We drove all night to Chicago with thoughts of Crystal Castles running through our brains.

When I wasn’t driving I woke up and looked out the window and saw a freight train yard just as the sun lit up the skies.

Everytime I see a skyline the only thing that runs through my mind is how much shit there is to skate that I have yet to skate or see, or touch.

The ghost bike, when someone dies on the 2 wheels, these go up. Memorials and reminders of how quickly you can go.

Modern day jungle gyms hold no limits for wandering minds with colorful applicants in their backpacks.

We rode the train through the city during the rain. We were staying with the newly formed Beerics crew. Justin took us to an amazing photo show by this Japanese dude at Columbia. The japanese dude would take photos of the city of all angles, then reconstruct them into a 3d realistic view of it all.

It was Bentons idea to go on this trip. I am guessing he got pretty psychadelic at the show. A few hours after this photo was taken we would find ourselves in Congress Theatre with 5000 or so other human beings, dancing from 7pm to 3am to the tunes of Roan, Crystal Castles, Chromeo and Boys Noise. Dance is an interesting feeling, honestly quite a freeing experience when you just let loose and don’t hold back. All types of styles were experienced and felt at this theatre, crowd surfing, moshing, battling, bumping, grinding, girls making out with girls, girls ripping off their clothes, girls asking you for acid, security roaming the crowd looking for smokers while dancing, people losing their shit, and just all out pandemonium. It sort of felt tribal, like when you see movies of tribes dancing insanely to a few people going nuts on bongos. I think we need more experiences like this in life for if the body just sits still all the time, it seems like it just rots. Shake it up.

I woke up the next morning with my ears still ringing of sounds of beats and chaos and noise. I was on a natural high and 48 hours later or so I still am. My body is kinda tingling and I find myself looking for the next adventure or time of excitement. Durham Dave was the contact in Chicago and he and I went skating for a few hours in the somewhat wintry temperature. There was a cow skating at this park along with a cop. It was halloween and everything seemed quite surreal. Like… whoa, this city is fucken rad. This park was great, this big bowl had so much flow.

We skated this spot for a little while and it was sketchy as fuck. First there is a huge crack at the bottom but the biggest sketch factor is the fact that there is high traffic street inches from where you are skating. I wondered what would happen if our boards were to shoot out and smash a windshield for we were not prepared to rip and dip. Our boards did shoot into the traffic a few times and cars never noticed. You can’t mimic this feeling in any skatepark.

I climbed the bridge we were skating to get this shot. It was fun, had a low death factor if you weren’t a retard. Dave said he saw a guy go by on a bicycle he knew with a huge smile. The guy on the bike was in some punk band Dave had seen the night before. Supposedly he and the bassist got in a huge fight and the guy on the bike was super bummed the rest of the night. I’m glad I could remind him to smile every now and then.

This just might top my favorite tags of all time. The other one I really like is seen around San Francisco a lot… F-Word.

Dave skated this thing pretty damn well. One of his friends did a frontside blunt on this thing which is nuts as fuck. There is a photo on flickrs somewhere. I was gonna go into a ramble about how so many people told me so many names of peoples shit I needed to check out along this trip, photographer, musicians, artists. I forgot all of it. Some Russian girls told me they wanted to dance and mentioned some musician to me. These Russian girls didn’t know about Justice which I thought was interesting. The Russian girls said they missed Russia because it was harder to get drunk in America with all of the age limits. Drunk hot russian girls, kinda sounds like the description to a porno site. Let’s get back to skating.

Climbing this bridge was quite gnarly as hundreds of cars went by and I was in high visibility mode. I snapped this photo and knew I had fucked it up with the exposure, turns out I had fucked it up with the focusing too. However after I snapped it my camera died and we were left with just our boards to go explore the city. Supposedly somebody yelled at me while I was up on the bridge… I can’t remember what but its definitely an adjective to “fucken retard”. Lately I’ve had a lot of people talk shit to me. A cop lady told me she could give me a ticket for being stupid for skating this spot on the side of I-85, some dude called me a faggot fuck for peeing on the side of the road while he kept staring at me out of the window of a car going by fast enough for him to not see me give him the middle finger. People like to talk shit when in reality the jokes on them.

I don’t fall in love that easily, but I’m pretty much in love with this girl. Alrite, I fall in love easily.

She was a voodoo doll but she had never made a real one. I once made a voodoo doll of a kid I didn’t like. I drew spots on his legs, the next day at school he broke out in a rash on his body.

Much like NYC, Chicago rooftops are awesome for views. The train would go by here and you could see the citys efforts to brownify everything. For some reason they just love the color brown in Chicago, well the graffiti buff squad does, painting everything brown that isn’t up to par including abandoned buses that homeless sleep in. Quite funny, paint it brown, then its not a problem.

Daves girlfriend won the award.

For quickest most fucken awesomemest costume of the year.

She put this getup together in seriously… 45 minutes. Minus the trip to the thrift store… err junk store. I came up on a mini baby that eventually got an upside cross tattoo on its forehead, someone else a bouncing souls cd.

Michigans finest… Nerd urkle and that girl from the olympics who fucked her ankle up but still won some shit, or did some shit.

In closing there is never a closing just a next chapter to whatever the fuck is next. It’s kinda hard to leave a big city that you have yet to fully explore. Wait, what the fuck. All I’m saying is if life were a level bar, like one of those things they check your heart rate monitor with, mine would have spiked as high as possible on this trip, even higher than when I lost my virginity. Seriously listening to some very talented musicans destroy shit and inspire thousands of people to lose their minds and just go insane dancing was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. Skating new cities is always fucking awesome too. So if the opportunity arises to go on a trip with some friends and just live it up with little to no plan, do it. Bring your board.

I caught Jed playing with some new titties. I think his girlfriends gonna be pissed when she finds that out.

A Raleigh art gallery finally grew some balls and let graffiti artists crush the whole outside of it. No complaints from anyone and no one getting pissed over the big kids scribbling on walls. I like that.

Coming correct, bitch.

Death metal and Satan.

Vehicular manslaughter.

Homeless dudes sleep on top of these eyes. Were no longer at the art gallery friends.

Ninja training.

Sketchy

Totally got a love hate relationship with these tools of creation, fuck spray paint fumes, but damnit I love what you can do with these shits.

Illegalbeagle

fucken hammertime

Remember that art gallery with the ill shit on the outside? Now were inside that vagina.

Mines and a mothafucka on the itchy fingers.

rusko.cockneythug.listentoit.

Cusick creating the cures.

yo motha was a crackwhore. and i fucked her. pyssssche!!!

do you see what i see, o is ya ass just as blind as a bat.

cause blank walls get no love

vandalistic tendencies, breaking the law on a mission to spread creativity while tobacco companies are allowed to distribute their goods worldwide, kids with cans of color have homes raided, handcuffs placed on, and court cases pending, treated like misfits the powers that be need to start going after the powers that are already in place.

this is my new friend haley. she’s looking at me, jeremy walton is taking pictures from now on.

i was like yo, i gotta pray to allah.

some dude thought i was doing that lame yoga shit that’s really good for you.

turns out i was doing that lame yoga shit thats good for you and haley knew what the fuck was up. more than the dude who thought he knew what was up. actually i just liked having a girl touch me.

turns out haley teaches yoga classes to make some cheddar. shit was about to get bonkers.

Yea, we pretty much run the streets. Street Yoga 2009 coming to a mothafucken brainwave to ya never!

I’ve got the camera again and this kid is gonna grow his shit out into foot long spikes. He used to have them but his little sister put gum in his hair, so he put her in a blender.

And how’d he get her out of the blender?

Doritos!

Take not youngens and oldens, there is stuff to skate everywhere. Well no shit. Honestly though the story behind this picture is an interesting one. It was the beginning of Summer and I had just returned to Raleigh from some departure to the West Coast. Jed Shooter, Sturgill Horn, Billy Childress, James Tupper, and Reuben Pickle were skating this piece of wood on a set of rocks. Being the child I am I noticed the building we were skating in front of was not yet locked up and had a pretty nice looking inner parking garage. Temptation led me to skate to the top of the garage to bomb down it… man, it was awesome.

Wanting more I found a working elevator and took it to the top level. My curiosity kicked in and I walked up a side staircase onto the roof where I noticed the architect had made a skatepark and the builders had actually built it. I tried to convince my friends below they needed to stop what they were doing and immediately report to the upper level, but they looked at me like I was crazy. Billy and Reuben took off to head back to Winston/Mt. Airy and everyone else was ready to peace out too. So I bombed back down the parking garage and pleaded with the crew while they put their boards away. Luckily James was down for the adventure and we made our way to the elevator.

When we got to the top he was as shocked as I was. A skatepark on a roof. We skated it for a while and got some footage. Sturgill and Jed finally came up and Sturgil shot his board 7 stories down into the abyss. There was a ledge you could grind but if you slipped over it you would surely fall to your death on the other side.

I would visit there two more times, once with Rails with no hassle. Eventually I took Brett Abramsky, Dan Murphy, and Rodent there before finally getting the cops called on us by a resident of the building in the background. The cop was worried for our lives but man, you could tell he was fucken hyped he got to go up on a rooftop. Rodent almost had him convinced to let us keep shredding but the old officers was too fearful. He said he originally got a call that someone was on a roof looking like they were gonna commit suicide.

I never did look into just who designed this setup, but man, just imagine if more apartment complexes were designed with skateable rooftops. I know for a fact more people would want to live there if some soundproofing was done, on our last skate there we bummed out a girl who was living on the top level, but she didn’t mind for too long.

The possibilities are endless, you could put a swimmable/skateable pool on top, you could put a basketball court, swingsets, and even a clear water slide that went on the outside of the building back into the building.

I’m quite the dreamer, but I think life would be more fun with those ideas. Future architects, take note…

I haven’t been back in months. The building now has lots of residents and I am sure the gates are locked. Tis the lesson of the day, when the getting is good, get it, don’t hesitate cause sooner or later all good things come to an end. Make the best of the present moment, there is no guarantee to how long its gonna last.

Happy exploring.

Greco going up the RTP rail

Thrasher has some flicks of their trip through the Raleigh/Durham area. I’d never seen 70 people skating the Durham Courthouse before, and luckily some Durham cops are chill enough to let that shit slide.

Everything from melting his cameras to putting together amazing clips of reflections, we all know French Fred has a unique vision behind the camera lens.

If I am somewhere new, and there is a bridge along a set of train tracks, I have to take a look.

Fuck? A perfect spot for some renegade concretion. Quarter pipes on the ends? Bingo!

I’m always finding bibles and crosses at homeless encampments. Oh yea, empty beer and liquor bottles too.

The eye, seen a lot of em drawn round yonder.

Hope can be beaten with action.

Steve Fox, haven’t seen him in years. Best nollies in the world, no joke.

Reuben did this wallride frontside 360 shove it thing out on this contraption. Billy Childress took the sequence, all I got was a still.

The satellite dish turned out interesting, you roll down then up, could make for some interesting action when you hit the lip then launch out of it. We shall see.

Doods pouring the first flat of the park.

Quarter gets steep. Potential to grind the hubba into the steep wallride part.

Gonna see lots of sideways croozen on this thing.

Back to back kicker flicker.

Coming together

Getting ancy?

Floating quarterpipes

Almost…

We drove all night avoiding toll roads, roaming through back roads, scoping the sides of highways for marks left behind by youthful wanderers.

DC was dead at night.

We neared NYC as the sun rose. The toll avoidance took us through the countryside, it was beautiful.

Tunnels to burrow through.

Less trees and more concrete, more chaos, more dirty feet. Nice spot Skame. Pretty sure Dr. Sex held that down years ago.

JA holds NYC down. Heard he was in a movie, Karate Kid maybe?

Climbing roofs are city kids equivalent to country kids climbing trees.

My friend brought this old board with him but never managed to get his trucks on right.

It really is a jungle, an urban playground for those who see differently.

Sketch your life away.

Writers wet dream. Come up kids, or kings?

Krink is the best.

Midnight devils.

The 24 hour Long Island Express.

Piece of the puzzle.

I had a nightmare a few months ago I got shot in the chest in NYC while walking into a basement. Oddly enough my friend wanted to carry some of his furniture into his basement while we were in town. But we nixed that idea and instead I decided to go onto the roof and shoot this photo. Immediately after taking the photo gun shots rang out below and I looked down to see a man running through the streets blasting at a car going in reverse the wrong way. It was pretty gnarly. After the gunfire the streets returned to normal like nothing had happened. Brooklyn goes hard.

I skated alone most of the time through the city, my comrades were on the paint tip while I was on the skate. I ran into some old friends in the city and made new ones along the way. These were the Brooklyn kids. They were so stoked on skating and we gave them an old coffee table. They took the legs off and had their first manual pad. The future is bright.

We escaped to Jersey to an abandoned water park where a gang fight had ensued years ago. People just started firing at each other while kids swam in pools and lifeguards blew whistles. This drawing was quite suggestive.

Why not?

Rails invents tricks on the regular. I think he 360ed out of this one.

In Jersey we were hunting down an abandoned train bridge, the Paulinskill Viaduct. We weren’t really sure which way to go from this area but some kids showed up. The were skaters and they gladly pointed us in the right direction.

We found the viaduct and had to climb down these sewers into it. The crew came prepared with headlamps and flashlights.

As you towered 10 stories or so high you could climb through each level. It was amazing. Something you can’t find in any mall or product, a free priceless treat for the restless youth.

We brought some crayons. Wear your respirators.

Whatever is inside, let it out.

Artists lose sense of time.

This made me laugh.

As did this.

Young hearts be free tonight.

This reminded me of a girl I know.

We departed the viaduct and as we returned to the surface of the bridge the fog had rolled in giving us an eery feel. It was incredible. Nothing else mattered. Our time was perfect as we dodged Johnny Laws inspection of the road. I mean I love people, but sometimes its just much nicer to do your thing without explanation. This text is quite irrelevant to the photo above. The next day we wandered into a ship graveyard in all its glory in a Staten Island.

Wreckage without use.

A pirates life for me.

I grew fond of NYC. Yea, its dirty, grimey, violent, raw, uncut, harsh, crowded, polluted… but something about having so much to skate and explore is so great. Every morning I woke up and told myself I was too tired to go skate, but pushing around to the Manhatten bridge park, the Brooklyn Banks, Billy Rohans school yard spot, and just skating through traffic was so rewarding. The city never sleeps, and it is a fucken jungle.

The storm was brewing but the view was soothing

Middle of the night we walked to the rocks while the high tide crept in causing us to hop.
We kissed under the moon and since then I’ve felt less gloom.

The simple joy found in these little wooden toys

Rise to rest

Lifers

The Lucky 13

Backpack and a board