News From Osiris

This past weekend, Osiris team riders, Corey Duffel, James Brockman, Clint Peterson, John Rattray, Stu Graham and flow rider, Tom “Grom” Remilard hit the open road, destination, Arizona. The plan was to brave the 100+ degree, stale, dry heat, do some instore signings, evening demos and night time filming missions for our upcoming video, Feed The Need. We were warned that it was the beginning of monsoon season, and that we should expect rainstorms every night. Although it did rain a little bit over the course of the weekend, the heat was our biggest obstacle. Most days were spent poolside, or watching TV in the hotel room. Russell taught Clint a few elementary Photoshop skills, and the result was all of our heads being arranged on objects ranging from obese babies, to lizards. Once the sun fell Friday night, we made it over to the Gilbert Park for a demo and the first annual 5th Street Rollers “High Ollie Challenge”. The turnout was great, the demo was fun, and although Corey was not registered, he definitely had the highest ollie around. Thanks to Jeremy from 5th Street Rollers and his staff for showing us a good time. Following the demo, we hooked up with the Skateboard Mag’s Matt Price along with Osiris flow rider, and all around awesome dude, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki.

Jaws came alive on this trip and treated us to handrail attacks as well as pool shredding. Great to see you Jaws, you’re a classic guy to have on every session. Saturday night we had a signing at Utility followed by a demo at the Tempe Park. Tempe had a lot of local skaters on hand, and all of the Osiris team was shredding the park and having fun with kids. The rains came about mid way through the demo, but everyone skated until the course got too slippery, and then took a break to enjoy some pizza. Thanks Bob for providing the food and drinks, we had a lot of fun. Later that night we went to a bar, where our old friend and all around ripper, Andrew Cannon hosted Saturday night karaoke. We all took a crack at singing some tunes, but in this case, the locals blew our crew out of the water. One man in particular, let’s just call him “The Dude” due to his striking resemblance to Jeff Lebowski, knew what he was doing on the mic, but was actually Andrew Cannon who stole the show! Well done, Andrew, it’s always a pleasure hanging out and skating with you. The following day we had a signing and demo for Industrial Ride Shop at the Peoria Park followed by a shoe clinic at an arcade and restaurant known as Jillian’s.

The demo had a huge turn out, and the guys were enjoying the incredible park. Most of the skate action was taking place in the pool towards the back of the park where onlookers witnessed Stu, Tom Grom and Jaws ripping that thing to shreds. After the demo, we met up with Doug Butcher from Industrial and his regional store managers to preview the Osiris Holiday line, have some dinner and play games. Everyone had a lot of fun challenging each other to air hockey, pool, basketball, and video games until we had our fill. We then set out to do some late night street skating that had the crew out and about until 6:30am before calling it a night. These AZ summers are ruthless, so behaving like a nocturnal creature becomes pretty standard. All in the entire trip was a success. Everyone had a good time skating, shard some laughs, and surprisingly, no one fainted from heat stroke. Special thanks to Tom Wilson, Mark Voigt, Chris Brown, Doug Butcher and the Industrial Staff, Bob at Utility, Jeremy at 5th Street Rollers and all of the skaters for coming out to skate and show us a good time. See you all again once the temperature drops!
Feed The Need,
Mike Fitz

3rd Lair Skatepark took up residence in a small warehouse in a somewhat sketchy area of South Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the fall of 1996. Prior to 3rd Lair, said warehouse had housed one of the first indoor skateparks in the Twincities area, The Skate Oasis. After the Oasis closed its doors, the space later became Canaan Skatepark. After a short stint as a car dealership, the warehouse was transformed into the third skatepark in the same building, hence the name, 3rd Lair.

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Fable Skateboards

A few years back my friend Brad and I had an idea. I would move back to Ohio, and he and I would start a skate shop just outside of Cleveland. The shop was going to be called Joy/Pain, but before any concrete plans were made, life got in the way. For reasons I can’t remember, I never moved to back to Ohio, and Brad decided to focus on his family and open up a pizza shop. That was years ago, and since then many things have changed, but one thing that never changed was Brad’s dream of opening a skate shop. Late last year Brad opened up a shop with the support of his wife, and Fable Skateboards was born. Located in historic Oberlin, Ohio, Oberlin is the home of many stops of the Underground Railroad, one of the nations leading liberal arts colleges, and now Fable Skateboards.

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