The Stringer Reports via Amsterdam

Once upon a time, more years ago than I’d like to admit, Jason Speer wanted to get free tickets to Mammoth or some other California Resort. At this point, YoBeat was a shell of its current form, but then again, not everyone had a blog either. So I agreed to let Mr. Speer be a “stringer” in an attempt to get him free passes. The caveat, of course, was that he actually write about his trip. I can’t remember if he ended up getting free tickets or not, but what I do remember was he called me to deliver his report over the telephone. In the middle of the night.

I am a good sport, so I hastily scrawled down notes of what he was saying, promising to turn it into a cohesive and interesting story in the morning. When I woke up though, I realized the illegible handwritten notes we’re not just good, but good enough, for Yobeat and here they’ve lived ever since.

So you’d think, when Jason again hit me up (this time on Facebook, cause times, they have changed) and said he wanted to make another YoBeat contribution, I should have know better. But he mentioned photos and “the hotbed of Dutch skateboarding that is Eindhoven” as well as “details, sketchy at best.” I said, why not? Yes, we are a snowboard site, but a little variety never killed anyone, and it’s not snowing yet. Then the story came in, in bullet point form. Again, I was faced with the choice between putting in “effort” or just posting is as is. You can probably guess what’s coming next.

• I’m an engineer, not a photojournalist. That’s because I’m not very good at journalism.

• I’m not bold enough to get the answers to the questions that nobody has asked yet, but I did learn a lot more about the Red Light district in Amsterdam on Saturday.

• There was a contest at an indoor skate park called Area 51 in Eindhoven, NL put on by Volcom Benelux.

• It was a jam format broken up into 9 heats with 3 divisions, +15, -15 and pro/am.

• Like every other contest it was running 1/2 an hour late.

• I have no idea who won the contest, everything was in Dutch and I don’t speak Dutch but I assume it was Tim Bijsterveld.

Tim Bijsterveld. Photo Jason Speer

• I snowboard, go ahead and hate because I can’t do a kickflip.

• Skateboarders make great faces.

• Anthony van Wallehem had a great attitude towards the younger skaters. I saw him pick one up after a fall and help another out. And he worked the quarterpipe at the judges feet during his heat.

• This was really a contest for second place, when they handed out numbers they already knew the winner.

• Frontside boardslides are a timeless trick.

• Little kids skate way too well these days.

• Skateboarders in Europe are just like skateboarders everywhere, Joe Bro is Europe is nothing like Joe Bro in the NW.

L-pav the Skateboard G

• I met L-pav the Skateboard G and I got not only his email address but his personal Facebook page. (Not his fan page)

• L-pav 3 flipped down the 3 set and the announcer got really excited. I think L-pav just wanted to go slay a street spot instead of skating in a contest.

• L-pav might be a German pop star.

• There were blow up animals in cages a lot like Amsterdam.

Looks like a bear to me.

• There was also a guy in some sort of costume, I thought it was a bear but a kid told me that it was a rabbit. Check the pictures and decide for yourself. Even better was that we saw the guy at a bar 2 nights earlier when I was celebrating my birthday.

• I’m officially failing at achieving adulthood according to the New York Times.

• I kissed my friend’s girlfriend on my birthday. He thought it was funny, she didn’t, I don’t remember any of it.

• Nino FS board slid anything he could ollie onto.

• Andries skated faster and harder than anyone until he fell harder than anyone and his knee swelled up.

Andries Smits. Photo: J

• Tim must live at the skate park because he knew all the lines. He did the craziest trick of the day. I don’t know what it was but I turned around and saw him coming back into the 8 foot quarter pipe 6 feet out. I know it was the craziest trick because everyone that saw it was really excited. He either went 8 feet out of an 8 foot pipe or bomb dropped off the railing 8 feet above the q’pipe. He’s also the only guy that did a handplant.

• I have a $2000 laptop but I don’t have MS Word or Apple Works…another reason why I’d be a bad journalist.

• There was one girl there that brought her skateboard. She wasn’t in the contest, she just used it to get from one side of the park to the other side. And as a convenient place to sit. I would have expected her to enter it just to be first place in the girl division.

• They serve bier at the skatepark and as long as you’re 16 you’re old enough to drink it!

• I like shooting outdoors in the snow a lot more, the light is faster.

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