Chris Nieratko Follows Up On OIAM..Good Read

[myles.]

everything about the NY skate scene seems incredibly lame

wut................just because oiam sucks hard doesnt mean the ny skate scene does

[interesante]

everything about the NY skate scene seems incredibly lame

wut................just because oiam sucks hard doesnt mean the ny skate scene does

it probably isn't all that bad, but it is disheartening to see people like steve rodriguez and lurker lou who are somewhat iconic having super questionable mentalities

[cringe.]

It wasn't rocket science, but it was executed flawlessly by former Slap editor, Mark Whiteley, and ace skate photo journalist, Joe Brook.

[chitownchaz]

playing it off like those challenges were supposed to be funny (who the fuck would find humor in strapping a video camera to your head and delivering a pizza? mormons?) is the real crime here. the prick tried to make a skate reality show after last year's model and failed so miserably that it's sad. those poor fucking kids

[Donkey Lips]

OIAM Canada. Proud participants will skate under the supervision of Rawb and will have to battle Sasquatch. The first challenge is supposedly carving a deck out of a maple tree. No free product will be given out. In fact, if you bring anything with you, 20% of it belongs to Rawbertson enterprises.

Day 2 challenge - pan handle on the street. If you earn 10 bucks, you need to then use that 10 dollars to find a hooker, and get a squeezer. First one to completion, wins.

Day 3 challenge - chugging maple syrup and skating that underpass plaza all day. No water allowed. Last man standing is the winner and allowed to sleep under a roof. Everybody else, find some soft grass.

Day 4 challenge - the remainder of the participants play good ol' fashioned skate hockey. No pads. The competitors - the Maple Leafs. First perso to actually fight a pro hockey player, wins.

Day 5 and final elimination day - Rick McCrank is guest pro. He supervises as the remaining contestants are forced to skate off the edge of Niagara Falls. Nobody lives, but it makes for great television, and that's what matters Alex Klien.

[papasmurfsdog]

"That said we never took the reality format seriously. The board breaking was a joke, a parody of the reality-tv show where a trap door opens under the contestant. The last thing we expected was for people to actually get angry about it. At the start of the week I repeated this probably two dozen times, reminding all the contestants that we were putting on a big dumb show. The point was to have fun and hopefully create something people would want to watch."

Fucking different agenda. The dudes(a lot of them younger kids) went there expecting it to be a rad contest with the prize being sponsored by one of the biggest companies in skateboarding. It's cool to be able to get free boards and skate a city with a bunch of awesome spots, but getting sent home over petty shit like not ollieing over a bar in a skatepark is fucking lame. Are they going to say that Matt kid got sent home because he's awesome at skateboarding, but not being able to ollie high as fuck while super tired is a detriment in his marketability and gives him a shitty personality for some reason so he no longer belongs there? Alex Klein, fuck you and everything you stand for.

[Cthulhu!]

Steve Rodriguez can go fuck himself.

[interesante]

OIAM Canada. Proud participants will skate under the supervision of Rawb and will have to battle Sasquatch. The first challenge is supposedly carving a deck out of a maple tree. No free product will be given out. In fact, if you bring anything with you, 20% of it belongs to Rawbertson enterprises.

Day 2 challenge - pan handle on the street. If you earn 10 bucks, you need to then use that 10 dollars to find a hooker, and get a squeezer. First one to completion, wins.

Day 3 challenge - chugging maple syrup and skating that underpass plaza all day. No water allowed. Last man standing is the winner and allowed to sleep under a roof. Everybody else, find some soft grass.

Day 4 challenge - the remainder of the participants play good ol' fashioned skate hockey. No pads. The competitors - the Maple Leafs. First perso to actually fight a pro hockey player, wins.

Day 5 and final elimination day - Rick McCrank is guest pro. He supervises as the remaining contestants are forced to skate off the edge of Niagara Falls. Nobody lives, but it makes for great television, and that's what matters Alex Klien.

lmao

[Pabst]

I don't understand why slap didn't pull the plug sooner, fuck, if you see the first 3 episodes are bombing harder than j casanova's album sales then pull the rug out before you dig a deeper hole.
I think the mag would have taken a lot less heat doing that then dragging out 13 weeks of getting shitted on.

Still gotta say fuck this faggot hip kid tho

making skateboarding look whack is an inexcusable crime against the wood.
how did you not see this coming slap when he dresses like this?

[StabMasterArson]

Fuck this. Steve Rodriguez is still one of the best dudes in skateboarding. This season blowing up on the launch pad doesn't change my opinion of him, or his company. If he was given full creative control, you can best believe it'd be different and everyone would have loved it. Alex Klien fucked this up, not him or Lurker Lou.

[way too real]

lets just kill steve rodriguez, alex klien, and rodney torres. then we won't have to worry about this bullshit anymore

[foureyedjim]

Alex klein's response made me hate him a little bit less, but still...shame on him

I can't say I feel the same way. For him to talk about it as merely a failed experiment while pushing some claim that it was supposed to be cheesy, when he basically abused the kids for a week and then blamed the failure on them in his edit comes off as borderline sadistic.

And as far as the lack of constructive criticism goes, I heard that better solutions were offered and Alex Klein power tripped too hard to accept them.

Not to mention the fact that the solution is simple. Drop the bullshit and let them skate.

all I can tell is that he tried, and failed miserably.  I dunno, people do stupid shit but I don't really know the guy so I can't say I hate him too much haha

[chillout]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrnBaLyp1C4
	Small | Large

[sweets]

All the judges and Alex Klein should be ashamed of themselves. They made a good thing into a fucking mess. They should really be apologizing to the contestants and the skateboarding public instead of trying to kick the blame on some kids that got shammed.

[sleepypancakes]

everything about the NY skate scene seems incredibly lame

wut................just because oiam sucks hard doesnt mean the ny skate scene does

it probably isn't all that bad, but it is disheartening to see people like steve rodriguez and lurker lou who are somewhat iconic having super questionable mentalities

New York has a great skate scene.

Edit: I didn't see the post above mine but I completely agree, all of those kids ripped in their own ways and deserve to get hooked up. They did nothing wrong, they did what skateboarders usually do when we don't like something, say fuck it and do what we want. To say otherwise is to contradict the freedom that skating provides that I'm sure every one of those judges claims to stand by collectively.

[sdscanz]

the real winner is the guy that drank all the time. he not only got to skate/sleep/eat for free he also was able to party.

the fact he took a drink break during the pizza delivery race gives him the win alone.

[planman]

OIAM Canada. Proud participants will skate under the supervision of Rawb and will have to battle Sasquatch. The first challenge is supposedly carving a deck out of a maple tree. No free product will be given out. In fact, if you bring anything with you, 20% of it belongs to Rawbertson enterprises.

Day 2 challenge - pan handle on the street. If you earn 10 bucks, you need to then use that 10 dollars to find a hooker, and get a squeezer. First one to completion, wins.

Day 3 challenge - chugging maple syrup and skating that underpass plaza all day. No water allowed. Last man standing is the winner and allowed to sleep under a roof. Everybody else, find some soft grass.

Day 4 challenge - the remainder of the participants play good ol' fashioned skate hockey. No pads. The competitors - the Maple Leafs. First perso to actually fight a pro hockey player, wins.

Day 5 and final elimination day - Rick McCrank is guest pro. He supervises as the remaining contestants are forced to skate off the edge of Niagara Falls. Nobody lives, but it makes for great television, and that's what matters Alex Klien.

You just won this thread

[DARIA]

for fuck sake they didnt even go to the brooklyn banks or flushing meadows. they just skated spots no one knew/cared about.

anyone remember those redbull team contests? where a team had to go to spots film and the winner with the best montage at the end won. thats a nice format.

[hekkahyphy]

for fuck sake they didnt even go to the brooklyn banks or flushing meadows. they just skated spots no one knew/cared about.

anyone remember those redbull team contests? where a team had to go to spots film and the winner with the best montage at the end won. thats a nice format.

dam i miss those!!! free with skateboarder right? sooo good and most of them were naturally hilarious. first time i heard of dan mur[hy was from those

[eelbermston]

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

[steve]

So much of professional Skateboarding has been about making cheddar for a while now, so this whole debacle isn't that surprising to me. I used to buy 5boro decks cause the were good quality and after Zoo went down hill, it was the East Coast. Steve definitely hooked up a lot of young, local rippers, you know, Nick D and Westgate got going over there, Willy Akers too, and I think i get trying to make a living in the industry but I can't get down with that shit after hearing/reading what dude has been saying lately. I know coming up takes dedication and tons of work, fuck, and i mean this with the biggest props, shetler put work in for YEARS before going pro, so i can see what he's saying about having to do all kinds of shit sometimes, but i don't know, it all seemed kind of militant.

I would, however, be wicked bummed out if Cards was caught up in that negative energy. I don't want to project anything but at times I thought he looked bummed out telling the kids what to do.  

oh well. fuck it.

the real winner is the guy that drank all the time. he not only got to skate/sleep/eat for free he also was able to party.

the fact he took a drink break during the pizza delivery race gives him the win alone

that kid ripped and seemed pretty mellow too.

[artichoke]

I am blown away by Rodriguez and Torres hate.  Going on slap makes me feel old these days.

Have any of you ever signed up for a job and then found out it sucked?  Now imagine that the job is to go work for a legitimate skate media outlet.  Maybe they 'should' have quit when they found out how kooky it was, but trying to put food on the table is fucking hard to do these days.  Steve has a fucking family, man.

[whoami]

everything about the NY skate scene seems incredibly lame

nope
k
thanks
bye

[whoami]

for fuck sake they didnt even go to the brooklyn banks or flushing meadows. they just skated spots no one knew/cared about.

anyone remember those redbull team contests? where a team had to go to spots film and the winner with the best montage at the end won. thats a nice format.

guy, the banks aren't skateable right now, and nobody wants to go to queens. ny spots change all the time and they hit a good amt of the more famous ones. But please don't get it twisted, Steve is a good dude. He gave us back the banks for a quick little minute.

[sweets]

I am blown away by Rodriguez and Torres hate.  Going on slap makes me feel old these days.

Have any of you ever signed up for a job and then found out it sucked?  Now imagine that the job is to go work for a legitimate skate media outlet.  Maybe they 'should' have quit when they found out how kooky it was, but trying to put food on the table is fucking hard to do these days.  Steve has a fucking family, man.

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

Having a family myself, I can understand all that. However, I still think this whole debacle is a bit shameful. I suspect that if these guys are who we've come to respect, they will see it as well.

[oyolar]

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

Yeah, Steve is right. When you're out at a demo, you have to skate even if only 5 kids are there (which actually isn't remotely true-think of all the times people have complained about going to a demo only to see that half of the people there aren't skating), so why then is he mad at these kids for wanting to do nothing BUT skate? When you're pro, you aren't forced to do high ollie contests with the stakes being whoever loses gets dropped from your sponsor. Designing your pro model (if you get to) is an honor, not a challenge. You don't have to race your teammates to see who can deliver a pizza or set up a board the fastest. Your job is, ultimately, to skate, get some ads/interviews/assorted footy, take some catalog photos every once in a while, maybe enter a contest or two. Anything more than that is stipulated in your contracts and would probably come from a sponsor like Mountain Dew or Monster. Sounds to me like these kids were doing their job.

Also funny for you to say that you were a part in the early OIAM and you're bummed about this season, but do almost nothing but defend the people that were kooks in it. And we all know that Lurker Lou could be worse--he told us that himself. Are we supposed to be impressed that he was less of a dick than he could have been?

And yes, I realize they got paid for this and it helped put food on the table, but I doubt that their contracts said "In case of mutiny, make sure to throw contestants under the bus and claim that there was nothing idiotic about the format of the show and they're spoiled brats for calling out our lame actions." Hearing that from people who pride themselves on supporting kids and their local scene is hypocritical and they should be confronted about it.

Steve Rodriguez is really making himself sound like a moron.� I think this has said many times before, but Nieratko (and Jenkem even though it's unrelated to this) consistently have the best articles out.

Instead of Jenkem interview Lurker Lou and stuff, they should talk to mandibleclaw about interviewing the participants since we know all we'll get out of the judges is regurgitated bullshit in an attempt to save face.

in the middle of this interview 4 jenkem with alex, mandible & more at the moment.. tryin to get it out there. nieratko beat us there first, but we'll try and cover shit he didnt end up putting out there. if anyone has any questions you want to know just let me know.

Ok cool. Looking forward to it. Ask them some hard questions rather than letting them lob in quotes to make themselves look like the victims.

[floop]

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

cool

[Canuck]

My humble worthless opinion:

I respect all the kids for standing up for themselves, and not participating in something they thought wasn't true to skateboarding.

What would skateboarding be like today if everyone sucked it up all the time and just did what they were told? Carroll and Howard would still be riding for World and DC, etc, etc...

[thugnificent]

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

if lurker lou was as cool as you try and make him out to be, he wouldn't have acted like a complete faggot on camera for some chump change. therefore, he is not cool at all, and neither are you for co signing him. im sure steve rodriguez is just as wack too

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

First off you guys need to check yourselves on Steve R. The dude has been nothing but the absolute best ambassador to east coast skateboarding that he can possibly be. Regardless of what your opinion is about him and this whole OIAM mess, The dude is busting is ass for the progression of the skate scene he is apart of. Beyond that he personally helped me with job advice before ever even meeting me " just because I was a skateboarder" thats a stand up dude right there.

You also want to know something..think about what he said. " these kids just didnt want do whatever they had to do" and he went on to talk about guys like westgate and peterson skating demos in front of 5 people and coming through because being a pro skateboard is JOB. By all means if your can love your "job" than you're one of the lucky ones.

Lurker Lou- that dudes my homie for life. He's wild and thats why we love him. He got paid to act the way he did, honestly I think he kept it mellow. Anyone who knows Lou knows that he can throw absolute craze! If he wanted to, he could have broken these kids.

Klein- I dont know, personally I do think he kinda blew it on this one but at the same time every experience I have ever had with the dude has been nothing but positive.  He came to Boston and fuckin killed it, his part in the city video was awesome, I did an interview with him for Slap when it was still in print and he was great to work with, and he made a really cool documentary called " god went surfing with the devil"....I guess not everything you do can be great all the time, but in the end there's nothing wrong with that.

Sorry for rambling, I was a part of OIAM at the start and had a really positive experience with it so it kinda just bums me out to see where its gone.

if lurker lou was as cool as you try and make him out to be, he wouldn't have acted like a complete faggot on camera for some chump change. therefore, he is not cool at all, and neither are you for co signing him. im sure steve rodriguez is just as wack too

How terrible was this year's OIAM? I totally agree with thugnificent on something. THAT is how terrible it is.