The moving picture show

Videos, videos, videos. Seems like that's all we have here at Los Anchorage. There've just been so many to choose from what with all the shenanigans that take place in this town.

I'll let you in on a little secret: Every couple days, Los Anchorage's trained technicians (read: typewriting monkeys) search the most recent uploads for the key word "Anchorage" on YouTube.

Just now, the monkeys brought me these two clips, which appear in that search side-by-side, both uploaded roughly six hours ago as I write this. They're both from two seemingly unrelated users, but with an obvious connection and a funny one, I think.

The first is a video of a man resisting arrest and being Tasered by the Anchorage police. The second is a recruitment promo video for the Anchorage Police Department.





Is this some kind of interweb zen convergence, or are the two videos related somehow in the "real" world? Divine coincidence or comical conspiracy?

And big ups to whomever can tell me in what neighborhood the man was Tased. I thought it might have been Fairview near the end of Fairbanks Street at the park. But now I'm thinking the Muldoon area.

Also, Unleashed Vision, the makers of the APD recruitment video, have posted "Look Again", 2005 winner of the Anchorage International Film Festival Snowdance Award. Check it out.

Death of an era

Here's a video of a party/concert/mob at my house -- before it was my house -- from YouTube user icemikie. These guys knew (know?) how to have a good time.



We're going to have to start throwing better parties.

See also: The compound.

Crossfire in downtown Anchorage -- or -- How I pissed off the Anchorage police and lived

"Go in your house please," the officer says. "You have guns pointed at you."

No joke. Guns were drawn Downtown tonight, pointed right at yours truly, who filmed the whole thing.

Tonight was ridiculous. Seriously. I'll be the first one to tell you.

Some kind of love triangle splashed itself all over Sixth Avenue Thursday night. The Anchorage police said that two men and a woman, in two different vehicles, were involved in a chase, which ended right in front of my house. The cops held them at gunpoint while I stood in my yard videotaping, apparently in the line of fire.

Here's the video. (Sorry it's so choppy.)



Here's how it started. We set out from the house around 8 p.m., headed toward Downtown proper and some pizza, which we found at Humpy's. Sitting on the back patio, sipping martinis and noshing on some good, old-fashioned beer and 'za -- we had a great time. It was heavenly. The sky, in rare form for this summer, was clear. Blue patches actually peeked out from the clouds, and the ConocoPhillips building shone golden, as it does on nice, clear summer evenings.

After walking back to the east side of Downtown on Sixth Avenue, I heard sirens approaching from behind. As I opened my front gate and stepped into the front yard, I saw a blue SUV swerve to the side of the street and stop next to the curb. In a blink, before I realized what was going on, six Anchorage Police Department cruisers and a white undercover Hummer were blocking Sixth Avenue. Lights flashed. Sirens blared.

Three officers grouped together in formation and, with guns drawn, slowly approached the SUV. Then they ordered two people out of the SUV. (Later, I would learn that their were three individuals, who had been in two vehicles.)

"Please get in your house!" the officers yelled to me as I stood in my yard videotaping the arrest. I was in the line of fire, they said.

I was on my private property, I said.

"You have guns on you!" they yelled.

Clearly, they didn't agree with me. I was breaking the law, they said later, because they were arresting someone at gunpoint, with guns pointed at me, while I stood on my own property, and I was interfering with an arrest. The argument being that I was preventing them from protecting themselves. If the suspects had shot back at the police, because of my presence, the police wouldn't have been able to return fire, they said.

"What I'll do is I'll come in your house and arrest you," one officer informed me.

"We can't return fire now, because you're standing out in your yard," said another officer.

"I would fucking hope not, because we live here!" my girlfriend said.

When I asked for what the people lying face down on the pavement were being arrested, I was told that they were not being arrested -- yet. When I asked what they had done, the police officers said it was none of my business.

"If you were arrested, would you want us to air your business?" the cop asked me.

"I'm a journalist," I said. "Yeah, I would."

I don't want to get too opinionated, but I don't think the cops should be "returning fire" anywhere near my house, whether I'm standing outside it, or fast asleep in bed, or playing Parcheesi in the living room with my goddamn grandpa.

On the other hand, as one officer on scene put it, they use hollow-point bullets for a reason: because they break apart when they hit a wall or a car. The idea, he said, is that someone inside a structure is safe, while the police are still able to use lethal force on a dangerous suspect.

I apologized to the cop -- because, really, they are not dealt an even hand. These poor guys have to go out every night expecting the worst, whether it be dumb, drunk rich kids with $60,000 rice rockets, or gun-wielding maniacs with coke problems -- but I asked him to please not fire in my direction.

I don't like guns pointed in my direction. Who does?

Don't watch these Anchorage videos

At least, not more than a the first minute of each.

This is perhaps the worst Radiohead cover of all time.




This promo video touting South Anchorage High School's safety design makes me think of old educational videos from grade school.




And I had a mouse. Bingo was his name-o.

B. I. N. G. O ... M. O. U. S. E.




I told you not to watch.

Skate or die. For Christ. Maybe.

Here's a story I filed with KTUU today about Preston Pollard, a Christian skateboarder and all around good guy.

Pictures and words here, video at KTUU.com.

Definitely check out the video on this, edited by Carolyn Hall. It's in the upper right corner of the story.

Skateboarder rides toward California dream
by Casey Grove
Sunday, July 20, 2008



ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- There's plenty of skateboarding going on in Anchorage if you know where to look for it. And one local skateboarder is riding his dream, and his faith, to becoming a pro athlete.

This summer 20-year-old Preston Pollard is taking his show on the road to the Lower 48 trying to go big as a professional skateboarder and beyond.

Pollard has been at the heart of the city's skating scene for years. But there's more to the skateboarding phenom than that.

There's a charisma and positive attitude that people notice right away.

"Preston, he's a really cool guy," skater Daniel Jackson said. "He's really fun to skate with. He sets a real good example for everyone, so he's really cool."

"He's a good skater. (He) influences a lot of people. (He) influenced me to keep skating," Trabyn Richhart said. "I was about to quit but, saw all videos online. It kept me skating."

Pollard has been a counselor at a Christian skateboard camp and toured more than 40 states with a group called Boarders for Christ.

And while it's Pollard's skateboarding talent that's gotten him sponsorships from clothing and skateboard companies he says his goal is to reach the youth.

"I'm here for the kids. I'm here just really trying to be positive. There's not enough positive in this world, so that's where I come in," he said. "I'm trying to just get a lot of kids together and say, 'Hey you don't got to do this to be cool, you know, you can be yourself. Skate, have fun, treat everybody the same.' "

Preston says his faith is taking him places he never thought he could reach.



"My faith, the number one thing is God. Before I do anything, I pray. 'Help me through this, this and this situation.' Without Him, I feel empty," he said.

Pollard started skating around age 7, when his dad bought him his first board. He's ridden many more since then on Anchorage's pavement.

"It was tough, you know, like trying to find different spots, different locations," he said. "I had my little crew, a group of like 10 guys, we'd skate up at Fred Meyer's, skate those curbs, get chased out almost every day."

With several sponsors under his belt, Pollard is moving south and following his dreams.

"I mean, if you like to dog mush, this is the spot, this is the spot to do it at. You come here," he said. "It's the same thing for skateboarding. I'm going to go to California and I'm going to learn from the best and do stuff like that."

Pollard calls the move a dream come true.

Justin DeWolf is a friend of Pollard's from high school who says Pollard inspires him on a daily basis.



"He's in it 100 percent. He is skateboarding is what you would say," DeWolf said. "When he's skating he's happiest. When he's not skating, he's talking about skating."

Pollard says Jones Soda Company will soon print his picture on the labels of more than 40,000 soda bottles.

This week, he heads back to Anchorage after teaching at a skate camp. In August he'll begin his second year on the Boarders for Christ Tour.

Contact Casey Grove at cgrove@ktuu.com

GILF Alert!

If this doesn't challenge your notion of the words "disturb" and "titillate," I don't know what will.








Maybe this: Somebody's granny -- an alleged granny -- went crowd surfing at the Third Eye Blind concert last month.

Granny crowd surf, part 1



Notice the thong.

Granny crowd surf, part 2



And, because we all need a little cleansing right now, here's a straight-laced granny chaser.

Christian tour bus parked at The Black Market

Christian tour bus

Black Market

And in another downtown...

John Hartman and I were the same age when he was murdered in downtown Fairbanks. We would have gone to high school and graduated together. But someone beat him to death.

Many questions have surrounded the subsequent murder convictions of four Native men. Brian O'Donoghue, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has been working on an investigative piece trying to answer some of those questions, namely this one: Did the police get the right guys? No physical evidence put the men at the scene of the murder, Ninth Avenue and Barnette Street. And the police may have obtained false confessions from a couple of the guys.

Here's a link to O'Donoghue's seven-part series, a special to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

And here's a link to a project put together by a team of students -- including the lovely Jade Frank and Rachel Dutil, and the not-so-lovely me -- while attending UAF.

It's a long, complicated story that deserves a read. Check it out.

Gone fishin'

Well, I was fishing. Now I'm back. I think my "Welcome back to Anchorage" moment came when I was paying my tab at the Polar Bar the other night, and a guy asked me where all the hos were. Not that I know. I told him to try 'Koots.

On top of being on vacation, my internet connection is down at the house. So sorry for the lack of posts in the past week.

Here's a roundup of stories of Downtown import:

The feds say one of the owners of Platinum Jaxx is involved in a drug ring. That still doesn't explain the overpriced drinks or the over-dressed bimbos. Here's the ADN's take.



Man dies after his truck rolls over in the Anchorage Correctional Complex parking lot. Now they say a family argument may have led to the crash. Oh, and KTUU has the story here.

Gov. Sarah Palin was involved in a minor car wreck at the Glenn Highway and Bragaw Street. And she was uninjured. You know, because she's untouchable.

And a sculpture by a son to his parents, whom I've never heard of, was installed at a Downtown park that I've also never heard of. It's a cool looking sculpture, nonetheless.