jackassworld

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, my thoughts always turn to darkness and evil at this time of year. Because this is when we hold our annual Black Metal Thanksgiving in Portland, Oregon. We descend upon some poor soul’s dark castle, put on the corpse paint, and make Thanksgiving dinner while Hailing Satan and listening to the worst black metal possible. It’s a good time. Although I probably shouldn’t say “annual” because we actually have it every other year. Although, if I say it’s annually, then I’m lying. And lying is very evil. So, yeah, we have Black Metal Thanksgiving every year. (more…)

Last week, Rick Kosick and I stopped by Podium Distribution to interview its VP, Tim Gavin, for our forthcoming Big Brother magazine retrospective. A former professional skateboarder on the Blind team while the magazine was still under Steve Rocco’s ownership, Tim was frequently hanging out around the office and he was almost always down for obliging our goofy requests. He was no dummy: publicity back then directly correlated to board sales (which wasn’t exactly a bad thing considering the industry was no bigger than the famously diminutive penis of G.G. Allin at the time), and he couldn’t have asked for a better promotional opportunity than when the idea for Issue #6 came along. (more…)

As I mentioned in the previous posts, we interviewed Larry Flynt for the Big Brother documentary we’re working on. And interviewing Larry Flynt isn’t a casual affair. He’s very rich and he has a lot of power, and, thus, he’s very intimidating. So as an interviewer, you have to approach this subject a little more carefully. He’s got a great sense of humor, and he’s lived a pretty crazy life, so it’s difficult to offend him. At the same time, he has a temper, and there are things that piss him off. Because if you offend this guy, not only is the interview over, but your life might be over as well. (more…)

In order to fully appreciate my interview with Larry Flynt (which will post tomorrow), there’s some back story you should know about. (more…)

I interviewed Larry Flynt last week for the Big Brother documentary we’re working on. We’ll share some of the interview with you later this week, but in the meantime we decided that a little bit of our relationship with Larry should be revealed first. For one thing, you need to read a particular article that I wrote in Big Brother to understand what Larry is talking about in the interview. We’ll show you that next. But first I thought it would be funny to show the stuff we filmed of Larry for the Big Brother videos. (more…)

http://www.delmarskateranch.com/

I’ve been riding skateboards since I was like five years old. My dad sold little banana boards, so there was always a board lying around. But when I became a “skateboarder” around 1979 in San Jose, all of the skate parks around us were closing. Winchester was still open, but I was only like 9 years old and hadn’t even gotten the concept of skating on stuff. By the time I realized that there were places actually built for skateboarding, it was closed. So for the rest of my adolescence my friends and I grew up yearning to skate the parks in Southern California. We had Derby in Santa Cruz, but that doesn’t really count. Plus we were “val kooks” when we went there; it was a rather unpleasant environment. So we built ramps. But when we weren’t skating, we were watching videos of Del Mar and Upland. It just looked so rad. And it was. But as I would eventually learn, the “rad” part had nothing to do with the park, but with “the scene.”

When we were in high school we took a road trip to SoCal to skate the parks. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was before Del Mar closed in 1987. Probably 85 or 86, making me 15 or 16 at the time. That might have been one of the best trips I’ve ever been on in my life. As for the skating? It sucked.

I was pretty good at the time. Not great, but I had a small bag of tricks. A bag I forgot to pack for that trip because I skated absolutely horrible. And that was mostly because of the parks. As I said, we grew up skating ramps and on that trip I learned that wood and cement are two entirely different surfaces. Plus, both Upland and Del Mar suck. Ever since I skated those parks I’m astounded by anything anybody did in those pools. Especially the combi-pool at Upland. Airs? Inverts? Fuck that, I couldn’t even do a rock and roll in that thing. It’s kinked everywhere, the tiny transitions are different all around and they’re crowned with about four feet of pure vert. And even if you could make it up that, you had to deal with the biggest pool coping I have ever seen. It must have stuck out at least three inches. I was absolutely helpless in that thing. Still, it was fun to carve around in and at least I can say I skated it. But my day at Upland came to an end when I slammed in the full pipe. The bottom of the full pipe was really rough and was covered with sand and debris. So not only did I get a nice hipper, but it shredded my ass off. I spent the rest of the trip wearing a diaper over an open wound and sleeping on my right side.

The thing I wanted to skate most was the keyhole at Del Mar. That was where all those legendary battles between Hawk and Hosoi went down. But goddamn that thing was awful. For one, it was slippery as shit. As Corey O’Brien said after his first visit, “It was carved out of a fuckin’ ice cube.” Second, it was kinked as shit. Especially at the bottom of the main wall near the hip where everyone blasts high airs. The transition was basically pregnant. There was a huge lump in the bottom. And while the lack of vert in the damn thing was welcomed after Upland, I’m still amazed dudes could go as high as they did in that pool.

So I sucked. But as I said, the best thing about Del Mar was the scene. We’d skate during the day when it was hot and no one was there, but at night, when all the pros showed up, we’d just hang out and watch. We must have seen every big name skater at the time at night: Gator, Blender, Hawk, Lester, Hosoi, Ruff, Losi, Reese Simpson, Adrian Demain, it was amazing. We were definitely star struck.

But now it’s gone. Every time I drive past where it was, I always remember those couple of days I spent there. And I always wonder if it’s still there under the dirt.

http://www.tobinyelland.com

Our old friend and former Big Brother photographer, Tobin Yelland, has updated his website. I bet you didn’t even know he had a website, huh? What the hell is wrong with you? Tobin goes to all the trouble of making a website to showcase his awesome photography and you don’t even have the decency to visit? Well the least you can do is go check it out now.

Black girls.

They’re growing on me. Dark boobs, neat. In the past I have swayed from the African Americans but after living in LA for a number of years I have changed my mind and soon wish to hook up with a black chick. My friend Dennis McGrath is really down: for a long time all he dated was black chicks, he loves ‘em.

Over the weekend I lit a black chick’s cigarette. She was wearing a bikini top and I glanced at her boobs. They were real nice ones, and this is right when I switched over to liking this kind of stuff, almost more than white chicks, which for a while was my mainstay. (more…)

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1856961199

I’ve been friends with Ethan Fowler pretty much since he moved to California back in the early ’90s. We even lived together in the Mission for a minute. So it was with great honor that I accepted Patrick O’Dell’s invite to sit down for an interview for an Epicly Later’d piece on Ethan. Ethan is one of the best skaters of all time and I dare you to show me someone with a more natural style. Check out the six-part, Ethan Fowler Epicly Later’d piece at VBS.TV.

Rick came in my office last week with another one of his cockamamie ideas. “Hey Dave,” he bellowed, “I have an idea.” Oh great, here we go. “Why don’t we build a bunch of little Neil Blender ramps around the office.” Cockamamie, yes. Stupid, yes. Great idea? FUCK YES. But I took it one step further.

(more…)