Greetings and welcome to the very first installment of snowblower, soon to be the world's premier online source for snowboard slander, libel, and salacious rumor.

We realize these are lofty goals, but we're not afraid to aim straight for the gutter on this one because we're in it for the money. (Official 1996 Snowboard Industry Slogan: Greed is God.)

Actually, you should be honored to be here on this momentous cruise through the ruins of what was once winter's most noble pursuit. Now, it's all gone and we'll be mowing straight through the rubble like a 10-ton blower clearing Loveland Pass after a 15 foot Rocky Mountain blizzard.

Enter the blower:

MINDLESS QUOTES

"Firing an assault weapon at a snowboard in the middle of the Nevada dessert is probably the most cathartic thing you can do after a week at the SIA trade show." -- Snowboarder Magazine Senior Editor Jeff Galbraith, after his post-SIA show visit to Area 51 with Agent-X, The Movement's Chris Brunkhart, and Mervin Manufacturing's Walter Sims.

"I'm not going to trade 20 feet of convenience for 1500 feet of performance." --Avalanche's Chris Sanders explaining life, the universe, and everything.

"This song goes out to everyone who likes coloring books. And sea monkeys. Yeah, everyone who's down with sea monkeys." --The Beastie Boys' Mike D at Boarding for Breast Cancer

SWAG MOTO BLOWOUT

Kim Boyle, marketing director at Swag Snowboard Clothing threw a birthday bash for the stars on Good Friday (April 5) at the Star West Supercross Park in Lake Elsinore California. Owen Neider, Shaun Palmer, Dave Swift, Ken Block, Pistol Pete Loncharivich, Randy Lawrence, and other So. Cal. notables partied down with sub sandwiches and dirt. Swag's owner Roger Sgarbossa bruised several ribs and had to leave right away for China without being able to laugh, sneeze, or cough. Ouch. As a big b-day present Kim blew up his bike during the last session. "It's going to cost 1000's of dollars to fix," he said.

PINK PANTHER STRIKES ASPEN

According to a story which appeared in the March 28, 1996 edition of the Rocky Mountain Daily News "professional snowboarder" Kalm Lauer, a 20-year-old ripper from Aspen, who stayed at the posh Cherry Hills Village home of friends last May has been arrested in connection with a $1 million jewelry robbery of the house.

Lauer was released in Arapahoe County on a $50,000 bond. The homeowners posted a $50,000 reward for the return of their valuables. Let's see. . . $50,000 reward for $1,000,000 in jewelry? I think someone's not doing their math correctly.

Arapahoe County Sheriff's made the arrest because as one Aspen home-owner said, "The Aspen Police are the most corrupt idiots in law enforcement. The robbery was reported months ago and they wouldn't do a thing about it."

Kalm was living pretty damn large and then disappeared to California for a while. Apparently, the news of his arrest wasn't that big of a surprise to snowboarders in Aspen.

DENTAL WORK OF THE STARS

Bonfire Kingpin Brad Steward is getting braces. Apparently something is wrong with his jaw. Probably from chewing on all das capital. Or worrying about his new child, which was really no worry at all. Noah Sawyer Steward was born on April 16, 1996. Noah, of course, is named after pro snowboarder Noah Sawyer Brandon. Mom, baby, and Dad are doing well. (Why do they always say that?) In an unrelated note: Bonfire's contract negotiations with Noah Bradon are apparently looking up.

DOA AT SIA

A bunch of stuff went down at the show. Leaders of the industry bathed with professionally naked women, others lost tons of money to the tables, a pro known only by a letter and a number wiped his buttocks with a Hi-8 camcorder (we can only hope he was recording the whole thing), and Shaun Palmer bowed out of his scheduled boxing match with Simon Woodstock (see the whole story in Scoop).

Big Brother Magazine's main creative force (who will go unnamed) experienced one of the most pleasant bladder evacuations of his life in a back corner of the Salomon Ski booth.

Burton sold a lot of snowboards to a slew of shops. Morrow fielded a flurry of questions from investors who weren't exactly happy with the way the stock has been performing. Ride presented product from the newly purchased 5150 factory. And those wacky dorks at Mervin Manufacturing gave everyone a little slice of heaven including, live harp music.

On the party scene, Ride Snowboards won the award for best music at a party with San Diego's own "Grey Boy All-Stars" followed up by "Spearhead." Ah huh.

INJURY HURTS

In other equally painful news, Temple Cummins was riding in Europe in January when he fell into a crevasse. The fall resulted in one broken and four compressed vertebrae. After back surgery in Austria, Temple is up and walking however he couldn't travel for several weeks after the incident. "I talked to him yesterday," says Bud Fawcett, marketing coordinator for Palmer Snowboards. "He sounded good." Temple is supposed to make a complete recovery and should be out riding real soon.

In completely unrelated news (except for that pain thing), Kris Jamieson, the ex-pro snowboarder turned "serious recreational rider" and elementary school teacher, was riding for the cameras in the Mt. Bachelor, Oregon backcountry when he launched a cliff a little cock-eyed and landed sideways on a rock. When the powder cleared Jamieson was laying in the snow with a shattered left femur and damage in both knees. "I said, ah guys. I'm really messed up," he says.

"We were about an hour and a half snowshoe into the back country and there was no way they could drag me out," Jamieson says. "Luckily a friend that I'd invited along on a fluke had a cell phone in his pack and he called in a helicopter."

To get Kris to the landing spot they put him on a sleeping bag and dragged him down the mountain a few hundred yards. In the ordeal Kris lost three pints of blood to internal bleeding and could have died if the phone hadn't been there.

He's recuperating at his mothers house and hopes to return to his class in eight to ten weeks, maybe longer if all those girls keep stopping by with goodies.

The up note for media-man Kris: "It's going to be perfect for Rescue 911," he says. "We've got film footage of everything. The cliff, the helicopter, everything."

90'S ACTION SWINGERS

Like the rest of the pop-cultural world New York fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has decided that snowboarding and surfing are cool. He's launched Tommy Hilfiger boardwear with national advertising campaigns. The lines, which are stitch for stitch knock-offs of popular surf and snowboard brands, are destined to bring the fashion asses to boarding culture. Already signed up to ride the snowboard stuff? Seth Neary, Dave Dowd, and Jeremy Baye.

Jake Blattner left Ride to join the Bonfire Snowboarding Team. Seems Ride is yanking Jake around a little in regards to a certain binding patent that he scored several years back. In the business it's known as moth-balling. But hey, Ride owns the license till the year 2000 so we guess they can do whatever they want.

Jake's not the only one cozying up to the Bonfire. Also joining him are ISF World Overall Champion Michele Taggart, and rumor has it that Noah Brandon will soon be joining the team. Unfortunately, Noah is currently under contract with Hooger Snowboards.

The Persistence of Rumor: Terje Haakonsen is not leaving Burton to take a $4 million dollar contract from Salomon/Bonfire. Repeat: Terje is not leaving Burton. Of course, that's according to Burton. But after having dinner with Terje after his Mt. Baker Banked Slalom win we'd have to think that he's pretty happy being a B-boy.

Circe Wallace has joined the procession of riders leaving Airwalk for apparently greener pastures. She made the leap to Vans after they offered her a three year contract and a signature boot somewhere down the line. Word is the people at Airwalk aren't too worried, even after losing Peter Line last fall.

But Circe wasn't finished. She also left the Quiksilver girls' clothing line Roxy and hooked up with Swag/Prom for her clothing needs. Quik didn't even counter the Swag offer.

Shaun Palmer, who signed on with Titan for a short time left before he even got there and joined Circe Wallace on the Swag team. Palmer joins Titan, Palmer leaves Titan.

Randy Kelliher has left the Arnet Optic Building. He's also leaving California where he never really felt quite at home in the first place. Randy is planning on going home to the midwest where he can rep products and live life on his own schedule.

UP THE ACADEMY

Everyone else is beating a path to snowboarding's door, why not Hollywood. Film crews spent some time this winter working on a film called "Snowboard Academy." The movie stars Cory Haim, Stallone cast-off Briggite Neilson, and Jim "Hey, Vern" Varney. When asked to describe the film, one person who knows said, "It's no Pulp Fiction, that's for sure."

Word from the set is that Cory Haim was a typical Hollywood star. Surprise. He was complaining to the crew that it would be impossible to get the stunts right and that the whole movie would be screwed. One day the crew had to hangout and do nothing because Mr. Haim didn't feel like working. When Jim Rippey showed up everything changed. Haim started going out of his way to kiss ass. We just wish they would have gotten that on film.

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE

APSS halfpiper and Burton teamrider Shane Charlibois is riding high on a recent modeling gig. Rumor is that the glam-slammer is getting paid up to $10,000 a day to hang out with beautiful girls and look all GQ and shit. Not bad for the money. Repeat: Greed is good. So are super models, "They're 100 percent pure promise of a better tomorrow."

Speaking of Hummers: AZP, Flagstaff, Arizona's king snowboard shop just purchased a brand new Hummer. According to shop co-owner Brian Harper it's a promotional thing. "We're going to use it to go on tour this summer and we're selling sponsorship," he said. Others say it's just so AZP team members can feel "bad-ass" while driving from place to place.

Having driven the Hummer we can say it makes all other vehicles feel like road bumps. Literally.

T-shirt of the Week: Seen at the Montreal NSRA Show. "I love Jamie Salter. Snowboard Tycoon." With a picture of Salter lifted from a Montreal Paper. Hey, maybe the guys making them are serious. Naw.

GRAY MARKETEERS

If the returning FIS US Snowboard Team's bags looked a little light on their arrival back on US soil there may be a reason for it. Apparently, the trick in Japan is to sell all your boards the last day of the contest so you can blow the money on cool high tech stuff from Tokyo's Shinjuku district. Hmm, we wonder what their sponsors think?

MORE CHEESY SEXIST CRAP

"Playboy Magazine" used Snow Summit, California to shoot it's annual "Women of Winter" portfolio appearing in the November Issue of the magazine. This year's spread will feature naked women hiking, camping, horseback, skiing, telemarking, sledding and yes, snowboarding. Oh the joys of snowboarding nude. While none of the girls we know would submit to such degradation, Joyride teamrider Hillary Mayberry jumped over a few nude girls who were laying underneath a jump holding snowboards.

"I couldn't believe it," Mayberry said. "All the guys at the resort kept trying to work the shoot. They all wanted to get in on it."

Just when you think we've reached the 90s, leave it to Playboy to drag us all back into the 70s. You've come a long way, baby.

THE END