Disclaimer: This is a long and possibly boring post that, although it was an adventure, has nothing to do with our films.

I took a chance. Took a risk. Call it what you want. I was looking at 2 different brats to replace my trusty but now dead one. I made a decision on thursday to fly to burbank on Friday to buy this one, thinking i'd drive it home and be able to sleep in my own bed that night. Well, I should have remembered what happened last time I tried to drive LA to Utah on a Friday. It seems like every living thing that drives in LA heads to Vegas on Fridays. So it took me about 1.5 hrs to get about 15 miles on the 210. So I got a hotel for the night.
Next morning I head out, This "new" Brat has no AC. The whole drive I'm thinkin "I can't wait to hit the virgin river gorge so I can have a swim, cool down, give the car a break." I got to the Virgin River about 2:00, Blazing hot, and.... Virgin river is Dry as a bone. Ugh. I push to St. George and decide to catch a movie while I wait for the Heat to die down some. Movie ends about 7:00, still hotter than blazes out, but I figure the sun will go down soon, so I split.

At Mile marker 33, BLAM, Blow out, drivers rear tire. Closer inspection reveals rot in the tire, that mixed with the heat, muy mal. Luckily I have a full sized spare, and a jack, and a.... Wait, no Tire Iron??? Ugh. Spent the next 20 minutes trying to flag someone down, only one guy stops, he's in a rental and has a spare, a jack, and no tire iron. I call AAA, an hour and half later I'm on the road, I get home a bit before 2am.

On the long drive I had quite a bit of time to reflect on my decision. A good way to learn something about yourself is to spend some serious time pondering decisions you make. After passing through many different feelings, I got to a place where I am now. I think it was the wrong decision, but I'm at peace with the decision I made. I think it's gonna take more work than the other one would have, perhaps I'll appreciate it that much more. Pictures will follow in a few days.

Back from SF. Went to San Diego as well to shoot some bits for an Archaeological society. An interesting place born out of the Curation Crisis. It was explained to me this way, some time ago San Diego passed a law that required anyone who was developing land to first pay for an archaeological dig on the site. This unearthed a ton of artifacts. Too many for existing museums to deal with. So concerned citizens started the San Diego Archaelogical center as a repository where artifacts cound be properly cataloged and made available for study. A bunch of very cool folks over there. Glad I could be a small part of what they are doing. Like a knuckle head, I really didnt' take any good fotos at the center, so you can enjoy these two fotos from the drive home.

Spent some time at current tv yesterday. They are doing a pod about we jam econo, Clementine is going to cut the piece so I spent some time yesterday giving her a few loose ideas. I'm very interested to see what they come up with. Many thanks Clementine and Erik.

Go Skateboarding day

I wasn't at home to have the old man ramp jam on Go Skateboarding Day, but I did manage to roll up and down the embarcadero some. Happy June 21st everyone.

Spent last night with Adam in the basement of his video store going through about 7 hours of old video footage that was shot on jawbreaker tours from 95 and 96. Lots of good stuff in there, Adam was surprised by several songs that he said they rarely played live. So we were stoked on what we were able to log into FCP. We logged all 6 tapes, at good Indian food and enjoyed the company of Lost Weekend Video Employees. It was a great night. Huge thanks Adam.

THE TREE OF UTAH

Always wanted to skate this thing. I remember seein a photo about 10-15 yrs ago in one of the mags of someone doin a blunt on it. I thought today would be the day, but the two skateable bits were filled with water. While the kids were playin and I was takin photos, two dudes rolled up one with a skateboard in hand, when I told him they were filled with water he said, "oh I don't really skate, I just wanted to get a picture to make my skater roommate jealous."

RIP '82 BRAT

Just got the call from the mechanic. What was my reliable standby has given up the ghost. It gave me 6 years of great service. Many trips to California and back. Just me the Brat and the open road. Today I'm headed to SF for a week for family vacation. I'll sneak in a little work on the Jawbreaker doc as well. When I get back the search for the Brat II will begin.

Another year of the lake Powell trip is over. It was a ton of fun and we got some great footage.

Headed to St. George today to hook up with justin to shoot at lake powell for a week. The Brat (my truck) has been acting up lately and I had a feeling i shouldn't try to drive it down, but i did it. The result, a blown upper radiator hose. My lovely spouse sacrificed her afternoon to go get a replacement and drive it 100 miles to me. Replaced the hose, and managed to make it to Justins place. Lookin forward to the week on the lake. HUGE THANKS to my lady, she saved the day

Sorry for the lack of updates, and this lame excuse for an update. I'm headed to Lake Powell to shoot for a week with Justin, No cel phone reception and no internet at lake powell. Steve is on an extended family vacation, not sure if we'll see any updates from him. I'll post a bunch when I get back from powell. Thanks for the interest.

ti

We have been filming more of Fuzzy’s Firsthand for Fuel TV. Had a great session with Rooftop, Fuzzy and Jamie Bestwick at Matt Berringer’s backyard trails.

Another shot of Jeff Chase at the ramp in Torrey, Utah. We shot a Fuel TV commercial on this ramp.

We got a couple of wide angle adapters for the HVX. posted some test footage here
Used it for the first time for real on the torry ramp shoot. Will post some footage of that soon.

Last year I did some editing for a film by Chris Cutri. It was about the over-commercialization of surf culture. It's a tricky topic to be sure. You can substitute the surf culture with skate culture, punk rock, or any subculture, with time and market forces at work, there's no stopping the co-opting of these things. I tend to take the perspective of Mike watt when he said, "people are always asking me 'What do you think of this new pop punk?' ...I don't hold it against people, everyone can't be born at the same time...The real question is what is to be done where your at, and how are you gonna do it?" The DVD is now available at the website. There's a trailer on Youtube.

Skier J painting the other side of the ramp for the Fuel TV spot.

Jeff Chase.
The ramp in Torrey, Utah.

skating good
filming good
more photos later

Torrey, Utah
After Lunch Sunday
Skier J painting

Skier J starts painting in the morning. Here are his rough sketches of what he is going to paint.

on thursday it looked like this.


today it looked like this.


Jeff on the extension


Skier J, Foot jam


Steveo, moment of glory.
tomorrow Skier J paints, we skate. Monday is the epic mini ramp session.

Noon Saturday
Torrey, Utah
The ramp for the Fuel TV spot.
It will be done in a few hours.

Torrey, Utah end of day Friday.
Decks framed in.
Plywood down.
Coping half on.
Tommow ramp will be done.
Jay starts painting too.
Monday the big session.
It's all good.

Mid-day Friday, Torrey, Utah.
The ramp for the Fuel TV spot.
We have had rain, wind and snow.
Jeff, Tim, Bob and Doug are making it happen.
Thanks

End of day Thursday, Torrey, Utah.
The ramp we are building for the Fuel TV spot. Shot of Tim.

Jeff Chase from Omaha, Nebraska, master ramp builder/skateboarder.
Jeff is building the ramp for the Fuel Tv spot. We met Jeff in Nebraska while filming our documentary about skateboarding and public space “Freedom of Space.” (Nebraska is a very cool place we met so many cool people there--skaters, artists and musicians)

Torrey, Utah
Wednesday
Tim stand on the cliff above the site of the ramp for the Fuel TV spot we are making.
We will be here for a week---building, painting, and skating.

BRIGHT EYES---JOEY LYNCH---SALT LAKE CITY
Sunday morning I got a message from our friend Joey Lynch. Joey is an artist we met in Lincoln, Nebraska while shooting skateboarding, anyway Joey said he was on tour with Bright Eyes and he could get us tickets. I am a fan of Bright Eyes so I said Yes, please, thank you very much Joey. Anyway it took a while to figure out why Joey was on tour with Bright Eyes. We hooked up with Joey before the show and told us he was doing the artwork that would projected on screen behind the musicians. The show was amazing and Joey’s work was brilliant. He projected candles, colored fur balls, 16 mm film prints, flowers, colored wires, food coloring, his art work, and he drew with markers while Conor Oberst was singing his heart out. The projection was not just pictures in the background it was huge and magnified the mood of the music. It also doubled as the spotlight on the musicians. It was one of the best shows I have seen in years, and it was excellent to see Joey at work.
Thanks Joey for the hook up.

Wrapped up shooting for the 1st fueltv skate spot yesterday with Ben and Kordell. Here's ben, nosegrab blunt on a rock. Kordell frontside rocked that rock! Tomorrow we start shooting the next skate spot, near torrey, UT.

We've been shooting the first of 3 Skate spots for FUELtv. Workin with lots of cool SLC and Utah County Skaters. We've been shooting on 16mm with a High speed Arri SR3. It's crazy how cumbersome this camera feels after being spoiled with the hvx-200. But unfortunately, the HVX doesn't cranck up to 150 frames per second. Maybe the "mini red" will help us out with that in a year or 2.

Our boy Kent Carter from SF is doing some music for us for another skate spot we are doing for Fuel. Today he recorded cello with Sam Bass. This weekend we have a high speed Arri SR3 to shoot a bunch of street skaters in Salt Lake City.
(photo: sam bass with cello not bass, to see his eyes click on his link)

We just started a “Firsthand” (mini biography---diary style) for Fuel TV of Fuzzy Hall. Fuzzy is a legend, role model and super positive guy. It is always fun to be with and film Fuzzy.

We Jam Econo on the Sundance Channel

WJE was picked up by the sundance channel and will have it's first airing tomorrow (monday) night at 9:00PM EST as part of the channels DOCDAY programming. They've got a little page up on their site about the film and it's currently scheduled air dates.