ANTICS | CLAIMING BACK THE CITY

TOUR DE ARNHEM WEST

Antics — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:10:37 +0000

Last Monday Jaap and I went out for a skate. We first tried to skate this spot in town but people were working there so we decided to directly move on to the other thing we wanted to do. Have a look through Heijenoord, Het Dorp and the other surrounding neighbourhoods there. Fucking alley spotting right here…
Jaap found a bike, with a flat tire, on the way and since my bike has a pretty big bend in the front wheel I was on my cruiser. So Jaap give me his fold up bike and he rode the fucked up found one.
We went to get something to eat and drink at this little supermarket in Het Dorp and guess what we found… Cara Pils! This one is for Derk and his homies he went to Brussels with.
Ended up at these flat rails again, but it’s the second time someone tried to skate it now and they’re just so difficult! Maybe Boris can take care of these fuckers?!
Pretty funny double set… But again nothing that we actually felt like skating. So after biking around a little more we ended up back in town and tried to skate the spot we wanted to go to first but got kicked out after 10 minutes. Bummer, but sometimes just biking through Arnhem can be pretty nice as well, like on this sunny and warm day. Just enjoying our beautiful city!

NOTHING SPECIAL

Antics — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:25:47 +0000

Last Saturday started nice and sunny, so I had my breakfast on the balcony and tried to get a crew out. But not many people seemed to be to keen to skate that day and it turned out that only Dennis, T and I were skating.
Paths to….
bails.
Skated this spot pretty much all afternoon and later on Hugo came by for a short session too.

A NICE GOODBYE

Antics — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:38:25 +0000

When Hendrik was in town we tried to skate that Wednesday afternoon, as he was taking the bus back to Paris later that night. Just as we got to Willemsplein it started raining, that’s The Netherlands saying goodbye to Hendrik and hoping he’ll have fun in Paris.
Two days later I went out with Jaap, Eric, Sven and Harmen but not much happened that day. Jaap tried to skate this rail but it didn’t really work out, so we went to this other spot around the corner and ended the session there.

FIRST DAY BACK

Antics — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:12:09 +0000

Last week Tuesday, my first day back home. The colours of Sonsbeek looked beautiful, very bright and hard. Certainly would miss this view when I move away from this room.
My parents brought some of my old boards over, about 10 Chocolate boards. “Strictly Street” came from an old Aeon sticker of Alex Carolino flipping over one of those Paral-lel benches.
The old wood was for Job, to make some things out of for his last school project. He came to pick up half the pile that Tuesday evening and we then went for a skate.
On our way to town we ran into Hugo, who’s working full time now and making some good moola! Crazy enough we were just talking about him, wondering if he was still working as we could not get hold of him. Happy to see that G again!
We didn’t even really get enough time to warm up before it started raining, so we shelter from the rain and then when it stopped we cruised to Jaap and Batsi their place in Klarendal.
Hendrik came to town two days before my return and he was still in town, which was definitely a nice surprise! Had the idea to go on an adventure that night but some people left early and the others smoked some joints, drank some booze and we watched some funny videos.
Pretty good first day, except for the part that I didn’t even get to sleep in and had to go to The Hague to drop off some Super 8 film at the lab.

SUBBIECREW VIDEO #3

Antics — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:05:31 +0000

I think it was about three weeks ago that our friends from Amsterdam premiered their third skate video, entitled “Subbiecrew en ander tuig” (=Subbiecrew and other scum). As updated on the blog, Jaap, T and I came over from Arnhem to see it right there at the premier! This week it’s ‘Subbiecrew-week’ over at Tagsters, so there will be heaps of photos and sequences. But what we were all of course looking forward to is the actual video! Well, the first parts are online and above you can see the intro, the crew in Paris and a shared part featuring Jappie & Zeppie.
Below you can see them killing it in Germany and Hendrik, T and I are even featured in the friends section.

Enjoy this very raw video with a great soundtrack, that I have actually contributed a bit of footage too as well.

GOODBYE SHANGHAI

Antics — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:29:24 +0000

It’s a week ago that I left Shanghai, the train took us to the airport in 8 minutes, going 400 km an hour.
It seems like the time I’ve been back has just gone as fast as that train. It’s sad when it feels like trips like these are ages behind you, while it is only a week. From the moment you drive back into Arnhem you feel like you’ve never been away from here.
Russian instruction video… I don’t know what sort of filter they used on this video but damn, it was shit as hell. On my way back from Shanghai to Moscow I had the luck of having a fucking screen and watched all Godfather movies in a row. Yes, I indeed never saw them before. Food was still shit but at least it was a newer plane, but the flight from Moscow to Amsterdam was in some small old plane again, without a screen.

But anyway, I’m really looking forward to going on a skate trip to Shanghai some day! And as they’re building so much new stuff I bet that next time there’ll be even more to skate!
Thanks again to my girlfriend for getting me over to Shanghai and for the good times.
Can’t wait to see you back ‘home’ in The Netherlands. Thank-you-presents are waiting.

SHANGHAI: DAY 9

Antics — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:14:36 +0000

My last full day in Shanghai, the last day of walking into crazy spots every 100 metres, the last full day with my girlfriend until she comes back to The Netherlands on Go Skateboarding Day.
Lauren took me out for a nice brunch at this Kiwi cafe and I enjoyed the “Big breakfast”, taking me back to the good times in New Zealand!
Another recommendation for when you’re in Shanghai…
After brunch Lauren and I went for another nice walk and came across this slightly downhill line of ledges, that again seemed untouched by Shanghai’s skate scene.
Fake beaches….
After a break at home we went for another big walk, down South, towards the river, which we could not get close to as it was an industrial area that we found ourselves in.
Last year or something Shanghai held the World Expo and all these fucking huge buildings seemed to have been built for it.
If that ‘five trips’ outside Europe thing would ever happen I’m definitely coming back here to capture some flags on Super 8. I like the view of many flags together… It has got something but I yet don’t know what.
Wanna skate flat all day? This seems to be your spot, hardly anyone around (at least not on a Sunday afternoon) and a long stroke of smooth asphalt.
This area was weird, all the industrial things and weird architecture.. it seemed dead over there, weird in a city with 23 million inhabitants!
This seemed like some university, with a nice brick wheelie pad right there in the middle.
More wheelies/ledges, behind the fence.
The car completely ruined this photo that I took of those ledges there behind the fence and the man on his fully loaded bike.
Anyway, these are the ledges I tried to point out. I think you’d get kicked out here, but if you have a local with you they’ll probably shake off security real easy.
That night we went back to the alleys and had a nice last dinner.

Definitely prefer that Sunday over today’s Sunday. No one seems to be skating, to my disappointment, as the weather’s pretty nice and sunny today! Trying to finish my business plan assignment for school and I have to work at 5. Might bomb a hill soon, or not, we’ll see… I know one thing and that is that every time I come back ‘home’ I’m thinking fuck The Netherlands. Gotta make some money and get the fuck outta here!
Hendrik, I’ll be visiting you as soon as I get the smallest chance!

M..M..MAGENTA!

Antics — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:12:01 +0000

The new Magenta boards came in at Frisco while I was away. Looking good, so let your local shop get theirs through Frisco Distribution!
Shipped with the boards were the “Meanwhile” DVDs, been waiting for this one for a while! It might be short, but it certainly is good!
And to finish off this update, Magenta expanded the team and has conquered another part of this world. Quick footed Koichiro from Japan is the new addition and the Magenta team is actually in Japan right now, filming with Yoan. Will it be a new Capsule or will it be for Minuit #2?!

SHANGHAI: DAY 8

Antics — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:08:26 +0000

Saturday, Lauren and I finally got to spend a full day together again and so we walked all around town for ages, bumping into many spots. One of them are these wheelies in Xintiandi, imagine them in Super 8, with that fountain on the background.
Fire hydrants for the kids!
We’d skate this in Arnhem, while most people walk right past it in Shanghai and many other cities.
While people who come to The Bund look at the skyline of Pudong, I got distracted by these good looking benches – imagining Tailslides and Noseslides all the way, perhaps flip out.
As we walked on I got to look at the skyline for a second,
but then again got distracted by another spot.
Walking through one of Shanghai’s mainstream shopping streets I spotted these very nice looking marble ledges! The fucking whole street is full of them, and I didn’t see any that were skated!
Ollie up the pad and then an ollie in the bank. Looks like spot with potential to me!
Same goes for this wheelie and that weird ledge in the background though.
Shanghai is really just full of crazy spots, and with all the new buildings being added it will be even better for skateboarding in a year, cause these skyscrapers are build fast nowadays!
The signs might have said no skateboarding, but this shit is in some sort of park and no one’s gonna see ya or call the cops on you anyway. And even if people kick you out, when you keep skating a spot here it seems like they actually don’t give a shit but just tried to kick you out anyway.
After a huge walk we went all the way up to the 27th floor or Lauren’s apartment building, obviously not by foot. Pretty good view from up there,
and the flats opposite look even bigger. One nice thing about Shanghai is that it is not (yet) full of tall buildings. There might be plenty but I had expected more. So when you’re up high, you can still enjoy the good views instead of looking at the building opposite the street. But I really wonder what it will be like in a year, or in 3 years. There seems to be so much building going on at the moment and I know that more will follow. Should come back again in a few years and take a photos from up here again and see the difference.

SHANGHAI: DAY 7

Antics — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:21:19 +0000

Friday morning, after waking up to some coffee I went out and filmed for an hour or two at an intersection on He Fei Lu, the road between Lauren’s apartment and work. Super excited to see the results of what I filmed. I also filmed a roll at night and I’m gonna let it be pushed (longer developing process that makes the film brighter), would be mean if it would work out alright!
After meeting Lauren for lunch I got myself a beer and hung around the weird Xintiandi park.
Before walking the streets for hours and grabbing some street sweets on my way.
I wish you could get this piece of cake in The Netherlands, on the streets for 50 euro cents!After my long walk and Lauren’s day of work we enjoyed a beer at Jackie’s Beernest again. Lauren got the best bottle – a “Lucky Beer”, google it.Ridiculous spot, look at those nice banks in the background as well!
Just a little further on, beautiful ledge perfect for your Frontside Boardslides. Shanghai seems to have so many untouched spots that gotta lose their virginity! Antics trip to Shanghai, when?!