ZACH@MANHANDS: October 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

PEEP GAME

I drew this for a local gym here in Flagstaff. They're stoked.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

BAY CITY SKATEPARK

Travis earns the Murder trophy for killing it super hard at Bay City.

FS Tailslide over bank to ledge.

Anthony 50-50 up over and down

Travis on the back tail. John on the fisheye.

samezies....

FIN.

Oregon coast 2009, one last outing. Anthony, Travis, John and I decided to get one last night in the wilderness after we parted ways with Orrin and Jerry in Portland just hours before. The coast was the destination and skating was a must. We started our adventure at the Bay City skatepark. It was a back and forth park with a gigantic pyramid, and a bunch of little things to dick around on. Travis murdered as usual and made friends with the local tweaker bum in the process. He followed us to the parking lot where he prayed for Anthony's car, begged for some food and money, and we drove off leaving him hungry and penniless. We suck. However we don't suck at surviving. A short drive to Garibaldi to find a camping spot and its time to eat. With few ways to cook our "hobo dinners," we chose to dice everything and cook each meal separately in Ham's tall boy beer cans. Best way to prepare a meal even if you aren't a bum. Absolutely delightful. To end the night a few more cocktails and some light up frisbee on the beach was a must considering Anthony had a new disco frisbee. An excellent replacement to just the average looking blue frisbee he had prior to John wrecking it by throwing it in the water totally on purpose... thanks to REI, everything is guaranteed for life.

Best night photo of the trip. Too much beer + mad skills = this photo

This photo is how i see myself when i look in the mirror.

I took this at the end of the night, the actual photo is pitch black, this is the CIA version of photo enhancement.

PORTLAND ROUND 2

On our way back to the land of full nudes and cheap booze. Portland, OR. The city that owns my heart. Stone cold bad asses in Betsy rollin hard somewhere in between Seattle and Ptown.

This is Jeff Halen, aka Hay Hay. Jeff knows how to party... hard. Jeff also likes to skateboard. This is what happens when he does both at the same time. Im gonna say Jeff takes the cake when it comes to drunken injuries.

BACK IN THE GOOD OL USA

We came back to the states early due to rain and also money issues. We all made the choice to live like kings for the remaining days back in the US, as opposed to living like not kings in Canada... it all came down to beer and strippers, so we road tripped back to SEATTLE. John Q let us crash his pad in the rainy city despite a cookie crumb incident that Orrin, John and myself dreamt up days earlier. Seattle was good, we skated a bit at a park located directly under the Space Needle. No photos however because it was profest 2009. David Gravette and pals were killing this park... so hard. It wouldn't have cool to get in their way to get a scratch on the deep end when they were blasting out of it. I did however get some night shots once the rain cleared. The first is in front of John Q's house. Anthony is both posed and partied out in this pic.

This giant troll is under a bridge in Seattle about 3 blocks from Q's house. It was a city project to keep bums and tweakers from raping people under a bridge without a troll.

MANHANDS... bitch!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

SQUAMISH

Bear country. Squamish is the extreme sports capital of the world. when you are there, you get it. British Columbia is an amazing place, extreme terrain. extreme mushrooms.

these beautiful and most likely deadly mushrooms were the size of softballs and they were littered across the forest floor.

the town of Squamish sits directly below this several thousand foot cliff face, it is absolutely breathtaking.

the clouds are constantly moving and evaporating and reforming along the steep mountain crevasses. It was relaxing just watching the clouds, you could tell that the weather in these parts can be very unpredictable and quite dangerous at times. This town makes you seem small and the wilderness here is one to be respected. I've never until now been scared about camping amidst the bears, not so much scared, more like aware. ignorance is bliss.

drinking wine in the cold rain isn't so bad. Jerry treated himself to a $20 flask of cheap Canadian whiskey only to have it spilt shortly after opening. needless to say none was wasted, whiskey that you slurp directly off the table burns a bit more on the way down than when drink properly, but gets you equally as pissed. Squamish, BC 2009

Jerry, Anthony John, Zach

VANCOUVER, BC

Canada EH! I loved Vancouver. Great skating, good people, free healthcare, super beautiful, there is water and bridges and the place is surrounded by mountains, the girls were hot as could be, there was a lot to do, weed was cheap and easily accessible, however, alcohol was pricey. Bottled six packs were in the $20- $25 range. When I think canada i think about a bunch of old dudes talking hockey around an ice hole fishing and drinking shit loads of cheap Canadian beer. Now when I think of Canada I think of a bunch of dudes sitting around an ice hole, fishing and talking about how they pissed themselves in America because the drank too much for really cheap.

Hanging in our Vancouver hostel shit hole. We had a ton of expensive shit in the room and the balcony where everyone at the hostel smoked and drank was right outside the window to our room. a window without a lock on it, sketchy. we fashioned a lock out of a hook we and some scrap we found on the window sill. It worked enough to keep our shit and this is photo was taken after a night of attempted partying. Vancouver, BC 2009

This is the smoking stoop, right down from this window and down the alley is a door where you can ring a buzzer and get greeted by a bouncer, judged, then if you are worthy, they sell you herb. totally sketchy, totally worth it.

LOPEZ ISLAND

So a wonderful tourist guide/map led us to Lopez Island, an island about 20 minutes from Orcas and easily accessible by ferry boat. This guide informs us of a descent sounding skatepark on Lopez Island, the guide states "come shred the concrete curves of the 12,000 sq.ft skatepark located on Lopez Island." LIARS. The park we ended up skating was a basketball court with (2) portable 4 foot quarter pipes, a super sketchy rusted out up, across, and down box, and a really good funbox that was about 12 feet long and some other funbox that was built with small nails, so it wobbled a bit.... alot. We all made the best of it and skated for several hours, there was some bitching, but a couple of bangers were thrown down and we left stoked. Also Orrin found some Jones sodas at a bench and was stoked and Jerry and I boardslid two flatbars lined up one after another. Jerry's was to fakie... so sick.

This was on the beach about 50 feet from where our deserted campsite was located. I took this photo at about midnight. another beautiful night.

Lopez Island 2009, huddling around the campfire, about to hit the hay.

Anthony posted up enjoying the early morning boat ride.

Monday, October 19, 2009

ORCAS NIGHT LIFE

Throwing a glowing lit up frisbee on the shore while the sky looks like this is a night for the books. Lucky for me i had my camera to capture the nearly full moon and the perfect clouds.

I train fire flies

lots of stuff going on at team Murder headquarters, Orcas camsite 2009

fun with headlamps. Orcas 2009

ORCAS ISLAND ROPE SWING

This was the rope swing located at our camp site. We had a lot of fun on this thing and managed to nearly kill John Q in the process. Luckily, Q is like a cat and no injuries were sustained. All of us left Orcas with some gnarly hand blisters... it was a swingin good time.

One of my few action photos, Essack blasting for the camera on the rope swing.

Johnny 5 used his Extendz today

Orrin with a trick he likes to call the "Flying half Mexican."

Essssssssaaaacccccckkkk!!!!!!

Mr. Sexy in skin colored shorts, no shoes, and a poncho, nothing says extreme rope swing like this.

ORCAS ISLAND SKATEPARK

This park is one of my favorite skateparks ever. Great lines, lots of creativity, deep pockets, dangerous shit and very few kids or even people around, and it's on a bad ass island.

This was a gigantic F/S grind... once again Orrin making it all look too easy. Over the death box of death.

Anthony floating an ollie over the kicker box. This shot has a pretty good view of the entire skatepark. Lots of pool coping, and lots of cool tranny lines.

A side angle of Orrin going over the deathbox.

FERRY BOAT RIDE

So I think that this photo is my favorite. John is the only one person on Earth capable of staying still for such lengths of time. He is what one might call a "Natural." I have taken night photos of John where the shutter was open for 30 seconds and his eyelashes were tack sharp.

Group photo pulling away from Lopez Island, a smaller, weaker island with a sorry ass little skatepark... more of Lopez to come.

Puget of Sound, Washington. 2009

A flock of birds migrating south for the wintertime.... at sunset.

PUGET OF SOUND

A forty five minute ferry boat ride from Anacortes WA, will land you on one of the many San Juan islands located in the Puget of Sound. Our first destination for a number of reasons was Orcas Island. This island has a freshwater lake in the middle of the island, a black tailed deer population that outnumbers the human population, and one of the best skateparks ever built... with nobody around to skate it. Paradise in the northwest.