Hi. I'm Hippie Mike!

Hippie Mike is a man of many talents, many skills and many creations. A master of construction, Mike loves to build and create unique and custom projects, but he also takes the same mind frame to everything else he does.

Apr 11,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Back in February there was an Open House meeting regarding a new Park they are proposing to create at 6^th and Fir in Vancouver and there was just another one today. This park will be an “All-Use Facility”, meaning good for walking, running, hanging out with friends, and just pretty much being an overall nice place. But will it include stuff to legally skateboard on? That’s up to you.

Skaters definitely showed up to the first meeting to share their input on what this park should look like and what special features would benefit us, the skateboard community. It’s like the opposite of a Skate Park Planning Meeting where you usually get a few random people that don’t skate suggesting building a pool instead.

Anyway, they came up with some options of designs and one of the options included “Skateboard Nooks or Features”. This is something that should be considered in any public park that is being created or upgraded in today’s world. Give us some obstacles or areas that are accessible, fun and legal to skate.

So now is your chance to be a part of this planning. Click the survey link below and cast your votes to help promote the facts that skaters want to be included in this future park. The pictures of the Options are not there but “Option C” is the one that has Skateboard Features in it.

Vote for Skateboard Nooks/Features in Question 5 and vote for Option C in question 8. The rest is self explanatory.

The more surveys the planning department receives back with votes towards skateboard features, the better the chances are that this park will have some. And this could start a positive trend in Vancouver and other surrounding cities to just add legal features into plans rather than feeling the pressures of building huge skate parks everywhere. We want to be included everywhere.

Git r Done!

http://vancouver.fluidsurveys.com/s/6andfir/

Andy in Atlanta

Apr 10,2013 / By Protest Skateboards / No Comment

Andy Anderson is our superstar Protest Team Rider at age 16 and is going for attempt #2 this weekend to qualify at Damn Am – this time in Atlanta. Andy hit up the contest last month in California and represented beautifully, laying down flawless and creative runs and making friends with some of the best Am’s out there, like Curren Caples and Louie Lopez who ended up in 1^st and 2^nd place. He got interviewed by Nigel Alexander and all in all had an amazing experience. Unfortunately Andy didn’t make Finals, but that’s okay. We all know how stiff the competition was in Costa Mesa.

I think this contest might be a little different since half the skateboard population doesn’t flock to Atlanta for the winter so maybe there won’t be such a reign of shredders to try to beat. But in today’s world, no matter where you go you know the skaters are gonna be sick. We wish Andy the best of luck and hope he makes it through, but either way we know he will be the crowd pleaser as he is everywhere he goes. And the best part is, it’s actually Andy Anderson’s 17^th birthday on Saturday April 13^th, when he will most likely be skating his runs.

So make some noise for the little Local Boy that rips tranny, street and any obstacle you put in front of him – and all on his custom shaped Old School style deck built specially for him by Folk Skateboards.

Protest Represent!!

Every day this week we will be posting up fresh photos of Andy skating lately on the site’s Facebook, so if you haven’t joined the site yet, it’s time to push that LIKE button.

Extreme Sports Skateboarding Upcoming Events

Street Dreamz has a Death Wish

Apr 8,2013 / By Protest Skateboards / No Comment

Chris Somerville and Street Dreamz Board Shop are proud to be showing the DeathWish Video in the shop on April 19^th. Head out to North Delta and check out the video featuring Erik Ellington, Neen Williams, Jim Greco, Slash, Furby & Lizard King, buy a copy for yourself, and try and wins some door prizes while you’re at it. It’s time to find out what the word DeathWish really means…

April 19^th, 2013

7:00pm – Free

Street Dreamz BoardShop

7923 – 120^th St.

Delta

Extreme Sports Skateboarding Video Reviews

Creature Video

Apr 6,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Well, unfortunately I didn’t make my way into Downtown Vancouver for the CFSU Creature Video Premiere but I know lots of people did. Creature is a good old fashioned skate company who’s skaters like to hit transition so I’m sure it was a great video.

From the few people I’ve talked to it sounds like everyone had a blast and enjoyed the night. I’m sure there was tons of drinks being spilled and sloshed all over the Rickshaw.

Graeme Betts is still stunned by a Fakie Nosegrab Invert to Fakie and Dennis Regan said that Ryan Reyes and David Gravette provided the top parts. No surprise there…

Here’s a funny Credits video put out with Willis Kimbel singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd3EVEKRdRA

and here’s David Gravette’s insane Bonus Footage

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Skateboarding gets Legalized at UBC

Apr 5,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

After so many years of controversial kick outs while Vancouver Skaters try to hammer down tricks on the UBC Campus, they are now bringing skateboarding to us.

The UBC Planning Department thought it would be a good idea to build a park on their property for the residents of UBC to enjoy. They put a certain amount of funding aside specifically for this project and connected with New Line Skate Parks to bring the thought to reality. It will be a positive addition to the community there and hopefully it creates more awareness as to how the guys skating the street obstacles there are just trying to skate, and not trying to be pests. But will it help justify those facts or will it cause a different argument where the Campus Security will just keep pointing over to the Skate Park and saying that it was built to keep people from skating the street on campus? We won’t be able to answer that question until after it opens. One thing is for certain though, it is definitely going to attract people to the Campus to check it out.

There was a lot of controversy back in November when New Line started the construction. Vancouver Local Skateboarder Sean Campbell stirred up the system a bit by complaining about the design and many people got involved in this protest for changing the design. It brought out a lots of opinions from both sides, some people liked the design and others did not. It must be very difficult to be a designer of Skate Parks now a days because skateboarders all like different styles and what one group might love another might completely hate. New Line and UBC Planning worked very hard when getting the designs for this park created and they ran an online survey as to what people wanted in the park. Over 300 people submitted their feedback and the designers had to take the requests and see what would work with the space provided as it wasn’t a huge lot and is filled with pipes, gas lines and other obstacles in the ground. Both parties agreed that they wanted to have a mixture of transition and street obstacles to help please every type of skater, but of course all the “Big Bowl Skaters” were not pleased with the 4′ half bowl. But that’s life.

Every skate park that gets built comes with complaints. There’s either too much Street and not enough Tranny, or too much Tranny and not enough Street. Or the Street Obstacles are too small or to big, or the Tranny isn’t deep enough, or too deep to learn on. No matter what, not everyone will love a new skate park anymore. We are overly spoiled with selection of Skate Parks in today’s world, especially around Southern BC.

So be excited if you want to be, or be a hater instead and don’t show up, but either way the UBC Skate Park will be a destination spot for many skaters and I’m sure it will always be busy. We’ll try to keep you posted as to when the Grand Opening is happening.

Thanks Stacy Gabriel for sharing this photo and being stoked. I’m sure we’ll be seeing him, Geoff Dermer and the Kitsch Crew shredding there often.

Hippie Mike's Messed Up Mind The Bob Marley Quote of the Month

Got to go Looking, Yeah – For Happiness

Apr 5,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Sometimes in life you have your ups, and a lot of times you have your downs. Depression can be a very painful thing, and it affects your entire body, mindframe and attitude. We all search the Earth for what makes us happy and strive through thick and thin to find it, claim it, and keep it forever. This could be a material object, for some it’s money or wealth, and for others it’s that one special person you choose to spend your life with.

This month’s quote is dedicated to my Mom as I know that this will be a very tough month for her. The love of her life, who meant everything to her, passed away last April and I personally have been dreading this month all year as well. It’s a very painful experience when someone close to you dies, but it’s even harder to handle when that person was the one you spent every free moment of your life with – It’s almost like you die with them. Or in some cases, you wish you did. The pain and suffering can be overwhelming and it makes every morning more difficult to get out of bed and try to enjoy life. But as hard as it may seem, the best thing to do is to search for something that can bring you happiness like you once knew it.

Everyone goes through depression. Everyone feels pain. And everyone deserves to be happy.

But how do you overcome the pain, how do you find happiness and where do you even start to search for it? For some reason I think of the movie Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler gets so frustrated all the time and Chubbs keeps saying, “Picture yourself in your Happy Place…” We all have a Happy Place that is just for us, a place that could be real, or could be imaginary, but it’s a place that makes you smile, makes you laugh, and brings back the memories of all those happy times in your life. Emotions go up and down constantly and we all need a place to go that allows us to escape reality and just enjoy what we have. And as painful as some things can be, we have to remember the good times that brought us to that point before the pain. I loved my Dad so much and it makes me cry every time I look at his pictures, but I take those tears and wipe them away and think of how blessed I really was to have him there for as long as I did. That makes me happy. And instead of dwelling on the fact that he’s gone, I reminisce about the happiness he brought me, the things he taught me, and the good times we had together. The month of April will always be a month of mourning in our family, and we will all be hurting inside, but we’ve got to go looking for our happiness and stay positive.

This month I quote a rare song by Bob Marley from his early ska days called I’m Hurting Inside –

“When I was just a little child, Happiness was there a while, and from me it slipped one day, Happiness come back I say; And if you don’t come, I’m gonna go looking, for Happiness, If you don’t come I’ve got to go looking, for Happiness”

I’ve said it many times, Bob Marley was a genius. A lot of people just think he was some crazy Rastaman that just cared about getting high and singing songs, but he was so much more than that. He was a Malcolm X, he was a JFK, he was a Martin Luther King and he believed in Freedom for everyone. He was a humungous leader who preached his beliefs through songs and had more motive than most people to stand up for his beliefs and take action against the social demons who ruled the world and he fought a lot of battles for everyone that most people would have been afraid to even speak about in those times. They tried to assassinate him but he survived, and then he sang about it. And if there was one thing Bob was good at it was finding happiness and sharing it with the world.

So whenever I hear this song I think about how everyone goes through those bad times where they just feel like shit and don’t want anything to do with anyone. But the song is not about what made him unhappy, it’s about how to get rid of that feeling and become happy again. The rhythm is upbeat and makes you want to stand up and start moving around.

Listen to the song and understand it, and think of all the things in your life that always made you smile and then go find those things again….

Love to my Dad

Ray Faux

September 18, 1947 – April 29, 2012

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Creature at the Rickshaw

Apr 3,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

A moment long awaited by many hardcore shredders, the Creature Skateboards Video is ready to premiere. Creature CFSU is coming to Vancouver and showing this Friday, April 5^th at the Rickshaw – 9pm. It’s $2 to get in and the proceeds go to the Vancouver Food Bank.

If you like Creature, and you’re over 19 years old, then I suggest you go to your local street corner and bum $2 so you can afford to get in.

Team Riders include:

Devin Appelo, Taylor Bingaman, Sean Conover, Adam “Scizzors” Effertz, Stu Graham, David Gravette, Neil Heddings, Sam Hitz, Truman Hooker, Alex Horn, Willis Kimbel, Adrian Mallory, Milton Martinez, Silent Mike, Darren Navarette, Al Partanen, Ryan Reyes & Chris Russell

Don’t miss out

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Score 1 for Numb Nuts

Apr 1,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Oh, Justin James, the guy I simply refer to as Numb Nuts. We’ve been hanging out for over a decade, had our ups and down and maybe punched each other in the face a couple times, but we always make up. Today I was stunned, Justin actually committed to blunt fakies on a quarter pipe. It was at BCP, and the quarter isn’t that big, but there’s a story behind it which is why I was amazed…

When I first met Justin at Bear Creek Skate Park so many years ago, he was around 20 years old and had just started skateboarding. Skating is not an easy thing to start doing when you’re in your 20’s, it’s way harder to learn something new at that age, especially something as difficult and dangerous as skateboarding. So anyway, I remember he would always be riding the little quarter pipe at Bear Creek and couldn’t really do anything. This was back in the era when me (Hippie Mike), Jay Mykyte, Stu Benoit and Drew Boyle would go down to BCP and just play game after game of skate on this quarter. So numb nuts would get into blunt and then just pop it in to fakie. He would usually clip his front hanger or wheels on his way in but still ride away because he had no idea what he was doing and was just standing weightless on his board. I thought it was so crazy that this kid that could hardly do a 50-50 stall was doing blunt fakies, even if they weren’t that good… So we started hanging out, and I taught Justin a ton of the basics on that quarter pipe and he ended up getting pretty good, but the more tricks he learned the less blunt fakies he was doing, until he literally could not do them any more. For years I have watched Justin try blunt fakies in multiple places and never commit, and I honestly thought he would never do another one. Today I was proven wrong. We stopped off at Bear Creek on the way back from filming all day and he claimed, like usual, that he was going to blunt fakie the quarter pipe. I had not faith of course.

Then blam, like 3^rd try he just commits and sticks a perfect blunt fakie. Then another, and another. The crazy part was that every one he did looked like he had been doing them all his life. It was crazy. It just goes to prove that you should never give up on your dreams and even if you struggle with a trick for years, there is still a chance you may land it, or even learn it someday…

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Ryan Decenzo – ND Represent!

Mar 30,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Ryan Decenzo has been floating around the BC homeland lately and just did an interview with the local Surrey/Delta newspaper The Surrey Now. It relates to Ryan’s passions towards skateboarding and learning. And he reminisces about the good times he had growing up so close with his little brother Scott always pushing each other to be better. Ryan had a lot of talent on his skateboard even as a young kid. I still remember a long long time ago when I ran into Ryan and Scott Decenzo as 2 little kids skating the front of Cougar Canyon Elementary as the day I remember meeting them. It was me, Jon Irvine and Cisco Gooding and they came over all stoked that anyone showed up there and they just sat and watched us skate. I think they had just started skating around that time. Jon boardslid this super high ledge behind the high school and they were stoked. From there I saw them around here and there and they came out to the old Substance comps and Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey and I just remember watching them grow and get sponsored by Coastal Riders Skate Shop. That’s when they really started stepping it up. Ryan always loved the big gaps and Scott was always so solid on ledges. Now they both skate everything with such ease it’s hard to believe sometimes how good they became. It all comes down to that little North Delta Skate Park. As soon as it got built you could just see the progression in these guys every day and Ryan started really going off. Another great Training Facility built by New Line Skate Parks.

I think we are all proud of how big Ryan Decenzo has become in the skateboard world, I know I am, and I’m very glad to see him being humble still. He’s out there representing Canada, North Delta, and skateboarders across the globe.

Check out this article and let it bring back the memories…

http://www.thenownewspaper.com/sports/DeCenzo+stays+true+North+Delta+roots/8165316/story.html

Extreme Sports Glory Daze Skateboarding

Glory Daze – Episode 9 Kevin Harris – Canadian Creator

Mar 27,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

[youtube id=”et2BjF6Q2lM” width=”620″ height=”360″]

Welcome to Episode 9 of Glory Daze with Hippie Mike. Today we’re hanging out with one of the most innovative skateboarders in the world. He’s a legend on and off the board for everything he has done for the skateboard industry and he is the main reason skateboarding in Canada is as large as it has now become. Owner and Founder of Ultimate Distribution, Concrete Powder Magazine, Momentum Wheels, Wick Winder Distribution and Sunshine Valley Development, he brought you the Richmond Skate Ranch and RDS Indoor, helped to create the World Round-Up Freestyle Championship; still sponsored by Powell Peralta after more than 30 years, and still putting on multiple Skateboard Demos every year, the best Canadian Freestyler of all time – Kevin Harris!!

Kevin Harris: Wow, that’s quite the introduction – it’s all lies…

Hippie Mike: (laughs) Starting off simple Kev, tell the world how old you are and how long you’ve been skateboarding

Kevin Harris: I’m Old… I am 50 and I started skateboarding when I was 13, kind of when the first wave of it came in in 1975. I did all other sports but when skateboarding came in in ’75, that was it, all my friends stopped whatever they were doing and got skateboards

HM: What made you get into Freestyle Skateboarding?

Kevin: Good question; when I first started in skating, you did all aspects. You did everything from slalom, there was no street back then – the ollie hadn’t been invented back then. So there was vert skating, which was really just as far as you can go on a vert wall, the higher the better, there was really no tricks. So you just did everything. Freestyle was just one of those aspects of skateboarding that you did, and again living in Vancouver, I found that Freestyle was something you could do 12 months out of the year, whereas riding vert and banks you could only do about 4 months

HM: What was the biggest contest you ever won?

Kevin: Wow, Um… I think after I turned pro in 1982, it was the only time at a contest that Rodney Mullen didn’t show up (arm pump with a “Yeeeess!”). And that was Venice Beach in 1985, and I won that one as a Pro. ‘Cause every time Rodney was there right, you know you either get 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th, so I guess that would be the highlight that I won, but thank goodness Rodney wasn’t there

HM: What was it like to get picked up by Powell Peralta in 1982?

Kevin: Oh my God!! It was one of those things that’s kind of like having the birth of your kid kinda thing, you remember the temperature, the smell of the air and everything. I was riding for G&S at the time, and I call that “riding for G&S” which was a big company back then, but 1982 people gotta remember that skateboarding was dead. The ’70’s was huge for skateboarding, but by the time 1980/81 hit we lost Skateboarder Magazine and most of the contests were done, so I travelled down to California because that seemed to be the Hot Spot still and things were going on, and I entered a contest in 1982 while I was sponsored by G&S. And there were so little Freestylers there that what they decided to do was run the Sponsored Am’s, which I was, and the Pro’s together. So talk about nervous. I was like 20, and all of a sudden I was going up against the Pro’s that I idolized – Steve Rocco, Rodney Mullen, Per Welinder, etc. So I went in as my very first contest being from Canada and I got 3^rd, beating out all these guys that were my idols and stuff, so I was on cloud 9, and I’m walking out through the parking lot, and at that time Powell Peralta was “The Company”, I mean there wasn’t even a 2^nd. If you could get on Powell that was the Top of the World, there was no even 2^nd guy. They had all the best riders in the world, they had Tony Hawk and everything. And I’m walking through the parking lot with my wife and Stacy Peralta, who was my friggin’ Idol as a teenager, he’s in his car with Steve Caballero and he rolls down the window and yells, “Hey, Lou Wrigley!” And I had this nickname from Winnipeg these guys called me, Lou Wrigley, and Stacy knew these guys from Winnipeg. So Stacy calls out to me, Hey Lou Wrigley and I’m like, nobody knows that name in California, who the hell’s calling me that, and it’s Stacy Peralta, and I’m like, Holy Crap, and he says, “Hey Kevin, come over here”. So I go over to his window and I’m nervous ’cause this is like God to me, and he says, “Man, you ripped, you skated really good, you wanna ride for our team – The Bones Brigade?” And my jaw dropped and that’s how it started. And I’m still riding for them now.

HM: The Richmond Skate Ranch was a legendary Indoor that helped to build some serious vert skaters like Colin McKay and Rob Boyce, better known as Sluggo. How long did you have The Ranch, and what were your favourite memories from there?

Kevin: Uhh, the Richmond Skate Ranch when I opened it, I didn’t think it was gonna be what it was. Expo ’86 had happened and there was really no place to put this $30,000 vert ramp that we had so Monty (Little) was like, well it’s gotta go somewhere, we can’t just trash this thing, right. It’s really like me in Business too is just get that spur of the moment decision you know, so got a warehouse and put it in there thinking it was just going to be for locals and whatever. My thought was I can’t skate in the rain, nobody else can, let’s build something indoors for the guys to skate. I didn’t realize what it would turn out to be 7 or 8 years later where, it was a lot of those guy’s life. They just lived and breathed Skate Ranch, it was family to them, any free moment they had, they went to the Skate Ranch. And I watched it turn into this world-wide success. People from all over the world were coming to our park in Vancouver, because at that point there was really no parks in the United States because of insurance reasons and stuff, so we had one of the very few skateboard parks, and one of the very few vert ramps in the world. And it just created this awesome thing. And when I shut it down – there were 2 reasons: the landlord didn’t want to renew our lease because it was skateboarding, it was the devil, get out of here; and plus the cities now were starting to put in skateboard parks. When I closed it down, it was devastating for a lot of people and I never looked at that until later how much of a “Life” thing this was.

HM: You created Concrete Magazine in 1990, named Concrete Powder at the time. This was the first ever Canadian Skateboard or Snowboard Magazine. What initiated you to create it, and why did you make it Free?

Kevin: I looked at it at that time as what got me into skating, why did I have that longevity towards it? One of them was to have my picture in Skateboarder Magazine, which was huge, to make me as my friends disappeared in 1980 who now wanted nothing to do with skateboarding. You gotta remember the time frame, I skated with 20 guys on a daily basis, 1980/81 came along, I’m the only guy… like seriously the only guy. So when 1990 hit and the same type of thinkg happened I wondered what can I create that will make that Canadian Skateboarder still want to skate? Ah, hang on, let’s do a Magazine. So I did it at the bottom end of skating and said, let’s just dump some money into this magazine and make this work. And again, I’ve had people come up to me and go, “Thank you for starting Concrete Powder, and I was in it when I was 14 years old, and I’m still skating now…” So my envision of why I created the magazine actually worked, and for Free what I thought was, really at the end of the day at the business level, when Time Magazine sells at a news stand, they don’t make money from that, it’s their circulation. So if they print 200,000 copies, they really only sell half of that. And I just felt like, why should a kid go to a 711 and pick up a magazine, I want them in that retail store so he gets the magazine for free, but he might buy a sticker, or he might buy a skateboard. So my philosophy behind it was – get the kid to pick up the magazine in the skate shop, why am I giving 711 the business?

HM: What year did you start Ultimate Distribution, and how did that come about?

Kevin: Well, 1985 comes along, and skateboarding is booming by the mid 80’s. So manufacturers all over the world are trying to keep up with the volume and so on, and for some reason or another Freestylers, like if there was 20 or 30 core Freestylers in the world, they had a really good business sense about them and who went on to run some of the most successful skateboard companies in the world – World Industries, a lot of the shoe brands, Etnies, all owned and operated by Freestyle Skateboarders. And I think George Powell and Stacy Peralta looked at it like, hey Kevin seems to have his act together, he’s managing the Team Tours and making sure everyone was on time for demos and stuff, and they said hey, we’re expanding like crazy, we can’t keep up, we’re selling to all these accounts in Canada, we’re better to have a distribution network in Canada – Kevin do you want distribution? Again, that was like “Ah, Yeah.” So my wife and I and my father helped to get that all going, but I remember knowing barely anything about business and starting off in this super small space and packing boxes on the floor with tape, and no shelving, no experience in running this thing, but instantly successful because we had such a key brand like Powell Peralta and were selling to all the stores across Canada.

HM: You demolished the World Record for 360 Spins on a skateboard when you were still a teenager, and the record has never been broken. How many spins did you do?

Kevin: A lot (laughs). It happened at the PNE Coliseum. In my brain I was spinning around, and my personal record at that time was close to 300, so I’m thinking okay, maybe I should just try beating my personal record. But the crowd started chanting, and the hype, and the announcers going okay he’s at 350, he’s at 400, he’s at 450… So I got to a thousand and I just gave up, but I got to 1032 (360 spins) and I’ve never been so physically drained in my life. I think about that and skateboarding to me is still the best thing on the planet…

HM: That’s great Kevin, I would really like to thank you for being a guest on Glory Daze with Hippie Mike. You are a true inspiration to myself and to many other skateboarders. You’ve helped skateboarding come a long way over a long period of time and your dedication to helping the sport grow is irreplaceable. I’ll say it for everyone – Thank You.

Kevin Harris everybody...

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