Thursday, November 26, 2009
Berry McGee, aka Twist, 1993. Out of all the "Street Artists/Beautiful Loser" types, (though it's not fair to put him in any category), Berry McGee has always been the standout. We were neighbors for awhile and I trekked around with him a few times, to watch him do his thing. Quick and dirty. The Screws throughout SF in the 90's were a thing of beauty.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
More India, 2001
In 2001 I took a trip through India with Kenny Reed, Kenny Hughes, Nikhil Thayer and Vern Laird.
Starting from the southeastern city of Chennai, we took a train to Bengaluru, a 16 hour bus ride to
the beach in Goa, another train to Mumbai, went and checked out the Taj Mahal in Agra and ended
up in the city of Varanasi on the Ganga river. What a ride. We saw tigers, elephants, opium laced
hash (see the story below), burning mountains, thousand year old temples and shrines, attacking
monkeys and the most vivid colors in the world.
One of the other buildings surrounding the Taj Mahal.
Other then three wheeled motorcycles, Rautos, this was the main form of transportation if you weren't rich.
A tree grows through the middle of someone's shop.
Kenny Reed.
The Gateway of India in Mumbai. Directly across the street is the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where terrorist attacked in 2008 killing over a hundred people.
Here's a story I wrote for Slap a few years ago recounting one of our adventures while in Goa:
After a sixteen hour bus ride from Bengaluru to the beach town of Goa I was ready for some relaxation time- little did I know.
Nikhil Thayer, Kenny Reed, Vern Laird, Kenny Hughes and myself were traveling around the country of India looking for anything to skate and our next hot and spicy street Samosa- pure gut bombs. Piling out of the bus, (after getting into an accident earlier and stopping every half hour for the driver to crack an egg and burn incense at sacred trees), was a welcolmed relief. We gathered our bags and took a rickshaw to a hostel on the beach, named The White Negro, and ran into the Indian Ocean for a quick refresher. Sitting in the sand afterwards I realised we were easy marks for the beach merchants: two white dudes, a black kid with dreads and Kenny Hughs- big black guy with a bright yellow DC shirt, some bling and large vocal chords. They hadn't seen anything like us before. After brushing off the pedelers of fake silk, Mountain Dew and cheap bead necklaces I decided to take up the guys offer for some gooey, dooky Indian hash. 2 US dollars and it was all mine. Now don't get me wrong, I don't condone drugs- but when in Rome... Later that day we all rented scooters and decided to cruise around and get lost for awhile. Jamming through the jungle we saw Hindu preists on elephants, monkeys running through the streets and water buffalo milling around everywhere. We dead ended at a river and took the $.50 ferry across. The coastline was epic and we decided to stop at a deserted beach to chill and watch the sunset. As we were going down a path to the water a couple of 10 year old kids popped out of nowhere and took us to this hut they had in the sand and sold us $.10 sodas. There wasn't another person on the beach as far as we could see- perfect time to roll up that hash. All of it. In one joint. No one else wanted any. I smoked the whole thing. To the head. Bad move. It was almost dark as we got up to leave and that's when my head started spinning. If you ever tried to ride a scooter in the sand (it's like riding a bmx bike in the sand) then you know it's no easy task. Now I'm sweating. I'm reving the motor and just digging in deeper, pushing the thing with my legs and starting to get some anxiety. To make it worse one of the kids jumped on the back of the scooter to show me how to get back to the road. He had both hands around my neck to hold on and I thought he was trying to kill me. I knew his boys were going to jump out and attack me and I'd be lost forever in the cuts of India. I literally threw the kid off me and started charging through the jungle where there was no path, but I could see lights from cars on the road so I knew to just keep in that direction. People were jumping out of trees and coming out of the ground like some zombie movie trying to grab me- or at least that's what I was seeing. Finally getting to the road I gunned it to the ferry. The rest of the guys caught up but had no idea what was going through my mind. On the ferry I stayed lurched over the side trying to puke. No puke. All of a sudden I noticed the water below but the boat wasn't in it. We were flying. The boat was out of the water and hovering across the channel. Hughes didn't beleive me as I pointed this out, but the boat was magical and we were flying! I got to get off this thing!! Once we got to the other side I used every bit of concentration I could muster to follow Nikhil's taillights so I wouldn't get lost. People were still jumping out of trees at me but I was zeroed in on Nikhil. "Yo, watch out!", I heard Nikhil scream, and within a split second I was headed full speed into the back of an elephant. I slammed on the breaks and weaved to the right. Great, now all I see is elephants and they're coming to get me. Imagine- death by elephant stompage! We finally made it back to our hostel where I threw the scooter down still running and hid under the covers in my bed for a few hours till I passed out. The next mourning I was awakened by a weird scratching noise above my head. There was no air conditioning in India so all the rooms had vents in the wall to let in air, like the heater vents in the ceiling of your house. As I opened my eyes, I followed the scratching noise to the vent above me to find monkey fingers poking in. Monkeys will try to get in and grab anything they can. After last night, nothing could faze me any more.
Varanasi, the ancient Holy city on the banks of the Ganga. This kid who paddled us around in a boat told me the river was the purest in the world and you could drink from it. It's said the water flows down from the hair of the goddess Vishnu. Here's a few things I saw floating in the water: a human hand, shit, dead cows and ox, fresh water Dolphins, crocodiles, people brushing their teeth, washing their dishes, taking bathes and shitting all within 10 feet of each other and a bonfire with mass bodies being cremated on the banks. You could see the outlines of bodies, with their arms and legs pointing straight up, being burned and turning to ash. It's a privilege to be cremated next to the Ganga, but only people with money could afford to buy logs to keep the fire going. I'd go back in a heart beat.
Monday, November 16, 2009
This past weekend was the last race at El Mirage for the season. Tailwind the first day, headwind the next.
The Proud American, (a prototype rocket car), and The Bonneville Boss truck. This thing showed up, they unloaded it, shot some photos, loaded it back up and took off. Built in the 70's to raise money to build a REAL rocket car. The Boss was built by Dean Moon.
The 102 car. '53 Customline. This car has been racing nonstop for over 30 years.
The future- Cooper Finn.
Moto madness with a side-hack. One of my favorites every year.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Been in Sacto for the last two days with my buddy Ralph Miller so he could get some 
more work done on his back. Bill Lorenz at Sacramento Tattoo is manning the gun.
Bill's also in the band Vomit.
Afterwards we headed to Calusa to Big M Auto junkyard to look around. The place was filled with treasures.
1962 Chrysler New Yorker. Cat eye headlights.
It has Caddy script on it, but you tell me?
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Creature video is done. Went to the premiere the other night at a drive-in movie joint one exit away from Tijuana. Epic. Here's some out-takes from the filming of Blood Shed.
Rick Charnowski- director.
Pizza face Olson.
The many faces of Neil Hedding and Senator Cranston.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Photo obscura. Dan Sturt in the early 90's ushered in a new era of skate photography- eluding to the inevitable. Up until then, for the most part, skate photos were 95% fisheye, 4 feet away, on camera flashes and everything in frame. Action was shot at the apex of the trick. Sturt shot a few photos that made us all look at things a bit different. The Markovich photo cuts off his body completely. This happened all the time, due to shooting fisheye and up close, but to consciously shoot Kris out of frame and doing something so epic (at least at the time) was genius. It made you think and dream of being there. The Jason Carney bail was even gnarlier. At a time when people were beginning to push the limits of big rails- this rail was HUGH! It's a bail, but the fact that he even tried it was insane- insane enough that a bail made it just as valid. Then there's the Duffy rail, Plan B ad (I could be wrong if it was a ad). Just a photo of the rail with Duffy's name at the bottom of the page- enough said. You knew he did it and it was fucking tough. Maybe I'm just waxing poetic about old photos, but these changed the way us skate photogs looked at things at the time.
Kris Markovich, Sturt photo.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Trying to reorganize my office zone and I found a bunch of old photos in a box.
Everyone's got one of those boxes.
This is my friends Peter and Ben Redgrave's "Worm" ramp in Silver Spring, MD.
Every ramp had a name back in the day. Hot and humid in the summer. 1987.
This is the same ramp in Virginia that I posted a photo of Kepper on a while ago. Probably the only time I
did stale fishes- I always sucked at them.1989.
When Peter and me drove to California we took the southern route and went
straight to Tijuana skatepark. Doug Smith, Powell video- looked so fun to skate. 1990.
NSA west coast finales at the Linda Vista skatepark. Fab shirt. I think that's a young Ronnie Bertino and either Rene Mattheson or Brian Lotti behind me. This was a spine ramp and I had only skated a spine a few times. I was up against Alfonso Rawls, Wade Spayer, Chad Vogt, Jordan Rictor and all the other spine champs of the day. I placed dead last. 1990.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sinisa Egelja RIP
Sin, as most people knew him, was a photographer and Airwalk icon. He just passed away- no real details yet. I've always thought he was one of the pioneers in skate photography, shooting for Poweredge back in the late 80's early 90's. I meet him only once, a few years ago at the Glendale skatepark. He approached me and knew my name- I was totally honored. He said he had seen my photos over the years and thought I was doing a good job- wow. When I started Slap I modeled it after Thrasher and Poweredge and was inspired by photographers likes Mofo, Sleeper, Xeno, Scott Needham and Sin. I found some photos online (brainwashvictim.com) that Sin shot, here you go.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Rumble
The Rumble went off last Saturday. People skated all day- Hosoi, Mountain,
Raybourn (broke his arm), Justin Lynch (broke his wrist), Rune, Lincoln, Luda Chet,
Remy (my favorite), Mike Frazier, Crum, Schaaf and tons more. The bands played,
the sun was warm, the H.A.'s rolled deep. Thanks to Vans and Iron Fist and the rest
of the sponsors- Creature, Thrasher and Indy of course. And none of it could have
happened without Jake and Nikki Doomey. See you next year (maybe).
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Talked to Brewce Martin yesterday and he's doing alright after his accident.
Seems that he was changing a tire from one rim to another and it exploded
on him. Broke some bones in his face and arm. Hospital for 8 weeks.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bombing down Oak st., SF. I can't remember exactly who's skating- Huf, Chris Keefe, Sean Young? and Ben Liversedge.
Jason Dill at a fashion shoot in Tokyo. He modeled in his underwear- the photographer was psyched. 1996.
Neil Blender, June '83 issue of Thrasher. Can't remember the photographer. This is somewhere in either New Orleans or Florida. Someone please tell me.
Tony Alva. May '84. Mofo photo?
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