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Well… sheeit. Looks like my month’s off to a late start. And I can’t exactly say April went out with a bang here at Dedleg International. What’s that saying again? April’s slacking brings May’s lacking? Hm… that doesn’t sound very good at all. In any case, here are a few photos to break the seal.

I was trying to take a photo of the bus coming down the street, but he assumed I was waiting for the bus. A fair assumption, considering I was standing at a bus stop, looking down the street, waiting for the bus. I must admit, I felt sort of like the goonish epitome of a white art kid when he pulled up and I was all like, “Oh, sorry, sorry, I was just taking a photo,” while pushing up my thick plastic-framed glasses.

This sure has a bit of that old The Shining look going on… but I assure you, that’s only rust. Although… I guess rust is sort of like the blood of a building, slowly being eaten from the outside by oxidation. And that’s kind of gory in an anthropomorphic way.

Okay, back to slacking.

As if Williamsburg’s prized DIY skate spot under the BQE wasn’t already considerably better than the skate park two blocks away, some extremely benevolent soul did New York City skateboarding a massive kindness and recently installed a new quarterpipe there. This one looks like the freakishly mutated big brother of the little quarter that’s been there for years, and considering the type of slime you often encounter while skating the BQE Lot, it wouldn’t really surprise me if that wasn’t the only freakish mutant you might find down there.

It should be noted that, like pretty much everything else at this spot, it’s probably a lot harder to skate than these guys are making it look. And it’s probably already soaked in bird shit, too. But that’s like, so totally part of the charm.

I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but almost more tantalizing than a new quarter pipe is that weird concrete rainbow that makes a brief cameo around 58 seconds in:

Any new obstacle at the BQE Lot is cause for excitement, but this thing looks like a unique attraction, the likes of which you won’t find at any of the city’s legitimate concrete playgrounds, and fucking forget about finding a “real street” equivalent. Looks like people have been putting in some work at Brooklyn’s most notable DIY spot, and just in time for skate season to get in full swing. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to stop by and spend the afternoon getting filthy there.

Now, I’ve just got to keep my fingers crossed that nobody backs a car into it before I get a chance to get over there.

How about some seasonably warm photos on this most glorious Monday? It’s like they say, February temperatures consistently in the 60 degree range bring March flowers! Haha, we’re all going to die.

Come see the softer side… of tumbleweeds.

Hey, I’m a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy. It’s not all crusty street photography and pictures of weed, you know. I’m into other kinds of flowers, too — can’t you tell?

The fire department rolled up to my building yesterday, but it turned out the lady downstairs was just smoking hella herb. I’ve told her she uses too much paper to roll her joints, but she never listens.

Photos with UFOs in them are spookier by default. That’s just science - science fiction, I’ll grant you. But that’s still a type of science, all the same.

I swear I’m not even joking about the flying saucer, either. Look at this close up…

Frankly, I find it kind of weird.

Okay, sure, maybe it could still be a plane, blurred by a slow shutter or an unsteady hand. Maybe it’s not a real UFO. That never stopped The National Enquirer, and that’s a good newspaper. It all comes down to that little shadow of doubt, my friends… that little shadow of doubt.

And is it just me, or does this kid really resemble David after the dentist?

I’m a bit hesitant to jump the gun when it comes to meteorological issues in general, since even the guys paid to predict this shit usually get it wrong, but with 58-degree-temperatures tentatively scheduled for later this week and February quickly approaching its abrupt end, “real winter” is looking like less and less of a possibility this year. Is it a sign of the end times? Who fucking cares! If the weather’s going to be this mild in hell, I’ll book my ticket in advance.

Nonetheless, last Saturday saw bitter, merciless wind and even a passing snow squall — perhaps a gentle warning that winter’s still got it, and maybe we shouldn’t push our luck. Rather, we should push our skateboards and enjoy the snow-free streets while we can. And who knows, we might just end up pushing straight on to spring.

The best part of a snowy, winter weekend night? The thought of heading home to a cold beer, oddly enough.

It occurred to me around this time that taking the long way home may have been a poor choice.

Nonetheless, walking through Prospect Park late at night is great if you, like me, wish your daily commute looked a little bit more like the Elven-outpost of Rivendell.

Magical as the view may have been, my fingers, numb from the biting wind, were turning into clumsy, bloated sausages by the minute. It was definitely time to head home and fill my blood with the warmth of an mildly alcoholic buzz.

If you have a day off and don’t waste it by sleeping through the entire thing, you’re blowing it (I think). Nonetheless, I promised myself when I had this baby I wouldn’t be a negligent blogger daddy, god damn it! So, that said, here are some new photos from around my way. It’s still technically autumn, though it won’t be for long, so I figured I’d post these in memory of a time when it was warm enough to go skateboarding and not want to die every single time you fall. Concrete hurts more in below-freezing temperatures — that’s just a fact… a cold, hard fact.

That building needs to shave. God, have some self respect you friggin animal.

To be honest, I’m not sure if that’s hash or a lil’ piece of dog dookie, but I do know that is just an adorable little plastic bag!

If you’ve ever seen Creepshow 2 (which I can’t entirely recommend, but is somehow still totally worth watching), you might feel the same way I do about these ducks. Poor bastards, right? Ever since I saw “The Raft”, I’ve never been able to look at oil slicks or even large expanses of algae the same way. I mean, seriously, my world has been rocked.

The creature even destroys his medical marijuana! I mean, what is this thing?!

The YouTube peanut gallery always has the most fascinating insights.

Man-eating oil slick or not, seriously, don’t come on in, the water is not fine.

The content around this shadowy corner of the Blogodrome is leaning extremely skate-heavy this week, so you have my apologies if you happen to be a nerd and aren’t interested in skateboarding. I think my propensity for posting skate-related content has an exact, inverse relationship with how often I actually get to go skating. Ahh, vicarious-living… it’s what the Internet is for!

Since I had the afternoon off yesterday, I was planning on making the journey out to the new Far Rockaway park, since it looks like heaven. Appropriately, it’ll take you so long to get there by train there’s a good chance you’ll actually die en route, so it kind of makes sense. Unfortunately, darkness now falls around 11:45 am, ever since we turned the clocks back to the benefit of that small minority of the population that still grows their food in fields, as opposed to just finding it placed neatly within a box marked “10 Piece Chicken McNuggets” like normal people. So, with only a couple hours of daylight left, I decided wasting them trapped in New York’s black, cavernous nexus of subway tunnels was perhaps not my best course of action. Temperatures were in the 60s, and there isn’t going to be too much of that weather left in this calendar year, so instead I chose an alternate route.

Back before New York’s recent infestation of quality, concrete skate prisons, I used to occasionally mull over the idea of checking out the rough-around-the-edges bowl complex in Bay Ridge’s Owl’s Head park. However, as I was living in the Bronx at the time, the companion idea of having to spend hours trapped in New York’s black, cavernous nexus of subway tunnels always stopped me. But now, its relatively convenient location necessitated a trip. Lucky for me, the park was closed when I got there.

The skate park appears to be closed for the winter — I guess this must occur in tandem with the ceremonious shutting off of every water fountain in the city. The local gang of scooter kids didn’t have much information on the subject, though they were clear on one thing: the cops make a point to regularly patrol the area to make sure there aren’t any delinquents actually attempting to skate in the skate park. Great.

Unrelated, but for anybody wondering, yes, that is fire in the photo on the right. It was coming out of a large chimney in the Owl’s Head Water Pollution Control facility, which I have to assume is normal… like an eternal flame burning in memoriam of all the shit - and I mean literal, human shit - getting pulled out of the New York Harbor each day.

In any case, does this shit make sense to anybody else? The bowl-riding/potentially suicidal skater sect in New York is handily screwed between both Owl’s Head and Pier 60 getting locked up for the entire winter, which in this city, apparently starts on November 1^st. The whole thing is doubly infuriating when the basketball court and playground down the path from the skate park are both open. In light of that fact, the “Closed” sign hanging around the skate park gate reads a whole lot more like “ATTN Skateboarders: Go fuck yourselves.”

What’s the point of spending money on a facility where you can cage in troublemaking skateboarders if you’re not even going to take advantage of it? You don’t need to wait to throw us in real jail for trespassing, guys. There’s a jail already built and we’re more than happy to go inside, if only you’d open the gate.

Needless to say, I hopped the fence and had a great time.

Here’s some important information if you’re a New York skateboarder and were thinking of checking out the little modular obstacles the Parks Department dropped in Thomas Greene Park earlier this year — do not go there after dark, and do not go there if you don’t have a child-sized chaperone with you. Earlier this evening, I had the misfortune of learning firsthand that the police do not look kindly upon skaters remaining confined to fenced-in, city-initiated shred zones. Oh well, back to skating in the middle of the street and damaging public property instead, I guess.

In case you can’t read it (I barely can, and I’m holding it in my hand), the offense in question is “disobey park sign.” Yes, that’s right, I have to go to court because I disobeyed a park sign. Thanks, guys! Really, you couldn’t have just given me a spanking and sent me to bed without dinner?

You seriously mean to tell me the NYPD doesn’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night in Brooklyn than cruise around looking to give people tickets for skating in skate parks after dark? Are you aware that there are, like, real crimes occurring… all the fucking time? If I had been a crazed bum curled up in a puddle of my own puke, surely they would have simply sent me on my way. But no, it’s the end of the month and somebody has to hit their quota. Somebody has to hit the treadmill too, but I digress…

From the mouth of the oversized officer herself, “Technically, you’re not allowed to be here at all if you’re not accompanying a child.” Ouch. Nothing ruins a session quite like a cop telling you it’s time to retire from Little League. Welp… enjoy the park, scooter kids.

In the words of my man, Saul Silver:

Anyway, it’s a good thing we’ve got such courageous police officers out there to protect us from ourselves and serve us summonses for utterly trivial offenses, otherwise we might be caught having - *gasp* - harmless fun!

Another busy week here at Dedleg HQ, only Dedleg itself has been shuffled to the back of the queue, as it were. Although the dust has finally begun to settle after the volcanic eruption that was my move crosstown, now begins the long clean-up effort. Like any relief effort, my life’s reconstruction project requires great amounts of capital, and until such a goal is achieved, it seems I’m stuck with my 9-to-5 fundraising efforts, as they were. And Dedleg is stuck with semi-sporadic posting and, um… added value due to scarcity, with any luck.

In any case, here are some more photos from my sunset-heavy archives. Looking out at the Williamsburg Bridge, not far from my old hunting (or was it haunting?) grounds.

There was an abnormally high amount of airplane activity while I was shooting these.

Case in point.

There won’t be too many sunsets from that particular angle in Dedleg’s future, but rest assured (or rest a-bored, anyway), there will be many more sunset photos to come. If they keep happening, I’ll keep taking them. To be fair, a major reason I was compelled to get into photography back in college was due to the great disappointment that regularly came over me whenever I saw a glorious sunset or foreboding storm on the horizon. After several million, “God damn it, I wish I had a camera!” moments, I finally acquired one and have been documenting the shit out of any such sunsets and storm clouds I happen to come across. Another reason? I really wanted to take pictures of myself for my myspace, duh.

Here’s a very random assortment of photos I came upon while going through the archives last night. It seems sometime around February 15^th, I stopped working on my backlog of photos and jumped to more recent shots instead. So now, some months later, that backlog has developed into an even bigger backlog. And I figure I’d better start cleaning this shit out before 2011’s backlog runs into 2012’s. Say backlog one more time.

Sort of a scary image, considering it was 48 degrees this morning. Shit’s coming.

Psh. Anthrax is sooo 2001. Everybody who’s anybody knows that H1N1 is what’s all the rage in biological terrorism today! Get your genetically engineered horror diseases straight, damn.

And if this post was a ecological preserve, this would be the part where creepy windows suddenly become a very invasive species.

Told you.