DEAD TO THE WORLD

You may know artist Todd Bratrud as the man behind The High 5 Skateboards and... well... more other stuff than I have the energy to type tonight.

As though his efforts in graphic art aren't enough he has a fantastic tumblr, DEAD TO THE WORLD, full of his photos.

SWITCH CHEESE

Um, it snowed. Again. Again? YOU KNOW WHAT... forget it. Anyway, so I met up with Guy, Drew, and Chris the other day at the blind school when it was warm and not snowing. And while I couldn't make it there until the session was basically winding down, I did get there for a switch stance tutorial of sorts. Guy was asking Chris to show him how to do switch crooks, and things escalated from there. Anyway, see you on Art Hill I guess. -Worful

WEEKDAYTAGE

Impressionable youth Chris Jackson was so inspired by the Ripndip boys' Weekendtage segments, that he had been persistently asking to film some sort of spin off. Albeit fun to film, like any spin-off, it's not nearly as good as the original. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy it, and I hope that some of you even purchase the Weekendtage movie and maybe even a couple of their cat shirts .

-Jake

NO PARKING

On Sunday I met up with Alex and Gabe down at Keiner. It was super nice out and the longer we were there the more people showed up to skate. Alex fought a long battle and finally got a kickflip backlip he's been wanting for awhile. We were all really stoked, and so was the gaggle of girls that had been watching him. Lots of interesting characters were out, including this nice dude named Tyler. He hadn't skated in awhile and asked if he could use my board while I was shooting photos. After warming up for a bit he decided to try to ollie the big gap, but unfortunately didn't stick it. After being at Keiner for awhile we decided to check out a spot near the Muska bank. However the apparent troll that lives near the bank decided to scream at us like a lunatic and call the cops on us. Awesome! So we left and headed over to this hip spot that Jack had found off 55. We ended things at Shepard, which was full of people enjoying the sun in the form of basketball and double dutch. Later I met up with Jack, Alex, and Gabe at Imo's for a quick birthday treat for Gabe. It didn't wreak havoc on my stomach nearly as much as I thought. -Worful

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABE!!!

It was Gabe's birthday yesterday, and there was much celebrating. And by celebrating we mean stuffing ourselves at Imo's.

MO' MONEY MO' PROBLEMS

Saturday I got a text from Gabe saying he was skating at the fountain, so Bobby and I headed over there to meet up with him. Schwartz, Pratte, Jack, and Randy were there and fun ensued. Randy had put together a new Infinity board and was ready to rep the shop hard with some increasingly innovative and confusing tricks off the ledge. Then I innocently asked if anyone had ollied the flat gap between the ledges, and Jack bet Randy he couldn't do it first try. Five bucks was on the table (or ledge rather) and Randy went for it, but didn't land it. So Jack kept things going by taking away a dollar each try. When Randy didn't make it on the last try he took the liberty of converting Jack's last dollar into fifty cents so he could get an extra go at it. And then, FINALLY, he landed it and got paid in full (or half rather). Anyway it was a fun day to say the least. -Worful

THE MOST FUN THING

Please check out our Dude Life friend Kyle Beachy's new site here!

TEENAGERS FROM MARS

Dear St. Lous weather, WE'RE BREAKING UP. Our relationship is just too up and down lately. I can't do this anymore. It's not me, it's most certainly you. So yeah, it's snowed today, but just a couple days ago it was pretty nice outside and Bobby came and picked me and Guy up to go skating. Bob was not only nice enough to pick me up (my car's in the shop*), but Guy was also nice enough to let me use his cruiser board for the day** (thanks Guy!). We started off at the blind school, and that was nice because I don't think any of us had been there in awhile. Then we checked out a couple more spots before asking Pratte for directions to this park in Granite City, IL that we'd never been to (thanks Jake!). So we went there and it's a fun little park for sure. There were some local youths there as well as some local media. Then we did some local sightseeing before grabbing some Mexican food on Cherokee Street and calling it a day. -Worful

*Both Bob and I were having expensive car woes last week, which lead him to get a cool new car that he chauffeured us around in all day. Thanks Bob!

**I pulled what Bobby dubbed a "Double Ploesser" by leaving not only one but TWO completes in the trunk of my car before I dropped it off at the mechanic. What makes this worse is that one of the boards was the loaner from Bob from when I left my board in my car at the mechanic right before we left for Arizona. I'm blowing it folks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUY!!!

A day older, a day grizzlier.

ACK! ANOTHER ONE OF THESE BOGAN MONTAGES!

australia skateparktage from preston harper on Vimeo.

Yeah, Sure. So you might say you're getting a little tired of the thousands of skatepark montages appearing on the internet everyday. Well as long as your click counters keep proving you're watching, Preston Harper will keep making his digi-cam montages. And even when the world stops, takes a look at its daily media intake and decides it would prefer content of a more well-crafted and less disposable nature, Preston will press on with an auteur's eye for making poorly filmed and edited skatepark footage quite entertaining.

This is from our recent trip in Australia and it features 4 of the skateparks (Cammery, Balmoral, Five Dock, and one I can't remember the name of, respectively) we frequented in the greater Sydney area. Among the highlights are:

-Preston getting loose as a goose and being a turkey but mostly just kook(aburra)ing it, as usual.

-Richie Jackson background props and a well done smith grind kickflip by his younger bro, Adam Jackson

- Matt Price blowing it on doubles but redeeming himself with a heavyset-yet-graceful nollie nosegrind pop out like some sort of white-boy Jabari Pendleton.

- Me proving that you really "are only as old as you feel" by "surfing" out tricks without blowing out my knees. Or is it as old as you act? can't remember.

- a "well-protected" frontside kickflip over a hip.

- a kookaburra.

A few kilometers or so away from the sunny Sydney summer, the frozen solid Yanks over at the dude life blog seem to believe this is our "best shit" from the trip. And for them I have a few questions:

Was Matt Price sneakily filming some HD footy on his digital SLR for his own personal Australia edit?

Did we really film our hard-earned street moves primarily on Preston's crappy digital camera?

Did I really only film one solitary clip with my own flip camera?

I won't throw out any spoilers, but I will say, sirs; this isn't over. Not by a long shot.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS AT KINGSHIGHWAY

Please stop by the Kingshighway spot this Saturday if you have time to skate and donate money toward their future projects, including finishing the shallow pocket in the bowl section. Photo by Wissman.

RANDY'S JUNT

Check out Randy's part from Jake Pratte's new video Jake's Junt right NOW please. Nice junts you two!

THE RAD ONE ZINE

Andy "The Rad One" Wissman just posted issue two of his zine, and it looks great! Keep it up Wissman. -Worful

UNTITLED ARIZONA VACATION VIDEO

untitled arizona vacation video trailer from matt blevins on Vimeo.

Bobby just sent me this, fantastic! Looking good boys. -Worful

DOUBLE ROCKIN'

Jarbari and his Western Edition homies recently went to work at Thrasher's Double Rock indoor park, and as always he does not disappoint. Yeah Jabari!