Heat, On Laser Disc

Skating Photos

2020 into 2021.

Not much going on, right?

During this pandemic I was a decent citizen. I stayed home, and if not, I was meandering all over the city on my bike taking b/w photos of crap in alleys.

To maintain a bit of sanity I would occasionally ride the bike downtown to meet up with the skate brethren and shoot a telephoto spaced out photo or two.

I haven’t been good at sharing this stuff because well, no one looks at the site anymore. It does work as a decent photo repository for self use, so maybe I’ll keep adding more here or there.

Here’s some recent-ish selections from who knows when.

David Gackstetter, backside smith. This set up was less Berra than one might guess by just looking at the photo. All materials were found onsite, so any tricks here receive a slightly higher score than if the materials were brought in from an outside source.
A mother load of debris. I felt blessed to find this post apocalyptic scene, while actually living in an apocalyptic scenario.
Drew Rickaby, backside nosegrind. Look at Bradford’s dumb hands creeping into the scene. I shot this on a Canon Rebel 2000, the same camera I used to shoot photos of Ben Vance for use on wiskate.com twenty years ago. Ben Vance did not already do this nosegrind though.
I lied, this is from pre pandemic. You can tell, because there are humans in the photo acting like normal people. Remember that? I wonder what Pizzy is showing to Hank here? Maybe they’re looking at the wiskate.com Wiki to find out what tricks Ben Vance already did.
Sean Hanley, wallride nollie. This is also from before the pandemic. The debris used to make the cellar door skateable were found onsite in this scenario as well. It’s weird how over the years you could either skate this spot forever, or get kicked out in one second.
Vince Stranc, boneless. I really am a dummy, this is also pre lockdown. I guess I’ve just been sitting on all of these photos for longer than I realized. Landing on that grate is kind of scary. I know it’s not likely to happen, but if you fell into that zone you’d be living a similar scenario to the South Korean film “The Host”.
HANK
Max Murphy – Boban assisted tailslide. Now we’re back on track. I rode my bike over here, and Risser was unloading the Boban from his van. Some points lost due to offsite material logistics, but still a nice scene. He did the same trick on another taller loading dock roughly fifty feet from here. This photo is nicer.
Curb delivery. Pre Covid.
Safety first! I hope we’re all through this soon, friends!

3.1

Skating Videos , , , , , , , ,

3.1 from Gabe Chan on Vimeo.

Hanley is sent back to the 3rd dimension to capture his duplicate version 5.3. If he’s not successful he will disintegrate…

Starring Max Murphy, Sean Hanley, Gabe Chan, Vince Stranc, Nick Mistele, Payne Counihan, Drew Rickaby, David Gackstetter, Brandon Spantikow, Eric Risser, Jimmy Brickner, Pat Murphy, and Taylor Lalk.

Production images below by Bradford Bishop:

Gabe Chan – Nollie Backside Tailslide
Max Murphy – Ollie
Drew Rickaby – Backside Smith

Handy The Movie: Edition 2

Skating Videos

Handy The Movie: Edition 2 from Josh Ellis on Vimeo.

I feel like I’ve written this diatribe at least six times now, but here we go anyway.

Instagram is great to quickly film up a few clips, edit them together with some quick cuts and LOLs, and post.  You might get some sick comments and several “likes” leading to that nice dopamine blast.  But that’s it, one or two days later, it’s never watched again.

The Handy series is an attempt to rescue these clips from the Memory Hole.  Above is Handy Edition 2, the cream off the top of my cell phone data from 2015.  The clips are presented in chronological order, more or less.  Enjoy?

Below, same idea.  One photo per month, from the cell phone data.  Year 2015.

Rewind: Mini Video 22 – Ben Vance Does Nashville

Rewind, Skating Videos

Mini Video 22 – Ben Vance Does Nashville (unoffical recreation) from Josh Ellis on Vimeo.

A reasonably accurate recreation of Mini Video 22 from February 22, 2001.  Nearly 20 years now.

I have the original web sized .mpg from 2001, and I found the raw footage on a Hi8 tape earlier this year.  I put the old file in the timeline and overlaid the raw footage over it.  The audio is original to the 2001 .mpg.  Making the “cool” animations was more annoying than it should’ve been.  But I persevered.

Comparison of today vs. 2001 web quality.  People used to wait 20 minutes for videos that looked like this to download, and they loved it, damnit.

Anyway, back to the past.  The crew wanted to skate.  It was too snowy and cold in Milwaukee.  I remembered a great plaza in Nashville I had skated once on the way to Florida a year or two before.  Might as well drive the ten hours.

Driving the Dodge Neon very far with no plan, to skate one spot. How did we get there? How did we find a hotel? I was there, before the Internet, and I can’t answer the question. The car blew the head gasket on the way back, and I traded it in the next day. They were none the wiser. Karma got me though, the new car was a piece of shit too.
I had no idea how to shoot a skate photo. Some would say I still don’t. Ben crooked grinds, Mike films. Pictured is the Canon GL1 I still use to this day. Used as recently as last year to make WAZPZ.
I’m not familiar enough with Nashville to say how different it looks now. Let’s say: some.

Nashville – Legislative from Josh Ellis on Vimeo.

Here’s some contemporary supplemental content of Greg, Mike, and Ben skating the plaza.

3

Skating Videos

The Sky People have sent Max Murphy, Gabe Chan, Sean Hanley, Nick Mistele, Drew Rickaby, David Gackstetter, John Rockafellow, Mikey Al Wathiqui, Pat Forster, Eric Risser, Cory Stubing, Vince Stranc, Taylor Lalk, Spazz, Bradford Bishop, and Jimmy Brickner to observe, research, and collect data from different dimensions through space and time.  This is what they found on their third mission which is believed to be the year 2020.

Production stills below.  All shot by Bradford Bishop.

Gabe, on the set.

Nick Mistele – Switch Frontside Crooked Grind

Max Murphy – Autumn Breeze Frontside Blunt

Sean Hanely – Risky Wallride

Nick Mistele – Backside Ollie

Max Murphy – Boban Assisted Tailslide

Drew Rickaby – Backside 180 Nosegrind

Chase Hopper – Nosegrind

Drew Rickaby – Switch Frontside Noseslide

Sean Hanley – Backside Tailslide

Rewind: Mini Video 38 – Entertain Me

Rewind, Skating Videos

Mini Video 38 – Entertain Me from Josh Ellis on Vimeo.

Originally posted May 10, 2007.

This is a biggie!  I think this is when we finally hit our stride, and for lack of a better term, the “classic” wiskate video was born.  I’d rank this one in the top 5.  Kind of silly, kind of serious, great cast of characters, and the song rips!  A recipe for success.

This time we have some photos from the sessions shown in the video! Pat Forster, Smith Grind. I feel like this was a bumper year for tipped over light poles. It seems like you only come across a specimen of nature’s answer to a flatbar one, maybe two times a decade. We had a few to skate that year, and it was lovely.
Pizzy Burnquist backside tails some natural transition. I’m pretty sure this was the first and only time this spot was skated. The building doesn’t exist anymore.
Same session, Gabe Chan post spaghetti switch tailslide. The food was from the diner “Riverbrook” on Capital. I’ve never seen a bigger and more varied menu. Tacos, Gyros, Ham, Turkey, White Russians, Gelato, Pizza didn’t matter, they had it. The menu was like a road atlas and every single thing was meidcore. It was great. RIP Riverbrook.
If we weren’t grilling, we were at a diner. Ben and Neal at the Omega Burger. I’m fairly certain this is the day that Ben uttered the immortal phrase “Pizzy’s Ball Hitch”. We were looking over a fence at some sort of undetermined industrial apparatus and those beautiful words spilled from his mouth without a thought put into them. Poetry in motion, unfiltered, true.
“Grasstoro”! This spot (?) was a long ass handrail jammed into the grass at an abandoned car dealership. I know we’re used to seeing these sort of things nowadays, but it was incredible when TJ pretty easily 5-0d the thing.
We rolled deep. We still do, but we did then too.
I already told you…grilling, or diners.
James at the Murder Barn. This is the same ramp that is now known as The Couch. There was a hot tub at this location that a goat was once in. I feel like that doesn’t happen that often in the world.
NOS Peregrine mags for only $65??? Things were different in 2007.
The artistic evolution of Gabe with MD 20/20 after a night at the Murder Barn.
Danny, slappy 50-50. I pulled this goofy thing off a building in Riverwest.
Russ and James, IN A DINER. Got it?

Rewind: Mini Video 37 – Irresistible

Rewind, Skating Videos


Originally posted March 29, 2007.

My grand idea is already falling apart. I thought it’d be easy to to look through the archives and find a bunch of great photos.  Then the “awesome” anecdotes that go with them would come rolling in like the waves on the sea. Alas, the reality isn’t so nice. Back then we didn’t wield cameras all day long like we do now. Or perhaps not much happened between the last one (end of February), and this one (end of March). I’m coming up dry.

This video does feature my favorite manual trick I ever filmed.  Danny did a great one.  I’ll usually straight up refuse to even try to film a manual.  Not my cup of tea.  Solid ending celebration too.  Russ reused the gorking out for his weirdo video segments he had on Fuel TV.  Remember Fuel TV?  Wow, what a time to be alive.

I hope the next one goes better.  Until then, heres several photos without any skateboarding whatsoever.  Actually, the site used to rarely feature skateboarding, so maybe it is perfect.


I do have these photos of digging out the polejam from the snow. Freeing it from it’s icy prison. Allowing us to express ourselves freely on our skateboards. But no photos of us skating it.

Molly did tear her ACL running to the car. So excited to visit Uncle Will at Cream City. So unsafe. She had to wear the cone for weeks. I had to manually bend her leg daily to cure it with physical training. She came out of it strong, regal.
Danny and the dirt gap. Again, some photos of the spot skated in the video. Again, no photos of the actual skating. The mud does look nice.
Me and “THE DUDE”. I never did catch the Dude’s name. He was at our Friday night dance party every single week. The Dude knew what was what and where to be. He was the man. I do wonder where he is today. Dude, if you’re out there, give me a call.
Who doesn’t love Frosted Mini Spooners?
Big Charles! This was the night where Danny got the nickname “TROY”. An infamous night. Unfortunately Charles is no longer with us. It’s great to remember the times we had together. Charles was definitely a real one.
After a BIG night in the city, Comet. Worst service, worst experience. Lesson never learned.
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