I hung out with Jason all day. Hanging with him is amazing and put my minor problems into perspective. After going to the Commission best trick contest then hanging at Crisis with Fuzz for awhile we ended up at my house. We were doing some knee brace research and I came across this. Kinda hyped me up because I hate skating in that huge knee brace I currently have. I have no idea if it’s a good idea, but a knee brace meant for tendonitis seems like a good idea about now and all the reviews are incredible. I ordered one. Jason took off and Liz and the kids had just left for the library to rent some movies for the night. I wanted to skate super bad. It was 72 and sunny so Rampy would be a sin. Flatground hurts too much (I thought) and the yellow curb above just called me in. I started with some slappy noseslides and no comply 270s to tail. They felt fine. Did some stalls, they felt fine. And it just kept going. Before you read the next tricks keep in mind everything was slow, stalled, lunch breaked, sloppy and the funnest things I have ever done on a skateboard. It started with a no comply 270 to tail shove out. Then fakie tail shove out (just running into the curb fakie and shove out), then I started hucking fakie tail 3 shove and got one! Out of the blue I hucked a kick back tail and almost did it first try. No pain in the knee. A few later and the family was arriving home and I said “This is for you guys!” and stomped a clean one. I was on top of the world. India even cheered for me (that’s my daughter for the people out there that think I randomly pretended that an entire country cheered for me) and my grin was ear to ear. I ended up getting a couple tricks I’ve never done before. Kick back 50 shove out (I was laughing hysterically at how easy it felt) and I followed it with a slappy nosestall popped up into crooks. Front tail 3 shove out. Like I said all of these tricks were done horribly but I really don’t care. It felt amazing to be able to do what I did and I went inside feeling incredibly happy. Curbs rule (yes I will be waxing some section soon and sweeping the sand away)!

ps – I had some new shoes. Fallen – Slash’s. Their supposed to change colors while you skate them. Aint that cute (not why I got them but I gotta admit I think it’s neat)

This made my day. Read the full story here. These songs were written in the early 80s!

Saw this photo on The Skateboard Mag site and it stoked me out so much. It was directly across the street from the hotel I stayed at in St Louis. It reminded me of the week I had there that I took advantage of to it’s fullest. Even with tons of knee pain I skated three of the four nights I was there. Man it was fun. On a side note, I’m not on my 6th month of not being near 100%. Yikes.

I cannot believe how much this song sounds like Dinosaur Jr. Obviously that means I love it.

This was supposed to be my glorious debut back to street skating. Only one word can truly describe how I feel right now. FUCK! After some dorking around at Crisis (John and I both rattled off some funny curb tricks like nose stall body varial reverts or something) we headed to downtown Denver. We started off at this parking garage hill bomb spot that I’ve seen in various web edits before, but have never skated. Fuzz bombed it quick like. John, Carleigh and I took our time. I slid out on a powerslide. Got a kickflip in, tiny powerslide, one foot drag and wanted to do it again without the foot drag. Carleigh ollied in and did a couple foot drags, but was hauling ass. John front shoved in with a couple foot drags too. I wanted fakie bigflip in. Got a good one, but slid out on the powerslide again (it was slick!). Then went to try another and there it was, that sharp pain in my knee. FUCK FUCK FUCK. I was a little dramatic about it, but believe me if my friends wouldn’t have been there I would have not been so quiet and nice to my skateboard.

I thought my night would be over. I hung out while they skated a parking garage for awhile. I tried a few slappy tailslide tricks, but nothing. John killed some lines. Almost did front shove front nose to fakie then halfcab manual. Fuzz struggled with nose manuals? What the heck. Carleigh was working on front tails and back 50s it looked like. We got the boot. Ended up at a spot only old men (or Jack) could have fun at. Curb up, curb up, two down, one down. John ruled it with front 180 up then switch kickturn up (seriously). We got the boot. Tabor center. John and Fuzz front 50’d it. We dorked around on the bank at the top. Fuzz had a sick front tail revert over the hip thing and was working on noseblunt transfer thing and we got the boot. Ended up at the marble ledge/two stair spot. Carleigh did a bunch of flatground. Fuzz almost flew through the window. Fuzz and John stared at a two stair debating kickflips for too long so I set my board down and kickflipped it first try. Somehow that didn’t hurt so I did a slow front shove down it too. Carleigh got kickflip too. Fuzz did lots of 180s in various ways up/down.

We ended up here. John did a cool front tail from the lower level to a curb behind the photo. Fuzz boardslid a pole and then ollied to the street. Carleigh ollied the gap first t.

This wasted idiot kept trying to get close to me. Not in a cool way. He sucks.

That was pretty much the end of skating after some dorking around the corner and Fuzz ollied a gap. After that Fuzz scared us all. Please take care of yourself dude. As far as me skating I don’t know what to think. The sharp pain might be caused by the arthritis, I don’t know. It might also just be done for good and ollies will be a thing of the past for me. I know I’m insanely depressed about it right now.

This be tight.

The Mighty LZA and I were hyped for this show. Me especially. All day I sat around waiting for show time to start. Ok, well that was mostly because I had diarrhea and didn’t have a choice. Either way things worked out for the evening and after a super yummy dinner at Buenos Aires Pizzeria we went to the venue early. We were there really early it turns out. Early enough that I went and counted the Null stickers in the mens room. There were two of them. I doubled that and the opening band hit the stage. School Knights are from Denver apparently. Pretty clever name I tell you. They put on a good show. I had heard from John that they were horrible, but clearly he had the wrong band in mind as they were good. Mr Dream was really good. Total old style bass heavy rock like Jesus Lizard a bit. Both singers for that band had amazing voices.

Cloud Nothings came on and immediately went into the new material that’s been getting favorable reviews from the critics. The reason of course is because it’s really good. The opening song was “Stay Useless” and it set the bar high for the set. A few songs later they went into (what I consider song of the year so far) “Wasted Days”. This song destroyed in ways I didn’t think this band was capable of. The drummer is amazing to watch. He would hit the drums so hard. He would even stomp the foot pedals like he was killing them. It added a lot to the show. The end of “Wasted Days” was incredible. I thought they would have trouble maintaining that much energy throughout the set, but I was wrong. The last song was “No Future / No Past” and they started it with a rockin’ 4-5 minute jam that went right into it. So sick. Totally an amazing show. I’m sold on them.

After the show I went to show my support by buying a t-shirt. Well mr singer Dylan Baldi was at the merch booth and told me that the shirts run big so I bought a size large shirt. Of course when I got home it didn’t fit at all. Never listen to a hipster. Especially one that doesn’t know I’ve been working out a few times a week lately and related to the strongest man in the world. Oh well, I’ll forgive him.

Went up to Cheyenne pretty early on a super nice day. The crew was Max, Carleigh, Sean, Jack, Josh, Dean and Lester. After dropping some boards off and buying some records at Ernie Novembers we went to the Cheyenne skatepark. John Doe Zine was hosting it’s annual St Flattys Day. I’m gonna start with the craziest stuff first. The kid above was killing it. He almost ollied the two stair, attempted pressure flipping the fatty to flatty gap and straight up made all the Null kids feel a lot of pressure. This kids dad killed it too. He was almost as good as me.

After several unsuccessful attempts at landing the kid above on Null I gave up and skated a little. I’m in a weird state. I feel like I can’t really skate so I just kind of dork around and not do anything. Seeing as how all the Nullers were intimidated by the kid in the DC/Monster Energy shirt we all skated the little qp above. Sean and Jack did funny tricks to staple gun. I however got tech and did a trick I don’t think I’ve ever done before and one I know I’ve never done before. Blunt to rock fakie and blunt to front rock. I also did a few back disasters (which as you may know being a loyal follower of this lovely blog) is a trick I have only done a handful of times. To round out my sucking I also did a couple front disasters on the mini ramp and my only decent trick of the day was to back 50 over the stairs on the steep bank. Oh yeah I street skated a little too at the school spot. I kickflipped up a ledge going 2mph then ollied a small ledge at 1 mph. I was hyped and left it at that. Didn’t want to push it, but man it felt good to do some real street skating (no, not “real street” as in X-Gaymes shit, just real skateboarding aka not in a park skating). Then I filmed forever and kinda sucked at that too. Sorry Max.

Cheyenne wasn’t ready for Dean and his interpretive dance/skate routines. He pretty much shut down the bank with this one. He also killed it with photos and slammed really hard trying to ollie a ledge. Easily the hardest I’ve seen him slam before.

This was really embarrassing. Max was feeling the pressure from the Monster Energy/DC kid and tried to ollie the two stair. Well, he didn’t make it and fell into the guy above who ended up hardflipping the flatty gap (at least I think he rode away). As I said, really embarrassing. Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with Max. Okay okay, I remember why now, because he kills it. May have even scored his ender. Good work Max.

Shaun lives up in Cheyenne with Matt and he rips. Seriously rips. Here is just a few of the tricks I saw him do that made me shake my head and doubt that the Monster Energy kid is the future. Front heel the long two perfect. Back 5-0 270 on the little qp. The long back 5-0 to fakie in the photo above. Switch back 180 the flatty gap. Almost frontside flipped it too. All that on a 7.5″ board and monster cupsoles with no complaining whatsoever.

While I’m on the Shaun tip, Sean rips too. Everything he does looks perfect. He even laughs at some of my jokes. What a good guy! Ha. He did a lot of tricks on the bank at the park, killed the school and got the kickflip above at the last spot.

That’s Jack hiding behind the pole adjusting the wrap on his newly sprained wrist. He wasn’t supposed to skate and for the most part he didn’t. Long enough to take his pain out on his board, but not long enough to remember his trucks at the spot. He took lots of great photos, videos (sometime soon perhaps?), chilled and looked as pretty boy as usual. That’s Rich from JDZ with the high end HD camera showing his disappointment in the null team for just sitting around. Stoked your still killing it Rich!

Matt is still one of the most positive, raddest dudes you will ever meet. He darn near switch flipped the flatty gap. Wow.

Carleigh was the most hyped on it being St Patty’s Day. Over and over again “Happy St Pattricks Day!” She did a nice front 50 while someone cheered for me. When Jack gets the clip online it’s funny. She does a perfect front 50 and you hear “Yeah Glen”. What the hell could I have been doing that was even 1/4 as cool? She also showed me up by ollieing the ledge I ollied at speed and from a harder angle.

Lester killed it all day. Jibbed lots of ledges. Wowed some Cheyenne short short wearing girls to Deans liking.

Josh. I’m trying to find a way to make fun of Josh, but I can’t. He destroyed the park. Destroyed it. He smiled all day. He skated all day. He filmed a couple good lines in no time. He crooked up a rail. He did 500 tricks on the steep bank. Good stuff.

Check Jack’s Blog for more photos.
Check Carleigh’s Blog for more photos.
Lastly, “Like” Deanophoto on Facebook and see even more photos.

After a super fun night at the Malfunction premiere (ok it was a blast, but my digestive issues made it not quite as fun as normal although it kept me from drinking any beer which I was hyped on when) I woke up early and felt ok (other than the upset stomach and numerous morning visits to read Lowcard on the crapper (I have a goal to some day write an entire journal entry in one run on sentence with numerous parenthesis)). I continued to not take turmeric supplements and my stomach seemed to ease up for the first time in awhile. The problem with that is turmeric really helps my arthritis. Fun eh?! Either way, I went to the Arvada park not knowing if I would have to leave because of the shits, if my tendonitis in my knee would act up and if my arthritis would lock up my ankles. It sure is nice having a huge bag of excuses. Ha just kidding, I can’t wait to not worry about this crap.

Things worked out. It was 70 degrees out and I was rocking my new J Mascis shirt I’ve been saving for a nice spring day. I rocked out to The Men on the way to the new Arvada park and Neil was already there. The park was almost empty and I started the slow warm up process. This is the first time I’ve skated there with ollies as an option and under 500 people. Awesome. Neil was ripping. Lines spanning one end of the park to the other. This park truly is amazing. Neil got into a one foot to manual up the euro and bailed the landing. So funny. He did some cool no complies on the angled mj circle (I’m pulling names out of my ass here I’m sure people that have skated here a bunch have way better names than me and would laugh hysterically at my dorky names). I was just kind cruising for awhile not ollieing yet and looking at everything there is to skate. Neil boardslid the long curb thing next to the tiny manual pad and I tried too. So fun. Took me a few tries, but I got it. Neil started his line with a little front pivot on a weird qp which I luckily got first t then never again. He almost had lipslide on the little many pap which I tried to manual, but failed at. We headed over to the jersey barrier area and Neil had some good lines with lots of speed and ollies. I managed to get a little back 50 on the bank up the long 3 stair. Hyped on that. Ollieing up step ups wasn’t working for me. My timing is way off. Some tricks come easy, some dont. Hard ones like ollies definitely don’t. I had fun doing over the hip back 50s on the tiny qp by the main euro then went up and did a front 50 shove first t on the little manny pad. That was such a cool feeling. I haven’t done that trick in awhile and it felt just as easy as it used to be for me. It made me giggle a little. We hit the bank to curb for a bit. Neil had a sick front tail. I struggled at front rock, but did a kickflip on flat that felt awesome. I love that I went to a skatepark and my favorite tricks were flatground tricks. I suck! I battled treflips for a bit and then Neil had to leave. I was gonna leave too, but decided to skate a bit longer. I sucked it up in the back mini bowl for a bit then found a lonely flat area to try some more three flips. I landed on almost all of them, but would bail and my ankles were hurting a bit, but I got one! My first 3 flip in forever! It was slow, ugly, sloppy and completely awesome. It’s a trick I love so much and I felt like maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to do this skateboarding thing again. There was no signs of the knee tendonitis pain and my stomach wasn’t hurting so bad. The arthritis in my ankles wasn’t great, but not enough to hold me back. I did a little axle stall on the bank to banked ledge and called it a day. I left super hyped. I really hope this continues.

Super hyped for this premiere tonight!