My original idea for this site was for it to be all about promoting

the indie film script I had written, titled 'Black Light Elvis Painting'. Using this as a tool to pitch it to producers and/ or to solicit more film work. But I thought that would be an empty endeavour if I didn't include the other things that I am passionate about, to make the site more personal. By default, what I do here in Las Vegas, the past 6 years at least, when not pursing my other hobbies and interests, is commercial  'Film and Television Production'. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Film and Digital Media sometime in 2001 and migrated to Las Vegas due to it's proximity to Los Angeles, the film industry, and my family. In essence, I consider myself to be a 'starving artist and a dreamer' period. Should one day I not be starving so much, I'll still have my head in the clouds, wanting to do some or such thing, seemingly just outside the scope of my reach. As Hunter S. Thompson might punctuate. Selah.

    Also, John Skater is not my real name. It's just that 'John Eikleberry dot com' wasn't as easy to remember, and well, skateboarding has been one of my passions since I was probably about 12 years old. I'm 34 as of this writing, and that means I've been performing that particular activity on and off, for just over 20 years. I could also say the same for being an artist, longer actually. I was drawing out GI Joe and Star Wars battle royals with in depth shading and real life explosions when I was just 8 years old. I remember that. Getting into it, pretending it was real while I was sketching it out. However I do not have any examples from that era to show. The music part came a bit later as I grew up surrounded by the Nor Cal punk rock scene as a teenager, and  found myself trying to learn an instrument or two. The film part came even later than that, after first experimenting with 'Rubbish Heap' type skate videos that I recorded of myself, using two VCR's to edit, and is probably the least developed of my abilities, a major reason for my continued interest in its potential as a medium. I just haven't done all that I could do with it I feel. 

    The Poker part you say? What's up with that? Well, that deserves a page of its own for a number of reasons. Many of which would be to 'cover the horror of my earlier unlearned gambling experiences since I first moved to Sin City'. I'll just put it out there, the 'poker part' of my wagering experiences, since I first bothered to learn the ropes a bit about a game or two, would be the 'bright happy rainbow' end of the spectrum. I've actually had some success first in Video Poker, still a common breadwinning staple of my Las Vegas experience, and  more recently, Live Poker. I could site almost the exact date of my first Live Poker experience as being on April 19th or so, 2011, they day 'online poker died in the US'. I dabbled with real money online games for a hot minute before then, but overall, the pundits, stranded US sponsored pros, and magazines all call it 'Black Friday'. I call it 'Good Friday'. For in essence, after countless hours of playing online and learning some rather insightful things about 'why a poker site such as Poker Stars, Party Poker,  or Full Tilt would cheat and how', I've come to the deep conclusion that 90% percent of most online poker is ever so slightly rigged to bring in more 'rake' (a cut from the 'pot' of each 'cash game' played or 'buy in' from each poker tournament entered), and is ultimately NOT real poker (Please do yourself a favor and google up 'Poker Bots' and all of the potentially nefarious reasons people use them for, Video Poker bots as well for online casinos on the customer end, etc.). I mean, I've made over 2 grand from Video Poker (deeply regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission here in Las Vegas) not including comps, and in the two times that I've ever cashed in a Live Poker Tournament (NOT online, in a real casino with real cards and a dealer) , out of about 6 times trying since April 2011, I cashed in 1st place. The 'only' times that I've cashed has been in 1st place thus far, but I know that won't always be the case. That said, I've been studying some or such type of Poker near religiously for just around a year now. If you've ever gambled or had an itch for such a thing, you might stand to benefit from reading some of my tales. Beyond art, film, and music, the science of 'diamonds, hearts, clubs, spades, and pips' is deffinitely part of John Skater's new frontier. I hope so at least. 

    A quick nod towards some aspects of my Poker thesis would be these words which you can quote me on: 'In Video Poker, the term 'always' is pretty much the rule, the default,  in Live Poker, there is no such thing as 'always'.'...or something to that effect. 'Coming Soon'.

Please keep coming back and checking the site for updates!    

    As I've said, the primary purpose for this site is to pitch and promote my indie film script 'Black Light Elvis Painting', and to that end, I still have this 'gulp in my throat' that I can't quite get out just yet about it. It's almost there, and when I put it up, I'll just gush. It took me almost 2 years to write this script and overall, you might conclude that it's rather minimalist, but I sweated every nuance of it and spent many hours considering 'what I wanted to include/ what should be left out', and idunno, I'd love to see me being able to direct it someday and have a small cameo in it perhaps, along with J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.. COME BACK SOON! BOOKMARK THIS PAGE! and try to be notified of any updates, I forget how to do that exactly, but it is possible with a web browser.

    Internet Explorer does not seem to interpret the various pop up windows well with this site. I highly suggest you try downloading the latest version of Mozilla Firefox.  Thank you.

    What else? I made and designed over 90 percent of this website! The content being 110% mine. Not 'Dieter Schneider 2006'. Dieter provided a template, titled 'Purple Beauty',  which I chose amongst dozens of others to dissect and re assemble according to my own sensibilities and tastes. To this end, I honor Dieter's desire that his (now defunct) link  and credit be shown at the bottom of each page for his original layout work. 'Thank you Dieter'. 

CONTACT INFORMATION: Hey, if you need to get in touch with me for any reason whatsoever, don't hesitate to email me at: configuration1@gmail.com

or you can call/ text me at 702-265-2136 (Especially for film work)               

                                                               - John Eikleberry, August 11, 2011, 5:31 am