george crosland photo blog

Adrian Demai - Sad Plant

Cookiehead, the first day back after a broken toe he got back at the Pool Party

There has been some insanity going on at the Vans park in Orange, CA. The Pro Tec Pool Party is coming up May 12 and all the heads have been practicing up for the much anticipated event. Here is seventeen year old Nolan Johnson with a sick ass air to fakie. Nolan is entered in the in qualifier event

Holmes, Christian Hosoi, styling in the Combi. Christian will be a judge

Hosoi and Brian Patch

Cookiehead with a fingerflip to tail

Brian Patch – Melon Air

Omar Hassan could win this whole thing

Even the Vertical Vampire, Darren Navarette woke up before midnight for this session

Bucky Lasek won in 05 but was hurt in 06 (still got top 10) this year he is shredding like crazy and could win

Owen Nieder, classic Andrecht

The Basic BBQ happened for the twelvth year in a row. It is kind of like a Skatopia West fir one day. Beer, bowl, bands, friends and sick skating. Great times. To show you it is a true family event here a young lad waits with his pops for a brew in the keg line

l-r, Rodney (Billabong tm), his wife and Mr. Basic Greg Cassell

The P-38’s in the backyard

Nosepick in the deep end

Punk Rock Johnny frontside tailtap on the deck

Jake Piasecki was hurt for much of last summer good to see him back in action

Nolan Johnson is a seventeen year ripper – finger flip. Remember, this pool is over vert folks

Pool Party anarchy. By the way, this was a backyard party so I used a backyard camera – the elph

Nolan Johnson again with a backside boneless

One of my favorite rippers – Chris Hamrock

There was a huge sesion at the YMCA today. The raddest was watching these two new kids, Allen and Derek, skate. They are some rippers that skate street, vert and bowls and rip em all. Not just with tricks though. They skate with style which is REALLY rare amongst new riders. These guys were ripping with no pads, a true joy to watch.

Here is Allan with a nice tailgrab

Allan does a lien to disaster amidst a heavy session

Derek was skating like a pinball machine, hitting every wall

Allan with an imense padless stalefish in the 11 foot deep bowl. His style reminds me of some the rad skaters of the 80’s - Blaze Blouin, Caleb Moore, or to be more modern for you, like John Cardiel or Peter Hewitt

Here is the Skateborder mag web guy, Scott Taylor, standing up over the death box

Had a a killer photo shoot set up for Sunday but it fell through. Instead of getting pissed about it I went and skated the YMCA and surfed with my friend instead. Not a bad substitute.

Mike Mcgill is over 40 years old and still rips

Mike is over 40 years old and first did the 540 in 1984. He was working on them on Dec 3 2006, pretty crazy. How many people in the world do you think were doing 540’s on vert on Sunday Dec 3, 2006, in the world? Probably not more than 5, what do you think?

Sit back, grab your lazy boy and ollie up and over the hip in a cement pool. Chris Miller makes it look as easy as sitting in a chair

This kid, Nolan, rips. According to Chris Miller he does “The best lien airs” That is a strong statement coming from Chris.

Went to Philly for Thanksgiving to visit my girlfriends family. That went well and provided enough stories for the future but I will not bore you with that stuff. Altough most find it interesting that I met my girlfriend Jesse because I was trying to hook up with her sister Chrissy in Pittsburgh, PA. Enough of that. I did manage to skate with some old friends so that may be of interest, then again maybe not…

Traveled through six states, California, Virginia, Maryland, Deleware, Pennsylvania and West Virgina, skated two parks, met three old friends, good times.

The first skate spot was a park in Bowie, Maryland. The bowl was very steep. Designed by Sloppy Sam it was definitely not a cruising bowl but well built. The rest of the park looked very fun with a flow/street design but was too crowded for me. the weather was like 60 degrees and sunny which is warm for that time of year so every one was out. Met up with my friends Vince and John Dillon.

Bowie’s shallow end

This cat ripped and told us how to get to our next spot which was Green Skate Lab

Next up was the Green Skate Lab in N.E. Washington DC. DC is not a great neighborhood and this neighborhood was no exception. We were heckled by a group of b-ball players as we went back behind the school to skate. All was fine though.

Three random facts about Green Skate Lab

1) The park was built with all volunteer labor. The land was donated and the skaters built what they wanted, which was a bowl. There is space allocated to build a street set up but no street skaters have stepped it up to build anything yet. Maybe it would be a good spot for a Rob Dyrdek skate plaza. All the materials were recycled. Tony Hawk donated $14,000 and stopped by un-announced after a boom boom huck jam stop.

2) There is a pool nearby. In 1988 myself and 11 friends were skating in that pool. A small group of local boys told us to “stop skating our pool” my vote was to split and avoid conflict. Others in out group opted to tell them to fuck off. While I thought it best to leave I chose to stay and not desert my friends. The boys went and got their friends, brothers and so on and a brawl ensued. I got hit in the head and got amnesia. We escaped as the whole neighborhood was watching to see what the invaders (us) were up to. Glad we got out of that.

3) Right after the pool was built some young locals were heckling some older locals with taunts like “Dionne, you are going to get caught” moment later Dionne went across the street and gunshot noises shortly followed, then Dionne and friends running at a fast pace, then DC’s finest chasing them.

Green Skate Lab and the pool in the background where I was involved in a brawl 18 years ago

Green Skatelab again

That night Vince and I went to West Virginia to find our old friend Parker Webb. Parker always was a person I looked up to. A smart, hard working and honest man that truly lives by his own rules. He lives a few miles from the Shenandoah river in West Virginia, A beautiful area. Parker works on movies like The Dukes of Hazzard and The Last of the Mohicans

Parker on the left “Parker lives on the edge of society” - Eric Wright, former editor of Transworld Snowboarding and Hard Pipe

Parker knew Tom Sims and was shredding Corbetts Couloir at Jackson Hole over 20 years ago before many of todays pro snowboarders were even born. According to Vince (on the right) Parker is the “Timothy Leary of Snowboarding” Cheers to Parker

Alex Perelson could be the next big name you see in vert skating. The kid has serious skills. He was going pretty big and trying some techy Colin Mckay stuff today. 360 airs like this are a set up trick for him

Chris Millers son Zack has mad style, gee, I wonder where he got his style from?

The elph struggles to capture this image of Alex against the sun

No matter where you live in North America, the days are getting shorter. Remember back in june, you could go skate at 5 pm, when all the business people went home and you still had three hours of light. Today we had to go skate when everyone was leaving work at 5 pm.

For Ralf, flipping this was like eating a cheesburger and getting obese at a young age is for the rest of American kids - very easy

What is this a Stelmasky grab?

Dan with a switch 1-8 as night falls

Ralf needed one more try to get this front flip but security did not see it that way

Ralf warming up in the heart of Koreatown, right off Wilshire Blvd. This 10 stair was PERFECT and also at 30+ story Korean bank at 6 pm. Lots of hot asian chicks and lots of security, so we never got to work the rail over.

Max Dufour, 34 years old and rocking some sick skating, air to fakie

Dave Swift, one of the head honcho’s of the Skateboard Mag. He is a lifelong skater and The Skateboard Mag is one of the best Mags out there. Lien to Tail

We went to skate in LA yesterday with some pretty un-succesful results. Here are Ralf, JJ and Nick headed to the courthouse in Santa Monica, where we found new knobs and lots of police.

Here is a list of our spots

Transworld ledges, east LA - dozed

Courthouse ledges - cops

sidewalk in Toluca Lake - skate for an hour

Hollywood High 12, fine skate for a while

Othodontic ledges - knobbed and security

Wilshire 10 and 15 - security

a few other spots - security

tough times