AST Baltimore
The first big contest stateside this season was the first stop of the NBC Action Sports Tour. Baltimore, MD was the spot and I'm pretty sure everyone that came last year, came again this year and brought a friend. During the vert finals on Saturday night there were not only packed bleachers at the vert ramp but on the street course and the FMX course as well watching on the jumbotrons.
I tried two 720's in practice for the finals and when I made them both I knew it was on. On my first run I made the whole run, including the seven but slammed on my last trick-- a frontside 540. I hit my head and scorpioned enough to hurt my back pretty good. On my second run I slammed on the seven, this time taking a rib shot that would make it hard to breath for the rest of the night. My last run was by best. I stuck another 720 clean and did a 540 out of it. Unfortunately, I slid out again on my last trick just at the buzzer went. I ended up fourth behind Bob and PLG with hometown hero Lucky Basic (Bucky) taking the win.
It was a fun weekend. I got to see the BMX vert finals and shoot some photos with the new digi camera that Panasonic hooked me up with--being that it was the Panasonic Open. I did a fun little talk show with "Dune" for Fuel TV. The kids get to ask most of the questions so it made it pretty cool. The whole Positiv team was in the house with three of the four of us making the finals. We signed some autographs and I signed beat up Rodney Jones model. That's the way we like them. Keep rippin' kids. The folks that run the VZW STR8TLK Tour also run the PR for the traveling museum exhibition "Body Worlds". They set everyone up with passes. Of course I liked the skateboarder the best. Check the photos.

Portland str8tlk
Portland Maine was the second stop on the VZW STR8TLK Tour this year. I hadn't been to Portland in years but I still remember the job I had at the country club there right after High School washing dishes. Everyone should be a professional dishwasher at some point in life. It builds character. You might think that Maine is just all about lobster right? Well, check this one out. Every kid in middle school in the entire state of Maine, gets a free Macintosh laptop. How cool is that? When I'm in the East I'm all about pizza. I think I ate at least a slice a day all nine days I was there. So in between being jealous that kids in middle school these days get free laptops, at least I was eating some good pie.
The schools were all good and the kids were great. Biddeford Middle School has a sweet state-of-the-art auditorium in case you've ever passing through. Biddeford is the town just south of Portland that was home to the best park in New England when I was growing up. I found a way up to Ratz every weekend from Boston just to skate the vert ramp and bowl. That's where the Who Skates team originated. OG team members included: myself, Donny Barley, Matt Pailes and Dan Drehobl-- all of whom are still pro skateboards today. I on tangents sometimes. Bear with me.
We had something happen at a school this tour that has never happened in the tour's four-year history. I was about half way through the program on the second school of the day when the fire alarm when off. Everyone, of course, had to get up and walk out. Being that it was the end of the school day, I never got to finish the gig. Kids had to just get back on the school bus and jet. Sorry, guys. At the end of the program I was going to try and ollie over your principle and maybe even the superintendent. We missed out.
The demo was at the Bath Skatepark just north of Portland. My man Tom Noble built the place and recommended it for the demo. I saw Tom one night while I was in town. He bought me sushi so I bought him ice cream. The park's got a sweet mini ramp that spines into a bowl next to a solid street course. It's the place to be most of the year in Maine when there's snow or rain outside. They do a great job getting kids involved at the park and there was quite a posse to join me for the session. The Verizon Wireless Street Team was in the house and along with a board, a helmet and about a million T-shirts we also gave away a brand new cell phone. Can you hear me now?...

New York City
After a quick stop in Boston to visit my Mom, I headed down to New York City. I'd been invited to New York to receive an award for outstanding contributions to the youth community. The Fresh Air Fund recognizes a few people every year with their American Hero award. The Fresh Air Fund is a non-profit that gives free summer vacations to low-income area youth in New York City. Get this, they've been doing it for over a hundred and thirty years. These guys are legit.
I arrived in the city in time to run a skate clinic at the Riverside Skatepark right in Manhattan. There were about fifteen kids that had benefited from the Fresh Air Fund and had never in their lives been on a skateboard. I hooked everyone up with brand new Positiv boards, Bern helmets, pads and they each got two pairs of Airwalks--one for rippin' in and one for kickin' it. First thing we learned to do, of course, is fall. Once everyone could knee slide, it was on. These kids were fearless. By the end of an hour, four or five kids had dropped in on the four-foot quarter pipe. I'm pretty sure I had at least as much fun as the kids. It was a beautiful pre-summer New York City day in the park. We went for pizza that night (thought we wouldn't) and Ben & Jerry's for dessert (you know we did).
We were planning on trying to get to a comedy club on my one night off but there's just too much going on in New York all the time. We had just walked out of a design meeting working out next seasons Andy Mac Airwalk line. This season's hit Stride Rite stores in July. It was about 3pm and my manager John calls my cell phone asking if I can make it to the Bravo A-List Awards that night. I was to accept a design award for the Nintendo Wii Fit. I guess they wanted someone that doesn't do much sitting on the couch and heard I was in town. "Ok, I guess" was my response. "Great, the car will pick you up for the red carpet at 6, try to get a speech together by then" John said, and hung up. I looked up from my slice of pizza at Shannon from Airwalk and said, "I hope we can find something for you to wear in the next two hours because you're my date." To Shannon's credit she pulled it off. Dress, shoes, hand bag, the whole kit in less than two hours.
The red carpet was the usual, look this way, no look this way thing with everyone tripping because, who is this guy in a suit with a skateboard? The A-List Awards where long, but very funny and quite different from your usual awards show. Our limo driver turned out to be a New York Fire Fighter so we stopped for a tour of one the OG firehouses just outside Time Square on the way home.
The next night was the Fresh Air Fund's Spring Gala to present the American Hero Awards right in Central Park. The who's who of the New York scene were arriving by limo as skated around out front in my suit. Comic Wanda Sykes was the host this year but she didn't want any skateboard lessons. Mark Steines of Entertainment Tonight was there to present my award. Brendan Shanahan of the New York Rangers and Jimmy Fallon of Saturday Night Live were both being honored as well.
The night went off without a hitch. I busted a frontside 180 and a 360 on the dance floor before I skated up to the podium. Not to be outdone, Jimmy Fallon did a backspin on the dance floor before he walked up. I got to say thank you to all the right people and even talk a bit about the kids and the skate clinic we ran. It was nice to get complements on my speech from quite few people afterward. You can read the text of it right here. It was a real honor and a lot of fun. Just to keep it real, I skated the twenty blocks back to my hotel the night.

Motor City
I haven't had a chance to see my pop and step mom in Michigan in quite some time. I refuse to go during the winter months because; growing up in Boston, eighteen years of cold and snow is enough for me. That's a big part of the reason I've called San Diego home for the past sixteen years. When I called my pop to see what he was up to, he said he was going to be in Detroit for a couple days for the Tiger's baseball games. I told him to sign me up.
My flight arrived in Detroit around four o'clock so when Dad and Sharon picked me up; it was straight to the ball park. I had put in a call to Verizon Wireless who sponsors me...and the Boston Red Sox. They hooked us up with tickets right behind home plate. The Sox proceeded to pound the Tigers to a pulp while I gloated to my Dad about how the Red Sox just outclassed the Tigers these days.
We spent the next day hanging out in the motor city eating a nice brunch and taking a walk down on the riverfront. Before we knew it, it was time for another ballgame. This time the Tigers were on fire and it was fun to watch them beat the Yankees. Although our seats were not nearly as good, we flagged down the candy man and enjoyed some Cracker Jacks.
Back home in Lansing I got to meet my Dad's new dog Shelby. Very cute dog but I'm still mad allergic to his cats. I hooked up with the old crew from Ann Arbor for a session at the Modern Skate Park in Grand Rapids. Trevor, Wes, and Todd were all killing it as usual and I got the update on the effort to get a skatepark built in Ann Arbor. Thanks to Yer Boy there's some photos of our session. I also got out to the skatepark in Mason with my man Dave Campbell. Skater Dave had the lines and all the kids at the park were down with him. I'm pretty sure he taught every one of them how to carve. Check the video.
This leg of my summer tour that started in Shanghai China has one more stop. Reading, PA is next for the first stop of the Verizon Wireless STR8 TLK Tour. Then I get to go home. Yeah, home.

Big Day In The Bay
On the way home from Shanghai my flight stopped in San Francisco. My brother and his family live in town so I thought I'd stop by for a visit. I had some good uncle time with my niece and nephew and we checked out the new skatepark they're building right down in the Mission. It will be SF's first legit public skatepark. While I was there I gave Steve Cab a call and made plans to hook up and skate the new San Jose park. I spent the morning playing tourist on the Alcatraz Island Tour and then headed to the South Bay.
Stevie Cab has never been anything but a great friend to me since we became teammates on Powell in 1997. One phone call to Cab on short notice and by the time I showed up at his house he'd set up a session at the new park with his daughter and the local crew and his wife Rachael had invited me to stay for dinner.
The new park in San Jose is just on the other side of the lake from where Raging Waters Water Park is--the site of the famous Boom-a-ramp where Cab set the skateboard high air record back in the day. The park just opened recently and it is by far the biggest, best and most complete skatepark that San Jose has ever had. It costs a modest two dollars to skate there (although I think it should be free just like the ball parks next door). In the three hours we spent at the park we skated every bowl for at least a few runs but it was all just a tease. It would take weeks to feel like you had really explored all the options the park has to offer. Cab was killing the big bowl where the main session was. He hit long boardslides on the facewall and 50-50's around the hip. It took me ten tries but I finally did a Caballerial on the sidewall and we all had a good laugh about how I could diss Cab like that at his own park.
Dinner back at the house that night was wonderful. It's always nice to eat a home cooked meal when you've been on the road for a while. Thanks to the whole Caballero family for a great afternoon in S.J. Check Stevie's new blog when you get a chance. http://steviecaballero.blogspot.com/

Shanghai Again
Six days after I arrived home from Beijing I was back on a plane headed for Shanghai. I didn't care. Those six days were well worth the thirty plus hours of being on a plane. I needed some California air. I need to go shopping at Trader Joes. I needed to do some laundry.
Shanghai is a more modern and in my eyes a more Westernized city than Beijing. I think what best paints the picture of how Shanghai has changed since my last visit there a year ago is this: Last year, directly across from the contest venue there was a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf where we would get our lunch. This year there was a Starbucks directly across from that.
My schedule on this trip was pretty packed. I arrived late on Wednesday evening and practiced street and vert all day Thursday. Friday was a big day. I skated vert prelims in the morning and qualified first. The finals were later that same day. I'm glad to report that I skated well on a smaller ramp than any of us are used to and took home my second Asian X Games Gold. I walked off the podium and directly out to catch a ride to the skatepark. I had so much fun there last year I couldn't wait to get back. I was tired from skating the contest all day but I didn't care. Polished granite coping was on my mind.
Upon arrival at the park I was extremely disappointed. It turns out that there is a new owner/operator of the best skateboard park in the world. He's decided that everyone needs to pay him $10 bucks every time they want to skate. I let them know how disappointed I was and that because of that simple fact that they no longer have the best park in the world. Kids in China need to be encouraged to skate. Most kids can't even afford what it costs to travel to the skatepark never mind coming up with another ten bucks just to ride. It's really bad news for the future of skating in China.
Maybe I was preoccupied thinking how lame it was that it's not a free park anymore or maybe I was just too tired from skating all day but I couldn't get anything together that night. I did manage to slam really hard in the full pipe and for a minute I thought I had broken my wrist. That was going to make the street contest the next day even more interesting.
I taped up my wrist really well and hit the street course the next day. Of course I slammed again trying not to put my wrist down and received a nice swellbow on my other arm. I ended up putting a decent run together flying around with some jump box transfers and kickflipping the centerpiece. It was good enough for fourth place. Dayne Brummet, three-time Asian X Games Champ took it once again. My teammate Rodney Jones was sick-like-dog and even through up after his qualifying run. We got it on video though so it's all good.
I had planned on staying in town an extra day to skate the park but the weather called for rain all day so I changed my ticket and headed back to the states. Another quick trip to the "new Europe of skateboarding". Check the sweet photo I shot of me, Josh and Ranton on the podium. Check here for a post-contest wrap up interview. www.kiaxgamesasia.com/newsupdates/interview2.php

Bejing
NBC's Action Sports Tour continues to get bigger and better every year. The start of its fourth season was no exception. This year they invited the top ten vert and street riders over to Beijing, China to kick off the contest season. The folks at New China Media set us all up with a sweet sightseeing tour on our first day in town. We were headed to The Great Wall of China.
When I was a kid I used to get a kids version of National Geographic Magazine called World. World was awesome and every month I'd look forward to getting my copy in the mail. One day in 1979, I picked up my World magazine to see a cover-shot of a teenager skateboarding down The Great Wall of China. I pretty much thought that was the coolest thing in the world and right then and there set the lofty goal to one day do the same thing myself. I've saved that World Magazine cover all these years and of course brought it with me to Beijing. When were arrived at The Wall, the first thing I did was take out my Magazine cover, shoot a quick photo and them jump on my skateboard. I'd waited almost thirty years to fulfill that dream. I was a pretty happy dude. I even busted couple of Great Wall rides for good measure.
During the contest we all stayed a hot springs resort hotel. The centerpiece was a giant pool area with at least a couple dozen different hot springs to soak in. The green tea pool and the ginseng pool were great but most fascinating was the fish pool. The water was lukewarm and home to at least a thousand little fish that would swim over and start eating the dead skin off your body as soon as you got in. It tickled too much for me so I just let them exfoliate my feet a little but it was definitely a new experience and hey, when in Rome.
The ramp was the same ramp we ride on all the Dew Tour stops but a lot of guys were complaining that it wasn't set up well. PLG was the most vocal with his complaints but when it came to the contest, he didn't seem to have a problem. He logged three perfect runs and bumped me back to second. I bailed my first run but was happy to have stuck 720's in both my second and third runs--the first time I've done 7's in a contest since I won the Gravity Games back in 2000. Adam Taylor ripped as well and earned himself the first podium finish of his career with a solid third.
Our last few days in Beijing were spent shopping, looking for vegetarian food and wishing the rain would stop so my man Carlos could kill the street contest. It was not to be however. The street comp got rained out. We did get over to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We also stopped by "American Steak and Eggs" for a much needed American style breakfast. Sufficed to say that Chinese food in China is quite different than what you'll find at your local Panda Express in the States.
My second visit to China was once again a great experience that I will not soon forget. Thanks to my man Joe for hooking up the Forbidden City Tour and for the translation help all week. The Chinese people are kind and friendly and happen to be pretty excited about skateboarding these days. I received a text message while I was there from Tony Hawk who didn't know I was in China. I replied letting him know where I was and I think he hit the nail on the head when he commented: "China is the new Europe"--in the skateboarding world anyway.

Clash 2
For those of you that didn't make it out, the Clash at Clairemont went off again this year. About fifteen hundred people showed up and we raised around $13 thousand bucks for the YMCA and Grind For Life. Fluf ripped up the sound stage, every vert and BMX pro you can think of put on another mind blowing demo and of course the pool session was the best part of the day. I even learned a new trick. Backflip to backside boneless over the hip. Check the sequence.

Andy Mac by Airwalk
I've had the same shoe sponsor my entire professional skateboarding: career. Airwalk. For fifteen years I've stood behind the brand, and for just as long, they've stood behind me. About a year ago, Airwalk got a new clothing licensee and we started working on a signature line for kids. The result is Andy Mac by Airwalk.
Belk department store was the first to take in the line. They are the largest privately-owned department store in America and are based in the south. They have stores from Texas to Florida to Virginia. I recently got to visit two of them--one in Charlotte, NC and one in Birmingham, AL.
Tom Nobel of Who Skates Skateparks was nice enough to build a cool little street set-up and drive it down from Maine. He even jumped on the microphone to call the tricks while I skated. Thanks, Tom!
On the first day in Charlotte, it started raining just after the ramps were set up in the parking lot. Something was on our side, though, because the rain stopped, the sun came out, and the course dried up literally five minutes before the demo was scheduled to start. I skated for a bit, but there's only so much I can do with a flat bar and a jump ramp.
I asked for a couple of volunteers. Tom had no idea what I was going to do with the kids once I got them out on to the street course, so he started picking volunteers, too. Another kid volunteered himself and just ran out there.  Before I knew it, there were six kids ready to go. My plan had been to lay them down and ollie over them, but I had planned for three kids, not six! Ah, but, the show must go on.
When Tom realized what I had in mind, he looked a little nervous, but nothing compared to the poor kid at the end of the row. I told him I'd try not to land on him, but he didn't look so sure. All the kids did great, and I'm glad to say I didn't kill anyone, so it was all good.
Afterward, I invited everyone into Belk to check out the Andy Mac line and get some autographs. I don't think there are a lot of pro skateboarders stopping through Charlotte these days so it was cool to see how appreciative everybody was. By the time I finished signing, it was pouring rain again. It had stopped just long enough for me to skate. I had a good time and so did the kids.
That night we flew to Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement. I was stoked to check it out and after breakfast at Waffle House, I was happy to do the demo and signing all over again at a Belk in Birmingham.
Thanks to Airwalk and Belk for putting it all together and thanks to everyone that came out. If you ever find yourself near a Belk store, stop in and check out Andy Mac by Airwalk. It's sweet.

Dew Tour & More
It's always been hard to do a skateboarding event in San Diego because people here are so used to it. They see the pros skate every day at the local parks so its hard for them to get excited about coming out and paying to see a contest. Such was the case last year when the ASA held a contest at the San Diego Sports Arena. I won that one, so I'll be the first to tell you how great the contest was, but the crowd was slim.
This year, ASA decided to give it another shot and they changed it up. They put a vert ramp right next to the boardwalk in Mission Beach and it was free to spectators. Needless to say, attendance was up and it was a pretty fun day at the beach.
It's always nice to have a contest that's so close to home. I could literally skate down the boardwalk from my house and be at the ramp. In my quest to score a 90 at some point this season, Mission Beach was the closest yet. I only did two straight airs in my run--the other fifteen walls were either flip tricks or spin tricks. I flew out on the deck and was sure that would be it. 89.75 was my score, so close. I was just behind Brazilian skater Rodrigo Menezes who has been out of the scene for a while and is in the midst of a comeback. PLG took first with one of the strongest contest runs I've ever seen out of him.
After the contest, there was a party at The Wavehouse next door. I was heading back to my car to grab my swim trunks and a guy in the parking lot offers me $100 for my third place trophy. I made like I was into it, and he actually reached for his wallet. I said, "I'm not going to sell you my trophy, dude," and I gave it to him. He couldn't believe it.
It's the little things.
The wave session went off that night and I even got a few pro skaters to try it out. Chris Gentry climbed on without bothering to take off his clothes or shoes. He didn't do so well, but it was fun to watch.
Next stop was Salt Lake City, Utah for the fourth AST Dew Tour comp. Surprisingly enough, Salt Lake turned out to be the most highly-attended stop of any AST yet, even while it rained! People in SLC are into it.
The skateboarding schedule was such that we had two days off after the preliminary rounds before the finals. Rather than sitting in a hotel for two days, I went home. It was only about an hour and a half flight. I spent a day and a half with my family and made it back up to Salt Lake in time for one more practice session before finals.
The finals at this contest were far and away the most competitive of the tour this season. Everyone was on. Each skater that dropped in would one-up the skater that went before him. I held my own and finished fourth behind Shaun White, Bucky and PLG.
The last time I spent any length of time in Virginia Beach it was 1989 and I was fifteen years old. My father was taking my brother and I on a skate tour down the East Coast and we stopped to skate the infamous Mt. Trashmore ramp. Unfortunately, it rained for days and we never got a session. So when Verizon Wireless told me that next stop of the STR8TLK Tour was in VA Beach, I was stoked.
The original Trashmore ramp is long gone, but as I found out, the original ramp locals are not. There's a new skatepark there now complete with street course, bowl and vert ramp. Every night I was in town, I skated the vert ramp with a healthy crew of at least eight or ten guys including Sergie Ventura, Allen Midget, and Henry Gutierrez.
The high school kids I talked to through STR8TLK all seemed to get it that much more because they were growing up in the surf/skate culture of VA Beach. A good number of kids showed up to the demo on Saturday at the park. The wind made skating the vert ramp almost impossible, but we had a good time on the street course playing SKATE and having an impromptu high-ollie challenge. Thanks to Sergie and crew for hooking up the sessions. Good times in Virginia Beach.
It seems like the closer it gets to the end of the season this year, the busier I get. October rolled around and things shifted into high gear. Two contests and another stop on the VZW STR8TLK Tour, and there's almost no time left to pick up some candy corn for Halloween, almost.
T-Mobile joined up with Sony/Erickson to put together a contest in Berlin this year. I hadn't been to Berlin in almost ten years, so I thought I'd go check it out. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be a pretty fun event and something quite different than what we're accustomed to as far as contest-format goes. The whole contest was head-to-head. From prelims to the "Super Final," it was single-elimination. One run: you win, you advance, you lose, you go home.
After making it through the early rounds, I found myself in the semi-final and matched up against my teammate Sandro Dias. I made my run and Sandro was nice enough to fall at the end of his, allowing me to advance. That put me in the Super Final against Rune Glifburg, after he beat PLG. Rune didn't do me any favors. He ripped and made his entire run with a Cab heelflip, kickflip indy, and patented frontside heel with the style and power he's known for.
I had the advantage of watching his run and deciding what I had to do to try and beat it—it meant, pretty much everything. With only one try, it's all-out, make-or-break, go-for-it skating. I gave it everything I had, including a new flat-spin frontside 540, a body varial 540, and finished with a nollie frontside-5. Turned out, it was just enough to win. Check it out here: http://freecaster.tv/1000008_1003124
It had been a while since I attended a Euro-contest complete with its smoke-filled venue, meat-only catering, and bubbly water. Not that I'm complaining, it was cool to be back in Germany and that's just how they roll.
I made the fourteen-hour journey home to California from Berlin and enjoyed every minute of the single day I had at home before getting on the red-eye flight back out east to Orlando for the final stop of the Dew Tour.
The Playstation Pro is always a big stop on the tour. Not only is it the finals where the year-end Dew Cup winners are decided, but the crowd in Orlando always turns out in droves to support their favorite pros. The big news on Thursday was that Sandro Dias made the cut to the finals for the first time on the Dew Tour this season. Maybe it was having the whole Positiv Team out rooting for him. Darryl, our team manager, made the trip, as did Michael, from Powell. Carlos DeAndrade flew straight up from Brazil, and Rodney Jones was down from Baltimore. It was awesome to have everyone together.
On the morning of the street finals, Rodney took us all to a really cool street spot. There were perfect brick quarterpipes about five-feet high with two hips and a bowled corner. Carlos got me an iced tea for making a frontside blunt on his cue. Then I figured out a line where you could come in from the middle of the street, ollie up the curb at speed, and hit the hip. I hit a couple backside ollies and graduated to backside airs out the top. Rodney followed with a sweet frontside stalefish two-feet out. We were almost ready to roll when I got it in my head that I could kickflip mellon over the hip and asked for fifteen minutes.
After I was soaked through with Florida-humidity-sweat, I asked how long I'd been trying. "Fourteen and a half minutes," was Darryl's reply. Not that we were in a hurry, but if I was going to make it, now was the time. As I walked back out into the intersection, I heard Sandro call out a twenty spot for the make. When there's money on the line, I usually don't make it, but I got lucky.
I started pushing full speed through the intersection. I hadn't paid close enough attention to the traffic signal, so by the time I noticed I was skating against traffic, it was too late. I was going. Ollie up, flip, catch, go. I landed with enough speed to make a back disaster on the opposite hip before rolling over to Sandro to collect my twenty bucks. Thank you, good night.
We headed back to watch Carlos absolutely kill it in the semi-finals of the street contest, qualifying ahead of everyone. C-lose was on fire mixing it up with big three-flips over the hip and a giant Madonna on the quarter pipe. He finished the night 5th and finished the season 5th over-all. Amazing when you consider he missed the Salt Lake stop due to visa problems.
The Positiv Team kept it positive and helped out our bro Mike Rogers signing some autographs over at the Grind for Life booth and that night did the customary team dinner.
The last day was the vert finals and I'd been practicing my line for two days. I was most worried about the varial 540, so of course, I made it solid on the first run, but then bailed two walls later on a kickflip mute. My second and third runs went better. I tried to throw down a 720 after the buzzer on my last run, but I was too pooped to pull it that late in my run. I was happy nonetheless. My run included a flat-spin frontside five into a McTwist, a lien rodeo over the eight-foot gap, and a tailgrab five. I'm always stoked to pull off the run I've planned to make, but still no 90 on the scoreboard. I think it was somewhere around 88 and good enough for another fourth place behind White, PLG and Bucky, just as in Salt Lake.
Sandro couldn't hold on in any of his runs, but it was good to be skating with him in the finals again. Overall the Positiv team did great it's first year out on the Action Sports Tour. Carlos and I both finished the year in 5th, and Sandro and Rodney where both still in the top 20.
Look out for the whole line of Positiv boards coming your way this winter season, and check out photos and footage of the Orlando trip here: positivskateboards.com 

Ohio, X, PDX
The second stop of the Dew Tour was in Cleveland, OH. My pops made the drive down from Lansing, MI and we got to hang out for the weekend.
The ramp was outside again, this time right on the waterfront behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm sure it made for some great tv shots, but the wind blowing in from across the lake made for less-than-ideal skating conditions, once again. In addition, the flash-flood thunderstorm the wind brought had everyone running for cover, and did a number on our practice and contest schedule. I battled the elements with everyone else and finished fourth.
I made it home in time to start practice for the X Games up in LA. Being that I was competing in both Big Air and Vert, I had my work cut out for me. I'd start my day with three hours on the vert ramp down at the Home Dept Center in Carson. Then I'd sit in LA traffic for about forty-five minutes on the way back up to the Staples Center, for three more hours of practice on the big air ramp. I spent four days trying to get my mellon backflip down over the fifty-foot gap. Check the video. I just wanted to be able to do that in the finals because I tore my MCL before I had a chance to do it last year. That was my goal. Unfortunately, I totally neglected the fact that I still had to qualify for the finals. Having practiced nothing but the flip, and wanting to save it for the finals, I opted for the "safety" of a 360 judo air over the jump to a body varial on the quarter pipe. Turned out it wasn't enough to qualify me into the final… oops. I guess the backflip in the finals will have to wait yet another year.
That night I witnessed the single most horrific crash in skateboarding history. Jake Brown's crash was a reminder to us all of how truly risky this discipline of skateboarding is. Amazingly Jake is relatively healthy just two weeks afterward and I'm sure he'll be back next year busting twenty-one foot McTwists once again. Go Jake.
Stop number three of the Dew Tour was in Portland, OR. Whoever thought of that one, thanks. Portland is awesome. Such a cool town and full of great cement skateparks to boot. The contest was indoors, finally. No wind and rain to deal with on the vert ramp for the first time this season. I won my heat in the qualifying round and then jumped in the rental car with Chris Miller and Tony Mag and headed for one of the newest cement parks in town. The Pier Park Skatepark is a classic Oregon style community skatepark--all cement, open 24/7, no fences, and skate at your own risk. The way ALL skateparks should be. What makes Pier Park different is its twenty-foot full pipe with a roll-in doorway capped at both ends with nine- and eleven-foot bowls, respectively. I had to be the first to go frontside over the doorway. It took four tries. Having watched me, Miller proceeded to put on a full pipe clinic, doing the door in three tries and making it look 10-times better than I did. We even got Tony Mag to clear the door by the end of the night. So much fun. Check some footage over at the SoBe site.
The next day, I watched my new Positiv Skateboards teammate Carlos DeAndrade skate to a solid fifth place on the street course. Afterward, Rodney Jones joined Carlos and I over at the Create-a-Skate booth for a little Positiv autograph signing. Finally, we all went out to dinner with our team manager, Darryl. Good times.
The next day I skated one of the most competitive vert finals I've ever been a part of. I made a solid first run, falling just as the buzzer went off. At the end of the first round, I was in the lead. I fell on my second round run, and by the time my third run came up, I had been bumped all the way down to seventh place. Everyone was staying on for their entire runs and killing it. Rune, Jean, and of course, Shaun White, all nailed their runs.
As I rolled in for my last run, I knew I had to push it. Just cruising through my routine wasn't going to get me anywhere. I wanted a podium spot. I gave it that extra push as I came down the roll-in and cranked out two nice high airs before hitting a big McTwist on my third wall. Forty-five seconds doesn't seem like such a long time, but when you're giving it everything you've got, it seems like forever. My last two tricks were a nollie heelflip varial into a lottery flip to fakie. I stuck both clean and popped out on the deck a happy camper. It was enough for third place and a podium spot behind Bob and Shaun...until PLG dropped in. Pierre had an awesome run and some thought he might have taken out the Tomato. When the scores came up he was in second--bumping Bob down to third and me back to fourth. It was cool to see so many guys make their runs and I sure would not have liked to be a judge that day. Contest or not, some serious skating went down and I'm glad I was a part of it.

Boston: Positiv, pools and contests
Just as I was getting over the jet lag from my trip to Shanghai, I found myself skating in yet another giant cement bowl.
This time I was closer to home at the Pro-Tec Pool Party in Orange County. I’m convinced that this contest is as close to NASCAR as skateboarding gets. People come as much to see the collisions as they do the skating. My first three runs in the qualifiers ended in this way. On the first one, Rune and I clipped each other at the hip and I slid to the drain on my back. Next, was a drop-in ended in a head-on with Josh, knocking the wind out of me. Finally, Moffett dropped in right in the middle of my run and road right into my ankle without even trying to jump off. I seriously thought it was over right there, but somehow I made it through to the finals. There was a riders meeting just before the start where the event directors pleaded with the ten skaters in the finals not to kill each other. I survived, but I wasn’t in any shape to skate as well as I would have liked. I settled for sixth.
The following week, I headed back to Boston for some q.t. with friends and family. Boston is a great place to visit in the springtime and we did it right. Swan boats in the Public Garden, Children’s Museum, Science Museum, and even a trip out to Walden Pond where Henry David Thoreau built his little house.
The best part was the skating, of course. Soon after I arrived, I took a trip past the infamous Cambridge Bowl to see if they had filled it up with water for the summer. I was in luck—no water—just a thirteen foot deep end with more kinks, leaks, divots, cracks and pot holes than you can shake a pool board at. Even with 62mm wheels, I was going to have a hard time getting to the top of this thing.
This pool and I have a bit of a history.
The “C-Bowl” was the very first place I ever did a grind. Soon after I got my first skateboard, my brother took me there and let me loose. No pads, no helmet, no experience riding anything except the streets in front of my house. The “waterfall” of this pool is so steep and deep that a short rider (I was twelve years old) would disappear after he rode down, before reappearing on the far wall of the bowl. My brother tells stories of watching me disappear only to see my board come shooting out at full speed with me limping out slowly behind it.
The C-Bowl was the first place I saw really talented skaters doing grinds and pulling airs. Kevin Day was one of those skaters. He doesn’t skate the bowl too much any more, but it didn’t take much coaxing to get him down there when I told him I wanted to set up a session. Kevin showed up just like the last time I skated there with him in 1989: full pads and helmet before he even climbed through the fence.
Charlie Wilkins is my skate ambassador whenever I show up in Boston these days. He’s been holding it down in Beantown since long before I left for the vert ramps of SoCal fifteen years ago. Charlie said he’d been skating the pool a bit trying to film a KF BS pivot. I told him I’d always wanted to get a FS blunt in there and it was on. He got a couple of guys to come down and shoot some photos and we had ourselves a fun little session. Charlie made his trick, and Kevin-- thanks for the Pain Cheaters. Check the photos.
From Boston, I headed up to Portsmouth, NH for a few days of the Verizon Wireless STR8TLK Tour. It basically goes like this: rap with kids at area middle schools and high schools for a few days and then do a demo at the local park.
The local park in this case happened to be one of the best in New England: Rye Air Field. We had ourselves a good time. By the end, I found the courage to get over a transfer gap (off the bank into the vert ramp) that until then had only been done by bikers and in-liners. Gotta hold it down for skateboarding, yo! Adam from Bern was there and snapped a photo.
My flight plan took me from NH, to San Diego for a few days, and then back out to CO for a weekend pool party/BBQ at my old friend Dave Tuck’s house. It just so happens that Dave has a perfect clover pool in his backyard that he built from scratch. Most of the old crew from Ann Arbor, MI made it out, and my brother flew in, as well. Good times and layback grinds. It’s always good to get some roots-skating done with the Local Chaos crew.
The first stop of NBC’s Action Sports Tour was in Baltimore this year. The ramp had some new additions, some 13-foot transition sections, but the real change was that it was outside. I’m sure it looked great on TV, but it was so windy most of the weekend that it was hard just to do an air. My Positiv teammate, Sandro Dias, almost got blown off the ramp. I tried to tell him not to go so high.
Rodney Jones was repping Positiv on the street course and totally over-amping in front of his hometown crowd. The wind held off enough to get the finals done and I skated well—finishing third behind Bob and the Flying Tomato. It was good to be a part of bringing that level of skating to the east coast again. The crowd really seamed to appreciate the riding and Buster, Bucky, and myself, were all reping east coast in the finals. Good stuff.

China
When I was a kid, my mom got my brother and I a subscription to National Geographic’s World Magazine. It was basically National Geographic for kids, and I loved it. Every month I’d look forward to the new issue. There were cool games and photos and articles about far-off places.
In May of 1979, the new issue arrived at our door and I was mesmerized by what I saw on the cover. It was a photograph of a teenage boy rolling along on a skateboard, on the top of the Great Wall of China. He was obviously a westerner visiting China, and I’m sure that back then few people there had seen a skateboard. That was years before I started skating myself, but the image burned itself into my memory. I still have that magazine cover.
Ever since then, I have told myself that I would make it to China one day—if only to skate along the top of the Great Wall.
It’s been twenty-eight years. I’m finally on my way to China. The Asian X Games are going on in Shanghai this weekend and ESPN has invited me to compete. It also just so happens that the largest skatepark in the world is now in Shanghai. I’ve been itching to get over there to check it out for over a year – since I saw some of the first photos of the behemoth park trickling in. I don’t think I’ll make it out to the Great Wall on this trip, but I’m counting on this trip not being my last.
Day one in Shanghai started with an early morning practice session over at the contest venue. The ramp was pretty small and didn’t have much vert, making most 540 variations and keeping speed really hard—unless your name is Sandro Dias.
This was the first contest Sandro and I would be representing Positiv Skateboards, the new board company, with more than just some stickers.
Directly after practice I jumped in a cab and headed for the SMP Skatepark. The park is located behind a modern building that houses an enormous fitness center called MegaFit. Just next door is a tranquil garden and pond. Across the street is a university with an immaculately-manicured landscape. In short, it’s the last place you’d expect to find a skate park.
A thousand words would never do this place justice, and a picture would do even less. I will make an effort to describe the sheer awesomeness of this park, but it is really one of those places that has to be experienced.
As I skated in, I noticed a wooden deck and tables that reminded me of something that would be off the back of a ski lodge. As if you’d sit and have a snack and look out over this mountain of a skatepark sprawling before you as-far-as-the-eye-could-see. I grabbed my camera and started shooting photos.
First, there are two identical clover bowls about eight feet deep joined with a curving spine. There was a mini snowman bowl at about two and four feet. Both of those had steel coping.
Then there was a dueling cradle bowl and my first chance to see the hand-cut, polished granite coping I’d heard about—picture grinding the edge of the countertop in a fancy new kitchen.
Next was the vert ramp. All steel surface, about fifteen feet high and over a hundred and fifty feet wide with more hips, roll-ins, love seats and extensions than you can count.
Then the “main” bowl section behind the vert ramp— by itself bigger than most skateparks in America. Ranging in height from about eight feet deep to a roll-over twinkie that towers eighteen feet above the middle of the bowl. There’s a full pipe with a capsuled end underneath the twinkie, with a smaller full pipe doorway leading back out to the main bowl. Just beyond the main bowl was yet another bowl section six- to eight-feet deep with roll-ins, hips and a splat wall. Oh, and polished granite coping throughout. I’ve never seen so much pool coping in my life!
By now you’ve reached the other end of the vert ramp and there’s a five- and eight-foot deep “dog bone” bowl with an over-vert mid-section.
Finally you reach the street section that only adds more square footage to the dozens of marble and granite ledges and benches surrounding the park. Just when you think it’s over, you enter the “competition venue” that was built for the grand opening. With grandstands on three sides you think you’re at Wimbledon, only it’s another street/park area and a second vert ramp—all steel surfaces. Yes, this park is, without a doubt, the biggest, and I’m happy to report: the greatest park in the world. It’s free to skate, dawn ‘til dusk, skate at your own risk—the way a park should be. Yay Shanghai.
After I rolled around and took photos, I padded up and proceeded to scare myself to death just dropping in on the deepest sections of the main bowl. I had to gather up my courage just to roll down into the full pipe for the first time. I was afraid I might take a wrong turn, shoot into the doorway, and kill myself before I even got a chance to ride everything. I skated for the next four hours straight. I could skate so fast there, the coping screamed at me on frontside grinds. By the time it was getting dark, I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and it was time to head back to the hotel.
Just before I left for China I heard that George Powell was already over here traveling on business. Randomly, he was scheduled to be in Shanghai for a day before he flew home. We arranged to meet up for dinner. I told stories of skating the biggest and best park in the world, and I drilled George about his experiences trying to set up a skateboard factory in China in 1979. The man has always been ahead of his time, and he’s been building skateboards for thirt