KILL SLAYER

Jet-lagging, sore, tired, sad, and happy are just a few of the feelings I have after returning from an over two week long trip in Japan. A beautiful country that I never imagined to travel to this early in my life. I ended up tagging along with some great friends to enjoy this amazing country.

Press play for the theme song of the trip to play while you browse.

The cities we traveled to while in japan were: Narita, Tokyo, Nippori, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Okayama, Kyoto.

With a group 13 rollerbladers deep we weaved in and out of the southern areas of japan. Train jumping from city to city guided by trustworthy Japanese bladers. In my opinion we had about 9 to many Americans and about 300lbs. Too much luggage for this small country. But made for a very fun and interesting time with this motley crüe of nomads hell-bent on skating, drinking, eating, and not spending too much to do so.
The Japanese are very resepectful to their people and their country. Everywhere we went nobody broke any rules. It was unherd of to try and cram more then 2 people in a hotel room. Although there were hardly any trashcans in sight there wasent a bit of trash on the streets. Not even a peice of gum stuck to the sidewalk. Bums where few and far between but didn’t beg from you. You could drink alcohol anywhere you wanted yet there were no drunks aside from us after wild karoke nights. Not to mention I don’t recall ever seeing a single police officer. All of this in Tokyo, a city with twice the population of our biggest states.

We attended skating events where we were treated like stars. Signing autographs for kids that never imagined the Americans they watch in the skate videos would ever pass through their small town. Parents would pack their minivans with as many kids they could fit to follow us to each spot just to get a glimpse of us skating. Pros like Jeff were greeted with a larger-then-life hand painted portrait of himself. Skating is life to these kids. As a young kid you are required to be in a “club” until you are 18. If available kids opt to be in a skating club where they train everyday. Trust me these kids are good. 12 year old girls are better then me at skatepark.

The friends I made out there are more then I could have imagined. I knew very little Japanese making it hard to communicate with some. For most of the pros out there they have learned enough English to be very easy to communicate with. And they know how to show us a great time. Many thanks to Jiro, Ba Ba, Hiro, Soichiro, Shimpei, Mika, Chiaki, and Takeshi.
Other thanks go out to bladers, AmPm, noodles, vending machines, digital cameras, daggers, capsule hotels, belt-shorts, bullet trains, bad high-heel walking, public baths, and fingerless Japanese Mafia members. I love Japan. More pics check out my album.

From the start of the trip I knew this year was gunna be crazy. From silverthorn to salt lake it was none stop.

The first night of camping treated us to a crazy flash hail storm. It didn’t ruin the fun because shorty after the rain stopped we ventured into the woods to find the scary house we herd about the year before from con-man. We stumbled appon the house after a mile hike in the pitch black night. I shinned my headlamp on the tiny shack and yelled “were friendlys.” Not a second later a light turned on and a girls voice came from the house “come on in.” at this point carl, who was behind me, almost shit his pants. Tory and Alejho were the first ones to follow the voice in. Inside we were greeted by the ghost people and offered up ghost weed. Carl was busy filming the inside of this creepy hut saying “oh my god I bet you we will read about these two people that were found dead years ago, and we are fuckin talking to ghosts man!” Turns out they were pretty cool and we went on our way back towards camp to find a tree to chop down. It’s tradition.

The next morning we went on our way after breakfast to Carbondale to ride the full pipe. Jeff went in inverted and blew all our minds. From there we hit the bridge jump to watch Roilen gainer off the middle. But the fuzz showed up and we had to bounce. We hit new castle park and rifle park before goin on to Palisade. The ramp here leaves a good taste in your mouth because of it’s smooth tranny and perfect coping. We were so tired but not enough to session this ramp. We then ventured up to the dirt pit camp site to enjoy some beer and rest our bones. Nothing to crazy, and no fireworks this year, just some good laughs.

The final day put us to our favorite McDonalds then off to the grand junction thrasher bowls. On the way our tour van got in a bit of a food fight with the Schudes van. Covered in chocolate syrup, cottage cheese, baby food, and garbage. We flew down the highway hanging out the windows battling to no end. Until we called a truice at the pool and washed off the mess in the showers. We had a good show on the diving board at palisades pool until the alarm was rang and everyone was ordered out of the pool due to some rug-rat taking a shit. It was like a scene straight out of caddyshack. We all yelled “duddie” as the lifeguard surfficed with goggles and rubber gloves holding a little peice of shit. The pool closed and we ended the 10th annual Colorado roadtrip only to give hugs and say “see you next year” to all our new and old friends. The love and tradition continues at the edge of a mountian range a decade in the making. See you next year!

Made it to salt lake. Next stop japan…

So I arrived in Denver in time to make to Adam bender’s wedding. All good things. Now it’s the first night before the roadtrip starts and I got a good size posse hanging at my moms pad before we set off. Chillin watchin the olympics, eatin some BBQ, and hot tubbin.

At the Anarchicist workshop in Kansas printing Colorado roadtrip shirts. Jeromey has this great set up for all your screen printing needs. Also working on some art pieces to cronicale my andventures.

Shelley and I landed in Kansas this week and have been hard at work. The Noth show goes down tomarrow so we are setting up and making shirts. check out our write up here.