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October
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October 14th 2003 Huck Jam (Sacramento, Anaheim, LA, San Jose) I flew in to Sacramento ready to start a new chapter of the Huck Jam Tour. We were going into four shows back-to-back and we needed to get our rhythm. By this time last year, the question was how to make the show better, tighter, or more fantastic. This year the question is turning out to be: Can we do a whole show without anyone crashing, getting knocked out or hurt? This week anyway, the answer was no. I smashed my knee a bit in practice trying a nollie heel flip 360. As soon as the knee’s better, I’ll get to spinning some 720’s in the jam. My ribs are finally feeling like they could take the centrifugal force of the spin. By Anaheim, Dennis McCoy had over-rotated on an opposite flair about seven feet out right to his head for his second knock out in one week. He’d miss the LA show. Then in San Jose, Simon’s bars slipped down after landing the long jump, and with no breaks, he crashed into the quarter pipe breaking his hand. Who knows if he’ll be able to ride in Cleveland? I don’t mean to dwell on the bad stuff, it just seems like we’re always missing someone for one reason or another. A missing rider means rethinking the whole night. If Dennis, for example, was your cue to drop in for doubles, you’d better find a new cue because Dennis won’t be there, but you still need to drop in on time. This is not to say we’re not having fun—we are! We’re having a blast, and chances are if you saw the show, you probably wouldn’t have noticed there was anyone missing. There is still a whole lot going on as usual. Stevie Cab came out to see the shows in Sac and in San Jose. His daughter is six years old now and digging the motorcycles. My brother came down to San Jose as well. I gave him a shout out on the mic. He particularly liked the loop--he wants to learn it too. I’ve been pulling the loop every night, but it’s still scary every time. I keep thinking we’ll get into the groove. We have somewhat, but people are still pretty beat up. Three days off should do wonders though, and I’m hopeful that when we all meet back up in Cleveland we’ll be good to go. The crowds are traditionally better in the Midwest and on the East Coast, for some reason, so I’m excited to get out there October 7, 2003 Huck Jam Denver The Denver show turned out to be our third show in a row that we pulled off smooth and clean. I was still feeling the effects of my fever and we were all feeling the effects of breathing less oxygen in the Mile High City. Overall, it was a good turn out and a fun show. I’m starting to be less afraid of the loop as well, which is nice. My PR people are based in Denver and they took me out for some good pizza after the show. The next day, I hooked up with long-time friend and skate buddy, Dave Tuck, and we headed for the Denver Skate Park. We skated lots of fun little rollers and bowls and jammed around the street courses before gearing up for the big bowl. The biggest bowl in the park is great for speed lines and Dave and I were having a blast just carving around. Then Dave tried to lay down a backside smith grind and it was on. I’m terrible at backside smiths and doing them in a bowl makes them even harder. We traded off tries until Dave made a nice one on the sidewall. It took me another twenty minutes of trying before I finally laid down a proper rail smacker. Time to hit 7-11. We ate at a local Japanese spot for lunch and then it was time to head to the airport. Sacramento is the next stop on the tour. I wonder if the "Governator" will be in town. Unfortunately, Californians are so obsessed with Hollywood that they decided to go against the whole idea of the democratic process. We fired our elected Governor and elected an ex-body builder/movie star that has no political background whatsoever to take his place. The Huck Jam will soon be playing right near his new mansion. October 5, 2003 Huck Jam (Vancouver, WA, OR) Opening night of the Boom Boom Huck Jam in Vancouver is one that will go down in the history of the tour as the Murphy’s Law show. Anything that could have gone wrong, did. We always have some kinks to work out, but after this show, we were having second thoughts. Maybe we had gotten a little too ambitious this year. First, during the moto-cross, someone from the crowd threw smoke bombs on the ramp. Within minutes, guys were trying to jump their motorcycles through thick orange smoke, made thicker by the stage lighting. Then, during our first doubles routine, Mat Hoffman swerved to avoid a collision and found himself twenty-feet up, directly over the channel. Amazingly, he survived with only a heal bruise, but sprained his wrist on a crash later in the show. Soon after that, Dennis McCoy was peddling full speed at the catwalk between the two ramps when his chain came off. He almost ended up in the canyon just like Mat. Even the band was having trouble. The guitar player broke four strings during one song. Rick Thorne, our announcer, knocked himself out while riding with us during the jam session. Kevin Robinson had to take over on the mic while Rick was waking up and moto-cross was doing their routine. Later, Rick got the quote-of-the-day award when he told the crowd it had been a "real knock-out show." In the finale, Bob shot his board out and Bucky caught it with his face--concussion number two on the night. It was a rough one, but we all made it through and got on the bus headed for Washington. Our next show proved to be even harder. Halfway through the second doubles act Carey Hart let off the gas as he approached a jump because he thought he as going to hit a skater mid-air. He came up short, jumping off his bike and landing on the opposite wall of the vert ramp. It was, by far, one of the most intense things I’ve ever witnessed. Everyone in the arena, including all of us, couldn’t believe it. The worst possible case scenario had come true. They carried him off on a stretcher to a standing ovation from the crowd. Carey was lucky to have only broken bones—no head or neck injuries. He broke his femur, his foot and his wrist. Then it was time for us to do the loop. The loop is a mental game on its own without having seen what we’d just seen. Bob, John Parker, Kevin Robinson and I kept it together and each made it first try. That seemed to help get the crowd back from their state of shock. We made it through the finale and the end of the show, but things would have to change before we would attempt the show again. By show-time the next night in Portland, we had all decided that it was not safe to have moto and skate going at the same time. Any part of the show that had had it was changed. We all huddled up in the dressing room just before we went out and dedicated the show to Carey. Everyone was very serious. We had our game faces on and it worked. We pulled off our first great show with no serious mishaps or injuries. My wife had flown up to see the show and to visit some friends, so I was glad it was a clean show. It was also the first time she had seen me do the loop. The show the next day went much the same and we all seemed to be getting into the groove. I got to fly home for a night after Portland, but I had come down with a cold so I spent the whole night fighting a fever, rather than getting a good night sleep. We are off to Denver this morning and I’m hopeful that things will continue to run smoothly for the rest of the tour. October 1, 2003 Triple Crown Finals check out the photos Before I hit the road for the Huck Jam there was one more contest to take care of. The last stop of the Triple Crown was in Oceanside this weekend. I had two second place finishes (my theme for this year) going into the last stop. I also had a set of bruised ribs and a doctor that said I may be able to skate, but questioned how mobile I would be. We finished our final run-through at Huck Jam practice late on Thursday night. I drove home, slept for a few hours, woke up and drove back up to Oceanside for street practice. I hadn’t skated street in a few weeks and my ribs hurt when I ran so I didn’t expect much. Happily, I managed to get through my line and make the first cut. On Saturday I skated the street semi-finals as best I could and figured I’d be able to practice vert for a while after that. As it turned out, I made the cut to the finals as well. I qualified in 10th just a quarter point in front of my friend Pat Channita. I was stoked to have made the street final at such a big contest, especially considering my ribs hurt when I would so much as sneeze. I didn’t get any vert practice but ended up 13th in street and was a happy little street chomper. Sunday was the vert contest. I showed up at the ramp feeling like I really wanted a day off. I’d been going now every day (14 hour days at Huck Jam practice) for two weeks straight. The rest of team Huck Jam was there too and looking pretty worked. Lincoln made the final and then hurt himself on a flyout somehow. Bucky was feeling the effects and bailed more in one contest than I’ve ever seen. Bob was the exception. He put together a great run and won the contest. PLG was right behind him and really it could have gone either way. Jake Brown killed it for third and I hung in there for fourth. I knew I could have skated better but was content knowing that I was only running at about 75%. As I was getting ready for the best trick contest, they announced that I’d won the Triple Crown Overall vert title. I went down to shake hands and shoot photos with an oversized cardboard check. Somehow I had totally forgotten about the overall vert thing but it was a nice surprise. Before I had a chance to get back to the ramp, I heard the announcer say that I was also the overall series winner and that I’d just won a new Ford Truck. Sweet! I’ve never won a car before. I gave it to my wife. During the best trick contest I made a one-footed manual trick that I had made up and named an Emanuel Lewis. I was stoked. Then toward the end I started trying triple kick flip indy airs. It had never been done before, but I had been thinking about it lately. The time was up before I made one and it was just as well. My friend Paul Zitzer won hands down with a perfect kickflip backside lipslide to revert–another trick that has never been done. My wife bought me a butterscotch dipped ice cream cone (It doesn’t take much to make me happy.) and I went home for two days of much needed rest before the tour starts.
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