TSG Sun

Skateboarding on the Quad, loading dock on the side of the auditorium.

Man this site is dead. Am I the only one posting here? Well here’s some news. We just had a baby on Saturday the 1st. His name is Simon Gawlik, 7lbs 10 ounces. Wahoo!

And because the hack is gone… this post was made by Randy, wait for it…. Gawlik.

About three years ago I asked Rick for permission to use a Didjits tune (any one) in a promotional video for Cold War Skateboards that was going to be included on a DVD being given away to subscribers of a skateboard magazine called Concrete Wave. He said it was OK, but then I didn’t end up using a song. Three years later we got a last minute call to be included on the 2007 DVD. We didn’t have anything ready, so we went out and shot some footage for about three hours one Sunday, and I spent the next three nights after work looking at old footage, cataloging, digitizing, and editing. It was actually nice to have such a tight deadline since it prevented me from spending too much time on it. Anyway, here it is, and Rick, I hope it’s still OK to use a Didjits song.

When it snows here people whig out and lose their shit. Nobody drives worth a damn. I didn’t make it to this street, but I drove around all day on the same day this was shot. It’s fun being a transplanted midwesterner in Oregon. Thanks to Scary for finding this. Here’s what I did on my snow day.

Can’t see the vid? Go here.

Hey, we were no Dead Relatives, but McWilson burned brightly for a few months. Formed expressly to open for Naked Raygun’s (Thanks to Oreo!) first show in Champaign at Mabels. Members include Evil Tom, Randy, Neil, and Don Gerard. Not shown is sometimes guitarist Dave Titlebaum, or Dave Uglybum as we used to call him. He kind of thought we were a joke (we were!) but when he found out we were opening for Raygun he got interested real fast. The good reception we got at the show convinced him to stick it out for a few more gigs. Click the image to see it bigger. Photo by Ted McDougall

Leroy garbage picked a Farfisa organ or keyboard or whatever it is called. I think he saw a guy pushing it down the street in a shopping cart? Maybe he paid $25 for it. I can’t remember if we ever got it working, but as you can see, we did get it taken apart. Galva was doing all the actual fixing attemps. I think I was just fiddling. Leroy took this picture in the office of Propaganda. Click on it to see it bigger. Check out the awesome old Mac on the desk. That’s where Galva worked on the accounting program for two or three years without ever actually doing any accounting. I think the most use that thing got was when we used it to play Risk for hours on end.

Here’s the story of how I learned that Galva wasn’t his real name. This picture is from the early Propaganda days.

One time an old lady called the house and asked for Brian Robinson. Who? I told her there was nobody there by that name. She insisted that her grandson did and then sounded kind of confused after I quite firmly and possibly even rudely told her there was absolutely nobody living there by the name of Brian Robinson. When someone asked who was on the phone I told them it was some confused old lady with a wrong number looking for her grandson Brian Robinson.

The ramp behind the third house on Springfield in Urbana. When we moved to Chicago to start Propaganda, I spent a couple of hours trying to dismantle it, but gave up. Latter on some kids took the remains and shortened it into a mini ramp. A couple years later I went back to Champaign to hang out with Brad and I was skating it at some kids’s house without realizing it was originally mine. Praise Coslows.

Brad Krohn. He’s Veterinarian now, lives in Portland Oregon, well the suburbs technically. Lake Oswego.

So we decided that we were going to knock out one of the double wide doors that had been drywalled over to make a bedroom in the second house. It was a dining room converted into a bedroom. Eric J was the current resident and he wanted to move his bedroom to the living room because it had doors and nobody ever went into it. Knoccking out the drywall would connect it to the kitchen, and Eric could have more room to work on his motorcycle in his bedroom during the winter. We had these croquet balls in the house for some reason, and Lars Eric and I were throwing them at the wall/doorway that we were knocking out, trying to see if we could get them to go through both side in one throw. I can’t remember if we did or not, but the important part is that Charlie Dold walks in from off the street, sees what we are doing and and says “Cool! Can I try?” We say “sure” and hand him a croquet ball, which he proceeds to whip at the first wall he sees, which unfortunately is not the wall we were trying to tear down. See, he just thought we were fucking things up as usual, cause it was perfectly within reason that we would just be destroying something for no reason. Anyway, we all burst into laughter and Charlie was really confused until we explained it to him. Here are a few pictures of the aftermath.

Click to enlarge.

This is the frame work for the “who needs a girlfriend?” ramp in the front yard of the second TSG house. That’s Eric J’s motorcycle.

Me on the curb outside the first house, photo by Ted.