AVE's green bench

Agreed. You got him to open up in a way I wasn’t expecting. Dead good this.

Awesome, thank you!

Loved the story, the edit and all of the b-roll footage!
Really really great.

Must have been frustrating for sure but I imagine AVE makes good money with his Vans contract and FA/Hockey, plus he seems really focused on skating these days, he probably didn’t care that much.

I’m definitely going to watch this again.

I also spoke to AVE about his career and life post-Propeller and post-40, Photo / DC Video / Mind Field days, his friendship with Greg Hunt and all things other than The Green Bench™.

Amusingly, when I transcribed it all The Bench part of the interview alone was as long as the rest of the conversation without it.

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The DC video era footage in that is gold, that’s still one of my favourite parts. It was quite the clothing/image change up on his part but he really pulled it off. Interesting to hear him say part of the reason for locking the bench and other stuff away was to stop anyone doing better tricks, I guess that sort of thing was more common back then.

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do you get the sense that locking off/guarding spots is less common between skaters now?

I’ve not heard of it but then I guess there’s no reason I would as it’s a long while since I’ve been to a certain skate spot where I might move obstacles around. I do miss the days of spot construction/management though!

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Should have asked him if he’s still into Ted Nugent!

Skaters still try to keep spots secret for sure and will call out someone trying to blow it up on the gram.

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Not quite the same as locking up objects to stop people doing a better trick though.

They said guarding spots too.

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Remember the Berra bench debacle?

Wonder what the maddest skater-skatestopping-a-spot thing has been?
That whole aspect of skate culture has always fascinated me.

Also,
“Fake” spots (aye, the Berra thing)
Closely-guarded spot maps
filmers’ ABD lists for each spot
and the way filmers sometimes call skaters with a specific spot+trick in mind (rather than the other way round)

Going off on a tangent now, but it’s cool when the skatestopper becomes the spicy thing about a spot that makes it unique

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(also also, lol at Tony Tave hoarding benches in his garden)

Agreed. Always a struggle for magazine caption-writers though.

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Weren’t they massive flatbars or have I got that wrong? I remember liking his skating at that time but it also felt a bit wrong.

Berra’s skating is/was great. I really like it.
The issue was that he’d bring his own flatbars/ledges to the street and then “camouflage” them to pass them off as real spots. Fake brickwork patterns on the side and that.

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This kind of this breaks my heart, but with tricks.
Someone filmed a trick with me in Weston last year… weeks later someone did the same trick at the same spot and put it on Insta… absolutely gutting.

I think Josh Stewart had an interview where he talked about it in relation to the Static videos.

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