PHOTOS: BROOKS FRITZ

No fairy tale story this week. Just some more random photos to complain about. Like I said last week I have way too many negatives to scan. And I have kinda been procrastinating after last week when I scanned in 9 rolls or so and forgot to save them because my friend Scotty came over and was distracting me about going to the store to get beers. Next thing I know I forget to save the scans to a folder. Ooops. He didn’t realize when I have the purple gloves on and blasting my Insane Corn Biscuit mix tape I mean business.

Oh how cute! look at the pretty flowers. Maybe I should go put on the Morrissey and cry for a while.

Ryan Harris back tailed over the door way at Killer Whale Island skate park right before the rain started so  could leave and go fishing with my Boohyah double bladed buzz. Whoo weee!

Brandon Frontside invert on the big wall at that one park where the locals are mean and scary.

The dogs couldn’t even stop him.

The road trip essential.

Vato loco David Rockito

What’s your name again? Backside smith grind.

crazy footed backside ollie over  the seat.

You never know what might happened down there under the bridge. Have a good week. A road trip is much needed. For everyone.

Tags: 120 film, ass, brandon, Davey Rockit, randoms, Ryan Harris, wsvt, wu weller

Photography/words by:

Brooks Fritz

I sure love this skateboarding stuff. It’s really a good time. Pretty much the best time. And with that said there’s nothing better then riding some round walls. I dont even need to do tricks or “maneuvers” to have a good time. I can just ride the skateboard these days and be content. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but, it is what it is.  Anyways, here are some more front side grinds and front side airs for your viewing pleasure or viewing hatred. Oh yeah, and some bodacious tubular action. Remember, this skateboarding stuff is supposed to be fun. Not something to stress about. Why did you start in the first place?

Wake up Davey! Open your eyes. You are grinding a backyard pool for Christ’s sake….

No it’s not a fun box. It’s a death box. Hang up there and you might be taking a nap on the drain.

Sorry to break this news to you.  If you don’t ride a skateboard your not grinding.

Dude. Your pants aren’t even close to being tight enough. Where is all your flare? And why are you grabbing in between your legs?  Don’t you know you have to tuck your back knee in to get on Fuel TV?

Right in the neighborhood I grew up in…

Dave’s Ramp. I have fun here.

DJ Dickfoot. Aka DJ Mongo. Go to the Royal Dive on Monday nights to enter Richard lips World of Music….

Not really a round wall but close enough. Anytime you dont have to put your feet down is a good time in my book.

Oside surf team in between heats.

LOCALS ONLY!

Damn foam ball was trying to push me out the back…

Richard Lips doesn’t feel safe pulling in with out his helmet.

It goes on for quite a while……

Shaka Gnar! I put some illustration on this one to show you what’s going through Pat’s mind. This place is always glassy and about head high. The tide is always good too. Here’s Pat backdooring a deep section after pumping down the line for days!  GO GET SOME! - Brooks

Ever hear of diverticulosis disease? Well I just found out I got it. I have been having this serious pain in my lower left side of my stomach since Sunday. Pretty much feels like there is a knife stabbing me or something. I couldn’t hang anymore just waiting for the pain to go away on it’s own so I went to the doctor yesterday and ended up spending 9 hours at the hospital. They did blood work, piss test, a cat-scan, pretty much the whole 9 yards. Luckily I have insurance thanks to my wife’s job so I wasn’t really stressing on the bill. i cant imagine if I didn’t have insurance. Most likely wouldn’t of gone. Anyways, I was more stressed on wondering what the hell is wrong with me and why wont this knife pain go away. After the ct scan and 4 hours later waiting for the results I found out I have this old man stomach condition diverticulosis. It’s not life threatening but never the less still pretty serious and it will never go away I guess. Pretty awesome huh? So for the time being here’s some randoms for the week. Hopefully you can read this and I haven’t posted any of these photos before. You will have to excuse me. I’m a little doped up on pain meds… -Brooks

Nollan Helmstetter, tailslide.

kike, side rock

Peter Goon, fs grind

Bill Green, kickstand frontside rock.

Carter, grinds

Scotty Keller, wheeler grab

Clocked out

Wu Weller, grinds

JC Hargis

It’s pretty self explanatory whats going on here.

Just Chillin, grinds

David Preseley, same pool as above. Grinds are popular these days…

Brendan Klein, south american pancho layback.

Have a good weekend.

Words and Photos by Brooks Fritz

I think Mondays are the new Fridays for me. At least for posting my weekly story. Maybe it’s the gardener with his blower on for like 6 fucking hours straight on Fridays now. He used to come on Saturdays but people complained they couldn’t sleep in until 1pm. Me having a kid I don’t really sleep in so much now so it never bothered me. But now he comes on Fridays and it blows. Literally! ha! So I live in a town house complex and they hired this gardener and he has one of those backpack blower things. You know what I’m talking about right? Well here where I live there is a ton of eucalyptus trees and they make a mess all the time. So blower boy is out there seriously all day with that thing on blowing the crap out to the main street only to be replenished by more leaves and branches, etc almost instantly. What does this have to do with skateboarding? Absolutely nothing. Even though one of those blowers would come in handy at spots sometimes. I guess I’m just babbling on. That is it. Now it can be called Babbling Brooks Fritz Files.

This Northwest story could go on for quite a while.. Do you want it to? For now I’m going to end it with some highlights and randoms from the rest of the trip. I seriously could stretch this thing out for weeks.

Oceanside Terror Chapter members Davey Rockit Presley and Cobra Kyle Chicken Nugget Gallaghger

I’ve been told the North West is green because it rains there, A lot.

Kyle’s Car = death metal all the time

BREAKFAST TIME!

Breakfast with Kyle = Sparks, Bloody beers, Barely cooked almost raw bacon, burnt eggs, and lots of cheese.

After breakfast. It was time to release the mudd butt. What better place then the lake!

If you have been to Orcas Island and haven’t been on the rope swing your blowing it.

Ryan can backside ollie well.

Really Well. No nannies needed when you land everything almost first try.

there was a burn ban going on the entire trip.

Look at those three fags hanging out on the bridge. Oh wait, those are my friends.

It’s a whole lot easier to grind over vert when you have loose trucks. Davey Rockit turns on his board and grinds at the same time. Hence the name carve grind.

Mike Petersen, Nose blunt slide. Orcas Island.

While Rhino was busy shooting a photo of another dude Mike was trying these noseblunt slides. I stopped skating and grabbed my camera and took advantage of Rhino being busy. And of course I shot it terrible… Plus my camera at the time only shot 4 or 5 frames a second. But thats just the excuse I make to make myself feel better.

Luke learned fs airs before he learned to ollie.

This is what the North West looks like to me.

Ballard City hill bomb.

By this time of the trip our host Ryan had had enough of us and dropped us off in Ballard, Washington. Fat Chris took us in and we skated Seattle area for a few days before our flight back home to SD.

West Seattle Bowl

Backside grind. Luke Puke Face Girling.

Davey Rockit fs grinds.

cards and beers

The best of times. The worst of times.

Have a good week. -Brooks

PHOTOS/WORDS: BROOKS FRITZ

This I guess this week it’s going to be the Monday Fritz files…. Just to keep you on the edge of your seat!

In part one last week we left off with a day under the bridge at Burnside.That was a fun time besides having a minor case of the airplane legs. But that’s just another excuse to make myself feel better about drinking beers and shooting photos instead of skating. Our NW host Ryan never seems to have a hard time skating so I was fortunate enough to get a few decent photos. Our agenda was really no agenda. The four of us (Ryan, Davey, Luke and myself had 5 weeks to do whatever wherever. We just knew we had to be in Seattle to fly home after the 5 weeks were up. After spending a few days in Portland hanging out at Jamie’s house started to get antsy and decided to head to the coast to meet up with the youngest old man I know. Mr. Cobra Kyle Gallagher.

This isn’t Kyle. But Mr Richard Lipz himself in the flesh… Enjoying our RV’s luxury living quarters on the way to that one skate park with the giant butt hole.

Dont drink that… It’s 1,200 hits of liquid acid….

Kyle arrives… We had a session at Mcminville.

The vagina hole bowl at Mcminville is great for photos but isn’t the funnest thing to skate. For a change everyone was skating the street course.

Ryan Willians, aka BOOHJAH..

Low to high ollie to truck bash.

Luke was so hyped on the session at Mcminville he decided to get a tattoo at the local shop in town so he would never forget it. What could be better then some flaming dice?

After Luke’s episode of “Oregon Ink” we went to a friends house where his driveway is funner to skate then your local skate park. And that’s just the cement that was left over from the basement.

Proper tailblock.

Sweeper

Amarilla

Our friend Derek Plourd decided to meet us at Bainbridge.

5.0 revert

And the crowd goes wild!!! Luke loves Bainbride. And why wouldn’t you?

Board meeting…

Skateboarding can be fun.

After skating Bainbridge all day everyone was pretty hungry. So we decided to catch the ferry over to Seattle to get something to eat. And what could be better then a bag of Dicks!

Have a good week. -Brooks

Photographs & words by: Brooks Fritz

Another north west trip? You better believe it. What? You don’t like it up there in the land of concrete and trees? Everyone talks about taking trips to California. Well if you didn’t know it sucks balls here…. Skate park wise at least. But I guess we do have great weather. Weeeeeeeeeeee! Sun shine! But if your looking for something other than nice weather. I suggest heading to the North West. And for all you North West protectors crying right now. Dont worry. Your scene is already blown out….  Here’s the first part of maybe three of the Oceanside chapter north west TERROR tour….

TEAM: (left to right) Dipshit photo goon, Davey Rockit, Richard Lips, Captn Boohjah

THE TEAM RV: The four of us piled into this thing to make it our home for the next 5 weeks. Talk about luxury….

DEAF PAUL: says welcome to Portland, Oregon.. (not really hence the name deaf Paul)

WU WELLER: From one bridge to another straight off the airplane and we headed straight to Burnside to meet up with Portland chapter member Jamie Weller. Here he is demonstrating a proper low to high free lunch ollie.

RYAN WILLIAMS: Ryan was hungry for some free lunch and got in on the meal himself. This is not just a flying butt shot. It’s also a lien air.

Alley oop angle 1 (its too easy shooting photos of this guy)

In yo face alley oop angle 2! Seriously Lib Tech, why aren’t you paying Ryan to skate?

and if that wasn’t enough here’s a sequence… I like frame 5. Most people have to have bindings on to do that shit.

Do I really need to write a caption for this one?

It’s pretty self explanatory dont you think?

MIKE ZINC: crows nest view of Mike’s pillar launch into the big bowl.

JAMIE WELLER: yeah I know, you probably all ready seen this photo before. I’m just going with the flow and putting the photos in the order they were taken. Blunt to fakie on this is no joke. The run up is rough as fuck. Most people would give up after a couple tries. Luckily for me Jamie pulled it within a few tries before my beer got warm.

SPERM ART: After a full day under the bridge we headed back to Jamie’s house. This is Sperms gift to Davey. Who says board graphics suck these days?

There you have it. Part one is done. Part two coming next week. Have a good weekend. Do something… -brooks

Photo and words by: Brooks Fritz

Here it is. The conclusion to my trip out to Arizona.

After the alcohol only store we ended up all with vision like this at a place called Toy land.

This place is crazy. Made out of wood, foam and concrete.

Ever had a Gunslinger before? Its when you drop a shot of whiskey (preferably crown royal) into a pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon with root beer schnapps  and slam it. A few of those fueled Cobra long enough to get a few Plexiglas wall rides.

Toy Land’s skate Museum.

Seen a couple wooden wheels in there.

Vaster’s school work earned him a A+

A better view of Toy Land  the next day.

Finally. The journey to the center of the earth begins…

“Where the hell are we going?” ” See those peaks on the Horizon? ”

” I bet this is what it feels like to be a Mexican! ” Run to the hills! ”

Sticker bush madness. No way around it. Your going to have to walk through it for a long long time. Glad I was wearing pants.

Mud tromping. Another thing that cant be avoided. Are we seriously going skateboarding or just torturing ourselves?

” No one told me you had to wear fucking pants!” I couldn’t stop laughing. The whole time I could hear Kyle pissed because he wore shorts. Picture walking miles in this shit. All for some kick turns.

We made it. Welcome to the best thing in the world.

I thought I was going to rag doll to my death getting down there.

Whats up Danny Way? Bob Burnquist?  That mega ramp shit you guys do is nuts. Much respect to you, but lets see you tackle this one. Roll into this thing and carve the outer edge of the pit of death. Get a hold of me if your into it.

it’s pretty surreal being in here…

Kind of gives you a size reference. Jump off from there and your going to the flats…

Kyle, mach 5 frontside. Should of seen the ones I didn’t get a photo of.

Sizar

Bart Steed

” Great, now we gotta get out of this thing. ” It’s way steeper then you think. Pretty much the scariest place you can skate. If you break yourself off in this thing you are doomed. Even if you dont break yourself off it’s hard as hell to get out of. Some of the crew had to take their shoes off to get out. I was tripping for a few minutes there. With my big stupid heavy camera bag I thought I might not be able to get out. It took a good five or six attempts to make it. The wind rushes through and you have to wait for a window of opportunity of no wind for you to get a good run at it.

Then even if you were to get out of the pipe which wouldn’t happen unless you have a 100ft of rope which of course you wouldn’t have with you you still have a long hike back to civilization.

Busted.

After the hell hike being moments away from being back to the truck I spotted a Fish & Game officer all camoed out in the bushes with binos. Who knows how long he was looking for us but I knew right then and there we were done for. Luckily no one ran and luckily when we did get popped it wasn’t on federal land where the hole is. If that had happened we would of been screwed. Huge fine, pretty much banned from Canada, put on the terror alert list and pretty much cut from all big natural pipe missions again….

Have a good weekend. -Brooks

ps. I know, we geeked it leaving a a car on the road….

The funnest and scariest time on the four wheel wooden toy…

Photos & words by: Brooks Fritz

At the end of part one we ended our day at a local dive bar with some beers after skating a couple of Arizona’s finest pools. The next day I woke up in the morning with one hell of a stomach ache and knew instantly it was a severe case of the mud butt. I’m not sure if it was the food we ate from the mud butt mobile on the way out to AZ or the shitty keg beer at the bar we drank or the sketchy pizza we ate the end of the night. I suspect it was the combination of all three. So after the 7th shit of the day all before noon we made our way to the local swap meet. On the way there we got pulled over by a motorcycle cop. Something about looking suspicious. He asked Kyle for his drivers license and Kyle asked if he could get out of the car to get his license since it was in the door. The cop said no and walked back to his car. He was gone a good five minutes most likely running Kyle’s plates and all four us Davey, Kyle, Sizar and myself were about to shit our pants. Not because we were stressing on the cop but because we all drank a bunch of coffee and seriously were about to shit our pants. The cop finally came back to the truck and asked Kyle why he was shaking acting so nervous. Kyle was straight up with the cop and told him we all just had a bunch of coffee and had to take dumps. The cop laughed and said we shouldn’t be in this neighborhood and that’s why he pulled us over in the first place. After he said that he let us go on our way. Just shows for the most part if you are straight with the cops they will be straight with you. Not always but you know what I mean right?

Here’s Kyle’s with his swap meet purchase. A ski mask and some imitation Blue Blockers. Not bad for 3 bucks.

So you want to skate a pool? OK. Well drive around and find one. It’s that simple. No excuses needed. You don’t have to rent a plane like they did in Gleaming the Cube or know the right people. Just get in your car, on your bike or simply just skate though your local neighborhood and find one. That’s exactly what we did with this one. After the swap meet we just took a random turn on a random street and found this random house with this random pool. The only problem was it was covered up with a janky wood deck. Not really a deck but more of a way to discourage people from getting into the pool. It didn’t work. Piece by piece we ripped that thing up.

I’ve never seen so many black widows before.

It was super loud ripping the plywood off of the 2×6’s. So loud I thought for sure one of the neighbors was going to freak. But no one did. No one came out. No hassles what so ever.

Cleaned up nicely.

The Black Widow Pool: Yeah, it’s pretty much perfect. The side wall is perfect. shallow end is perfect. Deep end is perfect. No kinks anywhere. Just a perfect backyard pool. Good transition everywhere. Even the shallow end stairs were in a perfect spot. No one could find anything to complain about with this pool. Unlike your local shitty skate park “pool” that was made to skate by so called experts yet it’s nothing like a pool and completely sucks to skate. Just because it has tiles and pool coping and maybe a box or stairs doesn’t mean it’s a good design.

Yet this thing sits in a backyard of a bank owned house made by people who had no thought of making it for skateboarding. Go figure.

Sorry I don’t have more photos of skating going on. I had to skate this one as much as I could.

With no warm up and no room for error Kyle rolls in first run. Who does that?

Grinding over the box is one thing. Grinding the hip of a pool is another. It looked liked Kyle was going to get two birds with one stone. Then it didn’t.

The Session was pretty much over. At least the skateboarding session was.

After Kyles stack at the black widow pool we headed to this store where they only had alcohol for sale. You could imagine everyone was really disappointed.

I know I know. Where the hell is the center of the earth? This story is longer then I expected. Stay tuned next week when we finally make it to the center of the earth. Have a good weekend. -Brooks

Words & photos by: Brooks Fritz

Have you ever been to the center of the Earth? If you have it’s an experience you will never forget. It was about a month ago I got a call from my friend Davey Rockit saying he was driving out to Arizona to meet up with Cobra Kyle, Sizar and Bakersfield Ben. Davey was driving out there solo since nobody around here really likes to leave their comfort bubble of San Diego and asked if I would like to join him for a super happy fun time skateboarding weekend adventure. I told him I could go but I had to be back by Monday morning before 5 AM for daddy day care duty. He was cool with it and the journey to the center of the earth was on…

Davey picked me up around 11 on Friday and we were out. Look at that driving stance. He does not mess around.

Road to nowhere.

Or everywhere.

Depends on how you look at it. Damn I should be a poet.

The mud butt mobile: After being on the road for a while we started to get hungry. Davey being the world biggest consumer of different foods spotted this guy on the side of the road. At the time It sounded really  good and boy it sure tasted good. But I would avoid these things at all costs. Davey and I had the worst shits after eating off of this diarrhea device on wheels. Seriously I shit 7 times before 10 Am the next day after eating this crap… Maybe it’s too much information for you but you know when you cant wipe anymore because it feels like you have road rash on your bunghole? Yeah it was like that.

Homeboy already knew what we were in for.

After the mud butt mobile we were back on the road and made it to Arizona by the late afternoon. Here’s the Cobra Commander. Being the nice guy he is he greeted us with a couple of frosty beverages and a some moon cabbage. Then it was time to go skate some backyard pits.

” Hey we should be on the roof of the car looking for pools just like in that movie Dogtown “

It’s always fun jumping fences into strangers backyards…

A lot better then mud butt and a lot better then your hometown excuse for a skatepark.

“You do it like this”

This is what it would look like If you were one of those nosey neighbor types peeking through the fence wondering whats all that noise going on. Here’s Cobra grinding the hip where you cant even drop in.

Angle number two.

Peek a boo! Now I see you!

After skating the amoeba for a while we were running out of day light. So we headed to another pool for a quick session.

Capsule is clean. This thing is wide open.

Bakersfield Ben’s ballistic backside box grind in front of the broski’s. All we needed was some brewski’s and then it would of been Ben’s ballistic backside box grind in front of broski’s with brewskis…

Sizar grab grinds some slab coping while I try to get all National Geographic.

I should of shot a sequence instead. Sizar drifted a good 8 ft on this no justice frontside air photo and the session was over.

Everyone was thirsty after skating the pools so we decided to hit up a couple of horrible bars and call it a night. Here’s Cobra commander hydrating the troops before nappy time.

Now you are probably wondering where the center of the earth part of this story is? Don’t worry it’s coming. Stay tuned for part two next week and have a good weekend. Maybe you will leave your comfort bubble. I did and it felt grrrrrrreat.  -Brooks

Photos & words by: Brooks Fritz

This is the tale of the mighty knights looking for the Key to the Nile. Secret missions in the heart of the jungle riding the range. Ranch hands from outer space on a mission to Mars. We are your backyard friends. We are the Backyardigans!

Together in the backyard again.

In the place where we belong.

We always find things we’ve never seen before.

That’s why every day we’re back for more.

“Robin Hood The Clean”

The “best clowns in town” thought it was a polka palace party. No riding the range this day.

“Le Master of Disguise believes It’s Great to Be a Ghost”

Escape from Fairytale Village at the garbage trek on the the quest for the flying rock.

“Pirate Camp”

“Pirate Treasure”

Eat a piece of Samurai pie and get going on your own viking voyage…… -Brooks