Remember Zulu's?

Dear regular readers of Kill the Engine, welcome to the third trip to C-Fan ditch that I've squeezed a column out of. Dear irregular readers of Kill the Engine, welcome to my favorite ditch. You might remember C-Fan from my recent interview in SLAP magazine's 20-year anniversary issue. I had a photo in that issue doing a beanplant (erroneously labeled a boneless) that my buddy Shaun Mefford took. You probably don't know what I'm talking about, but that's cool. I was just trying to find an excuse to include the only decent skate photo taken of me in about ten years. Sucking sucks.

Yesterday I went to C-Fan with my buddy Brandon Ziskind. Brandon skates for my little skateboard company, Roger, under the pseudonym My Friend Brandon. See that highway divider above Brandon's head? It has tons of skateboard stickers lining it that date from the mid 90s to present.

Goodtimes was a skateshop in San Antonio (founded in 1992) that recently closed its doors. Bummer, I loved that place. Pretty sure the dudes who opened Goodtimes initially bought an existing skateshop and rebranded it. The previous shop was called Zulu's. Remember Zulu's? Probably not, huh?

Photo by My Dad

No worries. I was just trying to find an excuse to include a skate photo of myself wearing my old Zulu's sweatshirt. Full kit: Smith gloves, Vision Street Wear shoes and painter's cap, G&S Hefty Sacks, orange hair, and a mouth full of braces. Oh, and a Rob Roskopp Street model with every piece of plastic crap that you could cram on it.

Where were we… Oh yeah, old stickers on a guardrail… vintage LE sticker still holding on. That's been there for about 15 years. Since back when LE meant Lilelephant as opposed to Life Extention. [sic]

Remember the Dahlstrom Experiment? Of course you don't.

These dudes are only a day old so unless somebody stuck some stickers on that guard rail this morning, these would be the most recent additions to the sticker archive. Roger that.

What else was going on at the ditch? Well, there was some new graffiti. I know some people view graffiti as nothing but vandalism, but you have to admit that when it's done this well it should really be elevated to Fine Art status. Just beautiful.

You might be asking yourself, "Why did two grown men spend their Sunday afternoon in a drainage ditch?" Valid question. Answer: Because we were trying to film some tricks for an upcoming Roger Skateboards video offering. Only one of us succeeded in achieving video documentation of their athletic prowess. Not naming names, but it was me. I can't divulge what manner of maneuver was captured because that would take the excitement away from watching the video when it comes out, so I'll just say this: Mike McGill would be proud.

Me to Brandon, "Hey, that thing takes regular pictures too, right?" Brandon to me, "Yeah, it's a camera." With that exchange I welcome you to the very first skate sequence to grace the web pages of Kill the Engine: My Friend Brandon doing a nollie frontside 180 heel flip.

Hey Burnett, what's so hard about this?

Good job, Brandon.

See you next time, C-Fan. Take care of yourself.