Erick is a staple of NorCal rollerblading, from history-making stunts during Bay Area traffic to shooting photos for FilthJuice.

Known better as ESG, he’s “El Presidente” of the Juiced Sucka Foos, a crew formed in the Battle My Crew days.

On this episode, we talk about his experiences working for his parents carpet cleaning business, how cess slides are a sign of financial independence, his relationship with K2 skates, getting into photography, and, of course, smoking weed.

Follow him on Instagram: @juicedsuckafoos

CHECK OUT FILTHJUICE.COM

Erick in Valo V:

Ringbone:

Humble Beings:

Break song: “Juiced” by Zyme (Jared Majors)

If you’d like to know more about the JSF crew, read the article I wrote for AggressiveMall.com when they launched the JSF/AM Juiced line.

Blade or Die,

— Brian Krans

P.S. — Use the promo code ‘PODCAST’ for 10 percent off orders at RockTownPress.com.

Before his Nitro Circus stop in San Jose, Chris gives us the full story behind his newly-revitalized “Bone Crusher” nickname, the good ol’ days of watching VHS skate videos until the tape broke, and talking about the one thing he hates most about rollerblading.

He also answers questions the /r/rollerblading community on Reddit.

If you haven’t already, buy his Vibralux VOD on Sellfy for a mere $3.99.

Here’s what happens when Chris’ Nitro Circus family found out about his old nickname.

You can support this podcast by pledging to Patreon or shopping at RockTownPress.com.

(If you can support, I can fix my phone’s camera lens and get pictures without the JJ Abrams lens flares.)

Blade or Die,

— Brian Krans

This is only meant as a humorous attempt to talk about something that happens from time to time. If it doesn’t come across as that, hide under a blanket and cry if you’re not doing that already.

You know what I’m talking about.

The bomb.

The rollerblade bomb.

You know you’ve hesitated to tell a girl right away that you rollerbladed. Admit it. You’re guilty of it.

Fuck, I’m learning I better start doing it.

About a month ago I had half my face shredded off. Wounds still fairly fresh on my dome, I decide to go to a bar. I figured if I talked to any girl that night, I had more than two words to say to her, which is two more than normal.

There was the typical girl in San Francisco sitting by herself at a bar: pretty, young, dressed well, and waiting for the next guy to buy her drink. This one looked like a combination of a cute TV reporter I used to know and Colbie Smulders, or the hot brunette from How I Met Your Mother.

She approached me. We talked for a little bit. She said she had a boring office job, which they all do. She said she wanted to do something else. I don’t remember what it was. It was probably becoming a certified yoga teacher, organic kelp farmer, or something.

She asked what happened to my face. I told her I crashed into a friend at the skate park.

“Skate park. Oh, so you skateboard?”

It’s the usual assumption, so there’s no point in even talking about it.

“No. I rollerblade.”

“Rollerblade?”

This girl stands out because her eyebrow twitched and the corner of her mouth yanked so far back on her face I thought she just had a brain embolism and a major vessel in her brain ruptured. Normally it’s the same expression the first time you fart around her, so long as that first moment is the moment of silence at her father’s funeral.

The about-face she did was fucking so amazing that I wish I had it on video. It was comical, like I told her I had a needle-thin dick covered in AIDS. I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off.

Either way, it’s the typical reaction from uppity girls:

Which brings this response from us:

Just another day in the blader dating game.

Playa, playa.

Okay, not at all.

I was talking to Justin Hertel, owner of Aggressive Mall, Trust, and all other sorts of cool shit, about this same topic not too long ago. He said he waits until date No. 2 to drop the bomb that he “owns a rollerblade shop.” I mean, yeah, it’s the biggest shop in the world, but it’s still a rollerblade shop.

I’ve written about similar incidents involving bladers at bars and why rollerblading isn’t cool. Why is it such a popular theme?

Because I like to bitch.

Now, I could say any and all demise with members of the opposite sex could be in part because of major defects in our personalities and the struggle of how we were bred as hunter-gatherers for 8 million years and now we’re forced into a society where we’re told to sit down, shut up, and mindlessly do a job, but where’s the fun in that? I’m one of those people who find it healthy to blame all of my problems on others, despite the fact the only thing all my problems have in common is me.

But let’s face it: there’s a good chance the one thing we all share in common can be a serious cockblock at times.

I’m not saying blading doesn’t have its groupies. I’m not saying blading doesn’t have its girls that jump from blader dick to blader dick. Any sport, from yoyoing to downhill Big Wheel luge, will have those girls. Then again, most dudes I know looking for a quality woman aren’t looking for someone who’s been around the block with their friends. They’re looking for that one girl. That one cool one that gets it.

Where do you find those women?

We could have an online dating site ready to connect us to ones seeking our lifestyle. Such as…

A writer over at Vice magazine recently did a piece on the online dating site that bills itself as a meat market for people who want to tell their friends they’re dating a “skater boy.” As with most Vice columns, this one contained a bad social experience that needed to be shared, for some God awful reason.

For those looking for the TL;DR of the article here it is: a girl who used to hang out at Pac-Sun wanted to find a love connection with a skater, so she tried the dating site DateSkaters.com. Her specimen’s code name was “ToekneeHawt.” He was 32 years old, wore those shoes that look like the  gloves your mom wears when she does the dishes, they got drunk, talked about and consumed pharmaceutical drugs without a prescription, he complained about his ex, and ended up throwing up at the bar. There’s no date No. 2 in that future.

Not that any Vice writer would ever find something outside their own perspective, but before this goes any further, this needs to be said: Vice’s investigative reporting is some of the best in the business right now. Their lifestyle columnists, well, they need a life.

They may have passed on Dateskaters.com, but there looks like some quality meat circulating through that market. I call dibs on karies1959 or steppenout:

I would honestly, for the sake of science, like to hear about a blader who went on a date from someone on that site and drop the blader bomb on them on the first date.

You’ll either get scoffed at or still get thrown around under the sheets. Then again, I’m sure anyone cruising that site wouldn’t know the difference between a skateboard and rollerblades, so just collect your VD and call it a night.

But careful what you call yourself on that site because some bladers take serious offense to identifying themselves as “skaters.”

Honestly, though, it seems like the skater from the Vice article was yet another long line of posers, people identifying themselves with something for no reason other than the public perception. You all know skateboarders like this. They’re the ones spending more time at the skate park holding their board than actually riding it. They wear the skating clothes and cruise the malls. They bring their skateboards with them everywhere so they’re easily identifiable as a douche.

They’re about three years ahead of the scooter generation, so at least they have that going for them.

Because let’s face it, no self-respecting skater would wear barefoot running shoes.

I still consider it a blessing that there are few posers in blading. While their parents’ money is good for building up an industry, at least you know if you see someone wearing skating gear that they’re not some chump just trying to look cool and pick up girls.

You’d be better off faking cancer for sympathy than trying to use blading to get laid. Seriously, unless you’re at the ranks of Chris Haffey, Brian Aragon, or that lovable scamp Chris Farmer, don’t cry foul when you’re little fruit boots don’t make panties slip off like roofies.

In essence, we’re like the ugly girls in high school who have to develop quality personalities instead of just resting on what’s apparent from the outside. I’m pretty sure John Hughes could make a movie about it. It would be sad and depressing and we could all have ourselves a good cry.

Cry over what? I’m not sure. I don’t see the point in my own bitching anymore. It’s fucking dumb, really it is.

The only thing that separates us from other sports is public opinion. Most rollerbladers have the same kind of dedication to blading than some Olympic athletes.

We are motivated in improving ourselves.

We are dedicated to those we love.

We seek challenges.

We know what makes us happy.

We care about something.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a girl who can hang with the homies, understands why you do what you do, and doesn’t give you too much shit about it. Granted, when you get a girl like that, you better notice it and take damn good care of her. Throw a ring on her finger and hook yourself a good one.

I’ve seen it happen. I know many of men who have turned cool chicks into amazing wives. I know guys who support their women because they support them in their blading and everything else they do.

Trust me, even if you deny it until the day you die, that’s what you want.

The easiest way to do that is to date a fellow blader. We have female ones and some of them aren’t too damn shabby looking and can emasculate most of us on wheels. But, the dangers of that go with the dangers of only hanging out with skaters: you may miss out on some of the normal parts of life.

Now I will never advocate that normal should never described, but there’s great advantage in dating someone who doesn’t do the exact same things as you do. You have to diversify, yo.

Or you could just swear yourself single and never venture into the dating world, but I suggest against that. Dating a woman can be either the most challenging thing you’ll ever do, or the easiest thing, depending on your selection process and how much shit you’re willing to take in exchange for it.

Women bring a lot of damn good qualities into life. The right one gets what you do and why you do it and thinks it’s an admirable trait. The right one will take you out of your comfort zone and into places filled with no one you have anything in common with just so you have the opportunity to grow as a person.

And putting our penises into women has been an evolutionary trait that has helped us populate the planet to the point of extinction. It’s just what we like to do. Deal with it.

For any woman brave enough to venture our way, there is a guide available to you. Even at the very worst (which this isn’t), it’s a good thing to read for anyone who has ever read The Idiot’s Guide to Whatever.

If you haven’t read it yet—or casually dropped a link a few times in front of your girlfriend—check out the

Girlfriends Guide to Dating a Rollerblader

The entire blog is written from the long-term girlfriend of a rollerblader. In it, she explains every little bit of unexplained behavior, offers insights to women in her place, and how to stock the necessary supplies.

Just by her first post, I can tell this woman gets it. She sounds fucking awesome.

Instead of mindlessly harping about weird shit her blader boyfriend does, she writes with complete sincerity, almost like a case study of some weird breed of human that’s largely misunderstood by larger society. Which we are, so that’s why her writing is so insightful.

Major topics worth checking out include:

• Skate videos
• Road trips
• Wax supply

The cool thing about this is seeing an outsider’s perspective in what we do. Instead of hearing the weird nagging girlfriends can do, this woman has a romantic view of what we love. She understands the life and what it means to us. The blog is a great way for anyone new to the life to understand our idiosyncrasies and how to manage them effectively.

For most girls, the trouble is trying to comprehend the whole ordeal of blading. It’s not just something you fucking do on the weekends, it shaped the entire way we grew up. Outside copping a feel at a fucking school dance or two, most of our childhood memories revolve around skating in one way or another.

Every bit of trouble we’ve ever been in is because of our blading friends.

We’ve been arrested together.

We’ve had friends save our asses from possible death.

We did all of this because everyone else was kind of fucking boring or shady.

You bleed with people on a regular basis and you instinctively bond. (I find it oddly strange that women don’t get that this is how guys work, too.)

Also, blading keeps us from becoming fat pieces of shit. It gives us a reason to take care of our bodies. It gives us something to be excited about.

That girl at the bar and every other girl at a bar are going to judge the fuck out of you the instant they meet you. They’ve been genetically programmed to do that so the world wasn’t populated by the lowest common denominator of our species, but we’re going against that now since we forgot to spay and neuter our reality television celebretards.

Old bar skanks will become impregnated by someone dumb enough to not use a condom and they’ll leave the scene to be replaced by others. I mean, yes, the bar whores can help alleviate important animal urges to spread the seed, but thankfully good science has lowered the risk of that seed surviving.

So if you’re looking to lock down a good woman, make sure she’s awesome. If she’s not, kick her. If she is, you make sure you let her know it every damn day. You better be a goddamn sweetheart because a good woman is a hard find.

If you hesitate to tell a girl you blade, you’re already with the wrong woman. If she’s not down with what you do, fuck her.

But don’t make her your girlfriend.

All right. Thanks. I’m done for the night. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Blade or Die,

— Brian Krans

P.S. — Books, mother fucker. Do you read them?

– Rock Town Press

– Aggressive Mall

– Intuition

– European Customers: Freeze Tag on the Highway and A Constant Suicide.

– Amazon

– Kindle

The next book I was a part of will be available soon. It’s about blading. You want to get it. It’s dope.

(Thanks to all those who purchased books since the last Blader Digest. A donation will be made to the Dylan Huntbach fund in Iowa. On behalf of blading as a whole, we can’t thank you enough for your donations and support.)

Taig looking down in Paris

French blader Taig Khris has embraced the slogan “chicks dig the long ball.” Instead of long ball, though, he’s going for the long drop. Above is a picture of him staring down from where he’ll drop into a mega quarter-pipe on May 28th. He’s all smiles in the video below until he gets that look. That’s reality sinking in.

The goal is to beat out skateboarder Danny Way’s record by dropping in off the Eiffel Tower from 40 meters above the ground. And for we non-metric system-following Americans, that drop is only about 132 feet. Think of it like dropping in off the top of a lighthouse. Not too bad, right? Shee-iiight!!!

Here’s one of two videos posted on Rollernews this week about Taig explaining how it will all go down. Since I’m neither French nor Canadian, I cannot translate it for you. Find some sexy French girl to do it for you, slacker.

We, the fools behind bladeordie.com and the rest of the blading family, salute the hell out of what you’re doing Taig. Best of luck.

Happiness is in the eye of the beholder:

Via Rock Killers:

No commentary needed

Pissing off your parents since back-in-the-day:

(Insert witty comment here)

Once again, Ben Rogers at ONE comes up with another spectacular read in his regular “Lookback” series of old-school blading goodness. This week, his sights were dead-on Senate and successfully deconstructs the brand that gave rollerblading an image. Or as he put it: No blading company has ever gained the same amount of success and notoriety that Senate achieved during the late ’90s. Senate was rollerblading’s only Super Company and the original skater-owned company. It became a part of a corporation, but the value of supporting skater-owned companies has remained to this day. Senate was the driving force that created the industry.

True dat. Read that shit at ONE. While you’re there, scroll down a bit and read Colin Kelso‘s writings in Web Roll, a feature on the site that seems to be having some identity issues lately. There’s a shit-storm of controversy regarding Colin’s words on the future and such. Here’s an excerpt:

You see, I was convinced that the possible lifestyles outlined for me in society weren’t worth living.

So I made a conscious decision to use rollerblading as means to break out of those forms, and those molds, and to try to live what I believe would be a superior life.

A life based on success, but not in terms of money, in terms of immortality. I want to be remembered when I die for doing something I loved at all cost with no compromise.

Teasing…

There are people that make millions of dollars a year to take horrible movies, pull out any kind of redeeming footage, use some cool effects, a voice over and condense that piece of shit into 30 second of flash and dance to get you into a movie theater. Then again, this is blading. No one makes shit. If there are wheeled boots, it’s a varying degree of gold—tarnished or sparkly—but gold nonetheless. And, the teasers and trailers are always way better.

Then again, I can’t say I’ve seen a teaser for an edit before. However, the guys at Create Originals have ended that.

This one has all you need: a hammer and some cleavage.

CREATE ORIGINALS™ 2010 Am Team Edit Teaser from Create Originals on Vimeo.

Conan is still way better…

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Leno sucks. And no, it has nothing to do with the rollerblading reference mentioned below. He’s sucked for a long time before that.

Hopefully you’ve heard about Faisal Shahzad, who wanted to blow up a car in Times Square in beautiful NYC. Leno did.

The bullshit begins...

The jokes are old. (Snoop Dogg’s speech? Really? That was funny a decade ago.) The delivery is half-assed. But, hey, there are rollerblading terrorists!

...and it keeps going and going and going

Bring back Conan, please. Until then, keep up to date on NYC by checking out Be-Mag’s interview with Angelo Ferrer of the Art of Rolling.

Summer, Summer, Summertime…

Sexy, isn't it?

Ah, yes. It’s summertime. And nothing says summer quite like the road trip. You know, eating too many sunflower seeds, ODing on energy drinks, jerking off into Subway bags and then passing it around the car. (Okay, the last one isn’t normal. But that’s what my college roommate did. I wasn’t in said car. Promise.)

Moving on…It seems pros are going all over the world collecting clips for a ton of upcoming videos. Demetrious George has been all over South America and the rest of the USD Team might be heading that way soon. Footage Tape has been to Puerto Rico and back. If it’s warm and sunny, bladers are going there. Good for them.

The Valo team is proving once again that they know how to travel. They’ve just begun a month-long tour across Europe and getting around more than that aforementioned Subway bag.

First stop, England. And you can tell in the edit below that everyone’s favorite flipping-and-spinning Japanese blader, Itchy, is already feeling the travel woes. Check out his new ‘do. He doesn’t pull that crap in Japan or the U.S. He’s a good kid, but I think sometimes he gets caught up with the wrong crowd.

CSI Liverpool from Themgoods on Vimeo.

Stories and stories and stories…

I’m convinced, without a doubt, that there is no blader with more interesting stories than Fallon Heffernan. She’s always out doing something nutty and even when she’s trying to get some shut-eye, the fun shit doesn’t stop. If there’s anyone that needs a biographer, it’s our Fallon. And she deserves all of our love for that.

Go on...

The saga of “Beanie”…

If there’s any more overused word in the rollerblading vernacular, it’s “future.” It seems to be the one thing everyone really cares about, which is a good thing. We want our sport to continue on long after we’re all wheelchair-ridden old geezers wearing Depends. Occasionally, there are scary times when it doesn’t look like that will happen, like when you’re out blading and notice everyone you’re skating with is in their late 20s. That happens quite a bit out here in NorCal.

So this Saturday was no different. There were a few young cats — and by that I mean just barely legal enough to buy a Tall Boy — and the rest of us broken and aging. We were skating the Scotts Valley skatepark. It happens to be park of a larger park and when we were skating it, about a hundred little kids were beating the shit out of each other in lacrosse. Oh, but did their wee wandering eyes not drift over to where the bladers had taken over the park.

Soon, dozens of them were camping out near the ramps, cheering on the bladers, especially their favorite — a shredder they came to know as “Beanie” because of his headware. You might know him as Juicy Hamburger or Professor X. He’s probably known as AMall and Trust owner Justin Hertel. Yeah, that guy can shred.

That might not be the right hat, but that's still "Beanie"

Besides “Beanie,” Rob “Gray Shirt” G., Kennan “Yankee” Scott and others had those kids so juiced they should have lost their voices from the cheering. The kids got a lesson in what’s up with rollerblading and a few stickers to slap on their Trapper Keepers (but I doubt kids use those anymore). As we were leaving, one dad said to us, “Thanks for the entertainment.”

But, the best was when a little tyke on a skateboard said, “Mom, I want a pair of rollerblades.”

That, my friends, is securing the future.

It’s all about being seen.

A bitchin' one, holmes

Blade or Die,

— Brian Krans

Facebook snake!

Ah, it’s nice to be able to stretch out when you’re given some room, isn’t it?

Thanks to Justin Hertel and the AMall family for hosting this column for the last few weeks, but alas, it was time to move out and get a place of our own.

Myself, Jose Fuentes, and a slew of random friends we can sucker into this thing thought it’d be fun to take a look at rollerblading — other than the parts in the boots. And we want to keep it simple so you can catch up on blading from your phone while you’re out living your life and not strapped to a computer more that you already are.

However, this column might be strangely familiar with a slightly new name. Get it?

Make sure to check out the BladeOrDie.com digital life profile on Idaho’s Erik Bailey as he gives us a tour of Boise and his life via his iPhone.

So let’s start this off right…

Leading The Blind:

The Blading Renaissance channel on Vimeo is probably the coolest in blading right now.

While I’m not sure those guys in Russia have permission to be posting copyrighted material and they might need some Metallica-like backlash to their Napster-like antics, we still get to enjoy some anytime-we-want, mobile-ready, free hammers from rockstar bladers like Haffey, Broskow, Shima, Lennin and others.

Leading the Blind has been called the best blading video ever. That’s debatable. Then again, it’s still has some huge shit all this time after.

A note from Jero:

Dark nights in strange places

That trick — judging by Jon Bolino‘s reaction — might just be the 450 grabbed backslide 270 out around the 4:00 mark. That’s what happens when Nimh‘s golden boys travel to South America.

Watch all of that hot shit here:

Nimh South America Tour Part #3 from Be-Mag on Vimeo.

Montana…knows how to party

The Montana clan approves of this backside

Normally when you think of Montana, there’s mountains, some kind of animal being herded and flannel. Well, as Cameron Talbot shows us above, flannel is okay. So is blading underneath a make-shift rooftop party. And the kids over at Scumpire are making sure those antics aren’t going unnoticed, especially if they’ve got a a Wicked Ass Case of the Rat.

So here’s the latest from Big Sky Country.

Montana Valo Support Edit w/ Cam Talbott, Bruce Matler and freinds from jbarr on Vimeo.

Kids say the darndest things:

Not since Short Round in Indiana Jones has a little kid had such an impact on the outcome of film. Some shit-talking little product of a night with too much tequila and not enough protection special individual lets a blader who’s about to risk himself know what’s going on.

Chunk: “‘Cause you’re a wimp.”

Blader: “I’m going to prove you wrong kid, right here.”

As fate would have it, our intrepid friend in the boots wouldn’t be able to. Hopefully, someday we’ll see that guy land that sweaty in an edit or video somewhere.

What I find most amusing is what the person named the video.

WTF is a "douchetin"?

If you’re one of those sadist skaters, check out Rollernews for more pain and gory glory.

But, if you really want to learn how to do things correctly, here’s some instruction that was floating around FaceBook this week.

Front Said!

What’s Being Said:

Keeping tabs on the masses

Okay, that sounds good, but let’s check for a while about what’s being said on Twitter on a random Sunday night. But, before we do, let’s consider that Justin Bieber has been a top trending topic for longer than the little pop princess has been alive, thus proving once again: just because it’s popular doesn’t make the idea better.

Insert clever caption here

So, let’s go through these one-by-one.

No. 1 — I’m so confused. Did you break your arm and then hit the acorn? That must have been a big-ass acorn. Or maybe I’m dumb. Let’s not dwell on that and move on.

No. 2 — That’s called a Tuesday, holmes.

No. 3 — Boring.

No. 4 — Yes, the Dos Equis beer spokesman, also known as The Most Interesting Man in the World, did say that. Sadly, I used to like Dos Equis. Haven’t touched the stuff since he’s said those words. Coors has been doing just fine, thank you very much.

No. 5 — The best part about a joke is when you keep telling it over and over, repeating the same thing other people have said a thousand times. It only gets better when it’s come out of everyone’s mouth. That’s what she said! Jackass.

— Brian Krans

P.S.

This column was probably a lot better the first time around. However, my roommate, ass-face video-maker Ivan Narez, decided to unplug my computer while I was writing it. It’s okay because he then proceeded to tell me the importance of saving often.

Please, pirate all of his videos.