This Week in Dulture…

Approx 5.5 minute read:

📔 The new word of the year isn’t a word

👟 Eric Koston can’t lose

⚾️ One more Shohei to go

💰️ Drake lawsuit over gambling

Dulture weekly mix

We made it, we frikken made it!

We planned this a year ago - DJ Shtoops is DJ-ing my front lawn tonight as the Halloweeners come out. Sounds weird? Nah man, you don’t know how we had a good 100 people outside of my house last year.

You don’t know that the street was basically shut down from the crowds of people.

You don’t know I’ll be walking around with my Michael Myers costume (in character) while people enjoy the music, unbeknownst to them, I’ll be standing right there staring into their souls.

This is actually a great mix to play while you hand out candy though fr fr.

Let Me Tell You About Eric Koston

A lot of people think of Tony Hawk when they think of skateboarding.  

And for good reason, aside from inventing a ton of tricks and being a legend in the sport, his video games were pretty damn fun as well.

But I don’t know if y’all really know about Eric Koston. I’m talking the backside nose blunt slide ender in Menikmati or the (still!) crazy 360 flip nose blunt in Yeah Right!.

Arguably one of the best street skaters of all time, Eric Koston has done so much for skateboarding, skate culture, and just culture in general - I could do an entire weekly newsletter only on Eric Koston and it would slap.

At 50, Eric Koston is still so, so relevant in skateboarding, but arguably just as relevant in sneaker culture.

Eric’s shoes were always so dope. In the early 2000’s in Toronto, it was already damn hard to find a lot of skate shoes at the time, let alone Eric’s K1’s and K2’s. So when I saw the Jordan inspired K3’s come out at my local skateshop, I wasted no time at all.

Even back then it felt like Eric should be skating in Nike’s.

Paul Rodriguez (another OG you need to know about) was the first skater signed to Nike but in eventually signing Eric Koston, he was the one who made Nike Skateboarding cool, revamping the whole SB line of shoes.

Once Nike started to push their SB brand, it was only a matter of time until they gave Eric his first pro Nike model a couple years later.

And we all know how popular SB’s became…

But as I said, Koston has been a staple in shoe culture for years man. From éS to Lakai to Nike, his pro models always seemed to have something unique that would start a trend.

This past week at some show the Nike SB Air Max 95 x Eric Koston’s were unveiled. Essentially if you wanted to skate in Air Max 95's without tearing them apart, you now can.

This is the kind of retro 90’s design we need more of - Koston models never miss.

They look straight out of 1995, in the best ways possible. Available on Nov 7th on the SNKRS website, aka the place you’ll never be able to actually buy them from.

Shohei vs. The Blue Jays

I’ve never written about baseball in my life.

I can talk to you all day about the NBA and what’s going on within that ring of gamblers (you think Klutch sports will be trying to cover up some nonense??) but baseball?

The Montreal Expos were my team - I’ll never forget the 1994 season.

BUT WE’RE ONE MORE WIN AWAY FROM THE WORLD SERIES.

We just have to fend off this man one more time:

I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t realize how damn good Shohei Ohtani is at baseball. And no, I wasn’t under a rock - like I said, I was too busy watching the ring of gamblers play in the NBA.

But damn - when he retires, there’s no doubt in my mind that Shohei will be considered the best baseball player of all time. Every time he’s at bat it’s like he has his super move charged up and he’s ready to hit a home run - it’s insane how consistent he is at hitting home runs. 

And even more insane that he can pitch just as good as anyone else in the MLB.

A lot of people are saying he played the best game of baseball EVER in game 4 of the NLCS by anyone who has EVER played professional baseball - who does this??? 👆️ 

There’s way too many awards / records / achievements this guy has done to list out - it’s all so crazy.

And this is coming from one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll ever meet according to all of his Dodger teammates.

Outside of baseball, all dude cares about is his family, his dog, sleeping, and In and Out Burger.

Surely we can beat the most unlikely best player to ever play baseball one more time.

Drake & Adin Ross Explain Yourselves

Gambling is so hot right now.

From all the Stake’s and Roobet’s to the Fan Duel’s and Prize Picks' to even the Polymarket’s and Kalshi’s of the world, there’s no excuse for you not to be able to find a way to lose money gambling these days.

And alongside the countless platforms available from the comfort of your phone, you’ve got this whole other side of the world, which is people streaming themselves gambling.

This is where it gets interesting because for a lot of these platforms, they’re getting the streamer to play in their casino, but the jury’s out on whether they’re actually gambling with their own money or not.

Enter Drake & Adin Ross

Drake and Adin have put on a few streams now where they talk nonsense and gamble on Stake. Now Drake has a partnership with Stake so he’s promoting the platform often enough I’d say. The question on everyone’s mind is, is he using his own money when he gambles with them?

The answer is probably not, it depends.

It’s no secret that streamers / influencers get paid to film themselves using whichever online casino will pay them.

BUUUUUT - we’re starting to see that the casino actually pays them to play - as per this Coffeezilla episode with SteveWillDoIt. So are they even using any real money as they bet these gigantic amounts.

And now Drake and Adin Ross are being sued for allegedly using fake money when they streamed themselves playing slot machines, ultimately indirectly promoting gambling to viewers, who then go on to gamble and lose their real money.

As this unfolds we may end up finding out a bit more of the inner workings of how these gambling partnerships work. BUT what I can tell you is Stake owns Kick, which is the main platform most streamers use to stream their gambling.  

Sooooo - I would not be surprised if 1) Stake is giving $$$ to streamers just to run gambling streams on their site and 2) None of the money being used is actually real, it’s just numbers deposited into the streamers account by Stake so that it looks like they have real money to play with.