brian -brain- ferdinand....

i think this is 1989.... one of the very first spitfire ads.
i've posted this before, but came across it today and figured i'd repost it.
this photo rips and i think brian was way ahead of his time and defiantly
did it his way. he's still alive... this is not one of those.
  blunt fakies where only done by a select few at this point, not too many with
this much style.
  here's to brian.

_ the numero group_ sent some rad tunes

thanks drew, totally digging all the new music. 

oaktown to chitown tank. turquoise jewelry that happens to hold gasoline,

 i'm always a little hesitant to put these closeup tank photos up because it seems there is a guy that can duplicate them almost exactly for others. But i think the guy mike that it's going to breaks peoples arms and legs for a living, so i'll have to let him deal with that.
  but on a serious note, this tank gave me hell, the bare metal was wiped with some wd40 type deal for photos and it created a solvent pop that i couldn't get out of the clear coat.... twice! stripped to bare metal....but all things happen for a reason, and this rendition is better than the other failures.
  it feels so wrong to be sticking this thing in a box and shipping it, like a funeral, but it will be resurrected when it reaches chiacago and put into the wind. i always can tell if i'm happy with something, when i finally get a chance to stop back and look at, and you kind of have to remind yourself that you did it. It's all learning, and experimenting but within some parameters that will make it all jive in the end. creativeness or whatever you call it, happens so naturally sometimes and the end result can be failure or success. I don't think of this as a traditional paint job, or one  with lots of outside influence, well aside from nature. but that what feels best about it.

bf6 2014

deep throat hot dogger, so bummed that the size of hot dogs is progressively shrinking in size

two of my favorites

                                     hey watch it!

 tom fugle american legend 2014

     what goes up must come down

  B double EE Double RR un brew ski run. This is how they built the pyramids

  i don't always like myself but i really love the 3 there people in this photo.

~ some things never change ~

817 pine st. w.oakland 1993

baggy bens, stranger t shirt, spitfire hat. worn out vans.  From left to right.... myself, pip,onio, and juju. my old 1986 pickup. small wheels skinny board. 

I think this was the day i shot my first real ad.... for a couple days i had been trying to do a kick flip backside disaster... at the time a few of us were doing backside kick flips on vert, so when real wanted an ad i wanted to do something no one had done or seen...at least on a vert ramp. The night before jake and i had one of our usual skates, thin lizzy blaring, jake cuing his drop in to the beginning of the song or at least the punchiest part of the song. At the end of the session i got into the the kick flip back disaster, to the point where i knew i had it .... but was terrified to slam, and maybe miss the chance of shooting the sequence for the real ad.  this was the time of -the death of vert- and i was well aware of why it was dying,on the top of that list ...the accessibility of a vert ramp to skate. Vert had become slightly robotic, over flared, and i think very suburban. Don't get me wrong.... i love vert skating, i think its so fucking raw, the speed and flying through the air is almost like a super hero come to life. But..... no pads, out on the streets, in the early 90's..... basically street skating was the place to be, the thing to do, and the mecca, EMB was exactly one train stop away from me. So i did see that happening and was fucking blown away by how cool it looked, how care-free it was, but mostly by its creativeness and how rapidly the likes of mike carroll, javonte, ronnie bertino, and other locals at EMB were pushing it. But i felt vert in my bones and was trying to take some of the shit i saw on the street to vert..... not exactly TRYING but maybe absorbing, or mocking.... For me to do a back tail slide across the big block at EMB i'd probably have to pitch a tent on the stage there and camp out for a year, but i could emulate it on our shitty indoor ghetto vert ramp. I became obsessed with trying street type tricks on vert..... and any skater that has done something no one has done, it's a really fucking amazing feeling, and becomes almost addictive. (i don't mean that in a bragging way.. because hosoi was doing 10ft air that you couldn't touch, but just that you were able to throw in your little creative 2cents) 

So gabe morford who i barely knew at the time, showed up in a gold late 80's malibu(i think), and asks what i wanted to shoot? i remember kinda mumbling "kick flip backside disaster."... take note this was 35mm film days, so every attempt at a sequence was dollars being spent on film. "how many rolls we on?" was such a common question and so much pressure. I was kinda doubting i could do it, but i figured if i didn't at least i would fail at trying something unseen, and maybe the word would get back to real headquarters as such,  rather than trying to shot something more standard..... in fact maybe thats why there is a backside ollie photo in the ad, it was the back up in case i failed, and they threw it in the ad. Within a couple tries, it was flipping really good and i slammed a few to disaster and jumped off..... part due to fear and shock that i was coming so close. any skater knows that feeling, where you kind of surprise yourself and then you have to make the decision..... -am i going to stick this?- I usually go through every possible slam first.... the best would be landing primo or all four wheels on deck, which would launch me head first into the middle of the ramp and there i would die. Ok and... I'm a bailer, i mean, i have to bail something kind of a lot before i make it. I think doctors refer to it as VERTITUS. But somehow for some miracle i landed it quickly.... and the one i made was better than any i bailed..... there was one problem, gabes flash didn't go off on the -money shot- (thats when after you land a trick they take a picture of you cumming all over your own face).....but really it was the middle "catch" photo.....REAL said they'd just cut in another photo from another attempt... but none looked good to me and i was so bummed. I demanded to see the negatives... at the time i was in the local community college photo class... i stood strong in protest stating "my dad's a tv repair man, he can fix this photo" but really i begged Gabe to try to make it work..... and he did, it's just a little darker. I don't know, maybe this is too long winded, but i found the truck photo this morn and then when i was writing this i found the sequence on the internet and it brought up so many memories. These times were really character building and so relevant for the rest of life, I had to got through intense human comparisons, and had to look at myself through the eyes of others and often ask myself "would i be stoked on this" I think thats a beautiful thing about skateboarding... you can really be humbled by it. This sequence was only as rad as it was till the next page of the magazine was turned or until someone did it better. It's painful to see folks in bike world learning these lessons late in life... and trying to hold onto their glory like it will never end. If that makes sense, i know it's got parallels in so many worlds like music, and art,  and probably scholastic-ly as well. One of the kids at the vert ramp there other day said have "have you ever done a kick flip lein air?" i quickly replied i think i invented it.... i mean was the first one to do it...i mean i'm a fucking kook. I turned red, and apologized for my words, but you get older and try and hang onto some of the past... i should of just said "yes, but that was a longtime ago"

 Fuckin-A life can be that first sip of a cold beer that burns the back of your throat, it can be the bottom warmer part, and lots of times it's the can you reach for thats surprisingly empty and you forget how good it tasted as you pounded it.

biker lifestyles...... and what not, and so forth, and so on.

somewhere between heaven and hell we exist… biblically, metaphoricly and in some possible way, in our own  reality. I know personally i’ve walked this earth before, not in this body and most likely not in this century, most likely the past, but as far as i know i have not yet seen the future.
 Life has it valleys and peaks and can change as suddenly as death. The feeling of first love compared to the knee dropping pain of losing a loved one suddenly. The human emotions that some choose to wear on their sleeves and others keep deep inside tightly corked lips afraid of the vulnerability speaking

 of feelings can stir. 

     My thoughts are mush at this moment, but mush thats flowing fast, not a clear powerful river with visible rocks below but that after a storm chocolate milk river thats pushed up earth and stone. A few drinks, and a feeling that my near sightedness is fading with everyday has made me sit and overthink everything around me. Not my socks and boxer short combo, but where and who i am. So sick of being talked at by poor story tellers and bandana clad tourists experimenting with lifestyle changes. My patience is thin, and body seems to be following suit. I keep meaning to eat, right after this ride, repair, beer, coffee, excursion, or after i write this.
  North on telegraph in the top of second gear, rather than the bottom of third, on the gas solid lifters making an even ping as i steadily pass everything in sight. Not asshole style, just forward motion like a snake through tall grass. Totally lonely or totally sick of everyone is always floating between my temples. If i could of just poisoned two people at last nights dinner of eight we really could of learned a lot about each other, but unfortunately you made us suffer though a story that ended in a misfire. 

  Man  it was noisy last night with fireworks, dogs barking, and sirens. Gov’t holiday brought yo you by the good people at MGD… light the fuse, a drawn out whistle and bang. Life. Caveman. Side show circus. But who am i to judge, I’m the monkey that puts the gasoline in the tank of his noise maker machine and makes burnt fuel shoot through the pipes. My dog gets two free meals, two walks, and his belly rubbed everyday just for keeping me grounded, I’m not sure who has the harder job me or him. When the things you love become popular you have to let go and let them break, or maybe tip over and just  drain out is a better way to put it. Insta…. Instant. Haste. Why waste the haste? Put it out there. Shrink the world. Fuck we all need a pat on the back from time to time. Some of us need them constantly….. 3 times daily, and i still can’t figure out how you write with your dick jammed into your mouth.

   It’s a saturday that feels like a sunday. The kind of day that would be better spent drinking, but it was too nice of a day to drink all day so you got out and go skate but that ended meaning pushing into the wind with the sun in your eyes and getting wheel bite mid slappy and launching your shoulder straight into a poorly formed dog turd….. repeating to yourself “this shirt was free and i don’t really like it anyway”, yes uptight woman with the miniature dog that’s staring at me, i’m too old for this, that is dog shit on my shoulder, and i am pretending that i’m not in pain. Carry on, by the way…. i hate your face,sweatpants, and the way you walk. Now i’ll pick myself up and convince myself that the slam just happened from all the negativity i just judged that woman with. It was an chicken before the egg proven moment. The the slam=chicken the egg=the dog walking woman. Life’s a bitch then you eat shit in front of one. 

   I can be positive though and write about making sweet love in a van with very few dents parked on a cliff along the highway 1 and how you tasted sweet and sour and mankind will never really understand what comes out of a woman but that part of the mystery is why the heterosexual man loves the woman. The gap between the legs and tits pointed in slightly different directions, what is inside that small make-up bag? thanks for not fucking with all these black heads on my face. Remember that time when i looked over at you and we both thought the same thing but didn’t say it. I loved that time. The last few sentences i stole from a bike builder when down south that told me last year “we’re more alike than you realize”. He’s right we both jump into our pants two legs at a  time. Joking. jk. lol. ftw. 4Q

   I guess soccer is going off right now. I used to play when i was young, i preferred center half back because you can run all around the field like a wild dog and get out all your pre pube angst. When i was really little i remember everyone on the field would crowd around the ball and it would just ping pong back and forth between all the players. Pure chaos, taking cleats to the shin, and elbows to the chest. Mosh pit at 8yrs old. My dad told me “stay out of there, the ball will pop out” and sure enough it did, the very first time i stood outside the swarm. Fuck, it was so much pressure, me alone with the ball and both teams starring at me. So i just kicked the ball back in the swarm, and joined the chaos, cleats to shin elbow to chest. no pressure, just pain. That’s kind of how life feels.