Let's start a war: Darkstar: an underdog story.I'M NOT ONE TO PULL for the underdog. Whether or not they are expected to lose doesn't change my feelings about a team. I either like them or I don't, regardless if they are going for the three-peat or expected to finish dead last. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the Thrasher thrasher: see mimic thrush. thrasher Any of 17 species (family Mimidae) of New World songbirds that have a downcurved bill and are noted for noisily foraging on the ground in dense thickets and for loud, varied songs. Web poll, Darkstar was an underdog this year. It seems like every year there is a team that is expected to lose; at least in the minds of the 14-year-olds who actually vote on that shit. Luckily this isn't American Idol American Idol is an annual American televised singing competition, which began its first season on June 11, 2002. Part of the Idol franchise, it originated from the British reality program Pop Idol. , and your vote doesn't matter. Costumes, gimmicks, and popularity only earn you some points; your skating gets the majority. And that's the way it should be. In the end, the road got the better of us and the underdog did not prevail, not without giving up a fight, though. I don't think of second place as the first place losers; rather, I look at it like if you finish first you only have one way to go. Unless, apparently, you're on Zero. While some were disappointed with the outcome, maybe second place ain't so bad for the underdog. RALEIGH THE PLAN was divide and conquer. Since we had both the RV and a minivan, we figured we should split up and tackle the challenges separately, so as to maximize our time. We opened the North Carolina North Carolina, state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N). Facts and Figures Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. envelope promptly at midnight and immediately everyone rushed into a frenzy. Half the guys were off to track down Mike Carroll Mike Carroll (born 1975) is a professional skateboarder from San Francisco who skated for H-Street and then formed the super team, Plan B Skateboards. In a mass defection, Mike started Girl Skateboards with fellow Plan B rider Rick Howard. Carroll is often sarcastic towards people. ; the other half started making calls to locate the Durham County Durham County has several possible meanings:
In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. spots and skating the local skatepark to handle the book. The challenges in the book initially appeared to be funny. I remember asking myself, "Is this crap for Tony Hawk
DARKSTAR RALEIGH, NC CHALLENGES Skate the Chrome Dip rail while dipping Copenhagen The Girl tome did a demo in Raleigh today (Friday, Aug 11th). Find Mike Carroll and/or Jereme Rogers and get some advice (dos and don'ts) on how to win the KOTR KOTR King of the Road (skateboarding) KOTR King of the Ring (pro wrestling) KOTR Knights of the Round KOTR Korea on the rocks (website) Film a line at the Durham courthouse COUNTS Number of miles driven: 3,826.4 Average hours of sleep (per day): 4 Number of boards used: 70 Number of times Dyet said "bitch" or "green room": 777 Number of times pulled over by the police: 2 Number of dollars spent on 7-11 hot dogs: $6.87 Average weight of the over-40 make outs: 135 pounds Number of Barn shirts seen in Oklahoma: 6 Beers consumed: CARROLL'S ADVICE GIRL DID A DEMO the day we landed in Raleigh. One of the challenges was to track down Mike Carroll and ask him for KOTR advice. We rushed out at midnight right after we opened the envelope and hunted down the Girl posse. Carroll's words of wisdom, specifically, were, "Don't leave anyone at the hotel. Beat Zero and have fun. Why are you asking me for advice? We lost." DARKSTAR OKLAHOMA CITY, OK CHALLENGES Shoot guns with Stony Phillips Ollie off the pillar into ditch at the Pennsylvania Ditch Ollie the Kung Fu kung fu Pinyin gongfu Chinese martial art that is simultaneously a spiritual and a physical discipline. It has been practiced at least since the Zhou dynasty (1111–255 BC). gap in a karate outfit OKLAHOMA AFTER DRIVING for what seemed like a week, we arrived in Oklahoma. Morale was actually pretty high, considering. The idea was to hit up a skatepark and tackle some more of the challenges in the book. We went straight to the Matt Hoffman sports action park, which reminded me of Chino Chino (chē`nō), city (1990 pop. 59,682), San Bernardino co., S Calif.; founded 1887, inc. 1910. It is the business and processing center of a diversified farming (notably dairying) area. skatepark, except for the fact it sucked and everyone there seemed to be wearing wife-beaters and had cartoon tattoos. The tight bike tranny did allow Chet and Dyet to handle some of the fly-out tricks, and that was about the only good thing to happen there. At this point the rest of the crew was getting antsy ant·sy adj. ant·si·er, ant·si·est Slang 1. Restless or impatient; fidgety: The long wait made the children antsy. 2. to shoot some street photos. We embarked on a mission to find a Kung Fu outfit so we could huck huck n. Huckaback. Noun 1. huck - toweling consisting of coarse absorbent cotton or linen fabric huckaback toweling, towelling - any of various fabrics (linen or cotton) used to make towels an ollie down the Kung Fu double set in the appropriate attire. Machnau handled the ollie like it was a four-stair. While doing that, Dyet recruited a princess wearing a Slipknot (web) SlipKnot - A graphical World-Wide Web browser specifically designed for Microsoft Windows users who have Unix shell accounts with their service providers. Its primary feature is that it does not require SLIP or PPP or TCP/IP services. shirt. Since I broke my arm I figured I wouldn't be of much help with the skating challenges, so I decided to take one for the team. I guess if you were watching it must have been funny, like watching a drunken guy on a bike crash and get hurt, but when it's you it's not as comical. Let's just say my first Oklahoman was quite different from my usual OC girls. She wasn't anywhere as gnar as some of the others from previous years, but nonetheless, she was a Ginger wearing a Slipknot shirt. Need I say more? SHOOT GUNS WITH STONEY ston·ey adj. Variant of stony. ONE OF OUR CHALLENGES in Oklahoma was to shoot guns with this guy named Stoney Phillips. No one in the crew had ever heard of him before, and the only response I got from the locals was, "Oh, Stoney is a crazy guy." "Yeah, but does the guy skate? What's his connection to skating?" I would ask. "Oh, Stoney likes guns," they would tell me. We were greeted at Stoney's Outlaw Ranch by a barrage of gunfire and a cordial yeehaw. I always wonder if it's derogatory to call someone a redneck who so obviously is, but Stoney cleared it up immediately. "I'm that redneck Stoney y'all came to shoot with. Y'all can call me Stoney. Or Redneck." Most of the Canadians had never shot a gun before, since finding a gun in Canada is harder than finding a Y chromosome Y chromosome, n a sex chromosome that in humans and many other species is present only in the male, appearing singly in the normal male. It is carried as a sex determinant by one half of the male gametes. None of the female gametes contain a Y chromosome. at a Melissa Etheridge concert. Let's just say most were eager to act out their rap video fantasy on the abandoned car that was the target. About 40 yee-haws and several hundred rounds of ammunition later, everyone was up on Stoney's porch drinking--none other than--Natural Ice and talking about how they would make a great Taliban hunter. Stoney repeatedly asked me to include the photo of the five-pound bass he caught earlier that morning, but I haven't received that email yet so y'all just have to imagine what a beaut beaut n. Slang Something outstanding of its kind: "When I make a mistake, it's a beaut!" Fiorello H. La Guardia. she musta been. This was by far the best challenge. DENVER EACH ONE OF US had high hopes for Denver, everyone hoping for something a little different. Some wanted to focus on the book, some wanted to take advantage of the plethora of street spots, some were hoping to see the other teams so they could sabotage their vans, while others where hoping it would start raining weed. As with all urban sites, the City Challenges were the first priority. Chet and Dyet went and got a slip 'n' slide and headed to the Wetboy's abode One's home; habitation; place of dwelling; or residence. Ordinarily means "domicile." Living place impermanent in character. The place where a person dwells. Residence of a legal voter. Fixed place of residence for the time being. , while Machnau, Gailea, Trep, and I went to the rail. The Rail Challenge was to do a trick on the rail to manual like Harmony in the latest Toy video. Machnau tried and almost had it, barely scraping the tail each time. After breaking three boards and getting supremely frustrated, darkness began to set in. Some of the team headed in to catch up on their rest, but a few of us headed out to get the other challenge done: kickflip the civic center stairs. Greeted by some drugged-up moron mo·ron n. A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education. who most likely just left a rave, our presence was less than welcomed. Drug monkey was calling out Dyet and the filmer, while he was trying to show off his skating. The guy could barely stand up in his then-current form, but that didn't stop him from flying down the stairs Adv. 1. down the stairs - on a floor below; "the tenants live downstairs" downstairs, on a lower floor, below , which were actually of decent size for a 10. Luckily, Trep kickflipped the set first try, in the dark, and we got the hell out of that circus. We skated around Denver for the rest of the weekend, waiting for the showdown at the park on Monday. Again, lacking a tour guide and a solid plan, we spent most of the time driving around to the few spots we knew of. We returned to the rail to try and get the trick to manual. While Paul Trep proceeded to kill the rail, Machnau managed to break a few more boards before throwing in the towel. Trep was also unsuccessful. Our first failed challenge, and it brought the morale down a notch. In fact, it was the first time I've seen Machnau not be able to do something--and he's not the type of guy to just accept things like that lightly. DARKSTAR DENVER, CO CHALLENGES Kickflip the stairs that William Spencer front flipped in the "Mile High Skate Ninja" article Set up a Slip 'N' Slide at the Wet Boy's house Do a trick on the rail to manual off the curb at the silver rail INFILTRATED BY WINDSOR WE GOT TO DENVER on Friday and called up Windsor to show us around. Despite being booted from Darkstar, his relationship with the team is amicable. We picked him up downtown, showed him our book, and he opted to take us to a small seven-stair rail. None of us had expected any malevolent intentions from him, which proved to be a huge mistake. Because he is now over at camp Black Box, it should have been obvious who his loyalty lies with. It was quite a coincidence the Zero team happened to wander upon our seven-stair session at 4:00am, a rail out in the boonies boon·ies pl.n. Slang Rural country or a jungle. [Shortening and alteration of boondocks.] hidden behind a church at 4:00am, or the next day when he wouldn't answer our calls--then we saw him at the park with the Zero guys. In a game where it's all about points and challenges, the last thing you need is a spy giving the other team all the goods. THE MYSTERY GUEST CALAMITY FRESH IN MY MIND was the Jason Jessee Jason Jessee is a professional skateboarder from the United States. Jason's first sponsor was Vision but he soon made the move to a professional sponsorship deal with Santa Cruz skateboards. was released in the spring of 2006. References
adj. 1. Constant in application or attention; diligent: an assiduous worker who strove for perfection. See Synonyms at busy. 2. . Chet and I went inside only to find that Shiloh didn't get on the plane. Apparently, he was insulted by being categorized with Clyde Singleton, another mystery guest who also decided not to grace the KOTR with his presence. "Just come to the park," Phelper told us over the phone. I reckon the theme of this year's mystery guests was black skaters, so it was only natural Phelps gave Zero Windsor (or shall we say made it official that Windsor is with Zero). Since there were no other skaters at the park fitting that exact criteria, we ended up with a close match, Abdias Rivera. He rode in the other van so I didn't get to talk with him much. In fact, I only witnessed him say about 10 words the entire time. But every time we got to a spot he charged and definitely accrued some points for the cause. Shit, he got the frontside Cab down an eight. Yeah, we got the best mystery guest. SWAYZE'S WORK WEEK I VOLUNTEERED for this 50-point challenge right away. Without giving it much rational thought, I figured it'd be like home when I'm at the beach. What I hadn't anticipated is that North Carolina health codes require any person inside an establishment to have a shirt on, which meant I was forced to eat outside on the curb. Another problem arose when I went to the hospital for my broken arm. "Can I help you?" asked a fat, middle-aged security guard resembling Carl Winslow Carl Otis Winslow was a fictional character portrayed by Reginald VelJohnson on the American sitcom Family Matters (TV series) from 1989-1998. Background Carl is an overweight, hard-working, and humble man. from Family Matters. "Not if you're not a doctor," I replied while holding my tweaked arm. The toy cop tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to come in without a shirt on. "You're just going to have to arrest me with your plastic handcuffs hand·cuff n. A restraining device consisting of a pair of strong, connected hoops that can be tightened and locked about the wrists and used on one or both arms of a prisoner in custody; a manacle. Often used in the plural. tr.v. because I'm not leaving." He finally went and got me an apron, then just threw it at me. Five days later we were 50 points richer, and I had a sweet Hulk Hogan-like tan. SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden AFTER COLORADO we went through Utah. Dyet grinded the Ryan Johnson Ryan Johnson can refer to:
Being in The City by the Bay felt relieving, especially because we had just come from the Deep South. Chet isn't a fan of The City, and trying to get around it in the RV just wasn't happening, so the plan was to get out as soon as possible. The first challenge was to track down an original EMB EMB eosin-methylene blue. local and get him to do a pressure flip. We got ahold of Ben Sanchez (not Henry) and went to his place of employment. Mouse is one of my all-time favorites; I've watched it so many times I always thought I could for sure spot anyone from it. That is until I saw Ben. He now works as a mechanic, and the last thing you would think about if you saw this guy was those smooth lines at Pier 7--until he got on a board. Once he did, his distinctive style was obvious. He managed the pressure flip while wearing his work boots, and within a few tries. Then we were on our way. The second challenge was to ollie the California Street gap. Sure, the thing had been kickflipped and backside 180'd, but looking down the steep hill that the gap sits on is another thing. Abdias manned up and snapped the gap a couple of times. Seriously, the length is one thing--but the landing is another. I'm pretty sure that hill is steeper than anything in Southern California. Add in the tourists standing all around the place poaching poaching: see cooking. my photo, and you've got a quite a task on your hands. The final challenge was to get a kiss from a Hubba girl. Machnau and I went over to the Hubba headquarters to meet with Tony V about this task. Tony had a girl on her way in no time. "Is it the G-string one?" I asked like a 10-year-old waiting in anticipation of opening his Christmas presents. "No, she got arrested last night, but I got one for you. Don't worry," Tony reassured me. She finally showed up and, while she wasn't the G-string girl, she did look significantly better than the ginger from Oklahoma. After some Hubba hazing, Machnau reminded me, "It's make out with a Hubba girl. At least five seconds." After 10 seconds of tonsil tonsil Small mass of lymphoid tissue in the wall of the pharynx. The term usually refers to the palatine tonsils on each side of the oropharynx. They are thought to produce antibodies to help prevent respiratory and digestive tract infection but often become infected hockey, the team was 50 points richer and on our way out of The City. QUOTES "You look like Ethan Fowler with Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease or Parkinsonism, degenerative brain disorder first described by the English surgeon James Parkinson in 1817. When there is no known cause, the disease usually appears after age 40 and is referred to as Parkinson's disease. on a board." "With my motivational speaking and Scurich's good looks, we're going to kill the 40-year-old make outs." "I'm down to trade dignity for points." "Grinding a skatepark rail on rollerblades, you might as well be sucking dick." "She obviously has daddy issues; she's wearing a Slipknot shirt." "Get some sloppy seconds on the rail, Billy." "Fuck points. I'm going to burn the book." IT WAS NOW WEDNESDAY and we didn't have to be in Los Angeles until Friday. I really wanted to take Machnau to the Bakersfield rail, but the rest of the squad didn't want to skate that monster so we split up. We got into Bakersfield late at night, not realizing school was in session. We had to sit around Bakersfield all day Thursday wasting crucial time, then we barged the spot at dusk. After about 10 attempts, Machnau went balls to the wall and got the 5-0--a 28-stair, round-rail 5-0. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was putting in some heavy time at Volcom, skating all night, sleeping all day. We spent Friday driving around looking for a kinked rail to skate. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a good trick kinker that is skatable on the weekday. We met up late in the afternoon, and then drove around looking for a three-stair the team could kickflip while holding hands. Again, we were unsuccessful in finding a three-stair wide enough that everyone could fit on. We finally said fuck it, and decided to hit up the liquor store and get some brew. Filmer and Chet were still auditing and editing footage, but the rest of us were in pile mode, trying to hypothesize hy·poth·e·size v. hy·poth·e·sized, hy·poth·e·siz·ing, hy·poth·e·siz·es v.tr. To assert as a hypothesis. v.intr. To form a hypothesis. how many points Cole got and how many stairs Reynolds frontside flipped. To me, King of the Road is like vert photos; no mater how you shoot it or report it, you'll never know how gnarly (jargon) gnarly - /nar'lee/ Both obscure and hairy. "Yow! - the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang. it is until you see it first hand. The highway to hell is not for the faint of heart. DARKSTAR SAN FRANCISCO, CA CHALLENGES Get a kiss from a Hubba girl Ollie the California Street gap Get an original EMB local to land a pressure flip |
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