Anything you want to say to your friends in Jax as we wrap this up?

I wanted to give a shout out to the Red Light Crew, my brother Ibrahim who still shreds Monument, my mom who always supported my skating, the new generation of shredders (Pat Schaefer, Jake Sykes, Nick Blanco, etc…) who are carrying the torch, everyone I skated/filmed in Jacksonville, and all the groms trying to get better.

The one thing I love the most about skateboarding is that it encourages individual creativity, but also has a great sense of community. It really brings together people from all walks of life. I encourage all of the skaters to work hard to protect that in Jacksonville. Some of those people you see at the skatepark will be with you for the rest of your life.

Florida Bowlriders 2013