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I’ve been known to have a beer on the weekends. I’ve been on this program since my poor college days back in the 90’s. I remember getting half-racks of PBR at Happy’s Market in Ellensburg for 4 bucks. Sometimes i’d bring half-racks of PBR to parties. People would say ‘gross, how can you drink that?’, ‘PBR is for hobos’ or ‘next time bring Budweiser bro’  …something fratty like that. But back then, that was all my Dining Hall wage could swing.

Since college, I’ve watched PBR change from cheap, shitty beer to popular, acceptable beer complete with a subtle yet effective marketing campaign. It seems like their demographic has changed too. What used to be choice beer for hunters, hobos and poor dudes, changed to middle class white kids, capitol hill residents, and snowbros.

Lest we not lose sight of why we drank PBR in the first place.  It wasn’t cause it tasted good–it was because it was cheap. Ain’t cheap beer anymore.  They gotta pay for that marketing campaign somehow.  Here’s a list of beers in the same league as PBR that typically cost less:  Oly, Schmidt, Busch, Lucky Lager, Miller and Rainier*.

Have a good weekend all you Bumbershitters.  Im off on a soggy surf mission.

*Rainier is usually cheaper. And cooler.

ps. If you see me at a bar and would like to purchase a beer for me, PBR is acceptable.  Thanks.

Friday at the High Dive featured Fraels Comet, all Ace Frehley cover band to start things off, followed by a Kiss cover band with only Gene Simmons. Four of them, Genes Addiction. The Gene’s had Kiss to a perfection. Blood, Fire and music. Damn, all this for seven dollars. I paid more than that to see Batman. Oh and then a perfect Motley Crue cover band to top it off. The Vince Neil was a little thicker but he definitely had the pipes. Nikki Sixx in full costume. Probably better than the real thing? Most of Kiss is about 65 years old and Motley Crue stopped doing drugs. How good could they be. Check the clips.

Snowboard videos these days are predictable. Same tricks, same jumps, same shit. Any geek with a camera can make a video. It takes a lot to stand out from the crowd now.

(Image courtesy of this guy.)

Alas, there are some dudes out there standing out. Absinthe Films has pretty much got it right since day one. Travis Rice’s Community Project a couple years ago was rad. Now he’s gone ballz out on a new flick with some heavy $$ backing by Red Balls and Quiksilver.

That’s It, That’s All, Rice’s second movie is (more…)

There are a few spots which, if you’re willing to put up with a long drive, 80 bucks and a thousand flys, are worth the effort.  Usually.  Or at least you hope it to be.  Myself and a few buddies were lucky enough to find ourselves in that situation the other day.  Stoke!

Then these dudes showed up and started jumping off the outer sets.  A big WTF?! for these guys…

Aside from that, we all had blast.  Especially when ‘Team WTF’ bailed.

A few years back myself and a few friends set out to surf Westport.  We all met up at Southcenter, 6am, coffees in hand.  Standard.  One of the guys (who i’ll nickname ‘Mateo’) wasn’t feeling too well, and was sipping on some orange juice.  Figured it’d help him feel better or something.

We piled into one car and hit the road, arriving at Westport a couple hours later.  The Cove was kinda working and so were the Groins.  We split up.  Mateo and another guy at the Cove and myself and the fourth guy at the Groins.  I guess the cove wasn’t working too well since Mateo and the other bro joined us out in the line up shortly after.  The surf wasn’t bad and we all were enjoying the junky waves we were getting.  Not too many people out either which is rare.

After about a half hour i noticed Mateo paddling in.  Weird, i wonder he’s going, i thought.  Maybe another half hour later i noticed Mateo sitting on the rocks in his street clothes.  We pretty much had just started surfing, there were waves and not a lot of dudes out so why would he be bagging it already?

The three of us that remained surfed about an hour more and then called it.  The tide was high so it made for a bit of a tricky exit on the rocks at the Groins.  Right as i was getting out Mateo came over to me and excitedly said ‘dude, you gotta come check this out!’ and started (more…)

Back when i was a kid growing up in Everett, my friends and i found this big sandy hill in the woods. After building forts, rope swings and chopping down 200 foot alder trees for no reason this was a pretty good find.  But what were we gonna do with it?  We couldn’t skateboard down it.  Ah, i know.  Let’s get those Black Snow snowboards that we got from Target for 20 dollars and “sandboard” down them!  This will be rad!

The radness lasted only a few days.  After strapping in atop the 5 foot cliff at the top and bomb dropping to a complete stop followed by multiple cartwheels, or attempting to turn once gaining speed only to fall straight to your grill and receive a mouthful of sand, or actually making it down the hill only to hit grass, rocks and sticks at 20 mph to a complete stop followed by multiple cartwheels—we called it.

Picture Central (aka Ski Acres) on the stickiest day last spring.  Like the kind where after an hour your base looks like you rode through an oil slick.  Well sand boarding is stickier than that.  Or at least it was on the Black Snow snowboard from Target.

Nowadays the woods that i grew up playing in have been replaced by apartments, roads, and light industrial buildings.  But if you’ve never experienced the joy of snowboarding in sand don’t sweat it. Oregon has it’s own sandboarding park!  Complete with rails and boxes for all you jibbers out there. Located just north of Florence on the Oregon coast the Sand Master Park has everything you need for sandboarding–sand board rental, rails, boxes and sand.  They even have contests!

Wow.

Thanks to my man Mike C. for forwarding this little gem.