Issue 2 Cover Contest is complete

I want to thank everyone who entered the cover photo contest for issue 2.  Things started out slow.  For a while I thought there may only be two entrants, but some more great pics came through in the last two days. 

I learned that flickr may not be the right choice.  About 1/2 the people that entered had flickr issues.  We'll look for a better way to share images for the contest.  Maybe photobucket?

I showed pics to the professional photographer judge, and we agreed on which images we thought were best suited for the cover.  Then the work was up to me.  I made mock covers of each finalist's shot and the picture that worked the best won.  I won't reveal which picture won yet, but I can tell you it is a "philthy-photo."  The cover of issue 2 will be released in a couple of weeks as we begin to tease the next issue.

Everyone that entered the photo contest needs to email me a mailing address so I can send them some luchaskate, "I love ditches" stickers.  And, EVERYONE who entered the contest will have at least one picture in the magazine.

So...what the hell is Luchaskate?

A friend asked me about Lucha:  Who is he?  What is the idea behind Luchaskate?  WTF?

Here is where Luchaskate came from (excerpts and revisions from my email to her):

Last year, when the Memphis skatepark was being built, I made a joke that I would dress up like a luchador (masked Mexican pro wrestler) for the grand opening. I thought it would be pretty funny, and my friends would get a good laugh out of it. BUT, I was looking at masks when I realized I couldn't wear one because I have to wear glasses.

Fast forward a month or two.  I wanted to start a blog about skateboarding, but I didn't know what to call it.  Everything I thought of seemed contrived and lame like I was trying too hard to be cool.  I'm not cool.  However, I did keep thinking about the Luchador joke...in the end I called the blog, "The Four Eyed Luchador." For a while nobody read it. If I had 50 hits in a week I was happy.

BUT, suddenly I started getting readers! Hundreds of page views each week (nowadays that is everyday).

After a while I realized that "The Four eyed luchador" was too long so I shortened it to luchaskate.com.

Because the blog was now established, when I decided to start a 'zine I named it after the blog.  And, in the end I did get a couple wrestling masks and occasionally I put one on if I'm skating somewhere I'm very familiar with for a picture or two (that's all I can handle without glasses).

There ya go, the story of Lucha.

Kris and Lindsey killing time at the Yard Sale with new sharpie luchatats

 

Big weekend in Luchaland

Who has a yard sale with a band?  Lindsey Rowland and Hernando Skates do!

Hernando skates raised $900.00 this past Saturday toward the Hernando Skatepark, and we had a mini ramp session to boot.

Luchaskate now has t-shirts and I love Ditch Stickers available at Cheapskates (and on the Store page for non-locals)!

Outlaw Skateboards "Pray for Death"

So, I got home from work today to find this in a box on my porch:

 I was officially stoked.  9" wide deck from Outlaw Skateboards ready to be set up and ridden.  Those of you that know me know that I've been working my way down from 43" longboards to more standard pool size decks.  My last deck was a 15.5" wheelbase handcut board that sat at 10.5 inches wide.  9" was my next step, and man, I'm glad I did it.  I ran over to cheapskates, picked up some 56mm Miller SPF formula wheels and griptape to set this guy up.

I'm in heaven here, folks.  This is so much lighter than what I was riding.  I was pulling the old layback airs like it was nothing.  I'm not bragging on me, I'm bragging on this set up:  Outlaw "Pray for death" with Thunder trucks (8.5" wide) and Bones SPF wheels.

Kris Gurley, one of my favorite people to skate with, met me at Tobey for a session and he was kind enough to hold a video camera for me for a second so I could get some still images to take from it.  The video camera doesn't produce good stills AT ALL but we got a couple things:

I love wallies

My favorite move on the jersey.  Kris calls this a Lucha wall ride

Damn, I thought I was gonna hit coping.

Photo Contest Update

I realized that I never gave the luchaskate photo contest web address in the blog (it was on the facebook page btw).  Well, here ya go:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1998619@N24/

You have a couple of weeks left before we start to pick a winner.