The Blue painted picnic table

An old man approaches the blue picnic table and it is clear he is wanna and gonna talk to us about us skating the blue picnic table. This hasn't happen to us in years because nobody really knows skating, people look at us skating and are like what the hell are they doing??? Sometimes they like it and start talking to us about how they used to skateboard as well....and i'm always not interested in whatever words these people spill
This guy didn't knew about skating either  but also didn't care, all he cared about was the blue painted concrete picnic table. My friend didn't want to start any discussion but I wanted to skate this blue picnic table so i did.

The man was like "blablabla" and I was like "bla you"and then he started pointing out chips on the picnic table at a spot where we could not skate the table. He saw us skating the table and still pointed out the wrong spot....I pointed out the spot where we actually skated the picnic table and showed him how smooth it was without any chips and explained that the chips and damage would make the skating harder.
At this moment I felt I had to teach this 70 year old man about physics and told him about how concrete is harder than plastic and the picnic table is actually chipping and destroying my skates but you don't see me knocking on your door about your blue picnic table?
The man wanted us to stop skating the blue picnic table and I asked "why"? He said things like "bla" and "blabla" and I asked him if it would really keep him awake at night? Do you wake up screaming in the middle of the night: "not the blue picnic table!!!!!!! Nooooo!!!!"
I don't get it? The man is practically dead and he  worries about the blue picnic table which he probably never uses just like all the other people except for Mohamed because he carved his name in the table a couple times.

It's also an Amsterdam North thing, the old man wasn't the only one complaining when he left another guy came over and told us it's wrong what we did, when he left a woman came along, she said nothing but she made pictures of us for evidence!!! It's very frustrating living there because it's not considered Amsterdam and that frustration boils up the longer you live there.  To release this frustration one of the things you can do is complain and so this fucker did. Both men asked us if we lived here and my answer was: "No we live in Amsterdam"

Sleep? USWA?

A week ago USWA started and what a weekend it was! It started Thursday afternoon and since then we skated 4-6 hours a day, four days in a row! We also drank beer for 6 hours a day and I slept 4 hours every night so the preparation for the contest was solid. Someone, let’s call him “Sexy boy!” also incorporated a couple hours of sex in there every night which was extracted from the hours of sleep. “Sexy boy!” is now one of my heroes because he still killed it in the Spine-mini and the Park, if people only knew, he would have definitely won both contests! But enough about “Sexy boy!” back to the more serious part of the weekend, the USWA park contest. The USWA, Urban Sports Week Amsterdam was mainly at museum plein with two skate parks, a nice spine mini ramp and the craziest two dirt jumps for the BMX-riders! 

Pictures stolen from Facebook Thijs Tel, Bachir and myself

Tom Selbeck said it was really easy and than he showed me how it's done with a big 360!!!                              photo: dooley

Thursday was practice and registration, Friday was the qualification and surprisingly I made it to the finals for Sunday???? To be honest I was actually really happy about it because I wanted to skate the park all by myself and this is only possible during the 45 seconds run in the contest. The park is amazing and all the competitors were killing it! The vibe was good and everybody juiced each other to skate better and so we did!

All the skaters were amazing, the youngsters are always excited and juiced to skate! In this case, all the skaters were youngsters compared to me because the MC reminded everybody that I was the oldest competitor in the contest so it did not matter what I did, I was old and it was a fucking miracle I could still skate! So I did and it was great!

Can't go wrong with swim shorts                                                                                                                      photo: Thijs Tel

jep                                                                                                                                                                       photo: Thijs Tel

The best thing was to skate with all the boys and get energy from them to skate even better. I got so many props, high fives, and even hugs because my run was pretty good, gotta love them. What made the weekend even better was seeing every skater skating with a big smile and encourage each other to skate better and give props! Even the first generation skaters came to watch the contest and screamed their hearts out when Jelle Briggeman did his crazy front flip and Roman Abrate did his double flat spin (best trick!). 

Jaro Frijn at the spine mini ramp flying high                                                                                                       photo: Thijs Tel

Jelle just grinding                                                                             photo: Thijs Tel

Jeremy Suarez with a stylish spin                                                      photo: Thijs Tel

Sem is High!                                                                                                                                                       photo: Thijs Tel

                           Photo: RhoeLLL

Skating with this bunch was so much fun, pro-skaters, European-champions, Pro-freestyle winners, amateurs, kids and Remix who killed the spine-mini! This weekend we were one big happy family and I believe we already were a family or even better friends who love skating, family by skating.

Family

Miss Murth

I'm back but more importantly Murth is back! She is reunited with Amsterdam West, New West in this case but she approves it! A lady of wisdom with her 12 years of life experience and she's been places, had some friends, lost some too but she's still going strong. From Amsterdam to the USA, from the US to London (with a stopover at Zurich for a fucking week) and now back in Amsterdam.

I'm still impressed by this all but she definitely is not, we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan multiple times on the bike,  we stayed in Brooklyn with our good friend Natasha and walked in Prospect Park. We also had the best place in Queens thanks to our good friend Justin.  To show her the real America and it's beautiful nature we went to Deer Isle in Maine next to Ocean and canoed from island to island, we even saw bald eagles! Nothing, it did not raise her eyebrows once! We tried the snow in New Hampshire but it only got her eyebrows frozen.

Winne (RIP) and Miss Murth at The Dean Hotel to have some coffee at Bolt and some dog cookies from the hotel people.

All Miss Murth needs is a walk to pee, poo and some food to keep doing this. Where ever she pees or poops or eat it does not matter to her. Next to the food she needs some hugs and sweet words and she is good to go. Sometimes I should maybe sit down and listen to her because she seems to know how it works. Murth looks at me as most people without dogs do, like "really?!"

Really, Miss Murth is back on the block!

Back on the block! The BMX dirt jumps are around the block and Murth loves it!!!

Back

HOLA, I wrote this a while ago (months) and I wasn't sure if I should post this but I wanna start this blog again and I want Jesse to know and read this. Here we go!

Like Jenny, I'm back on the block, back on my blog... maybe, I should be, I like this, writing.

But yeah, I'm back, back in Amsterdam, back home, back from RI (the smallest but the best state in The US!). The US was a dream full of floating and cruising around on all kinds of wheels, coffee, and donuts and I miss it! Actually Them, I miss them, all the good people I met, friends, homies. 

Now I'm back with both feet on the ground. The ground is harder than expected. 

At least where I landed the ground didn't bounce but slammed me into this new life although it's still the same life but it changed. I landed and slammed into a change. 

During my thirty fucking seven years, things changed and happened. Looking back at these changes and happenings, I realized how ridiculous my life is. Even more ridiculous I'm still living it. 

A ridiculous life in which I broke a sink of the wall in a bar just because I was drunk and slammed empty beer bottles into the ground because they were empty. 

A ridiculous life in which a stripper signed a card with a sharpie hold tight with her pussy and made me eat a banana out of the same pussy. 

A ridiculous life in which we trashed the trailers that Redbull provided us during the Redbull downhill weekend! 

A ridiculous life in which we ended up at a drum and bass party in a dodgy back alley of Barcelona. We thought it was fun to take the skater kids to the party until we lost one in an alley with transvestites (no worries we found him by now). A ridiculous life in which Mc Donald's is boring unless you start a food fight!! A ridiculous life in which I raced around Paris on a track bike like an idiot!!! 

This idiot grew older and continues this ridiculous life by doing ridiculous things that only affects the idiot itself. Only me ....... Jesse has been a big part of this life, racing with me through Paris (fixed), walking three pugs and from time to time kick my drunk ass. Jesse decided to continue her life without me and I and Murth are gonna rule this change in my (our) life. A change I didn't ask for but happened....

Jesse, you changed my life at this point and I'm sad about it. This is one shitty change but you gave me at least thousands of positive changes in my life for which I can't thank you enough. I cry a lot but I admit to it. Life is beautiful you showed me how beautiful.

Our lives are ridiculous, really ridiculous, the things we have seen and done in only 12 years. My parents together have not even seen a third of what we have seen, forget about the doing part. The divorce meant losing you but I only think about what I won in all the years we spent together. These 12 years were one big win.

Miss you and wish you all the best

Ik hou je

More Morocco, the Fußball edition

Busy blading so that's why I'm lacking updating the blog.. then again who the fuck reads this anyway.
Morocco and soccer, in Imminwargh they played soccer every sunny day after work or whatever they do. Every day around 5 they play soccer, all ages and the local Iman is a pretty good player too! They are passionate about it and they only need a flat surface and an ok ball with or without air, it doesn't matter, games on!!!! 

Another thing they don't need is grass or shoes for that matter, flip flops work just as good or even barefoot.  At one of the shops they sell full plastic soccer shoes and the kids use this but not only for soccer, no, for walking around, working on land, houses, just use them. 



Look at how beautiful my technique and approach is to make a goal, yeah ok the kids are smaller and not as talented as I am but I needed some training for the five O'clock league!!

and of course I killed it! I scored!!! 

Look at Mo on the right, he knows they are lost, I'm the best!

I really wasn't that good, seconds before the panna....

As a really untalented soccer player, i played a couple games with the big boyz and from that day they always asked me to join their league and it was awesome!! Some really talented guys, some sceamers and some grandpa's to cover the defense. It was hilarious because of that one screamer who screamed "like that blond lady with big boobs before she dies in that horror flick" to make it clear to his team mates, he was open and ready to take the ball. It was also serious because of the score and at the same time funny because it's alot of sounds going around discussing the goal and all I know is "begher" which means "how are you" which definetly wasn't the question about the goal. Miss these guys, definitely on of the reasons for me to go back to Imminwargh!

Inshallah? Morocco!!! Part trois

Morocco, sounds sunny, it's in Africa, there's desserts, camels and cactuses. All the ingredients for hot, sunny weather, still people dress likes it's a harsh East coast January and they expect 6 feet of snow.

My fußball buddy in Imminwargh, Speedermaan! Hot weather but he was wearing his Spiderman sweater so I called him spiderman. English isn't his language at all so he pronounced it as Speedermaan and so Speedermaan it was. He passed our garage every day on his donkey on his way to the water source just around the corner. He is a little comedian passing us just laying on his donkey or sitting backwards and stopped at our place to play some fußball. Speedermaan is actually called Mohamed but then again every first son is called Mohamed so calling him Speedermaan made it more clear who I was talking to. 

Ok, the first couple days we had cold nights as expected close to the dessert and some horrible rainy days and even snow, especially on top of the mountains. Mainly we had hot sunny days, still people were walking around in thick ass down jackets, beanies and sometimes even rabbit fur collars on their hoodies....

This is how we travelled most of the time, everybody actually. Busses, trucks or even animal transport there was always room for you to tag along. Bus full? No next to the suitcase on the rooftop there was plenty of room, you wanna wait for the next bus.....next day??? 

Traditionally the men wear jelabba's which to me is nothing more than a rope without the ability to open because it simply has non besides the openings for the head and both arms. The jelabba, not easiest thing to do your daily busines in but it seems comfy? Then again the men still wear their regular clothing underneath the jelabba which I would get rid off if the jelabba would come into fashion. The jelabba covers the entire body so why bother wearing more than a jelabba? Freeballing, commando or whatever is the way to go wearing a jelabba, in my opinion.

Is it a jelabba, is it a rope, is it Yann or a real Berber? 

It's Yann in a jelabba wearing pants, no boxers! 

Another fashion item in Morocco is the scarf for men very comparable to the women's scarf (hoofddoek). The scarf is something I fully appreciate and the men have many different ways to wrap it around their head, maybe it's a pecking order thing, I don't know but it looks cool. To me the scarf had a "separate the boys from the men" vibe to it.

Scarf and boxers, that's how I roll.

The women's fashion in the Atlas mountains is a different cup of tea, they got the the scarfs, lots of colors going on and not thought through or mabe not to western poluted eyes like mine... Women also wear some sort of jelabba's but most of them rock the real rope as a real piece of clothing. In the kitchen of the hostel a lady was preparing our tajine in a red white striped rope... Women walking around town, getting water in their colorful ropes and carrying their babies on their back with a Mickey mouse beach towel. Nobody really cares or judges as long as it works that's all they need. In Imminwargh there is TV, internet and they get the latest news on whatever but they got a good thing going on here in town. They have a clean water source (tastes way better than Providence tap water) , goats for the tajine, mint for the tea, oranges for the C and donkeys for transporting whatever or themselves.

The Berbers/Amazighs don't seem to worry allot about shit, figuratively and literally speaking, I call it the "Inshallah" culture. Inshallah means something like: "If Allah wants it to happen, it will happen". To me "Inshallah" sounded more like "we'll see" or "who knows" and sometimes "don't fucking count on it". According to my buddy Yann the word "Inshallah" was pretty serious. Then again "Inshallah" never really sounded that comforting when asking for example, "so the bus will pick us up at 5 tomorrow?", "see you down the river with water and food?" or "next week the toilet is installed?". The answer was always "Inshallah" with a big colgate smile, not the whitening toothpaste though. No worries or Inshallah, they seem to enjoy live, drink sweet mint tea, eat delicious tajine, cruise around on a 0.8 HP donkey and play soccer!

Morocco prt deux

Oui oui!
Day whatever, allot of impressions, I didn't even try to keep a daily diary, speaking of diary. I had diaree for a day and no toilet, a dream combo of two very related things in western life. At this point I was very sick of camping without a fucking toilet in the middle of a small town...

http://www.berberraftingadventures.com/

Imagine four very hungry guys eating big tajine's, a tajine is a Berber dish consisting of meat/chicken, potatoes, veggies and you are using loafs of bread as eating utensils...scooping and digging out the tajine. So at one point these ingredients will have to leave our bodies and at that same point we have to leave these processed ingredients somewhere....

Our first night we stayed at Aisha and Mohamed. Aisha made us this incredible tajine! Best welcome to town and the most friendly people, love Imminwargh.

Let me remind you, we were staying in a small town (Imminwargh), people are living everywhere, oh and wild dogs are not on a leash and therefore free to grab your lower leg. Long story short, pissing was easier, we marked our territory to let the wild dogs know who's the new boss in town!



The main reason for our stay in Imminwargh is the Ahansel river and to ride this baby with a raft! I can now sum up all these facts about low water, rapids, snow and rising water. To be honest I have no clue other then melting snow creates a river and the river cuts a beautiful canal through the land.

Our view if we stepped out of the garage where we stayed, never got bored with or without snow.

Born and raised in Alkmaar these these landscapes with wild rivers are pretty and pretty unreal... the nature is its own architect. The canyons and mountains seem to be build literally brick by brick, trees and bushes find a way of settling between and the goats are keeping the greens short at hardest reachable places, eat that Rob Verlinden (some Dutch TV gardener, nobody really knows).

Chardonnay, not so wild.

Crew, Yann ( the peanut colored guy), Fabiano (coffee bag hat) and James