In 1993 Kurt Cobain and William S. Burroughs released a rarely-discussed spoken word record entitled “The Priest, They Called Him.” Since I was a fan of both contributors, I eagerly purchased the album so I could complete a collection I was working towards. Bad idea; the album sucked. Live and learn.

Around 6 years after this, and long before the concept of collaboration became commonplace [nearly to the point of obnoxiousness] Mo’Wax and Mark Gonzales released an edition of 1000 Priest statues made of reconstituted stone (porcelain?). The figure was actually sculpted by Ben Drury, not Gonz- but each one was customised by Mark with a paintbrush, sharpie, pencil, or a combination of these. If you’re a weathered skate nerd, you’ve likely seen images of them floating around the internet. I think Mo Wax distributed around 500 of them directly within the UK, and the remainder went to retail in Tokyo, friends & family, various skate shops, and Alleged Gallery in New York.

I have been searching for some of those remaining ceramic figures for years; so needless to say, I was elated when toy connoisseur Super7 said that they were releasing a brand new Priest figure in conjunction with Gonz and Krooked Skateboards. I’m definitely a fan of both contributors- and buying one of these is a great idea.

The Priest stands at approximately ten inches tall and is draped with a red robe, adorned with gold. You can even change the facial expression with a twist of his head. I’m especially glad that this thing is made of Japanese vinyl, because if I had acted upon my impulse and began the hunt to collect a range of the original stone versions from a decade ago, my children would have positively destroyed each and every one of them by now… But for anyone reading this, let me know if you’ve got any of the original reconstituted stone figurines, I will pay in gold bouillons or grocery money.

To purchase Mark Gonzales’ The Priest, visit Super7store.com … and I suggest you hurry as it’s rumored they are nearly sold out already.

Special thanks go out to Josh and everyone at Super7.

AWAKE: The Venture Trucks yearbook. Can you name all of the pro skaters that have at one point in their career skated Ventures or even endorsed them as one of their many pros? Lately I have been intrigued with the heritage behind this brand as I have been reminiscing about my early days of religiously skating the V3, and Featherlights or Superlights or whatever they were called. In fact, I have been skating a set of the 5.25 WIDE & HI’s again for the past couple of weeks (with Bones bushings) and I forgot how responsive and light they are. I’m certainly not trying to sign my name to these trucks, but any truck that is Made In The USA in the Ermico Foundry and has a pedigree chart like Venture deserves some attention. Can you imagine if they still has this team? Wowzers. Special thanks to the ad archives at Skately.

Let’s give it a whirl. Just add any and all Venture names (past and present) to the comments section here, and I will add it to the list below.

Jason Lee
John Cardiel
Danny Falla
Eli Reed
Keenan Milton
Mark Gonzales
JB Gilet
Brian Delatorre
Andrew Brophy
Bobby Puelo
Brandon Westgate
Mike Carroll
Corey Duffel
Stefan Janoski
Stevie Williams
Pat Duffy
Karma Tsocheff

This NSA contest footage of Gonz frontside lofting over the channel during an event in Hawaii always gives me goosebumps. Actually the casual but stoked air that he does after he makes it gives me the goosebumps. Gonzmumps.

Approximately 20 years ago, the Blind team got together with Spike Jonze and jumped into Gonz’s  boat of blue to film one of the raddest skateboarding videos ever captured on film. In less than a year, Jason Lee, Rudy Johnson, Jordan Richter, Mark Gonzales, and lil Guy Mariano recorded a 20 minute vid full of pure innovation. They were a motley bunch back then, and there miscellany of style is even more evident today. Skateboarder magazine presents the 20th Anniversary Family Reunion of Video Days by Blind Skateboards. Thanks for the mammaries.