There will be an official session at North Hollywood Park on July 31, 2011 at 3pm. Adam Kun will be out there. Be there or don't be there. We will be on the Chandler side parkinglot behind the skatepark. The address is for the front entrance.
While riots broke out down the street from the lab on Hollywood Blvd., I was downtown, cool, attending Magic Wednesdays at Vertigos club. Diva DJ Egypt was spinning Minimal Tech - All vinyl, not CDs. You can check the set below. Minimal tech sounds kind of like music you expect to hear in the Ares DVDs or in the classic "Sleep Walker" or "Viva Asia" videos!
Thong C. Ngoer keeps it gangster and rallies for cross walk public safety in his hood. Check him out, representing on the evening news! "It's like a race, from the green light..."- T.Ngoer
We got some OG's Yesiree...The OG flatland wrecking crew from Japan circa 1999 at the K.O.G. comp. Many of the tricks and techniques you are be practicing right now were shaped and molded by this crew.
(Left to Right) Akira Okamura, Takashi Ito, Hiroya Morizaki, York Uno, Ryoji Yamamoto. (Photo from Dig-it!)
Here is the rare and classic 2002 Official KOG video in its entirety.
One Love BMX's coast to coast flatland tour came to an finale, back in California at Newport Beach. The crew, D.Wright, A. Kha$h, and T. Marrache, arrived at the spot in good spirits. About 14 riders and one crazy rollerskate dude sessioned on the beach! Yo, we out here!
Diversion TV is now free. The site has officially switched over to an ad supported model. Which means you can watch all the videos in the library without paying. The filmmakers get paid from the advertising revenue. So please support the filmmakers and watch their videos on Diversion TV. You no longer need to upload pirate copies to bootleg websites. Check out the full library of flatland videos here.
When you're up in the Hollywood Hills, you never know what animals you might run into, wild animals, tame animals, party animals... Ahmed and I went up to the Hills for a session and a snake dropped in on us. Luckily, Ahmed is a professional animal wrangler - L.A.'s Steve Irwin, if you will. He identified the snake and safely transported it back to a safe home. The snake: Name: (Pituophis catenifer) or the Pacific Gopher snake
Venomous: Non venomous, but it's main defenses are biting, constriction, and musking (basically crapping).
Where they hang: They are active by day and are found in mainy habitats like woodlands, deserts, chaparral, looking for rodents and other small vertebrates.
Ahmed made this video of our session with our serpent friend....
“Deja Vu” is Simon O'Brien's second solo film. Simon O'Brien the final flatland X-games gold medal winner from Australia shows his true skills in this second release!
Diversion TV is the best place for Flatland Cinema...for free. Check out more Flatland films here.
(L to R) D. Wright, Toño M., and A. Kha$h came through LA to pick up the BMX goods to scatter across the nation. Look out for the Trifling Tour in your hood! Check http://www.onelovebmx.com for more tour updates!
There was a Shuttle Launch yesterday at Cape Canaveral in FL. Yo' boy, Art Thomason, works for NASA, so I caught up with him to find out what flatlanders are doing in outer space....
FM: Hi Art! Did you work on today's launch?
AT: Hi Bobby. My role for this mission is to tell to the crew how to repair the Shuttle if there is any damage to the tiles that protect them from the heat if entry. Hopefully, I won't be busy for this mission. We should know how the tile looks in a couple of days. Some dude Art helped to space walk.
FM: Cool. Can the tiles get damaged on the way out of the atmosphere?
AT: Yes, the main cause of tile damage is foam that comes off of the big orange fuel tank when the shuttle is still in the atmosphere. Tile is pretty fragile; you can poke a hole in it with your finger because it is not very dense. There is damage on every mission, but most of the time it is small. There have been a few times when the damage was large and in a bad place. We had to start working on plans for a repair, but in the end analysis showed the damage would pass without a repair.
FM: Wow. What is it made of that it can be so fragile and still protect? Does it protect against radiation too?
AT: It is made of silica (glass), but there is lots of empty space in it to dissipate the heat. It protects against heat only. When you pick one up, it is so light that it feels like it is made of Styrofoam. A.T. handling business!
FM: Do you fill it in or are there some spare tiles?....Just in case I need to repair my tiles before re-entry....
AT: Each tile is unique, so no spares. We either fill it in or cover it with a big plate that screws into the good tiles. The second one is only for large damage. Hope your tiles are doing well.
FM: Haha! yeah! I was watching this video about the last night launch today. You have pretty much the dream job. Do you work with Satellite launches too?
AT: Cool video. Watching it now.I only deal with human space flight and specifically space walks. I was the space walk lead for the STS-130 mission (last night launch). I didn't realize it was the last night launch until now.
FM: So are these your co-workers in the video?
AT: I only know the astronauts from the video. We don't have too much interaction with the people that process the Shuttles because they are in FL and we are in TX. I have met a few of them, but none from the video. We need to be in Houston for the launch because the second after the shuttle takes off, we are in control. You don't want to get stuck in FL and not make it back to support from Houston.
National Flatland Space Administration - Space Walkin'!
FM: Are you at mission control right now?
AT: I am at home right now. We take shifts at mission control. Here is a press brief I did for my last flight.
Toño gets rad in front of a fountain that looks like a mini H-bomb.
Forget about Santa Monica or Marina Del Rey...this year FLATmode went straight to the hood. Reppin' in Huntington Park, world war three erupted on Richard's street. All the neighbors were lightin' the place up. Mortars, shells, missles...you name it....every block was lit! The neighbors rolled up like "We got some Disneyland type $h!t! This one's for you!" BOOM~~~! As they set off some M-80s in the street on our behalf. All the car alarms start going off...Richard's dad is shootin' off Roman Candles...Dominos pizza man almost gets blown up....chaos! Hahaha! Check the video and the picts below!
Let's get it started!
Rockets in the background. You'd think we were at Cape Canaveral...
Those little bottle rockets you got ain't ready for this 100 shot of saturn missles!
5-0 didn't sweat the hood all night...
The aftermath of our arsenal. Photos by Toño and Bobby.
