Krans has been doing some pretty respectable trolling lately, god bless his sick and depraved soul, and this week he gets to rant, rave, and share a funny blast from blading’s more mainstream past. Now, with that out of the way, everyone wish Brian luck on his impending migration from Iowa to San Francisco. Will he be homeless and unemployed in a week? Stay tuned to find out! — ONE

Stacking Up

You know this guy?

Watching Don Bambrick’s new edit announcing his pro wheel for Street Artist, the dude sniping rollerblading footage looked strangely familiar. So did the music and skating right afterwards. Weird.

Where, oh where, could I have seen all of this before? Oh yeah, from Vibralux’s “On Top”!

SA stacked new footy from Bambrick on top of his “On Top” section (pun, intentional).

On SA’s Vimeo page, it says it was done to promote “On Top,” but there’s no mention of it anywhere in the edit, either at the transition or the ending. When it gets embedded into other skating sites it doesn’t have the notes at the bottom. Call it promotion. I call it copy-and-paste.

The edit would have had enough awesome Bambrick skating with the 2-some minutes of the new footage, but stacking it in with an already available section was shady.

If you have to show new clips and a section, try what Integrated did — no bullshit and also promoted a video.

Damn The Man!

I’ve been following this story for a while.

Apparently, some retired British guy likes to blade in a plaza. He’s not dropping gaps and crashing into baby carriages, he’s just blading where people are walking.

But, because the all-sweeping law says, and I shit you not, “people must not skate in such a manner as to cause danger or give reasonable grounds to annoyance,” he keeps getting jerked around.

Annoyance? Fuck that. If one person gets annoyed by a blader, they get a ticket? Are you serious? I’m glad they don’t have that in the U.S., otherwise I’d be booted from every skatepark I’ve ever been to for “annoying” skateboarders and bikers just by existing. Besides, being annoying is the only thing I know.

Aggressive skater or not, I stand by Geoff Dornan and his fight for his right to do what he loves. He might go to jail for rollerblading and to stick it to the system. That’s awesome.

What’s in a name?

Summer means comp season, which means fliers all over the Web advertising comps. Marketing them is easy, but getting skaters to drive out to them is challenging. You can’t just lure them in with cash prizes and cool spots.

No, kiddies, it’s all about the name.

For instance, the X-Games weren’t always the X-Games. The first year they were held they were the Extreme Games (Editor’s Note: Made possible in part by a hefty sum from RB to fund their inception), but ESPN realized that the “extreme” in everything was already played out.

Still, the Movistar Barcelona Extreme comp in Spain and Born Extreme in the UK hold onto that.

But if you’re hosting a comp and trying to come up with a name, think about the names of comps that have been around for a while — Bitter Cold Showdown, Showdown at the Hoedown, Barn Burner, Last Man Standing.

When naming your comp, be creative and employ as many as grammatical techniques as possible.

Coming up is the Windy City Riot (assonance) in Chicago, Skate the Hate (rhyme) in Carlisle, Mass., and the alliteration-littered BG Battle For The Booty in Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Remember, if you win the comp, the name means a lot.

Do you really want to be the champ of the Fruity Booty Bang Off?

Holy Shit!

Ubiquitous Item of the Week

Soichiro Kanashima.

The dude’s everywhere, hopping on ledges up to his nostrils and pinning together lines as he gets used to his new home in the States.

The Valo guys have been keeping busy keeping track of Soichiro as they film “4Life.” Hopefully he’ll get a section. My guess is he will.

A few weeks back, DSSF posted an edit of him, again proving he doesn’t need two feet to grind.

Out of all things random, even his clips from his “We Are Valo 2” profile were part of a Roces edit that popped up on my FaceBook.

(It’s not Soichiro, but when “fancy” gleamed across the screen, I nearly crapped my pants laughing and had to share.)

Comment of the Week

“I wish I could sing ‘it’s a beautiful morning, ohhhh’ but lying is for tricks and whores.” — Filmmaker Adam Johnson on Twitter

And Now, Here’s Something We Hope You Really Like

The guys behind Indiana Inline posted this glorious nugget from back when rollerblading stick figures jumping over garbage cans was enough to get “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s attention. — Brian Krans