Zarosh throwing down a crail into the shallow end. Photo: J. Hay

Any Given Friday: Buena Vista Pool

Any given friday, a session like this could be going down at the Buena Vista square pool south of Santa Cruz, one of the longest running “backyard” pools in history. This pool has been skated by generations of legendary skateboarders. Most sessions these days include not only the old school pool shredders and underground legends, but also unknown new school pool riders that fearlessly roll in to the deep end and attack the “lip” as if they’ve been skating pools their entire lives, which quite probably they have. This pool is definitely harder to skate than it looks. Hopefully it will remain empty for another 30 years for following generations of pool skaters to shred without too much fear of the cops showing up and busting it, or without it being filled in with dirt like it has numerous times over the last 30 years.

The Kevin Wenzke Interview

Kevin Wenzke is one of the best all around transition rippers in Germany. At 22 years old, destroying any new bowl or ramp built on European soil, as well as the older concrete relics from the past, Kevin has a bright future in skateboarding. We were close to interviewing Kevin for issue #3 of Confusion Magazine but he had a bad knee injury which took him out for about eight months last May, so we couldn’t complete the feature. Here we have a short interview with some photos taken right before his injury, and a few older photos and sequences. Be on the look out for a full feature with Kevin in 2012 with all new photos as he completes his recovery and returns to slay the concrete bowls across the lands!

The Maya Pool (DIY Backyard Pool)

I think it’s a dream of every skater to have his own ramp at home. Sure, I have my own ramp at home. Sure, it’s a crazy big ramp, half bowl half mini ramp, etc. But sure its not a pool….

DIY Willits – California

This is a home made pool with obstacles around the deck, somewhere in the wooded mountains of Willets, CA. The pool is real good – an amoeba with a death-box in the deep, shallow stairs, and pool coping all the way around… except over the shallow stairs where there is river rock mortared in for coping (up the ante!). This pool is not the easiest pool to skate. I have skated backyarders that are easier, but it is great nonetheless.

Pool Block Party DVD released!

Pool Block Party premiered yesterday in Southern California and is now available for purchase direct from Peacock, the filmmaker. Peacock also made pool skating cult classics, Cancer Dust and Tresslashing. This video features lots of the best pool skaters ever skating tons of backyard pools. Rumors are going around that this is the best pool skating video EVER!

Amsterdam Pool Project: Holland

From Niels Naber, Burnside Constructions: “We are currently working on a last minute, hardcore diy project in Amsterdam, made with stuff found on site. It’s called the Amsterdam Pool Project and was initiated by 2 local artists Miktor and Molf.”

Backyard Pool. Bavaria, Germany

With the recent concrete developments in Hirschgarten, Heidelburg and Moos, you’d think there wouldn’t be much to update in the next months about new German ‘crete. And then bam! Baum sent in this update from the Bavarian outback – a backyard ‘made to skate’ pool he’s been working on in the backyard of Black River. Concrete coming next week! So who said there’s nothing good to skate in Germany?