I think going from great weather to total fucking bullshit has me coming unhinged a bit. I went from biking to work in a sweatshirt to walking to work backwards while wearing two hats on my head and a hat in each pocket of my jacket to keep my hands extra toasty. If anyone would like to give me a ride to work, I will gladly accept. Oh, and I will be needing a ride home too. Thanks.

Winter obviously leaves a lot of time for extracurricular activities. I am sure winter is when Josh first started this site and the same will be said for the guys over at mkeskate. They have a forum for you boners to talk stupid just like we did until Josh cracked and made it go away. I am sure they will continue to update and hopefully have enough videos to keep you off the message board. Keep up the good work guys.

Skating is not happening enough. Once a week just doesn't cut it for me. Not that I could go more, having to work 6 days a week doesn't allow for much else besides drinking and late night X Files marathons. Cream City; I miss you.

I don't know if you guys care much (you should), but BEEZ III is in the final stages of production and should be out some time next month. This should be the end all/be all of locally produced skate videos. You will be sitting in a pool of your own urine and shivering by the time it's over. That's a promise*.

I wish Josh would put up those pictures he took the other day. Pretty epic and possibly contenders for Wiskate's photo of the year.

Photo time.



This is Gabe. Gabe comes from Illinois to stay with Josh and I on weekends so he can go to this one lame bar and then skate the next day. Sometimes Gabe will go into sloth mode and sleep until 2pm. This picture demonstrates what sloth Gabe looks like after 13 hours of sleep.



This is Gary. Like Gabe, Gary likes to sleep away the day and rage during the nighttime hours. Here he is pictured with his sister Louise who you met in an earlier update. Fuckin' Ga......awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

*Promises are not guaranteed to be kept.

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I pretty much have NOTHING to contribute at this point. I'm a bump on a log. It snowed again. I'm very happy... my chats to the snow gods have been heard. I know that the rest of you are pissed off or unhappy, but this is Wisconsin for Christ sakes! 50 degrees in January? Ugh.
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Some of our fellow bros are down at Tampa Am. Good luck men.

Make sure you keep an eye out on the Skatepark of Tampa website for up to the minute... or day... updates on the goings on at this prestigious event. Who knows... maybe a local Wisco rider will come away with it.



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In other news now that Agroism is back in order fellow photo nerds in the wisco area are uniting. Both Risser and Drews are on there, go out and peep 'em when the galleries get runnin' it's gonna be HOT HOT HOT. If only we could get Josh to join in on our trip to photo nerds-ville.

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Speaking of Josh not liking stuff... he hates sports... But I want to know how he can posibly hate sports when it gives us great stories like this... A man posted an ad on Craig's List in Chicago looking to possibly give up his terrific tickets in exchange for goods... it reads as follows...

"I have 2 GREAT sideline seats to Sunday's NFC Championship game, I am looking to trade for any of the following: Upper body laser hair removal (4-5 treatments), a dilated eye exam with Lasik surgery, minor stomach area liposuction, a 50" (or bigger) LCD DLP big screen TV, bathroom and kitchen remodeling (parts and labor), or . . . you name it ... of equal value . . . but it better be good!"

I'm gonna take a moment to just make a list of his demands once again...

Upper body laser hair removal (4-5 treatments)
a dilated eye exam with Lasik surgery
minor stomach area liposuction
a 50" (or bigger) LCD DLP big screen TV
bathroom and kitchen remodeling (parts and labor)
Something good.

In summary... it looks as though our poster is hairy, fat, blind, spends alot of time in front of his TV and has a terribly bad TV and Kitchen. I would have to say that the guy probably looks like this... who'd settle for something good... maybe a date with this woman? She looks to be just as large. Turns out that this guy looks like he's gonna get his trade.

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In other skateboard news... the blokes over at Panasonic have a video contest going... "Share the Air". Looks like the winner gets a $16,000 HD video camera... aka camcorder for all you old school cats. Seems like a bargain given that every skate rat in the WORLD has a little hand held. Better get to the editing station. And while your at it... make sure that it's better than the kids from Minnesota. They threw together a hot video featuring epic scenery, horses, love and a mini-ramp. Almost sounds like Brokeback. Too bad these dudes are Amish. Go check it out!

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So that great video part I linked to yesterday is already gone. At least Munz caught it in time and I got to find out what video it was from. Doesn't look to be all as golden as John Motta's part, but whatever, it's probably worth the price of admission just for dude's part.

What the hell else is there to talk about? How about a 70 layer After Effects animation? I'm losing my mind.

Submissions
Sean Drews sent over some wintertime underground skating photos. If you have any Wisconsin skating photos to submit, send them here.


First is Jake doing a backside flip over a barrier...


...and an underground party pic. Sweet.

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I know that I promised i'd update from every location, but that didn't seem to work at all. In part it was due to my deteriorating health condition that came about on the trip, but was also due to the lack of stoke that seemed to be upon the site. One promise that I will come through on is the update about every city, complete with pics. In sequential order, I bring you Barcelona.

Getting There

Holy balls was this a mission. Have you ever flown Alitalia? It's pretty much the worst airline in existence. Period. I actually know that this has been touched upon in various skate mag articles so I won't go into details, but they are seriously the worst. I suppose if you were flying First Class it might be okay, but maybe not even then. I mean, with all this no water from home bullshit, and the fact that no one is quite sure whether you can bring on water that you bought after the security checkpoint, it can make things quite arrid indeed. On this flight, they decided that no water that one brought on was okay, included that water that was purchased after security. That being the case, you'd think that the friendly flight attendents would be handing out water during the entire flight. Wrong. Alitalia trades the standard notion of customer service for a "whenever the fuck we feel like it" policy. You want water? There's a cart in the back of the plane, help yourself. The water's gone? There's some wine there. You don't want wine? I'll get more water later. You get the idea...

The moral of the story is Alitalia sucks, this was my second and last time flying with them and the Milan Airport (where we transferred) is honestly like some sort of inner circle of hell. Once we transferred we were off to Barcelona, and ready for a quick nap.

We're here

Finally able to relax we went to our hotel to find that we had a cute little balcony with this view.

After we got settled we went to eat at this rad little vegan cafe, and had a much needed refueling. Although it was contested by a sister (an American living in Northern Spain) of a friend, Spain and Barcelona in particular has an interesting history of vegetarianism stemming largely from the Spanish Civil war and the Anarcho-Syndicalists view of diet. Here's Juniper at the cafe.

Language

Most people assume that since they are in Spain, people in Barcelona will speak Spanish. While it is true that people from Barcelona do speak Spanish, Spanish is not the official language. Barcelona is in Catalonia, a region of Spain that seeks autonomy, and speaks Catalan. Barcelona is an interesting place because it is essentially entirely bilingual. You will hear Spanish being spoken, but people prefer Catalan, and it is not a dialect of Spanish, it is an entirely different language. It almost sounds French at times, and some words carry over. That being said, even with a decent grasp of Spanish, it is a different Spanish than I'm used to, so it took a little bit to get used to.

We took a walk down to the harbor and found this. I don't really know what it is, but it was weird enough that it deserved a pic.

This was a nice way to break up a dull afternoon.

This was right near where we stayed.

We walked through this little placa to get our favorite eating establishment. It was lovely.

Sights?

I/we don't usually go for the whole sightseeing vacation. I usually just like to walk around, go to different parts of town, skate, chill, eat at cool places etc. In terms of sights, you can see anything you want in a book, but you can't be exposed to people, lifestyle, streets etc. without getting out there, so that's what we did. This guy in Warsaw we met put it perfectly. He basically said that he travels very slow because he interested in people, not monuments and museums. You can't get a feel for a place in two days he said. Point taken, but sometimes one can't resist. MACBA gets bashed in guidebooks as being a prime example of style over substance, but everytime I've gone inside, I have not been disappointed. Here's a shot from the Gego exhibition.

It's now time to introduce our third travelling partner, Chupi. Chupi came with us to MACBA, but got hungry and crabby and had to go sit outside. Note the famous ledge he chose to sit on. Luckily No one wanted to thrash it, or he could have been in trouble.

Skating

I brought my trucks and bought a board on Christmas eve (for some reason the shop was open) with the intention of trashing my ass off. When I tried to set it off, I was really weak and had no motivation. I ended up going to some key spots including Fondo, which was really nice. Next time though, I need the dudes there. I wouldn't find out why I felt so shitty until later.

Close to MACBA is the Anarcho-Syndicalist study center. As mentioned earlier, Barcelona has a fascinating history of Anarchist resistance. It's usually the "go-to" when people are discussing large scale anarchist success stories. Here's a pic...

Finally our last day before we were whisked away to Berlin. A perfect, beautiful Barca afternoon.

Judging by the amount of time I have on my hands, I could do one of these everyday, but I think I'll keep it to one a week due to the length. Ciao!

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This is one of the best new video parts I've seen in awhile. I have no idea who this guy is (John Motta), but the footage looks like it's from Arizona. I'm sure this will be taken offline very soon, so watch it while you can. I don't even understand that first kickflip wallride he does. Doesn't seem like it should be possible.


It snowed all night last night, looks like winter is finally here.

Balls.

We did manage to squeeze in one final day of skating outside on Saturday before the snow came. I got some photos and whatnot, I'll get them on here sometime this week.

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I haven't had time to touch the site at all this week. Beez 3 is a-comin' and I'm super busy with all that business. Here's a quick winter photo for you though:


Tim Olson, winter wallride from last weekend. I think it might snow later this week. Garbage.


Fuckin' Gary.

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...Thursday. Yes, Thursday. Why else would they be working?

But Thursday's people find themselves ominously close to the weekend and thus start things off early. I'm here today to let you know that you need not worry about starting things off early. In fact you may have gone a little TOO long with out a long night of binging. According to The Buffalo Theory you might be BETTER having a few of those nights every once in a while. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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You might take yourself over to Headquarters to take a look at some new photos. Last weekend your friendly neighborhood photog found himself at a few different spots trying to get a good photo. I think I got a couple. You judge... and let me know if you think they could be better. Critiques are always welcome. Hit me back, Let me know what you really think.

You can see Dan Nepscha here.
Marques Devaughn Here
and The one and only Beisel here.

Enjoy.

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In recent developments the website Agroism is back in action. You may not care, but for those of us that spend hours sitting behind a lens, this is a fantastic development. If you haven't gotten your skate photo fix yet, you might want to start venturing over there. Skate photos like WHOA! You can register and post your stuff if you feel you're up to the challenge. One word of caution... these boys give good honest critiques. If you can't handle someone telling you your shit smells, then you'd best not put yourself out there.

Mr. Ellis and I have also been discussing cameras like the nerds we are. We both would really like to get our hands on a FULL frame digital camera. We've both been oogling the Canon 5D. I've had the pleasure of shooting with one on multilple occasions. I love 'em. Josh on the otherhand has been the bearer of bad luck and has never caressed such a beautiful body. It's sad but true. Just to give you a little taste of what it's like, I'm gonna leave you with this photo of John Osmanski beezin' like it's nobodies business... he even wore a tie. What a gentlemen. This particular image was shot with a Canon 1Ds. Oh what I'd give to be married to that piece of work.





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Here is a picture of Sam Hitz doing a sweet hand plant on the Cream City mini ramp.
Damn, thats sweet!

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I think it's time to get back in the update mode. We have been slacking harder than ever and using winter as an excuse just doesn't cut it. We have been skating and filming and working on BEEZ III and all sorts of other stuff.

This weekend was epic. Carn and Gabe were in town and a lot got accomplished. Gabe pulled a Ferris on Friday and took the day off of work to roam Milwaukee and skate and film with me for Scott Bauer's new video Ulterior Motive. We had some luck, got a few moves on tape and had a great time. Saturday Carny came up from Illinois and brought some friends for some more BEEZ III action. If I even began to tell you what happened on Saturday you wouldn't believe me. And if you did believe me, I would have to kill you. It all ended with Josh firing up the pizzaz pizza maker and having a feast complete with Dr. Bold's and Jack's mexican style pizza. I need to get across to you guys that BEEZ III is going to possibly be the most insane thing you will ever see. Make sure to come to the premiere when it happens. And wear some rubber diapers, because you're sure to wet yourself.

Pictures for you!



This dude is rad. A.K. from who knows where. He lived in my closet for a summer when I lived in Madison. Super good guy and has some amazing skills. He was involved in the "poonicorn" scandal which you may or may not have heard about. He's friends with Moby and some other famous people, but I am sure he could give a shit. Come back soon Adam.



Gabe loves his Guitar Hero. He also loves drinking soda with pizza (and Pizzy) and wacky ledge tricks. He's super patient behind the camera and that leads to inconsistent people like me getting footage. Thanks Gabe.



Josh needed a new board and figured since Pat's pro model has been sitting at our house for over a month (or three) it automatically makes it his. Check the prince albert on that baby. Graphics by Josh and I.



How did this happen? Josh got a gig at the Mardi Gras? Someone must have tipped off the owner of that fine establishment to Josh's antics while wearing his manties. Be there Friday for the show.



Fuckin' Gary.

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Well, I will start by saying sorry that I haven't posted in a while. I have been a busy bee that doesn't go out and get one trick for Beez 3, which is going to take the world by storm. Well, New years was fun. I got to spend a little time with my asian friends.

I don't know what it is about the asians, but I always find the interesting and like to surprise them. I gave them a Cream City koozie and had to show them how to use it. Super sweet! This is how I saw things on New Years.

Well, a week after new years my buddy kelan got hitched. He has a top notch video game collection that would make the old Mr. Josh Ellis jealous.


This man owns every sega cd except for one. Balls! Well, heres a couple pics from the wedding.


I am so proud of these peeps. God, they look good together. I promise to post more this new year. And now introducing Kelan and Brandi McAteer!

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