Rob: What’s the most busted sponsorship offer you’ve recently received? Extreme noodles, hair spray, Ryan Sheckler hot dogs, etc.?
Ryan: I do get a lot of crazy offers all the time. I don’t know that any one wins the top honor. Probably the carpet skating kit.
You put these plastic things on your feet and slide around on the carpet. The inventor really thought I would jump at the chance to ride for them.
I couldn't even look at him without laughing. I get a lot of start up clothing companies that say they are going to make me rich.
I’m stoked for anyone taking those chances, but I’m part of the Volcom family, so I don't do anything about it.
Do you ever check out the crazy crap on your rider profile on SkateparkOfTampa.com? You have at least 20 teenie-boppers-gone-wild a day
leaving you their phone number and email. Do girls really throw themselves at you like that in real life?
That’s a loaded question! I do hit the site from time to time and check it out. For starters I’m stoked for
Nyjah and his win at the Tampa Am.
As for your site, it seems like most of the haters in this country migrate to your site to spread s--t about me. Don’t get me wrong, I do see the love and the wars that
they wage with the haters. I don’t spend a lot of time on any chat lines. I have found it to be counter-productive to my skating. It’s hard not to notice the
criticism from the “arm chair skaters.”
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Where have you been skating at the most lately?
Anywhere where it’s not raining. I skate my local park, backyard park, flat street, and then we hit the local cities whenever possible. I’m really working on a lot of things.
What country that you’ve been to has the goofiest people and culture?
Oh man...parts of Europe I guess. The people aren’t goofy but the culture takes some getting used to. It takes me a while to get used to the food, most of all. Everything else is cool.
Do you have any stalkers yet?
Yes...too many of them. We have initiated three FBI investigations over freaks saying they are watching our house and are going to burn it down.
I can’t mention the other stuff they talk about. When that crap happens I just look at my dad and watch the veins pop out of his bald-ass head!
If anyone knew him, like really knew him, they wouldn’t ever say anything about his family. I’m good with it...you know haters will be haters...but my dad gets scary mean.
What was it like to have the MTV crew at your place for the Cribs thing?
MTV was a blast. All the workers were really cool and we had a fun time filming that.
Has Tony Hawk ever asked you to have a sleep over?
No...why are you dissing on Tony? He’s a legend.
Rob: Nah, just trying to be funny with a dumb Michael Jackson joke.
Multiple choice question: When it comes to the ladies, I have:
a. Been to first base
b. Been to second base
c. Been to third base
d. Knocked one out of the park!
e. I prefer sausage
f. My mom’s going to read this and I’d rather not say
Answer: f
Tell us about your set up:
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Board: 7.5
Wheels: 49mm
Hardware: Shorty's or anything I can get
Trucks and size: Tensor Low’s
What were the last few CD’s you bought, stole, or borrowed?
Bought: Best of Jack Johnson
Stole: My dad’s “everlast”
Borrowed: REM Greatest hits
Which pro skaters did you look up to when you first started skating and which to you look up to today?
Looks like the Kiddie Course isn't going to be done until tomorrow. Here's some photos from our first session on the main course and some random bar antics at Skateboard Industry Night in St. Pete: A New Course and a New Bar Scene.
You can get a fisheye's view of the completed street course on the SPoT Facebook Page. If you're a fan of SPoT on Facebook, you already know that we sometimes do special sales and give out coupon codes there. Maybe there might be a special just for Facebook fans next week? Who knows? Maybe. The kiddie course isn't done yet. Photos from that coming up in a bit.
On the Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Tampa survey thing, I should have added, "Stay away from the Skatpeark of Tampa Party Team" as one of the options to prevent your skateboard career from derailing. When you come to Tampa, it's easy to get spinning in the party tornado, especially when 200 of your homies are all in the Ybor hotels or the Ho Jo. If the sauce is not your scene or you're trying not to make it your scene, a nice hotel for a decent price just a few minutes up the highway from SPoT is Days Inn. If you're just looking for a lower price room, a cab ride from there to the tornado in Ybor is probably about $15 or so. There's also another Days Inn on Dale Mabry that's across the street from Mons Venus. They don't serve booze there, just boobies. Boobies never hurt anyone's career. Anyway, you have some time left to enter the Tampa trip giveaway which comes with a hotel room and $500 spending cash, among other things. Since you're not skating, we will see you at all the parties that you get passes to.
I went out to shoot photos of the Kiddie Course construction and spotted Kris Markovich hanging out. Here's what things look like as of now. Gotta go, I have a conference call with 25 people from Fuel TV. 25 people??? Yep, mindblowing. It's about the live HD webcast for Tampa Am. They should put this phone conference on live webcast.
If your company has products on our site, you're welcome to a free ad in our banner pool. On your company's product page, only the ad from your company will show up. On all other pages like articles, photos, and skater profiles, your ad will display randomly from the pool of ads. The size is 970x100 and no animation is allowed. You can update it as often as you want. Email them to me at rob@skateparkoftampa.com. Below are some samples from a few companies that have sent some in already.
The main street course is done and skateable today. The kiddie course should be done late tomorrow or Saturday. Check out some construction progress: Street Course Construction and Completion 2009.
If you're in St. Pete tomorrow night, join us at Durty Nelly's for an event that The Finest Skate Shop is putting on called Skateboard Industry Night, appropriately abbreviated as SIN.
The winners for the Globe Cruiser completes have been picked. I know at least one of them is a local - Yonis came out on top. See you on the Booze Cruise this Friday. The first $600 worth of sauce is all on me. The trucks on these boards are called "Slant" as in my eyes. Sick.
What song is this in this Tampa Am promo video? That one dude, you know, the guy who will be at Tampa Am 2009 on December 3 at SPoT then
on Friday, December 4, doing a show in Ybor for our 17-Year Anniversary Party at Czar. Yeah, him. Oh, and there could be a little bit of ripping skating going on.
Today the staff at SPoT got started on putting together all the skateboard parts collected in the Shop all year long. Through your discarded skate stuff and contributions from your favorite skate companies, we build as many completes as we can and give them away to as many kids as we can find in the underprivileged neighborhoods in our area. We call this charity Boards for Bros. Check out a few photos from what we did today: Boards for Bros November 2009 Assembly.
If you haven't entered the Globe Cruiser Board giveaway yet, you have one more day for that. Tomorrow, all the emails go into a spreadsheet and get sorted random. The top two get a Globe Cruiser complete. On Friday night for the Booze Cruise, the first $600 of sauce is paid for by eBay shoe nerds who bought some of my old Dunks.
One commenter suggested we change the website every year like we do the street course. As soon as we get one of me for every construction dude out there, we can make that happen. Check out some street course construction that just started. In case you don't know, we have completely changed the street course every single year since 1993 when this place was born. This is the first year we've had a slab of granite, however.
Stalker Steve took some nice chill shots at the Harvest Jam this weekend. The skate ones are sort of like the bennihanna of photography, not that mine were any good either. I know we both can do better than that. Check them out: Stalker Steve at the Harvest Jam 2009.
A known hater on the Skatepark of Tampa Facebook page also has photos from the Harvest Jam. Thanks Kirk Hallinan. I'm putting you on the next cover of Frontside Grind Magazine.
