Praise Your Destroyer

September 25, 2007 @ 10:45 AM

Fortune found its way into my life by way of an invitation Travis Howell extended this past April. I was in good ‘ol Barcie consorting Marianne, that French matron of liberty, and Travis asked me to join the Adio team for a stroll across the country. “Maybe you can do some scene drawings and film a couple tricks yourself.” Soon I was making new friends, skating everyday, and learning a little bit more about the Kingdom of Spain and myself. Spanish folks are down-to-earth, gracious, and have a hell of a sense of style.

We began our voyage in Pablo Picasso’s hometown of Malaga, to the south. This quaint little seaside town has all the charm and sparkle of an older and traditional Spain. Deeli the Kingpin photographer met us the first morning and I was stoked to notice him reading some Finnish mythology book. Little Deeli turned out to be one of hardest workers and smoothest whip-crackers on the trip.

For starters, we made our way to a very smooth and rectangular shaped plaza with blocks over little grass-gaps. I was the first to skate in and interrupt a local kid who was sweating hard to film a little line with his friend. He disappointedly notices the rest of the crew as Kenny and Roger the filmer ride up as well. The ground is marble smooth and I’m stoked to be warming up and pouring myself into some shifty-lipslides and nosewheelies. After skating continuously for about 20 minutes I go up to the kid who had been filming the line and ask “Donde esta el café por la comida?” The kid was smiling by then and he grabbed my hand and led me down a few alleys. “Me nombre es Pablo, how many years have you been skating.” “Uh, a long time – mmm, veinta y tres anos.” I get a little side of cold spaghetti Bolognese and me and Pablo return to his plaza.

I look up from chomping my spaghetti snack and notice that Steve Nesser had just arrived. He 180 ollied over the barrier, half-cab flipped, then nollie heelflipped all in quick succession. He was super tuned in to his board and I got all sparked. Kenny shot some stills of Roger popping huge switch nollie-wallrides. Forever late-risers Nick and Joey showed up and got a little warmed up, too. Soon Nick rang the first bell and really got the whole trip rolling.

We head to a beach town south of Malaga and Joey recommends that we hunt out a British place for fish and chips. Nearly all of us get a plate of fried cod and chips, but Nick passes and orders two cups of café’ con leche. We made our way to an awful black handrail that descended right next to a Greek buffet café’. Not exactly my cup of tea, but Deeli and Roger had already swooped in with blue-collar zeal to secure the facility. Nick ascended the staircase, surmised the scene, then declared in his deep voice, “I’ll try a kickflip crooked grind.” Roger became chief of operations, and Steve and I were appointed to watch for oncoming traffic in the street below. The diagonal shapes of some red umbrellas compelled me and I began sketching what I could as the whole thing unfolded. What a goddamn disruption we made there that holiday in that narrow mall where delicate seaside tourists waxed bafflement as this American kid screamed and shouted after violent attempts of irreverant and irrelevant mirth. But seven of us all coordinated the mind and soothed Nick on to victory. By the 17th try a large crowd had gathered and a British art lady says, “Come on now, you can do it!” This was the connection we needed, and Nick entered hypernerf to stomp his trick pretty damn hard. The whole place shook and rumbled in the wake of Nick’s resolution. A lot of quiet little rock-n-roll “Damns!” circulated amongst all of us for a while after this.

Returning to town, we get a day’s end session in at the Central Plaza near port in Malaga. Nesser swinked a backside nosegrind up, around, and down into the crescent shaped ledge at this eclectic plaza. Nick and the Basque maestro Alain both follow Nesser’s line and rip lipslides up and around the block to pull in and thread through a rogue little death bolt channel. Anthony Shultz is skating around the whole plaza ripping everything with a happy abandon. Thibaud Fradin joins our party and we retire to the hotel for dinner and rest. Thibaud and me share a room and partake of a little handcrafted wind to set our course for the evening recline.

Alain lead us to an outdoor spot in the modern marble-mall corridors near the Picasso Museum. In my zooted state the whole place was a sparkling wonder. I became overwhelmed by a huge bronze sculpture of a hand that was also a bird. Waxing admiration before this sculpture my respect for the Spanish aesthetic deepened: “Those motherfuckers! What an amazing work of art, right here for all to see and enjoy!” The hand seemed to point towards the first of many fine meals we enjoyed on the trip. “Do you have seating for 12 people?” It turned out that not only is Alain a good chap, he’s also a damn fine host and guide. He selects an excellent Andalusian vino de rojo, and then we sink our teeth into bites of Manchega cheese and some tasty sliced hambon. The server and Alain laugh a good bit when I ask him with an overly straight-face, “Me gusta una zupa di pomodori.” It wasn’t the first, or the last time that I would supplement my Spanish with a little Italian. But I figure hey, it’s better to try a little and be a funny dude than act a sheepish American.

We return to the hotel where Thibaud, Anthony, Alain and I convene in our room. Alain has brought a laptop and shows us his footage for the new Alai video. I am blown away and realize I had no idea how good Alain is. He skates all kinds of terrain with gusto and really good style. He modestly closes his laptop and says; “Just wait, you must come to Bilbao – it is a totally different place and there are many really good spots there – it is like the California of Spain.” I’m still reeling from the clips he has shown us and I realize that these Spaniards know skateboarding very, very well. It’s in their blood. Time to go to sleep.

Next day we return to the Central Plaza. Joey B., Thibaud, and Anthony are going to work on a bench-manual-drop combo thing in the far corner of the plaza. For whatever reason, this plaza doesn’t totally inspire me– like a beautiful woman who doesn’t smell quite right. I reach for Travis’s sequence camera and cozy into the peanut gallery next to the blue-collars Roger and Deeli. Under that Spanish sun with the aid of some Moroccan wind there was an hour or so there of the most pure and utter being time. My senses were filled with the Palm trees, the strolling mamas and the well-dressed old people passing by on that pink marble sidewalk.

Soon the teeth came out and there was a gnashing and a clawing. Ed, Thibaud, and Alain began attacking a large pyramid bank that dropped down over some stairs. That whole setup was a good chunk of hard manual labor and Thibaud and Alain got the best of it. Initially Alain tried to bluntslide up the entire ledge and air out and over the top to land down into the huge 45 bank on the other side. The guy was going for it. Soon he landed a bluntslide up the ledge and transferred to bluntslide down the whole steep corner of the pyramid. Kind of like spearing a wild boar and then letting it drag you down some cliffs until it dies. Thibaud mandled that big banked-ledge like it was an old vert ramp. After a long series of attacks and makes, he landed a fakie-ollie to frontside five-o to fakie to his satisfaction. When Thibaud spears the bull and the sword misses the mark, he will raise the bull from the dead continually until he and the bull have met at the height of their powers. Like a true artist – if it is not just right, it has not been done.

Back at the Hotel I got back to work on my pen and ink portrait of Segolene Royale. Thibaud finishes a shower, speaks French to someone over the phone, and then tells me that things are not looking so good for Segolene. She had come off a little too confident in the final debate, and Sarkozy just let her blunder. I don’t know much about politics, and I can’t speak any French, so I appreciate the fact that Thibaud can speak English as well as he does. He tells me that his father had once predicted that Sarkozy would become prime minister and that it is kind of a scary prospect. Sarkozy’s love of the military could mean crackdowns on basic freedoms like drinking and skating in public. Marianne, keep a watch out for us.

There was an evening meal at a rustic tavern where a particularly meaningful instance of serendipity occurred. Deeli the vegetarian was enjoying yet another supper of eggplant with honey, and the rest of us were 7 courses into some deeply fried tapas. These kept us up a little later than usual, but the beer saved us. I noticed a curious looking metal plaque mounted on the wall behind us. “Alain, what does that say?” “To share drinks and raise a toast in the company of friends and good food, this can keep a man happy throughout all of life!” Somehow, before Alain and Thibaud had finished co-translating, I lost control and drunkenly blurted, “This is all I have!” This sent Ed spinning with laughter and then we were all laughing.

Next afternoon Steve and Nick were both quite frisky and daring. We headed to a somewhat modern looking church with a broad plaza containing both a triple and a double set of stairs. The triple set was quite smooth and absolutely enormous: Jeremy Wray was burning on the other side of the world. Nick persevered through a short series of near makes to finally stomp a straight kickflip of Herculean proportions. There’s hammers, and then there’s axes. The whole world shook to the tune of Nick’s rolling thunder. Later that day Alain said, “That is the biggest kickflip I have ever seen. Maybe the biggest I will ever see.”

Nesser directed everyone’s attention hither to where he postulated to affect a nose-wheelie to a mini-mega drop-and-roll down the ledge flanking the precipitous double set. It was a very narrow ledge with a big drop, a kink, and an ugly set of negative consequences. I had the pleasure of shooting a sequence of Steve and also watched a very beautiful woman in a black dress waiting with someone like a priest. Between takes I fancied being the woman’s husband for the night as the two prepared for some kind of ceremony. They appraised our little formation around Steve’s antics and decided to just let us do our thing. Then the whole plaza stood still in testament and Steve dropped his heavy frame to roll right on through to the gates of Zenon. Go team go! Singing and dancing are indeed the voice of the law.

We began sailing the caravan north to pass through Seville, Cordoba, and Madrid before reaching our final destination of Bilbao. The Spanish countryside in Andalusia certainly warms the heart. Well groomed and expansive, the country is green and then rocky in all the right places. A person can see all the many centuries of people married and tied to their little places in that vast landscape.

I woke early in Madrid and scooted out of the hotel to find Deeli reading at a slick café’ down the street. My, Madrid is a hell of a beautiful city. Modern lines and materials intersecting the sculpted gods and angels that still herald the authority of centuries of Spanish kings and queens. We were literally in the very center of the city, and there was a new and tantalizing plaza right across the street. I was taking in the modern shapes, the suits, and all the hot ladies. Travis made his way to our table and then Niall the Kingpin strolled up, fresh in town to join us for the remainder of our sojourn. Niall was carrying a thick book on Berlin, and made some comment about the French election and how hot Segolene is. I hadn’t met Niall before and kept my mouth shut, as all of this seemed a pretty good sign. Turned out that Sarkozy did, in fact, win the French election and the thick book about the fall of Berlin in WWII was for Deeli to read in between loading film(as he did). Yeah, all was well - these Brits have some bandwidth.

Bilbao was certainly a world apart from the rest of Spain. Rolling hills, snaking rivers, forested hilltops, and a glowing green Basque country announced that we had arrived at the peak of spring. Alain led our caravan to a sweet little plaza affectionately dubbed “EMB,” no doubt because of this plaza’s similarity to the original block-spot in San Francisco. Everyone got to working out on the buttery ledges and various blocks here. I zeroed in on one cornice in particular and began chiseling away at one trick for hours. I became repetitive and ridiculous like a broken record, but when I finally landed my switch boardslide to cab out it was all the sweeter. Joey worked out a cool fakie-ollie manny to fakie ollie to fakie nose grind shove it out up and up two blocks. Thibaud wrangled a manny kickflip varial to manny down the two blocks, and Selego was effortlessly twisting nollie 180’s up into switch backside five-o’s to switch backside 180 out on the longest flat block. Even Niall got kinky with some no-complys and nollie shove-its. Then Alain’s hometown crew of Bilbao locals showed up and started to attack the block as well. These guys had a lot of control and could flip into and out of just about any kind of forward or backward grind on the block.

We headed to a spot that I remembered skating during my very first trip to Spain in 1990. At the beach in Algorta there is an idyllic park that sits next to some very old Basque ruins. This was one of the very first parks created in Bilbao, and Javier Mendizabal and Alain skated this park together as kids. Local guys in super short shorts were ripping and snaking madly as they were stoked to see some new faces at their park. Super fun to skate that park at the end of the day with those guys as the sun was dropping. Most guys were champing out on the vert extension with gnar tricks like fakie ollie to stand up frontside grinds. Alain would just cruise in and snap a huge body jar and then go grab a beer at the bar over the hill. Oh, the good life!

Next day we made it to my two favorite spots of the whole trip. Atop a sparkling hillside village lies the beautiful blue 45 bank. This bank was super wide, just a tad gnar, and some cool stuff went down on this thing. Ed whipped a nice frontside over ollie to switch 5-0 fakie, and the Bilbao ripper Norberto Mena hawked a huge stalefish out of the bank. That was really sick. Deeli and Travis were getting dirty, too, and Deeli landed a very nice backside bluntslide on the bank. I started getting into backside nosebluntslides, but soon the children were out of school and Guardia Urbana arrived and politely asked us to leave. Time to go to heavenly spot #2: Mendizabal’s big tiled-bank spot.

Past Gehry’s Guggenheim, along the river that empties to the sea, there was a newly renovated section of downtown Bilbao. Here was a new set of modern apartment buildings that surrounded a very large plaza filled with paths, gardens, parents, children, and the most epic land waves a skateboarder or architect has yet to imagine. The shapes and transitions of these huge grey-tiled banks could not have been more generous, and variations of these marvels lay all throughout this little Eden. It was still the late-afternoon hour of the child, but we managed to sneak a heated little session in on a smaller bank to the side of the plaza. Alain got everyone sparked on a little bank to a high and dry stalling ledge that was only a half-meter wide. Thibaud landed a frontside grab nosepick, Alain squirreled a frontside 5-0 ollie to fakie, and Nick chomped a large frontside ollie to tail. We returned the next day and got to skate the biggest bank in the whole place. It was a nice Thai-massage for my new-age soul to drift frontside ollies across that buttermelt. Steady rockin’ Anthony flipped some nice kickflip backside ollies, too. Then Sargeant Deeli coyly directed us back to the hilltop blue bank so I could meet my maker.

It was my turn to pick up a trick, and I really wanted to nail that nosebluntslide. Travis was skating effortlessly and he landed a few frontside nosebluntslides. Travis, you rip and that was a great inspiration. I was getting uncontrollably angry after each bail and then it struck me that Damn! I’m just lucky to be here. I’m just lucky to be able to roll on this thing at all! My attitude changed and despite riding away from a few stalls, I would soon enjoy the bliss of defeat. My body tired, my legs tangled, I fell backwards, and my head snapped hard into the cement. The screen fuzzed for a brief second and instantly I knew it was over for the day. The Gods gave me a clean little, “Not today kid.” There is perfection even in a slam.

The last day we lingered around a brand new skatepark in Leioa . The young Anthony had a good time skating every last corner of that place like the happy, frisky young buck that he is. Alain woke from a nap and learned a new trick. The guy just has a lot of grace and a lot of style, and it was perfectly natural for him to tweak his lein airs into lein crossbones. These were nearly 2 meters above a bowl that wasn’t much deeper. Not bad for a Basque hick - Alain may you have your day yet!

Alain and the most cheerful Edu took all of us to an excellent seafood restaurant in Algorta. It was the last and certainly the best meal of the trip. Edu’s gracious handiwork provided us with some Moroccan wind, and all my senses were quite open. Alain ordered us a terrific white wine and salads. Then I savored a blessed white fish with a tender flesh and excellent flavor. I looked around the table at those of us who remained: Niall, Roger, Deeli, Travis, Ed, Edu, and Alain. I was stoked to have been there on that trip with those guys. Coming together and sharing in the creative pursuit, learning a little of Spain, and getting to know all these idiosyncratic blokes – it had been a rich two weeks. We finished our sorbets and espressos and Alain and Edu suggested we head down to smoke at a spot overlooking the bay.

Beside a little bend in the cliffside pathway I watched a few more extremely beautiful Basque women pass by and had the strange sense of having been there before. I couldn’t get over this and when Edu finished telling Niall a story I described a water festival that Mark Roach and I once saw. “There was this guy holding onto a rope high above the ocean, and then all of these guys would let the rope crash into the water and then hoist it back out really quick to try and shake him loose – it was a competition and we watched from some really steep hillside.” Alain smiled and replied, “That was right down there! On that rock! That happens every August – you were right here when that happened.” A shock of recognition and a wave of meaning passed through me - I had come full circle! When I was younger, shy, and vegetarian I nearly starved while visiting this land. I had returned a grown man and finally tasted some of that good, Spanish life.