Archive for the 'Travel' Category
Up at CMH right now shooting a segment for Warren Miller. Been snowy so been skiing a lot of pow in the trees. This is a shot of Andy Mahre in front of the heli and the fire that our pilot Roger builds for us everyday during lunch. Yes, this place is awesome. Be here til Sunday then headed straight to Vancouver for the Olympics to commentate on Freestyle for NBC. Bummed that Daron Rahlves got hurt at X games. Have not heard the final prognosis.
I ran into the legendary Franz Klammer during the world cup at Beaver Creek. I love watching his Olympic run from 1976 in Innsbruck when he won the Olympics. Check out the ruts in the course and minimal fencing in the video below.
I always liked “Loveline” when it was on MTV. Dr. Drew was cool and provides a great service to people. It was very hard to try to be entertaining while dealing with peoples’ messed up situations. I learned a lot. I could ask Dr. Drew questions all day. He skis so we will get him out there one of these days. Here is a link to a small clip of us on the show: Loveline
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- Catching up with Rachel Hunter
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- Audrina from The Hills, check.
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- Powersliders crew (Kendra and Wee Man)
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- Smiley drummer Kim from Matt and Kim
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- World famous Ellismate
Since I talked to you last wednesday I have been on the road.
I was in LA for Levis for the 3rd annual Powersliders competition. That’s right powersliders. You’ve heard of it right? Probably not but you have done though in its beginner form. Sliding on your ass down railings is what you have done. Powersliding is what you have not done. Extreme ass sliding is what powersliding is. Levi’s built a massive powersliding terrain park at the Santa Monica pier in LA. They had a full on contest. The course was pretty gnarly. Huge and difficult with regards to sliding, plus there was a brisk wind. The powersliders went for it and it was sick! Check it online. I was judging with Kendra from the “Girls Next door” and Wee Man who I am convinced is the same volume as Kendra’s boobs. The band that played was this two man, actually one woman one man band called Matt and Kim. Matt plays keyboard and Kim plays drums and smiles a lot. I like them here they are on the Faction:
Matt and Kim
She is a pretty and punky chick who is super fit and wails on a modified small drum kit . She sings at the top of her longs in sync with Matt but she does not use a mic. At one point she stood on her base drum singing and pumping up the crowd. I loved her. Matt is tall and skinny and leads the band with the singing from behind the keyboard. He keeps the crowd fired up with his music and his story telling. In this particular show he explained how he had just gotten scabies. Crude but it was entertaining especially because it embarrassed Kim. I guess they are a couple. Bottom line is I had never heard of them or seen them and I was impressed. Great live show. Here is another band along those lines, with a song you may have heard:
MGMT song called kids.
My whole trip was a celebrity fest. I hung with Wee man who I had never met and is cool as shit. In my hotel I got a picture with Rachel Hunter who I always liked as kid. She is older now but still way hot. She looked like she was just running some errands but when I got the picture with here you could tell why she is a super model. Her face pops on camera of course. Later that day I was having lunch on the third st. promenade and I got a picture with Audrina from The Hills. She was cool, and looked the same as she did on TV. She was having lunch next to us with her sister or something. Then of course I spent the rest of the day with Kendra from “The Girls Next Door” where she played one of Hef’s girlfriends. I actually watched that show a bit back in the day and I liked her the best I guess because she was sporty. She is now engaged to a football player and has left the mansion . I asked her immediately if she banged Hef, but I never really got an answer. Wee Man was super cool and entertaining and the crowd loved him. He says he is rolling out some show right now but couldn’t tell what so stay tuned I guess. And to top it off on way home to the hotel I look over and it was none other than Jason Ellis. Ellismate was having some family time at a Mexican joint on the promenade. I rushed over to get my picture. He said no at first but eventually I convinced him by telling him I had a show on Faction which he was surprised to hear.
Modest Mouse:
I did a bit of surfing in LA which was nice, even though I was smoked after a half hour. My upper body is so out of shape, and the period of waves was super tight in Venice beach but at least I got er done. I was jonesing to play golf after watching the masters last weekend. Did you see that. poor guy choke. Kenny Perry was winning that thing. But that is golf for you. It has to be one the hardest sports to compete in because as you start to get on top you want to overanalyze everything. Here is a small analogy. The other day I had a really early flight and I had to make it because had a paid gig on the other end. When I got home the night before I was going through my plan. Wake up call from the hotel at 4:20 am and the alarm on my phone. Of course I get my phone and set the alarm and double check everything. Long story short I wake up and its light out and I know I am screwed. Miss my flight and everything. I did not get a wake up call which is lame but not my fault. But with regards to the alarm on the phone, I had reset the time an hour behind somehow. The clincher here is that I had been using that phone and the alarm everyday flawlessly until that point.
Or how about the two foot put in golf? Normally an easier shot but when the pressure is on you look at the put twice as hard as normal and grip that putter and sometimes hose yourself. I think it is mainly because you want to be able to look back and say “I did everything I could”, but in the end that doesn’t really matter when you lose unless you count your mental sanity as important which you probably should.
Right, ok, here are
The strokes.
Ok, so the rest of my trip. I flew from LA to San Diego, which took twice as long as if I would have driven with all the transitions etc. I was in SD in order to host ALT games. Essentially it is the College Action Sports Championships. College kids competing in Wakeboarding, Snowboarding, Skiing, Beach Volleyball, Eating, and the signature sport Flowboarding. I have talked about Flowboarding before when I tried it back in the day and got my ass handed to me. Serious whiplash. I have never seen a sport that looks so easy that is so hard. Basically, it is a standing wave created by shooting water out of jets at a padded structure shaped like a wave. It is called a “waveloch Flowbarrel” in case you want to look it up. It is located in San Diego at an outdoor bar on mission beach called the wavehouse. It is a great spot and it was packed all weekend. Spring break and the beach was just slammed. Shoulder to shoulder. Great people watching. Of course there were all the girls in bikinis, but my favorites were bodybuilders and their chicks. Bulging out everywhere and the best part was they never sat down on the beach. I was hosting the show doing a bunch of stand-ups with my co-host Adrianna costa, so we watched these weightlifters for awhile and they never sat down. In the evening, the flowboard finals were closed out with a show by Rebelution, a reggaeish band that has a incredibly large draw. People were packed out onto the beach where they could barely see the band. The cops were freaking out about it all. San Diego is pretty rowdy. Here is that band Rebelution:
That flight that I missed earlier was supposed to get me to Squaw for a party for all the passholders. I made it somehow and it was a perfect day at the top of the mountain by the pool. Hot and sunny. At the end of the day I skied down and had some beers at the Chamois. Skiing is still great up there right now and San Diego is nice but it is hard to beat a nice warm day skiing followed by some beers. Although the other day I did have at day the beach in Bolinas, here in Northern, and that was pretty sweet. 88 degrees, Not crowded, good little waves for long boarding, great scenery, crispy cold water and did not see any sharks. I bought a beach tent like sun shade, that I highly recommend. Especially if you have a kid, its like having a cabana at the beach.
Later everyone, here is some Michael Franti:
I missed you guys last week but I was slammed. We were filming in Tahoe for Warren Miller. Conditions were great. I had mentioned last week that we did some shooting in Squaw with Daron and Jamie but we got clouded over. The following days we hit Alpine meadows and did some early-ups on all parts of the mountain for a three days. We did some out of bounds stuff in Munchkins which was very cool. I had never been out there and was impresssed with terrain. A little sketchy but fun. When the snow socked in again we did a bunch of tight powder shots in the trees. It is really the only option when it socks in but some of the shots turned out great. Three or four pow turns here and there. When the weather cleared up we got Alpine really good. Cold powder out in Estelle bowl and we were able to ski some actual lines. After that we drove straight to Kirkwood to film in The Cirque, a rowdy part of the mountain that is permanently closed. The weather was clear and it was untracked but it was pretty boney. Lots of rocks just under the surface. I was pretty sketched out about but Daron Rahlves and Jamie sacked up and charged some big lines. As the day went on we skied more stuff around the cirque but Daron’s first line was definitely the highlight. He charged it through some sketchy sections and stuck it. I was really impressed. On the second day at the very end of the day we hike out to a place called emigrant aka California chutes. Emigrant is al arge face with probably about 1500 vertical and some good nasty features. We ran out there fast and Daron laid down another blaster. The only bummer was that about two minutes before Daron dropped in some other dude had hiked up from the other side and hit Daron’s line to a tee which sucked for filming purposes. He still diced it however and pretty much made one turn for every five of the other guy’s. D straightlined this chute that the other guy made ten turns in. I think it will still show well on camera. I skied another line but kind of slow and conservatively. The snow was money though. We did a ton of hiking over those five days and I was beat for three days. Every day I woke up fatigued. Slept well though. Rahlves has killer photos of the session on his site.
Sex pistols
I took some days off and went back down to Marin. My son and I took our skiff out every morning and cruised around the bay. He is 18 months and he loves it. He goes into the closet in the morning and brings out the life jacket and starts thrusting it towards me as he says “boat, boat”. He likes to ride up on top of the center counsel like a dog. We stop and check out all the seals and birds. Usually there are a lot of seagulls and pelicans but right now there are also some Canadian geese. I did not know they hung out here by the water. The seals look cool right now as well. They are kind of white with spots. The bay is really calm this time of year even though it is a bit damp. Jack does not seem to care if it rains or not he is still game.
I hit up Aspen for a day. I Stayed at the St Regis which is always nice. I was there skiing with the top sales people from company called Galderma. They make Cetaphil etcetera, I guess they I have a great sunblock that I am going to try. We tore up Ajax mountain even though the weather was not great. It was sleeting and foggy and miserable but the skiers put in a strong performance, skiing until the buzzer even though we soaking wet.
Blink 182
I also hit Stratton, Vermont last weekend. When I got there it was raining and starting to freeze. The parking lot at the restaurant was a double black diamond. The to car I was in got stuck on the flat a couple times. Walking was dangerous. The following day I skied with some guys who bought a day of skiing with me through a company I work with called Sentient Jet. The guys were cool and great skiers. The mountain was a lot better than I though it would be however I experienced two firsts: I had never seen a mogul run closed down because it was too dangerous due to the ice. Secondly I have never ducked a roped to get first tracks on corduroy while the cat was still grooming. I had a really good time skiing very fast. We hit some bumps and the park a bit which I was very impressed with. I was sure the park landing would break my heels but the groomers have it down to a science out there. I though it was my first time to Stratton but it turns out that I had been there before when the weather was foggy and clearly I was too back in 1998 right after the Olympics.
Wolf mother
It took me 14 hours to get home from Stratton to Tiburon and everything went smoothly. I could have gone Paris in less time. On both flights I sat in front of women that never shut up. The first flight I had t move, this woman was crazy. Even when the jet engine revved up she raised her voice to talk to the person across the aisle. I wanted to strangle her. She was in her fifties but she talked like a sixteen year old. In the second flight I had these two chicks behind me that chatted the whole time about he nothing but one of their friend’s husband and purple eyeliner. One kept giving the other one heat about how small her eyes were. I turned around to look at them and figured out that her eyes were small because her cheeks were like greatfruits due to the fact that she was carrying an extra 100 around. Travelling is a nightmare.
Green Day
Spent a few days in Utah. Skied Canyons early morning with a fa mily that won a day of skiing me with via a Sprint sweepstakes. The kid was good, so it was easy for me. We tore up the mountain. Text Snow to 7777 if you are interested in this one day. Canyons is a decent mountain. Lots of traversing around but it has some good stuff. We skied some trees which were fun. Snow was good, old pow, chopped up a bit but still soft. I was in Park City for the Freestyle world cup which consisted this time of moguls, dual moguls, aerials, and superpipe. Aerials was first night and and it was pretty exciting I must say. I am doing the color analysis for NBC so I was paying close attention to the event. Although Aerials can sometimes getting boring after awhile because everyone seems to be doing the same trick, I figured out that the best thing to do is pay attention to the competition. What I mean is that it is more exciting to look at the performance of the individuals under pressure. See if they choke or not. I guess this is what FIS/Olympic committee figures is a more universal attraction than the actual sport, because if they were concerned with the sport getting stale on its originality they would surely change the rules. More on this after we hear some Damien Marley:
With regards to judging we can look at the world cup superpipe. The event was held in Park City in one the world’s only 22 foot superpipe. Conditions were perfect and there was a good crowd. The field was strong but the big names were absent. Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont decided not show for whatever reason probably because SIA was the week before and X games was the week before, I am sure they were spent. I was a little surprised they laid off because the show is for NBC. The fact that is a world cup though does little for them because the event is not in the Olympics and won’tbe for quite some time, if ever. Prize money was good but not enough to motivate them if they were burnt.
However, X games champion Xavier Bertoni from France, Canada’s Mike Riddle and Colby West were on hand. Bertoni Qualified first but it would be his teammate Kevin Rolland who killed it in finals. Rolland had learned the whiskey flip in practice at X a week earlier and busted it out in the finals. The whiskey flip is essentially a double back flip with a 180 or what is know as a flare. Sick trick originally done by Peter Olenick. Kevin stomped that trick off the top hit huge and then rolled into a series of impressive combos including a super styley 1260 in the middle of the pipe with huge amplitude. I really liked his run. Xavier laid down a nice run too with a very cool flatspin which I really love even though it is only a 360 it is very difficult to do well from what I have seen and heard. But in the end Xavier was not boosting out like Rolland and did not have the double so Rolland took it, Xavier was third behind Walter Wood. I have to check that but I think that is right. Wally threw a 1440 at the end of his run which was the first one ever done in a contest. It was fun to watch, everyone was talking about the caliber of the competition. Colby West, an X games bronze medalist 3 times was somewhere around fifth or so. Speaking of judging, this is my point here, that pipe contests have five judges: amplitude, difficulty, execution and two overall impression judges which make up forty percent of the score. Overall impression is what moguls and aerials needs. Otherwise everyone just does the same thing over and over again because why wouldn’t if you got no extra points for originality?
More on this after we play some pennywise.
I told you Shaun was going to silence the critics. He was dominant in slope style, airing the channel and hitting the cannon. Todd Richards who is a great analyst, by the way, agreed with the judges on this one unlike Shaun’s halfpipe win. I am not knowledgeable enough to call the difference between Kevin Pearce’s run and Shaun’s so I will go with Richards on this one with one caveat. Shaun qualified first giving him the final run of the night and it is a fact in judged sports that judges cannot help giving out the bigger scores at the end and everyone knows this. In big events you pretty much have to win both runs period. In some sick way it my be the organic way to compensate for the extra pressure involved with running last versus the “got nothing to lose “ attitude of running early.
Also- The Loved Ones (punk) has a new ep out called Distractions
With regards to Simon and Jon in the Big Air obviously Jon’s DJ flip or whatever he calls it, a switch double rodeo, is way harder to learn and probably something Simon does not even do. That being said a double front flip is no fun to land either and most people, despite what they say have not done any of those either. For aerialists the double or trip front flip is the most consistently difficult to land and most dangerous trick in the book because it is blind (meaning you can’t see the landing between 180 and 270 degrees, the most critical time) and the consequences of over rotating are usually disastrous, like a broken neck bad. Jon should clearly be the winner in that contest but I think keeping the crowd involved with text judging is a good idea but there needs to be a panel similar to AI where experts weigh in on the performance before the vote. However, you will never get around the fact that Jon is Swedish which has been something he has lamented about for years. I have a dream, maybe with our new president there will be less prejudice against Swedish skiers in America. BTW if a double front flip won big air and they don’t change the format imagine if they invited a real aerialist off the world cup tour who could easily throw a triple front with multiple twists, or a triple back or even a quad back. Funny how the sport is rocketing towards a sport that already exists.
The Riverboat Gamblers (punk) are dropping a new cd in March
On to Skicross. Canadien Stanley Hayer won. Rahlves who had a great start which is unusual for him was in second in the beginning and clearly had slow skis, there is no question about it. The sticky snow created a tricky situation. For Daron to fall behind in the rhythm section can only be explained by wax. I read that Daron switched up skis with Puckett before the final for some reason which is unclear to me. Apparently he won all his heats before that on one pair of skis and then decided to make a change to another. What pisses me off about that is it is the same reason Daron lost the Olympics in Torino. The story I know is that Daron smoked the field in Qualifications and then decided to ski on some special skis that Bode had made for the final which Daron had tested only by freeskiing around the mountain. This decision making by Daron must keep him up at night, I know it makes me mad so it must really piss him off. Hopefully he will get it right for Vancouver.
Atmosphere- Re-released his first LP (God Loves Ugly) indie hip hop
The double backflip on the snowmobile may prove the point that it does not matter who wins and who loses, what matter is what they did. No one cares about anything in the Snow X contest this year besides Levi’s double back. No one could tell you who won the thing, This is what happened for me at both Olympics and it proves both ways how important what you do is in the context of going for the win.
And B Real from Cypress Hill has a new solo song called “Fire”
I was at Sundance during X Games . I skied Deer valley in the pouring sleet. I skied with the Mahre brothers and met Michael Phelps and Dara Torres because I was hanging out with some people from HP who are sponsors of the two athletes. I saw a good movie called “In the Loop” about the back and forth between the US and British goverment in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. I tried to see the band “ Nerd” at Harry O’s in Park City but hey were so obnoxiously loud that I had to leave, I guess I am getting old.
Also Rise Against
What else, I was in LA as a judge on a reality show which I can’t talk about because I will have to pay them a trillion dollars if I do but I met Sasha Cohen the figure skater who won a silver in Torino but is more famous because Shaun White had a severe crush on her which was made public. I asked her about it, here she is:
I wanted to ask her if she regretted now that he is such a big balller, I mean he is on the cover of Fast Company for crying out loud. I did not have the balls though. Same story as always in Fast Company, how he turns everything down blah blah. There was absolutely nothing interesting in the article. No numbers stats or figures. I don’t care about knowing how much Shaun makes but it is a biz mag and I would think they could provide some insight if only in percentages of Shaun’s impact. BS mag, I won’t buy it again.
Since I talked to you last I have been to NYC and Lake Placid in upstate NY. While I was in NY I Stayed at this awesome place called the NY Athletic club. It is a 21 story private club in NYC where almost every floor has some athletic set up. A pool on one floor and an indoor track over two basketball courts surrounded by a weight room on another in addition to fencing and judo rooms. It also has hotel rooms, a billiards room, card room, library, dining rooms and a pub. On floor is dedicated to its athletic heritage. A Hall of Fame honors all the Olympic champions and other accomplished athletes that are members there. The club was started in 1868 so they boast over 200 Olympic medals with over half of them gold. Very impressive. One member in particular, Al Oerter won four gold medals in four different Olympics in the discus. The club was founded by a group of amateur athletes and grew to be a force in both the production of great competitors and in the direction of various Olympic sports. I noticed a complete absence of winter Olympic athletes but the club is very old school so perhaps they don’t really see the winter Olympics as a “real” Olympics. Either that or the facilities could never accommodate the training of winter sports athletes. I really loved the place and was amazed that something like that existed in Manhattan. Thanks for hooking me up Meredith.
Blink 182
While I was in NY that plane crashed into the Hudson. I was thinking about that when I jumped on a small puddle jumper to upstate New York. I was amazed at how long that plane floated after it landed. Especially with all those people standing on the wings. I guess the wings are just big balloons filled with jet fuel. Jet fuel floats on water, not that it matters if the tanks are sealed. The real tail fins are essentially just sealed aluminum airbags essentially. Makes me feel good if we had to land in the Atlantic. What does not make me feel good is that a couple birds can easily bring you down. That is a very sketchy, but I pretty much expect to go down every time I fly anyway.
Kottonmouth kings.
I hit Lake Placid for the Freestyle world cup. Normally when you hear freestyle you think moguls, aerials, big air, halfpipe, slopestyle, but skiercros is now also under the umbrella of freestyle when it comes to the International Ski federation aka FIS. It makes sense except that all the dudes in it now are former Alpine racers. The sport is cool, but man it is sketchy. Even though the FIS has cut down the number of racers from 6 to 4, the crashes are still nasty. Which I suppose will make it a great spectator sport in the Olympics in 2010. However, I have competed in a couple and it was fun but sketchy. Even on a course like the one in Lake Placid which was relatively low speed, there is a major blow up in every other race. The problem is the athletes know how hard it is to pass because you don’t have a throttle, so they get dirty. There are judges and rules but in the end they don’t help after you already got smacked up side the head because someone clipped you by standing on the back of your skis. Daron Rahlves and Casey Pucket are the top US guys. Casey is ranked third. in the world with two X Games Gold Medals. He has been to four Olympics in Alpine racing with a 7th place in slalom in Lillehammer, Norway in 94. Impressive record. He was a bit off in Qualifying and had some tough heats out the box including a match up against Daron Rahlves in the second round. In his first heat Casey had a nice pass on the inside. Then he was involved in a huge tangle up in the second heat where Rahlves advanced.
Rahlves was looking very slow all day out of the gate but managed to advance through a combo of luck and skill. In the end he could got through to the small final and ended up fifth. Lars Lewen won the event with Patrick Koller second, and Thomas Kraus third. Kraus leads the standings going into the X games, and Puckett is third.
I don’t how long these guys will last. The crashes are ridiculous, look at you tube. Pucket takes a snow nap there. In alpine you might crashe really bad once or twice a year, In Ski cross these guys get worked every other week.
AC/DC ultimate freestyle skiing band.
BTW I am calling the event for NBC’s coverage which will be on this weekend.
Aerials was pretty standard. Jared Peterson won the event with a monstrous dfff stomped. That’s three flips with four twists. Two on the first flip one on the second and one on the third . Nissen and Shouldice were 2nd and third. Both Olympians from Torino as I found out in the bar late night that they are Faction listeners. I told you that most of the faction listeners were Canadian stoners. Eh. Nah just kidding, these guys are serious Olympics athletes that get drug tested every week. Thanks to their fellow countryman Ross Rebagliati. Damn snowboarders. Shouldice does an insane trick and stomped it in Placid. Lay triple full full. That means no twists on the first flip, three full ones on the second, and one on the third. Very cool. Imagine trying to fit three full spins into one flip while 60 feet in the air. You can check it out this weekend on NBC.
Blues Traveler:
