On December 31, 2011, your government reserved the right to label you a potential terrorist and detain you indefinitely without trial for any crime they deem necessary.

To celebrate this monumental leap forward in legislation that makes us all safer. We present the DISASTR77 Potential Terrorist & Potential Detainee tees.

Welcome to the age of thoughtcrime, sheeple. The trains are coming.

These were once yours…

Bill of Rights, R.I.P.
December 15, 1791 – December 31, 2011

Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Right to keep and bear arms
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Conditions for quarters of soldiers
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Right of search and seizure regulated
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Provisons concerning prosecution
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Right to a speedy trial, witnesses, etc.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Right to a trial by jury
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Excessive bail, cruel punishment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Rule of construction of Constitution
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Rights of the States under Constitution
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This normally happens a couple of times a week: a random window pops up with some name I don’t recognize and I just hit the decline button. Today, however, I engaged. I decided to play along as if I were Peter Griffin. (This will be best experienced if you read my part with that inflection.)

IM with sexygurl0117

sexygurl0117: heya.

me: Hi there

sexygurl0117: Hey what’s up? 24/F here. You?

me: 347/J

sexygurl0117: Hmm. Have we talked before?

me: Perhaps a couple of times when I was on Naboo. But Probably not since then. My connection has been spotty.

sexygurl0117: Oh sorry. I wasn’t sure. But anyways.. What are you up to?

me: You know, the usual… something, something, something, dark side kinda stuff.

sexygurl0117: Ooo. Im like sooo bored.

sexygurl0117: Hey i got a idea. I want to get on my cam. Do you want to watch?

me: Me too. We should get a bottle of absinthe and slay some banthas.

sexygurl0117: NO i am not a bot

me: Me either.

me: I’m a real boy.

sexygurl0117: Yeah? Ok you do have to signup for free because its connected through a site so i cant be recorded. Ok?

me: What’s a site?

sexygurl0117: K babe. Its real simple

me: What’s a babe?

sexygurl0117: http://redacted.url/6/nikki go there then at the top of the page click on the gold button at the top that says JOIN FREE. K?

me: Confusing me, you are.

sexygurl0117: Also when you signup it asks for a credit card to verify your age.

me: God, I just busted a nut. Thanks for playing Jedi with me.

sexygurl0117: It will not charge the card at all. Not even 1 penny. Its just to make sure that your over 18. Alright?

me: You are way better than all of my other role playing friends.

me: Do you have a Princess Leia slave bikini?

sexygurl0117: K. When you get finished and logged in then view my cam and we can have some fun!!!

me: I like that slave bikini. That was some hot stuff.

sexygurl0117: If you tip me some gold or join me in private I will do anything you ask me to.

sexygurl0117 is now offline.

Over the course of the last couple of months I have been getting involved in skateboarding on a local level with some people that are very excited about, well, skateboarding. Anytime you get involved with people that are excited and passionate about what they are doing, the stoke spreads. Watch for some very good things from Fickle Skateboards in the very near future.

In the meantime, here is some video I shot last week of Lew working on the mold for pressing boards.

The new Disastr77 goods are available now. There are a few new t-shirt designs as well as some work shirts and flannels. The black-eyed Marilyn was a joint effort with Duane that was spawned from one of the first few Propaganda Ministry pieces that I did. All of the ideas just started to flow after that first piece.

The Dead Saints series came about after an attempt at an idea that wasn’t used in this round. I had the idea to mashup two things that I have always loved: centuries old religious imagery and punk rock. Some people aren’t going to get it and that’s okay; we didn’t make it for them. The Sid design was the first one to build itself and it was the proof of concept that I used to communicate the idea to Duane. It wasn’t something I could explain in an email or on the phone because trying to tell someone that you want to fuse punk rock with a 14th or 15th century style of religious imagery won’t work out the way you want it to no matter how descriptive you are.

So, without further ado, there is cool for sale in the store. Buy some before it’s gone.

I spent a few days last week in Long Beach with Duane getting stuff together for a Disastr77 photo shoot. A few hours after landing on Tuesday we headed to The Block after picking up Jake Reuter. I was shooting video of everything to compile a montage of some sort when I got back home. I was shooting in the van. I was shooting while Duane got his skate gear on—general filler footage. And, of course, I shot most of the runs in the Combi.

I didn’t really think about the fact that no one had really seen any footage of Duane skate since the end of the tour last year that almost cost him his leg. So I pieced it together, uploaded it to YouTube and posted it on his site. Within a few hours it was embedded on every skate blog and magazine site with an online presence that I could think of checking. I’m glad to have been able to give everyone the visual reinforcement that he’s back but he’s been skating for a while. And even when he’s not skating, he’s thinking about skating.

This has caused me to do some thinking and I have some radical thoughts on things that the skate industry could be doing differently. If you want to meet up and talk about them with me over a burrito (or some phở for those Fickle creatures), hit me up.

Anyway, enough talk. Here is the video.

As some of you know, I run a website for skateboarder and punk rocker, Duane Peters. Duane has been out of commission since the Las Vegas stop of the Glory Bound Tour. There were a couple of procedures to drain fluid from his knee and then he made it home. He was pissed that he didn’t finish the tour but still in a lot of pain. To make a long, painful story very, very short he went to the hospital near his home and was extremely close to losing one of the things that make a skateboarder a skateboarder… a leg.

The leg was able to be saved but it wasn’t cheap. Duane’s medical bills are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (And that is hundreds of thousands of dollars Duane doesn’t have.)

He’s started trying to recoup the money by selling off a lot of skateboards and memorabilia from his personal collection on eBay. (And he’d have you know that is the way he would like to deal with things. Give something, get something.)

However, there were also a lot of people trying to send him money via PayPal. For those of you in the latter category, I have set up an account to take donations for Duane.

Update: Refunds are being issued for those that sent funds via PayPal.

Here is what Duane had to say:

I just need to get out of my own mess and would like to thank @buttonmonkey for caring enough to do that for me and the folks who donated but I gotta earn my keep. I got kids and one in the sky I gotta live up to. I’m getting my balls back more every day and would rather fight than quit.

Donate to Grind For Life if you want to give to a good cause!

Much love,
Duane Peters

It’s been a busy month with lots of changes coming: funeral, birthdays, career upheaval. The latter will bring with it renewed interest and excitement and I am really looking forward to loving what I do again. It has been far too long that I have not.

In the midst of these things (with the addition of some freelance work thrown into the mix) I made the following three videos for Killer ★ Effect. The first two were pieced together with the practice and recording footage that I already had captured but the last was shot and edited specifically for the purpose of making the video.

Enjoy.

Here is some of the video footage that I shot and edited last week:

I thought it would be a good idea to do an impromptu photo shoot for DISASTR77 while Duane was in town. Thanks to Tom we had the location. In Nikki we had the photographer. All we needed was a model and some DISASTR77 gear. It wasn’t long before we had those things too.

I was the guy with the idea and the connections but Nikki ran the show once we got there. I was the runner that carried all of the shit to and from the furnaces in the basement. As you can see from the sample above, the photos turned out great.

It’s is important to note that this idea was hatched about twelve hours before Logan and myself shot this in Columbus, Ohio:

And we finished a couple of hours before Duane had to do it all over again on Saturday in Florence, Kentucky. (Another video to follow tomorrow.)

DIY or die, indeed.