Randy and Lucy got married!!! Holy crap!!! We're sooooo happy for the two of them. We were so happy in fact that we took him out for a night of good times a few nights ago. Things started off innocently enough, but then eventually went a different direction. Never the less, Randy and everyone else seemed to have a great time. Meanwhile, yesterday was the BIG DAY and everything went swimmingly. But not before Randy had a quick snack. Anyway, congratulations you two! -Worful
There's an Elwood tour article in one of the new skateboarding magazines with a photo of Silas skating Shepard. Well I shamelessly poached his front crook on the bank to fence with my mobile telephone. However; I respectfully/forgetfully waited until now to let the photo get caught in the world wide web. Oh, and here's a photo of Herbert and Drehobl.
It's set for 9 PM until around midnight or so on January 21st at the skate park inside the Mills Mall. The entrance fee is only going to be $10, which will include your very own hard copy of Jake's Junt on DVD (Of course you also get to skate the skate park as well). You'll get to roll around with people from the video, and I know that Derek is definitely going to be signing empty Redbull cans*. Everyone is more than welcome to come and seek skateboard related refuge from the harsh winter weather!
A thousand thank you's to everyone who helped make this entire video possible as well!
-Jake
*Derek is not going to be signing empty Redbull cans.
So anyway, after sleepily writing a bunch of unintelligible nonsense (favoring choppy, semi-intelligible nonsense, of course) trying to make deadline for "DOUBLE FEATURE FRIDAY", I have narrowly avoided a catastrophe that might have turned my wildly popular new blog column into a laughingstock. Whatever the hell it was I had written Friday night before I fell asleep on the couch with my hand half-way inside a bag of BBQ Frito's, I've taken and modified into the new smash hit off-shoot you are currently reading. And yes I realize that it is not Monday, lets just say that this blog does not hold "days of the week" in the highest regard.
Dirty Tony is one of the several nicknames of our pal Dave Thomas, although I think Jack Donze might be the one individual who actually knows what it means. From the way it sounds, its probably better that he keeps it to himself. Dave has been working day in day out to bring us short, puzzling anti-edits that will make you laugh, nervously, as you scratch your head and shift uncomfortably in your chair. Anyhow I think Dave is pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a minute with what would often be considered "unusable" or "throwaway" footage. In the same spirit that I write this column and our pals Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David do comedy, Mr. Thomas edits his little heart out and makes something out of nothing.
These days skateboarders,and humanity in general, over-stuff the internet goose full of useless, uninspiring content and minutiae as if expecting it to eventually yield a delicious "1's and 0's" foie gras. Short edits of spare parts like the kind Dave utilizes (with a very different aesthetic) seem to be becoming the norm just to stay in the public eye, even as baby relevancy and baby craftsmanship are being thrown out with the bathwater. What i'm trying to say is at least Dave keeps things interesting by cranking the absurdity dial up to 11.
But i'm not trying to give into my instinct to get sidetracked and deliver a sermon on the matter, I'm trying to write about Dirty Tony's kickass Birthday videos we have here. There is one for David Uthus and one for Nick Peterson and although they are both short videos of these two skating and commemorating their day of birth, one must note a very clear duality separating them. Let us consider the aspects that define these works.
David's birthday video is dark, claustrophobic, and a bit frightening while Nick's is bright, lighthearted, and playful. Because David and Nicks birthdays are so close together and because David Thomas is a goddamn film making genius I have to assume that there is some sort of deeper intent in this variation of mood. Birthdays can be a time for many things, but as you grow older, the desire to be celebratory and do awesome shit like binge drink yourself into a coma on your buddies' tab might give way to a tendency towards the more heavy and ponderous aspects of aging, lame shit like regret, getting closer to dying, and not being able to pull the girls like you used to. In Nick's video he seems to be embracing the birthday debacle and seems to be having the time of his life skating at a well-lit park with his friends, doing that weird bouncy thing he calls "dancing", and getting stoked on the finer side of aging like growing a bushy beard to store trail mix in. he is still pulling off some sweet stuff and doing so with style that can only be attained by years on the board, and he realizes that as well. They say style ages like fine wine but for a mountain man like Nick it has aged like small batch bourbon in oak cask.
In Davids video he is alone at a desolate un-lit skatepark with only a dim camera light to guide him through what seems like some sort of existential nightmare of a session. As opposed to Nick's video, which featured a club-ready birthday jam, David's is sound tracked by a faceless and repetitive dance track in which a cold chorus of detached and mechanical sounding voices ironically dispatch "Happy Birthday." over and over again. The atmosphere of dread only heightens when a low, anonymous verse in between taunts David by not asking but Demanding that he "blow the candles" and "eat your cake, eat your cake". The torture reaches a high point when the deranged singer contemptuously shouts out "cmon, your older, CMON your older, CMOOOON YOUR OLLDAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!".
Dave Thomas's editing only reinforces David's anguish by manipulating his movements by reversing and repeating, apparently suggesting that David is merely a puppet of time and slave to an angry god whose torment knows no bounds (Dave Thomas). As if that were not enough, Dave humiliates David with a funny photo of him wearing a helmet at the end. Why, we ask, must David's birthday be such a miserablist exercise in torment and helplessness? Is it because daviduthus.com is finally up but not even close to being complete? At 28 years of age, has his skateboard become a now meaningless relic of his youth and passion? Are birthdays just another rung on the ladder towards the abyss for him? Has he gone goth on us? These are burning questions we ask ourselves momentarily and when no easy answer presents itself, flee from. But for poor Mr. Uthus they are the inescapable reality of his infinite pitch dark blackness.
As a result of this recent onslaught of absolutely shitty weather, skateboarding has been put on the back burner for the past couple weeks. But enough was enough! So yesterday Bobby and I decided to fix that! We went to JB to try and find a patch of dry ground to skate and we weren't alone! There were quite a few folks there and dudes just wanted to skate! Justin Van Sant showed up and destroyed it (after a little motivation) with a nollie inward heel, and Mike graced us with one of his perfect pivot-to-fakies. Hell, there was even a high ollie competition...like I said, dudes just wanted to skate. So here's to that wintery mix of rippers. Thanks for a great day of skating. -Joel
Filmer/director/screenwriter/skateboard enthusiast Travus Copeland is on the come up with his camera. Just see for yourself in his latest montage where he seamlessly blends skateboarding with a Nintendo. Video games AND skateboarding all in one? All this video needs is a few cats, and it would cover all interests.
I just flew back from New York last night, and boy are my arms COLD. Anyway, in other news, Pratte sent me this great photo he took of Chris doing a tre flip over this bridge that may or may not have a troll under it getting a good fisheye angle. -Worful
Here's an undisclosed skater at an undisclosed training facility doing a 180 nosegrind all the way down that dang ledge. Is this certain someone getting ready just in case skateboarding actually makes it to the Olympics one day? Or are they just enjoying a nice indoor session to beat the current cold weather? Who knows. Anyway, someone seemed pretty stoked on the trick either way. -Worful
Thanks so much to Randy and Lucy for having a birthday party for me, and thanks so much to everyone who came too! It was a super fun night, and it also ended up being a spontaneous premiere viewing party for Jake Pratte's soon to be released (WHERE IS IT JAKE???) video Jake's Junt. You'll have to wait and see for yourself, but basically it's an instant classic. Lots of flips, lots of tricks, and a whole lot of FUN footage for the whole family! Yeah Jake! -Worful
We'll its been pretty cold recently, and since i've had little else to do than sit on the internet and blog up a storm, I might as well institute a new semi-weekly feature right? And by "semi" I mean this might be the only one ever. Basically i'll post two videos and then ramble on about them for longer than is necessary. Without further ado..
The first video continues Derek Fukahara's digi-cam edits of his travels from the past few years. In a dramatic shift in tone from the last video this one has a bittersweet and morose nostalgia to it. Its entitled "Where to get off" which as a statement makes it sound like a porno, but from the feel of the video I think it is posing the question "where to get off?". Sure traveling the world with your buddies is fun but after its all said and done what did it all really mean? Was the travel itself just a reaction to the anxiety of modern life? An aimless wanderlust with, as implyed by the title and song, no hard concept of where to get off and call home? Was it all just a ceaseless blur of people, places, and things, all moving in rapid procession towards certain death without purpose or meaning? Those cars and people in the video are walking and driving REALLY fast, where are they going though? Heavy stuff, indeed. I would have called the video "The World's Saddest Nut Sack" (2:36) or, "Randall's Badass Rope Swing to Jumpkick" (2:44) but I would be focusing on only the fun parts of traveling and not the whole picture, for there is a flipside to all things. For every epic rack of the testicles there is the sad, confused, stab into darkness of the ropeswing jumpkick. Every yin has its yang, and even as the sun lights our day it creates dark shadows among the pine forest of our soul.
Moving right along, we have a real mood-lightener from our friend David Thomas via the Dude Life blog. Although Dave has some qualms with his creation mid-montage (00:30) I happen to be VERY impressed by it. Mostly impressed by the fact that Dave has found a song to replace the usual "chicken dance" or "theme from Benny Hill" that is almost unavoidable given the nature of the content he is working with. Props, Mr. Thomas. He call's his video "Dad Cam" but I would have called it "3 Feet High and Not Going Any Higher Than That Thank You Very Much."
I hope you enjoy your Friday folks! Save some energy for Worful's birthday party tomorrow!
I met up with some of my boy friends who can skate the other day, at that angle iron ledge spot in near South Grand. It wasn't quite as cold that day as it's been this week, so some fun was had. We checked out this new three stair not too far from there that was super nice. Drew seemed into it, while Bobby and Joe Jackson were much more interested in "skating" the slide on the playground. Troy showed up, as well as a bird in the sky that seemed very friendly. -Worful
I don't check the Pretty gmail account too often, probably about 3 times to be exact. But after looking at its contents today, it is clear why we have a naturally polite and friendly person like Worful administrating these kinds of things, because if I were running that side of the show we would probably have a lot more enemies. Not to mention j'boi Beeftruk would really take no prisoners. We ALL know there would be some serious issues with our reader base.
We LOVE getting emails from friends and fans of the blog, but please, don't add to the ever growing pile of messages like my example above. We like to keep the tone light around here (well Worful does anyway) but it is very clear that this blog and "company" is here for the purpose of friends, fun, and a creative outlet. We're not for sale, we're not an advice column, and we're not here to do promotions or to make ourselves, or especially you, money.
Near as we can tell, Dolphin's post yesterday was about getting out and exploring the world, or a least your own backyard. On that auto-tuned note, it looks like the boyz over at Escapist in KC are at it again, tearing up their streets with another audio-visual offering. Expect the full length video to drop next year.
