HELLARAD

If you know HELLARAD, you know that we just don’t drink like normal people. We like to drink and DO STUFF. It doesn’t really matter if it’s arts & crafts at our favorite bar, heckling a Rose City game or writing haikus, if you give us an activity to do while we put back a few brews, we’ll go apeshit.

So it’s par for the course that last Friday night, J Crush (our resident Saints fan) decided it was high time she learned us how to really party. Like how they do where she’s from. After all, it is Carnival season in New Orleans, and the kickoff party is traditionally held on Epiphany, or the Twelfth Night. This is January 6th. I don’t know why. And I’m not going to go into all the details here, because I don’t know them. I will say that those Southern kids sure have a lot of rules to their drinking games!!! However, we reminded ourselves, at the heart of the matter there are PARTIES involved. Lots of them. So we were in.
If you wanna get yer geek on, you can read up on Epiphany here.

We were more concerned with the cake and drinking parts of the party. We met up at Iron & Gold, where Mickey got everybody in the Party Gras mood with some choice tunes. Crush made a couple King Cakes from scratch, and dude, let me tell you.

They are GOOD. I didn’t even care that I didn’t get one of the traditional baby figurines inside my first piece. Or my second, or my third. Anyway.

So we drank some beers, and ate hella cake, and celebrated loudly (YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH!) every time somebody got a piece with a baby in it. Two of the people to get the babies were crowned our Queens. This means they are responsible for making more cakes and planning more parties (one a week until Fat Tuesday on February 21st). All the baby excitement made for some good quotes.

“Hey, this doesn’t taste like babies” – Me

“I really want a baby!” – Skato

“Everything tastes like babies to me” – Tyson

“Show me the baby!”

“I’m trying!!!” – Mickey

Skato and Molly ended up being crowned Queens (usually there’s a King too but, you know, they’re chicks), and Chani, Crush and (we think…things got kinda fuzzy there at the end) Tyson ended up being crowned as members of the Royal Court.

So, there you have it. The Queens have almost-officially dubbed our krewe “Adventure Team”, and I hear the next party may or may not involve a placenta-shaped piñata.

Until next week’s party, keep it ‘Rad!
xoxo
-Moxxxie

Hey ‘Radders!

What do you do when yer unemployed and yer best pals ask you to help ‘em paint their shop in exchange for some scrilla? You tell them to throw a couple tall cans into the equation, and call it a done deal. I spent the last few days in overalls and funny goggles (this was *after* painting my eyeballs a lovely shade of vanilla), getting my brush, roller and dust on with Rioter’s Block and Motley Cruz from Cruz Skate Shop. The ladies closed up shop for a few days while the transformation took place.

When we started, Cruz SF was the same good ol’ pink and brown gnargyle combo you may remember from the opening, nearly 4 years ago (if you were rad enough to be there).

(The party, April 2008)

Putty and primering begins, Monday

J Crush brushes up

Proprietress extraordinaire

As the Cruz Employee Handbook states: “Each employee shall take a mandatory shotgun break every 4 hours.”

Day 2. Mint green and a lighter shade of chocolate replaced the pink and brown on the walls, and the ceiling became vanilla. Are you craving an ice cream cone yet? (Note: Painting the ceiling fucking sucks. Do not ever let anyone tell you otherwise.)

Day 3. Motley’s hubby and Plaid Again Screenprinting owner, Gordo, came by to do a lot of stuff involving electrical wires and power tools. Dudes!

After pulling almost two weeks of 10 to 15 hour days moving out of the Sac store, giving the SF store a facelift AND relaunching their website, the Cruz girls (and dudes, not pictured) were pretty beat.

After just 3 days, I feel kinda similar. And also like a wuss.

And that’s a wrap! Your favorite skate shop, Cruz SF is now back, open fer business and looking better than ever! Just in time for the start of the derby season. Get on in there and try not to let the paint fumes get to ya. If you can’t get into the store, their website is all ready to go, too (and the only place you can get limited-edition HELLARAD merch)!!

xoxo
-Moxxxie

P.S. Thanks to our friends at (the also newly remodeled) Iron & Gold for pouring much-needed after-painting libations.