Whoa. An “extreme” one two punch coming at you this Friday night. Lewis Cruise and Love Skateboards with back to back video premieres. Good times will be served. BYOB.

A Rolling Perspective artshow kicks off this Friday.

After touring through Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal among others A Rolling Perspective makes its final stop, Toronto this Friday. This is a photography show with a twist. Color Magazine and Etnies asked skaters to shoot a self portrait of themselves from their own perspective, skateboarding. There are hundreds portraits in the collection from skaters across Canada, the United States and as far off as Japan (Mark Appleyard, Ryan Allan, Andrew Norton, Kevin Wong, Harry Gils among them). The show will open Friday night as a kind of art crawl. It kicks off at Stussy, then at Adrift and closes out with an afterparty at the Baitshop.

A Rolling Perspective
opening reception FRIDAY DEC. 5, 2008

A Rolling Perspective is showing through the month of December at Stussy and Adrift.

The Useless Wooden Toys skateboard artclock benefit show for Skate4Cancer at Adrift in 2007.

The online Adrift Archive continues, and the show Saturday is fast approaching. Nike SB and Adrift are presenting a photo showcase celebrating Adrift Skateshop’s first four years of skateboarding, art shows, and live music. Looking forward to seeing images from Ryan Allan, Canice Leung, Andrew Norton, and David Waldman. Toronto photographers past and present and only a few who are contributing images.

The Adrift Archive
November 29th
7-11pm
116 Spadina Avenue

Looking forward to the Adrift Archive show as their tribute site reveals some highlights circa 2004 to 2008. Adrift is celebrating it’s past life in Kensington Market with an art show in November’s. The old shop was host to great parties, great music, and great skateboarders. Contributing photographers from Ryan Allan, Canice Leung, and David Waldman so the show is sure to impress. Hopefully Adrift can continue to raise the bar and represent Toronto’s skateboard/art scene for many more years.

Friday night a party to celebrate the release of the latest issue of COLOR Magazine hits 751. The doors open around 9pm and music will be provided by DJ JUBE and THEY LIVE.

COLOR Mag 6.4 – Release Party
Friday September 26th
751 Queen St. West
Doors Open at 9pm
Music by DJ Jube and They Live

Thursday evening there will be a memorial ride to honour Charlie Prinsep, a Toronto cyclist killed while on a cross-country tour. All cyclists are welcome to ride in solidarity. The ride will be through Cabbagetown, down to the lake and West to the memorial tree for fallen cyclists. Cyclists are encouraged to participate, even if you didn’t know Charlie. This is not a protest ride but a ride for the love of cycling and in memory of all of the cyclists we’ve lost in careless accidents.

Ride For Charlie
(organized by friends of Charlie Prinsep)
Thursday August 28th
Riders are encouraged to meet at Jet Fuel Coffee at 7pm
519 Parliament Street, Toronto, ON, M4X1P3

This is what I’m doing as of tomorrow — watching the Olympics religiously. See you at the end of the Games! (If I’ve recovered; you just never know what each Games will reveal about our Canadian athletes or has in store for us, politically.)

BTW did you know Canada is currently No. 1 in the standings? Savour the moment our Canadian women’s soccer team gave us while you can.

Facebook has a Toronto Argonauts group page (or two or a few) which I, as any self-respecting Torontonian would, belong to. Today, I received a Facebook message about a protest next week against sneaking an NFL franchise into the city that belongs to the oldest football club on the continent. Yes, that’s right, the Argos are the oldest club in North America! Why any old, geezer wannabe-American Canadian would want to bring in some boring NFL franchise into Argos territory is beyond me. But then so is how Rogers managed to get around the name-in-perpetuity-rule and rename the Skydome after themselves.

Without further ado, here is a copy of the Facebook message, with Chris’s blessing:

HELLO EVERYONE!

The first of eight Buffalo Bills games in Toronto is to be played 1 week from today.

Ticket sales for the Bills in Toronto are selling, by comparison, as poorly as the Toronto Phantoms of the Arena Football League did in Toronto.

With the sky high ticket prices for the Bills in Toronto it’s hard to say if they can sell the last 20,000 seats and if they do…GREAT…but that’s only because of the change in regulations to purchase these tickets. If the game doesn’t sell out, Rogers will give away the rest of the tickets to fill the stadium and then claim a sell out.

The Toronto Argonauts are the oldest professional football team in North America and part of the most exiting football league in the WORLD. Why would anyone want to replace the Argos with either the Bills or a Toronto NFL franchise? These NFL games in Toronto are guaranteed to be boring just the same as 90% of NFL games.

As Canadians, not only football fans but all Canadians need to be patriotic at this time and realize the CFL is just about the only All Canadian institution left in this wonderful country.

With the threat of losing the CFL to the NFL or the Argos and Ti-Cats to the Bills is like losing Much Music to MTV or CBC to CNN, I’m sure we can all agree we don’t want to turn on channel 6 or 26 and see CNN. We need to stand together to protect the CFL, one of the few institutions in Canada we can call our own and still be proud of. The Canadian football league has such a strong and lengthy history (Football in Canada is as old as Canada itself) that we can not lose to the power of the dollar, the Rogers dollar. Losing the CFL will go down in the most regretted Canadian decisions right next to the cancellation of the AVRO ARROW.

I am calling on all CFL fans, Argo fans, Canadians, Patriotic Canadians, NFL fans or not CFL fans or not, No to the Bills in Toronto supporters, absolutely EVERYONE to help Protest the Buffalo Bills in Toronto next Thursday at 6:00pm (meeting time)

If you do not already have a shirt please contact me and provide me with how many people you are coming with and I will supply the shirts for the protest.

PLEASE REPLY: e-mail me at chris-fischer [at] live [dot] com if you are interested in attending this historic Protest. Please leave me the number of people you wish to bring and if you are willing to car pool.

The meeting place will be sent to you after you have e-mailed me.

LET’S GO CANADA!
SUPPORT YOUR LEAGUE!
LET’S KEEP THE CFL ALIVE!
THIS IS OUR LEAGUE!

If you need further inspiration or convincing please watch this video, if this video makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up…it means you should be protesting with us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS1jCfg7Qxc

BE A PART OF SOMETHING!

Signed,
Chris Fischer

-If you think what you did yesterday is still great, then you haven’t done much today-
Michael “Pinball” Clemons

   Toronto Island’s weather turned ugly Saturday.  What originally appeared to be a cooler sunny day soon changed.  Much of the qualifying runs were laid out on the skateboard and wakeboard courses and then it happened.  A fierce afternoon thunderstorm started and many took shelter. The quick and the lucky scattered to pavilions around Toronto Island, others bolted straight to the ferry docks.  Some however were not so lucky.

Not everyone had the piece of mind not to hide under trees or lucky enough to be away from some of the metal fences.  At least two people were struck by lightening, one right across from the booth where Silverstein were signing autographs.  Thanks to the Emergency staff on hand as well as the Police and Fire boats dispatched to the island everyone was OK and the event was able to continue.

A few hours later you could hardly image how bad the weather had been moments before.  Barring the drenched pavement and grass of course.  Everyone had to make the most of it.

Classified dusted off the crowd and kicked things off on the main stage once the rain subsided.  Silverstein were awesome and powered through a shortened but intense set.  Hot Water Music were also a treat to see live.  The good weather whether held out into the early evening and RZA and GZA gave the masses a long awaited and stacked set, just fashionably late.

So glad that the sun came back, even if the puddles were far from gone.  Wasn’t keen on mud sliding/diving, just thankful no puddles or muddy sinkholes claimed my footwear.  Tomorrow is another day.  Hoping WETstock ended Saturday and Wakestock continues where it left off…

Wakeboarding, skateboarding, music and motorcross hit the Toronto Islands as Wakestock kicks off today and runs until Sunday.  The threat of rain appears to be subsiding and it will take more that that to dampen the excitement.

Wu Tang’s RZA and GZA are among the acts due to play!  Metric, Silverstein, Dillinger Escape Plan and Hot Water Music are also on the bill.  Punk, Alternative, Hardcore and Hip Hop are well represented.  If that isn’t enough there are several afterparties.  Saturday’s Sound Academy is sure to be hectic with a Bud Light Bikini contest and DJ sets by K-OS and Lil Jaz.

Let the games begin…

Wakestock
Action Sports and Music Festival
July 24 – 27
Toronto Island