4.28.2009

4.23.2009

why america must fail...



at the local mall i counted 39 vacant storefronts, including 2 of the "anchor" stores. yet this store thrives....
i attempted to go in but retreated quickly after making brief eye-contact with an employee. much like Hot Topic, i just couldn't bring myself to enter...

Nigel Sylvester Fuel TV Encounter vid

I thought this was a pretty neat video. Nice and clean. Very simple. Definitely makes me want to go out and ride... hop some ledges.


Nigel Sylvester Fuel TV - Encounter from FORMAT on Vimeo.

Haul And Pull Uuuuuuuuppppp!!!!



I think C2D needs to demo these bad boys!!!

4.22.2009

Wu Tang Wednesdays Vol 5? or 6 maybe?


Ghostdeini banger
How could ya go wrong with Rae and AZ?
Whips n Kicks (an S&M classic?)
props spine

"Decline In Flint Is Like Gravity, A Fact Of Life”


Interesting NY Times article about Flint Michigan.


The plan is to actually accellerate the decay, and turn the abandoned city blocks into forests and green spaces. Not to sure how quickly these forest will turn into scary crackhead filled wastelands, but its a neat idea.




I'll be in MI DJ'ing this weekend if anyone wants to hit me up!!

************************************************************************

FLINT, Mich. — Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.
Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.
The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.
“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”
The recession in Flint, as in many old-line manufacturing cities, is quickly making a bad situation worse. Firefighters and police officers are being laid off as the city struggles with a $15 million budget deficit. Many public schools are likely to be closed.
“A lot of people remember the past, when we were a successful city that others looked to as a model, and they hope. But you can’t base government policy on hope,” said Jim Ananich, president of the Flint City Council. “We have to do something drastic.”
In searching for a way out, Flint is becoming a model for a different era.
Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change.
Indianapolis and Little Rock, Ark., have recently set up land banks, and other cities are in the process of doing so. “Shrinkage is moving from an idea to a fact,” said Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “There’s finally the insight that some cities just don’t have a choice.”
While the shrinkage debate has been simmering in Flint for several years, it suddenly gained prominence last month with a blunt comment by the acting mayor, Michael K. Brown, who talked at a Rotary Club lunch about “shutting down quadrants of the city.”
Nothing will happen immediately, but Flint has begun updating its master plan, a complicated task last done in 1965. Then it was a prosperous city of 200,000 looking to grow to 350,000. It now has 110,000 people, about a third of whom live in poverty.
Flint has about 75 neighborhoods spread out over 34 square miles. It will be a delicate process to decide which to favor, Mr. Kildee acknowledged from the driver’s seat of his Grand Cherokee.
He will play a crucial role in those decisions. In addition to being the treasurer of Genesee County, whose largest city by far is Flint, Mr. Kildee is chief executive of the local land bank. In the last year, the county has acquired through tax foreclosure about 900 houses in the city, some of them in healthy neighborhoods.
A block adjacent to downtown has the potential for renewal; it would make sense to fill in the vacant lots there, since it is a few steps from a University of Michigan campus.
A short distance away, the scene is more problematic. Only a few houses remain on the street; the sidewalk is so tattered it barely exists. “When was the last time someone walked on that?” Mr. Kildee said. “Most rural communities don’t have sidewalks.”
But what about the people who do live here and might want their sidewalk fixed rather than removed?
“Not everyone’s going to win,” he said. “But now, everyone’s losing.”
On many streets, the weekly garbage pickup finds only one bag of trash. If those stops could be eliminated, Mr. Kildee said, the city could save $100,000 a year — one of many savings that shrinkage could bring.
Mr. Kildee was born in Flint in 1958. The house he lived in as a child has just been foreclosed on by the county, so he stopped to look. It is a little blue house with white trim, sad and derelict. So are two houses across the street.
“If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”
Watching suspiciously from next door is Charlotte Kelly. Her house breaks the pattern: it is immaculate, all polished wood and fresh paint. When Ms. Kelly, a city worker, moved to the street in 2002, all the houses were occupied and the neighborhood seemed viable.
These days, crime is brazen: two men recently stripped the siding off Mr. Kildee’s old house, “laughing like they were going to a picnic,” Ms. Kelly said. Down the street are many more abandoned houses, as well as a huge hand-painted sign that proclaims, “No prostitution zone.”
“It saddens my heart,” she said. “I was born in Flint in 1955. I’ve seen it in the glory days, and every year it gets worse.”
Mr. Kildee makes his pitch. Would she be interested in moving if the city offered her an equivalent or better house in a more stable and safer neighborhood?
Despite her pride in her home, the calculation takes Ms. Kelly about a second. “Yes,” she said, “I would be willing.”


3rd Ward Brooklyn Block Party May 3rd

This lil event is fun every year. And this year it looks like the block being taken over is a bit better located. i'm there 100%, to have some fun. eat some foods. and to bust out some cycle stunts.


3rd Ward’s Green Bikes Birthday Block Party, May 3, 2 to 8 p, FREE admission

Good things come in threes. So on our 3rd Anniversary in Brooklyn, we announce Green Bikes! Starting in May, when you sign up for a 3rd Ward membership you get a free bike!

To celebrate we're throwing a massive block party right outside our door. We’ve taken over Stagg Street for a day filled with:

* bike competitions
* films & performances
* music videos from Moviehouse
* a photobooth
* badminton
* drinks
* BBQ
* live screen-printing
* free workshops


Live Music from The Wild Yaks, Pterodactyl, Afuche, Lam, DJ Drew Heffron and DJ Clay Franklin.

Compete in a drag race, bring a t-shirt for live screen-printing, take a workshop or just come for the fun!

This is an Official NYC Bike Month event and includes partnering organizations: Make Music New York, Moviehouse, Transportation Alternatives, NY Bike Share, Empire, Goldsprints and more.

RSVP events@3rdward.com

4.20.2009

Smooth Move Fakie


Fakie from Hermann Andrè Gossmann on Vimeo.

Pirate Bay Found Guilty


If anyone has been following this trial, its been very entertaining. Too bad it is over for now. These dudes are so cocky it is fucking hilarious.
Here is a short quote after getting sentanced:
"It’s serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It’s really serious. And that’s a bit weird. It’s so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it’s even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can’t get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you’re going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.
We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn’t even give them the ashes. "
And yesterday on their blog:
"We have seen that some people that we dont know have started collecting donations for us, so we can pay those silly fines. We firmly ask you NOT to do this. Do not gather or send any money. We do not want them since we will not pay any fines!"
Fans of the site should already know of their wit, and it looks like they will carry it to the end. I hope the 12 months go by fast for ya'll.
***
I'm pretty sure most everyone has already moved on to a new site. I'm always curious what the new technological format is gonna be, after torrents. Wifi ipod file sharing? Thats my vote.

4.15.2009

Good Musics

This tape is worth checking out, and its got an ill Miles cover (which unfortunately isn't working right now, and sorry i'm busy but cant fix it. yer just gonna have to trust me and dload it)

Ayo Welli the Anson grind grind

A the Welli. Popping off a quick bike stunt combo. We over here at C2D are STRONGLY considering giving the kid a grassroots sponsorship - to help him shine. Keep up that good work.

4.14.2009

I Customize Shit

Man, I customize shit. Anything. Everything.
I mean, take this bottle.
First glance, nothing special. But if you look a little harder, you can see that its a Bacardi bottle blessed with a screw-on cap from a bottle of cheap wine. Done and done. Don't jack the marinade.

4.13.2009

the Food Life v:PHX1.0

started off with a little bit of a bike ride, then fired up the grill and sparked up some fat salmon...keep the IPA flowin' and the DJ C-Sick mixes spinnin' throughout...HAPPY EASTER!


















and just because this is how i roll:

4.09.2009

Burg and Lower E

Burg
Lower E
Burg
Lower E
Burg
Lower E
Burg

4.05.2009

Random Scenes From AZ

left the house at 8am. drove 300+ miles. went from 2000ft elevation up to 5700 in the car, then hiked/climbed up Browns Peak to 7600ft. then cruised into scenic Globe, AZ (old-school mining town). snapped some random pics throughout:


this was actually in the town of Punkin Center:


the gate was open, but the door was not....


heading towards Brown's Peak


the end of the "easy trail", the beginning of the vertical climb...that cleft in the rock is the "trail"


looking down what i just climbed up...see the trail way down there? that's where the last pic was taken....


view of Roosevelt Lake from a vertical mile above


random Globe-ness:





4.03.2009

A music video where a nice ass jiggles

I dont know who this is, not sure where they are from. I kinda like the song but not really.... BUT i like the face the chick makes about 21 seconds and the ass jiggle at 24 seconds is priceless.

Good job people. Keep up the good work.

4.02.2009

Wu Tang Wednesdays Vol 5

Ghost, Rae, Jadakiss

boom

Off the new Jadakiss album that I'm hopin is as good as im expectin.

And a new red meth ugk banger city lights

And a final classic tape from Schnooklyn

meth vs chef

and no, its not tical track, so give a proper listen

(big up spine too)


4.01.2009

Pics from 4-5 years ago

Bottlerocket + Fox, still warm and bloody

Rolling X-ups, yea, I got those. 243 style

Thats at LEAST 8 feet, don't play yourself.

Tonic Fallguy - minutes after birth

First family photo, thanks Shino!