What a great week for Colorado shredders. Glad to see Jaeson getting some shine. Nolan is one of my all time favorites. Also glad to see Mike get some shine. The Okay video has so many lines, I love it.

One of my favorite people to skate with, one of the steeziest skaters I know, Stubborn to the core. Heck, one of the best dudes ever. This is his part in The Stubborns. It’s the first part in the video because it sets the tone so well. Rob rips.

IDrawMazes aka Eric Eckert made this video featuring 60 second parts from the homies. Somehow I have a part in this too (starting at 7:15). Good stuff Eckert!

Another warm day, but much windier. I was feeling burnt from skating so hard lately, but Dave and Neil were wanting to skate so I tried. Ollie was in too. We first started at the spot above. Ollie did that line immediately. I could hardly push my board I was so sore/tired. He killed it with a few more 180’s, manuals, fakie shoves too. Dave and Neil killed the ledge. Neil had some crazy good lines. Nose manual a sidewalk, ollie up the curb, front tail the ledge, ollie a tall metal thing, ollie up the curb, almost crooks shove. He also did front 50s. Dave had super long backside slappies. Some with a nollie front 180 out. I didn’t see it, but he said he did a kickflip at one point. Yes! Also saw lots of 180s off curbs, slappy noseslide, front 50s, front 5-0, front hurricane. I was sucking. Couldn’t front 50, crooks or back 50. Struggled ollie’ing up curbs, etc. I posed a bunch of switch b/s flips that kind of hyped me up though, that’s a dream trick. It might be realistic.

Then we checked out this bank spot Dave had seen nearby. I got that dorky boardslide above and the a mutant boneless to tail. It was fun dorking though. That thing is way hard to skate and has a huge crack at the bottom of the main bank so you have to go in from the sides all weird. Ollie had fun there too with some carves and goofy stuff. Neil couldn’t ride up the side so did ollie onto the bank, ollie on the bank, ollie off the bank. Ha. Dave tried some bluntslides and wallie to grassrides and some other stuff then we called it a day. I should probably take a day off from skating and let my body rest up a little.

Sam did such a ridiculously good job on this. Can’t wait to see the finished product on DVD this time!

Well this is awesome.

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.

Liz and I went to the early showing of this video. We met up with Fuzz and Carleigh after some dinner with Darin and posted up next to one of the stars of the night, Shad. It was rad. Lots of teasers including a new Null one. The video itself was awesome. Not a hammer video with lots of raw street skating that can be viewed over and over. I can’t wait to get a copy of it. Liz and I bailed as soon as the credits started to get to the J Mascis show.

We said a quick hello to friends then posted right up front. I laughed as J’s guitars were brought to the front with the airplane tags still on them. Kinda hard to see in my cell phone photo above, but we shared a laugh with the guy next to us who might even be a bigger J Mascis nerd than me (not possible). The fire alarm at the Hi-Dive was going off which was pretty annoying.

J was walked up front looking frail and awkward and after a quick “Hello” busted right into The Wagon. Pretty much my favorite song ever. Although I’ll admit that’s one of those songs that benefits from the added noise of the whole band. Next up was Listen To Me off the new album and then Several Shades Of Why. Several Shades may have been my favorite song of the night. Then he went on to play mostly oldies including classics like Alone, Get Me, Ammarring, Quest. Oceans In The Way had one of the loudest crowd responses which kind of surprised Liz and I, but is just more evidence that Farm is one of their finest. I was surprised and excited to hear Not The Same. Not Enough went off. Flying Cloud is another runner up for my favorite song of the night. The encore was Raisons then Repulsion I think. The show was great. The only thing that takes away from it to me is this was the Several Shades Of Why tour and he only played four songs from it. A couple more would have made this show beyond epic to me. That being said, it was still a totally awesome show and J Mascis cannot be touched. After the show I went to get a t-shirt, but they had all sold out except one size large and a bunch of XXL (I’m not Mikey). Doh. Read a better review and see better photos at heyreverb.com.

Had some morning basketball fun with Ollie then some waiting around video watching with Brian, Neil, Jason and Ollie.  Greg and his photographer buddy Dean arrived and we went off the the Canyon center.  It was a big day for Ollie as he joined us.  A big day for me because I had to be on good behavior and keep an eye on him.  After the previous session I decided I need a more legit excuse to totally suck on a skateboard so I started up with my new bright blue shoes.Yes, this is really what they look like.  The brightness kinda bums me out, but at the same time they remind me of something Louie Barletta would wear so they make me smile.  They are some I-Path Lyndhurst shoes given as a gift by my buddy John.  Thanks John!It was windy at times, but mostly it felt hot as we rolled into the Canyon Center.  Everyone warmed up on the metal banks.  Brian was trying front rocks on the tall one, Greg was trying feeble to fakie, Neil and Jason were just kinda cruising around, and to my surprise Ollie wasn’t being overly shy and was doing little wallrides to fakie and even rock fakies on the smaller metal banks.  Stoked me out so much.  I was just kinda being mellow and warming up too slow.  Eventually Greg and Brian started trying wallies and I filmed them.  Greg got wallie, wallie front 180 and wallie stalefish.  Brian got wallie to front 50 down the other side radness.  We rolled nearby to this wallride spot but got asked to leave right away.  Darn old people.  After Brian put down trick #2 for With A Vengeance (wallie gap) we left for the Canyon Center.First we stopped at a little grocery store to get some snacks.  I let Ollie pick out whatever he wanted and he chose Junior Mints.  We don’t have too much candy lieing around the house so he was super excited.  We got to the Canyon Center and Greg went to work immediately on the 9 stair.  He ollied it a few times, then fakie ollie, then posed some fakie dog piss’ since he’s already landed it on video.  Dean was taking photos and was nice enough to show Ollie.  Greg also did fakie melon about 5 times.  Sick!Neil and I were skating around on the ledge area.  Neil put down a sick line of pop shove over the cone, halfcab over the ledge, heelflip, crooks fakie.  So sick.  I was trying front 180 over the cone, halfcab flip, no comply over the bench but never got all of it.  I wish I could blame it on the new shoes, but they were fine.  Eventually Neil and I tried kickflip up the ledge and then kickflip down, but neither got it.We were leaving when Greg scoped out a gnarly ledge ride to drop on the corner of the Canyon Center.  We stopped and filmed until Greg got it.  So gnarly.  I filmed it and Dean shot a sequence.  Ollie was hyped to see the big stuff Greg was doing in person.  All of us were though.  Greg rules.Next we went to the old folks home bank to curb, but the wind was too much for that spot.  Lastly we ended up on campus where I had seen a monster gap to manual that was bigger than I remembered and too much for Greg.  We all skated around and Carleigh went nuts and ollied, pop shoved and kickflipped a larger than normal 5 stair.  So sick!  Jason ollied it super good too.  Dean and I had tried a few, but had not committed when Greg offered us each $1 for the next try.  I committed, but didn’t land it.  Dean didn’t either.  I can’t believe how foreign jumping down a five stair felt.  It felt good to actually commit to it, but the ollie felt so bad and it also made me feel really old.  Oh well.  Ollie was having fun cruising around the place and riding through grass.  I scared myself and dropped in on one of the ledges, but didn’t ollie off.  I also got a first try 360 flip in the new shoes.  All in all a pretty epic day for me.  I didn’t skate all that great, but seeing Ollie having a blast all day and knowing how stoked he was made it such a great day for fatherhood.   That night TF went out and it got roudy.  Beers, shots, fights, etc.  Fun times.  Mostly.

Slept in way to late again on a Sunday.  Cleaned for awhile, had a long talk with Liz, etc then went skating.  My back/side had started hurting.  Probably from carrying in India from the car the previous night after the Rockies game.  Ugh.  Jason picked me up and we then picked up Nate and met with Neil and Fuzz at Fuzz’s house.  I had to setup new wheels after the previous flat spot session and since there are 200 boards at my house I figured you can’t setup new wheels without a new deck too right?Since I’ve been feeling really old and older lately I figured I should draw an old man on my griptape.  Unfortunately it seems less funny and more accurate then I had hoped for.Oh well, at Fuzz’s I realized my back was hurting more than ever.  I drank a couple beers as we watched the incredible Slave video.  Then we went to a tiny bank to curb spot that Fuzz and Jason killed.  Nate had some long mannies, Neil some hard nose mannies.  I was too sore to ollie so just kinda slappied into various slides.  The fakie tailslide slappies being my favorite.  Fuzz and Jason were able to do real slappies and even front 5-0s and tails.  So sick.After a liquor store run we went to this bank spot where I sat out and watched since there was no way my back could handle that action.  Photos stolen from Carleighs site even though I took some of the photos.Jason backside ollie with Tall Can Me BGPs.Fuzz kickflip up to the next level.Gnarly Carleigh frontside ollie. Carleigh’s camera is fun to shoot photos with.Nate got trick of the session with a nose manual on the upper deck.The crew.  Camera shy Fuzz, Not-Camera-Shy Carleigh, Hightower, Would have skated this spot if the video camera was around Neil, Nicknate.Next up we went to another bank spot, but way mellower.  I pouned another tall can and was kinda able to bend enough to do no complies. I would roll off the two stair into the bank and do a no comply bigspin on the opposite bank. I was trashed and having a blast. Out of the blue I tried a no comply bigger spin and put it down first try bolts. One of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done. I rode away laughing and Jason and Carleigh were cracking up too. So cool.I tried another one, but never got it. Carleigh took a sympathy photos which looks way more like a 360 flip to fakie which I surely didn’t even try. A couple other tricks I had fun with were wallies up the two stair and some slappy noseslide tricks. Fun times. Jason, Neil and Nate took turns trying to ollie the small, but totally awkward gap. Nate got it. Peep the photos at gnarlycarleigh.com.