Non, parce que dès fois on en parle pas, alors les gens pensent qu'on a oublié...

Le frigo vide

Connaissez vous ce sentiment amer d'avoir un frigo et des placards remplis de victuailles, et cependant rien ne semble pouvoir calmer cette faim qui vous ronge? Vous tournez en rond, ouvrez, re-ouvrez placards, frigos et congélateurs en éspérant qu'une petite douceur ait échappé à votre regard. Mais en vain. Et ce ne sont pas ces maudits sarments chocolat/menthe offerts par Mémé à Noël qui vont calmé cette faim. Non, vous avez besoin de quelquechose de consistant et de nouveau à la fois. Oui mais quoi?

Tel était l'état d'abbatement dans lequel se trouvaient les journalistes de La Lodge en cette après-midi augustienne caniculaire. La chaleur pesante avait rendu nos gommes Bones bien trop molles pour un énième OUT, et le sentiment de fraicheur apporté par la récente part de Pete Eldridge s'était déjà envolé. Il fallait bien nous rendre à l'évidence: nous étions las. Las de cette routine skateboardistique; las de parcourir les même rues à la recherche d'un spot parfait qui, il fallait bien l'admettre après tant d'années, n'existait surement pas; las de visionner et revisionner les exploits de nos héros San-franciscains aux joggings en peau de pêche. Et c'est alors, qu'une pépite, tel un pot de glace Ben'n'Jerry's Cookie Dough bien caché au fond du congélateur, fit sont apparation: Burnt. Mais qui sont ces gens, d'où viennent-ils et surtout d'où vient cette musique hispano-divine qui retentit? Autant de questions qui ont suscité maintes conjectures et excitation parmis nos journalistes qui semblaient retrouver à travers ces quelques minutes de poésie urbaine et sub-urbaine un passé qu'ils n'avaient jamais connu. Ces héros anomymes resteront sans doute ainsi pour toujours, mais ce qui est sur c'est qu'ils ont ravivé la flamme dans le frèle palpitant de nos chers reporters de La Lodge.
Même Harry, le gros du 5e, a sorti son cruiser Powell. C'est pour vous dire.

La fin des 90's

Cette année l'arène du Berrics est, me semble-t-il, le théatre d'un fait qui à jeté l'effroi dans les bureaux de La Lodge. Plus que jamais, il devient évident que les jours de gloires des années 90 touchent à leur fin. Certes oui, voila une déjà une décade que les 90's sont finies, mais l'on pouvait toujours se bercer d'illusions en regardant certaines parts post 2000 de JB ou Mike Carroll qui trahissaient leur source d'inspiration évidente. De temps à autre, un fakie ollie switch frontside crook (affecteusement surnommé un "Mike York") ou même un switch mongo push venait se glisser entre 2 combos. Si ces éclats étaient rares, leur effets n'en étaient que plus intense.
Seulement voila, cette année touts les skateurs trentenaires du BATB3 se font balayer par de jeunes hommes qui, si ils ne sont pas supporté financièrement par des boissons gazeuses au gout d'urine, ont une selection de figures suggérant une immaturité probale et un manque de gout certain. De plus, et cela ne va pas sans créer une certain tumulte dans le Département OG des bureaux de la Lodge, la frontière entre "OG head" et "gros pourri" semble être de plus en plus poreuse. Il est en effet surprenant de voir cette merde réelle (real shit) de Josh Kalis apparaitre dans ces déprimantes pub DC, pour, de surcroit, nous refiler sa créme solaire dont il aurait sacrément besoin afin de se badigeonner le rectum pour recevoir l'adoubement suprême de Ken Block. Je digresse.

Quoique il en soit, les temps sont durs à La Lodge, et beaucoup de nos reporteurs perdent la foi. J'ai même eu l'occasion d'en voir certains s'essayer au 3-6 shove it. C'est pour vous dire...

ps: tel Mystery qui passe du noir&blanc à la couleur, La Lodge sera désormais dans la langue de Molière au lieu de Shakespeare. Si au moins un lecteur anglophone pouvait se plaindre, ça me mettrait de beaume au coeur...

unfuckwithable

The Thinkers from the Golden Gate Bridge

Once upon a time there was a brand nobody cared about and if one was asked about its team, it was with a certain bewilderment that he had to admit that he could not even name one dude. This brand was of course Think. Despite its presence on the Western skate scene for quite a long time, not much attention was paid to Think.

However, their [no so] recent additions to the team have generated much sexual arousement among the SF Department of La Lodge. First, the pony-tailed Floridian Brian Delatorre seems to have received a good piece of advice and has traded his filthy outfits for what seems to be the uniform of the winners these days: Dickies & Cons. Not to mention his bag of tricks which has become far more interesting since his delocalisation. Then, that Josh Mathews kid who is definitely an upcoming all-aroud ripper. Finally, to bend the rules, internet sensation Cody McEntire finally comes through with some footage without fedora hat nor miniramp circus moves. I have even overheard a conversation between two of our reporters in the toilets claiming that his footage was "kinda alright." Well, this is certainly very nice but I guess they weren't paying attention during that awful 3-6 shove it. So be it.

But what we were more concerned about is that this promo allows us to forsee that in the very near future Think will release a very exciting audiovisual production. The team seems to be more pumped up than never and the musical accompaniement lets us think that the full lenght video will be a treat as much for our eyes as for our ears.

A special mention should be addressed to "Dela" for his untouchable opening fs crook, which made more than one of our reporters whipe their greasy foreheads blurting out an admirative "Phew! That kid is no joke!"

Bay Area Exposure

La Lodge's Teaser Delegate is proud to share his recent discovery. Indeed, our Teaser Delegate is a man who has found a comfortable refuge in the recently digitalized versions of his favourite 90s videos. The predictability of every line soothes his poor mind tired by the unsightly innovations of today's teen idols (c.f. Adrien Bullard's latest addition to the self-justified maneuver labelled 3-6 flip in Pause #2). Therefore, the discovery of this piece of urban poetry featuring two prominent parties of Closure constituted an agreeable turn of events for this man imbued with nostalgia, who, for a short though priceless moment, went as far as considering lifting his stiff body from his quilted armchair to hit the streets with his skateboard. He finally opted for an umpteenth viewing of Eastern Exposure, but the least we can say is that it was a close call.

Frame by Frame part 4 - Léo Valls

Shall we observe the dozens of reporters at La Lodge, we would realize that one of the recurrent subjects that come up during the long hours of chitchatting in front of the coffee machine is Bordeaux's finest Léo Valls's part in Frame by Frame, edited by Romain Batard. And indeed, its quite a puzzling material.
To the surprise of the average skateboarder, Léo opens his part sporting a face mask. "What does this mean?" asks the upset everyman confortably numb by the resemblance of every skateboard video these days. Well, we first thought of an affiliation with the Canadian Satan-inspired Barrier Kult, for Léo is a man of many connections. However, the hip-hopesque nature of the musical accompaniment seems to indicate that no answer can be supplied by this lead.

Perhaps we should come back to the intrinsic definition of the face mask. Face mask= clandestiness. There it is. Such an opening signals Léo's shifting to undergound. Indeed, we, in France, live in a country where the cover of a magazine is a handrail stunt 9 times out of 10. People care more about the flying backfoot of the famous contest-winning Ronald Weasley look alike than about actual creative skateboarders. Street-skateboarding is very often reduced to fair-headed pre-pubescent skaters with rolled-up pants firing 3-6 shove-its in every line. Despite the regular claims of the artisitic potential of skateboarding in magazine editos, it seems that glory still lies in normality and if one wants to shine, the panel of his tricks must not step out of the boundaries of what is traditionnally accepted as 'steezy'.


How much room is one given for innovation? Not much. Where else than in the US is one supposed to look for inspiration? Nowhere. Well, be ready my friends, because Léo's skateboarding is largely Tightbooth-inspired and some of his maneuvers will probably never find their place in the French skate-landscape notwithsanting their originality. Therefore, to come back to our point, the problematic face mask announces the ideological stand that Léo takes against normative skateboarding. His skateboarding bears neither shaking junts nor combo-slides. In other words, there is nothing to satisfy the average skater's hunger for performance, hence Léo's noctambulism. If such unorthodox skateboarding is not recognized by the mainstream, why not playing according these lines and keeping the joke running by skating at night? Thus, when the everyman gets his well-deserved rest after the session, Léo fires lines in Bordeaux's most obscure back-alleys, and never these two worlds cross each other's way.