LL
Dickles
HEADUL ARTERS
Clockwise from above: Heckler, style magnate and living legend,
Guy Mariano dished up silky varial heelflips for the hungry crowd at
Amsterdam's 3rd Floor skatepark. Shiloh busts a New World move
on some Old World 'crete. Brussels, Belgium. The French are a proud
people with their own way of doing things. JB Gillet, for instance,
does his kickflip tailslides to fakie frontside. Amsterdam is a popular
hangout for pot smokers and porn producers.
For the majority of our stay in Belgium, we were
stuck in the back of the windowless mini-van as Alexis
drove us around the country for various demos. The
big one was at a good park called Zumiez, run by a
rotund Belgian businessman. For his park's logo, he
had used the Spitfire head and replaced the teeth
with the name of his park. Ingenious.
I built this entire park with my own two hands," he
kept telling us, admiring his giant mitts. "Hah, hah,
hah, hah, hah!"
Daewon led the charge with some high-flying
moves on the monster street course. He then set the
world's record for the longest crooked grind-about
fifty feet-on a metal ledge. The kids went bonkers.
The crowd followed him from obstacle to obstacle-
a trend that backfired when he went to check out the
vert ramp. The next thing you know, there are a hun-
dred kids surrounding the ramp. Not wanting to dis-
appoint, he dropped in to an
ollie blunt.
Enrique and Marcus worked the X-Games pyra-
mid-Marcus with giant kickflips and Enrique with a
kickflip noseslide.
Like everywhere in Europe, Zumiez served alcohol,
and our host soon began handing out wine coolers to
the thirsty team. A few berry-flavored rounds later
and the boys were revved up for a good ol' fashioned
mini-ramp session. JB was busting out clean nose-
blunts which must have been the perfect aphrodisiac
for a certain female admirer. It led to a meaningful
affair, one of those love-at-first-sight type of deals
you see in movies that was quickly consummated in
"Skaters in Europe are
exactly like skaters in the
US, save for an occasional
metallic body-hugging shirt"
the skatepark bathroom.
Outside the park, the locals bumped Belgian gangs-
ta rap and talked about a house party.
"It will be so fucking bomb," one especially
eager young man tried to convince us. "So many
fucking girls."
When it was discovered that the house party was
actually to be held at the local skate shop, the crew
politely declined and we were back in the van.
The next day we were in Antwerp at the Antwerp
Skate Planet, an enormous ice-rink style skatepark.
Under the sixty-foot ceilings was an X-Games night-
mare-fifty yards of masonite woop-de-doos sat next
artificial ski hill that was covered with
steep
handrails of varying heights, kinks and widths.
Anyone who got near it would surely perish.
to
The owner, a stern German-speaking man, had
paid for a demo, and by God, he was going to have
one. Within ten minutes of the team's arrival, he
decreed, from a booming loudspeaker, that the
World Industries team would now perform. About
twenty skaters and a hundred pre-teen
Rollerbladers quickly cleared the course, leaving
only a vulnerable-looking demo troupe of Daewon
and Shiloh. Marcus, Enrique and JB had wisely cho-
sen to make themselves scarce.
All eyes and cameras from the local news were on
the two as they pushed quietly across the giant floor.
Fortunately for all those involved, Daewon com-
menced to fingerflipping. The demo was saved!
The rest of the afternoon was given to conquering all
the Skate Planet's wacky ramps that included spines,
bowls, channels and ramps with uphill platforms.
Up until this point, the fun of the trip had been offset
somewhat by random unpleasantries. These would all
fade from memory once we arrived in Holland.
Getting off the train in Haag, we were greeted by the
Dutch distributor, Niko, a man who resembles, albeit
slightly, Richard Pryor's cell-mate in the hit movie "Stir
Crazy." Niko treated us like royalty and soon we were
relaxing in a a fancy seaside hotel, happily fiddling with
the remote controls of our Craftmatic adjustable beds.
"Up, down, up, down. Aaaah."
The next day we were reunited with the Axion team for
a blow-out demo at t Amsterdam's 3rd Floor Skatepark.
Constructed in a dimly-lit, abandoned building, the
skatepark provided a dungeon-style setting for
what would be the best demo of the tour. Beats
blasted and the locals mixed it up with the boys as
they busted loose on the crazy pyramids, quarter-
pipes, rails and ledges.
Shiloh squashed frontside bluntslides down the pyra-
mid ledges, while Daewon and Guy rocked the eight-
foot quarterpipe-Daewon with a blunt kickflip shifty
and Guy
with a lofty frontside half-cab kickflip. Marcus
pounced over the giant pyramid with nollie flips, and JB
was pounding out kickflip tailslides across the fun box
ledge. Kareem provided the show-stopping finale with
long ollies over the whole funbox to tailslide and to 5-0
down the ledge.
That night we were treated to a hip-hop festival fea-
turing Rakim and GangStarr, which would have been
hard to stay awake for if not for the parade of weirdos
that were milling around.
Amsterdumb and Amsterdumber was the theme of the
next three days, as the guys had no demos to do-no
responsibilities at all, except to enjoy the city where
everything is legal.
Always hungry, Enrique migrated from room to room
consuming all the snacks in the mini-bars, while Shiloh,
took care of the liquid portions. Marcus and JB's room.
was an even scarier sight-the curtains drawn, foreign
language cartoons blaring on the TV and room service
plates littering the floor at three in the afternoon.
"What are you guys doing?"
was all
"Nothin'."
If we had stayed there any longer we would all be
permanently brain damaged from lack of meaning-
ful stimuli.
After coming dangerously close to missing the train
back to Paris, the rest of our return home was wordless
and almost solemn. Even Enrique was silent, except for
a brief explanation his idea for "What would you
do?" The Movie.
A greater understanding of oneself and the world
around you is a commonly cited by-product of foreign.
travel, but perhaps that will sink in after we all recover.
Basically, people are people and skaters in Europe are
exactly like skaters in the US, save for an occasional
metallic body-hugging shirt.
Thanks to Jean Marc, Morgan, Alexis and Niko for tak-
ing care of us and tolerating the ugliness.
86 THRASHER
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