I personally find Skate Like A Girl to be the single most positive movement in the Seattle skateboarding scene.  As an organization they’re involved, supportive, and effective.  As people, they’re golden.  Most people don’t realize that they’ve been the main community builders down at the new SeaSk8, even during times when a few a-holes threatened to ruin it for everyone down there.  It’s not a question of whether or not you should support them, it’s when.

Here’s an idea:  SLAG is hosting the second Wheels of Fortune contest at Skatebarn in Renton, on Sunday December 20th.  Why not go down there and cheer on the skaters, buy a T-shirt, and show your support while having a great time?

Or…maybe you’re interested in competing.  Here’s the Registration form.

When you’re done paying $30 to skate over at SeaSk8 during Bumbershoot, you should head over to the Funhouse for the Marginal Benefit.

Here’s the schedule:

Fri 9/4 – Marginal Way Skate Park Benefit!
Neutralboy
Android Hero
The Burns
9:30pm, $6

Sat 9/5 – Unrelated show.

Sun 9/6 – Marginal Way Skate Park Benefit!
- Skate Ramp in Funhouse Parking Lot! –
Grindline The Band
Deathraid
III Judges
ATM
Guests
9:30pm, $6

Mon 9/7 – Marginal Way Skate Park Benefit!
- Skate Ramp in Funhouse Parking Lot –
Extreme Crushing Force
Last American Bad Ass
Imperial Legions Of Rome
Orbiting Giants
9:30pm, $5

Last Saturday marked the first time in Seattle history, when city officials including Seattle Center staff, openly welcomed sanctioned skateboarding on the Seattle Center campus.  This milestone culminates over 10 years of volunteer effort initiated by a Seattle Center staff member, James Crabtree, and has been carried to completion through several waves of Seattle skatepark advocates.  Sure, there were previous instances of a Seattle Center skatepark, but none of those were actually at the Seattle Center.

The mood was festive, and the skating was furious.  Everyone was there, except the mainstream media and Mayor Nickels, who was celebrating something arguably less important across town at the same time as the ribbon cutting ceremony.  Regardless, Councilmembers Drago (Nickels’ competition in the upcoming Mayoral election), Conlin, Clark, and Rasmussen, were all there to speak on behalf of their substantial amount of support for locating the park on the Center Campus, and for skateparks in general.

Now it’s up to Seattle skateboarders not to blow a good thing…

I must admit, when Edub pitched this event at the Delridge meeting, I thought he was clowning.  Unless you’re talking about Larry North’s beer can chicken, skaters and fine cuisine are not necessarily synonymous.

But skaters love bowls, and chowder can be eaten from a bowl, so that works.  I guess this is a spin-off of the Chili Bowl down in SF, which seems to work out OK.

There are some cool sponsors, MM’s coming up, and it’s especially nice to see Bombshelter getting some love in their own neighborhood.

For real though…it’s nice to see a variety of events being staged here in Seattle, now that we have some actual skateparks.  Hopefully this is just the beginning.

Here’s the official blurb:

The chowderbowl in Seattle is a one of a kind event that has a skateboard bowl contest, as well as a chowder cook off. This event will take place Saturday July 18th at the Ballard Commons park. There are cash, and product prizes, with skateboard participants being judged in the bowl and the chowder being judged against other entrants. There is a world class panel of judges for both.The production crew expects close to 250 spectators and close to 75 entrants. This event is free to the public, and everyone is welcome. The event starts at 12 noon and goes until 5 pm. The chowderbowl is going to be off the hook!! Come support Seattle’s skateboard and chowder scene!!!

Is there really a chowder scene?  Is there an internet message board someplace where people snipe at each other for being kooks about using too much potato, or for blowing out a good spot to acquire celery?

While video gear continues to get cheaper, and your grandma is whiling away her free time editing HD video of her parakeet on her iMac, amateur skate videos have gone pro.  Skaters can now apply such high levels of polish to their DIY videos, that they can rival the stuff that comes off the shelf in the skate shop.

It had to happen sometime, but I’m pissed I didn’t think of it first.  The first annual Skateboarding Film Festival is happening this August 14-15 at Seattle Center’s SIFF Cinema.

The guy behind the whole deal, Eric Burgess, tells me that there will be films covering the full spectrum of skateboarding.  If the submissions that he’s posted so far on the festival website are any indication, this event may just establish skateboarders as the bleeding edge of DIY film making.  I mean…all that CKY stuff was shot on XL-1’s and edited on a pre-intel PowerMac.  That dude made millions.  Now it’s your turn, and Eric is bringing skateboarding film to a first-class, high profile Seattle venue for the first time.

Show up, grab some popcorn, and get ready for some amazing skatefilm.

The hater in me wants to be all… “every day is go skateboarding day, man”, and “don’t try to turn this aspect of my lifestyle into a Hallmark holiday you evil corporate skateboard/lifestyle brand managers”, but I am really trying to be more positive these days.  I ventured out.

I figured the most anti-corporate place to celebrate GSD was Marginal, and it’s the closest thing to my house.  I expected to see a lit barbecue, people everywhere, and to hear Slayer riffs echoing off the walls.  Instead I found an empty spot except for this guy, and captured an image of what I believe the essence of GSD to be:

Go skateboarding for yourself, and no one else.

Marginal was probably empty because the SnoCon guys were hosting an awesome event down the street, and I’m sure it fired up later in the afternoon.  Josh Becker captured some awesome photos of the downhill bomb, which you can see here.  But having Marginal to yourself on GSD seemed like an oddly beautiful way to spend the day.

Skate Like A Girl is setting up to become the Vera Project equivalent for skaters in Seattle.  They have been given an office at the Seattle Center, just a kingpin’s throw from the new park, and they are already starting to program some cool events.

The first one will be during the Bite of Seattle, which is interesting because the Bite’s management were the first to come out against the SC campus location for the park.

I guess this just shows that when people come together, good things can and will happen. This is really great news, because for a while there was talk of shutting down the entire park during events like the Bite and Bumbershoot.  It’s still not known what will be happening during the latter.

So when you’re down at the Bite this year, bring your board, and contribute to this event.  Make it positive.  That way we can set the right foot forward and ensure that the skatepark will always be open for skaters during the 30+ days a year that there are events programmed at the Seattle Center.

Bite This! and go SLAG!

Brennan Coyle, who showed his amazing work at the Youngstown open house event to raise awareness for the Delridge skatepark project, is having another show tomorrow night @ SonCon’s Alaskan Way location.  The fun begins at 8pm.

In case you missed it, he creates incredibly detailed pieces that jump right off of the boards they’re made out of.  Get to the show to pick up your own piece before this guy blows up.

Micah Shapiro from Grindline presents the goods.

Despite the immediate lack of construction funding, the Delridge community came out in force to support and participate in the design process for the proposed skatepark in their neighborhood.

The meeting started with a nice intro and overview from Parks’ Kelly Davidson, which ended with a reminder that the Parks Department is actively looking for ways to fund the project.  One option she proposed, was applying for the opportunity funds in the upcoming Parks Levy.  But the outlook for breaking ground is still 2010 at best, and that’s if one of the few options available for skatepark funding develops into actual cash.  Kelly reminded everyone that they should be actively lobbying the City Council to keep the project in the forefront of their minds.

Next up was Nancy Folsom, a neighbor who lives across the street from the park, and Randy Engstrom, executive director of Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, to discuss the public art piece of the project.  Randy and his team secured a grant to pay for a parallell process that will focus on building an art component of the skatepark.  The skatepark site is right at the NE corner of the park that is often seen as the gateway to the Delridge neighborhood, so the neighbors would love to have a showcase piece of public art that welcomes you into the neighborhood and the skatepark.  They presented the process, Nancy had some conceptual images for what the art could look like, and they were collecting signatures from anyone who wanted to be involved.

At that point the Abbotswood/Grindline team took the stage and presented a pretty long and exciting video that showcased a lot of Grindline parks, and highlighted the company’s West Seattle history.  After the video, there was a short PowerPoint presentation that gave the audience a very quick and shallow overview of the Abbotswood/Grindline design methodology, some examples of what makes a successful skatepark, and an evaluation of the current site.

Some details emerged last night that were previously unknown, primarily the target footprint size which is now 10,000 sq/ft.  This is down a bit from the original plan, largely due to the limited funds available for the design process.  The upside is that the conceptual images that Micah showed with a 10K skatepark at the site seemed to look like a good fit.  He also showed some similarly sized parks like Yakima that looked like they managed to fit a lot of fun terrain into that footprint.

Finally there was a short design charette where people broke into tables and discussed ideas for the new park.  There was a diverse group of skaters at the meeting, and it seemed like some of the street vs. transition conflict that’s plagued other skatepark design meetings in Seattle was not present at Delridge.  Everyone seemed like they agreed that there should be a good mix, and that all skill levels should be served.  Some of the ideas that came up were:  a snake run, rebuilding the legendary Schmitz Park bowl that started it all, actual vert in the bowl, a signature feature that is recognizable, a 10ft deep end, multiple types of coping, and much more…

The big take-away from the night was how many people showed up, and how diverse the crowd was.  The room was completely full, and it contained multiple generations of skaters, non-skating neighbors, community artists interested in the arts component of the project, and all of the West Seattle local media.  The Delridge skatepark process continues to be an exemplary model of a community all getting behind a skatepark project, and taking an active role in the process to help make it a positive amenity for the entire neighborhood.

Now if there was only funding….