mysticnegro.com Kranky v3.0

Just for this review, which is 70 minutes long and 10 minutes in is already the best thing on the internet that doesn’t involve boobies.

Today is the last day of Chanukkah.  I couldn’t find a heavy metal version of the Dreidel Song, so you’ll just have to accept this.  Not at all holiday themed, but possibly the single greatest song ever recorded by a Haitian and a Welshman.

I was listening to The Jason Ellis Show (which, frankly, has become the only thing worth listening to on Satellite Radio) the other day and Rob Dyrdek was on.  It appears that Dyrdek is trying to put together a new skateboarding league for street skaters called, uh, the Street League.  Here’s all you need to know.

1. Invite only and you need a signature shoe to even qualify.
2. First place pays out six figures.
3. Last place gets five grand
4. Dyrdek owns your ass.

It’s that last bit that piqued my interest.  One of the rules of the Street League is that it’s exclusive.  If you skate the SL you can’t skate the X-Games or Dew Tour.  I thought “wow, that’s pretty jacked up,” but apparently it was the skaters’ idea.  Nobody likes the X-Games and this was as good an excuse as any to screw them.  So, assuming that Dyrdek gets this off the ground what you’ll see at the X-Games is Chaz Ortiz and Nyjah Houston as the marquee names in street skating.

What does this have to do with BMX?  Well, a couple of things to remember. 1. When it started the X-Games was a 10 day, 40+ hour television extravaganza.  It’s, really, a shadow of its former self and the Dew Tour is barely better.  Remember the Gravity Games were a solid month of prime, major network sports coverage, but this year the Dew Tour was mostly relegated to super late night on USA coverage.  Which is to say, the networks’ dedication to the events is, at best, waning. Secondly, remember how their used to be downhill BMX in the X-Games, then Travis Pastrana wanted to go rallying and, boom, substitution?  Also remember how vert was dropped from the X-Games until Shaun White said superpark was dumb?  See how Danny Way was able to get an entire new event created based on his own fever dream? BMX in the X-Games is, more than most other sports it seems, subject to the whims of non-BMX atheletes.

So, what happens if all of the big names in skateboarding take their balls and go home?  Well, it’s possible that the X/Dew people will attempt to play the role of kingmakers and push the next generation (see: Sheckler, Ryan/Ortiz, Chaz/Houston, Nyjah) but they put so much press into being “the superbowl of action sports” that that’s unlikely.  They could try to push some other sport, but what other sport has that kind of penetration?  To put it another way (and rip off Chris Rock) if Ryan Sheckler woke up with Jamie Bestwick money he’d slit his own throat and jump out a window.

Yeah, you’ll never get the part of your life devoted to “double pits to chesty” back, but Sheckler probably bought a new Mercedes with the money he made off this web vid.

If I were a betting man (and I’m not, because I’m lousy at it) I’d say that the X/Dew people will do the most logical thing and step up the skateboarding purses…by cutting other crap.  I mean, Dyrdek’s got a lot of money, but he can’t outspend The Great Satan Comcast.  That being said, Disney and NBC/Universal aren’t trying to throw good money after bad.  X-Games have already killed dirt and they tried to kill vert once.  I’m pretty sure that the street luge guys thought they were safe when the sky surfers got the axe.  I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen, or that BMX will be the first thing to get stuff cut, just that that seems to be the most logical way this thing’ll play out.

Of course, it won’t because I think it will.  Still, it might be time for Mirra to get to work on the Park League.

I can’t imagine the sheer amount of time dude put in.

MIT has debuted a hybrid bike.  Me, I’m waiting for a WinMo compatible version.

Gizmodo has a list up of the most popular photography hacks of 2009.  Most of them are from LifeHacker, so if you follow that site you’ve pretty much seen all of them, if you haven’t, you still may have seen a lot of them.  It’s a good list for people out there with a camera, check it out here.

Happy Chanukah to all my Jewish friends out there.

I’m re-posting this video from TCU because it features a Nourie Handstand.  No video can be bad with a Nourie Handstand in it.

Eastern La Revolution France Tour Video from Eastern Bikes on Vimeo.

The other night Steve Vai’s “Where teh Wild Things Are” was on Palladia and The Mrs. commented on how impressed she was by some two handed tapping thing he was doing.  I asked her if she’d ever heard of Stanley Jordan and she had not.  This injustice could not stand. Dig the high top fade and shoulder pads.

I’ve been in a pretty crap mood for the last couple of weeks and haven’t really felt like writing.  But, since I didn’t go to the King of the Animal House jam, instead putting in extra hours at the job (said my boss after I told him about it, “Man, you should’ve told me.  Hell, *I’D* want to go to that!”) I figure maybe, instead of not writing I should just write, madder.  Since I figure that I’ve shed all my readers now, anyway, I won’t offend anyone.

Local News
DevonSmillie.Com is now up, if lacking in content.  Right now it’s mostly just his Twitter feed (looks, like he’s finally getting his knee fixed) and some random vids.  Chuckles, get on that.  Also, am I interpreting this right, is Devon on DK flow?

There’s a rumor that a new rider owned shop/park is opening in Peachtree City.  Given that it’s hit both the 70s and the 20s this week, a new indoor spot would probably be good for those south of the city.

Cult
Apparently the Cult team is riding prototypes made by Solid and FBM and they’re “loving them.”  Which is surprising, you’d think one thing Solid and FBM couldn’t do would be build bicycles.  The bikes have higher top tubes and weigh more, because the riders were apparently tired of breaking stuff and looking stupid.  Also, half the Cult team still has Fit Signature models being sold.  Seriously, GT at least had the dignity to change the Bestwick model’s name after they shitcanned him.  But, then again, “Castillo Bars.” I wonder if they’re still getting royalties.

In other Cult news the “correct” spelling is apparently “Cvlt” like “Bvlgari” or “Stvpid.”  If people start replacing “s” with “z” again I’m fucking done.  Done with what, I don’t know, but I’m done.  Seriously, I thought “Kranky” was the most dumberest name ever, but I was wrong.

Giant
The biggest bike company in the world has never been able to get BMX right (I mean, they’ve produced quality bikes that have held up fine to the abuse dished out to them, put together great teams and given money to riders, publications and events over the last decade plus, but they’ve never gotten it “right”).  They probably should’ve stayed Mosh, but whatever.  Taj may have to get a real job, that’s all that matters.

Huffing
As I kind of expected, Eastern has spun Nitrous off into its own brand with the idea that they’ll be a budget, high value brand while Eastern becomes a premium brand.  Nitrous will have no team and its marketing budget will be relatively small in an attempt to pass savings on to you, the rider.  As a brand, it’s also very, very, orange.  I give this approach six months.  Not because it’s a bad idea, it’s a great idea…for not BMX.  BMX is extremely fashion conscious and inexpensive + no team = crap (even if its not).  Me, I kind of dig the Nitrous frame because it looks like something a normal human would ride.  It doesn’t, however, make up for the other, Killorado-ized frames in the Eastern llineup, the thought of which makes me want to harm myself and others.

My adidas
adidas finally killed off the last of its BMX program.  But its BMX program existed largely in Europe and consisted mostly of flatlanders and who cares about them anyway?  Whatever, I just bought two new pair of adidas yesterday, I’m old and my buying habits are set in stone.

Picking up the slack the guys over at WTP have decided to launch, Almond, their own shoe brand (because a bike company, two parts brands and a retail store don’t keep them busy enough).  So, we’ve got Orchid, Lotek, Almond, Caste is apparently still a going concern and SCG still exists (despite no one ever actually seeing a pair in real life).  I’ve even heard rumors that Inopia is trying to rise zombie like from the grave.  If my math is right, this means that there are now enough rider owned shoe companies so that every professional BMXer currently living above the poverty level on sponsorship money alone can have one all to themselves.

David Lang
Is the new Defgrip Blogger.  I’ve always liked Defgrip in concept if not in execution (which mostly comes down to the fact that my tastes and the tastes of the guys over there run, if not 180 degrees from each other, easily a good 90 degrees).  In fact, I think that Defgrip is probably a good template for the BMX print media going forward.  Of course, I so rarely buy BMX magazines anymore, it could already be the template.  Still, with this David officially has 94763 blogs, making him the busiest man on the BMX interweb.  Far be it from me to make a joke about Mssr. Lang living up to positive racial stereotypes…but everyone knows that Scots are hard workers.

Flick Trix
I’ve seen a lot of finger bike ads as of late.  While a lot of people look at finger bikes and say, “they’re gay,” I’d like to remind you that being attracted to someone of your own gender is gay, finger bikes are toys.  Judging from how Indy Nowak loves his they’re also good toys for kids on training wheels.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em teh licensing money that brands are pulling in from finger bikes is better than the no licensing money they pulled in without them.  Also, the fact that they’re running TV ads means that someone out there believes that there’s a market, which is a positive sign.

Well, crap, not nearly as pissed off as I am.  Whatever.

Remember kids, no matter where you go, there you are.