austin skate notes

While setting up for one of his trademark backside smith grinds on the broken neck mini-ramp, Dave Watigny caught a piece of wood and slammed into the oncoming transition Friday evening. With the wind knocked out of him, he sat down away from the ramp to recover. An hour later, he found himself increasingly dazed and unable to even tell people what his name was. He didn’t hit his head in the fall, but his friends took him to the hospital emergency room. An x-ray identified that during the impact, his body landed on his elbow, which pressed below his ribcage. The pressure caused his spleen to rupture which in turn began re-routing his blood from its typical course into his abdominal cavity. He had internally lost 2.6 litres of blood. The doctors performed an emergency operation to remove his spleen and clean up the mess inside his stomach.

Now he’s recovering in Brackenridge with a morphine drip, a cup of ice cubes, and a foot-long incision down his belly. It’s expected that he’ll be able to leave the hospital in a few days, but he won’t be able to lift things (i.e. work) for as long as two months while he recuperates. Lacking insurance, he has been racking up a horrific debt to his care provider.

I asked him if this was the worst injury he’s suffered through skateboarding. He hesitated and then didn’t really give me a conclusive answer. He referenced a hernia he received while jumping down a set of 12 stairs some years ago. I think he said this was the most expensive. Then there was some talk about how painful catheter insertion is.

In the years before he volunteered at Patterson helping pour concrete, Dave has been building skate spots, backyard ramps, skateparks, and scenes in Austin and around the country. It’s rather ironic that someone who has given so much to skateboarding would have to pay such a high price while enjoying skateboarding. Hopefully, skateboarders will step up to support Dave with fundraisers as he has stepped up to help others so many times in the past. (more…)

Since the demise of the Skatepark of Houston on Orange Grove, it’s been a difficult sell to get me to visit Houston. Even the grand opening of Grindline’s recently completed mammoth public skatepark was a ‘maybe.’ In the late eighties, I’d drive from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Houston in the rain just to skate the indoor mini-ramp. But with all the cool stuff around Austin to skate, there hasn’t been much of an incentive for me to take a skate roadtrip in a while. Closer than Amarillo and Orcas Island, the new public skatepark in Houston has now returned Bushwick Bill’s hometown to the top of my skate roadtrip destinations list.

This $2.75 million concrete skate behemoth is the largest privately fundraised public skatepark in the nation. It’s also Houston’s first concrete public skatepark (as opposed to its many prefab crap facilities), which has introduced much hysteria and concern on the part of city officials. As a response, Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department is running it like a public swimming pool and is staffing the skatepark with supervisors who will enforce a rule requiring visitors to wear helmets. Even so, it’s an amazing facility complete with lights for evening skating (closes at 10:00 PM) and a great view of the downtown Houston skyline. Although street purists will fault the facility’s lack of a plaza aesthetic, the layout does have a wide variety of terrain. There are banks, hips, quarterpipes, bank-to-jersey barriers, sloped manual pads, rails, mellow bowls, godzilla bowls, cradles, and a very accessible kidney pool replica.

In spite of the typically brutal Houston heat, the grand opening ceremony was phenomenal. A bunch of pro skaters on the Independent 30th Anniversary Tour showed up along with most of the Black Label team and an unknown number of ripping amateurs and old-timey Texas pro skaters. It was cool to see Hosoi snap backside ollie tailgrabs in the kidney pool, but I was more impressed to see the family reunion session of Ken Fillion, Jason Espeseth, Gene Hare, Troy Chasen, Bryan Pennington, Dave Donaldson, and Chris Gentry all skating together in the Kahuna-esque combi-bowl.

I came back with a ton of content, which I’ll add to ASN as I get it all edited. For now, I’ve posted a video teaser from the kidney bowl session and a few photos over on the APSAC website.

Before visiting, you’ll want to check the directions, hours, and rules for the Houston Public Skatepark.

The Skatepark of San Marcos is holding it’s first birthday party this Saturday. Stop by to skate June 7th to enjoy free hotdogs, gatorade, and cake.
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Following the successful footsteps of Mustache skate shop in Round Rock, it looks like some clever entrepreneurs executed on the opportunity and have leased retail space near the site of Austin’s next public skatepark. No idea if it will be open before the skatepark is built, but hopefully they’ll help cultivate a positive scene at the park. Did you know that Mustache Matt held a cigarette butt contest where he awarded a deck to the skater who picked up the most butts at the Round Rock skatepark?

This mini-ramp is listed for free on craigslist.

The Statesman showed up on Thursday’s pour @ Patterson and shot photos. One of them made the online ‘photos of the day‘ feature.

The new Indiana Jones movie is absolute garbage. Lucas needs to have his Hollywood privileges revoked. After the Star Wars prequels and now this, I think that’s at least four or five strikes..

Thrasher has posted essential footage captured during last weekend’s event at Mabel Davis. Congrats to Schmale for getting some coverage out at Bastrop’s Grinder Ledge. 5-hip clip, too.

As you can see from the poll options to the right, I anticipated a healthy showing of pro skaters at this weekend’s Mabel Davis contest. When I heard that none were coming on Friday, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. That disappointment lasted just until the first heat started Saturday morning…

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The readers have voted and it looks like the smart money is on Todd Falcon to win tomorrow’s contest at Mabel Davis. Wow. It’s already here! I gotta post this story so I can hustle down there to watch the pros practicing.

Todd Falcon has a new video out. Yeah, that trailer IS unbelievable. I hope he’ll be at the Houston Public Skatepark grand opening.

The Patterson Park Miniramp is nearing completion. The volunteers have been kicking ass out there. To clarify, this DIY concrete project has received zero funding from the city and has been built with donations from Vans, the Austin Parks Foundation, and frog design. If you go out there and see volunteers toiling in the sun, don’t ask them when it’ll be done. Ask them if they prefer Lonestar or Tecate.

The Patterson Park Miniramp project is nearing completion thanks to the countless volunteer hours put in. Grand Opening is scheduled for Go Skateboarding Day, June 21.

• A blurb promoting this weekend’s chili & skate competition at Mabel Davis appeared in the Food & Life section of today’s Austin American Statesman.

• Tuesday’s Statesman used Mabel Davis photos to illustrate the heat that has arrived in the area.
• The Huck Jam tour kicks off in San Antonio in July and also boom-booms in Houston and Corpus.
• McRad is scheduled to play at the Broken Neck next Friday. There’s also a film festival there this weekend, but I don’t have details because mySpace is total fucking bullshit that I don’t have time for.