CHEESY ROMANCE FLICK

Eternal Flame from David Thomas on Vimeo.

According to Dave Thomas and his use of The Bangles' music in this clip, our trip to Wisconsin was a saccharine sweet romantic getaway for star-crossed lovers from Saint Louis and Chicago.

Dave has always been a bit of a softy but I find his vision aligns with the spirit of the trip more than the traditional beer-soaked camping bro-ness of Kyle Beachys' edit.

Kyles edit has its own merits of course but it certainly won't capture the hearts of the elusive all-ages female market. Dave could really be onto something here.

Suffice it to say, the cruelty of fate and obligation have led us back to our respective cities but our love will continue to grow until we can meet again and do our seductive dance of drinking too much beer and falling down a lot. Let our love roll on eternally like a giant wheel of Wisconsin cheese.

for more tearjerking content from this trip check out dude life.

GOING ROGUE

My youtube account has gone rogue, and I have too much homework to stop it! Oh no!

-Jake

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!!

Happy birthday Chris! Welcome to your early 20s. Also someone buy this kid a board, he's riding everyone's sloppy seconds.

SAME DAY SHIRT SERVICE

I met up with a rather large crew of dudes at this spot on Delmar on Monday. After some snacking and general goofing Randy, Drew, and Reggie got to work. Reggie's wallie polejam (a "poley?") was especially sick. After that everyone went downtown but I had to go do homework for the first time in ten years because I'm a nerd. Fall weather always gives me that queasy back to school feeling anyway, so might as well actually be in a class. -Worful

ALEX ON THE SKATEBOARD MAG SITE

Alex is on The Skateboard Mag site! So rad, yeah Alex! Kyle Seidler is responsible for the sick photo, yeah Kyle!

WHAT THE FALL?

I know, I get it. Typical St. Louis weather for you. But still, WHAT is going on? It was over 100 degrees on Saturday and then I woke up Sunday I had to put on a hoodie. Seriously? I mean don't get me wrong, it was great, but still. Anyway, so Saturday it was too hot for the most part, but Joel did get a line at a spot. Yeah Joel! Sunday I met the Kehoes rather early so Alex could wiggle around on a ledge. Drew, Bobby, and Guy showed a little later and we all headed to the career academy ledges where Bob and Drew got some clips. We checked out a quarter pipe thingy in U-City, but it was kind of hard to skate according to the people who actually tried to skate it. Then Guy and Drew had to take off, which is too bad because right after that we stumbled upon my new favorite spot. I had to borrow Bobby's hat to get some inspiration. Gabe didn't have to borrow anything because he's self-inspired, and I would be too if I were him. Case in point: check out this drop in to wallie he pulled out of nowhere. And in front of some fancy house no less. What an inspiring bastard. Before we called it quits we checked out a couple more spots and Alex hopped over some rails for good measure. Welcome back fall. Don't turn into winter too fast please. -Worful

FAMILY TREE

My cousin Shaun Mckay from Kansas City has some footage at the end of this edit.

I don't see him very often and have skated with him even less but he has been skating for some time and I have always been stoked that someone else in my family skates and always wondered what it would be like to have someone that was family grow up skating with you, for better or for worse, like these two nerds.

The first time was at Afton High School (and i'm sure some of you remember this and that day) when he was about 2 feet shorter and several years younger but, nonetheless, left an impression on me that he had much more talent than I did when I was so young.

Anyhow, trying my best not to be sappy or patronizing, I was really, really psyched to see that he's still skating and apparently, as I grow old, stupid, and sluggish, is RIPPING.

So for anyone who reads this blog in KC; if you see Shaun around or know him, give him a shout for me and try to be nice to him. Even if hes being a shithead, any black eyes or bad names will have to answer to his increasingly grumpy, but still not quite geriatric, older cousin.

THE SETTING SUMMER SUN PART 2

I'm shocked that Worful didn't mention how hard we were shredding before the sun went down the other day. He's so modest.

Insert Fully Flared reference here.

THE SETTING SUMMER SUN

Even though Bobby, Joel, and I went skating yesterday and it was like 104 degrees out or something stupid, I guess the concept of "summer" is official over with the arrival of the month of September. Oh well, she was good while she lasted. And by good i mean very hot. But also fun. Anyway I went skating with Randy and Gabe the other day and made them do something in front of the cool sunset. -Worful

THE LOST KENDAL

Wowy wow! This is such a treat, we can never get enough Kendal.

BIKE BUDS

Congratulations to team BeefTruk for finishing 9th overall at this year's Urban Assault ride! Are there extra points if you wear a ZZ Top beard?

FESTIVAL OF NATIONS

Sunday I met up with Randy and Alex at the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park. I'd never been and it was fun. After that we decided to keep the worldly spirit going by trying to bridge the skate gap (the pun wasn't intended (no, wait, the pun WAS intended)) between the city and the suburbs. We started at the career academy ledges where Schwartz was seriously stressing over the wax situation. Bobby was especially feeling 180 nosegrinds and took it to the gap to ledge, yeah Bob! Meanwhile Alex did his best impression of another Alex. After that we headed to Webster to skate a fence gap. Schwartz said if he landed a backside flip I had to do 25 pushups. He did not land it. You're welcome, arms. At some point Randy and Alex disappeared and all the sudden were yelling from across the street for me to come take a photo of their double date. I did, but not before several comical slams, some major wheel bite, and a rogue board that could've KILLED me. After that Randy and I enjoyed some bootleg music in Forest Park and I met up with Argus at an undisclosed spot so he could ponder pain vs. glory. -Worful

TEAM S.K.A.T.E.

So I went to the JB park the other day and played team S.K.A.T.E. Some of us took our losses harder than others, Danny especially. But I think we can all agree that we hate Derek and all his STUPID tricks. Also of note: Chris and his board. -Worful

ROAD TRIP LIFE

Up North Trip from kyle beachy on Vimeo.

Here's a great video I snagged from the Dude LIfe blog of their recent trip to Wisconsin. Looking good boys! -Worful

THE RAD ONE ZINE ISSUE FOUR

Wissman just posted issue four of his zine. There's a sick Justin Van Sant sequence that Bobby and I liked among other great stuff, go check it out! -Worful

KING OF THE LOU

I've been loving these King of the Lou videos that Wissman's been posting on his blog. The skating in the winning entry is so good and the rest of the tomfoolery is also fun to watch. -Worful

PRETTY'S VERY FIRST ONLINE VIDEO CONTEST!

Street League Riot from YouWillSoon on Vimeo.

The internet can be mind numbing. I'm not sure if my standards for humor have gone up or if i've become jaded by the steady stream of, what used to be, hilarious videos of cats farting and hiccuping at the same time, obese people falling flat on their faces, etc.etc.etc. Such as it is, I rarely find myself laughing out loud by myself watching these sorts of things anymore, if ever.

A couple weeks ago at 1:00am I found the youwillsoon-created gem above posted on Kansas City's done blog, Get At Me. Thats a time usually reserved for pointlessly browsing around the internet for some cheap entertainment, then sighing, then yawning, then cursing under my breath, and finally falling asleep and dreaming of the same tired replays of local news bloopers, nut racks, and things in auto-tune that usually aren't in auto-tune.

The above video elicited laughter upon several repeat views and reminded me of many other examples of this overdubbed style of comedy and how generally hilarious it is when well executed. First I thought of Jason Dill's ad-libbed classic here. Then of a recent one here. And then youtubed a bunch of old MST3K episodes, people "shredding" and the like.

Point being, I want to laugh more. So we here at Pretty are collaborating with The High Five to bring you a very special contest and an opportunity to win a whole lot of free shit from both Pretty and The High Five.

This is a unique contest because we're not asking for footage of you skateboarding, because lets be honest here, no one gives a crap. Its very simple. We want you to create an overdubbed video like the examples cited and send it in for us to judge. It can be anything. It can be a video you find, a video you make, or even use the same videos and put your own twist on them. We'll post the best video on the blog but, bottom line, the one that makes us laugh the most wins the big prize. If we get more funny videos than we expect we might institute a 2nd and 3rd place but for now may the best man win.

Pretty makes zero dollars and The High Five might pick up a few bucks here and there but ultimately we are paying you to make us laugh, isn't that generous?

If no one submits anything, then i'll just assume the entirety of our readership are dullards that are devoid of any creativity, or the more likely scenario, that this is a really, really, stupid contest.

Funny video though huh? Chris Cole, what!

Send all submissions to prettytalk@gmail.com by Oct. 1st for your chance to win! Good Luck!

SOME DUDE NEWS

Bobby's been getting some bi-blog coverage. Plus here's a little clipper doodle from Kyle's blog of Randy ripping on a recent trip to Wisconsin with some of the Dude Life dudes. Check their site for more updates soon we hope, also new boards coming I hear.