wow, some serious blog neglect has been going on here.
so much to say, but so little energy for typing.
okay, so let's start with glass, yeah, yeah that'll work...
okay, GLASS was the bomb, with a capital G. I had so much fun. it started out a little sketchy. i arrived at the airport in T.O. and no one was there to greet me. i called tom and he was like "umm, yeah, i'm late so i'll be there as soon as possible! just hang out for a bit..." i was hoping for it to start with a bang instead of having to let the wick burn right to the end. it turned out to be for the best though...
i went and changed outta my plane cloths and wandered around, hacked a butt or 2 and then as i was going up an escalator saw tom looking around. i wa greeted with "Holy Fuck, It's Andrew Grant!" and that's always nice to hear. hand shakes and backslaps around and then he said we had to hustel up and get to the car, since it was illegally parked and dan feary was fending off the parking police.
and a piss poor job of it he was doing too. turns out he was "reading a book" or something and "didn't even notice" the guy writing a ticket and slipping it under the wiper blades. well tom yelled at the dewd about it being a pick-up/ drop off zone and he was picking some one up, but it didn't work and he got stuck with a $25 ticket. dan is alot younger then i though, i thought he was my age, and that it would suck for him not to get into the pubs, but it all worked out (i'll get to that later). i wish i had pink cloths like him, but i don't think i could carry it off with out looking really gay.
i forgot how much i hate driving on the 401. tom is a sketchy driver, but didn't acctually lose control. he did lock his brakes so he could make the right exit though...
Tom is such a one track mind, it's not even funny. there are big electronic signs on the 401 that describe the weather, driving conditions and tom absolutly screamed "SMOG! HAHAHA!!! LIKE IN FOOTBAG!!! SMOG!!!" when the air quality report came up on one. i laughed and laughed!
I was trying to get some good shots of the CN tower while the 3 of us were driving around. i was in the back and couldn't really line anything up right through the teeny tiny rear windows, so eventually tom said "Hey Guys, you wanna just put the TOP DOWN?!?!" at a stop sign we threw it down and cruised around for a while as i rolled some random video. it was such a nice change to be at like -1 instead of -40, sooo very warm for me. it felt like summer! tom showed me where jamie thomas busted the huge nose manual to drop off in the "Misled Youth" video that used the same music i used in my second worlds video. for a second there i got really dreamy about skating again, then snapped back to reality and remembered that i was here for a bomb ass foobag comp that was about to explode!
we rolled by much music head quarters and i though as a promotional thing for GLASS we should shred outside the windows with a big sign while they were shooting MOD or something.
we got hungry and wound up going to some market square for some eats. tom and i could bearly contain our excitment and were kicking in line while we were waiting for our gyro pita wraps. tom busted pdx whirl both sides and i threw down some pdx blenders and rip walks. we had trouble finding a place to sit and wandered around for a while. sat down on some stairs, were almost trampled, and then found a table. general footbag talk going around, stitching talk, yada yada yada, the tom screams "HEY, we're eating GYROS!!!! HAHAHAHA" i nearly choked and then in a rather loud voice said "this is the last time i sit at a table with strangers," and tried to disasociate my self from the other 2 jokers.
we cruised around for a bit, pumped my "Fourkast/ Shred Video" sound track and waited behind a taxi for about 15 minutes infront of union station. we had to pick up jon at 3:00 or something. tom, dan and i kicked out front in full gear. i managed to bust a couple 5's and a 6 in full gear which was pretty exciting. jon arrived and we played with his monster bag, it's like 3 inches in diameter, and kicked really well. if there was one thing i picked up in europe that got me stoked (as opposed to the things i picked up that made me have to use blue soap) it was a solid repatior of 4 square tricks. we played a quick game to 5 i think, and once i got in the kings square i finished it. thank you team france.
we headed down to the hostel and tom pointed out some more stuff to us here and there. he had trouble finding, it because of a map change and numerous unlisted one way streets and cursed Adam Dexter (dope shirt design by the way!) and Camille for changing it, but we got there eventually. the numbers on the street didn't exactly correspond with the buildings. 288 was right across from 245 and 281, the hostel address, was up on the next block. odd, very odd. we walked in, handed over 40 bones, and got our room keys. the place smelled like chinese food, but in a good way.
pretty much as soon as the bags hit the beds, shred broke out. and i had left my stuff in toms car, so i tried to play in my i-paths, then in jon's 520's, then barefoot, then i bitched and moaned about my lack of gear untill tom said i was a cry baby and would go get my stuff with me if it meant i would stop being a cry baby. i said i might help, unless i started shredding poorly and he said we would cross that bridge when we got to it.
i remember tom called Andrew W (whom shall be referred to hence forth as ADub) to see when the big shred was going down. we had a few runs more then went back to toms car and headed down to the shred spot. tom went around the wrong side of some toll booth and the guy started waving his arms so tom stopped. the guy started saying something to tom about parking on university property, when he cut him off and asked where some building was, the guy pointed and said "over that way but-" "great thanks!" says tom and peels out. some one, i think jon, was asking tom what building he was looking for and tom says "oh i knew where it was, i just wanted to have soomething to say to him instead of looking like a total idiot" we all cracked up.
shred got underway and was met ADub, who had run across the street to meet us and tell us we were in the wrong spot, but as i turned out it was some random circle kickers. he then raced back over when he saw us up in the windows. we invited them over, kicked with them for a bit, gave them the details for the comp and so on and never saw them again. i hope they get into it and contact some one. so far i'm like 2/800 for attracting shredders to freestyle, so i doubt it...
any way, i don't really remember when people started rolling in or in what order but i remeber johnny and Adam coming in, because i had been looking forward to meeting johnny for so long, adam greenwood, rochester up in there, yax came at some point but didn't kick. oh, i remember the ottawa crew arriving with the kingstonians at the end and then us getting kicked out right after.
shred was cool, and it was pretty intense. i played for about 4-5 hours with a couple smoke breaks. i remember johnny asking if i always played so hardcore or something, and i followed it up with "do you always play so good?" he really impressed me, so both sided and such creative links. i can't really remember any links, but i remember saying to my self at the time "wow, that was a creative link!" Matt was still getting over mono, but was busting pretty well. i have very vague memories of kicking with matt at worlds, so i have nothing to compare it too, but he seemed to be playing well for some one who was sick. i'd love to see him bust out when he was feeling 100%.
i kicked in a cirlce with johnny and jon for the beginning of the night, and later we all kinda dispersed. i remember thinking "i should be filming some of this stuff, but i'm having alot of fun, and my knee isn't hurting, so i'll just keep playing" which was good and fun, but i really feel like i missed out on alot of the most hardcore stuff from alot of people... some people were going balls out, and i missed out on the filming. i had alot of fun tossing props out and busting and having fun, so i'm, not about to lose any sleep over it.
after being kicked out we managed to find out way to the peel pub where the nights party was to be. Yax and i had some interesting banter back and forth ( "hey andrew, i've always meant to ask you... what the fuck is your problem?" at which point i acted all offended and stormed out with all my stuff. i went around the corner to hack a butt and about 2 minutes later yax came out to see if i had left. turns out he felt bad. i had to laugh at him coming out to see if i had left, but it turns out his jokes have been taken the wrong way in the past.) and talked alot of shop, knocked back some beers and just chilled out. he wasn't feeling good so he took off early to get some rest (<---rest was not had. he got so sick!).
once people had had a few drinks they forgot about being in an establishment and started kicking. a staffer comes over i figured we were getting kicked out, but they want to offer us some space upstairs to shred in. we gladly take it and every one runs upstairs, puts on shred gear, and starts busting out (or busting out as well as a bunch of drunks can) i was not drunk enough to be sloshing around, but just drunk enough to not have the motor skills to hit consecutive ripwalks or play basic guiltless. johnny wasn't drunk which i thought was unfair, but those are typical drunken man-i'm-getting-so-owned-by-this-sober-guy thoughts. i stepped back, blew the dust off my camera and rolled some film for a while. i got some awesome shots that will apear in a video some time soon(ish maybe not all that soonish).
Edit i totally forgot that a whole bunch of people didn't pay for their drinks and food at the pub. there was $98 dollars outstanding that hadn't been payed for. Adam Czarnata stepped up and payed for all of it. i had a couple glasses from a pitcher and a guiness, so i tossed him 20 bucks to help cover the cost. i am sure glad that some one did it. because i really really didn't have the cash to throw down, even if i was going to be repaid. i hope the people who didn't pay the first night hooked adam up, because that would be a pretty shitty way to thank some one for keeping the pub owners from busting out the louisville slugger and giving us the beat down. huge props go to Adam C for stepping up.
we all went back to the hostel and chilled in our rooms. we partied down, mosher did like a footbag stitching tutorial, matt ripped some guitar and lots of fun was had. tom, johnny, jon and i went back to our room and bugged the fuck out of sick tired yax (<--- on video
). the party continued on untill some poor japanese guy stumbled into the room to find a bunch of stinky guys sewing shit, stinking like bud, rocking booty shorts and worst of all, sitting on his bed. he was pretty freaked out, but we told him that yes, he was in the right room, and no, not every one was going to be staying in here. that pretty much closed down the night. i vaguely remember doing some other stuff befor going to bed, but most of it was tired mindlessbanter. we bugged yax some more, and i was pretty much asleep in my boat bed (it had a huge dip in the middle of it and really hurt my back). day one was over but glass had only just begun...
stay tuned for the further updates of andrew at GLASS.
same glass time, same glass channel.
A.G.
Marita really really wants to go back to Europe (I've never been) so maybe we will go touring in a few years -- it looks soooo fun!!
cool stuff..
