I am a huge fan of the way Lord Cru broke his post in to handy "read what you want" sections. In fact I am so much a fan, I am not going to copy him and leave his writing style unbastardized.

Speaking of bastardizing, last nights' "Old Dude Night" turned out to be nothing but a grom-fest complete with 12 and unders chasing each other around with licorice ropes trying to whip each other. I was happy to see Lord Cru when I arrived, but he had some chest pains that could only be cured by beer and grease, so he split early. The Captain held it down (while he was skating) and Josh got some photos and a frontside board to bs 270 out. I rediscovered the pleasures of bank to curb. Uncle Aaron was M.I.A. due to a foot injury? I don't know the details but hopefully we will see him out there again soon. Damien is still there every Wednesday without fail. A true die hard. Big Will had a lethal weapon called the kickflip indy - every try. He defines the term consistency. Rock was there too, but didn't skate. I think he was off to Silk to see some XXX action and it just couldn't wait. Anyway, we all skated like barbarians and still had a good time, even though there were lots of young dudes invading our old dude time. Thanks to Brian and Bill over there at Cream City.

Photo of the Millenium #8

The poster boy of skateboarding. Tony Hawk. I am guessing he was about 18 in this picture. That set up he's riding looks really good. It even has a nose bone (rail). It's weird to think that not too long ago, the nose of your skateboard wasn't used for much besides grabbing. It's also weird to think about how popular that squeeb haircut was. Just think kids, in 20 years the haircut you have right now is going to look really retarded (if it doesn't already). However, you can see by the writing on the wall, that anarchy will never go out of style.

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I have a friend... yes one. His name is Zac. We affectionatly refer to him as Crackhead. Not because he actually is a crackhead , but becuase he ACTS like a crackhead. We all have this friend... you know you do. They're usually the smartest people alive. But they do the most boneheaded things as if they were just free basing. But now you can help your friends! Those goofy little crackheads can get their fix ONLINE! Yes, Yes, Yes... seems strange, but you can order up your favorite crack here. Don't dilly dally now... get crackin'!

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I was going to update yesteday before I went out, but when I tried to preview my update, it deleted it. After that I got frustrated and didn't bother. It was a shitter anyway, kind of a hater post, which we don't need anymore of these days, only foward moving, foward thinking sons of the Original American City. I'm trying a new tech this time. I'm making a label for each section so if you have no interest in reading the retarded details of nights out, skip to the section that interests you most. Not that anymore than 3 people read this anyway, but either way, here goes...

Skateboarding

It's necessary to echo something Josh said about the Milwaukee Skateboarding dudes. These kids rule. I'm not trying to sweat them too hard, but they are my favorites for sure. I used to see them when they would come into the shop as little dudes, and now they are out there like fucking maniacs. Josh introduced me to their stuff via YouTube, and he was like "Check it, these kids are seriously all city!". It was true, they skate the entire metro area. It's nice to see people that actually seek out new shit. I feel like these days with 4 or so parks in the area and all the rest, it's super easy to get lazy. These kids go against that notion, and it gets me hyped. Can't wait for the vid. Okay, enough ass kissing...I was at old dude night briefly this evening and I have express my concern about the old dude-ness of the whole affair. I usually say the more the merrier, but in this case I was a little bummed. Too many little/young dudes, not enough beer bellies and slappies. I suppose it's run its course anyway. It's going to start getting colder and the sessions will get bigger. This is great for Cream City though, so I'm stoked either way.

Drinking

Last night I went out for the usual Tuesday at the ADC Clubhouse also know as the Stone. It's a bar literally around the corner from my house and Sky High. The bartender is this awesome Bay View loc girl who brings it to the next level every time. Tuesday is $2 bomb night, and she'll make anything a bomb. Beam bomb? you got it...Jame-o-bomb? No sweat. I encourage anyone who is interested to come by and at least do 1-2 bombs with the Tuesday crew. Did I mention the free pool? I was somewhat startled when my ex called me to tell me that our pup was going to the ER because she vomited and then collapsed, but it's cool, she just has a heart murmur. Maybe she's nervous about moving to North Carolina, I don't know. After the Stone we...I mean I went home alone and went promptly to bed. Yes, that's exactly what I did. Today on the way home from old dude night I stopped at the Pal, had a beer and picked up some healthy bar food. Drinking, it's the best way to ruin your life.

Retardedness

I got an interesting text from a person who I cut off communication with because sh...umm, the person was creepy? I was offered "a second chance", which was funny given the circumstances. Instead of sending any reply, I used the lack thereof to help convey my response in a more tangible manner. Today I also found out that I will be going to LA on a "Government Sponsored" trip which will involve hanging out primarily with Republicans, and hopefully a Tuxedo rental. I'm really stoked about this trip, and I think it will be a great way to break-up the winter blues. Travelling is something that I cannot get enough of. I do it whenever I can, and this winter I had three week road trip through Mexico planned. Unfortunately my partner in crime has to work during the proposed dates, so I will be going to Europe alone instead. Anyone want to meet up? I would like to steer clear of the usual spots like Barca, Paris, blah, blah, and would be interested in going to Croatia, Slovenia or some other Central Euro spots. If anyone has any suggestions hit me up, I'd love to hear them. I have a collegue in my department from Croatia, and when I told her I wanted to go she got really excited and gave me all these links and a travel book. In fact, my road trip partner is Croatian as well. She showed me several rolls of film from the last time she was there, and it looks amazing. It's possible that I'll end up in Berlin clubbing and being a douche for three weeks too. One can never tell.

I think that's it for this time. I'll leave you with an epic pic from our gauntlet the other night...

Wait, that pic's from planet, I think Magna is in there. Nevermind about the gauntlet...

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Damn, little superstar (i'm not going even bother linking to it) is getting alot of love. It's about as popular as tub girl or lemon party. I think we should just add it to our permanent links.

Thanks to Brad for that recipe. I will be making it on Saturday and will let you all know how it works out. Chicken and beer tripod. Seems too good to be true.

I have alot of work to do right now so I am going to cut this update short. But before I leave, here is;
Photo of the Millenium #7

This dude is a pimp. Olly Todd in Japan. I think this shot was on the cover of a recent magazine. I personally like it for the sunset and the scarf. Besides that, Olly Todd is a incredible skateboarder. Did you see his part in that one video? Is this photo too new for this type of label? I think it will stand the test of time and I will still love it in 20 years.

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I was going to scold Mr. Twister for posting that Internet Proletariat link to the Little Superstar video clip down below. It had already been on Crailtap a bit ago, and their funny links are already three weeks late, which is basically six years in internet time. Then I realized that not everyone sits at a computer (at least) eight hours every weekday and they instead actually have real lives. What a novel idea. Regardless, Twister, you have escaped my internet nerd wrath. I hope to one day join your ranks of not having to sit at a computer all day at my job. One day....

My review of Lil' B's part did not net me any hate mail, which I hated, but I did actually get an email regarding cooking bratwurst, which is obviously almost as good. Brad pointed me in the direction of this product: a chimney grill starter. I have no idea what it is, or how it works, but Brad says he stands by this product and you need no lighter fluid whatsoever. Almost as novel as not sitting on a computer for eight hours a day! My mind continues to be blown away today with all these new ideas. Anyway, he goes on to say that we should perhaps start posting cook out recipes and how groundbreaking the coupling of skateboarding and cooking out could make a website. Totally agreed. Brad also says that this beer can chicken recipe is "time consuming, but totally worth it". I can barely cook a frozen pizza, so we'll have to leave this one to Tim to try out.

That leads me into this: we hardly get any email anymore. The site used to get a ton, and I would never write back to half of it, but it was still awesome. So basically, send me some email. Tell me you hate me, send me a video clip of the best trick you ever did, a grip of naked pictures of your mom, I don't care. The best stuff will be discussed roundtable style on the site. Make it so!

Some of the younger dudes from here (that being Milwaukee) are making a new skateboarding video entitled "We Dislike it Here". They may actually finish it, compared to my video, which I clearly did not. These guys all rip and are humble about it, so this thing gets the wiskate thumbs up. Peep their trailer here.

Need I mention that Old Dude Night is tonight at Cream City? Contrary to earlier reports, Tim will actually be making it. Intelligence also states that Uncle Aaron will be in attendance this week. Don't blow it. I doubt I'll be filming anything tonight, I'm out of tapes (the stack of "to capture" tapes is now like nine tapes tall) and don't feel like buying any, but I just got a slave flash for my tiny point and shoot digital Elph, so let's take some stupid photos!

Photo of the day #13

This story in photos details the catching of my first salmon ever. Taken by Lord Cru, by the way. It was about this time last year and me and Cru went down by the river and started casting out the spoons. In no time at all I had one on and was fighting the, at the time, fight of my life. In fact, I must have been doing so poorly so as to attract the attention of a guy in waders that was pretty close to my hooked fish. So he did what any guy in waders would do, he just walked over, grabbed it, and carried it over to me. "Where do you want this?" he asked. I just kind of shrugged and pointed to the shore. I wasn't really sure what to do, actually. Me and Cru got that sucker unhooked, and as the final photo shows, released him back into the sea, just like Free Willy.

Last year I must have caught more than ten more salmons in the many days me, Cru, and Twister went down to the river. I may be more seasoned in the way of the zombie salmon now, but it's a new year. I haven't fought the fights in almost twelve months, and today is the first day Cru and I are going to try our luck. I feel almost like I've never hooked one of those stinky, jizzing beasts before, and it's a great feeling. Wish us luck!

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I was at my buddy big petes house tonight and he introduced me to the LITTLE SUPA STAR Damn, this little man has the moves. Check out this freshmaker


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all this talk of severe weather in the middle west points to one culprit shooting his next thriller, "Super Doppler".


in other non related skate news, JTK and myself ventured south to philadelphia to watch the packers play the eagles. the game was sponsored by budweiser and levitra - josh, i think you should try that combo at MP this friday.

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So yesterday, mother nature tried to shit on my insatiable lust for brats. Josh burned phone books and even almost set the neighbors house on fire trying to get the grill going. We decided upon going inside and actually using our stovetop (it hasn't been turned on since I moved in and who knows how long before that). I got some water and beer in what I thought was a teflon pan and proceeded to fry up those tasty links. I even boiled some hot dogs for our upstairs neighbor. I don't think she liked them too much though. I put the ketchup and mustard on the bottom which she hates. She claims that you can't taste it that way. I'm calling bullshit. Regardless, Josh and I had some delicious meat tubes, watched some Tales from the Darkside (the intro song used to scare me when I was a kid) and topped it off with some zebra cakes. Good times, but I wish I would have skated yesterday too.

Speaking of skating, tommorrow night is the weekly "Old Guy Night" at the best place in the world; Cream City. Even though I can't go, I still want to make sure you guys get out there and spark it off. And don't be afraid to sing along to Josh's playlist. You know you love it.

Photo of the Millenium #7

"I'm going to skate until I'm old and gray and my bones break and won't heal anymore"

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I've been trying to do lots of different series of portraits of different people in the same settings. I think that everyone has a certain human quality that can be picked up if you put everyone against a stale background and just have them do whatever they want. No instructions... just stand there, or smile, or frown, or give me the finger or whatever. I guess I'm just looking for people to be who they are. I haven't been real successful in most of my efforts. But I did have some great luck at Cream City back in August. I don't know this kid, I don't know how he did at this contest, but he made a real nice picture. He just stood there... just like I wanted. Looking like he probably felt.



You can see the whole series here.

More portraits can be seen at www.tobiahdeutsch.com

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Reference that picture of the insane looking stormy night sky Mr. Twister posted below, and then imagine trying to light up a grill as said storm is rolling in. To add insult to injury, now imagine that you don't have any lighter fluid, so maybe you get the great idea of trying to burn a bunch of paper under the coals to get them going. Now, as you can surmise, when a storm looking like that is rolling in, there's plenty of wind blowing crap around. What happens what you burn paper? Exactly, flaming pieces of paper flying throughout the neighborhood. There always comes a point when you just have to give up, and that was it. But the brat dream didn't die there.

The rain was pounding against the window panes, and the lightning was illuminating the night sky, but we were on a mission. A brat mission. Beer was poured into a pan, the stove lit without any burning paper, and Tim boiled those brats like the seasoned pro he is. As we watched Mookie pass away and Pookie bring him back to life with the magic of 1984 technology, we downed those delectable brats, effectively showing a big middle finger to the gods who tried to throw salt in our brat game.

Whoever edited Lil' B's part in the Shortys video Guilty needs to be given a medal or the equivalent of a skateboarding Oscar. I haven't seen such an amazing use of wipes and effects since I was watching the TV nerds in high school TV class using Video Toaster on an Amiga. This was pre digital video cameras, mind you. They go all out here giving us collages of lifestyle shots, smooth cuts that make sense, relevant and entertaining animations, dragon wipes, and to top it all off, gun shot sound effects. Not to mention the song is provided by Lil' B himself! Not only can he switch corn (with gunshot landing) the carlsbad gap, but the dude can rap like you wouldn't believe. I'm calling it right now...highest point ever in skateboarding cinema. There's no point in trying to compete.

If that last paragraph provides me with hate mail of some sort, I will be the happiest man alive.

The tree outside my window here has already lost almost half of its leaves. It's even smelling like fall out there. It might make some people unhappy, but skating-wise this is definitely the best part of the year. Truth be told, I don't even like to skate during the summer. I get out there a couple of times a week at the most. During fall though, I want to skate every single day. Too bad that one thing, winter, comes after. What a bummer.

Photo of the day #12

I'm really into shooting photos with super shitty cameras. This one was taken with a toy camera that shoots a sequence of four photos in one frame of 35mm film. The photo is of John Rockafellow almost breaking his foot off trying to backside 180 nosegrind that bar on the fence. He made it out of that one alive, and landed the trick a couple tries later.

We also filmed the 360 flip and ollie line in this video clip on the same street, same block, same session. To top things off, the final ender ender in Beez 2 was done by Mike, same session, same block. I guess that day as they say, the block was hot. Hot if you like to skate really shitty spots, that is.

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