gorilla flicks

happy birthday to dimitry!

Flipping through the photo archives is basically the same as flipping through a family photo album. We're all brothers from different mothers, but dysfunctional will find dysfunctional and I'll be dinged if Big Brother skateboard magazine wasn't a Hoover vacuum cleaner in this respect. Dimitry was sucked up into our world in 1995 and he's left a beautiful trail of memories behind—not to mention his having taken many, many more of many, many others. The Wildboyz years would not have been so well documented had he not been double-teaming his video and still cameras like a goddamn Vishnu. So today we raise our collective glass and shout, "Na zdrowie, Meech!" to our comrade on his birthday.

(Photo by Benzo)

happy birthday to sean cliver!

Once again it's that queer third person time of year, when Sean Cliver wishes himself a "Happy Birthday!" because that just so happens to be his damn job at GORILLA FLICKS. To shake it up and make it more of a party that's not all about him, him, him, though, here's Chris Pontius as well who's striking a very handsome pose in a somewhat matching outfit. For the record, neither of these goofs called each other up before the party and asked, "Hey, are you wearing your Paisley Skates shirt to the Big Brother deal tonight?" Instead it was kismet. Meant to be. Just one more plate of shrimp on an already heaping cosmic buffet table (but not the table adorned with a big icy SHIT behind them).

happy birthday to bam margera!

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first time we met Bam Margera in the streets of Philadelphia (memorialized at left in the photo above)—not to mention his father Phil, too. Little did we know then how big a part of our world Bam would become (no pun intended with his role as a Fat Fuck at photo right), but then again there was little that we did know back then while living and breathing the silliness of Big Brother magazine. Now before I limp off to the water closet whistling the All in the Family theme song, let me say, "Happy Birthday, Bam!" and re-present this montage of his skateboard career. It's a good one:

(Photo at left by Dimitry Elyashkevich, circa 1995; photo at right by Rick Kosick, circa 2002)

happy birthday to jeff tremaine!

Jeff Tremaine is a man who needs no introductions. At least not here, anyway, since this site is representative of all things Tremaine. But he's had many faces throughout the years: the fighter, the drinker, the auteur, the joker, and these are just a few that have housed his award-winning blue eyes. My favorite one is the belligerent yet wholly nonchalant face he wears while playing the "I'm Not Leaving" game ... or maybe that's just because it creates my favorite face to see on irate, dumbfounded bouncers and barkeeps. Anyway, Tremaine's the reason we've all dedicated ourselves to steadfastly waving the flag of dumb, and we wouldn't want to live or work it any other way. Happy Birthday, Jeffy!

(Photos by Sean Cliver)

happy birthday to guch!

There's lifers and then there's Guch. He joined our crew just after we'd finished shooting the first season of jackass in 2000 to become one of those integral appendages of the broader bumbling body. Whatever needed to be done, be it physical in the field or paperwork in the production office, Guch was there through it all—and by all I mean everything from jackass to Wildboyz, Nitro Circus, Loiter Squad, and most recently Swerved. And while I may not be envious of all the tasks he's had to take on and deal with throughout the years, I am envious of this moment in karate history because any one of us would have traded our left spleen to do what he did to Danger Ehren. Happy Birthday, Guch!

(Photo by Sean Cliver; 2000)

happy birthday to preston lacy!

I'm the opposite of Wilt Chamberlain when it comes to intimate encounters. In fact, I've probably had more intimate professional encounters than I have personal—and no, I'm not talking about the institution of prostitution. I mean my very own profession, which, at times, bears a strikingly close resemblance to acts that normally take place in back alleyways, unmarked S&M joints in urban warehouse districts, and certain Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous mansions where "Fidelio" may be used to gain entrance. Take my acquaintanceship with Preston Lacy for example. I've personally tied up the backdoor of his mawashi in a men's public restroom facility in Tokyo… I've watched him poop in both extremely close quarters and the middle of a football field… I've gone macro and focused on his buttocks and balls after he'd just been plugged with a rubber bullet… I've laughed as he's besmirched the spirit of Christmas... and these are just a few experiences off the top of my head. All on a strictly professional basis, of course, and it is indeed a wonderful life. Happy Birthday, Preston!

(Photos by Sean Cliver)

happy birthday to chris pontius!

I can still remember the first day I met Chris Pontius. It was only very briefly in 1993 or 1994, as he'd made a surprise stop at the third Big Brother magazine office location at 815 N. Nash Street in El Segundo, California, and my observational impression then was that he closely resembled a hyena if it was crossbred with Patrick Swayze. Not only in the big, devious perma-grin on his face and mop of Swayze-like coiffed hair on his head, but his whole demeanor and presence in general. There was something definitely unpredictable about him. And his gait ... he pranced in a very satyric manner. But satyrs aren't real. They're mythological bullshit. Hyenas, on the other hand, are real, and of course it would only be a decade later when Chris would astutely point out on Wildboyz that the female hyena has a "mock penis" that is actually an over-sized and extended clitoris. The last time I saw Chris, which was only a few days ago, he was still unpredictable and devilish as ever. He also had a knife held to a small child's throat, but in a good way—a photo op with an enthusiastic young fan. Stay gold, Chris. Happy birthday!

(Photos by Sean Cliver and Rick Kosick)

happy birthday to steve-o!

Coming hot on the heels of Steve-O's latest video release—a monster flip into Lake Hollywood (guest starring the sage-like advice of Johnny Knoxville)—I can't help but dredge up but a few random flicks from throughout the jackass years to celebrate his birthday. The first comes from a 4th of July stunting episode of Steve-O's that took place in a parking lot adjacent to our original TV production offices on Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood and was later featured in Don't Try This at Home, his first home video foray in 2001. Traveling just to the right, we then come to a signature upchuck of Steve-O's that took place at a company dinner our first night in Tokyo, Japan, for jackass the movie in 2002. Lower left and four years later in 2006, Steve-O tongued a lobster in New Orleans for our second cinematic dump, a/k/a jackass number two. And that brings us to the last Hollywood square in 2010, when Steve-O took it fartily on the chin for jackass 3D—the only film of its time that had the balls to take the third dimension exactly where it needed to go.

remembering ryan dunn on his birthday

A while back during the jackass years, I remember Ryan Dunn often talked about one of his favorite shows: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I'd long since fallen out of the cable loop and found my time swallowed by other idle life pursuits then, so this show never really appeared on my radar—and by "my radar" I basically mean walking right up and kicking me square in the nuts, because that's what it takes to jar my scope of focus at times. Anyway, the past few months the kick-to-the-balls scenario finally presented itself and I jumped whole hog into It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It is, in my favored words of Ryan's, ri-goddamn-diculous, and I can see exactly why he loved it so. I've often felt hints of him while devouring the many justly deserved seasons and can't help but imagine him cackling along in that infectious way of his. So here's to the birthday of Ryan and all the indelibly good memories he left behind.

(This photo of Johnny Knoxville, Ryan Dunn, and Glenn Howerton of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was taken round about March of 2011 at Paramount's release party for the jackass 3 Blu-ray/DVD in Hollywood, California.)

happy birthday to rick kosick!

Some people you just go around a block or two with in life. Others are like brothers that stick with you to hell and back. Rick Kosick is an example of the latter such friend and we have the multiple hell tours of duty to prove it—not to mention the actual proof because he's documented most all of them in some camera-like fashion since 1992. In honor of Rick here's an extra-special sequential from an afternoon's lunch on a Nitro Circus set, circa 2009, where Tremaine sweet talked him into being on the receiving end of some cake. Apropos!

(Photos by Sean Cliver; 2009)