John

a review

2010-01-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

I just watched Prevent This Tragedy, the free video that comes with the February edition of Thrasher. The skating is excellent. I felt genuine fear at times watching Gravette jump on to handrails he shouldn't and Andrew Allen jump into banks he shouldn't. The filming can best be described as "adequate," as can the soundtrack. And that's actually a compliment. Music and editing should never distract from the stunts. This is bare bones ripping, free from dull art shots and exhausting slo-mo. If you don't have a subscription, then go buy it off the stand. $4 is a small price to pay for this level of skateboard quality.

omelette

2010-01-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Damn it. Sorry. It's been too long since I've written anything. But that's ok because I write like an engineer and I don't have much to say anyway, unless you want to hear about the last convoy I sploged in Far Cry 2. Yeah?

We experienced a minor miracle in Helena today: a clean, dry skatepark in January. Even though I hate Master, and I truly hate him, I have to be thankful today for all the energy he put into clearing the snow. I'm looking forward to skating tomorrow and I encourage you Bozeman kids to make the journey over here. Think about the tailslides. Oh, the tailslides.

I feel I should remind you all that Evan's 21st birthday is coming up fast and we're planning on flying to Las Vegas on Feb. 11 and returning on the 14. Buy tickets here: Allegiant Air.

fat farts

2009-11-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a new Bear on Bear track. Playing it backwards won't help.

brother piss

jerene

2009-11-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

Good looks.

harry partch

2009-11-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting documentary about microtones and the gay, hobo musician/composer that loves them. Watch, learn, discuss, enjoy.

LINK

topper chops

2009-11-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

Man, it's been a long time since I've done this. I'm not sure if I even remember how.

Me and Evan have an apartment in Helena now. It's on Broadway next to the cop shop. Stop by and say hello, but then leave promptly 'cause I don't want you in my fucking house. Except you Brandon, you can stay for a little while.

I've started work on the Ratface Man game using Game Maker 7. Dan, if you want to help me with sprites you can, I'm not an artist. Here's the protagonist, his name is Calhoun.

Is Cory Kennedy the new Marc Johnson?

test post

2009-10-28T18:43:00.001-07:00

I'm john Ima dick look at my blogz working?

bass solo

2009-08-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Another week in Bozeman at the Days Inn. I'm about to try to eat 5 regular roast beef sandwiches from Arby's. Last week I only ate 4 1/2 before I started feeling sick. Goddamn, I love eating stuff that will kill me slowly.

The Hella-gnar skatepark is supposed to re-open this week. Boys should come from all over to see what those bastards did to our lovely home and maybe slash a piece of fresh pool coping.

UK's Loves and Hates: Summer Edition

Loves: Metallica - Kill 'Em All

It looks like this is his fucking jam now. I guess it's their first album and it sounds nice and dirty. I would recommend owning it.

Hates: Censorship

Kurt's beautiful, hand-crafted tile that was supposed to be embedded in the skatepark got rejected by some fucking bitch at the city. Kurt made a self-portrait and apparently because he has a can (of beer) and a cigarette in his hands it shouldn't be seen by impressionable children. But it's OK, he has a plan.

give 'em the squeeze

2009-07-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

It's only been a week and a half since the 3rd of July so this shit is still totally relevant. Hurt McPain took some photos and was gracious enough to send them to me. Blogging here is a team effort. Make up your own story, or ask me about the fucking awesome later.

That ought to keep you fat and happy for a little while.

pain don't hurt

2009-06-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Nike just released an amazing little video featuring their ams called debacle. You can download it from here. The download takes a while but is well worth it. This is what a modern skate flick should be in my opinion. Rapid fire editing, minimal skits and art shots, solid soundtrack, excellent skating and less than twenty minutes without the credits. I have to give a lot of credit to Jason Hernandez for realizing that HD footage doesn't have to be in slo-mo. Grant Taylor is the future of shred and Justin Brock has a powerful tre-flip.

The new Sunset Rubdown album is pretty good.

I better go now and take advantage of being alive.

rainy day

2009-06-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

This post is mostly for UK. That is my wood elf character riding the unicorn in Oblivion. I took the picture with my DSi. I've never felt like more of a nerd.

have you seen the loneliness of a retarded fourskin blogger?

2009-06-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy, busy.

Dreamland is here. They should start making awesome soon.

I'm working on getting some lung capacity back.

I might be going to work on bridges around Bozeman soon. I don't know when. The big cogs don't tell the little cogs what's going on.

I'm surprised know one has blogged about Sasquatch yet.

Top Five 'Squatch '09 Performances (that I saw)
1. Animal Collective
2. Of Montreal
3. Bon Iver
4. The Walkmen
5. M83

Fletcher, finish your god damn Santa Cruz series.

aaaaaaart

2009-05-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

helena summer

2009-04-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

I got a job in Helena for the summer. I'll be there next week.

I'm glad people are posting again. I was about ready to start handing out writing assignments with severe penalties if they weren't completed on time.

Watch the Mighty Boosh. And you should play this game if you haven't already. I want to discuss it's meaning with people.

santa cruise of the century

2009-03-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Holy fucking trip. I'm not really sure how to write about this trip, so I'll just break it down by key people and places.

Ultimate Kurt

I've gone on several power trips with Kurt and I'd say that he's the best travel companion around. Dude just needs a good "breakfrist" in the morning and the opportunity to flirt with a cute and slightly overweight waitress to be happy.

Special Edition Love and Hate

Loves: Government Center by The Modern Lovers. "They got a lotta lotta lotta great desks and chairs, uh huh, at the governemnt center."

Hates: Having said "I took a hardcore bite out of that asparagus, bro!" with absolute sincerity.

Kennewick

The tri-cities area is a cluster fuck of highways and it's easy to get confused while navigating through the area, which is what happened to us. The only real landmark I know in the area is the Fred Meyer in Kennewick because it has my favorite wallride spot ever. And, I got that shit backside and frontside.

Irrigon

The skatepark in Irrigon is a nice little distraction on the way to Portland. I played on the bump to rail while Kurt found lines in the bowl and caught the eye of the tiniest junior mint who wanted to have his baby.

Battleground

We stayed with one of Kurt's friends in Battleground who lives right across the street from the skatepark. The park was completely saturated when we were there, which really sucked because it is one of the most amazing parks I've ever seen.

Lincoln City

It was pissing rain in the Portland area and everything was soaked up until we got to Lincoln City. I'm really glad we got to skate this park because so many people have told me how sick it is. This place is pretty gnarly. Watch Beauty and the Beast, that thing Tony Trujillo frontside grinds is fucking ridiculous.

Reedsport

We meandered down the coast and stopped in Reedsport to eat and skate. We camped a little bit south of Reedsport next to a lighthouse. We took a little walkabout down to the beach in the dark and found some other Montana dudes and a porcupine, no whales.

We spent next day driving to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz

I stopped carrying my camera around in Santa Cruz because I wanted to focus my time on skateboarding. The Santa Cruz park was a lot of fun, nothing was too gnarly there but I think I could skate there everyday and not get sick of it. I wanted to skate Derby more than any other park on this trip and it didn't disappoint. The skatepark in Scott's Valley reminded me of the Billings park and I was having a great time until school got out. Sunnyvale was a lot of fun too.

When we were done skating we would hang out on Brandon's porch and drink beer and smoke stuff. I'm hoping Fletcher's blog can fill in more details about what we did in SC.

Brandon

In case you didn't already know, Brandon is fucking awesome. He's living in a cool house, in a cool town, with a cool motorcycle, and he still has the best kickflip.

Kurt McGrane

Kurt learned wallrides on this trip, which is great because that's my favorite trick and Kurt is my favorite person.

Fletcher

Fletcher is Fletcher. Dude still cracks me up, especially when he starts messing with people.

Klamath Falls

On our last day in Santa Cruz Brandon decided to come back to Montana with us since he had nothing to else to do on his spring break. This was great because it meant that we got to spend more time with Brandon and we would have one more driver to help out on the 19 hour flog back to Missoula. The only notable stop we made was in Klamath Falls. We had to jump a fence to get into the park and it started to snow on us after about 20 minutes. It was a good opportunity to stretch our legs before we had drive all night.

We got to Missoula at about 8 AM and fell asleep as soon as we got to my house. We got up around 1 PM and met Chris and Treavor at the skateshop, ate at The Bridge, and then skated at 52 for a couple hours. We hung out at Chris's place for a little bit and then Kurt and Brandon moved on to Helena.

The whole trip was a lot of fun and I feel broken, but I can still walk, which is exactly how you should feel after a skate trip.

shoulda slept more last night

2009-03-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

Evan is here.

We recorded a new Bear on Bear song. It's a cover of a Bob Dylan song.

Santa Fe.wav

We also did some night jumps.

Kurt is coming tomorrow and we will go to Santa Cruz.

i'm a terrible liar

2009-02-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog,

My Christmas wish was granted; I saw the snow ghost.

Old news, Evan is a twat. Br on Br

on the pile

2009-02-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

Oh, yes. I finally purchased the mind-fuck Mind Field. It's definitely worth owning, easier to replay than Fully Flared. I was almost right about what my favorite parts would be, it's actually Jake Johnson, Omar Salazar, and Tyler Bledsoe. Tyler Bledsoe's b-roll footage is better than Steve Berra and Rob Dyrdek's parts combined.

I think there are more than a few lessons to be learned from this. I want 1000 words from each of you explaining why that video was so awesome.

glory days

2009-02-03T00:36:00.000-08:00

Alien Workshop premiered their new video this last week. I haven't seen it but I've already decided that my favorite parts are Grant Taylor and Omar Salazar; you should know why. It's interesting how AWS has changed in the last decade from the (mostly) east-coast cast of Photosynthesis to the random super-team that exists today. It would be so easy to accuse AWS of losing their soul, especially now that they're owned by Burton, but I don't really have a problem with the direction they've gone. But I am feeling a bit nostalgic and since VCRs are now extinct (or illegal?) I naturally turn to YouTube.

Notes:

- Remember Vita shoes?

- Remember DC shoes?

- Appleyard rode for Habitat but I tossed him in with the rest 'cause I know Dan has a crush on him.

- How often do you see a fakie frontside shove-it?

- Josh Kalis has a really really really nice tre flip.

- UK, what happened to that giant yellow Habitat shirt you used to wear? I hope you didn't lose it because it's time to start rocking it again.

third world

2009-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

Cuba

Afghanistan

Uganda

delay delay delay delay

2009-01-18T14:19:00.000-08:00

I found these pictures in the the new Wallride catalog on crailtap and got pretty amped. I'm looking forward to the movie coming out and the images on the boards are amazing. As a child I had recurring nightmares involving the monster with the big nose in the lower right-hand corner.

let me call you a dingleberry

2009-01-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

The bitter cold has left, and left me acclimated and able to enjoy the upper thirties. A miracle of a virus has taken up residence in my body and turned my face into a mucus kitchen in order to replicate it's genes. It's a magical world we live in.

Due to my sickness I've been unable to do much besides read, explore the wasteland of Fallout 3, and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I've decided to go back to school in the fall to get my M.S. in civil engineering. So I'll be moving back to Bozeman sometime between now and September. I talk a lot of shit about Bozeman, but I figure since they're getting a Dreamland park pretty soon I can tolerate it a little more. Is anyone going to still be there next fall?

The Merriweather Post Pavilion album art is the visual equivalent of the droning repetition that is a song like My Girls. I like it. Also, it moves like waves when you look past it. I didn't read that on any blog.

I'm waiting for Final Flare extras to load on YouTube and it's painfully slow. I feel like I'm downloading songs on Napster with a dial-up connection.

In conclusion, I'm moving back to Bozeman. And fuck you, Evan.

crappy new steer

2009-01-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

It's January 1, 2009 and really all that means to me is that the holiday season is finally over. Now we can get back to the serious business of suffering the cold and dark. And a resolution; learn airs in the bowl.

Dan, don't let the site die. It's the only communication I have with the outside world while I lurk in my cabin, writing the first draft of my manifesto.

Sucks that Brandon didn't come to Missoula while he was here. I wanted to show him how I can frontside flip like a spazzy crab person, spider style. Now I really have to go to Santa Cruz.

I like watching these Canadians use their architecture.

Macs suck.

because they're dope

2008-12-11T20:58:00.000-08:00

So, what's up with people? They're weird, right? Today this chaka-brah dude came in to the skatepark and tried to get us to sell his products in the shop. Just fucking look at that goombah. What makes him think that anyone would want to buy that shit? "The trendiest choice on the web." Why would someone claim to be trendy? Isn't being called trendy typically a bad thing? Oh, but he's on some next level shit. Just check out these boots and these jeans. Wait, I think I've seen pants like that before. Yep, they're fucking motocross pants. Rad. Anyway, Dylan told the dude that we didn't want to hang his hats on the wall and the dude got super pissed. He gave us the bird as he drove away and made a gesture like he was shooting us. I encourage you to send him some comments calling a him a douchebag or dingleberry or something more creative.

Moving on.

Kurt, I think I've talked to you about how you need to do this.

LMIRL

2008-12-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

The joys of unemployment never seem to end. I wake up at noon, go to the skatepark and play around, then go home and play video games or read or whatever. Seriously, that working thing is for chumps. I even have time to win silly internet contests. The only bad thing is that I've been battling with a front smith back 180 for three days and still haven't gotten it.

Hey Brandon, when's a good time for me to go to Santa Cruz? Does anyone else want to go?

Hey Ian, did you already know about this?