Wow that kickflip crooks.

After some pizza at the Backcountry Pizza place most of Trick Factory went to Astroland to see Black Dots.  None of us had been there before.  Turns out that place rules.  Just a warehouse, BYOB, DIY steez.  Love it. I was feeling kinda sick so I went with some Ginger Ale with a bit of whiskey in it. Yum.

The first act was Lizzie Huffman. She was great. Like really great. Super mellow acoustic music with some revealing lyrics about relationships or drinking or both. Good stuff. I apparently didn’t take a great cell phone shot of the next act. It was a solo guy called Disorder maybe? He had some good crowd support.

At first glance it looked like the Brandow’s were grabbing pills from a bag. Turned out to be ear plugs.

Next up was a punk band from Pittsburgh called “Run, Forever”. They were super good. During the first song us old guys (and Carleigh) nodded to each other saying we liked it. There was a mosh pit going and us old guys were not in it. After the first song Brian announced “Votes are in, old guys like it!” I added, “But we’ll be in the back”. Maybe somebody laughed. These guys killed it though. Straight forward old school rock ‘n roll. They had t-shirts (no XL), patches, records and an amazing black/yellow minibus. Best of luck to that band.

Last up was Black Dots. John kept thanking everyone for staying out so late like it was a week night or something. It made me laugh. It’s saturday night! Whew! I have been listening to their cd a lot lately so this is their first show where I new most of the words. That added to the enjoyment of an already great show. And the Guided By Voices cover is always great. But the Neil Young song to close it down was the best I’ve heard them play it. So insane. When is that “In a Jar” cover coming guys? Ha. Great show.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that Astroland is my favorite venue in Colorado now. Host more shows please!

Riley is one of my favorites.

There are lots of perks to running your own small skateboard company.  Some of them are simpler than others.  Like when you get a decorated envelope in the mail from some of your favorite people.  Gordon and Sandy, you guys rule!

PS – I just found out that Lee Bender drew the guy on the envelope. Sick!

Gordon showed us this spot in SF I think.  Either way though, WOW!

So here they are:

I had setup a new Lung deck. Perhaps the last one I will skate as the Dinoseries is almost gone so I put some extra effort into this one. Ollie and his buddy Sam did the griptape art. So awesome. Ollie’s stuff is near the top, Sam’s at the bottom. Sam put a Star Wars Light Saber on there!

You would think that since it’s the last one I’ll skate I wouldn’t put so many stickers on it, but the truth is all my sponsors have been on my case lately. Yeah Right! I have all these stickers sitting around and wanted them to go to good use.

This line is bonkers.

Hung around and slept most of the day after a late night feeling like crap. And no, it wasn’t a hangover. But yes, the Black Dots show was a blast. I will have photos up sometime. Anyways, the weather dried up, but it was still cold. I went to the Lafayette park to meet Brian, Carleigh and John. I got there first and Max’s little brother was there with crew again. They skate so much it rules. I was definitely not feeling good. I had no desire to ollie and everything made me feel achy. Carleigh eventually showed up, then Brian with Jam and then John. When Jam shoes up you can’t make excuses. So I tried the rail and failed. Brian almost did it while beaming me which would have been epic. Brian, John and I eventually did get boardslides down it. John also front 50d the hubba super easy. Carleigh did some pop shoves into the bank mixed in with some gnarly slams into the bank. Ouch. Then she pop shoved the 3 stair bolts then followed that up with a really bad slam which she hurt her foot. Oucher. John slammed on a front shove into the bank then followed it with a make. I did a slow and crappy fakie bigflip into the bank. I didn’t have the mindset for the rail/ledge section so just started carving around the snakerun. It was fun. John and Brian joined. I got a kickflip wallride second or third try which hyped me up. Brian did lots of crazy lines. John had some poppy ollies and good lines. I tried to do some ollies at the end, but they were pathetic. Brian was getting more air then me without even hitting his tail. Had a good time, but not sure it was worth getting as sick as I did afterwards…

Another Saturday where the forecast was 67 and sunny that turned into 51 and rain. Ugh. Ollie and his buddy Sam wanted to hit a nearby park with a kids section (Zuni), but we settled for Red Curbs. I was feeling a bit run down, tired and achy. Ugh. Ollie ripped it. He isn’t really ollie’ing up curbs yet, but I saw him do back 180 and front 180 off a curb. I’ve never seen him do front 180 off anything before. It was sick. He said he also did pop shove off a curb, but I missed that apparently. Doh. He did some other cool stuff and smiled a lot and it stokes me out soooo much to skate with him. Sam can roll off curbs pretty good now and was doing little slappy front boards where he came to a halt and pulled it off. Pretty cool. I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t even feel like flipping my board. The boys were wanting to go to another garage and I was wanting to try a run of halfcab flip, nose manual, ollie the little median into the rain. But then a car load of kids arrived. It was rad though, it was Max and Jack’s little brothers and crew. Those kids are awesome. Ollie and Sam felt intimidated and went to the car, but I skated with them for a bit and maybe tried a little harder than I had been, but nothing special. Then we went to another parking garage which also has some red curbs, bit isn’t as fun. I had fun doing the basics there though. There are two parking blocks real close to each other and doing ollie then wallie took awhile. I also did some front and back 50s and tried a few front 5-0 kickflips out which weren’t close at all. The boys mostly ran around playing at this spot, but ollie did fall pretty hard trying to boardslide a parking block. He laughed of course. Then I went to 303, traded boards for a big nosed 8″ Null, got some cute pants and saw the Antihero team stop by. It’s kind of embarrassing trying on shoes of a pro that’s standing in the same shop (Gerwer), but he was funny about it.

I debated calling in sick for work as I was feeling a cold come on. Instead I went to work, had a really busy day then went home and took a long nap. I love naps. Love them. After some dinner I played basketball with Ollie for awhile and John hit me up to go skating. We texted for several minutes about where to skate before I just gave up and called him. We met at Valmont basically as the sun was setting. The ledge area was wet, but the manny pads were good. After some pretty typical old man warming up (ie, barely landed ollies up low curbs) we got in a groove. John got a halfcab manual followed by nose manny. I came super close to front 180 nose manny and almost did a kickflip nose manual but I touched at the start. I was having fun lining out the basics too. Then we started just dorking around skating a curb like it was a ledge since John wanted to learn back tails. I kept telling him they are impossible and that kickflip back tails are way easier. So he tried back tails while I tried kick back tails. Since kick back tails are easier than back tails I landed some. I also tried a few front pivot kickflips out and did a pretty good impression of Lloyd’s ballet kick, but that was about it. Then we played a long mellow game of SKATE that ended when rock star john hurt his rock star wrist and didn’t want to put tomorrow nights show in jeapordy. Oh, I know it’s the middle of May, but seriously, it was pretty warm for February.