Back to the pictures and commentary. Where was I? Oh yeah, remember this guy? Conroy, alive and well. I hadn't seen him since the crazy Denver days of 97-98.
We all ate breakfast at this place:
The Hash House specializes in novelty-size portions of food. For example, this was my pancake. Now who's gonna be able to finish that?
(Hand in picture for scale)
Regardless, it was delicious. But as Matt put it, "This is ridiculous."
Not to be outdone, you should have seen the gigantic Eggs Benedict/chicken fried steak that a woman was eating at the table next to us. I would have taken a picture of it, but, you know.
We headed up to Los Angles on Wednesday, May 14th. First stop was Venice Beach, stemming from my facination with the film "Dogtown and Z-Boyz". Didn't get a lot of pictures, but here's the Santa Monica Pier:
Look! Check it out! We were in an actual LA traffic jam. I-95 has got nothing on the 405!
Next stop: Meeting up with Cousin Curt, AKA the Mayor of Studio City. He gave us a tour of Hollywood, including a trip up to the famous sign...
...which moved on to happy hour on the Sunset Strip.
The LA tour ended with our obligatory visit to the sushi place near CBS studios.
See that octopus in the background? I ate that!
See the Korean beer? I drank it.
I love-a Sushi! I love Lucy!
Parting shot: Solana Beach. That's all I got.
This concludes the "vacation photos" segment for the foreseeable future, cuz I'm broke.
Thanks for looking.
I wanted to get some of these pictures and stories up, but I don't think I can do it in one shot. Therefore, I'm going to break it down into a few installments. So here we go:
Friday, May 9th, AKA, Day one: We left around 6 AM East Coast Time. Even with a layover in Chicago, we still managed to get into San Diego at 10:30 AM! Awesome. We had the whole day ahead of us. Leading us to our first destination, In-N-Out Burger, which begs the question: Do I travel 3,000 miles for the skateboarding, or the niche fast food restaurant that can't be found on the East Coast?
Our hotel was near the San Diego Harbor and had a stunning view....of this bank to wall and killer transitioned curb thingy! Yes, occasionally I would bust out the board and attempt a few wall rides before security took notice. Evidentally, I was not the first one to give it a try.
I also managed to take a quick trip to the Coronado Skatepark at Tidelands Park on Friday the 9th. It's pretty small, but really fun to ride and super-smooth. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm just trying to fill the text space to the right of this picture of our lovely Holiday Inn parking lot.
Bloopity bloopity bloopity-doo. Hey-hey-hey! Isn't skateboarding fun? In-N-Out Double Double Combo Meal!
Moving on (before we get to some skating pictures and content), I'd like to mention this great breakfast cafe, Perry's. It's very close to Old Town on the Pacific Highway.
Excellent in both the food and the decor, which is fantastically right out of the 70's, and there's no reason to change a damn thing.
"Any of you pigs move and I'll execute every last f-ing one of ya!"
Right?
After convening with Leach at his house on Saturday, I requested his services guiding us to the new skatepark in Pala. The journey would take us northeast of the city past avocado stands, lemon trees and tweakers. On that note, here we have the Pala Pipes.
Very skateable, but I was more concerned about getting to the skatepark which was just a few minutes down the road. We also stopped off to check out the legendary Pala Pool, which has sadly been filled in with dirt, but it was praised highly. I didn't get any pictures of the remains, just some video.
So here we are at the new Pala Skatepark, right down the road from the casino. If skating isn't your thing, you could enjoy the sounds of Ringo Starr or UB40 or check out the gaming tables.
First shot is just kind of an overview. There's a ton of nice stuff to ride, a combi pool, a great little kidney, a snake run and a street course.
From what I gather, it gets really hot in Pala, so hitting the park in mid-May was a great idea.
I wish I could have come back for a "day two". Easily my favorite park of the trip, but a little out of the way from everything.
Backside grind....woohoo!
"Yeah, um, see that spot right there? I WON'T be doing anything interesting there."
So yeah, after we skated we headed back to Ocean Beach and at went to Ortega's which is one of my favorites. Then Leach threw a party for us and all the OB regulars.
Bored yet? OK. This concludes installment #1 of the California saga.
Whew! I'm back from our trip to California. I've got plenty of stories and even more photos. So I'm a bit back-logged, but I'll try and get things up this week.
Moving on...Dateline: Sunday, May 18th. Skateboards. Burgers. Brews. (& sodas for the kids) Here are a few pictures from the barbeque in Scalzi Park. A great morning skate session followed by burgers and hot dogs. Thanks to everyone who provided the food. Sato is the man, that goes without saying.
Roxy and Spike-skatepugs. Roxy is the one on the...ah hell, even I can't even tell which one is which any more.
An overview shot of the festivities. I learned a valuable lesson from watching some hessians that were grilling next to us. You don't need a spatula--A crushed beer can on a stick will suffice.
Memo to the city of Stamford: Is there any landscaping money in the budget? These fields/picnic grounds look like absolute garbage! Normally, I just make a beeline from my car to the skatepark, but yesterday I finally realized the grounds themselves kinda looks like crap.
And a few skate pictures for good measure. Todd and Ben, frontside and backside grinds, respectivedly.
And one more quick note: I am please to announce that I will be working on yet another music video for the Boardlord's new CD release, "Wax Museum". We're going to shoot this week. I'll keep you posted, but I don't want to give too much away. Not just yet.
The purpose of this blog was supposed to be to document Frosch-Frog Productions. But I kind of got sidetracked with photos & stories of all the great skateboarding as of late. Besides, I don't want to bore anyone with the details surrounding tire shop commercials and corporate DVDs. Zzzzzz....
I'm only reporting on the interesting stuff like music videos and short films. Which brings us to today's post:
With all the filming going on in Stamford lately, we figured we would jump into the fray. Dateline: Sunday, May 4th. Location: The corner of Summer Street and 8th. I had the pleasure of filming with an Eclair ACL16mm camera on the set of Paul David Anthony's new film, "Friendship". Coming from an entirely digital background, I must say it was quite difference than what I'm used to. It's not every day that I get to shoot with some classic film gear, and it was a lot of fun.
Despite a rocky start (I forgot, you have to hold the shutter button down the WHOLE time you're filming--It's not like a camcorder where you just press 'record'! Sorry, force of habit) Well, anyways, despite a few glitches, we were able to get all our shots.....I think! You see unlike video, you can't roll back the tape and watch it on a field monitor. So here's hoping that it all comes out OK. You can't fake the funk: Film is film and nothing else looks like it. I don't care how many Magic Bullet filters you apply to your 24p footage. It's not the same.
So here are a few behind-the-scenes production stills from yesterday's shoot. I'll keep you posted on the progress of the movie. BTW, "Friendship" is the third movie in PDA's trilogy. It should be out later this year.
A sign of confidence. (I think?)
A few photos from last week before I forget about them and they fade into the vortex of time. As usual, pictures stolen from StamfordSkatepark.com
Myself, emulating lifelong hero, Mark Gonzales. (The "bone-up", straight from a Transworld "Trick Tips" circa 1986.)
PDA, double truck grind.
Adam, flying out of the big bowl. Roast Beef grab, which, FYI was invented by Jeff Grosso.
He has been referred to as " an average skater" on certain websites, but what "average" 46 year old man can do this? Billy Bonebrake, carving the wall in the Dizzy Bowl.
Non-skate related. (Unless you factor in one of the greatest skate tricks of all time, "The Madonna".
Anyways, I was driving home last night and I heard the abysmal new Madonna single. I got to thinking: What if she didn't keep putting out music year after year? What if Madonna's last musical effort was "Vogue", and then she went into retirement? No crappy attempts at house music, no horrible movies, no Guy Ritchie and no fake British accent?
What if Madonna just became a recluse and stayed out of the public eye? She would be LEGENDARY right now.
Think about it.
"Oh, but Scott, she's really in great shape for a 50 year old women." "Oh, OK. That justifies everything. Zzzzzzzz......"
She would be LE-GEN.....(Wait for it)....DARY.
Come to think of it, you can't see anyone's face. Hey, can we get a photographer that can frame up a shot here? (Kidding of course)
To the layman: That's an 11' deep pool. Frontside = Sick!
The purpose of this blog was supposed to be to document Frosch-Frog Productions. But I kind of got sidetracked with photos & stories of all the great skateboarding as of late. Besides, I don't want to bore anyone with the details surrounding tire shop commercials and corporate DVDs. Zzzzzz.... 
Despite a rocky start (I forgot, you have to hold the shutter button down the WHOLE time you're filming--It's not like a camcorder where you just press 'record'! Sorry, force of habit) Well, anyways, despite a few glitches, we were able to get all our shots.....I think! You see unlike video, you can't roll back the tape and watch it on a field monitor. So here's hoping that it all comes out OK. You can't fake the funk: Film is film and nothing else looks like it. I don't care how many Magic Bullet filters you apply to your 24p footage. It's not the same. 
