Good News

So apparently Noodle King in Deptford has closed down, what the hell is happening in South East London?? First Happy Days, now Noodle King. Zorlac told me this the other day but I was too upset to post it up, I was trying to convince myself that it wasn't true. If Alex from the Thai place even thinks about closing he'll be in a world of trouble.
Here's a picture of a shark drinking a beer. The thought of Nick Worthington having this, or a parrot in a sleeping bag, or a snake on a pogo stick Tattooed is the only thing that can raise my spirits at the moment.

"I stayed up all night because i thought i could sleep on the plane, but i didn't sleep, instead my eyes just went bright red, it was awesome."

http://www.vans.co.uk/team0506/skate/stephen_roe/rg.php

Check Rogie on the Vans site! He just got on! (Well a month or two ago, but I've been away)

I live in New Cross. Those of you who have been lucky enough to visit this fine place will know how truly lucky I am. Thought by some to be a South East London ghetto, my experience of the place has been nothing short of amazing since leaving the beautiful hills of East Lancashire many years ago. There's the Thailand restaurant which people have said "Serves better food than in Thailand" and their happy hour menu means that I eat Chicken Red Curry with rice and a starter for £3.95 at least three times a week. Their Pad Thai has to be tasted to be believed, ask Alan Glass or Chas if you don't believe me. We're also lucky enough to have a Monsoon Indian takeaway which deliver me Chicken Tiika Masala, Peshwari nans and Sag Aloo once every couple of weeks. We have two mini supermarkets that i frequent one run by indians and one by turkish fellows, both of whom are very nice, and when it comes tomaking pasta i get bacon from the indians and pesto, pasta, broccoli and cherry tomatos from the Turkish lads. The point of me writing this expose on New Cross though, is that until recently, we had Stan. Stan was the African guy who ran the off licence next to my house, it was called Happy Days. Let me explain about Happy Days, quite simply it opened at around 10.30 or 11pm and closed whenever Stan felt like it, which was usually about 2.30 am, and was always full of random African guys or just New Cross lurkers shouting, having political conversations or watching wrestling or porn. It was the kind of place that you could buy single fags if you were so inclined, once Nick Zorlac came over and saw someone bare chested on the pavement doing press ups outside the place. There was a weird little African guy who worked there for a while who's ask "How's your sex life??". One month he converted to the weird religion that wore all white and were up till 5.00 every morning singing at the church across the train tracks, but that didn't last too long and he was back to his old self getting pissed up and wishing everyone who entered "Happy New Year" even if it was July . To me it was the place that sold Coca Cola in glass bottles. Stan would always try and keep these in stock for me, as he knew that I'd be in a few times a week to get some. (Tastes far far better than cans or plastic bottles, trust me). The amount of times me and Glass have talked about doing a video premier in there is countless.
So anyway. Stan hadn't been around for a while, he does this sometimes, goes to France, or Africa for a few weeks sometimes, I get worried that he's not coming back, but then he appears, same as always and the crew are always back in there with him, hanging out and drinking. So when he went away recently i thought nothing of it, but today when i walked past there's a sign saying that they've re-possessed the place, something about non payment by Stanley something something and the Landlord and it being illeagal for anyone to enter the place yadda yadda yadda. So it looks like that's it, Stans place has closed. Anybody who's been there will understand the loss this is to our community. It was like the Cigar Shop from that film "Smoke", it was something that was there that had character and it was a place for people (bagheads mainly) to hang out. At the end of the day it was a dirty, sketchy, illeagal liquor store, but I'm gonna miss it.
Take Care Stan wherever you are.

Check http://chasone.blogspot.com/ for what went down in Paris, i was gonna nick all Chas's photo's and wack em on here, but you may as well check Chas blog out, he's a bloody good lad.

In Paris again for a few days.
Been here since last wednesday. Meeting with Sole Tech people and skating Le Wag. Paris is always so much fun, I'll fill you inon all the details later, i'm having breakfast with Chas and Lucy now. Pan au chocolats, rad.

Back from the USA trip to L.A. NYC and Boston. Got some good stuff done.
Been dealing with heavy jet lag for the past few days. Like I'll crash out in the middle of the day for four hours straight, but rather than it being like sleeping, it'll be like this intense darkness that i fall into, and it feels like i'm having someone elses dreams, not mine, pretty weird.

Here's my new board graphic. Power distribution should be getting these next week I think. I drew the graphic, the image is from that Japanese Horror film "The Ring" in case you didn't know. I got sent a few when i was in new York, i'm super stoked on it, it's our "Magic 8" shape, which means its the perfect 8 inch board and its nose and wheelbase are slightly longer than other 8's giving it balance and making it the perfect 8. The ones I rode came with a purple top stain too so that was a treat.
Look for more graphics up soon, including the new Simon True Limited Illustrators shirt.
Back from my US trip, i'll try and get some photo's up soon.