Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Inaugural, Inevitable. I, I, I. Me, Me, Me. Blogging. The aristocrats.

Over the past year, the thought of starting a blog has crossed my mind a single digit number of times that you can speculate on to your heart's desire. I have until now passed on the notion because of my general distaste for the inherent concept of self-promotion, but I have finally caved, as you my have guess by this page's very existence. This past weekend has been a whirlwind skate adventure with some excellent dudes, and I need a place to showcase the documentation that is not flickr or www.skateperception.com. A couple of the dudes in the  photos have parts in a recent Chicago (from here on out referred to exclusively as Chi because the mere thought of typing out those extra four letters brings pains to my already arthritic fingers) video. Said video is entitled "Ideal Humans", and it is shot by Blake Matthews.

Mike Piwowar and Nick Matthews (Blake's younger brother; ripper extraordinaire) amongst others have parts, and I highly recommend picking up this finely crafted video. You can do so here.

And... drumroll, please. The reason you have come here, consciously or subconsciously: the selected moments of random, but mostly not so random, acts of skateboarding. 

Before we begin though... shout outs to Mike Piwowar and Ilja Maran who basically made this weekend happen on my end of things. 

Ahh the anticipation builds

Phil Cera Overcrook. Phil fucking murdered this spot. This is the least of his exploits. The rest shall remain secret in the interest of preserving the sanctity of video footage. 

Phil Cera Smith Grind. Phil was trying a trick with a flip and a couple rotations as well out of this back truck / dangling front grind but we will keep the specifics a secret. You know, sanctity. Potential in this particular case. Sentence fragments. 

Nick Matthews Fs Shove it BS Crook. This particular shot isn't a land, but it looks like one, eh? Nick Landed this very quickly, and then again for a second angle. Definitely check out the Ideal Humans video for solid footage form this kid, but in the meantime, here is some throwaway from Nick. 

Mike Piwowar BS Noseslide. Mike asked for his board to be broken should he fail to commit to this noseslide. He weaseled his way out of a $50+ deficit via a roughly 75% committal before taking it home on the next try. He then proceeded to add an exit board rotation which shall be showcase in the upcoming sequences post (Get hyped motherfuckers, ya'll damn right I'm gonna be posting regularly)

Mike Piwowar Swollie. By now, you may be wondering, "Chemical Kiln? The fudge is that? Is that some sort of hipsteresque juxtaposition of mildly fancy words?" (yes, I used juxtaposition, the epitome of art school kid words. fucking deal with it) Well, it's really just the first thing that popped into my head (after some consideration, yes) when I thought about what I do and like would like to promote (from a purely non-political standpoint). Film. Shooting film, developing film by yourself. This is what the title refers to, and in the next photo, you will see why I am so partial. 

Mike Piwowar Switch Heelflip. Mike spent a good sixty minutes getting this trick. We all love you, Mike, but at a certain point, I just have to stop shooting film frames. This (granted, unlit) digi frame showcases the basic reasons why people like film. The white balance was set at 5600k, as is the rating of the film that was used for the rest of the shots in this post, yet, look at the colors. Really, digi? You look like crayons. Not in the good way. Purple mountain majesty? Terra cotta? Veridian? No. Just green. Red. Blue. Boring. 

Ryan Chlumecky Bs Boardslide Nollie Bigspin over. In an immature act of rebellion against sequences, I shot Ryan's trick as a still, leaving the viewer confused, save the prior description of the skateboard maneuver performed. 

Brendan Herling Bs Boardslide. Brendan is a blast to go skate with and keeps it hesh as fuck. (Last digi shot for the post, I promise)

Blake and Brendan contemplating the moral, financial, and environmental ramifications of our modern industrial society. Maybe. 

Before we wrap up the photo section, here are two shots of mine that were recently Published in Focus which is a proudly east coast skate mag. 

Matt Lane 5050 Stoneham, MA

Nick Govatsos FS Boardslide LA, CA. Nick is an east coast transplant to the west coast. He keeps himself perpetually injured so that he doesn't ever have to actually ride a skateboard. All my photographs of him as actually rare glitches of photoshop work on my part. Entirely CGI. Just like Avatar. 

I realize that most of these shots are tiny on the post. I will figure this out in due time, but for now, just check out my Flickr for higher res images. Be warned... over 50% of the space on there is designated as digital wasteland for the purposed of showing somebody somewhere a shot from the day. 


Well, that's that and this is this. And these are these, and those are those. While I'm on the subject, I fully endorse Trader Joe's brand "Simpler Times" brews for your intoxicated evenings. Deliciously hoppy flavor and 6.2% alcohol content at $3 / 6 pack cant be beat. If you think you have found a better taste + inebriation capability to money ratio out there in the big wide world, email me, and I will send you a Money order for $3 US funds so that you may buy yourself a sixer of Silmpler Times and change your mind. Void where prohibited yadayada. 

I'm currently fiver silmplers in and loving it. 

Finally, I'm going to end this post, as I will future ones with a musical suggestion and a piece of news from our big wide world. 

This is the second album from Heatmiser, which is Elliot Smith's band before he went solo. It is a little more accessible that their first release, Dead Air, but despite the fact that I am generally opposed to accessibility, it is a relative term, and ... well shit, just check it out if you feel like it. 

No particular new story on this inaugural post, but a link of utmost importance. Democracy Now is almost exclusively the only news source worth listening to nowadays. You can get all their coverage online, but primarily, they are a radio news hour that air at 6AM and 10AM weekdays in LA on 90.7FM  and at 12 Noon on 90.3 in Boston. (most major cities also have it... just do some research). I don't mean to be pushy, but honestly, this is some of the most informative, relevant and honest reporting on our world today and well worth listening to on a regular basis. 

Give a fuck.