Trevor mentioned these little metal beasts in a previous post, but I wanted to take the time to give them their own mention as well. I picked up a set of RocknRon’s Stage 3 Ballistech Missiles to pair with my Rainskates Killer Bees and have found an unwieldy and powerful adversary for pool riding. Between the hard grippyness of the Rainskates and RocknRon’s praeter natural spin cycle on the Ballistech’s I’m getting twice the return on my pool carving with about a third of the effort.

RocknRon is apparently a NASA bearing engineer who runs a small, but active sex & death cult in the jungles of Malaysia and utilizes both the space age technology he has honed at NASA and dark secrets of the physical world he has been offered in drug induced visions after being worked into a sexual frenzy by one of his three pet pumas that he lives with in his thatch hut. After shaking a bogus murder rap thrown at him by local authorities in the early ’90s he swore himself to a life of the ascetic pursuit of precision and perversion by way of skateboarding and rocket science and only surfaces for a short time annually when a new bearing or sick fucking wheel has been completed and is ready for the public.

Seriously, this is wizardry at it’s darkest and most effective.

I’ve spent a lovely night at home tonight, alone, dutifully exploring leisure in several formats.

My evening’s viewing schedule lead me to the very last feature in my instant que, Never Been Done. I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this documentary and I sure couldn’t remember ever adding it to my netflix que, but I was on a heavy roll of skateboard movies and Nic and Tristan Go Mega Dega didn’t look like it’d cut the mustard tonight. The synopsis for Never Been Done said it was about a pro skater, Jon Comer, who lost his leg when he was a kid and wound up pushing on to become a professional skater despite his disability.

I had just finished watching X-Games: The Movie, which, as far as gritty inspiration goes, was no slouch in it’s own right. Watching Danny Way break his foot slamming down on the coping only to return and finish the competition, dropping in to that monstrous 20+’ X-Games ramp and sticking a back flip followed by a mctwist, had me literally jumping out of my increasingly lazy seat and hollering at my tv like Elvis on a bennies bender.

The production value of Never Been Done had me paranoid for the first 30 minutes or so that this was going to turn into some kind of christian propaganda tract. I’m happy to report that there was no scripture passed. No scripture, just about 60 minutes of footage of a kid thick with heart who found a deep love for skateboarding.

The rub of Jon Comer, and Never Been Done, is that, while it is a story about overcoming adversity, the real story isn’t the disability, but the passion that Jon brings to his life. The impression is quite clear – he’s not a pro skater because of or in spite of his missing leg, it just happens that losing his leg was another topographical hiccup on Jon’s way to going pro. And that is what makes his story so compelling.

I’ll be the first to admit it, I’m a sucker for this kind of shit. If ‘carpe diem’ was a wet noodle and available for battery, I’d be convicted of being a fat, Italian mother at least twice a week. But, beyond my own obnoxious proclivities, this Jon Comer kid is worth your time. He’s different. He’s not like the others. You should watch him, feel alive, and then go outside and be alive yourself, dammit.

Oh and did I mention…

Here’s a review of the Deckcrafter’s Blood Diamond from our Senior Golden Years Correspondant, Trevor:

I’ve spent many, many years snowboarding and riding a 42inch longboard around town. When I decided to get back into pool/park skateboarding last year I didn’t know much about it at all anymore.

I started my newest venture down the proverbial skate path on a 8 1/2 inch Creature with 139 indy’s and 58mm OP’s, but I kept finding myself wanting more and more width and stance. I researched, and researched, finally widdling my choices down to a 9 5/8 inch Deckcrafter Blood Diamond. I picked the Blood Diamond because it’s get tons of concave, it’s nice and long (34 inches) and has 2 choices for wheel base (16 3/4 and 17 1/2), which I like because I ride with a real open stance, plus the extended wheel base is great for pool carving and taller folk such as myself.

The deck is gorgeous out of the box, they use something called monococh finishing which, to my best guess, is a real shiny poly coating. It’s been incredibly easy to get used to with plenty of tail and nose rise which helps me with my biggest problem, being able to feel my foot placement. The width helped my confidence in dropping in and getting up and hugging those walls. I’ve been riding the Blood Diamond for 1 month now and I don’t think I could be any happier. I added 169 indy’s to it along with the insanely fast and smooth Rock n Rons Ballistic bearings, and 64mm 99a Speed Demon Shit Fires hitting the pavement.

This is my ideal skateboard.

I made the whole purchase from Denver Skate Shop online and have been very impressed with the costumer service and shipping (he even sent me a mess of stickers and two badass shop t-shirts). When I had a problem with one of my bearings from Rock n Ron, Paul at Denver Skate Shop replaced it right away.

I will definitely be supporting this shop whenever possible.

I wanted to tip my proverbial hat to the Seattle Snowboard Connection for being some real nice folks running a great shop. We were both knuckleheads and packed our pads in our checked bags for our return flight meaning, once we were stranded in Seattle, we needed to pick up new gear in order to skate while stuck. The nice people at Seattle Snowboard Connection gave us 10% off our gear out of sympathy for being in a bummer situation.

Arrived last night from Seattle after an AA fare sale kept us stuck in the northwest a few days longer than planned. I’ve uploaded some photos from the trip to the facebook account, but who knows, I might even post something more extensive about it here.

The trip was amazing, we hit 6 parks – Woodland, Ballard Bowl, Burien, Renton, Milton, & Marginal Way – in 5 days and even managed to unsuccessfully fish Puget Sound as well. For some reason the kings weren’t biting for anybody, I guess that means I’ll have to go back when they are.

Our trip home found us in Phoenix for the night staying, literally, at the scene of probably the most heinous accident that happened in that town that night. We tried and failed to hit the Desert West Skate Park before our flight in the morning, but fucked up and went to 67th Street instead of 67th Avenue. Huge bummer as that place looks sick.

All in all the trip was an amazing success. Skating for sometimes up to 8 hours a day for 5 days in a row has really bumped both mine and Trevor’s skills up to the next level. We got schooled on some carving techniques and found a couple great parks for practicing technical stuff, the best probably being the Burien skate park.

Going into the trip I was viewing it as a kind of shamanic vision quest, a dance with old Mescalito, where I knew I would be pushed to some scary places, but eventually come out the other side with some new, hard won knowledge gained. Sitting on the other side of our trip it’s safe to say my presumptions were right. I can’t wait to Dawn Patrol tomorrow.

Friday saw the release of Half Acre‘s collective hat tip to America’s most sexually articulate rock duo, Ween. They had been hyping this collaboration with Short’s Brewing since Ween came to town back at the end of June.

Right from the nose you know this is a Half Acre effort. Aside from the noticeable addition of guava there is the recognizable Half Acre musk that anyone who has enjoyed a Daisy Cutter will notice. It’s almost moss-like. I suppose some might find that description less than appealing, but I’m running into a block trying to find a more appropriate way to explain what strikes me as a moist, earthy, almost fecund smelling aroma that Half Acre has mastered. There’s some slight evergreen and citrus, but really I fall back onto those terms out of social habit and not out of an honest response to what I smell. And the guava tends to occupy those scents with this brew leaving the earth tones of the beer to really stand up.

But, sticking my nose in the beer is not the part of this past time that keeps me coming back for more, I happen to actually fancy the drinking of the stuff. And drinking Freedom of ’78 is pretty enjoyable. Again, a lot of similar notes to the Daisy Cutter – that delicious Half Acre biscuit is there for sure, does that come from their yeast or from Victory malts (or both)? Then follows an expertly balanced hop bitterness with less flavor than the DC, and then the guava coming on the back side of the flavor with plenty of personality, but not overly sweet. Where a fruit beer like Dogfish Head’s Festina Peche is just too much for me to enjoy more than one, the Freedom of ’78 kept me company during the 12 hour smoke of our brisket as well as accompanying the ceremonial consumption of said beast.

On a side note: I was drinking Freedom of ’78 from a growler yesterday and I must say it was a bit better than the bomber I’m sipping on now, but I suppose that shouldn’t be a huge surprise. The guava flavor was a bit more pronounced and the slight alcohol flavors weren’t as prevalent as they seem to be in the bottled version. Also, the head retention and body was a bit better from the tap, but, again, that’s nothing that should be terribly surprising. I guess the moral of the story is buy it in a growler while you can and stock up on bombers for when you can’t.

Once again, my hats off to Half Acre, they continue to bring unique and interesting one off batches of beer to Chicago in addition to the stables of their portfolio all the while hoisting that delicious freak flag for tasteful degenerates like Ween. If I had a cult I’d give serious consideration to using this beer as my kool-aid.

God speed.

Recently, I’ve been appalled to the point of shedding blood-stained tears by the inept writings of one Steve Dolinksky, Chicago’s self-proclaimed Hungry Hound. Not only did he put Pequod’s on the honorable mention for top over-hyped pizza in Chicago, he then followed that up by putting the epitome of over-hyped Chicago, the fucking Bongo Room, as one of the top 5 breakfasts in Chicago. Clearly this man has been sipping wine poisoned with his own urine for too long.

That being said, he did make a recommendation this week I’m going to check out, Super Dawg’s Whoopskidawg. Unfortunately, WBEZ doesn’t allow you to embed their videos so you need to go to their site to check it out.

Here is Andrew Huff’s, from GapersBlock.com, description:

The Whoopskidawg is wholly different from your typical Chicago-style dog. The link itself is described on the Superdawg menu as “Romanian, Hungarian, Polish sausage” and is smokier and spicier than a hot dog, and it’s served on a “Whoopskiroll” — basically an onion roll for sausages — with well-grilled onions, a dill pickle spear and “special sauce.” It comes in a larger Superdawg box with the customary crinkle-cut fries and pickled green tomato. It is bigger than a standard hot dog, but I don’t think it’s so big as to require cutting in half, which Superdawg does for you in the box.

I wouldn’t have expected barbecue sauce on a sausage, but that’s basically what the special sauce is. And it works well with the flavors of the Whoopskidawg, roll and onions. The pickle spear is the odd man out here, and I set it aside to eat as a chaser — an old-school waitress once told me pickles aid in digestion. Overall, it’s a great sandwich: I’d eat this before I went with one of those bacon western burgers the fast food chains come out with every so often.

When I bought my Ray Barbee re-issue last July I bought it with the sole interest in learning to ride pools. Ever since I was a 12 year-old kid riding around the suburbs bombing hills, eating shit off launch ramps and doing acid drops off park benches the pool was this amazing and unattainable grail, the kind of thing we watched VHS tapes of kids from California do, not the kind of thing us nice, corn-fed kids from suburban Chicago could ever do. So when I saw the pool at Wilson last summer I knew instantly it was time for me to make good on a fantasy that had been lingering around my shrinking brain far too long. Like most things I do these days, I needed to make good on my 12-year old self.

The Ray Barbee deck was ideal as far as I could tell, nice concave, plenty wide at 9.5″ and a little longer than most rides. I ordered it as a complete with 64mm G-Bones thinking those would be my best choice. I was definitely ignorant, thinking you’d want softer, larger wheels for better grab while riding the walls of the pool.

Lately, I’ve been getting frustrated having to put so much work in getting around the pool. So I started hunting around on several forums looking for threads on the best wheels for pool riding. Based on what I read I narrowed my choice down to two different kinds of wheels: RockNRon’s Black Holes and Rainskate’s Yellow Jackets. Contrary to what I believed, both of these wheels came with high praise because they were hard and fast, but still had great grip.

I was most drawn to RockNRon’s mostly because of the cultish air of mystery with which people spoke of him and his wheels. I’m still not totally sure what the deal is with RockNRon, but it sounds like he’s some kind of NASA engineer who lives in Malaysia and makes his wheels and bearings only in his spare time when he has it. Awesome. Unfortunately, the same things that drew me to RockNRon may be the reason I can’t find his wheels anywhere. And I’ve looked. The few places that carried them, including Ron’s own site, are sold out with little indication when they may be available again. I sent Ron an email the other day inquiring, but haven’t heard anything back.

My runner up was the Rainskate 62mm 98A Yellow Jacket. Apparently durometer measurements mean next to nothing, changing from manufacturer to manufacturer. In some cases, like RockNRon, manufacturers will list fictional measurements to illustrate a differentiation that is not really able to be articulated in the A scale of durometer measurements (Ron lists his as 101A when in fact they are like 99.8s). This point was only driven further home when my order arrived from SoCal Skates. The difference between my 97A G-Bones and my 98A Yellow Jackets is like night and day. Not only are the Yellow Jackets noticeably harder, but they are clearly made from a different kind of polymer than the G-Bones. I put them on my board and kicked around the wood floor of my apartment feeling a bit sketched as my board rode like it was setting on ice. I was assured they would react differently to pavement, but I was skeptical.

Hitting the pool this morning was a revelation. I used so much less effort to get up the walls and across the flats and there was no slippage at all on any of my turns. And to hear the growl of a harder wheel while climbing up a wall is pretty great.

There’s so much noise and garbage out there regarding gear, it’s always exciting to find a piece of equipment that delivers on it’s promise of making your experience better, and the Yellow Jacket does just that. From now on Rainskate Yellow Jackets are an essential part of any pool riding I do.

Stumbling around the tighter turns of procrastination yesterday I came across an interview with my favorite local artist, Tony Fitzpatrick.

I see Tony as one of a very few and dwindling set of representatives of the Old Chicago. The Chicago that I believe in, but, really, never knew. Tony comes from a time when you could walk down most streets and, if a story wasn’t there in the flesh, the walls still had sharp enough memories to speak clearly about the shadows that cast past them not so long ago.

Now, most the building’s memories have been wiped clean or torn down. This city’s soul has become so cold it’s balls have shriveled right up tight against it’s belly, like two rotten prunes all shifty eyed and fearful of the heat they need to drop back down. Sure, you can still see Old Chicago’s nuts if you hunt around in pockets long enough, but this city just don’t dangle like it used to.

Tony’s art celebrates this city in a meter that rings true, from a time that was forever Chicago. Less polished, less preoccupied with futures, Tony is preserving our city like a stead, surly, architect, building a memory of Chicago from the same violent, vulnerable and pissed off primacies that forged it in the first place. And he’s one of the few still able to do this.

Stay plugged in to Tony’s work and hillarious stories that accompany them on his blog and be sure to check out his show “This Train” playing for the next two weeks at the Steppenwolf.

Last weekend was remarkable, one for the record books. Friday I got up at 6 in the morning and dawn patrolled with Trevor. We came home around 9:30am and toured through several New Glarus brews in honor of his *cough* 43rd birthday. We hit the Enigma, the Old English Porter, the Two Women Lager and the Golden Ale. We wrapped up our impromptu celebration with Dark Horse’s Perkulator, their dopplebock with coffee which seemed the proper elixir to get my head back in the working game for a while. Alas, the Perkulator’s power to inspire work is not as powerful as the brews wicked ass label would have you believe.

Like any good morning of drinks, this one inspired us to eat steaks for dinner. Trevor went home to wrangle his daughter for the afternoon and I hopped on my motorcycle for a visit to the Paulina Meat Market to pick up 4 prime new york strip steaks. Nobody gets cuts in Chicago like Paulina and nobody is as eager to charge you as Paulina either. Honestly though, if I’m going to get jacked for my meat (heh heh) I’d prefer to get jacked at Paulina. Their staff are consummate professionals, butchers with a great understanding of their product that are always willing to share that wisdom with their customers. And they’ve got the mustaches to prove it.

It’s hard for a fat alcoholic to stay focused in Paulina, the place is wall to wall of the finest cuts of meat you’re bound to find anywhere. Packaged in all kinds delicious manner. Someone needs to create a religion where Paulina is the reward for a life well lived. Of course, that “life well lived” would require plenty of time spent at Paulina in proper preparation for that sweet, sweet after life as well. So to help bide my time waiting for my number to be called I developed my shopping list into a respectable effort. In addition to the 4 new york strips, I would pick up 6 of their Jumbo Grilling Wieners, some bisquits to go with our dinner and, at Matt’s recommendation, a package of 6 veal cheeks.

The Jumbo Grilling Wieners were transcendental. The wiener is about the size of a baby’s arm, which is to say slightly smaller that John Holmes’ private collection. I shit you not, these wieners were at least 10″ long with about 3.5″ of girth. The flavor was of the finest beef I’ve had in a dog and the snap was audible. I don’t know who the wizard was that developed these Jumbo Grilling Wieners, but when I start my religion with Paulina as the after life that guy is probably going to have to be the first pope or at least get some kind of sainthood or a holy day or something.

I dropped off the steaks at Trevor’s and we each had a Jumbo Grilling Wiener (I just enjoy hearing that combination of words). Did I mention the snap on these things? Later that evening we enjoyed all the beauty that is a new york strip with our lovely brides under the fantastic summer night with a sultry soundtrack of Tejano music oompa-paing from Trevor’s neighbors.

Saturday I was up again with the sun to spend a lovely day of relaxation in the blistering summer heat smoking a pork shoulder. Something we’ve learned with these pork shoulders is that you definitely want to get boneless pork shoulders. The bone-in pork shoulder has too many layers of fat and other junk that makes it more challenging to pull. There’s enough fat in a boneless shoulder to keep your meat plenty juicy.

Sunday was a banner 4th of July as a bunch of us headed out to Winnemac Park for the best 4th of July celebration in the city. Amateur pyrotechnicians flooded the baseball diamonds to assault the skies with professional fireworks. There was nothing planned about this assault on the neighborhood and nothing regulated about it either. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate freedom than to stroll through a city park while literally hundreds of people indulge in illicit fireworks displays without any bother from police.

Monday I awoke from my long night of yelling at explosions to drop into the Wilson pool for the first time. 1 year of work and daydreaming finally paid off. I did eat some shit a couple times, but I managed to stay up at least as much as I fell. After we finished Dawn Patrolling Trevor dropped me off at the Fireside Lounge in Ravenswood to enjoy some delicious Arrogant Bastard Ale and a sandwich with our crew of delinquents. We spent a few hours putting sobriety in it’s place before hitting the Foster Street Beach. After a couple hours drinking delicious Daisy Cutter from cans and playing catch in the water we packed up our goodies and headed back to the Fireside for some more cocktails. After a few more beers we made a bee-line for Chicago’s best pizza, Pequod’s, and indulged our sun-satiated selves on a couple large pan pizzas (garlic, basil, onion and pepperoni on one and sausage, mushroom, giardinara on the other… definitely with a side of ranch, sucka).

Still not quite finished, we retired to Matt’s for some 12 Year Macallan with an ice cream chaser.

It was a banner weekend, my friends, the kind that reminds you just why you built that nervous system in the first place.

Wow, holy shit, all this was just a preamble to talk about the amazing meal we had last night. Remember those veal cheeks I picked up at Paulina on Friday? Me neither. Well, I finally got around to cooking those buggers Thursday night. And what an amazing treat it was. You could literally eat these these without teeth, you certainly didn’t need a knife.

Strange thing these veal cheeks. They’re about the size of a pancake when you get them, or, more specifically, the size of a 6 month old calf’s cheek. When you cook them they puff up into something more the size and shape of a small hamburger patty. At first they tend to get very hard, but over the 3 hours that you cook them they eventually turn into the most tender piece of meat your liable to come by.

Here’s the recipe I basically used courtesy of Ron Eade and the Ottowa Citizen. I skipped the juniper berries and replaced the veal stock with reduced chicken broth for no other reason than I didn’t have those ingredients. Essentially, it’s a beef bourgingon that’s a bit easier to make and much more tender. Imagine a pot roast that literally dissolves across your tongue and you’ve got a fairly close approximation of what this majestic little monster tastes like.

– Six veal cheeks, each about the size of a closed fist

– 1/3 cup (75 mL) olive oil

– Salt and pepper, to taste

– 3 1/2 cups (875 mL) of robust low-salt veal stock

– One small piece dark chocolate, about 7 grams

For the marinade:

– 1/2 large carrot chopped

– 1 medium onion, chopped

– 1 teaspoon (5 mL) dry thyme

– 1 large clove of good garlic, chopped

– 1 bay leaf

– 10 sprigs of Italian parsley, chopped

– One 750-mL bottle dry chardonnay

– 6 juniper berries

1. Place all marinade ingredients in a stainless steel saucepan; bring to boil and simmer 5 to 7 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Cool to room tremperature, then immerse veal cheeks in marinate. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. At noon the next day, preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Remove meat from marinade and strain to separate liquid and solids; reserve both. In a saucepan, bring liquid to boil and simmer until reduced to 1 cup (250 mL). Set aside.

3. Pat cheeks dry with paper towels, season lightly with salt, pepper, then lightly dust with all-purpose flour. Heat about 1/3 cup (75 mL) canola oil in a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven and brown cheeks well on both sides, working in batches if necessary to not overcrowd the pot. When browned, transfer cheeks to a plate and, in the same Dutch oven, saute reserved vegetables from the marinate for about 4 minutes.

4. In a large saucepan, warm veal stock to almost-boiling and toss in chocolate to melt; stir to combine. Return cheeks to the Dutch oven and nestle over the bottom, trying to not overlap. Add reduced marinade and veal stock just to cover and bake, covered, until meat is very tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, about 3 hours.

5. When done, carefully transfer intact cheeks to an ovenproof casserole with a lid, and set aside. Strain liquid into a clean saucepan (discard solids) and simmer to reduce to gravy consistency, stirring as necessary to avoid scorching.

6. About 40 minutes before serving, pour thickened sauce over cheeks to cover, and return to oven to reheat. Serve with side dishes that will take best advantage of rich sauce.