6.05.2003
Today is kinda like a big day - I'm going to Norway! Never been there, but I hear it's good (and expensive), so I'll collect tons of cigs and alcohol before I get on the plane. I just wish the gf could join me. Etnies European Open competitions are fun, but for some reason everything is more fun when she's around.
Got a new toy. Since money burns in my pockets (meaning: if it's there, I have to get rid of it) I took the Munich-salary and invested those Euros in a Casio Exilim digital camera - the real slim one just came out with a really huge display on the back and a shitload of funny functions... Hey, "real slim", that sounds funny. Isn't Eminem supposed to play a couple of gigs in Germany these days? I'd certainly like to see him perform live - the last time was over two years ago, and the venue sucked ass.
Just so you know: Mittwoch/Wednesday, June 18th, NBC Giga (www.giga.de) - turn on the tele or log onto the net around 5pm CET, to see my ugly face in your living-room. I'll be there talking about the German Championship series, the COS Cup Series 2003, and maybe a little about "Zwischen Boardslides und Burnout", Tony Hawk's new book and my new translation - it just hit the shelves. Go buy. It's in german, for a change - the original is always better though.
Have a nice weekend!
Got a new toy. Since money burns in my pockets (meaning: if it's there, I have to get rid of it) I took the Munich-salary and invested those Euros in a Casio Exilim digital camera - the real slim one just came out with a really huge display on the back and a shitload of funny functions... Hey, "real slim", that sounds funny. Isn't Eminem supposed to play a couple of gigs in Germany these days? I'd certainly like to see him perform live - the last time was over two years ago, and the venue sucked ass.
Just so you know: Mittwoch/Wednesday, June 18th, NBC Giga (www.giga.de) - turn on the tele or log onto the net around 5pm CET, to see my ugly face in your living-room. I'll be there talking about the German Championship series, the COS Cup Series 2003, and maybe a little about "Zwischen Boardslides und Burnout", Tony Hawk's new book and my new translation - it just hit the shelves. Go buy. It's in german, for a change - the original is always better though.
Have a nice weekend!
6.02.2003
It took me some time, but here it is: the bowl-tour-journal Brixlegg-Marseille. Thanks a lot to Etnies and Quiksilver for making this happen.
Brixlegg-Marseille Tour Diary
Wednesday/Mittwoch, 14. Mai 2003
Train from Hamburg to Berlin around noon. Got picked up by Alex and went straight to the Radar offices where I got some socks, some other Etnies gear and a helping massage for my messed-up back – my bag is too heavy. Luckily I brought my board, so I can roll it around most of the time. Lifting heavy things is not an option at this time.
Thursday/Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2003
Left Berlin at 11am and drove straight to Munich, where we were supposed to pick up Brian Patch at the airport. Picked up Brian, but not his luggage which hadn’t made the way to MUC yet, so we decided to get some grub. When we returned to MUC airport at 10.30pm, there was still no sign of Brian’s bags. When this happens for the first time, one is not happy – for Brian it was the second time in a row, and he was pissed.
Arrived in Brixlegg/Kramsach/Rattenberg/Muenster at around 1am, and the „lobby“ of the typical austrian-style hotel was already filled with skateboarders from all over the world. Couple beers, bed.
Friday/Freitag, 16.Mai 2003
Break out the shorts! Sunny, really warm – perfect conditions. Enjoyed the massage-service provided by TyroMed (again, no real relief – no head turning for me, thank you very much), the rich food catering and the presence of a lot of top-notch concrete rippers. Held a quick pre-qualification with two heats and a small, shop-sponsored best trick contest on the nearby street-area, then started drinking beer.
After a small food-odyssee featuring Patch and Bryce Kanights I went back to the hotel and straight to bed. Pretty drunk I was. And it was pretty early, too.
Saturday/Sonnabend, 17.Mai 2003
Got lucky, no hangover. Still good weather, but with clouds looming. It remained dry until we were done with the qualifications, quarter finals, the Eastpak Highest Ollie Competition and another Conny’s Boardshop Best Trick Comp though. Thos Best Trick things were funny. If someone nailed a good trick, he was awarded 50 Euros on the spot – eight winners total. Good session. Went to eat with Stan, Bram Waterman, some other dutch guys and Ken from Denmark (this took ages) and back to the hotel afterwards. My throat started to sound and feel shitty and it started to rain, so I decided to stay at the hotel, while everybody else went nuts at the official after-party at the castle.
Sunday/Sonntag, 17.Mai 2003
Weather had been predicted unsafe, but we got lucky – only five minutes of light rain, and those happened in between the two semi-final heats. The finals were really good, with Oli Buergin nailing a Tailgrab 540° (voted Best Trick Of The Weekend) and each one of the finalists delivering with a unique style. They were: Ben Krahn, Oli, Brian Patch, Marc Haziza, Matteo Storelli, and Manuel Palacios. Manuel had the perfect mix of transferred street trickery (Kickflip Backside Lipslide over one of the smaller hips) and gnarly-ass deep-end shralping (padless Frontside Lipslide Revert through the deep-end corner – that’s experts only, and not even all of them), and won. A good winner. Ben Krahn was awarded some cash for The Best Line Of The Weekend, Matteo Storelli (Frontside) and Matthias Trobos (AKA Cradle Boy, Backside) got money for The Highest Cradle Carve. Everybody got drunk one last time and I managed to be in bed by 11pm. It was a perfect weekend with a lot of ripping and a lot of fun – Brixlegg rules. You should go there, too. But this is only the beginning.
Monday/Montag, 19.Mai 2003
Brixlegg-Lugano
Usual deal: „Bus leaves at noon!“ Yeah right – 12 means 1. No hurries though – the forecast said something about 27 degrees. Until the final call to enter the bus came, everybody baked in the sun. No one wanted to really get out of the sun, as the drive would take estimated eight hours. The same insane busdriver as last year still doesn’t understand that my french is basically non-existent.
The bus is half-filled with some swiss and french filmers, Bryce Kanights, Affif Bellakdar, David Martelleur, Marc Haziza, Seb Daurel, Florent Viart, Brian Patch, Alex Giraux, Gerd Rieger, Axel Görger AKA Jim Panse AKA Puhdy, Manuel Margreiter, Joe Hammecke and Jenny Brown, Ben Krahn and wife Lissy, Ruedi Matter, Andi and Klaus from Sole Tech Europe (vielen Dank!!), and yours truly.
Arrived in Lugano at around 9pm, in sync with a good amount of heavy rain. Dinner with Ruedi, Dave Mailman (thanks/merci!!), Florent, Martelleur, Gerd, Jim, and Klaus, then blackout.
Tuesday/Dienstag, 20.Mai 2003
We didn’t quite stay at the hotel we had reservations in, but Ruedi and Dave managed to find vacancies – located directly at the lake. Very nice. It turned out those were rooms for the Vans Shoes Skateboard team, but Pete and his troops had cancelled them earlier that evening.
Perfect weather in the morning, but while we were at the skatepark (a mirrored version of Marseille, just a little shittier and smaller) we were confronted with some heavy drops of rain here and there. Never enough to actually make us leave, but still pretty annoying. Everybody got different kinds of tricks on different kinds of film until it was time to leave for Annecy. Six hours on the bus, but cruising through beautiful scenery. I’ll never enjoy serpentines on a bus though – they scare the living shit out of me.
Annecy at 10pm, Dinner in a large group, a little hard liquor mix, bed.
Wednesday/Mittwoch, 21.Mai 2003
Ilona Staller did Benihana in 1979. Learned that on Rai Due (italian TV station) last night.
Annecy had some fierce clouds and some small puddles for us, but we dried them and the weather stayed nice. Shot some nice pictures at the bowl which was recently blessed with a new surface and left for Marseille at 4.30pm. The drive seemed to be endless, we arrived at 11.15pm, dropped off some riders at the Maeva Hotel, and went on to check into the comforts of the Best Western, where we said goodbye to our driver. I share a very nice room with Jim Panse. For a couple of days I was worried I wouldn’t have a room at all.
Thursday/Donnerstag, 22.Mai 2003
Went to the city with Jim Panse and Gerde and found some internet-place, where I dug through 300 mails and ended up paying two Euros for a full hour surfing. I couldn’t update the diary as planned, it would have taken way too long. Lots of funny fotos later (Marseille is full of snapshots) we returned to the hotel and went to the bowl, where we arrived just in time to witness the opening speeches. I could say that we were in time for the free Foster’s beer, which will continue to flow throughout the weekend. Spotted Alex Chalmers, Tony Alva, Alan Peterson, Mickey Iglesias, my man Momo, Omar Hassan, Kyle Berard and then some... A very impressive list. Stayed at the skatepark until dawn and downed Foster’s like it was going out of style. Two more beers later at the hotel and I was destroyed.
Friday/Freitag, 23.Mai 2003
Woke up with a giant headache at around 6am in a hot room with no oxygen... A shitty way to start a day. Popped some Aspirin Effekt, smashed the windows and successfully tried to sleep some more. When the alarm clock struck I was fine. Upon returning from breakfast the phone rang and a french lady asked me whether I was capable of the english language. Funny. What she had to say wasn’t funny at all though – we had to change rooms into the Ibis next door, because it had been „booked like that“. That room was a lot smaller, so I left Jim there and moved all my stuff into the Maeva hotel, where I had the possibility to share a room with Jo Hempel, another photographer.
Qualification started at 3pm, and if I am to sum up the afternoon, it goes like this: Hardcore session, free Foster’s, a lot of sun, and a lot of girls in skimpy outfits. Jasper hooked me up with some new Quiksilver glasses (thanks a million!) and Natas did a nice paint job in the bowl, and misspelled Quiksilver once – he noticed this 30 minutes later. „Quiksiver“ – nice one.
Went to eat at „The New Dheli“ across the street, because Helge thought it was indian. It wasn’t. The food was good though. Helge, Jo, Brian and I caught a cab to the hotel, and that’s where I spent the evening with Jo Hemp(!).
Saturday/Sonnabend, 24.Mai 2003
There are at least three Tonys in Marseille: Tony Trujillo, Tony Alva, and the guy called TonyTonyTony from San Francisco. Looks like the man from the bay opened his mouth a little too far last night, because Tony Alva’s fist ended up in there, redesigning his opponents grill.
By the time the quarter finals were done I was out of film and full of Foster’s. Got some grub with Patch and chilled at The Red Lion for a bit, then took a bus back to the hotel, changed and headed to „La Brise“, where the official after-party/-dinner went down. The party was so good, I was back at the hotel at midnight.
Sunday/Sonntag, 25.Mai 2003
Happy Birthday Mom!!
What can I say? Semi-finals were some serious business already, but the finals... Off this earth. Alain G., Brian Patch, Omar Hassan, Alex Chalmers, and TNT stuck out of this one, as they were flying over the transfers, more often than not just barely missing each other – incredible to watch. Way too impressive.
I didn’t wait for the pricegiving ceremony. I went back to the hotel (thanks, Foster’s) and passed out for two hours before packing up my bags, ordering a cab, and heading to Gare St.Charles. As I type this, it’s 8.30am and I am somewhere close to Luxembourg, where I’ll change trains to Muenster. Night trains are nice.
...and to get back to the actual date:
I just returned from the Etnies European Open 2003 in Munich. Until thursday I’ll continue searching for a place in Hamburg, and then it’s off to Stavanger, Norway, for another Etnies European Open competition. Never been to Norway, I’m really looking forward to that.
Munich was a good time, Chris Astrom won it for the third time in a row, Steffi Weiss won the girls competition for the third time as well.
I’ll try to get the pictures from Brixlegg, Lugano, Annecy and Marseille up somewhere as soon as possible – stay tuned.
Brixlegg-Marseille Tour Diary
Wednesday/Mittwoch, 14. Mai 2003
Train from Hamburg to Berlin around noon. Got picked up by Alex and went straight to the Radar offices where I got some socks, some other Etnies gear and a helping massage for my messed-up back – my bag is too heavy. Luckily I brought my board, so I can roll it around most of the time. Lifting heavy things is not an option at this time.
Thursday/Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2003
Left Berlin at 11am and drove straight to Munich, where we were supposed to pick up Brian Patch at the airport. Picked up Brian, but not his luggage which hadn’t made the way to MUC yet, so we decided to get some grub. When we returned to MUC airport at 10.30pm, there was still no sign of Brian’s bags. When this happens for the first time, one is not happy – for Brian it was the second time in a row, and he was pissed.
Arrived in Brixlegg/Kramsach/Rattenberg/Muenster at around 1am, and the „lobby“ of the typical austrian-style hotel was already filled with skateboarders from all over the world. Couple beers, bed.
Friday/Freitag, 16.Mai 2003
Break out the shorts! Sunny, really warm – perfect conditions. Enjoyed the massage-service provided by TyroMed (again, no real relief – no head turning for me, thank you very much), the rich food catering and the presence of a lot of top-notch concrete rippers. Held a quick pre-qualification with two heats and a small, shop-sponsored best trick contest on the nearby street-area, then started drinking beer.
After a small food-odyssee featuring Patch and Bryce Kanights I went back to the hotel and straight to bed. Pretty drunk I was. And it was pretty early, too.
Saturday/Sonnabend, 17.Mai 2003
Got lucky, no hangover. Still good weather, but with clouds looming. It remained dry until we were done with the qualifications, quarter finals, the Eastpak Highest Ollie Competition and another Conny’s Boardshop Best Trick Comp though. Thos Best Trick things were funny. If someone nailed a good trick, he was awarded 50 Euros on the spot – eight winners total. Good session. Went to eat with Stan, Bram Waterman, some other dutch guys and Ken from Denmark (this took ages) and back to the hotel afterwards. My throat started to sound and feel shitty and it started to rain, so I decided to stay at the hotel, while everybody else went nuts at the official after-party at the castle.
Sunday/Sonntag, 17.Mai 2003
Weather had been predicted unsafe, but we got lucky – only five minutes of light rain, and those happened in between the two semi-final heats. The finals were really good, with Oli Buergin nailing a Tailgrab 540° (voted Best Trick Of The Weekend) and each one of the finalists delivering with a unique style. They were: Ben Krahn, Oli, Brian Patch, Marc Haziza, Matteo Storelli, and Manuel Palacios. Manuel had the perfect mix of transferred street trickery (Kickflip Backside Lipslide over one of the smaller hips) and gnarly-ass deep-end shralping (padless Frontside Lipslide Revert through the deep-end corner – that’s experts only, and not even all of them), and won. A good winner. Ben Krahn was awarded some cash for The Best Line Of The Weekend, Matteo Storelli (Frontside) and Matthias Trobos (AKA Cradle Boy, Backside) got money for The Highest Cradle Carve. Everybody got drunk one last time and I managed to be in bed by 11pm. It was a perfect weekend with a lot of ripping and a lot of fun – Brixlegg rules. You should go there, too. But this is only the beginning.
Monday/Montag, 19.Mai 2003
Brixlegg-Lugano
Usual deal: „Bus leaves at noon!“ Yeah right – 12 means 1. No hurries though – the forecast said something about 27 degrees. Until the final call to enter the bus came, everybody baked in the sun. No one wanted to really get out of the sun, as the drive would take estimated eight hours. The same insane busdriver as last year still doesn’t understand that my french is basically non-existent.
The bus is half-filled with some swiss and french filmers, Bryce Kanights, Affif Bellakdar, David Martelleur, Marc Haziza, Seb Daurel, Florent Viart, Brian Patch, Alex Giraux, Gerd Rieger, Axel Görger AKA Jim Panse AKA Puhdy, Manuel Margreiter, Joe Hammecke and Jenny Brown, Ben Krahn and wife Lissy, Ruedi Matter, Andi and Klaus from Sole Tech Europe (vielen Dank!!), and yours truly.
Arrived in Lugano at around 9pm, in sync with a good amount of heavy rain. Dinner with Ruedi, Dave Mailman (thanks/merci!!), Florent, Martelleur, Gerd, Jim, and Klaus, then blackout.
Tuesday/Dienstag, 20.Mai 2003
We didn’t quite stay at the hotel we had reservations in, but Ruedi and Dave managed to find vacancies – located directly at the lake. Very nice. It turned out those were rooms for the Vans Shoes Skateboard team, but Pete and his troops had cancelled them earlier that evening.
Perfect weather in the morning, but while we were at the skatepark (a mirrored version of Marseille, just a little shittier and smaller) we were confronted with some heavy drops of rain here and there. Never enough to actually make us leave, but still pretty annoying. Everybody got different kinds of tricks on different kinds of film until it was time to leave for Annecy. Six hours on the bus, but cruising through beautiful scenery. I’ll never enjoy serpentines on a bus though – they scare the living shit out of me.
Annecy at 10pm, Dinner in a large group, a little hard liquor mix, bed.
Wednesday/Mittwoch, 21.Mai 2003
Ilona Staller did Benihana in 1979. Learned that on Rai Due (italian TV station) last night.
Annecy had some fierce clouds and some small puddles for us, but we dried them and the weather stayed nice. Shot some nice pictures at the bowl which was recently blessed with a new surface and left for Marseille at 4.30pm. The drive seemed to be endless, we arrived at 11.15pm, dropped off some riders at the Maeva Hotel, and went on to check into the comforts of the Best Western, where we said goodbye to our driver. I share a very nice room with Jim Panse. For a couple of days I was worried I wouldn’t have a room at all.
Thursday/Donnerstag, 22.Mai 2003
Went to the city with Jim Panse and Gerde and found some internet-place, where I dug through 300 mails and ended up paying two Euros for a full hour surfing. I couldn’t update the diary as planned, it would have taken way too long. Lots of funny fotos later (Marseille is full of snapshots) we returned to the hotel and went to the bowl, where we arrived just in time to witness the opening speeches. I could say that we were in time for the free Foster’s beer, which will continue to flow throughout the weekend. Spotted Alex Chalmers, Tony Alva, Alan Peterson, Mickey Iglesias, my man Momo, Omar Hassan, Kyle Berard and then some... A very impressive list. Stayed at the skatepark until dawn and downed Foster’s like it was going out of style. Two more beers later at the hotel and I was destroyed.
Friday/Freitag, 23.Mai 2003
Woke up with a giant headache at around 6am in a hot room with no oxygen... A shitty way to start a day. Popped some Aspirin Effekt, smashed the windows and successfully tried to sleep some more. When the alarm clock struck I was fine. Upon returning from breakfast the phone rang and a french lady asked me whether I was capable of the english language. Funny. What she had to say wasn’t funny at all though – we had to change rooms into the Ibis next door, because it had been „booked like that“. That room was a lot smaller, so I left Jim there and moved all my stuff into the Maeva hotel, where I had the possibility to share a room with Jo Hempel, another photographer.
Qualification started at 3pm, and if I am to sum up the afternoon, it goes like this: Hardcore session, free Foster’s, a lot of sun, and a lot of girls in skimpy outfits. Jasper hooked me up with some new Quiksilver glasses (thanks a million!) and Natas did a nice paint job in the bowl, and misspelled Quiksilver once – he noticed this 30 minutes later. „Quiksiver“ – nice one.
Went to eat at „The New Dheli“ across the street, because Helge thought it was indian. It wasn’t. The food was good though. Helge, Jo, Brian and I caught a cab to the hotel, and that’s where I spent the evening with Jo Hemp(!).
Saturday/Sonnabend, 24.Mai 2003
There are at least three Tonys in Marseille: Tony Trujillo, Tony Alva, and the guy called TonyTonyTony from San Francisco. Looks like the man from the bay opened his mouth a little too far last night, because Tony Alva’s fist ended up in there, redesigning his opponents grill.
By the time the quarter finals were done I was out of film and full of Foster’s. Got some grub with Patch and chilled at The Red Lion for a bit, then took a bus back to the hotel, changed and headed to „La Brise“, where the official after-party/-dinner went down. The party was so good, I was back at the hotel at midnight.
Sunday/Sonntag, 25.Mai 2003
Happy Birthday Mom!!
What can I say? Semi-finals were some serious business already, but the finals... Off this earth. Alain G., Brian Patch, Omar Hassan, Alex Chalmers, and TNT stuck out of this one, as they were flying over the transfers, more often than not just barely missing each other – incredible to watch. Way too impressive.
I didn’t wait for the pricegiving ceremony. I went back to the hotel (thanks, Foster’s) and passed out for two hours before packing up my bags, ordering a cab, and heading to Gare St.Charles. As I type this, it’s 8.30am and I am somewhere close to Luxembourg, where I’ll change trains to Muenster. Night trains are nice.
...and to get back to the actual date:
I just returned from the Etnies European Open 2003 in Munich. Until thursday I’ll continue searching for a place in Hamburg, and then it’s off to Stavanger, Norway, for another Etnies European Open competition. Never been to Norway, I’m really looking forward to that.
Munich was a good time, Chris Astrom won it for the third time in a row, Steffi Weiss won the girls competition for the third time as well.
I’ll try to get the pictures from Brixlegg, Lugano, Annecy and Marseille up somewhere as soon as possible – stay tuned.
