Film School: Good Days with P-Rod

-A lot of people like to hate on P-Rod because he rides for Nike, skates a lot of competitions and is the good looking son of a kind-of famous actor. With the X-Games on this week I was thinking about Rodriguez and I decided that I like him, not only because he's an incredible skater, but because he has a personal mission to make skaters recognized among other professional athletes. The above video is an extended version of an ad featuring P-Rod and Koston along with Kobe and Ice Cube that Nike has been running for a couple weeks. Props to Theotis for making the extended cut.

-Oh and there is some behind the scenes footy on the Nike SB site and here's Hypebeast with a dope interview and a new show from P-Rod.

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Faculty: Inspi(red) by Spike

-I found this announcement of a Spike Jonze x Eric Koston x Girl x Product Red skate deck oddly enough not on any of the skate sites I check daily, but on Kanye's blog. Seeing this really made me sit back and ponder the incredible career of Spike Jonze.
-I first became aware of Spike Jonze after seeing Being John Malkovich, which has become one of my favorite films of all time. What makes that amazing is that lately, as I've gotten back into skating, I've been watching Lakai's Fully Flared almost daily. Since it's debut last year, Fully Flared has been widely hailed as the greatest skate video of all time. And guess what? It's directed by Spike Jonze. When I first saw BJM I had no idea that Spike was already an underground hero for classic music videos such as "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys or Weezer's "Undone." Although my co-editor disagree on the merits of Jonze's lackluster follow-up to BJM, Adaptation, I'm blown away by the fact that a man can shoot skateboarding in hi-def, and turn the choppings of hours and hours of slamming and sliding into cinematic genius with the same ease and attention to detail as his feature films.
-I guess what I'm trying to get at is that, in a youth culture in which the optimum goal is to be able to sustain yourself whilst doing that which you love, there seems no greater role model than Spike Jonze.
-Oh yeah, he also helped create Jackass, one of the most influential television programs of our era.
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PhysEd: Kick, Push, West Coast

As we mentioned earlier, with this past spring came a revival of our favorite junior high pastime. While the incessant Northwest rain has warped more than a few decks, summer is the perfect time for a skate resurgence, especially with the help of the Crailtap family. The California-based skate company collective, which includes Girl Skates, Lakai Footwear, and Fourstar Clothing, among others, has always been home to the industry’s best skaters and designers. They are also the people behind our all-time favorite skate film, Spike Jonze’s Yeah, Right!. Crailtap.com is a prime destination for skate-related news, features, and generally witty banter. It is also home to the Crailshop, a treasure trove of dirt cheap company leftovers, so you can build a complete for under $80 and blow the rest of your money on $5 shorts and the like. more