thinking of you

n.b. this is a very extended blog post.  deEP potensh?

there's a buzz in my chest, it makes me shiver and it makes me shake and I know it's your affect because the closer I get to you, the closer I get to incapacitation; but not in the all-consuming manner, in the loss of desire to consume, socialise and move because when I'm with you all I want to do is type.  To touch even just a handful of your 78 keys, to feel the feedback and the resulting character that illuminates infront of me (even in this extremely bland blog-post-creation page) makes me stoked beyond words.  I was away for 3 weeks and even though you were by my side every day, our relationship was stressed, thwarted by the lack of voltages and the isolation from connectedness that searching for hills in an RV implies.  I turned to my phone in desperation but it proved torturously fruitless, eventually I gave up on you and your backlit aura, only to be reunited right now in a flurry of key bashing and leg tapping.

I don't know if I already wrote on here about the tour that just concluded; basically it was a Landyachtz tour of down under, organised by yatedawg and executed by all!  On the trip was myself, 2 other

Australians (Adam Yates & Josh Evans) and 4 Canadians (Guff, Striker, Dillon Stephens and Kyle Martin) and the plan was 3.5 weeks of travel from Brisbane down to the Mornington Peninsula/Melbourne.  We had an epic luxury RV, a very sick crew, a well thought out plan, perfect weather and best of all, I got to sleep in a swag under the stars every night, it rained only once and I was perfectly cocooned, cosyness took a turn for the next level on that evening.  If you want to read a more in-depth insight into the trip (i might get around to doing one in the future but for now I gotta GSD) you can go Yates' and Striker's  blogs, they're still being updated as to the trips progess.

I just now realised I ranted at my phone about the trip while in the airport a few days ago so here it is  "it's done, 24 days of adventure, exploration and representation.  When I was asked if I wanted to be included in Landyachtz's Palm Trees and Pits tour I was frothing majorly, a little more majorly than normal as this time I was going to get to experience a completely new bunch of dudes, a trip were my sole responsibility was to take photos and to be making bank made it all the more sweeter.  Being on the road, doing all things related to skating (finding hills, skating hills and documenting hills) and enjoying the fruits of travelling has been the trend of my 2013 and although this was 'another' skate trip I can't relate this one to any other. We had a luxury RV, a hero of a guide (yatedawg!!!) a proper sense of Team (not the usual assembly of generally rad riders which is equally rad) and a bunch of dudes whom I am somewhat indebted to as they, before this trip, had already given me much stoke plus we had David Leslie, who has filmed everything Landyachtz!!, and a plan to preach.  Upon transmission of meaning from fingertip to brain all of those things sound pretty standard but this was like no other.  Landy are OG and they do it right. Having a filmer meant that I could, not only concentrate solely on photos, but also to have a corner buddy and someone that shared my ambition of collecting beauty made for max hillside fun times.  We climbed waterfalls, lurked in ditches and waved at a whole bunch of passerbys, his name is Guff and I love him.  The plan was to do a road trip proper, to document it and to represent Landy.  These things were all easy because when a company like this wants to spread stoke, they take a blanketed and generous approach. Everyone was stoked, every grombate whose board was signed by striker's knife was stoked, the RV gang was stoked and I was definitely stoked.   "

so yeah that sort of reiterates exactly what I said just before in a less concise manner... but still, it was a rad trip!  Here are some fots

The crew minus Guff, he was on the hill.

L-R  Kyle, Josh, Yates, Dillon and Striker

here's Guff :D :D :D

And here is the rest of what I can upload for now, I can't post anything until it goes up on the 

Landy blog so there'll be prenty more soon.    As for now, here is Josh, he was the grom but he's not a grom, plus everyone was too polite to make him do shit, lucky grom.

Striker pursuing the 'pits' component of the 'Palm Trees and Pits tour'.

eemyeow

whynot....

These dudes saw the RV when we were lurking and they frothed, it's nice seeing people froth so much, Strike and Yates battling for the pen.

 Cedar Creek!  strike avoiding yates' balls... he was naked (100% of the time everytime we were met by a body of water) 

Josh lurking at Kangas, I wasn't pleased with any of these photos, shooting whilst skating can be tough!!  KM, Josh and Strike (barefoot on a 90km/h run, casj)

Heavenly place,  one of my most favourites in Straya

Dog seeking the ridge

Kyle and Guffrey

no dogs

two dogs

Guff and the dog.

ANZAC DAY!!

those photos above, they're the blog photos from the Brisbane/Goldcoast leg of the trip, the first 6 days basically. I wish I could put the bangers on here!

I've had another thought about frequency/quality of blog posts and I concluded that at the end of the day, regardless of how many posts I make I'll always put up the same photos.  Rants are the only thing that change and at this point in my life I'm enjoying making gargantuan blog posts of miscellaneous avenues and a general disregard for continuity.

here's a lovely place, I took this photo a very long time ago,  maybe 2.5 years ago :O

Here's a big storm!  a photo that i took, from this exact spot but 5 minutes earlier, was a finalist in the QLD Lord Mayors photo comp, I didn't win but its casj, I was stoked regardless.

THIS HILL!  I miss this hill a great deal but I'm going back to NZ in Feb so we will soon be reacquainted.

Here's my super buddy Chad, he's going away next week for a long time :(

this is him at work

and here he is at skateboarding (front)

Here's a photo from Japan, atop Kichigai (the sickest hill ever) on one of the many days that we were there..  During our Japan trip we covered 3000kms+ and even after 3 days here, we had to come back for more before we left, you'll see why below.

ALSO HERE IS THIS!!!!!!  The first of multiple videos that we shot while we were over there.  This one was filmed at Kichigai (the photo above) riding was Matt K and we got it on the first take.  I was relieved that we got it in one because this hill is an open road, 2 lanes and for the most part it's barely wide enough to fit the logging trucks that the road is accommodating for. We retuned here in the last days of the trip to film this run, as we'd not had a chance to film on our first stint as it rained on the day we'd planned to film.  We shared a few runs and Matt said something along the lines of 'yo, i'm not gonna crash so feel free to bump me with the car' so, without being a complete loony, I got really close while gabebro operated the pan and Ben sat in the back of the car concentrating on his sphincter and maintaining a seal.  I'm really stoked on this video, Raw Runs (1 cut videos) in my opinion can portray the glory of this sport better than any other filming style or medium, raw and fun.  it's sick.  shot on my 5d3 and Brisbane Camera Hire's 15mm 2.8 fisheye.

a while back Cliff Coleman and Sergio Yuppie came to Aus to play skateboards.

This is Cliff, he was once a world touring yoyoist, he pioneered the only decent way of stopping a skateboard as well as the use of the glove, the coleman slide and most importantly has spent his life using his gifts to tour the world and inspire people to be better people!  I got to hang out with him in Berkley earlier this year and I can't really describe how nice it was being around that dude, so wise, humble and mellow beyond possible description.  That was in Jan, this event pictured here was in Feb and when we started the day he got everyone into a group and said 'being a good skateboarder does not make you a good person, be a good person and everything will come to you'

Here's Sergio, he's from Brazil, note the motion blur in his hands and only his hands, he was probably mid 1080 or something luda like that..  shot from DGM

Chaddy gown switch

probably looks like he's falling over but to be 100% honest, he's just temporarily grinding his helmet on the ground....

Cliff in Thrasher 1982.

some typical QLD weather, 24 hours,  a few days before the Landy tour.

this is Kevin Reimer, he won the first world title race at Newtons this month, he's very very good.  photo from DGM

another DGM shot, James Kelly or AmDrem or the America Dream or anything you want, he wont care, he's maxicasj.   I shot this on our LA-SanFran roadtrip in January.  

I'm probably done with this post now.  here's a lovely song as a reward for your efforts in going this deep.

temporal delusion

"the notion that past/future and here/there dictates stoke has become irrelevant because i've realised contentedness exists instantaneously and is ignorant to time and space as it results from basic pleasures, which are relative to self and easily re-definable."  Jacob Lambert, 2013.

The alps, in the foreground is the southern tip of Austria, beyond it the Dolomites.

That is the second time i've quoted myself on this blog and will definitely not be the last.  I've no recollection of what exactly it was that i previously quoted myself on but i guess it was something equally obscure yet pertained immense value to myself at the time.  This time I was influenced by some profound thoughts regarding finding myself in the result of a scenario in which my life was completely adjusted, for better but also worse.  The 'worse' was the bit that intrigued me the most; which i figure was incited by thought of injury/death or maybe because of what Justin Beiber wrote in the guest book of the Anne Frank Museum.  I guess the relation there is that worry, and the way it manipulates spontaneity, is a disease that i've no good feelings for…  Another reason may be the glory that was returned to my life upon arriving home from Japan, the glory i speak of being muesli with yoghurt, honey and bananas..  IT was whilst consuming this insanely ideal snack that I was struck with the thoughts found profound and outlined merely moments ago.  

Here is Ben, with stoke-tears in eyes, at the sight of the mountains that lay infront of us on our first day of Japanese discovery.

It was obviously the contentedness that I felt (or perhaps the kj injection) from eating that delicious bowl which led to such immense emotional weight being put on my own desire to be content.  This is no new realisation to me but something I sometimes forget.  Chad and I were talking today about stoke and whether it's just adrenalin, in the sense that you become addicted to 'stoke' because of the chemical addiction to adrenaline that we admittedly have fallen prey to, thanks to skating down hills fast.  Does my brain disguise 'stoke' to make my addiction more acceptable?  I don't know nor do I care because skateboarding feels epic and the comedown is even better.  With the comedown comes the contentedness and, as I said earlier, that is all I ever want.  

general rolling hills/tree/grass combo in NZ's north east. superia400

Also, probably in all honesty the main source of rantspiration that resulted in that quote up there, was the fact that I just got back from Japan, a literal heaven in my eyes/heart/soul, yet I dont really miss it, nor am I bummed that I'm back to the same old locale, back to the same job that I've had for 8.5 years and the same lovely people that I love so much.  I got stoked knowing that, although my dreams and aspirations involve trips/skating/adventure/creation of visual treats, I can be home and be equally stoked, well not equally stoked but just as content. Perhaps it stands to reason that this return-home-stoke will be short-lived when I'm deeper in being back but I've travelled enough in recent times without having monotony return to my content-glands to know it's 100% casj.

nightime mountain, Austria.

Sometimes, when I write on this blog, I feel like I'm repeating myself or ranting self-righteous bullshit or not being entertaining and then I feel like i'm repeating myself when I say that I don't care that I'm doing those things that I'm worried about doing...  The main thing to concern yourself with is that by the time i've completed this rant I'm going to feel so good.  Most likely I'll fall asleep in this directors chair or ideally get into bed and snooze for a little while until I get up and go skating with 2 people that I like a lot. 

A lake in Austria.  The very left of this frame (blue mountain peak) is the what is in the picture above.

A popper from Japan (a popper is not a banger)  This little grombat was testament to notions of Japanese steeze.

I guess this is why I froth when I return to relative mundaneity.  'This' being that the things I love doing most don't require travel, good skaters, nice locations and generally outrageous and fortunate situations. Obviously those things are ideal (and are specifically what I strive for) but they're not necessary. It could be a case similar to camera gear in that once I got to sample what was previously unsamplable I realised that it wasn't this crazy big step that would make my life drastically better in a dramatic and incomparable manner.  Everything is casj all of the time... scratch your the back of your head.

(L->R) James Kelly and Cliff Coleman .  I think these two dudes are some of the most stoke-me-out kinda people in my life, I guess in a relatively specific manner.  James is living the dream, I like that.  He had one, he worked for it and he got it without becoming a bad person along the way, if anything im sure the journey was attributable to him being one of the most chilled and stoked dudes I've adventured with.  Cliff is the same, but Cliff can be hold accountable for the development of skating fast and i love doing that very very much.  I once watched him tell a mob of strangers that 'being a good skater doesn't make you a good person, be a good person and everything will become good.'  I like that too.

Sam Dalton, 2 months ago, Auckland.

The only thing that really draws me to distant lands is meeting more fun people (mountains...).  There are a lot of them, they're everywhere in fact, and I'm lucky that by travelling with skateboarding, I get to meet like-minded individuals/skaters.  With the people of downhill comes a certain sense of grounded-ness, maybe it's the danger and adrenaline that they seek, or probably it's because we share reality tunnels and I'm being extremely biased but that doesn't matter haha!   I'm sure there aren't too many people who would be down on being crammed into a car with 4 other week-without-showering individuals, a diet of bread with either bread or avo, instant ramen and an alpine climate that prevents the opening of windows.

A stones-throw from a zone that we camped while in the early stages of Japan.  Even the presence of such infrastructure the overall tranquillity of Japan rarely wavers.  

Paekokariki, NZ.  superia400

Newtons is coming up!!  I'm so excited!!!!  I get to tour with Landyachtz and an RV and yatedawg!  I love yatedawg.  24 days of adventure :D

Here's a photo that I like very much.  This was from the last afternoon of the NZ tour and we were at Mt Ruapehu which was the trip-climax in so many ways.  Riding is Api and he's so so so rad!!!  also the only NZ resident on the trip.  I can't wait to lurk with that dude again.  This has been ran as the poster, my favourite place for my photos to go.

(i've been having to use my external-arddrive extensively of late, hence the euro and other old photos)

sayonara j hole

foreword: all photos in this post were taken on my iphone, i don't think i'll have an opportunity to post much slr stuff for a while, i've got a half dozen rolls to develop too.

1 of many token trip tunes

3 weeks of adventure has finally, well almost entirely, come to an end...  Luckily I did not write this rant yesterday before me flight because I did not make my flight, casual tears which resulted in glory as i got to lurk this fine nation for another day and had an opportunity to push my wafer ice-cream consumption to 65...   I'm excited to get home as home accommodates for more adventures and more adventure is the number 1 goal for this lamb, the next one being a national trip in Aus and then to Yeowrope which will employ a different approach to skate trips...  Japan in my books/experience probably has the highest density of stoke per sqaure kilometer, be it the proliferation of convenience stores and the standard of glory that they present, noodles, boiling water, ice cream, coffees and all things tasty for CRAZY cheap.. breathtaking beauty, breathtaking kindess,   breathtaking hills and clear mountain is a plenty, except tokyo.....

our first night!   pre-camp mode..

take note, regardless of nation, take the GPS extra option from the car hire place...

motorways, all highways have tolls and you pay per kilometer, again get a gps!  you'll get brought back with a toll-free directive.

lifeblood, $1.14 coffees of insanely vast variation..  we can confirm that Boss Rainbow Mountain Blend is the best one..

me at sukiya, $3.95 for a bowl of rice and beef, miso and a raw egg.. lamby stoked....  after 20 days of strictly chop-stick living I still suck

$1.09 sushi plates.  yeah

This place is really cheap, don't let anyone tell you otherwise...  The only expensivity(?) that I found was the motorway/toll situation.  The car we had was free thanks to Sector9 and it was very efficient on petrol, fuel being the same $$ as home but even less of an issue, especially split between four.. Also we camped every night, bar a few and paid for accomodation only on the first and last 2 nights, sometimes we camped in the woods, sometimes on mountains, often next to snow and every night cosily.. 

our hotel.

The single exception to the constant cosiness was the 2nd night at 48 pins, were the tent flooded from all directions, but my mat is inflatable so I enjoyed both the luxury of being somewhat separated from the water underneath me and the tranq feeling of floating on water, the only real negative being that I woke up to shoes full of water, howling winds, more rain and probably sub 5 degree temps as the gusts descended from the snow covered mountain to our right.  Neither of these problems held much weight compared to our dream road being wet for our allotted glory times (28 hairpins that pinch and weave down a typically beautiful northern japan mountain peak, which we ended up skating it in the rain and it was still hilariously fun..

Kichigai

408 surfboard shop, ran and shaped by Kohei... he also runs a bar in Fujisan called Raiden.  If you go to Mt. Fuji, find his bar.  level 2 rad dude.  

misc infrastructure 

We maintained maximum lurk status and this proved to be very controversial in the eyes of Japanese law enforcement.  On 3 occasions we were confronted by multiple police cars and officers, up to 6 in one go, just for hanging out next the car, the last encounter being the most intriguing as our car was commandeered and we were escorted by police-convey to the guts of a Tokyo police station that let us say hi to 28 police officers and detectives who proceeded to take our car and bags apart..  It was all casual apart from the 19 peices of finely-crafted Japanese steel knives and machetes which they were quite intrigued by.  

We all love knives for useful purposes such as cutting avocado, banana dicing, tree cutting and future purposes, for some; building shacks in the woods and cutting coconuts.  We had difficulty persuading them that 19inch machetes of samurai-styled precision and sharpness were casual and we were successful.  at first they wanted to confiscate, at second they demanded we post them home (after protesting the loss of thousands of $$ of metal) and then they ended up returning our knife cache and sent us on our way with a complimentary luggage rearrangement. 

Questionably my favourite experience of the trip were all that related to meeting lovely Japanese people.  There are MANY in the circles we travelled and I cant thank them enough for their knowledge of english because after 20 days i struggle with all aspects of communication in the native tongue.  Amane Kishida is one of the raddest dudes I've met including all travels and times, he shreds with unimaginable steeze but offers even better times without a skateboard, he put us up for more nights than i care to note but i am grateful beyond words.  The full-power crew and the chiba crew brought us much stoke, the community is extremely small here but their mentalities trump anything I've experience over the world.  Sweeping hills clean, multiple walkie-talkies and an overriding sense of respect for all, especially the environment, its refreshing..  I wish these people could take over the Brisbane scene, perhaps the grommies would learn some respect and the power of wisdom.