Ralph = Vomit

A while back, when Alan and Ralph got on Substance, I was in one of my drawing modes and was just doing weird drawings for the fun of it. I decided to draw some graphics for them, totally unsolicited, and while they seemed to like them, I don't think Harley was too psyched on them. Then again, they were more humorous and not quite like the image I think he was going for.

This was the one I did for Ralph:


This is the graphic I did for Alan. He plays the (electric) piano and is a Bjork fan. I had to add the Bjork logo so that people knew who it was. To some, it was obvious. To others, they had no clue. I thought the goose dress was a dead giveaway.

Oh yeah, Alan did the lettering for his name himself.

Speaking on Alan, here is some vintage footage of the man himself. Hopefully that works since it is a Facebook link.

While I was looking for the images of the deck graphics I came across this photo of Taji. I think it was from the Nike video premier.



So Alan and I ended up getting that key to the Autumn Bowl and I have skated it twice so far. Seeing as though I haven't skated it in a year and a half, I still haven't gotten my bowl legs back yet, but you definitely appreciate grinding more than you do on a miniramp, or bowl with metal coping. I am not psyched on 5 or 6 dudes showing up (all to skate) when only one of them has a key. Bringing one or two people is fine, but that place gets crowded really quickly. I didn't see anyone donate any money either. When I used to go with key holders I would always drop some money into the box. In fact, I don't think I even saw the box...hmm. Anyway, I will be skating there a lot more for the next month or two. I mean look at the forecast!



Also, I am going to be working on a documentary about the DIY skatepark/spot movement with a friend from Seattle. He is leading it up, but I am going to help out, especially with the NY coverage (footage, interviews, etc.). I am going to cover the Autumn Bowl, the Brooklyn Banks, and the one off spots build all around the city. I will keep you updated with the developments on that.

Substance Promo

The Substance Skateboards Promo is finally online for your viewing pleasure. There are a few clips that I contributed in there (they just spelled my name wrong in the credits, but whatevs).

Click to watch.

Overall, it is pretty good. Sassa killed it. We need more Alan, Ralph, Rob, and Scottie footage though!

going to asia

Since Sho's passing, I have been planning on making a trip out to Beijing, China to visit his parents. Those plans are finally coming to light, as I am flying out from NYC to Beijing on Thursday with my friends Jeremy and Gia. After about 5 days there, we are flying down to Jakarta, Indonesia to meet up with Budi then off to Bali the next day. As the date approaches, I am actually starting to get excited about the trip...finally. I am borrowing a pretty nice camera from a co-worker, so I am going to try to have some banging blog photos.



Well, back to NYC life.



About 3 weeks ago or so, Harley (owner of Substance Skateboards) told me to swing by and grab a deck. As I was looking through the decks, I saw this:





Mr. Ralph Murphy was turned pro! I was psyched and have been skating his board since. Also, Jahmal (Williams) had a shout-out for his new company, Hopps, in the latest Transworld. Check the site out!





Speaking of local companies, I have been riding Prize Fighter wheels for a while now and am pretty psyched on them. Billy Rohan, Rob Campbell, and Leo Gutman are riding for them now, so that is pretty hyphy. Check them out too.


Okay, okay, enough promotion. So I have been trying to skate as much as I can when not working and sometimes that means skating for 30 minutes or so during my lunch break. But it has been so humid out that I end up running back in for a meeting most of the time dripping in sweat...it is amazing. There also seems to be a trend that my friends are getting hurt, or they are out of town, or they are just over skating and it is super hard to find people to skate with sometimes...they don't have the "it's too cold out" excuse anymore. At least Matt (Rzeszutko) is coming back (the day after I leave for China) and that means a lot of rippage when I get back. He also quit ATM for 1031 and has been schralping with Kristian Svitak. He told me that the Rockstar video is almost done. Other than that, I don't really have anything new. Haven't heard from Leonard in a minute...I wonder what is up on the other coast? Leonard...City University of London?


I am going to leave you with the clip of the day, Levi Brown's part from the new Element video:

Dodging One-time

I was skating in Bushwick yesterday with Ralph and we were at this park skating a manual pad with a curse on it. We skated it for a little bit then went off to skate some other spots and returned to skate it some more. When we got there, this mongo-pusher was already there shredding:



The curse came shortly after. A police van drove through and there was some tension in the air, but he just kept going, no big deal. But then two cops walked up on foot and were asking to see IDs, telling us that we are not allowed to skate there. They asked us if we have gotten tickets before, implying that they were going to give us some. However, when I pulled my ID out, I made sure to make my card that my cousin (a cop in the NYPD) gave me. They enquired about it and then let us off with a warning...telling us to wait 5 minutes until they are gone to skate. Wow, I was impressed. These were the cops:



That was not the end of it, though. Five minutes later, we were sitting down talking about what just happened. Ralph was saying how lucky he was that they did not look up his info because he thought he had a warrant for a missed court date for a ticket or something. I told him that he should have just run and not worry about me, I can catch up later. Ralph lit a cigarette and then almost immediately a cop car pulled in (after lurking on us from the street). They told Ralph to give them his ID and he did (instead of running like I just told him to do). They told him that he cannot smoke in that park and then wrote him a summons. Apparently they did not look up his info either because they just gave him the summons and let us go. This is that car (with 3 cops in it):



We decided not to spend anymore time in that park and took off to scope out some other spots. I saw some park on the way and went in to check it out. Ralph came in then all of a sudden turned around and started walking in the opposite direction pretty fast...turns out that there was a police precinct on the other side of the park and Ralph was not trying to push his luck. Hahaha.


On a different note, I am going to Portland in 2 1/2 weeks to hang and shred with Leonard. I have a score to settle with a couple spots over there.

Also, the Wetboys have more fun than you do!

Doing (Big?) Things in '07

So I have been working too much to update, but I plan on putting together a clip of stuff that is essentially too wack for the video I am making. When that is done, it might entertain for a second...maybe. Speaking of, does anyone skate in NYC anymore?

Leonard is coming back from Portland next week to hold it down in New York for a bit, then off to the U.K. Sho is actually coming back from China the following week, but he will only be here for a month.

As a reminder...

This is Leonard


And this is Sho


The site is slacking but Substance Skateboards just added Ralph Murphy and Alan Siegler to their team of Rob Campbell. Rob Campbell and Alan Siegler will have boards dropping soonish...keep in mind, that is "soonish" for NY standards. I just found their MySpace page.

Here are the players in case you have no idea who I am talking about:

Ralph Murphy


Alan Siegler


Rob Campbell


Speaking of skateboarders...look out for that kid on Powell, John Motta. Dude is sick.

Mike Tyson is a gentleman. And he likes the word fornicate.


Leonard has the ill YouTube links.

Santa gives katanas

We had a Secret Santa gift exchange at my work before the holidays and the person that pulled my name got me a new set of wheel (right size too). This is what I got the person whose name I pulled...



Yes, that is real. It was pretty much the best Secret Santa gift ever...until I saw this.

The pains of Christmas shopping.




I am totally not down with this Halls ad.



Ralph rips transition, even 2" tranny.



This dude on the train in Queens looks eerily like Borat.



Video part of the day: Rob Welsh, from the heyday of one of my favorite (now defunct) companies, Aesthetics.

Ping-pong balls stuck on the air vents

Treats is for old ladies in the nursing home...

I used to live a stones throw from Crawfordville, FL. Needless to say, I moved.

So I was skating downtown last night with Ralph and we get to this one spot and within minutes of skating a security guard comes over. We just kind of stopped and were looking at him, figuring that he was going to kick us out, but the most amazing thing happened. He said, "Don't mind me. It is Christmas!" Then to top it off he came back later and was just babbling (blah, blah, blah), pretending to be kicking us out. I guess he got a noise complaint and had to come out and pretend he was doing his job. That dude wins security guard of the year award. Speaking of that spot, I ate it while filming Ralph and almost destroyed my camera on a swan dive after clipping my truck on one of the stairs. I guess luck was on my side last night.



This is the new spot under the London Bridge. Burnside/FDR/Washington Street have nothing on this.

Someone is insecure about their freestyle game.



Check out this dude's agility and stamina.



Video part of the day, Patrick Melcher. The music sucks, but the skating is amazing.

Finally...........

It has been a long time, but I have been really busy lately. Things are finally starting to calm down so I finally got some down time to post.

I went two weeks with only a couple hours of skating total, but I think I definitely made up for that this past weekend. I want to commend Ralph on proving to me that there are other people in New York City that are proactive about spots. I love finding new spots that I have skated by a million time but have never spotted.

Speaking of skateboarding. Skateboarding magazine interviews have been getting under my skin a lot lately. What is the point in putting these guys on a pedestal and letting them use your mouth as a jock strap? In other words, I am tired of reading how every skateboarder is an amazing multitalented person. Nobody cares. I want to read the dirt, or maybe something about skateboarding...maybe (I would rather see the pictures). Dave Carnie has the right approach to interviews, but 90% of the rest are wasting space.

I would love to have the job setting up decoy deer to attract people like this guy to "bump" them. I am kind of confused though, don't deer wreck people's cars when they "bump" them?

This confused me as well. How did the burglar see these images on the computer in the first place? Did they decide that they needed to check their Myspace while they were near a computer?

Mortified? Most guys would be flattered.

Quit complaining about the cold and just go skate, slackers.