MONSTER TRACK X!

3 days and night of bicycle mayhem! We're giving out some tees with the top prizes, so peep 'em in person if ya rollin' thru. Shouts to Victor and the crew. Check out the rundown here.

Andy Wilhelm @ Cooper Union!

Many apologies Andy! First, I missed your opening. Second, I forgot to post this before your opening. Damn. Better late than never? It's still up so go check out this group show of Cooper Union faculty and be a better friend than me. 7 East 7th St in the heart of the East Village. Closing on the 28th so get on it! Check out some of his work here.

OMFG!

Never thought I'd use the term but damn! Freak bike accident, read and see more here. Yikes!

Morning Breath and Cycle at Ad Hoc Tomorrow

7-10 pm, 49 Bogart St. in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Here.  More Morning Breath and Cycle. It's gonna be an awesome show!

¡APESHIT! SHOW THIS FRIDAY!

The boys are at it again! Don't miss this! Check out some tracks: Dessert Storm and Hail Hydra. At the Charleston at 174 Bedford Ave. Brooklyn!

Robbie Conal!

Artist Profile: Robbie Conal from By Osmosis TV on Vimeo.

Always been a huge fan of this man's art and activism. Great little video on him and his work. Check out more on his site.

We Are Not Quitters!

Rousing speech last night from President Obama. Serious history. If you missed it, you shouldn't have. Read full transcripts here. Or watch the video! And is it just me or does Nancy Pelosi smile way too much? Creepy.

Skate Plaza!

After hyping the BK, here's a little LA love, my birthplace...

Rob Drydek and DC Shoes, along with some funding from Carl's Jr fast food restaurants, are set to open Safe Spot, Skate Spot in LA's Lafayette Park. Billed as a legal place for kids to be able to go skate unharrassed by the cops. Great idea! Go here for more info on this project and others, maybe in your hometown?

Culinary Brooklyn!

I love food. I love New York. And I definitely love Brooklyn. This is a good time to be living here. Check out this article from the NY Times today and wish you were eating something other than your usual fare. Something from the hearts, hands, and minds of one of the above persons.

Sweet Leaf Legalization?

Yesterday in California (of course) California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced the state's first legalization bill that would tax and regulate the commercial production of cannabis, like alcohol, in an attempt to generate much needed state revenue, end environmental damage done by illegal farming on public lands, and help end a ridiculous war on marijuana. Sounds reasonable and about time. If the rest of the country could just follow suit maybe we could get a little closer to getting out of this financial mess. More here. One criticism though, a proposed $50 tax per ounce grown? Seems steep.

Eyeglasses for the Masses!

So my gf, who never reads my blog (guess she gets enough of me at home), asked me to blog this. It's from the Guardian UK, and is about some inventors who have devised a pair of eyeglasses that don't need an optician in order to change the prescription strength. It can all be done by the wearer, wherever they are, by adding or subtracting water from the lenses. The principal being the thicker the lens via the water the more powerful the magnification of the lens. Pretty sweet. Perfect for the world's poor the inventors have already distributed 30,000 pairs and are hoping to get a mil out to the poor of India. Awesome! And that's why my girl, with the heart of gold, rocks!

Coraline!

Saw Coraline 3D over the weekend, AWESOME! Made me feel like a kid again, not that I don't act like one the majority of the time. Swiped this from an illustration blog, drawn.ca,  that I like, certainly worth checking out. They compiled some of the artists who worked on the production or were influential in the film's development, like Dan Krall, whose work is above and can be seen here.

Congratulations Alex!

Alex audition tape - 10 minutes from Luke Stiles on Vimeo.

So our friend Alex, from Hibagon (see below), has made it to the Quest for G bootcamp! What is this you ask? Gatorade is looking for a group of atheletes to sponsor in some sort of reality show where they train them to their fullest potential and then let them loose in their respective fields to rip it up. Or so I gather. Alex, who is a track bike racer, sent in an audition tape, gatorade asked for more, he provided and now he's off to their bootcamp. Not sure if this means that he's in, gotta ask him, but nevertheless CONGRATULATIONS! It's awesome and we hope that he goes all the way. You can check out Alex in his own words in the above video and see how rad he already is, winner of many bike races and NY State Champ of Keirin racing.

Is that a DIENASTY bandana he's wearing? Tight.

HIBAGON!

So the party was sick. Our friends' new band is officially calling themseleves Hibagon, which I totally had to get off of Affinity's site because when Alex told me on Saturday and I was drunk it sure didn't sound like "Hibagon"! Picture by John Prolly.

Biomorphic Skyscrapers? Welcome to the Future!

Wow. Ok, let's do this...

Can this guy give it a rest already?

Peter Vallone Jr., Queens councilmember and crusading anti-graffiti activist, wants store owners to cover the cost of replacing perfectly good full metal shutters with more see through shutters in an attempt to stop graffiti. Hello Pete, your war on graff is like the war on drugs, ain't never gonna end so stop trying. You look like a dick. Especially to the store owners who are just trying to survive. And anyway aren't most of these only down at night? That's gotta be past your bedtime. Go to sleep! More here.

Pedal Power!

Sweet little pedal pins. Order here.

Smoke Up!

15,000 butts collected by hand! Gross, made me wanna light up! More here.

Anti Cannabis Ad from UK! Party Time, Warts and All

DRUGS ARE BAD...ASS!

Wow! Don't know what to make of this...

Random post, never even heard of this woman, but supposedly she was made famous on Big Brother in the UK for being white trash as far as I can tell and now she's about to die from cancer. And possibly on TV from what I can gather. Sad really. Sounds like she has her good reasons for doing so though, money for her kids, awareness of cervical cancer, keeping her mind off of dying. She's getting married this weekend. Congratulations? Read more here.

Partay!

So our friend Alex's new band is playing this Saturday. Supposedly they don't have a name yet but feat. ex-members of Atake and Cuddle Machines, among others. Should be good! Come the fuck out! Click on the flyer for details, foo!

Nice Ride!

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

Oh shit!!! That's our boy's shop Affinity! Wait a minute...that's our Brooklyn hood! Damn! Representin' An ad (makes us wanna buy some tires every time dude rolls over glass) but beautiful nonetheless.

Oh the Controversy...

You've heard the about the dispute! Now hear the justifications and the defense of the Shep! Nah, we're all for theft! Life's too short and everything has been done. Besides where would we be without sampling? Hello, hip-hop, anyone? More on the event here.

Brian Hubble in Massive Group Show!

Jesus, this is gonna be a clusterfuck of epic proportions! 300+ artists at Raw Gallery's debut show tonight. Our friend, Brian Hubble, of Midnight Snacks fame is going to be in it. Thta's his work at the bottom of this page. Should be a hoot! 210 11th Ave. @ 25th st. 6-9pm.

Meshuggah!

Tomorrow night at The Fillmore! Oh fuck yeah! Been around for awhile but if you don't know these guys, I feel sorry for you. Go here to figure it out.

Martha Cooper Book Launch and Sticker Exchange!

Ad Hoc Art is hosting the book launch of Going Postal by Martha Cooper, famed NYC photographer. The opening is this Friday, February 20th, from 7-10pm. The exhibition will feature photos of sticker art from around the world. Artists will also be on hand selling and exchanging handmade stickers, so bring some or buy some. Either way it'll be a great opportunity to get your hands on some affordable art. The show itself is only up until Sunday, so get on it!

Peep these beautiful decks...

Artist Alex Castaneda painted this series of stunning decks. For sale here.

Good Times, Bad Times

So on the way home from Stowe, we get yanked off the road by a Massachusetts state trooper for speeding. Oops. My friend, who's car it is, can't find the registration. It starts to dawn on her that she might not have renewed it recently. Oops. Now the cop has to tow it off the highway, leaving us stranded, halfway back to NYC. Fuck. So this super rad tow truck driver loads us up, takes us to town, where we try to rent a car but the rental place closes at noon on Saturdays and it's about 12:45! Sweet. So the driver goes out of his way to drive us to the middle of town so that we can get on a greyhound a couple of hours later. We yelp a brew pub in town, thank you apple, for some good eats and strong beer, before getting on the bus and getting back to NYC about 6hrs after our scheduled arrival! Tiring but never dull. This always seems to happen to Dave and I! Welcome to the club Caro!

I'm an Asshole!

For not taking any pics of our Stowe adventure. I'd like to blame it on the excitement and generally average snow conditions on the first day, although it was awesome to have some spring like conditions in winter; the fact that it was raining low on the mountain the second day, so once again snow was fun but nothing extraordinary; and on the third day we had a great fucking day of powder riding, the day that pics would have been good but who has time when the gettin' is good and it's your last day? Stowe is now my favorite mountain in the East. Sorry Killington. You used to be my crown jewel but Stowe is steep, tons of trees and rocks, and there's never anybody there! Heaven. And did I mention powder? Too bad it's expensive and far away.

Going to Stowe!

Sorry, folks, Dienasty will be MIA until Sunday. We'll be back with some new things next week!

Boo fucking hoo!

Hey, I'm all for working hard and getting rich but some things are just absurd. Check out this NY Times article on the costs of living a banker's lifestyle in NYC. I agree that NY is out of control ($50,000 salary in Houston, Tx equals $123,322 salary in NYC!) and you want the best but maybe you cut back on say the $4 mil Southampton summer home that costs $240,000 a year. Just a thought. And really you only have yourselves to blame, it's called supply and demand. Nice job!

The Sharpie Show @ Crewest, LA

Sweet looking show, wish it were here in NYC! Feb. 7th-Mar. 1st. Check out the Crewest site here.

Shepard Fairey Busted!

Love him or hate him, Boston police came and busted the man behind the Obey empire in his hotel room as he was about to leave for his opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art. And this is after legally intalling a 20x50 foot banner on the side of city hall! Oops! I know Mass. and Boston in particular are cracking down hard on all things graff and street art related but dude's showing at one of your museums! Bringing in dollars! C'mon!

KAWS on CBS!

Midnight Snacks!

Brian Hubble, Stand Down, graphite on antique paper, 11"x13"

Pat Berran, Looming Arch, Walnut ink and watercolor on paper, 12.5"x13.5"

Mathew Thomas, Satan's Army, Mixed media on thrift store photograph, 12.25"x16.25"

So a good friend, Brian Hubble, got a bunch (38 or so) of his good friends together, including Pat Berran and myself, and put on an art show. The result is Midnight Snacks which is opening tonight at Ghost Print Gallery in Richmond, Virginia at 220 West Broadway. It'll be up for the month of February before it travels to NYC for the month of March and then onto D.C. for another month. The whole idea was to show pieces that may be small studies for larger projects, like a snack, and all the works had to be no larger than 13"x13". Leave it to me to break the rules!

In time for the NYC show, we will be releasing our new online zine, The Nasty! Pat's going to be featured in an extensive interview about his art, singing for Apeshit, and his roots in skating and punk culture. We're also going to be including a lot of the artists from the show so it's going to be awesome. Hope you enjoy!

For Real!

So this event kinda sucked. It was brick and it seemed like forever in between runs. Crazy 9 story run in and an icy looking landing that, in person, looked pretty insane. Cool that they had it, but given the temps they should've had this thing running much smoother.

As rumors suggested, they are going to open this up to the public, albeit in a much tamer 3 story version. Not sure what is actually going to be on hand. Can't imagine being able to launch that gap with enough speed from only 3 stories up, but we'll see. It's going to be open February 16th-22nd, just in time for NYC public school vacation week. Be prepared to battle it out with  a shitload of kids! 11-4pm daily. Also in Central Park tomorrow is Winter Jam. Open to the public as well.

And this is why nobody but pros will ever ride the skyscraper...

Big Air! What What!

This monster's gonna get a professional beatdown tonight here in NYC. East River Park at FDR and Houston. Gates at 3pm, Practice at 3:30, Valient Thor performs at 5:05, Contest at 5:45, Black Gold performs at 7:10, Finals at 7:45, Awards at 8:50, and Anthrax performs at 8:55! Sounds like a sick night. Bundle up, it's cold outside! More info here. And it's FREE! Plus there's rumor that this thing may stay up for locals to ride. We'll see...

More Skating!

Some new Ipod/phone shit. Looks pretty sick. So Vans is giving away some free shit to whomever comes up with the best name for this new game. Enter here.

Skateistan!

Australian skater, Oliver Percovich, has brought skateboarding to the kids of war torn Afghanistan. Awesome work! He's looking to create an indoor park with classes in English and computers. Check out his site here and make a tax deductible donation if you can (look under US Trust Account for US citizens)!

Definition of a Badass!

This is Rich Wilson, badass adventurer. He's currently sailing around the world in the Vendee Globe, an around the world solo race that is more about just finishing and surviving than coming in first. Check out the article here and his site here, where you can read his blog.

Acrassicauda is free!

Talk about metal or death! These guys are finally free from Iraq, living in Jersey (how appropriate it seems), and ready to make some motherfucking noise! Here's the most recent chapter in their story. Props to Vice Magazine for helping them out. Look for them at a show in Brooklyn soon, I'm sure!

RIP Joe Ades, AKA Peeler Man

The peeler man of Union Square Greenmarket is dead. RIP.