PlayToon Late shows info

Check out the PlayToon entry in Late shows brochure for the live events http://www.thelateshows.org.uk/venues/holy-biscuit.html

Sanderson & Shell psychogeography map

Not that maps need even be maps with roads and streets and buildings. Here is a fine psychogeography map doodled by Sanderson and Shell in Native a couple of years back. Tells you much more about a skate day out than an A-Z street find ever could. Because the city changes so much depending who is where. Newcastle's Monument on a Saturday afternoon is not the same place as Newcastle's Monument at midnight with a swarm of skaters shredding past

"i know where we are going, but i don't know where it is..."

Which is why maps are useful, although maps of roads and streets are not as good as maps of loves and hates. So we have started redrawing the Tourist Information map of Newcastle, doodling skate spots, who goes where and places that matter. The felt tip pens were out in Native today and we'll be doing some more in other places, plus you can always send in your own versions, cut up, scrambled and re-arranged as much as you like. I think the Tourist Info office would benefit from a few copies. This map is Lewis, Lewis and Ryans' day out, once Lewis had put the trucks on the new board, plus a bit of Johnny H, although his mind was wandering from having to choose between cakes.

"covered in dead birds... dead birds everywhere..."

Not Exhibition Park, but one the Toon's most mysterious and ominous spots, according to Bish. And nothing to do with microscooter rotor-blade tricks either. Here is Exi in the sunshine today; skate, BMX and micros. Not got any videos or photos in from micro-scooter kids yet, so if you are out there and reading this check out Feb 23rd entry for info on getting your pictures in the PlayToon exhibition and event.

"We'll just find somewhere else..."

"skateboarders reject the idea that the city is only a grand project of planners and magnificant Utopias.... instead that is is also about local micro-spaces and actions of actual city residents" (Ian Borden). Plenty of new spots out there to be discovered and re-arranged. Meantime a little momento of the Wasteland's sunny days.

Many thanks for the photos, videos and other ideas for PlayToon exhibition that are coming in. Keep them coming. Check out February 23rd blog entry for how to get in touch/ send in material. Mike

Wasteland wasted

The Wasteland has been dug up. The plaza in great ripples and slabs. It was being BMXed in the twilight on Thursday, with a couple of little kids wanting to knbow how long it would last. Well it lasted 20 years. A forlorn skater was walking back to Toon today, distracted, texting, lost. There are some new graffiti on the boards around the adjacent sites along Portland Rd (opposite Shieldfield Hse). Metnor agree to let the writers loose.

Did any one see the plaza getting ripped up... photos even?

"It was 1999.....

...it was all white at that time, you can still see the white paint over there. I suppose it is slightly toxic underneath. We built that and we built that. That's new. Built it one day, amazing, everyone loves skating it". Wasteland: in-lines turned up today playing the rail against the setting sun.

Wasteland Wake fan club

Newcastle's Wasteland has gained a hard core fan club holding a wake as the machines creep up to the edge of the plaza. The spot has been BMXed (and a little bit skated and scooted) everyday over last week or two by an affectionate crowd of friends determined not to let the Wasteland go unloved and un-mourned. There if even some new graff, a sort of love letter, a fond farewell to concrete, trash and hanging out. A sentimental bunch of hoodies.

The Siege of the Wasteland....

....Funny how new people keep discovering the Wasteland, even now. Friday afternoon and a bunch of students who i'd not seen there before were sunning themselves, plus lager and wine, to a backdrop of three machines: a digger, a JCB and something for grinding up concrete into tiny bits. Skateboards, in-line and a football amongst the debris. Not sure if there is any agreed word for places like this. Once did a Toon tour of what were described as the city's shadow-spaces, similar spots like the tucked away plaza behind northern facade of The Side, or the dead-end rail cutting running roughly from Manors north. But "shadow" sounds too gloomy for when the low sun was glinting off the concrete and bouncing off the towerblock across the road like a spotlight