Scottie and I decided on a mission to make a semi-cemented barrier spot in Queens a fully-cemented barrier spot (still in Queens, haha). Here are some photos from the last couple nights working on it.
Scottie with the tools to begin the sesh. You can see the little bit of cement that was there to the left.
5 bags the first day, with water from the car wash up the street.
And the process begins...
Scottie's got clout (buckets)!
After finishing up on the first day (no photos, sorry), we realized that we were really only half way there...unless we only wanted wallrides. So we went back last night with another 5 bags.
This local, Solomon, helped us out. He had extra tools and some experience in cementing.
Touching it up a bit.
Scottie was filling in some cracks while we were at it.
Overall, it went pretty smooth. We did have a cop roll up on us last night, caught like deer in headlights, but he was cool. He asked if we saw anyone painting graffiti around and we said no. Basically he acted like nothing was happening and left. Pretty amazing. Can't wait to skate it!
Holy Crap! Leonard posted! I didn’t expect that to happen…
So, you are in my thoughts or whatever, bro. haha.
I would be psyched to read your book, Lard. Let me write your introduction…even though I don’t know much about what you are writing about.
I am not psyched on the seal or rabbit fur (vegan, remember?), but I am psyched on you two traveling. I mean, that whole EU thing should serve some purpose outside of the financial thing…errr, let’s not talk about that financial thing since we are not doing as well as you guys over here. Remind me to tell you about my project related to that at some point. **Since some people (*cough*Camille*cough*) don't understand what I meant by the traveling thing, I was implying the ease of travel throughout Europe.**
Camille and I are going to be venturing out west to find our new home soon. Well, we probably won’t move until ’09, but we need to find something now so that we can plan. Your hometown is on the top of the list, dooood.
We are also thinking about getting one of these:
Imagine the parking possibilities with one of those. I wouldn’t ever have to worry about a spot. That thing is 3 feet shorter than a Mini Cooper, and it has amazing gas mileage. Plus I don’t have to give people rides because there is no room…suckas. We will see if it happens…
Leonard, check this out:
So with the failed attempt to make a video, here are some of the clips I have been saving up mixed with some throwaways. This is what is left over from what I gave away and what I put away in case I do decide to continue with the project. I know some of these are ABDs, but they weren't when they were filmed... Featuring: Gary Rzeszutko, Luis Tolentino, Jeremy Cohen, Anthony (?), Boston Evan, Eric Collins, Lurker John, Jerry Mraz, Steven (?), Maurice Leeke, Ralph's NH Friend, Ray Wong, Warwick TJ, Taji Ameen, (?), Miles Marquez, Rob Campbell, Ralph Murphy, Alan Siegler, Eby Ghafarian, Andre Lezema.
ok, well, i just finished my coursework for my masters in library and information studies. my second masters, mind you, (and my fifth year of post-bachelors education). i felt pretty beat afterwards. For my one of my classes, i, among other things, designed this website:
it seems to only work on internet expolorer, and there are some navigation problems besides, but whatevs. It uses HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. what do you want?
Ok, btw, the picture is from Vienna. Caireen and I went there for a long weekend on a package deal. behind me is the secession building, which was an important center for--you guessed it--the vienna secession movement. On top of the building is a golden cabbage. I don't know why. Here, below, is Caireen in this amazing Vienna fleamarket. I bought a straight-razor and caireen bought two miniature seals with seal fur(?) and a little purse for change made of rabbit fur.
Vienna was pretty rad, i have to say: nice people, super-efficient public transportation, and culture up the ass hole. (I separated the words "ass" and "hole" there for emphasis.) This fairly small city produced Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gustav Klimt, Karl Popper, Egon Scheile, and Sigmund Freud. Like, what did Portland, Oregon ever produce? Matt Groening and the Dandy Warhols. Did Portland ever produce a philosophical, psychological, or artistic movement? No.
Then again, did Vienna produce Chris Stuker, Matt Beach, Jayme Fortune and Mikey Chin. I mean, there are certain levels of steeze that can only be produced in certain specific, controlled environments.
I mean, just look at this, will you?
Ok, anyway. As you, Eby, predicted, i have been in a pit of reading. not much interesting to report. I have become a huge fan of Friedrich Kittler, and All the Pretty Horses is a very good book, as you probably already know--even if Blood Meridian is better.
i haven't been skateboarding much. saying it makes me feel kind of ashamed. when i tell friends who don't skate they seem really sad for me. perhaps it's that i let school and whatever worries take over my life to that degree. i think it is that i feel ready for something amazing to happen, and i have the irrational belief that performing well in a librarianship course at City University would lead to this amazing thing happening. Well, some good shit has happened. I got a library supervisor job at the University of Greenwich. And I think my dissertation will turn out well. What I would really like is to publish it. That would count as an amazing thing, in a way. So, like, put me in your thoughts or whatever.
Also, did you know what the hot shit in London is right now? Track bikes. That's right, basically everything that was cool in New York, like 5-7 years ago is just now hitting the streets of london. The British also seem to believe that social networking websites just suddenly appeared six months ago. Seriously.
Last Friday I had to do the inevitable: get my wisdom teeth taken out...all four of them! Luckily I did not swell up at all and have had a pretty good recovery (minus some sore jawness).
I took this was I woke up in the recovery room. A little swollen and out of it, but that was the worst of it.
Bloody gums!
Two days later, I went to see Fuerzabruta with Camille and her mom (for her mom's birthday). It was pretty sick. If you can just ignore the house music and NYU students in the audience, it is a very immersive experience. Everything is happening all around and above you, they move you around the room, and they come into the audience. Here are some photos from my phone (no flash allowed):
Camille and her mom taking it in.
Corny audience enjoying the house music.
This was the best part. They has girls sliding through water on this huge square of plastic sheeting above us. It was pretty amazing.
They would lower them down and then back up a few times. When it would come down, dudes would try groping through the plastic.
I wonder what material that was. They were jumping all over it and it looked mad stable.
This video is totally exploiting this kid and his family for the sake of the news story, but there are some funny quotes:
"It's fun to do bad things."
"Do you think you should be punished?" "Just a little bit, no video games for the weekend."
However, that is all besides the point. My biggest concern is the racism within the comments area:
"I'm not going to say all blacks will go to jail in their lifetime, but more blacks than whites are in jail... for things like murder."
"they make it hard to find watermelon in the summer"
"If this kid were white, Jesse Jackson and Rev. Sharpton would be all over it b/c he would have been endangering black lives on their joyride. I am so glad my eight year old isn't 'hood rat' Then again, he would look like a javelin standing next to this future prison inmate. Learn to dribble a basketball you fat phuck."
"Stupid damn monkeys! Why can't these 'people' behave and act decently? I use the term 'people' lightly. They dont belong in jail, they belong in a zoo."
"black kids are just sooo stupid haha!"
Obvious the anonymity provided by the internet encourages these comments, but I am disgusted with the fact that people think like this. I know, I know, nothing new, but it just goes to show why we as citizens are not intelligent and accepting enough to create change, thus allowing the country to fall to shambles. As the recession progresses and we become less of a world power, these idiots can be held responsible. *End serious though*
I will leave you with a number by the lovely Jan Terri. I finally re-discovered this video after searching for it recently:
I like to capture many everyday moments in life that amuse me. The most convenient way to do so is with my cellphone, since I have it with me everyday (minus the days I have my Alzheimer's morning). Well, I finally got around to taking some of the photos off my phone this year. So here are a few scattered moments from 2008:
This photo in H&M has intrigued me for a while. There are so many questions: What is she doing/pretending to do? Who is she thinking of? Does she knows what it looks like she is doing?
Guess what number I got when I went to get a DVR box from Time Warner!
Kocik wishes she got the same number from Time Warner...
This was the premier for the Charlotte Skate Video that I went to the last time I went to Charlotte to visit my family. They had couches out in the middle of a parking lot for people to sit on. The video was pretty good, minus the lack of production put into it. I am glad they FINALLY have a scene there.
This ain't Florida!
Someone didn't want their wok stolen! I have to say, seeing a wok locked to a gate in Soho has to be one of my highlights from living in NYC thus far.
Don't forget to pick up the STD pillow case from Target, dear.
What flavor ice???
This grimy rat was chilling...just limping down the platform during rush hour. I think he got off on scaring the ladies coming out of the arriving train.
I met Ronnie from "Make Me A Supermodel" on the uptown E train. He had a whole film crew with him...this was 2 weeks before the finale. He ended up in second, btw.
My favorite! I love spineapple and scantalupe!
I went to Chicago on business.
It was dark and rainy the whole time...
At least they have hot asian buns...tehehe
I found this vegan restaurant called Karyn's Cooked. They had this bangin' pizza, but wack mac' and cheese.
Being in the midwest, you can expect more than just a bible in your hotel drawers. Sweet!
From Chicago I was off to Detroit. Still dark and wet...
I went to GM and looked through the cars in the showroom. Once I came upon this beast I wanted to see the MPG it got: denied. "Not applicable on this vehicle." What?!
Sam, a designer at my job, broke his hand snowboarding. He got a special package while he was out. He probably needed that.
So Billy Rohan's King of Spring contest just went down last Saturday. I didn't make it out, but it looked sick on RB's HVX. Jeremy told me the fisheye for that thing runs $4k...ouch. Eitherway, there were some amazing tricks getting thrown down. Jahmal's 5050 roll-in on the van was ridiculous!
Last Thursday I got around to making it out to the second premier of the Rockstar video and the NY premier of the Second Nature video. The Focus video also was shown, but I had to break out before. So here are my thoughts. The Rockstar video was much better than I expected (I know, hater). I saw some surprising footage from people that I didn't think had it in them (or even really skated much anymore...maybe it is old?). The highlights are the second half of Gary Rzeszutko's part, Matt Rzeszutko's part, Louis Tolentino's part, Dustin Charlton's part, and Manimal and Scottie's few tricks. Those dude's throw down. The negatives: knee sliders in actual video (if anything should have been in credits), super long girl part (with lots of boring "lifestyle" filler), Danny Falla and Rodney Torres only have a couple tricks, rough editing (not in a "cool" way).
The Second Nature video started off kinda slow/boring, but toward the second half got pretty amazing. I didn't know who most of the people skating in it were, but the highlights are definitely Brian Brown and Jose Pereyra. Jose killed it with super tech tricks on sketchy spots. Honestly, I thought Brian's part in this video was better than his Listen part...chomp on that. Disappointing: Steve Marino blue boarding us (no homo) with only a sampling of his board techniques. I wanted a full part, because Steve is amazing on the wood (no homo). Also, the editing was not very fluid. It would cut out quickly from one segment and just jump into the other without any real transition. Some songs were even just cut off...no fade or anything.
Overall, I would give the Rockstar video 6 out of 10 stars and the Second Nature video 5 1/2 out of ten stars. *For a basis of comparison, Fully Flared gets a 9 out of 10 and Bag of Suck gets an 8 out of 10. When (if) my video comes out, I am shooting for the negatives on Jeremy Cohan's scale...which is much stricter than mine. His scale is all video are under 5's except for Alien Workshop videos, which are 10's. I wonder where the Chapman video lives on that scale? I wonder where the Chapman video is...apparently not on DVD yet.
Some "lady" at my job decided to take a dookie on (not in) the toilet in the women's restroom at my job today. Classy. I made a sign and had someone go put it on the door and get a photo for me.
