Hopefully you didn’t expect the most important event in New York City skateboarding history of the past ten years to be lumped in with everything else. All but one…
“Yo, you know what? That’s the lifestyle he chose.”
July 1st, 2009 | 12:33 pm | Features & Interviews | 26 Comments
People change. It is a pretty standard fact of life. Whether it is you, and your gradual shift in music tastes, as you discover the artistic merits of Morrisey and the ignorance that accompanies records focused on being shot nine times, or your high school sweetheart coming back a lesbian after her first semester of college — our lives are peppered with moments of dissonance that call for reevaluations, both small and large, of those who we call friends.
One day, I started to notice that my friend Michael Gigliotti was starting to change. He wasn’t growing breasts or going bald, but there was something different about him.
I first met Michael in the back of Union Square. Several friends and I had played him in a game of skate, and he inevitably won in a shut out since he was in fact from Santa Monica, and thus grew up skating the Hollywood High School 16 stair, while me and my friends grew up skating the Seaport and Red Benches, so frankly, it was a really unfair game.
From that point on, we were really good friends. We would see obscure, black and white, Scandanavian films in revival houses together, get later’d at the Fish, write poetry in our blood on yellow looseleaf sheets of paper and subsequently paperclip them to unsuspecting girl’s scrunchies, and occasionally skateboard when the New York City Board of Fashionability deemed it fashionable (typically, this happened three times a year between 2005-2007 and has happened once a year since 2008).
But slowly, Mike decided to lose interest in skateboarding. He’d show up to our favorite ledge wearing maroon eyeliner. Oftentimes, he’d wear platform shoes with weird inscriptions carved into the sole that had cryptic messages about how life was obsolete and how the worthlessness of the human condition was a product of the government and George Bush’s plan for destroying the rain forest so it could be traded to Al Queda in exchange for trendy Arab scarves worn by college students and maybe oil wells. He would still skate sometimes, but usually, he would try tricks like shove-it willy grinds on handrails, and heelflip body varials down double sets in Midtown Manhattan. One day, I tried to learn nollie half cab flips and he told me that I was a “conformist that would lead a life subservient to the government while being wholly complacent with my ignorance to George Bush’s great plan for wiping out New Jersey and deporting every great indie band.” I asked him to clarify, and then he focused my board and I have not seen him since.
Yesterday, I opened up my e-mail and say a message entitled “Long time no see” from an e-mail account that I soon learned was connected to a radical environmentalist group located in desert that is responsible for fundraising so they could campaign a freegan president in the 2012 election, just about a hundred miles outside of Los Angeles in the desert (although some reports say he has been spotted at Cafe Orlin on Saturday mornings.) Attatched to the e-mail, was this clip. A large departure from Michael’s former Westside Connection, Late-90s No Limit and Cramps inspired filmmaking, but I guess he’s changed. Whether its for the best or the worst, you be the judge.
Clip embedded after the jump. Features Miles Marquez, Michael Gigliotti, Alex Olson, Watermelon Alex, some jerk.
Filed Under: Features & Interviews | Tags: Gigliotti vs Vimeo, Goths, Mike Gigliotti, Morrissey, That Place Known as Los Angeles, The Armed Forces
How many goths does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
November 2nd, 2008 | 2:17 pm | Daily News | No Comments
This has been floating around for a little over a week, but they finally put up the long awaited clip from the Acapulco Gold / Instant Winner summer tour. Taji, Billy Rohan, and Charles Lamb went through Switzerland, France, and Spain, and all the footage from the trip is in the clip.
BD is one of the top ten skateboarders of all-time.
“Skateboarding For Gym Credit at a Manhattan School”
“stupid shit filmed on a digital camera for the world to hate on”
My hopes have become a reality. A Visual Sound on DVD in December.
Filed Under: Daily News | Tags: Billy Rohan, Black Dave, Goths, Halloween, Instant Winner, New York Times
The Battle For Union Square
April 23rd, 2008 | 9:05 pm | Spot Updates | 15 Comments
A recent rumor is gradually beginning to seem like a reality. During the winter, there was some word of the imminent transformation to be had in the back of Union Square, in which the wide open space and much coveted farmer’s market would be transformed into an array of small stores, like the ones that occupy the front of the park during the holiday season, where tourists are able to purchase shirts condemning politicans, candles, and other environmentally sound goods. It seems that the parks department has taken initial steps towards rendering the back on Union a long lost memory. This obviously has repercussions for those of us who occasionally skate flat there when there is nothing else to do and we have expended all other possibilities, but of course, this is not all that significant.
It is still hard to say which community has been hit hardest by this devastating new reality — the ravers/goths, the squatters, or the people who own skateboards, but are unaware of anywhere else to skate in Manhattan besides Union Square. The goths, and particularly the ravers, being the adaptive individuals that they are, as evidenced by their clinging on to a scene that has not existed for over ten years, are most likely the community with the least to lose in terms of lifestyle modifications. They are, however, at a heavy loss of prime real estate, since inevitable relocations will never quite amount to the amazing proximity Union had to Saint Mark’s Place and the Goth store on 4th Avenue. The most probable possibilities for relocation will most likely be greeted with a significant rise in overdoses on stimulants (for the ravers) and suicides (goths). Presumably, both groups will attempt to reclaim Washington Square Park from the pushing-fifty Haitian drug dealers, but will all be either arrested or scared away by the various.. umm… businesses in the park, who will be forced to choose between the revenue to be derived from both goths and ravers, and the increased police presence that would likely proceed all of the glowsticks and kids dressed like they are on their way to the Jonestown People’s Temple. Tompkins Square Park is also another candidate for relocation, but is an unlikely one when you take into account that the park closes its gates in the nighttime, and the pants both groups wear are a very significant health hazard for anyone who may wish to hop a fence, you know, with the extraneous zippers, 40 inch wide hem, and all that. Furthermore, it is a very far walk from the goth and exotic apparel store on fourth avenue, and the spanish kids from the Avenue D projects probably would not rush to establish a welcoming committee either.
The squatters will be forced to relocate to the dim corners of McCarren Park in Brooklyn, since they are not in extreme need of the various “alternative dress” stores (also known as costume shops) and inexpensive fast food places favored by the goths and ravers. If that does not work out, they can always go back to their parents’ house in Sheepshead Bay, where they ran away from due to the enforcement of a 10PM curfew.
The people who own skateboards, but do not know of places to skate besides Union Square will quit skating and become full-time sneakerheads.
Any way you slice it, it is going to be a very interesting summer.
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Other important, but not as important things:
Somebody recently posted this video of Matt Hensley’s part from Gullwing’s Full Power Trip (1988). The part was largely filmed in New York, during a mostly undocumented time in the city’s skateboarding history. There is even footage from the Harlem Banks, which many people commonly cite as never appearing in any skate video.
A pretty good Paulgar montage, despite a bit too much 12th and A.
I just wanted to say, thanks, iPhone. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane these days. Well, that and the meth.
