Don't Mess With Taxes

A couple years back, Crailtap had a contest for a t-shirt design that tied a celeb with a jail record in with the brand. I think they had one with Paris Hilton as an example. Anyway, around that time, the whole scandal about Wesley Snipes being on the run from the IRS was all over the papers, so I submitted this:



Here is the Paris Hilton shirt:



Anyway, here are some more photos that I have taken recently-ish. I will go with a Christmas theme since scientists ruined it anyway.


I went to Rocafeller Center after work one day to get a picture of the tree for my mom (and since I only work like 3 blocks away). It took me 20 minutes to swim through the crowds of people from a block away to get to it, get the photo, and get back. Not fun by any means.


They had all these weird, random figures set by by the Christmas tree in my apartment building for like 2 months.


We scoped out the light show they do at Grand Central every year during the holidays.


My mom and I got disposable camera that we are going to take all the photos on and mail them to each other to develop for the surprises. This is one I took with mine.




It was hard to capture the light show in a photo, but I tried.


Sharp had a huge tree made out of TVs in there.




Lastly, this is a snowman melting in someone's yard. Not sure what that phallic thing sticking out of the head was supposed to be though...

On 2 hours of sleep

Since I don't have a Pro Account on Flickr, I only get to put photos up once a month, since my alloted bandwidth runs out in less than one upload. Well this morning was that time of the month. After skating the bowl, I was up until after 5am editing and uploading photos. Check out the photos I have uploaded on my Flickr page.

And since I have had a lot of other photos that wouldn't fit in this upload, I just put them on Photobucket. I will post some on here throughout the next few days. Here is the first batch.


This is from the Translations premier in the Lower East Side.


The place was pretty packed, but I would be surprised if more than 20% were there for the premier.


Peter was one of those.


There are rats everywhere in this filthy town!


Have you ever had a candy corn float?! During Halloween, Jones Soda makes candy corn soda and I always buy it up. Add some vanilla soy ice cream and it is amazingly peculiar.


I love what someone did to this poster of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button in Greenpoint.


Jahmal Willams gets in ninja mode during the holiday shopping season.

Well, I'm out for now. More to come tomorrow.

Actually, if you have seen it already, go to Pete's blog to check out a statistical analysis he did on the Battle at the Berrics. Good times.

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.

"those kids are so cute and awesome. fed up with the cold and 7!! haha" - Camille

My nephew, Eman, is pretty much obsessed with Africa (Kenya, in particular). Last time I went to go see him, he kept showing me his rock from Kenya and saying that he wanted to go there. He wanted me to take him there in the plane that he thinks I live on. I convinced him that his best bet was to draw pictures of himself in Africa and to pretend, which my sister said that he did. Well, Camille sent me a link to this article and said "This will be Eman's idea in the future too, I bet!"

I am in the process of trying to get a key to the Autumn Bowl for a couple months this winter. I need a go to spot when the weather sucks and I need to skate more transition.



That is Alan with the BGPs in this photo of Pat Smith doing a stalefish. Alan might be going in on a key with me. If so, expect a full Alan Siegler Bowl part one day (maybe).

Are you familiar with FailBlog? Well, it is by the same people that do LOLCats and I have been getting into a lot more lately. They have some pretty entertaining videos in their YouTube Channel too. Like this one:


Nothing like seeing a girl scorpion.

or this:

He must be a committed reporter if he could finish his broadcast after that.

or this hog embarrassing a lion (you know it is embarrassed):


or this:


I can go on forever with these, so I will just give one last one:


Where has Leonard been? Anyone know?

I have been taking a lot of photos with my LX3 and will be posting some of them soon. I have been sorting through them and need to edit some first.

I'll ride up your pipe...

Have you seen the new cover of Skateboarder Magazine?!



Louie Barletta is a monster. Loop - full pads (including hip pads) - dudes on the side with pads to throw under him if he falls - roll up and ride away - prefab = amazingly legit!

So I pretty much have banked on Christmas and Camille got me this:


And this:


Now I need to learn to play this:


The funny/coincidental part is that I got her a Guitar, so perhaps we can duel each other...once we figure these things out.

(Fire) Foxy (Spaghetti) Cat

Here are two more edits I just submitted for The Final Flare Outtakes Outtakes Edit Contest. If you don't know about Spaghetti Cat, YouTube it. I am a fan of The Soup, sorry.

Gifs killed the video star (or Christmas Gifs)

Crailtap is having The Final Flare Outtakes Outtakes Edit Contest, which involves using the outtakes of the outtakes to put together your own edit. They provided the few skate clips (though using all of them isn't necessary). Here are my etries:



My second was took another route entirely...another medium to be exact. I introduce the new wave of video editing...animated gifs!



Here are some videos that I have enjoyed recently:


These orange guys are either trying to teach this little kid how to mack or they are trying to mack on him. Either way, it is creepy.

New Photography

I took a bunch of photos with the LX3 and have edited a few. I was going to upload them to Flickr, however, you only get so much space per month unless you pay for a pro account. Since I already pay for a pro account on Photobucket, I figured that it would just be a waste. So here are the photos I took (hosted on Photobucket):


Smiling sink drain


Box cat



Full moons don't look nice with a wide angle lens


Dragon Vs. Cat


Jenga


Michelle, Camille, Maya


Trashed Romance


Light-proofing


Matt reviewing


Con Ed Banks


Lost daylight


This is America



Large Labia (bush included)


Matt's vagina booty



Tranquil on the outside


Sun sets on LIC


Crossing paths



Time Travel


Once plush


Reality

SNL Governor Paterson Impression

So apparently NY Governor Paterson was not amused by the Fred Armisen impression of him on this past week's Saturday Night Live. I guess he was disappointed in how spot-on it was: from the look to how he got into office to his views. Paterson now knows that he has not gone unnoticed. I love how it is all fine and good for any other group to be targeted, but once you come after the disabled, you are going to far. Let's see. SNL has made fun of fat people, retarded people, muslims, woman, blacks, hispanics, jews, gays, WASPs, christians, southerners, the whole state of Illinois (and others), the French, NYers, etc. etc. etc. It seems like everyone is fair game, just don't come after the physically disabled...please. Where were you when they made fun of fat people, Paterson? That is considered a disability now. Maybe they are below you. Afterall, you are proposing a 15% tax on sodas that are not diet in NY. Yeah, that is going to solve all the state's financial problems. Anyway, here is the video:

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!

Cloud Spit

I like this ad. Apparently those bikes are between $3-7k.



There are a couple other ones, but they weren't as good as that one.

Speaking about ads, watch this. I really like deadpan humor and I am keen on the delivery. "Two cannibals are eating a clown, one says to the other, 'does this taste funny to you?'" Perhaps it is because I have been a fan of Paul Harvey.



Remember when I posted these shoes months back and said that I wanted some? Well, they are finally coming out, but cost a whopping $110. I retract the statement of me wanting them. I wanted to skate in them so that the hounds-tooth appeared when the denim wore down. But if I even wasted $110 on these, there is no way I would skate in them. Lame.

That is it for now. I just need this rain to let up so that I can get some skating in. My legs are withering away...

I'm Outdated

I figured that I had a lot of old, stale footage that I don't want to use on anything legit, so I decided to make a clip of it last night. Some of the footage is fairly recent, but was more throwaway, fun footage than anything. You can tell the age of the clip this way: oldest = dreads, then short hair. The more recent footage is me with longer hair pulled back.

Rainy Days

Remember a couple posts back when I was talking about skating Pathmark with Peter and Paul? Well, here is the footage...



Props to Pete's backside 360 and Paul's line! And yes, we do flatground kickflips in lines...because we can.

Who wants to tumbl(r)?!

Oh yeah, I have a tumblr account now. I guess I am going to start micro-blogging there. Feel free to follow me on it, or just check in on it if you don't see any updates here. I will definitely be updating it more often then this, but the updates will be much shorter (hence the word "micro"). I will add it to the "other outlets" area on the right of this blog so that it is easy to find.

http://elasticback.tumblr.com/

Anything good on? Not really.

Penguin escapes whale attack by jumping onto whale watching boat.


Cardiel...just because.


Sorry, not much to post. Maybe this sums it up well.



I plan on shooting a lot of photos and whatnot over the weekend. I might even put together a skate clip.

Last night I skated with Peter and Paul (not the apostles, but the next best thing) at Pathmark since it was raining. For those of you who don't know, Pathmark in Queens is one of the few NYC rain "spots," since it is an indoor parking garage for the grocery store. There isn't much there besides a manual pad, some curbs, and some barrier you can jump over, so usually the sessions are mellow and mediocre (at best). However, last night was super fun. I think we ended up skating there for like 3 1/2 hours and Pete brought out his camera to get some fun bro-cam footage. We got some some fun stuff captured in motion picture. I found the base of a freestanding handicap sign that I flipped over for some fun wallie action. Paul even got a pretty legit line for the session we were having. I think Pete might edit something together this weekend. If he does, I will post.

I will leave you with some Band of Horses.

You're All I Need

I just bought a new camera on Tuesday, this one:



It is the Panasonic LX3. I got it in silver (mostly since they were out of black, the silver was $20 cheaper and I didn't want to wait). I have been looking into this camera for over a month now, but kinda pushed it back in my mind and didn't really think of it until Monday when Allen Ying IM'ed me about my thoughts on it. Basically we convinced each other to get it and met up on Tuesday and bought them from B&H. I have been reading through the manual and this camera is pretty much amazing for a digital point and shoot. I just need to put it to the test. I took some test shots yesterday in the park during my lunch break. You can check them out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elasticback/

Now that I have a good p&s camera, I will be totally making more photo updates than I have been.

If you wonder where I have been, I have been hanging out on the Thrasher Message Boards. Go register and get down. Type and Destroy!

Here is a promo for North End (not sure what that is, but the promo is sick):


Now listen to this and get as hyped as you did in '95!