1) All right, let’s say you are now a movie reviewer. Please give us your thumbs up or thumbs down on these five movies and a few words as to why.
Lords of Dogtown
Thrashin'
Gleaming the Cube
Grind
The Skateboard Kid
The Skateboard Kid gets a thumb down cuz’ I’ve never seen it. The same with The Grind. I’m sure that movie sucked anyway. Lords of Dogtown gets a semi-erect thumb cuz’ for some reason I didn’t mind it that much even though it was kind of whatevz’. Thashin’ and Gleaming the Cube both get two thumbs up! I think they were both pretty gay when I first saw them, but I think they came full circle. Basically they sucked so bad that they rip now.
2) Some people see things differently from other people. Can you name a skate spot that all your friends LOVE but you HATE, and why you hate that spot?
I don’t think I ever really liked Pier 7. I mean, I skated it, but for some reason I could never get into that place. I just went there cuz’ all of my friends were there.
3) Remember that MC Hammer song “They put me in the Mix?” Which of these is the best mix? Mixed skate tricks, mixed dog breeds, or mixed drinks?
I would say mixed dog breeds are the best. I only like a couple mixed drinks and mixed skate tricks is too general.
4) Give us a professional skateboarder’s opinion on this: What is it like to skate a place with a bunch of guys that are not pro or sponsored and they are just skating to impress you and beaming after each trick?
I used to care and think that person sucked and get pissed, but I don’t give a f*c# anymore. I think it’s pretty entertaining now and just sit there watch them and get a couple laughs, maybe give them a couple thumbs up if they look over.
5) Some truck drivers are owner/operators and now many skateboarders are as well. Can you tell us what companies you skate for as well as own, and how much of each company you own?
I skate for Girl, 4star, Lakai, Royal, Diamond, and Fillmore. Yeah, I got my hands in some $h!t.
6) Oh no! Lookout! Your apartment/house/cave/station wagon…whatever is on fire! Everyone is safe, but you only have time to grab three things out of the place. What are they?
My girl, my dog, and my Ipod.
7) What do you think when you see a kid walking down the sidewalk
holding a skateboard?
I wonder if he can do a 900????? Or how many stairs he can “ride.”
8) Which is better?
Jawbreaker or Lemonheads (candy)? Lemonheads
Jawbreaker or Lemonheads (band)? Lemonheads by default
Painted or waxed curb? Painted
Indoor or outdoor Skatepark? Outdoor. Sorry
Chunky or creamy? Creamy
Cold Stone or Marble Slab? Cold Stone
East coast or west coast? It’s all good
Silicone or Saline? Glands/milk ducts, fat, and muscle. Straight jiggly
9) If you were writing a book about the story of your life, the story of Mike Carroll, what would it be titled?
Balloons, Crackers, and Tanks…Million Dollar Gases
10) All right you are now Mike-stradamus and we need a prediction. ESPN helped in part by making skateboarding and the ‘extreme’ sports a huge success and it did wonders for the world of poker. What do you see being the next big thing?
Extreme Hide and Go Seek. It’s where you hide octopuses, fists, beads, etc…
11) At my house we have named our toilet Montclair. Have you given a name to anything that others may consider odd to give a name to?
Not yet but that sounds like a good idea. I’ll get back to you with that.
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.
