HUCK Magazine The Bobby Martinez Issue (Digital Edition)

SURF SKATE SNOW TRAVEL MUSIC FILM ART FASHION

MORE THAN JUST THE RIDE

MARK GONZALES NEW YORK SKATING WITH THE GONZ

VOL. 01 ISSUE #005 MAY/JUNE 2007 made in the uk £2.95 BOBBY MARTINEZ by JAMIE BRISICK

JIHAD KHODR SURFING’S HOLY WARRIOR SPEAKS OUT

PLUS Travis Rice Kings of Leon Iranian Snow Boxing Surfers Designer Toys

©2007 GRAVIS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. GRAVIS IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF THE BURTON CORPORATION. AD: BURTON SYNDICATE

Š 2007 Vans, Inc. photo: Carlos Pinto vans.com / vans.eu / pukassurf.com

Pearl Grey/ Fie ry Red

(shown, availab le in 4 colorways )

THE LET´S GET PHYSICAL COMPILATION ALBUM Featuring The Glimmers, Timbuktu & Chords, Black Ghosts, Doomington, Sara Love and many more.

Available on iTunes worldwide.

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As talking heads and tabloid hacks spew their Star Wars Manichaean shit on civilisations clashing, fanatics fighting and the evil of the week, we bring you a killer potpourri of some of the most iconic characters our world has to offer. And – terror alert red! – they do come in all colours, sizes and shapes.

Mix it up, readers – you know it makes sense.

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the big stories contents. huck #005

40 BOBBY MARTINEZ working class hero.

48 MARK GONZALES café-hopping with the gonz.

56 AXIS OF SNOVILLE snowboarding in iran.

60 KINGS OF LEON new album, same long hair.

66 PUNCH THE FUCKER! some people just deserve it. by jamie brisick.

68 ART OF FOAM coming to a gallery near you.

74 SURFING AND BOXING there’s a connection, apparently.

76 TRAVIS RICE man’s been busy, real busy.

Rafael Dabul

▼

84 SUNNY STUFF get ready, summer’s coming.

86 JIHAD KHODR radical surfer?

92 JAMES JARVIS tales from a toy boy.

98 T-SHIRTS cottony freedom.

104 SUMMERTIME SPELL beautiful, intoxicating, fashionable.

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the front

▼

© 2007 Robb Farrington

Tadashi Yamaoda

▼

contents. huck #005

116 us open 118 bra boys 120 albums 122 films 124 dvds 126 games 128 books 130 the banks

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18 terje haakonsen 20 danny fuenzalida 22 greg long 26 jack johnson 28 bruce’s beauties 30 o.c. activism 32 chris ‘gunny’ gunnarson 34 arofish 36 heida birgisdottir 38 the side effects of urethane

the back

Terje Haakonsen Geraldine Fasnacht Thomas Diet

MAT REBEAUD David Benedek Jeremy Jones Frederik Kalbermatten Christian „Hitsch“ Haller Phil Meier Xavier De le rue Jan Scherrer Cody Townsend Kaj Zackrisson Sverre Lillequist Sam Lamiroy

vol. 01 issue 005 HUCK MAGAZINE

May/June 2007 www.huckmagazine.com

Editor

Vince Medeiros Global Editor

Art Direction and Design

Jamie Brisick Skate Editor

Jay Riggio

Associate Editor

Rob Longworth

Andrea Kurland

www.thechurchoflondon.com Snow Editor

Film Editor

Zoe Oksanen

Matt Bochenski

Editorial Assistant

Editorial Consultant

Ed Andrews

Michael Fordham

Translations Editor

Markus Grahlmann

Advertising Director

Advertising Sales Executive

Publisher

European Director

Steph Pomphrey

Music Editor

Phil Hebblethwaite

Dean Faulkner

Claire Marshall

Danny Miller Text

Tracey Armstrong, Tim Donnelly, Josh Jones, Neon Kelly, John Licklitter, Miles Masterson, Jonas Milk, Travis Mungford, Sidney Tenucci Jr, Cyrus Shahrad, Alex Wade, Steve Watson, Alexander Wood Images

Joe Brook, Rafael Dabul, Mack Dawg, Mickey Gibbons, Matt Hind, Dave Homcy, Al Mackinnon, James McPhail, Jonathan Phillips, Guy Smallman, Sveinung Svendsen, Alexander Wood, Tadashi Yamaoda, Danny Zapalac

HUCK is published by HUCK LIMITED 45 Rivington Street London EC2A 3QB, United Kingdom Editorial Enquiries +44 (0) 207-729-3675 editorial@huckmagazine.com Advertising and Marketing Enquiries +44 (0) 7940-427-430 ads@huckmagazine.com ON THE COVER: BOBBY MARTINEZ BY JAMIE BRISICK

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Distributed worldwide by COMAG UK distribution enquiries: andy.hounslow@comag.co.uk Worldwide distribution enquiries: paride.forte@comag.co.uk Distributed in Italy by Johnsons International: +39-0243-982-263 News Italia Spa, Via Valparaiso 4, 20144 Milano, Italy Printed by Stones The Printers The articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinions of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publishers or editorial team.

text ANDREA KURLAND photography SVEINUNG SVENDSEN/TOAC

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Terje raises the bar once again.

Sir Isaac Newton is turning in his grave. His life’s work has just been destroyed, you see. The tree, the falling apple, the epiphany: all obliterated in one dynamic blast off. Gravity has officially been defied.

And I’m not talking about the man on the moon: that news is, like, so 1969.

Terje Haakonsen – man, legend, unstoppable board-borne force – is the true challenger of scientific law. Having landed a monstrous 9.8-metre backside 360 on the quarterpipe at this year’s Arctic Challenge in Oslo, Norway, Haakon is the official holder of a new world record.

The sight you are gawping at right now is the equivalent of soaring five and a half times your own height into the air. Not bad for manpower.

With Fin Heikki Sorsa’s 2001 world record standing at a hefty 9.3 metres, the crowd knew they were in for something big. Kevin Pearce and Danny Davis were some of the heads flinging high above the Oslo skyline. But it was a true pioneer that led the crusade.

Terje Haakonsen, the Norwegian who revolutionised the snowboard contest when he founded The Arctic Challenge, set the pace with a clean 9.0-metre air – just your average death-defying walk in the park. Next, a sturdy 9.6-metre method easily swept the record.

But Terje and complacency have never seen eye to eye.

Effortlessly focused, pumped on Scandinavian air, the man they call the Sprocking Cat lined-up, took aim and – five, four, three, two, one – launched into a jaw-dropping monster of a 9.8-metre backside 360. Silence spoke volumes. Then, as a high-pitched “nine point eight” slowly sounded overhead, the crowd exploded.

In a sport that’s progressing faster than China, Terje is a force pushing beyond the precipice of expectation. But how does it feel to break the record at his own revolutionary event? “It doesn’t mean more than the fact I know it’s very possible to go over eleven metres in the near future,” says Terje. No signs of complacency there.

And it’s not just talent that allowed Terje to stride alongside Neil Armstrong into the history books. This year, The Arctic Challenge got a helping hand from Norwegian ‘rocket scientists’ who, according to Matty Swanson of Oakley, determined the speed, g-force and transition needed for a rider to break the current world record.

“We have been calling them rocket scientists,” smiles Terje.

“I guess they did some work with rockets a long time ago.

It’s through an uncle of one of us in The Arctic Challenge. Our shaper Claes worked with them to get a better profile on the in-run and the transition.”

Forget playtime. Snowboarding is a science. And Haakon is head of the field. www.oakley.com www.the-arctic-challenge.com

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Fee t

on The Ground text Jay Riggio photography Tadashi Yamaoda

Chilean Danny Fuenzalida does it his way.

Years ago I went to the infamous Tampa Am contest. In between drinking and smoking like an unemployed mechanic, I remember witnessing a floppy-haired dude floating around the course like a lunatic, killing every obstacle in his path. His name: Danny Fuenzalida, from Chile.

As I watched him skate, I noticed that the long hair atop his head was actually a well-crafted mullet. Half in the bag, I commented negatively on this Chilean’s preferred hairstyle but refused to hold it against him. The guy was a foreigner, after all. This was my first introduction to the now professional skater who has been modestly making his mark in the skateboard game for close to a decade.

“The first time I went to Tampa I was fourteen,” says Danny. “I made a bet with my best friend from Chile. He said I wouldn’t rock a mullet ’cause he thought I was all into what people thought about me. I was like, ‘Fuck that.

Let’s do it right now!’”

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His early trip to Tampa was not only his mullet debut, but also his first trip to the States. Returning again at age seventeen, he settled in SF and was quickly snatched up by Think Skateboards, the company he has ridden for ever since.

Now twenty-five, Fuenzalida’s take on the industry is humble and totally realistic – a far cry from the many delusional types in skateboarding today.

“Skateboarding isn’t changing the world for anything better, we’re just flipping sticks,” says Danny. “Once I’m done with skateboarding I’m just going to continue to move on with my real life.”

But for now, Danny is taking advantage of the opportunities he has. Having just moved to Miami with his lady, he’s been tapping back into his roots while keeping his hair short: “Out here I find myself skating with friends, learning tricks and taking it back to what it’s really about. It’s what I’ve always wanted from skateboarding – and that’s to learn from it every day.” www.thinkskateboards.com

Greg Long scores biggest wave of the year.

They just keep getting bigger and scarier. They really do. Look at this shot, for crying out loud: gargantuan, huge, just motherfucking massive. It’s all pretty adjective defying, really. Words, you’ll agree, lose their meaning when you’re faced with an image like this.

So let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? California’s Greg Long rode this 65-foot widow-maker at Dungeons, South Africa, last July to win the 2007 Billabong XXL Biggest Wave Award. Long, who’s been a big-wave jockey for six years now, nabbed a hefty $15,000 for his troubles. And oh boy was he stoked. “I can’t even put it into words how excited I am,” he says. “It’s such an unlikely scenario that you are going to be in the right spot for a monster swell and then actually get photographed on the biggest wave that comes through.”

Speaking of which, the shot was taken by HUCK regular Al Mackinnon, who brought home a less-vigorous but equally pleasant 4k.

Mackinnon, whose amazing commitment to scoring ‘the shot’ is best evidenced by his perpetual wearing of boardshorts, no matter how nut-shrinking the cold, says that a wet camera almost ruined it all: “The rain which had plagued the session thus far stopped, the wind swung offshore and finally I managed to wipe the water off the lens – that’s when he went. I knew it was the one as Greg was getting towed in.

He went on the first wave of the set, put everything on the line and got the pay-off.”

In hindsight, Long was lucky to have come out of Dungeons alive that day. Says Mackinnon: “With the proximity of the seal colony, either the waves or the great whites will get you. Greg, and he’s said this himself, would’ve died on that wave if he hadn’t made it to the safety of the channel.”

Pure madness, clearly. So what’s the limit? How far will these guys go to fulfill their lust? Mackinnon, in shorts, offers an answer: “I think ultimately big-wave surfing will only be limited by how big a wave can physically grow − and possibly the gear. Though it seems that over time any equipment shortcomings can be worked out.”

www.billabongxxl.com

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text Vince Medeiros photography Al Mackinnon/BillabongXXL.com

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text Tim Donnelly photography Dave Homcy

Jack Johnson’s going all green.

Jack Johnson wants to get away and sit down for a second. He’s just finished a press conference for his Kokua Festival at the Waikiki Bandshell in Honolulu and, with the mainstream media safely out of the way, he’s now ready to speak with HUCK. Parked across the table from me, Jack starts talking about his Kokua Foundation, an environmental group that focuses on educating the youth of his native Hawaii. Proceeds from this year’s festival, headlined by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and backed by green brands such as Patagonia and Simple, will be used to support recycling, sponsor field trips and develop programmes for healthier school meals.

Which is all fine and dandy. Great, even. But what about being a rock star and round-the-world surfer whilst trying to save the planet. Are they compatible? “The plane flights, they take a pretty big tax on the environment,” Jack admits. “To get to these places, to travel to surf or to tour, it’s a reality that you are making an impact.”

Thankfully Jack’s not sitting on his ass waiting for technology to change – or for the world to end without a fight: ”We’ve tried to offset the energy with the bio-diesel for touring and using the vegetable oil from catering, as well as exploring other sources of fuel. I am challenging some friends who are in the know to find ways to lessen the impact and follow the example from bands like Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Willie Nelson.”

And it seems that things are slowly starting to change. “Right now a bunch of musicians are coming together as an alliance,” he says. “All these bands do their own thing. Dave Matthews has his way. Pearl Jam theirs. So we’re trying to get everybody to share the information and make it available to the bands who want to be a part of it, so we don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time.”

As an organised group, says Jack, musicians can spread the word farther and have a wider impact. The one thing that won’t change is people’s thirst for music. That, he says, we can’t do much about: “The culture is not going to transform to the point where people don’t want to be entertained. Everyone wants music still. And we want to find a way to lessen the impact.”

www.kokuafestival.com

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The Sand of ST francis text MILES MASTERSON

Reef project set to rekindle the magic of Bruce’s Beauties.

If Bruce Brown visited St Francis Bay today, he probably wouldn’t recognise it. The surf filmmaking legend last visited South Africa fifteen years ago, more than three decades after he uncovered the surf spot that defined his magnum opus, Endless Summer.

When Bruce passed through in ’92, whilst filming ES2, he was disappointed by the way that rampant development had caused the obvious denigration of the wave bearing his name, Bruce’s Beauties.

Over subsequent years, the crucial movement of sand from the dunes to the beach has been completely stunted by a tide of brick and mortar. This is a malaise common on the SA coast, where a combination of lax regulation and unscrupulous building practises has resulted in ugly construction and much environmental damage.

A fickle spot at the best of times, Bruce’s Beauties now rarely fire, and the onceseamless sections hardly connect. Even worse, the beach has retreated an average of sixty feet along this stretch, and recent storm surf caused a seaside road to collapse.

But there is hope. Residents formed the St Francis Bay Beach Trust a few years ago to save the beach and, recognising that surfing is an integral part of local tourism, their plans include revitalising the surf at Bruce’s.

They enlisted the help of New Zealand’s Dr. Shaw Mead and his company, Amalgamates Solution Research (ASR). ASR created the successful surfing reef at Mt Maunganui in New Zealand and is currently involved in many similar projects elsewhere in the world.

In South Africa, their project will create additional surfing reefs, much to the excitement of St Francis surfers.

Their efforts haven’t been without controversy though, and are being delayed by a minority who refuse to pay the small monthly levy required to make the project sustainable. The issue has split the community, who are due to hold a referendum on the matter, although Trust founder Alan Tonkin is confident that the project will begin soon.

Perhaps then Bruce Brown, if he were ever to come back, might witness the longawaited return to form of the epic wave he filmed here nearly half a century before.

www.sfbbeachtrust.org

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text Tracey Armstrong

High schooler leads effort to save Trestles.

Kids in Orange County, California, are hardly known for their radical politics. I should know, being a former typical O.C. kid myself. You know the ones: spoiled by the surf and sand but totally clueless about what it takes to keep our oceans, waves and beaches safe and clean.

Sixteen-year-old Justin Huft is proof things have changed. He’s a Surfrider Foundation activist who spends his time and energy fighting for Trestles, California’s premier surf break. In fact, you may have spotted this next-generation Gandhi shouting “Save Trestles, because it’s the right thing to do,” at a protest he recently organised in Laguna Beach.

“The ocean is the last place we have that mankind hasn’t totally overdeveloped,” said Justin to his listening crowd. “You can go to the beach and really connect with nature. You can take the day off work and do something that is, well… not typical.”

And when Justin isn’t arranging protests, holding meetings or blanketing his school with ‘Save Trestles’ flyers, he does just that.

He takes the day off and heads down to Trestles.

And what does he do when he spies someone with a surfboard under their arm? “I ask them if they know about Trestles. And when they say yes and just keep walking, I start walking with them and say, ‘What exactly do you know?’ Then I tell them about the proposed toll road project and what they can do to save Trestles from it.

“A lot of people don’t realise that they can help out,” he continues.

“All it takes is five minutes. Just Google ‘Save Trestles and City Councils’ and you’ll get a whole list of city officials that you can barrage with e-mails. Because one person, one voice, really can make a difference.”

Now you know what to do.

www.savetrestles.org

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his name is gunny text ZOE OKSANEN photography MACK DAWG

And he makes the best kickers in town.

Gunny, they call him. And most snowboarders will recognise the name. Chris ‘Gunny’ Gunnarson is the world’s number-one authority on snowboard terrain-park design.

He plans out the course for such high-profile contests as the X Games, slaves away for weeks on end to build his creations, and tears them down again only to rebuild the mammoth heaps of snow after a few pros hit him with the ‘man, that’s just not gonna work’ line.

But there’s much more to building a kicker than what meets the eye – and it’s not something to be taken lightly, either. One tiny miscalculation on the take-off, for example, can send a rider flying – in completely the wrong way.

(Maybe not the end of the world on a five-footer but a serious issue when hitting a sixty-foot kicker.)

“I’ve definitely seen my share of bad crashes,” Gunny says, “but it’s important for all riders to know their own ability and to remember that a pile of snow, no matter how it’s shaped, is not dangerous. It’s how it’s used where the danger factor comes into play. If a feature seems questionable, riders should know when not to hit it.”

Park designer is generally not a job you pick up at the local unemployment office. Which begs the question: just how does one get to be the master course builder? “Right when snowboarding was starting to explode, I was running the park at Snow Summit in California. At the time, parks were still very new and Snow Summit had one of the best in the world. I was starting to consult with events and other resorts and then the first Winter X Games was held there. That was when I started Snow Park Technologies (SPT). Since then we’ve made a career out of designing and building parks, pipes and event courses all over the world.”

Although hanging out up the mountain all day with the world’s top snowboarders may sound like the ultimate job, it’s damn hard work and it most definitely comes with its own unique bag of frustrations. It took Gunny and his SPT team three weeks and nine guys to build all the courses for the X Games this year. First, however, they had to solve one tiny little problem: the lack of snow. “We arrived and there wasn’t nearly enough so it took a lot of strategising on where to make snow and where we could work,” he says. “The hardest one was the pipe. We had to take all of the snow from the runs on either side to have enough, but that meant stealing from the best trick and slopestyle courses. Still, it worked out well in the end, which is all that matters.”

Once the riders arrive and check out the course, Gunny often needs to brace himself for feedback. “It’s hard to hear harsh criticism after working so hard for so long, but that comes with the territory,” he says. “The funny part is when there are conflicting opinions about a course or feature. It’s pretty hard to please everyone.”

Whilst frustrating, it’s exactly this process that leads to an end product that kicks ass and, ultimately, plays a key role in progressing the sport. Gunny knows this better than anyone else: “Feedback from the pro guys is crucial. I want them to be able to shine as much as possible, and if we can make something better I want to know about it.”

With snowboarding advancing at such a breakneck pace, slopestyle design needs to keep one step ahead of the game. No one wants to do this year’s tricks on last year’s course. The king of course design knows this: “I just want to see a continual progression and create opportunities to see talented riders perform to the best of their abilities.”

With Gunny operating behind the scenes, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

www.snowparktech.com

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Arofish

text Josh Jones photography Guy Smallman

He was arrested as a dissident in Iraq. His crime? Painting! Graffiti

writing can be a solitary pursuit at the best of times. And if you get caught, the worst you can expect is a slapped wrist and maybe a fine. You don’t expect to be thrown into a cage with alleged dissidents. But then again, most writers don’t spray politically charged images on the walls of war-torn Baghdad, Lebanon and Palestine.

Stencil artist Arofish does.

“My political motivations are personal to me,” he says across the table of this busy South London pub. “I suppose they stem from when was I was at university, hearing about the Zapatistas in Mexico.

After I heard about them, I got on a plane over there.”

With that same impulsive spirit, Arofish joined relief networks working across some of the most devastated areas of the Middle East. One crusade involved being part of a human shield in Palestine, while another in Iraq ended when Arofish was arrested by American troops for “a bit of painting”.

“When you’ve been put in a jail run by American soldiers for something so relatively harmless, you do think, ‘What am I doing?’”

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says the man behind the pseudonym. “But not many people can say they’ve seen that side of Iraq. It’s a shame that the artwork I was doing wasn’t even that great.”

Of all his political daubings, Arofish is most proud of his work in Beirut – and the images of kids flying kites that now colour its war-torn walls. “Kite flying is quite a big thing in the Middle East,” he says. “Kids fly kites from their rooftops all across the city when everyone is under curfew in an act of defiance.”

Local spirit aside, where else does he find inspiration?

“There’s a guy in Iran called A1one Writer, and Blek Le Rat is obviously a big influence,” he says. “I liked the Banksy pictures on the wall in Palestine – it gave a bit of colour to the people who live there.”

So having stamped his voice all over the world, does the man feel his message has hit home? “I’m not here to convert people to my political views,” says Arofish. “But if it puts some people’s backs up, then good.” www.arofish.org.uk

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text ANDREA KURLAND

Girl’s got killer style.

The female assassin has done wonders for women’s rights.

But in the fight for equality, it’s girls who ride who have the best ally. Dripping in Icelandic cool, Nikita clothing has been helping the superior sex escape the clutches of pastels and chintz since 2000.

When it comes to authentic rider-owned companies, Nikita deserves the standing ovation. Beautifully grounded, the brand is the brainchild of Heida Birgisdottir, a wonder woman designer from Reykjavik with an addiction to sliding sideways. She’s no trained killer – but she surfs, she skates, she snowboards. And she’s slowly revolutionising what it means to be a girl who rides.

So what drives a chick to take on the male-dominated world of boardsports fashion? “I had been making my own clothes and was working in a snow/skate shop that I partly owned,” says Heida. “Girls kept asking me about the clothing I wore, if we were selling it in the shop. I made a few extra pieces and the girls were crazy about it.” A simple case of supply and demand, then.

Boasting a team of riders loaded with talent from the likes of Natasza Zurek, Nikita’s mantra is the secret to

its success: by girls who ride, for girls who ride. “When a team girl is interested in bringing input into the line, I for sure listen,” says Heida, whose own resume includes multiple snowboard champion and Iceland’s first ever female surfer.

Stylish get-ups aside, Heida’s all about giving back to the sports she loves. The Nikita Icelandic Park Project and the aptly titled Nikita Chickita Snowdown offer girls the chance to showcase their massive skills in a competitive environment.

Even the gents are lining up for the Nikita treatment.

“Guys have been asking us from day one to make some guys’ stuff,” says Heida, whose forthcoming men’s line, Atikin, is bound to spread the love.

So, in the battle of the sexes, are girl riders finally getting the respect they deserve? “I think the riders definitely get respect and support, but whether it’s enough is hard to tell. What is enough?” asks Heida.

“Today it is very competitive, and people have to be very determined to make a living out of riding. Respect to them!”

And respect to Heida – maker of seriously cool threads. www.nikitaclothing.com Check out the full interview with Heida at www.huckmagazine.com.

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riding sculptures text and photography ALEXANDER WOOD

Skateable art, made in Britain.

The art establishment has always been wary of skateboarders. But times are changing. Thanks to The Side Effects of Urethane (TSEOU) – a collective of artists, designers and architects from London – art galleries and skateboarding have finally united.

With landmark projects like a ‘skateable’ installation at the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art in Finland, TSEOU founders Toby Shuall, Rich Holland and Marcus Oakley have made it their mission to promote skateboarding as the creative culture it is. Under the banner ‘Moving Units’, ‘skateable’ sculptures at London’s top spots expose the artistic energy skaters exert every time they ride a new line.

“Skateboarders see the city in their own unique way,” explains Rich.

“People see a bench and they see it to sit down, skateboarders see a bench and see it to skate. If you can get people seeing a bench for skateboarding, then you’re really beginning to change people’s perceptions of what things are.”

Whether they’re taking skate into the museum or bringing art out onto the sidewalk, TSEOU’s approach is always the same: maintaining an environment which skaters can react to naturally.

“I don’t think, ‘Oh, I really want to build a half-pipe,’ and try and find a space to fit it into,” says Rich. “That’s not true to how skateboarders react to an environment. They just react, creating weird lines or interesting ways to skate objects. It is always unique and creative – there is no set route or plan.”

The new London Bridge Skate Plaza is no exception, with plenty of attention being thrown at how the mellow Z-shaped space would be pleasing to both the skater and the eye. “I didn’t go in there with pre-conceived ideas of what to build,” says Rich. “I thought, ‘How would this space work functionally but also aesthetically, how would the flow work?’”

With whispers of a bespoke installation for the re-launch of London’s Royal Festival Hall and aspirations to land something in the city’s Tate Modern, TSEOU are set to continue driving skateboarding in the cultural direction it naturally rolls. www.tseou.com

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bobby martinez: working class hero text and photography jamie brisick Whether back in the barrio with his homies or surfing the world’s best waves, Bobby just likes to keep it real. Quite refreshing, actually.

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In a world where virtually every superstar athlete comes complete with gaudy oversized house, fleet of pimpin’ black rides, ditzy trophy wife, and unchecked bowing at the altar of bling-bling, it’s refreshing to meet a guy like Bobby Martinez, who’s happier hanging with his homies than he is hobnobbing with celebrities. And after finishing fifth overall on the 2006 World Championship Tour, it’s even more refreshing to see his humility, his gratitude, the fact that he hasn’t for a second forgotten the Disposability Factor.

Bobby is twenty-five years old, he bases himself in Santa Barbara, he has a couple of pit bulls, and he likes to put it on rail. This conversation took place over the phone, shortly after he’d won his first heat at the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast in Australia.

“i stopped smoking three years ago. it was just kinda clouding things. and now i’m a lot clearer. i can focus a lot more.”

HUCK: How’s it going over there?

BOBBY MARTINEZ: Good, good. Some fun waves. A lot better than California.

So Bobby, you grew up in Santa Barbara, right? Like kind of away from the whole surf scene?

Yeah, no one in my family surfed. I was the only one who picked up surfing. My mum and my dad worked hard. It wasn’t the upper-class Santa Barbara upbringing, that’s for sure.

And wasn’t there a lot of gang shit happening at the time?

Yeah, there was. It was really bad when I was young. So that was an everyday thing during school, after school, always just walking around the little neighbourhood I grew up in, it was always around. But I stayed away from that stuff. ▼

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people bobby looks up to include kelly slater, occy, his family and his many mexican friends who managed to turn their lives around.

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unlike many surfers on the tour, bobby doesn’t do any training apart from boxing.

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How did you get into surfing?

My dad would take us to the beach and I’d mess around on a boogie board in the white water and then I asked for a surfboard for Christmas and he would always take me to the beach after school.

I was always really athletic, though, I played soccer and basketball and stuff. I liked everything as a kid, and surfing was just another sport that I did, and I just stuck with that longer than any other sport that I played.

At what point did you realise you could become a pro?

I never really thought of it like that. I didn’t know anybody when I was growing up that was making a living out of it, ya know, I didn’t really know about that. I knew you travelled and stuff but I never really hit a point where it all came together. It was more just kind of one thing leading me into the next, and then the next thing I knew I was on the WQS [World Qualifying Series] circuit.

I remember seeing you in Santa Barbara a few years ago and you seemed to be kind of in a slump. You had all the potential but it didn’t seem like you were gelling in the contests. At what point did you start to do really well, at what point did it click for you?

I don’t know. I have no idea. I just kept doing that WQS stuff and never qualified and then it just sort of happened, I qualified and that was it. It just sort of happened.

“it’s cool to get the support from all my friends who i grew up with who are mexicans. there aren’t too many of us surfing out there.”

Last year you kicked ass. That must’ve been a really good feeling.

And it must’ve boosted the shit out of your confidence.

It was cool, it was great. But that was last year and things can change quick. I can’t bank off that. Everyone’s starting from scratch again so the confidence only goes so far, like you can go out in the next event and just get smoked. I like staying real humble ‘cause I know that at any time I could be humbled if I speak out loud, you know, go get comboed in a heat or something. I just do my own thing and try to stay humble to myself ‘cause everyone on the tour surfs well, so you can’t count anyone out.

Who are your heroes? What gets you inspired?

Definitely my family. And in surfing, definitely Occy [Mark Occhilupo] for sure, Occy’s my favourite. And Kelly’s surfing, too.

What about outside of surfing?

Just family and, umm, I do have some good friends who have been through some bad stuff and have turned their lives around and are now doing positive stuff and that’s pretty inspiring for me to know that, you know, just taking their lives from black to white, that’s pretty inspiring to me. And people like my family who work hard to make a living, and doing stuff they don’t enjoy to make a living, all that is pretty inspiring ‘cause people do what they gotta do to survive. ▼

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despite the smiles, bobby understands the ephemeral nature of fame: “i know that at any time i could be humbled if i speak out loud.”

I appreciate that a lot. There are a lot of unsung heroes out there.

Yeah, like my mum and dad don’t wanna get up and go work – they don’t even like their work, ya know? It’s inspiring that every morning they go and don’t just say, ‘Fuck this!’ It makes me think how good us surfers got it.

Do you feel like an outsider? Do you feel like your cultural heritage is totally different from the rest of the guys?

No, I fit in fine. That’s not really an issue. We all surf and obviously when we go home everyone’s life is different, but I pretty much get along with everyone.

It’s easy to lose sight of that on tour. Between the contest pressure, the grind of non-stop travel, the time away from home – it’s easy to get beaten down by what’s ultimately a charmed life.

Yeah, definitely. Just look at the big picture. I mean, I know how it is to wanna do good and not quite get there, I’ve been there – I am there – but you gotta look at the big picture.

Have you been reading any good books?

I’ve been reading Raging Bull, this book about Jake LaMotta, this boxer from New York. I don’t really get into, like, made-up stories, but I like good stories and this book is really good.

What about being Mexican. I was doing some commentating during the Globe WCT Fiji this last year and I remember during one of your heats we got just a flood of messages during the live webcast.

Every other heat the messages would come in from the US, Hawaii and Australia, and then during your heat we were getting them from Puerto Escondido, Mexico City, all over Mexico basically.

I love it, you know. I’ve got friends that don’t know nothing about surfing and because I surf they follow it every now and then. It’s cool to get the support from all my friends who I grew up with who are Mexicans and then other Mexicans around the world who support me and who got my back, ‘cause there aren’t too many of us surfing out there.

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Do you do any training?

I mostly just box, you know. I never got into going to a gym or anything but I really like to box.

And I remember reading somewhere that you quit smoking weed.

Can you tell us a little about that?

Yeah, umm, I stopped smoking three years ago. It was just kinda clouding things. And now I’m a lot clearer. I can focus a lot more.

.

And what about the rest of the year? How are you feeling about things?

I feel good, I feel positive, but you know how it is, you can only take one contest at a time www.smithoptics.com / www.reef.com

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Living skate legend Mark Gonzales radiates with imagination AS HE ROAMS the busy STREETS OF New York. text JAY RIGGIO photography JOE BROOK

k

I’ve never liked the idea of meeting one of my heroes face to face. I mean, following years and years of adoration, disappointment seems almost inevitable. I can see myself nervously approaching one of my idols, engaging in an overly topical conversation before breaking down and telling them about how they once saved my life when the world was a giant sea of shit swallowing me whole.

But just as I get to the gutwrenching details of my story, he or she goes ahead and snubs me at the ring of a blackberry, leaving me to stand with the newfound opinion that my onetime hero is now the biggest dick in the world. â–ź

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as the rest of the city moves with supposed purpose, mark kicks through tompkins square park.

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“I admire how skaters are free to just push in any direction. I don’t know, that’s why they make so many skateparks for free now, to stop that freedom, to get them all into a caged area.”

Such scenario would completely soil any perception of my favourite person’s greatness.

Hence my first and single most important journalistic rule: ‘Never interview someone who I am fanatical about’. That way, if one of my interview subjects treats me like shit or blows me off, no big deal – I didn’t like the fucker that much anyway.

I followed this unspoken principle religiously for years up until recently, when I got word that I’d be meeting Mark Gonzales, one of my all-time favourite skateboarders and artists.

Oh, fuck.

The landmark meeting

takes place at a Chinatown café, in New York, at around 10am.

I am halfway through my third espresso when I hear a loud clank on the window and turn to see the Gonz himself locking his bike in a position that might make it less worthy of stealing. He walks in and nods, slightly out of breath. “I didn’t chain my bike up, do you think it’s safe?” he asks sheepishly. It should be fine, I say, since we’ll probably be on our way soon.

Tucked under his arm is a brand-new Vision Mark Gonzales mini, one that would undoubtedly cost a goddamned fortune on eBay. It’s garnished with vintage Tracker SixTrack Ultralite trucks and back wheels that grotesquely mismatch the front ones. The front truck holds two big, soft wheels, 65mm or so, while the back grips two 38mm ATM wheels – obviously left over from Mark’s mid-nineties company. ‘How on earth is he going to ride this thing?’ I wonder. I study the Mad Max-looking set-up in bewilderment as Gonzales thumbs away obsessively on his sidekick in between sipping tap water. ▼

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“most people have nothing inside, and i want my art to have nothing inside – to be empty of everything, to have no content.”

Five seconds on the street and Mark is already drawing stares, despite not yet standing on his board. I don’t quite understand why, but Mark’s character seems to hold a magnetism that is completely alien to me. “I want to get on top of that, do you think I can do it?” he says, pointing at a giant brick wall. I nod, but internally I shrug and say, ‘No fucking way’. He stammers back, giving himself some running space, runs and somehow effortlessly scales his way to the top. I am amazed.

Pacing back and forth atop the dangerously high and thin wall, he mugs at those down below. A child and her mother walk by, looking up. The little girl points towards the man on the wall and asks, “How did he get up there?”

Mark smiles down at the girl and quickly shoots back, “I flew up here.” The child grins as if she had just witnessed the doing of a super hero.

We’re on our way to meet Mark’s assistant, who’s going to drive us to an empty pool in Harlem so Mark can get a few photos shot.

En route, we stop at another café. I ask if there are times when he actually gets sick of skating. “I’m usually keeping it fresh,” he says.

“I’ll use a different board. Like the board I’m riding today is made by Vision a long time ago.

I’m gonna ride this board and I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

At thirty-eight,

Mark still skates hard, but in the traditional, somewhat irreverent style he’s known for. He breaks things down to their simplest form as he explains the type of skating he likes. “Most of the times when I skate it’s usually super fast and it’s to get to a location. If we’re missing something for dinner, like if we need onions or cheese, then I rush out to get the food, and that’s probably the funnest,” he says. “If I go out just to skate, it’s usually to learn a new trick.”

We cross block after block as we head further and further across town. As the cars speed by and the controlled chaos of the city erupts in every direction, Mark’s face remains calm and unfazed. “I want to learn pressure flips,” he says. “I was kind of out of skating around that time. I was doing a lot of artwork.

I’d like to heelflip pressure flip. Like ease up off your toe and put the pressure on your heel.”

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For Gonzales, the limits of possibility simply do not exist. And that’s probably why he’s inspired generation after generation with his skating. Our conversation about learning tricks reminds me about his recent documented attempts at kickflipping on a bike – an act that is seemingly impossible. But is it? “I think I can make it. I haven’t gotten very close at all. Mentally I’ve always been real close but physically I’ve always been real far away from it. The reason I think I’m getting close is some of my friends think I’ve totally lost it.

So that’s why I think I’ll be close to making it soon. It’s always when you’re super laughed at, that’s when it’s gonna happen. It’s always when someone thinks, ‘What an idiot,’ that’s when you’re gonna pull it.”

Mark’s thinking about progression extends to all aspects of his life, including his prolific artwork. “I wanna make my art like a shell, nothing there, like no content ‘cause I feel that’s the way the masses are. And I feel like art should represent what the people are,” explains Gonzales. “Most of the people have nothing inside, and I want my art to have nothing inside – to be empty of everything, to have no content.”

His musings on art naturally progress towards the topic of his profession: “I consider skateboarding an art form because it’s the only thing that can’t be judged in an athletic way. It’s a total art form, there’s no way around it. It’s a form of expression.”

He goes on to describe skateboarding in a manner that I have never pondered before.

In fact, I wonder if anyone in the history of skateboarding has ever locked into the same sort of sentiment. “If anything, it’s a tribal art form because different people from different cities skate differently, and they try to enforce their tricks on people who visit their territory or come to their city,” says Mark, enlightening me. “They want you to use their language and do their tricks and be inspired by their city. So skaters from San Diego say certain words and skate differently than skaters in New York. I think the reason skateboarding’s always going through changes is because it’s an art form. If it weren’t an art form and it were an athletic thing, everyone would be wearing jerseys. It would be more organised, and personal style wouldn’t be emphasised.” ▼

a sunny day in new york promises endless possibilities.

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a different approach to a different day. mark rarely makes the same move twice.

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“skateboarding is a tribal art form because different people from different cities skate differently, and they try to enforce their tricks on people who visit their territory or come to their city.”

Iassistant follow Mark’s

to her pickup truck.

In the meantime, Mark heads off to pick up a prescription and have lunch with his girlfriend. We stop for more coffee and drive around street corners, eventually settling double parked somewhere in front of Gonz’s apartment. I hear rolling wheels in the near distance and turn to see Mark shooting down the sidewalk. There are two complete skateboards under each arm. He chucks all five boards into the bed of the truck, each varying more than slightly. A longboard, a normal board, a giant ten-inch wide board and a few others I can’t make out, all rattle and slide in the back with each turn we take.

As we enter the borough of Harlem, Gonz’s assistant is unsure of our whereabouts.

“Mark, which way do I go?” she asks, her voice ringing with frustration. But Mark isn’t paying attention. He’s busy telling me about his respect for freedom and disdain for confinement. “I admire skaters. I mean, I just look at them and how they’re free to just push in any direction. I don’t know, that’s why they make so many skateparks for free now, to stop that freedom, to get them all into a

caged area,” he explains as his face intently peers through the backseat window. “You can’t have people on the street being free.

The streets are for people to walk, the streets are for muggings, to be swindled. The streets are where you go to get your heroin and you don’t get your heroin, but the guy gets your money. The streets aren’t for kids pushing and being free.”

“Mark, I don’t know where I’m going!

Where is this spot?” his assistant asks again.

It turns out that Mark doesn’t know where it is we’re going. We come to a stop at a backed-up red light. “Let’s just skate here!”

Gonzales says. As we exit the vehicle, I scan for any semblance of a real spot but see nothing ‘skateable’. Mark nods and bolts away on a giant longboard, kicking forcefully before ducking down low and shooting past a moving car, narrowly missing flipping over its hood. He then hops up a curb and loops back around towards where I’m standing. Behind me is a half torn-down fence with its metal pipe top angled upward, looking flimsy and dangerous.

It has impalement written all over it.

Without testing out the pipe for ‘skateability’, Mark pushes super hard at the thing and pops a backside 50/50 up it,

grinding almost to the top then bailing and turning towards me before landing on both feet. “I want to see if I can launch off the top,” he shouts, his voice boiling with adolescent excitement. He flips over his board and takes off, kickflipping off the curb. How the hell he picked this place to skate is beyond me. It’s not a spot and would have been overlooked by even the most trained skater’s eye. But, having met Mark, it makes sense that only his mind could immediately create something so unique out of absolutely nothing.

He spends the next hour or so shooting skate photos and mugging for the lens. I fan out hard and study the impeccable style I’ve grown up watching in videos and trying my best to emulate.

The sun is setting quickly as we load into the truck and head back to Manhattan. I think about how fucking rad the day was. I mean, I got to hang with the Gonz. Then I think about my old rule – the one about not interviewing people I admire. I look towards Mark and decide that it’s time to retire that one. It was a stupid rule anyway

.

For exclusive photos from this Mark Gonzales skate session go to www.huckmagazine.com.

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text Cyrus Shahrad photography James McPhail

The undulating white mountains of the Alborz are in stark contrast to the cluttered streets of Tehran, today in mourning for the martyrdom of the Imam Hussein, one of the most revered holy men in Shi’ah Muslim history. Mehdi, my guide, points his battered Peykan north, and we bisect a city filled with men and women mustering outside mosques in black from head to toe.

As we climb higher into the mountains, however, religious mysticism is left behind along with the smog that shrouds the city itself.

The roadsides are instead dotted by wagons loaded with oranges, green almonds and watermelons. We pass families huddled over roadside barbeques; others are pitching tents with precarious valley views. Higher up, patches of snow give way to grand powder faces, high

drifts line the ever more ragged mountain road and we see young couples engaged in snowball fights, ducking for cover behind parked cars and periodically collapsing in hysterical heaps.

When we finally reach the small car park of the resort of Dizin – less than an hour after leaving downtown Tehran – we’re met by groups of young friends in brightly coloured outerwear loading and unloading the latest skis and boards from parked cars, their stereos blaring. One man is changing out of his wet clothes in public, bare-chested in the glare of the early afternoon sun. A young woman beside him has forsaken the traditional headscarf. After almost a month in Tehran, the sight of her dyed hair shifting in the mountain breeze makes me strangely emotional. ▼

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pillow lines and endless fun where you least expect to find it.

The afternoon is wearing on, but I manage to buy a full day’s lift pass for less than three quid and rent board and boots from the local hire shop. Snowboarding is still an emerging sport in Iran, and while ski and boot hire will cost you from 6,500 toman (roughly £4.50) per day, snowboards start at almost twice that. The slopes of Dizin are uniformly unthreatening.

Mellow red and blue runs cut around rolling hills and terminate in the resort itself, where two hotels accommodate the winter throngs pouring in from around the country.

It’s much the same setup that has greeted visitors for decades. In the 1960s, when the first lifts were installed under the Shah – himself

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an enthusiastic skier with a chalet in St Moritz – the ski industry looked set to reverse the rural poverty of mountain outposts like Dizin. Since the Revolution, however, the only development here is measured in degrees of rust. The lift system is comprised of two gondolas, a couple of rickety chairs and a handful of button and T-bar drags. On good days, they rattle along as they did for the Shah; on bad days, they don’t. The piste network remains painfully undeveloped, the map almost illegible and the winding mountain road so regularly blocked that it’s not unusual to drive all the way from Tehran and then be forced to turn back a few hundred yards from the slopes.

Today we’re lucky – everything appears to be in working order. Mehdi takes his lunch with a lift attendant wearing a patched jacket of the Iranian Ski Federation and a Soviet-style fur hat, leaving me to cruise the slushy spring slopes alone for a couple of runs before stopping to cheer on a group of snowboarders taking turns to leap off a small cornice. Most of them know enough to hit the lip at speed but seem unsure what to do once in the air – flapping and kicking and landing only if they’re lucky – but one young rider in wraparound Oakley goggles pulls an old-school backside air that leads to a torrent of high-fives and back slapping from his buddies.

He turns out to be Mansour, Dizin’s most

respected snowboard instructor. Mansour speaks no English, but his friend Siavash tells me about the professional Austrian snowboarder who arrived in Dizin four years earlier and taught the local instructors how to snowboard. Mansour shows me his board, which appears to be signed ‘Xaver Hoffman’. I begin telling him that Xaver Hoffman is German, but stop short: “Hold on, four years ago? And he’s still riding the same board?” Siavash nods. “New equipment is very expensive here,” he says. “A new board can cost $150. I’ve been riding this one for five years.”

Siavash and his friends insist on giving me a guided tour of their mountain. Old man Mehdi had spent almost the entire drive up here

bemoaning the next generation of Iranian skiers and especially snowboarders – their rowdiness and disregard for decorum, their lack of respect for the mountain – but hearing their whoops and hollers as they carve around blind corners and bolt down hidden powder faces, it becomes clear that he wasn’t being entirely fair. This is a hallowed playground – a place where kids can act their age and find temporary respite from the slings and arrows of growing up in the Islamic Republic – and my new friends seem only too aware of its importance.

“A few years ago, you couldn’t walk with your girlfriend in the street,” says Siavash in the return gondola, one foot jammed between the

doors to stop it from overheating. “This was true in Dizin as well. They had separate slopes for men and women.”

By comparison, he says, the Dizin we see today is one big party. “It’s the one place we can relax and be ourselves. I spend all summer feeling depressed, just waiting for the snow to fall so my friends and I can be together in the mountains. Snowboarding is my life now.”

I ask if he ever skis. “I used to ski with my father as a kid, but I’m sticking to snowboarding now. I think skiing is about rules. Snowboarding is about breaking the rules. I think that’s why it’s so popular with young people in Iran.” www.skifed.ir

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text Travis Mungford photography Mickey Gibbons

The Kings of Leon are back – and even Bob Dylan’s giving them props.

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When Kings of Leon pitched up in 2003, a lot of people were seduced by the story of how they grew up on the back seat of an old car being driven around the Deep South by their travelling preacher of a dad – but no one thought they had even two good albums in them. This April, they dropped their third, Because of the Times, and it’s a belter – far grander than its predecessors and a conscious move forwards from their signature country-punk sound, but just as rough-cut and explosive. Recent months have seen them supporting some of the world’s biggest artists and it’s given them an idea of what it looks like from the top of the rock’n’roll pile. That, it seems, is what they seek. But you also sense that these three brothers and a cousin from Tennessee are too honest musically to reach there any time soon, and probably too good-natured as well.

HUCK: Your new record has a much bigger, almost stadium rock sound. Is it influenced by the fact you’ve been playing these humongous shows supporting Dylan, U2 and Pearl Jam? Nathan: When we were on tour with U2 we were writing and getting a lot of these ideas, and we were playing huge arenas every night.

Even at soundcheck we would be thinking how the new songs would work in a big place like that. This record was definitely written with that in mind – that the stuff would sound good in a 300-person sweatbox and a 20,000seat arena.

Did you get to hang out with Dylan when you were on tour with him?

Caleb: We didn’t really expect to, because no one really talks to him or anything – he just kinda does his thing – but we were only doing one leg of the tour and at the end he came back there and he sounded like a little old black man. He said: [Adopts half-hipster, half-wheezy accent] “Man, I’m depressed.”

And we were like, “Really?” “Yeah, I told ‘em we should just tell them other two bands to stay home, we want you guys to finish it off.”

And then he’s like, “W’as that last song you played?” I said, “Trani,” and he said, “That’s a hell of a song.” I hit the floor.

NATHAN Followill.

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There’s always been a lot of talk about how Kings of Leon broke big in the UK but struggled in America. Is it different now you’ve played so many big shows there?

Caleb: Yeah, it’s really picked up in America.

Nathan: You won’t see it in record sales, but we’re playing places in towns that are four times the size of the last place we played there.

Caleb: A good thing for us is that we can pretty much play in front of about 3,000 people all over the world. In some places we can play to more, but when we first started the band the thought of playing to even half that number in America was like, ‘Fuck!’

Did you have a good time recording the new album?

Caleb: Definitely. We did most of it in Nashville and it wasn’t like we were going in there and working – first half of the days we’d be playing around outside and drinking these little foofie pineapple Malibu drinks and then when it was time to go into the big session we’d pour a couple glasses of wine. It was the best studio, man – you could change the colour of the room to whatever you wanted. Say with a song like ‘Arizona’, we’d make it pink and purple in there, or with a song like ‘Charmer’, we’d make it a harsh red. We got to play around with stuff like that and that made the vibe come out so much.

Nathan: It was the middle of the summer too and it was really sunny outside. As close to Hawaii as Nashville’s gonna get.

Caleb: And all these country musicians were recording there – all these people like Faith Hill and Keith Urban – and they’d come pulling into their sessions and we’d be all out there with no shirts on, laying out with a drink and bouncing balls off their Bentleys.

The songwriter Angelo didn’t play any part in your new songs. Is that right?

Caleb: That’s right.

But he co-wrote all the songs on the first record?

Caleb: Yeah.

CALEB Followill.

In the UK that raised a fair bit of suspicion, but is that the norm in Nashville – for songwriters to work together?

Caleb: We had written songs with a lot of people in town. That’s what we were doing – just trying to write some songs and make some money.

Nathan: We had a friend who was in Nashville and they paid him, like, $2,000 for a cheesy thing that you could spit out and we were like, “Holy shit.”

Caleb: We were waiters at a restaurant and we hated it, so we’d go and write with people, but we never wrote anything cheesy enough for people to actually record and we didn’t want to be like, “Here you go, this is bullshit.”

But we would watch people and work with people and we realised how terribly clichéd those songs were. Finally we had a meeting with Angelo and he was cool. Instead of sitting around writing, we would sit around ▼

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“I tried not to cuss at all on this record.

I say ‘asshole’ but I think that’s it. I’m not sure if the radio will like that.” listening to records and smoking pot. We built our relationship from there. There’s a lot of misconception in what people think of our writing relationship – it’s not what they think.

In the beginning, at the beginning only, before I was confident, he was pretty much a guy to bounce ideas off – a mentor. Now he’s pretty much a producer and we still bounce ideas off him in the studio. Ethan Jones is behind the boards, and Angelo’s there with two middle fingers up saying, “Come on, motherfuckers, pump me up!” He’s always been the one that, when I’m sitting there thinking I don’t know if it’s cool, he’s saying, “Fuck you, if you’re doing it, it’s cool. Don’t fucking worry about what people are thinking.” He helped make us confident.

Will you carry on working with him on future records?

Caleb: I’m always gonna want him to be one of the first people to hear it, because I can tell when I look at him if we’re on the right path or if we fucked up and have gone astray. But I don’t know if we’ll always work with him and Ethan. With this record, we weren’t gonna use them, because we were making a bigger record. We met with other producers but it just felt gross – like a blind date. They said whatever we wanted them to say. There was no heart in it. Angelo and Ethan aren’t that way – they’re just completely honest. I’ve been nose to nose with both of those guys thinking we’re about to fight because we’re so passionate about it.

Your second record was cut almost live. Was this done the same way?

Caleb: We went in there saying we’re not gonna record another live record. We loved Aha Shake Heartbreak because it was raw and natural but after we heard it played in clubs next to another song that was produced, we were kinda like, “Eeeeh.” But then we accidentally went into the studio and pretty much recorded another live record. We didn’t mean to – we would go in there and be like, “Everyone just jam along and we’re gonna get the drum track,” and then we’d listen to it and realise that all we had to do was throw some backing vocals on there and fix the guitar solo, maybe get a different guitar sound... You can still hear things that are so live – you can hear doors closing.

Lyrically, do you think you’ve developed between this and the last record?

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Caleb: Yeah, you have to – you have to be able to grow and stuff like that, and in a lot of different ways. A lot of the growth, I think, is that I’m electing to go with simple things.

Simple things are what stick in my head – all those old Walt Disney songs and things like that. It doesn’t all have to be about your dick, it doesn’t have to be about sex or something complicated – you can absolutely go out there and say something simple. Pink Floyd used to say simple stuff. It didn’t sound simple but it was.

So you’re not going to be so embarrassed when your mum is listening to this one.

Didn’t she get upset with the last one?

Caleb: [Laughs] I tried not to cuss at all on this record. I say ‘asshole’ but I think that’s it. I’m not sure if the radio will like that.

When you started out, plenty of things were written about your dad that were unsubstantiated. Did it piss you off that your upbringing was questioned?

Caleb: Absolutely. We never thought that people would think it was such a weird thing.

I mean, there are a lot of preachers’ kids in America. We didn’t realise that in the UK and Europe it’s not so Christian-based. For us it was just, “Yeah, we were in the back of a car because our dad was a preacher and we were poor.” There are preachers’ kids that don’t have to ride in the back of the car – they have nice trailers and things – but that’s just how it was for us. It was one of those things, though, that when we told people, they were immediately like, “What!?” and the record company people were like, “What!?” and the publicist... So then we’d do an interview and people would bring it up and we would go, “Yeah, what about it?” and then, before you knew it, that’s all they would talk about and we were like, “For fuck’s sake. Do you like the music?”

Nathan: The worst part was my dad reading stuff that bad-mouthed him...

Caleb: That he was a drunken preacher and did drugs...

Nathan: ...and half the time we never said anything. They just took a little bit like, “Their dad left the church for drinking,” or whatever, and then they’d make up that he was kicked out, and was the shame of the family... that was the hardest thing.

Was it a tough childhood? It must have been hard to maintain friendships if you were always moving about.

Nathan: You couldn’t. That’s why people can’t believe how good we get along. Most people, you stick them in their room with their brother and they’re killing each other.

Caleb: We had friends, but everything happened very quickly. We knew, after a while, that we shouldn’t get too close to people because we knew they were gonna be gone. You’d go to different churches and if there was a girl you liked, there wasn’t much you could do. It wasn’t like you were at home and you could call her or whatever – we were on the road. So you’d just hope you’d run into her at a church conference or something like that...

Nathan: ...and re-kindle your making-out relationship.

Has it made you all emotionally very hard?

Caleb: Yeah, but we’re all good-hearted guys. At Christmas time, we want to have a girl that we’re actually serious with. It never happens, though.

It does for Jared and Nathan, but I’m not very good at that, and I don’t like buying people presents [laughs].

Nathan: Caleb will always ask a girl out the day after Christmas and break up with her the day before Valentine’s Day. That’s usually his prime time to get a girlfriend.

You spent so much time in church when you were younger. Did it teach you what other kids who went to loads of punk shows learnt – that emotion and energy are more important than skill.

Nathan: Oh yeah. At some churches we went to, the drummer was the only guy there who could keep a beat and that’s why he became the drummer. It was always about people playing together good and never about great musicians all playing badly on the stage at the same time.

Four or five people that aren’t that good can play together and produce something that’s amazing if they listen to each other and are honest.

Are your ambitions for this record any different than before?

Caleb: You think of record sales and things like that, but we know we’re not going to sell millions of records, unless something happens. I mean, people don’t really sell millions of records anymore – it’s really hard to do it. With that being said, we went in there trying to write bigger and better songs

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Kings of Leon’s new album, Because of the Times, is out now on Columbia.

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There are so many of them.

The first I can remember was back in high school. I was a surf punk on a campus full of rednecks and cowpokes. I was standing alongside the nutrition line, trying to bum quarters. For reasons that are still unclear to me, an overweight, Skoal-spitter of a despicable fuck called Hardy Fimps walked up to me, said something nasty, and jabbed me in the gut. I felt the wind go. I felt my pride flutter away. I felt like I unquestionably should have punched him in the face but I didn’t and I still regret it to this day.

Second one that stands out happened at Topanga Point during a crowded west swell. I took off deep and this notoriously cantankerous regular-foot with a squatty, graceless style dropped in on me. I attempted to call him off as we raced through a section and then the moment we hit the flats he eyed me – I’ll never forget this – looked at me like I’d fucked his wife, began a cutback and then shot his board as hard as he could straight into my leg.

Had I died and someone caught the thing on video, I have no doubt he’d be serving time for voluntary manslaughter right now. It made that famous Dora sequence where he shoots the board at the unsuspecting shoulder-hopper at Malibu look friendly, like a love tap. His nose speared my thigh and knocked me off my board. Underwater I reached for the wound and felt first a hole in my wetsuit and then a hole in my thigh and then this incredible sense of violation, a kind of instant kinship with every man, woman and animal that’s ever been abused.

And the most fucked-up thing about it was we were acquaintances, and when we came up he looked at me and smiled warmly: “Jamie, shit, didn’t know it was you, bro,” he had the gall to say, as if that would excuse it, reverse it somehow.

I saw red as I’ve never seen, and immediately threw punches to his head. None hit his face though; it’s hard to throw a decent punch when you’re treading water, nowhere to plant your feet.

I waited for him on the beach for a good forty-five minutes. I watched the blood weep from the hole and create this ominous crimson stain on the black rubber, and I felt my leg

throb. I remembered that this same scumfuck had run over a dear friend of mine at the height of his competitive career, which put him out of the water for a long time, and that it was questionable whether or not it was an accident.

I felt a responsibility for future Topanga surfers, that it was my job to put a stop to this guy. I eyed rocks, tree branches, and cars streaming down PCH as possible weapons. At the time I felt a violence I’ve never known. I thought, I’ll gladly do six months in exchange for getting my sweet revenge. In the long run, I’m glad he never came in. I have not surfed Topanga since.

I see the scar every time I take a shower.

But the one I regret not punching in the face the most, the incident that a childhood of Westerns and Bruce Lee movies had been preparing me for, was the one that happened in the offices of Waves and Tracks magazines in Sydney in 1991. I was coming down from five years of pro surfing and doing all I could to resurrect myself. I was dreadfully insecure yet inflated with self-importance. My backpack was filled with Baudelaire, Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg, yet my head was filled with Carroll, Elko, Pottz and The Gerr.

I was working under Andrew Kidman at Waves and we were on a heavy Wayne Lynch trip at the time. I’d been thinking a lot about how my LA upbringing had tainted me, and the great Eddie and the Subtitles song that goes, ‘I don’t want to drown in American society,’ had become a kind of mantra. I was smoking a lot of pot and doing a lot of yoga.

I’d also given away all my sponsors’ garb and purchased an entire new wardrobe at the local St. Vinnies for something like thirty-three bucks.

I dressed like a beatnik, which can rub some people up the wrong way.

And so this guy comes into the office, a friend of Kidman’s, I think. He’s loud and brash and exudes a kind of trying-too-hard selfconsciousness. And as I shout something across the room at the art director, this guy eyes me up and down, scoffs at my purple beret, and says something to the effect of, “Who’s the bloody Nancy boy who thinks he’s a bloody American?”

Now has there ever been a greater cue to just slug a fucker in the face? First off,

ever since the cowpoke in ninth grade I’ve been fending off libido-squashers who can’t wrap themselves around a little fun with the wardrobe, and second off, I am a fuckin’ American!

No words spoken, just a clean, simple, completely justified knock-out punch, the guy goes down and the entire office understands, the higher-ups applaud. There are moments when all decorum, all office rules go out the window. Bust a desk or a $700 computer and no problem, you did the right thing, son.

But you see, I’m either such a fucking wimp or I was so completely dumbfounded or both that I didn’t do or say a fucking thing. I just stood there, staring at the guy.

“Ahhh,” said Kidman. “That’s me mate James and, well, James is American.”

“Ahhh maaaaate,” said the guy, or something along these lines, and then a vague apology and visible embarrassment.

But what’s interesting now when I think back, is that from this knucklehead’s perspective it was cool to be an American, it was an accent an Aussie might feign to impress the boys or try to get laid with. Ironic to think that at the time I was doing all I could to shake off my Americanness, and ironic also to think that months later I’d be back in Los Angeles and people there would confuse me for an Aussie. Suffice to say these were days of major identity crisis.

At any rate, my conclusion on the whole thing is this: You can spend an hour a day every day for eight years practising karate, boxing, Ju-Jitsu, or whatever, and in those moments that inevitably come you can be ready, you can deck that fucker right then and there, which, trust me, is a hundred times better than waking up twenty years later with stinging regret. Or, you can be passive in the moments that count, bottle that shit up, then learn to write, connive editors to print your shit, and get your revenge this way. Either way, there are fuckfaces in our midst, and no amount of pacifism will get around the fact that they occasionally need to be dealt with

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Jamie Brisick’s hard at work penning a surfing memoir of sorts that promises to include sex, tube rides, euphoric highs, gutter-licking lows and the rest of the stuff that make up a mid-eighties pro surfer’s life. Brilliant stuff. Coming soon.

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The surfboard is a white canvas that both produces and receives artistic expression.

What follows is a small sample of the latter.

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Adam neate Andrew pommier Jono wood MR jago Lucy mclauchlan Nicolas thomas Flying fortress

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Ozzie wright Peter webb Reg mombassa Will barras

the art on foam tour kicks off in london 1-18 june at the elms lesters painting rooms, www.elmslesters.co.uk. other european dates include: madrid: 22 june-2 july biarritz: 12-16 july milan: 1-10 august rotterdam: 15-25 august moscow: 1-10 september berlin: 1-10 october warsaw: 15-25 october the quiksilver initiative and spacejunk created the art on foam exhibition to celebrate artistic expression in boardriding culture. for more info, go to www.spacejunkgallery.com and www.quiksilver.com/initiative.

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SURFERS WHO BOX, BOXERS WHO SURF text Alex Wade photography Jonathan Phillips

Hooks, jabs and barrels down the Cornish coast.

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sam smart: bob, weave, duckdive?

It’s 6pm on a Friday night in Cornwall’s oldest boxing gym. Camborne and Redruth Amateur Boxing Club is deep in mining country, in a town where the off-licence is called ‘The Wineshaft’ and where the people are hewn of granite. The sound of leather thwacking on flesh detonates with the resonance of a Pipeline barrel. But this, you would think, is about as far as connections with surfing go.

Think again.

In the gym are three surfers who can mix it with the best of them. There is St Ives-based Stef Harkon, a lifeguard whose ability to slot into the barrels of Brims Ness at last year’s O’Neill Highland Open was as notable as the ferocity with which he is now hitting the heavy bag. There’s Nathaniel Hooton, from Newquay, a welterweight in his mid-twenties who is known on both the amateur boxing and British surfing circuits. And then there is Sennen Cove’s Sam Smart, a pro surfer who, with a record of nine straight wins as an amateur middleweight – seven of them by KO – might soon have to choose between surfing and becoming a pro boxer.

I’m there too, an ageing amateur boxer who should know better – not least because I’ve got a broken left wrist. I’m nowhere near the level of the other three as a surfer, but, like them, surfing and boxing have been lifelong passions. And yet they’re ostensibly very different pursuits. One signifies freedom, soul, artistry, even poetry. The other (and you can guess to which I’m referring) has detractors so impassioned that they regularly call for it to be banned. But I’m not the only boxer who surfs, or surfer who boxes. Far from it. There has to be a connection, but just as I’m wondering what it is, the club’s chief coach, Richard Bates, calls for Smart and Hooton to take to the ring.

Hooton is a fire-fighter by trade. He’s had ten bouts as an amateur and now boxes out of Newquay ABC. He is fast and skilful, peppering Smart with left jabs thrown from an orthodox stance. Curiously, while he boxes with his left foot forward, he surfs as a goofy-footer. Smart, on the other hand, is a goofy-footer on a board and a southpaw in the boxing ring. This makes him an awkward opponent at the best of times, and he is also taller and heavier than Hooton. Bates tells the pair to ease off a bit, but sparring with anything less than 100 per cent commitment is not easy. The blows – of gloved hands on flesh, of leather on leather – continue to resound in the spartan confines of the gym.

After a frenetic two-minute round the timer sounds and Bates tells one of the club’s heavyweights, Tiger, to climb through the ropes to spar against Smart. Again the going is tough but Smart’s speed and sledgehammer left-hand shots are plain to see. As I lightly limber up, I wonder if some pad work, sans broken left hand, might be possible. The thing is that watching boxing is, for me, like seeing lines of

clean swell – impossible to resist. I weigh up the likelihood of further damaging the hand as Harkon takes to the bags in an adjoining room.

I ask Hooton what he sees as the common denominator between surfing and boxing.

“One of the key things is the ability to use your own body weight to maximum advantage,” he says. I learn that Hooton often trains with Paul Jeffrey, the head coach of the English Surfing Federation, also a Newquay-based surfer-boxer. Hooton sees plenty of other parallels between surfing and boxing: “Both require fitness, discipline and confidence. These qualities are taken for granted in boxing but they also need to be second nature for any serious surfer.”

As I watch Smart and Tiger going toe-to-toe I’m reminded of Jersey-bred big-wave charger Ian Battrick, who also boxes at welterweight, and then of Australian writer Jack Finlay. Now in his sixties, Finlay has published a number of acclaimed stories on surfing and boxing, both of which he, too, has practised for most of his life. Fiona Capp encounters Finlay during That Oceanic Feeling, her odyssey to explore the idea of surfing, but knows him first only as a surfer. Later, she writes: “That summer, when watching Jack surf, I would see the boxer… in the steadiness with which he rose to his feet…

He wasn’t much interested in fancy manoeuvres, but the comet-like way he streaked across the wave was timeless.”

Bates calls time on the last round of sparring.

Another coach, Chris Wildman, takes the boxers for pad work. Camborne and Redruth ABC may be smack in the middle of what is arguably Britain’s first post-industrial landscape – the legacy of the tin, arsenic and tungsten mining industry, abandoned towards the end of the 1990s, is everywhere – but there is no escaping the sheer life-force of the work going on inside the club. That this is a hard place is beyond doubt, but so too that it is affirmative, vibrant and honest. In many ways, it is the antithesis of perceived surf cool, and as such, eventually the urge to don a pair of gloves is too much.

I climb through the ropes and throw a series of rights at the pads held aloft by Wildman. I need to feint as if to throw left jabs and hooks, because simply landing right-hand punches is alien, and the hand seems to be holding up.

Then I twist my wrist to dispatch a left uppercut.

Agony. My session comes to an end, but I, like the others, will be back. Smart comes up with the best reason why: “Surfing is like a drug, but a good one. You’re stoked for days after a session. It’s therapy. Boxing is different, sure, but the adrenalin it produces – the rush – is very similar.”

And as to which he’d choose if he had to decide, Smart hints that he’d take Madison Square Garden over Pipeline: “I’m happy to combine the boxing and surfing for now. But I love boxing. I want to take it as far as I can.”

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SURFER-BOXERS SAM SMART Sam Smart is a goofy-footer sponsored by Relentless, Surftech and C-Skins. Now twenty-six, Smart has an excellent record of 9-0 as an amateur boxer, with seven wins by KO. He is a hard-hitting southpaw, runs www.bluelagoonsurf.com and rips on a shortboard.

NATHANIEL HOOTON Now twenty-seven, Nathaniel Hooton is a born-and-bred Newquay surfer who also happens to be a very handy welterweight. He has made the finals of English and British surfing events and works as a fire-fighter.

Despite boxing in orthodox stance, he surfs as a goofy.

STEF HARKON Forty-three-year-old Stef Harkon tucked into almost as many Brims barrels as the pros at last year’s O’Neill Highland Open. One of Britain’s first pro skateboarders, Harkon is a superb triathlete who has worked as a sports performance coach with the likes of Sam Lamiroy and Nicolas Anelka. He says that he’s not a great boxer but you wouldn’t want to put him to the test.

ALEX WADE Alex Wade is old enough to know better but keeps on turning up at amateur boxing gyms. He’s the author of Wrecking Machine, an account of a life on and off the rails that was saved by the sweet science, as well as the forthcoming Surf Nation: In Search of the Fast Lefts and Hollow Rights of Britain and Ireland. When not injured thanks either to boxing or skateboarding, he tries to remember how to surf.

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DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU YOU CAN’T Travis Rice’s mantra for you – take heed, read on.

text Zoe Oksanen photography Danny Zapalac

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I’ve

just sat down to breakfast with one of the biggest names in snowboarding, and he’s helping me clear up my baby’s vomit.

Great start! Things could be worse though, because my breakfast buddy is Travis Rice, and he happens to be a really cool guy.

Travis is hanging out in Southern California while his shoulder heals. He separated it during the half-pipe contest at the US Open. Had he not fallen, Travis would very likely have been crowned Ticket To Ride (TTR) overall winner of the year, which would have given him some major cash along with a nice dose of kudos.

Not that Travis is lacking in either field.

He has just signed a five-year contract with Quiksilver rumoured to be enough money to make your eyes water, and as far as kudos goes, he’s won enough gold over the last few years to weigh down 50 Cent, and put out just as many insane video parts to rival any big rider out there.

So

who is Travis Rice and how did he rise from an unknown Jackson Hole, Wyoming, local to one of the most famous snowboarders on the planet? For starters, Travis is a super humble guy, not expecting the big-time success he’s had but not overwhelmed by it either. He seems way older than his twenty-four years. He first burst onto the scene when he won a spot to the X Games in 2002, turned up as an unknown and went home with the gold – an impressive fact given that a year earlier Travis didn’t even have a sponsor to his name.

On the back of his stunning X Games win, Absinthe – a major snowboard production company – offered him the chance to go film with them up in Alaska. Travis came home with enough A-grade footage to score the opening section of Transcendence. “After filming for only one month, I didn’t know what to expect when it came time to check the premiere in San Diego,” he explains. “They screened it in this dope little outdoor/indoor art gallery.

As everyone showed up, I ran out of cash so I went down the street figuring I had plenty of time before they started the film. I get back to everyone screaming and the film playing. As I

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walked around, everyone was slapping me on the back and congratulating me on the opening part. I didn’t even get to see it until ten days later. I really didn’t expect that one.”

Since then, Travis has gone on to win many a medal and his video parts have just been getting better. Just a couple of weeks ago, he won the slopestyle at the US Open. Ironic, really, because he turned up late, didn’t even practise “because it was icy”, goofed around on his first run and then laid down an absolutely massive run, leaving other riders to fight amongst themselves for silver in a blinding Vermont blizzard.

“I find that so much of what brings about doing good in contests involves actually enjoying riding in them,” Travis says. “This year at the Open the conditions were pretty brutal and all I really was trying to get was all four 180s. I don’t think it’s been done before. Once I got that out of the way I just chucked some tricks on my second run and it worked out.”

When it comes to testing the limits, Travis is your man. Take the time he was out filming in 2004. He and fellow pro Romain de Marchi decided to build a giant kicker and hit Chad’s Gap – an awe-inspiring 120-foot gap in the backcountry of Utah. Just take a second to think about the outcome of coming up short on that.

Pure madness?

“That jigsaw came together piece by piece,” Travis explains. “Absinthe films and I had been filming out of Salt Lake City for weeks and had been slowly working up to it.

With Romain De Marchi as a filming partner we were able to convince each other that Chad’s Gap was completely possible. We meticulously spent three days building and perfecting the transitions. Romain said that he’d do it if I guinea-pigged it. The toughest part is trying to get your speed right when there isn’t much room for error.” No shit. Travis did clear it though – landing four sweet tricks no less – and became the talking point of the season.

A few months later, though, and Travis’ luck seemed to have changed when he found himself caught in a full-scale avalanche. “Nicolas Mueller and I were rebating this face called Dirty Needles. As you can guess, it wasn’t the friendliest terrain,” he remembers. ▼

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“I was caught in the avalanche and tumbled 2000 feet before I was buried up to my 81

“I had just ridden the line and went back up to try it one more time. While getting ready to drop in to get to the starting position a massive cornice to my right cracked off. When it peeled off the ridge it opened up a thirtyfoot crevasse behind it that was so big the air rushing to fill the space sucked me right off the ridge and down onto the slope behind the four-plex apartment-sized chunk of ice. I was able to stay behind the massive chunks of ice but was caught in the avalanche behind it and tumbled 2000 feet before I was buried up to my armpits.”

If ever there was a defining moment in Travis’ life that was it, and his tone becomes more serious as he explains how it’s affected him: “I remember having a bit of a sensory overload for a few months afterward. Friends and family meant more, food tasted better and my daily surroundings were much more intriguing. Basically the only thing in life you can take for granted is death. It’s how you use your time up until that pivotal moment that personally defines you. Enjoy, and don’t blow it watching MTV – aside from the Rob and Big show.”

“Actually,

I am going tornado chasing in June.” That was Travis on the phone to his dad when I picked him up earlier today. It turns out it’s all in the name of his latest movie creation, a two-year project which, aside from showcasing some of the best riders out there (Terje Haakonsen and Nicolas Mueller, for example), is also focusing on the intense weather extremes courtesy of global warming.

Having pulled off his first production last year in the form of The Community Project – an effort to move away from the typical snowboard movie tied down with sponsorship issues – Travis wanted to take it to the next level. To get footage of them in front of a twister, they are going out with a tornadochasing professional, Dopplers and all. But what I find most impressive is that before Travis knew he was going to get funds for the movie, he went ahead and started it anyway, digging deep into his own pocket to make it

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happen. When I ask him how he always seems to get companies to back his ideas with some big dollars in the end, his reply is typical of the man that just seems to make shit happen: “A lot of hard work and not letting pessimism affect your vision.”

Hard work has also led to the creation of his own contest – backed by Quiksilver – taking place in Jackson Hole. The event, planned to start next season, will be the first ever slopestyle contest based solely on natural terrain. The reason behind it all? “A lot of the pros out there who are travelling from contest to contest while trying to squeeze some filming in between don’t have the time to take a week out to just enjoy riding their damn snowboards. So that’s were I come in. I’ve been working with Jackson Hole Mountain resort for the last two years on trying to bring a legit big-mountain freestyle contest to Jackson. With Red Bull and Quik onboard, I think we’re gonna be able to pull it.”

That’s a lot of life happening in a short space of time. So with all the madness of the last few years, Travis must have a serious case of rock star syndrome, right? Wrong. “Reality is reality; there is a lot terribly wrong in the world today. Read some books, watch a little BBC. Hell, go camping and I find you can even out the keel pretty easy.“ Perhaps it is the fact that Travis is simply doing what he genuinely loves that is the key to both his success and his levelheaded approach to what he does. His attitude towards snowboarding reminds you of the reason you do it in the first place. “Snowboarding allows you to truly live within the moment,” he says.

“It all comes down to instincts. I find we spend so much of our time second-guessing and validating our reactions in everyday life. When you’re ripping through the trees, you don’t have time to question an instinct; only to let it guide you with confidence.”

With breakfast nearly over and my sixmonth-old son still wildly flapping his arms in general excitement, Travis bends down to offer him a final pearl of wisdom: “Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t fly.” Travis’ story suggests he’s right

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“It all comes down to instincts. I find we spend so much of our time second-guessing and validating our reactions in everyday life. When you’re ripping through the trees you don’t have time to question an instinct; only to let it guide you with confidence.”

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01 Mada Bushwood Boardshorts 02 Lowlife Snow T-Shirt 03 Dragon GG Sunglasses

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04 Protest Rydell girl’s Top 05 O’Neill belt 06 Insight Vest Top

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07 Gravis Studio girl’s Bag 08 Smith Serpico Sunglasses 09 Teva Karnali Wraptor Shoes

10 Addict Flite II Jacket 11 Dickies Starlight Belt 12 Billabong Peteni Bikini

13 Billabong Pontederia girl’s Shorts 14 Obey Shoes on Wires GIRL’s Top 15 Simple Vantoe Shoes

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jihad khodr times two: on the beach, at matinhos, brazil, wearing his everyday work clothes; and at his local mosque, in paranaguรก, brazil, wearing traditional muslim clothes.

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surfer text Sidney Tenucci Jr photography Rafael Dabul

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Despite constant harassment at airports around the world, this young Muslim surfer continues to defy passport gatekeepers to ride the planet’s best breaks. Not only that, but he’s also the current Brazilian champion.

Meet Jihad Khodr, surfing’s very own holy warrior.

Matinhos, Paraná State, Brazil. In this sleepy beach town of 30,000 people, he is simply ‘the man’. At least that’s what the locals say. “Jihad? A really humble kid. Hum-ble,” repeats the mayor and family friend, drawing out each syllable to drive the point home.

Twenty-three-year-old Jihad Khodr is the son of Lebanese immigrants who fled their home country in the late 1950s.

His father moved to Brazil at the age of thirteen without knowing a single word of Portuguese. The family settled in the south and, struggling to make ends meet, all of the children were sent to work. With a knack for maths, Jihad’s father started selling apples, which he bought for fifty cents and sold for one cruzeiro in the downtown market. Years later he met and married Jihad’s mother, Hafiza, and set up his own shop. As business started to pick up, the first of five kids was born. Jihad is the youngest of the boys.

“To me there’s no Kelly Slater, Peterson Rosa and Fábio Gouveia. My hero is my dad,” declares Jihad with pride before taking another hit of tobacco on the family hookah pipe. The small living room contains all the elements of a typical Muslim home in Brazil: Persian rugs, photos of the Mecca, paintings with Arabic writings on them. This iconography might help explain the parents’ choice for the unusual Muslim name. The word ‘jihad’, says Hafiza, means to “make an extraordinary effort,” or “to fight, in a process of inner-struggle, to win”. She says she “knew there was something special about him even before he was born”.

At three years of age, young Jihad managed to escape from under his mother’s wing for the first time. Mum looked around for hours until she found him in the place where he was to spend most of his childhood and teenage years: the beach. At seven, he rode his first wave on a foam board borrowed from his dad’s shop.

As he grew and got further and further into it, alarm bells began ringing around the house. Surf culture’s perceived ties to the world of drugs and partying were a major concern to Mrs. Khodr. “I’ve never really liked it,” she admits, “but when it became clear that he was destined to become a surfer, then I just let go. People can’t change their destiny.”

When Jihad was ten, a schoolteacher noticed that studying was falling far behind other interests. He called Hafiza for a quick chat. “Surfing is taking over his world,” the teacher told her. “His body might be here, but his mind is on the waves! When I chastise him, he just starts laughing and says something in Arabic back at me.” Ashamed, Hafiza marched back home and took his surfboard away. It was later put on sale in the family shop downstairs. Thankfully, nobody wanted it. Seventy-two hours later Jihad, who had strategically turned into something of an angel at school, got his surfboard back.

Despite Hafiza’s worries, Jihad’s dad was far more supportive. “In the beginning he sponsored me with his own money,” says Jihad. “He believed I had a shot at it. I have no idea why he thought that, as he was always in the shop working. He never went to see me surfing. But the truth is: he really believed in me.”

When Jihad began competing, his parents had to balance support for their son with a series of strict Muslim precepts.

Most difficult to follow was the notion of ‘praying for all competitors’. How could they hope for a Jihad victory while saying prayers for Bruce Irons and Rob Machado at the same time? Not that it made a difference.

Since he began competing internationally in 2001, Jihad has managed to edge out not one but both surfers in separate events around the world.

But it wasn’t until 2005 that Jihad’s

international career peaked, when he almost won a spot on the coveted World Championship Tour (WCT), professional surfing’s premier league. He finished seventeenth on the World Qualifying Series, while only the top sixteen make the cut and enter the WCT. Not making the World Tour didn’t stop Jihad from coming back for more. In 2006, he paddled back out with a vengeance, making four out of five finals to win the prestigious SuperSurf, Brazil’s first-division surfing tour.

With such an unusual first name, often translated as ‘holy war’ in English, Jihad has faced obstacles that are unimaginable to your average Western surfer. In November 2006, for example, he found himself in the hands of American interrogators for the second time since 9/11. Headed to Hawaii to compete in one of the last events of the World Qualifying Series, Jihad was barred from entering the country by officials who claimed the young Muslim had the wrong visa to compete in a surfing event.

But the scariest incident occurred just over a year after the terrorist attacks on the United States. Friends had advised Jihad to avoid trips to America, but the young Brazilian had been going to the US to surf since he was fourteen having never had any issues with immigration.

But times had indeed changed. And in 2003, during a stopover in Washington DC en route to California, Jihad Khodr was detained and interrogated by immigration authorities for eight long hours. During this time he says they threatened to smash his surfboards to look for alleged explosives and drugs. He says officials also questioned him as to whether his dad was a terrorist, dealt drugs or had ever been in prison.

Without grounds to hold him any further, they eventually let Jihad go. ▼

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during a stopover in washington dc en route to california, jihad khodr was detained and interrogated by immigration authorities for eight long hours.

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The Washington DC episode hasn’t changed the way he lives his life. Racial profiling aside, the beard, says Jihad, stays: “I’m different from other people in the surfing world. It’s the style of my religion and it’s who I am.”

But is he a ‘good’ Muslim? “Jihad’s no doubt a devout Muslim,” says Khodr senior.

“But with all the travelling and surfing, he doesn’t have time to pray five times a day.”

The young Brazilian agrees: “I’m not a saint.

I have a girlfriend, go out with my friends… sometimes I even get drunk! But that’s rare… And I never overdo it, either.”

And what does he think about suicide bombers who kill and maim in many parts of the Middle East and the world? Hardly ever political, the question does touch a nerve.

“Islam is a religion of peace,” he says. “If they

hadn’t invaded their lands, this might not be happening.” But as he finishes his thought, the surfer in him speaks louder: “If only everyone would chill out a bit more…”

Jihad Khodr is that rare thing: a living link between two worlds set widely apart. He’s East and West, Islam and Christianity, slacker surfer and devout Muslim, samba dancing and your daily call to prayer. The son of a domestic environment full of rules and discipline, he also grew up on the opulent beaches of Brazil riding its plentiful waves.

In a world full of angst, war and mediainduced terror, Jihad’s tale brings to question the fashionable notion that ‘civilisations are clashing’.

Maybe they’re not

.

Special thanks to Trip magazine, www.trip.com.br.

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text ANDREA KURLAND photography ROB ‘THE DOG’ LONGWORTH

The creator of a humanoid race, James Jarvis is leading a plastic revolution that’s taking over the world.

“I’m no longer bothered about making sure everything makes sense in this one world.”

A gifted creator is having a philosophical moment.

“It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that there are millions of parallel universes where my people can live, each with their own set of rules.” He’s the patriarch of a new world order, founder of a greater zeitgeist – the master of a plastic race.

They call him James – a conventional name for a seriously unconventional creator. Away from the realms of politics and religion, James Jarvis is the humble British pioneer of the designer toy phenomenon. He’s the illustrator from London whose obsession with the potato head has propelled him to rockstar status – the Western face of a scene steeped in the urban styles of Hong Kong and Japan.

Today, in this mint London office, he’s more than willing to chat – about plastic worlds, mainstream ambitions, and the serendipitous stroke of luck that was a humanoid called Martin. ▼

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“it was a happy accident. and it came from being involved in a scene, in london skateboarding.”

All smiles and childlike candour,

James Jarvis is the personification of the designer toy scene. In a world where grownups fight over toys that aren’t made for playtime, he is both man and boy, imagination and sense – a whimsical creative grounded in the power of logic. “I have this need for order and discipline in everything I do,” says the elfin-like James. “Even if things seem illogical, they have to be driven by logic. That’s why, when I create another universe, I have to also create rules for my characters to live by.”

Glance over James’ plastic tribe and you may well brand them a bit of cartoon fun – but you’d be wrong. Behind the giant gorillas and pear-shaped humanoids lies a world of academic research. “My thing is modernism,” says James. “I’m talking about early twentiethcentury constructivism, Bauhaus. That minimalist functional way of looking at the world and design.”

With a childhood spent absorbing the work of author-illustrators Richard Scarry, Gary Panter and Hergé – the man behind Tin Tin – James always knew illustration was his calling. An MA tucked firmly under his belt, his trailblazing career kicked off in that most creative of cultural scenes: skateboarding.

The late nineties saw the fresh-faced graduate team up with Russell Waterman and Sofia Prantera of London’s Slam City Skates on the couple’s new venture, clothing label Silas. “It was a happy accident. And it came from being involved in a scene, in London skateboarding, and hanging out at Slam,” says James, on the solid partnership that would be

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the making of his now iconic style. “It was the first time I got to do what I wanted without having to moderate it. And that involved these kind of weird minimalist characters.”

With James ensconced as all-round illustrating wonder kid, the trio were soon catapulted into an entirely new dimension – of the injection-moulded variety. “Our Japanese distributor sent over a Bounty Hunter toy and was like, ‘I think you should make one of these,’ so we did,” explains James. “We never set out to enter the world of designer toys, because it simply didn’t exist.”

Another happy accident, another unplanned birth – this time to a healthy eight-inch vinyl humanoid called Martin: a conventional name for a seriously unconventional character.

People loved him – and over the next five years, more plastic personalities popped out of the ‘World of Pain’, their creator’s comic universe. Having sampled the sweet smell of vinyl, James was bitten by the three-dimensional bug. “When you make an illustration, there isn’t that air of mystery, because you’re in charge of the whole thing,” he says. “I liked the industrial aspect – the fact that we got this thing back that was related to my idea but at the same time new.”

Martin and co. hit a chord with skaters and regular folk alike, becoming sought-after collectibles: “The toys were popular in their own right – they had a Silas audience, but they also attracted people that weren’t interested in fashion.” Unwittingly, James had catapulted the global-sweeping designer toy craze into being. ▼

young ruffians from the in-crowd series.

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“what i had in mind was playmobil. it has that bauhaus ethos to it: it’s very minimal, it’s very practical and logical.”

But where other aspiring trendsetters would give their skinny jean butt to christen their own cultural niche, soft-spoken James and geezer-man Russell are hesitant heroes of this underground scene. Far from wielding a blueprint on ‘how to make your subculture exclusive’, this unlikely coupling’s business plan was decidedly more mainstream: bring toys to the masses.

“Russell always said toys aren’t fashion, that it made no sense to lump them in with that seasonal, ephemeral world,” says James, glancing admiringly over his shoulder at a computer-happy Mr. Waterman. “If we wanted the toys to be mass-market, it was weird to associate them with this underground, more subversive brand, and vice versa.”

This moment of clarity led to the 2002/’03 establishment of Amos, a company dedicated to toys. “The whole idea of Amos was to let the toys take their own direction,” says James.

“The first toys we put out, the In-Crowd, were meant to be a mainstream thing. Kind of like the Beanie Babies, but with all of the subversive aspects that we like in culture.”

Today, Amos is home to a growing troupe of plastic characters. Many stem from James’ philosophical storybook, Vortigern’s Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom, co-written with multi-tasking partner Russell. The ‘In Crowd’, meanwhile, is a satirical ode to pop cultural trends. Figures like ‘The Young Ruffians’ hit a chord with anyone struck with the post-high-school realisation that they’re anything but original – which is basically

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everyone. “People buy them because they’re like, ‘That looks like my friend Dave,’” smiles James. “They have characteristics that people can relate to. That was the whole thing about having a basic appeal.”

Subversive and accessible in equal measure, Amos Toys dominate their own micro-economy.

Hardcore collectors and wheeler-dealers alike are part of a global trade in plastic that sees vinyl and currency swap hands across the world. Earlier this year, an olive green King Ken – the gorilla who’s now a beacon of the designer toy scene – amassed a whopping £1,200 price tag on eBay. Not bad going for a plastic monkey that wasn’t even meant to be. “I felt sorry for the guy that bought that,” says James. “It’s not even the best colour. In fact, it was never meant to be green – it was supposed to be a black sample, but I sent the wrong pantone.”

Away from the fashion-conscious figurine, James’ inspiration seeps from a very different toy – one that actually is meant to be played with. “What I had in my head as a really great toy wasn’t this designer, boutique, fashion thing – it was Playmobil,” says James, lighting up like a kid at Christmas. “It has that Bauhaus ethos to it: it’s very minimal, it’s very practical and logical. But within that structure, there’s some really mad things, like weird tree spirits. They work as toys and they work as design objects.”

Balancing whimsicality with structure is the central force of James’ design ethos. Every

aspect of every character is the product of hours of research – making the simplification of life anything but simple. “I develop particularly pointless drawn-out ways of doing the artwork,” he says. “If your character is going to look like it can live in a cloak, for example, you need to know everything about that cloak.”

Another winning recipe is the union of businessman and artist – Russell’s pragmatism offsetting James’ creativity. “Being practical is something Russell’s imparted to me,” says James. “My life’s a piece of piss. I draw things.

His struggle in building up Amos is more quantifiable, while for me it’s some kind of airy-fairy intellectual struggle about the meaning of drawing.”

Looking back over a bursting portfolio of otherworldly creations, what emotion is James overcome by? “I’m always disappointed,” says the man whose compulsion for perfection is becoming more and more apparent.

What about his global fan base? It’s a good time to be British, right? “What? As society collapses and kids don’t behave themselves?” replies James. “No, it’s a terrible time to be British!”

But, with a feature animation on the horizon and a humanoid race to his name, it’s a great time to be James Jarvis – master of the (plastic) universe www.amostoys.com

.

Vortigern’s Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom, James Jarvis and Russell Waterman, Die Gestalten Verlag.

back to front: king ken, martin and caleb, a young ruffian.

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LEFT TO RIGHT Seventy-Seven Foil eagle MEN’S TEE Billabong The Edge MEN’S TEE Addict Olympic A MEN’S TEE Nikita Kristin Lucy in the sky GIRL’S TEE Insight MEN’S TEE 99

LEFT TO RIGHT Rip curl MEN’S TEE Insight Forbidden MEN’S TEE Howies Weekend Hippy GIRL’S TEE WESC Monster Flowers MEN’S TEE Reef Flight MEN’S TEE Chateau Roux Inspire MEN’S TEE

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SUMMERTIME SPELL PHOTOGRAPHY

matt hind

STYLING

richard pierce

Hair james mooney @ clm using kiehl’s stylist series Make-up michael gray using nars Model morwenna lytton cobbold @ icm

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Dress by wesc Top (underneath) by puma Gold necklace & bangles from topshop

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Top by blueblood Shorts and braces by wrangler Bikini top (just seen) by puma

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Swimsuit by boss orange

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Sunglasses by paul smith Vest by howies Bikini top (just seen) by puma Gold chain from grays antique market

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Waistcoat by dsquared2 Bikini by diesel Bangles from topshop

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Swimsuit by diesel

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Top by boxfresh All-in-one by dsquared2 Necklace from grays antique market

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HELLO! GLAD YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR...

THE US OPEN 25 YEARS ON ARCTIC MONKEYS BRA BOYS THE FOUNTAIN

PLUS: Music Movies Games Books...

CRAIG KELLY, 1987 US OPEN. PHOTO: BURTON SNOWBOARDS.

PAGE S

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BAD , R E H T A E W BIG MONEY THE US OPEN GOES OFF AGAIN! The US Open has been around for, quite literally, a lifetime.

Snowboarding’s lifetime, anyway.

Though the first seedlings date back to the late seventies, it wasn’t until a handful of pioneering riders got together in 1982 that snowboarding really kicked off. Little did they know that those early runs in Southern Vermont would become the mighty US Open, the only snowboard event to have taken place for twenty-five consecutive years.

In a world full of space-age technology, media-trained riders and spins you can no longer count, it’s easy to forget the sport’s origins – but the US Open represents just that.

Come rain or shine, the event is still held every year in the New England state of Vermont. With an average of 30,000 spectators and more than $250,000 in total prize money, it is one of the most influential contests in snowboarding, attracting big-name brands such as Motorola, this year’s title sponsor, and standing as a key event in the Burton Global Open Series.

As always, the 2007 US Open brought in the sport’s heavy hitters by the truckload. Shaun White, Travis Rice, Danny Kass and Andreas Wiig were just a few of the names seen up at the starter gate. But, believe it or not, even they struggled in the horrid weather that descended upon Vermont.

With incessant snow and high winds, the slopestyle contest

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saw the superstars goofing around on their final runs because they couldn’t even make it to the bottom of the course with all the fresh powder. Many didn’t even get past the first hit. Those lucky enough to tie up a full run made their way to the top, with Travis Rice standing proud in first place thanks to a run in which he somehow managed to pull off three 720s.

The halfpipe contest barely fared any better and took place on the back of sixteen inches of fresh pow, making speed and amplitude a serious issue. Shaun White somehow still managed to pull his magic, scoring an almighty 94.75 points for a frontside 1080, Cab 1080, frontside 900, backside 900, frontside 720 and switch alley oop backside rodeo 720. The Big Air, sadly, was cancelled altogether. To make matters worse, those spectators ready to party to Pennywise were all out of luck as the storm prevented the band from flying in.

But no amount of cursed weather could wash away some of the smiles, especially with record-breaking payouts on the cards. White and Torah Bright both became proud owners of new Volvos for their performances, while their accumulative scores at all the Opens throughout the season crowned them both as the first ever Burton Global Open Series champions, earning each of them a colossal $100,000.

Add to that Torah’s $20,000 for her halfpipe and slopestyle runs and the $25,000 Shaun made for his, and suddenly snowboarding’s entered a whole new league.

Rain or shine – or snow – the big time has definitely arrived. Zoe Oksanen www.opensnowboarding.com www.motorola.com

© 2007 ROBB FARRINGTON

TRAVIS RICE, PUTTING IT DOWN IN THE PIPE.

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BRA BOYS NEW FILM SHEDS LIGHT ON INNER-CITY SURFING. “It’s probably the most localised surf spot I’ve ever been to,” said a deadly serious Kelly Slater at the beginning of Bra Boys, a documentary about Maroubra – a tough beach suburb of Sydney made tougher by a history of poverty and social neglect. And Kelly should know. He experienced the spot’s aggressive surf culture firsthand when he competed against one of Maroubra’s favourite sons, Koby Abberton, at the ’Bra itself. On that occasion, surfing – not fists – did the job, with local boy Koby defeating the famous world champion.

Bra Boys is a hard, yet at times funny, account of life in what is known in the local Aboriginal dialect as ‘the place of thunder’. Broken homes, single parents and poor faces litter the screen, suggesting we’re operating miles outside the realm of traditional surf cinema.

While social issues are fought on the streets, solace is found in the ocean – the mother and father for many of Maroubra’s sons and daughters. Bra Boys shows a community where people look out for one another, a strong cultural bond hewn from the rough streets of Sydney’s heaviest surf-side suburb.

Fun, tough and on the poor side of the tracks, the four Abberton brothers, Sunny, Jai, Koby and Dakota, take us through the history of Australian localism as seen from their privileged vantage point. They also address the emotional court cases and eventual acquittal of Jai and Koby, both of whom faced massive jail terms for the death of a member of the community.

The movie brings to light the 2005 Cronulla riots, some twenty odd kilometres down the coast from the ’Bra. After the riots – which pitted whites against Australians of Middle-Eastern descent – Maroubra became the focus of reprisal attacks. The Bra Boys, who had nothing to do with it, eventually made amends with the Muslim community, denouncing the Cronulla riots and wider racial violence.

Then there is the surfing – huge Australian, Tahitian, Hawaiian and Fijian waves are made even bigger on the big screen. This is social documentary with an edge – made up of spitting barrels, deep carves and outrageous surfing action. Who would have thought that’d ever work? Bra Boys proves that it does. Peter Malone

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S M U B L A ARCTIC MONKEYS

Favourite Worst Nightmare / Domino

‘Brianstorm’, the pounding first single from the Arctic Monkeys’ second album, is a giant “Fuck you!” to all those people who thought the far gentler and very ordinary ‘Mardy Bum’, which was never released as a single, was the best song on their debut. We’re back and we’re not going to do anything as you want us to, ‘Brianstorm’ suggested, and that’s exactly what Favourite Worst Nightmare is all about – a band hell-bent on trying new ideas, messing with the rules of the Difficult Second Album, and doing it very well. No song on the record is an out-and-out anthem like ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ is, but nearly all of them are just as good.

There are surf guitars, super heavy drums, weird time signatures and increasingly abstract lyrics. All in all, job done, and they still sound like a band who have hardly started yet. PHIL HEBBLETHWAITE

DETROIT COBRAS

Tied & True / Rough Trade Almost exactly the same as their previous albums and that’s a relief: consistency and reliability are everything if you do what the Detroit Cobras do – re-cut lost R&B and soul tracks in a punk rock style. Muddy, raw and sassy in equal measure, and the more Rachel Nagy smokes the better that slutty voice of hers becomes. PH

ELECTRONICAT

Chez Toi / Disko B

Electroclash may be as accepted these days as hanging out near children with a zoom lens, but France’s Electronicat doesn’t care: seven albums in and he’s still got that 2002 sound. Sort of. He constantly moves forward and he’s always getting better. This, a less slashing and tighter record, is his best yet. PH

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKE OFFS You Can’t Buy A Gun When You’re Crying / Damaged Goods

More of a duet record than queen of British rock‘n’soul Holly Golightly fronting a band, because The Broke Offs is in fact just Texan singer-songwriter Lawyer Dave. Together they’ve cut a sparse and dusty blues album high on flavour and substance and low on recording quality, just as it should be. Seriously good stuff and Holly’s voice shines throughout. PH

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KINGS OF LEON

Because of the Times / Columbia A grand move forward into a stadium rock sound by this still super young family band from Tennessee and a largely successful one, mostly because the balance across the record is perfect: the songs are big, but the production is raw and simple. A couple of tracks could have been cut, but here’s the moment when the Kings become a real force. PH

DJ KENTARO

Enter / Ninja Tune Superbly skilled Japanese producer whose early tracks and mixes suggested he might steal DJ Krush’s crown − but he hasn’t delivered with his debut album. Plenty of variety on here (hip hop, drum‘n’bass, dub) and some good guests (Spank Rock) but, in the end, diversity becomes the LP’s downfall. Good picked apart but incoherent as a whole. PH

PATTI SMITH

Twelve / Columbia Awful name for a (covers) record that has twelve songs on it, and the music’s just as boring. Patti may have once been a leader of New York punk but here she moves into proper snoozefest land, foolishly choosing well-known songs (‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘Gimme Shelter’) and proceeding to render them cheesy and unlistenable. PH

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Mute Audio Documents / Mute One of them whopper box sets (four double CDs) that you can’t digest quickly but rewards handsomely if nibbled at over time. Everyone who released a single on Mute between ’78 and ’84 gets a look in, and they had some true visionaries on their books – The Normal, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode... But this could have been edited down and been just as good. PH

VON SÜDENFED

Tromatic Reflexxions / Domino

A collaboration album between The Fall’s caustic frontman Mark E. Smith and German electro duo Mouse on Mars but this is far more than a Sunday afternoon vanity project: it’s a proper corker of an album that sees Mr Smith barking hilariously aggressive and spontaneous lyrics over throbbing old-school techno.

Pumping. PH

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MOVIES GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL *****

Directors: Asger Leth, Milos Loncarevic Starring: 2Pac, Wyclef Jean, James ‘Bily’ Petit Frère

We’re all used to watching pictures of a messy war being fought on ramshackle streets, but nothing can prepare you for Ghosts of Cité Soleil. In 2004 Danish filmmaker Asger Leth secured widespread access to Cité Soleil, a Haitian slum of crushing poverty, hip-hop, voodoo magic and statefunded thuggery that the United Nations has called ‘the most dangerous place on earth’. It’s here that president Aristide’s violent private army, the Chimères, rule a world of guns, drugs and political intimidation. This is a stunningly frank and powerful documentary. STEVE WATSON

PARADISE LOST **

Director: John Stockwell Starring: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde A group of attractive backpackers become the hapless victims of a ruthless Brazilian doctor hell-bent on killing foreign tourists. The madman – bitter post-colonial savage that he is – wants to right historical wrongs by removing his victims’ organs and sending them off to local hospitals to help the poor. Implausible plotline aside, highlights do exist. For the male voyeur: spectacularly attractive blondes running through the jungle as their bits bounce around. For the ladies: Josh Duhamel’s muscular torso emitting pure testosterone shine every time the sun splashes down his chest. It’s pretty silly, but get pissed beforehand and you might have fun. JOHN LICKLITTER

THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS **** Director: Auraeus Solito Starring: Nathan Lopez, J.R. Valentin

What’s this? Underage transgender Filipino movie making? Sounds great! Since the death of his mother, ladyboy-in-waiting Maximo Oliveros tends to domestic duties in the home of his father and two older brothers. But when twelve-year-old Maxi develops a crush on a handsome new copper, the church-going Victor, it threatens disaster for his violent, thieving family, who live on a very different side of the law. Filmed on tiny resources in thirteen days, you have to admire the balls of director Auraeus Solito. Or, as the film would have it, you just have to admire balls, full stop. JONAS MILK

THE HITCHER **

Director: Dave Meyers Starring: Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton Another day, another horror remake. Still, the two-word premise, ‘killer hitchhiker’, sounds promising, as two photogenic teens find themselves trapped with Sean Bean’s gravelly psycho. By the last reel, however, Bean has transformed into a bargain-basement Arnie, and the misjudged use of a Nine Inch Nails track only confirms what we’ve suspected all along: this isn’t a horror film, it’s a music video coupled with some fake snuff footage. NEON KELLY

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S D V D

THE FOUNTAIN *****

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Dismissed by some as an overblown piece of flatulent selfindulgence, The Fountain is, at heart, a moving and mesmeric examination of lost love. Hugh Jackman plays Tommy, a brain surgeon whose wife (Rachel Weisz) is dying from an inoperable tumour. Tommy’s inability to accept her death takes him on a metaphorical journey into the distant past and the far future, on a quest to discover the Tree of Life. In essence, this is a film about understanding the nature and frailty of existence. Not for everybody, but check it out for yourself. MATT BOCHENSKI

NOTES ON A SCANDAL *** Director: Richard Eyre

Stunning performances from Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench aside, Notes on a Scandal offers little in the way of light or love for any of its protagonists. Not that they’re necessarily deserving. Blanchett is boho totty Sheba, hopelessly out of her depth in an inner-city high school where she’s caught sucking off a pupil by crypto-dyke Dench. What follows is a convincing psychological examination of two damaged women, but with nobody to root for, it becomes a wearying saga. MB

BLOOD DIAMOND *** Director: Ed Zwick

Leo di Caprio is on a mission to save the continent of Africa. How? By not-so-subtly re-engineering the summer spectacular with Blood Diamond – the blockbuster that cares. Out now on DVD, take home this story of an ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe in an all-action race to find a fabled pink diamond. Oh, and shag a hot reporter (Jennifer Connelly). Oh, yeah, and save the people of Sierra Leone by, like, being sorry and stuff. Hmm, not sure that’s quite the solution, Leo, but good on ya for trying. MB

APOCALYPTO **

Director: Mel Gibson

Fact: Mel Gibson is mental. Everybody knows this. He has a strange relationship with violence and masculinity. It was there in Braveheart (“You’re torturing me! It hurts! Stop… okay, carry on!”), The Passion of the Christ and it’s there in Apocalypto Apocalypto,, his bizarre vision of Mayan civilisation.

There are headless bodies, disembowelled torsos, slit throats, you name it. But does it work? Not really. Sitting uneasily between Mad Max in a jungle and studious historical reconstruction, the film fails to satisfy on either count. MB

SHORTBUS ***

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

John Cameron Mitchell’s latest sex odyssey, Shortbus, is a fleshy, voluptuous film set in the twilight world of New York’s underground sex club scene. Mitchell is at his best when he succumbs to the gorgeous flights of fancy that see his camera swooping over a miniature NY backdrop, but the minute he gets all serious, well, it all just seems a bit childish. MB

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BURNOUT DOMINATOR *** PS2, PSP

With the NextGen release of Burnout 5 on the distant horizon, Dominator will keep fans of the super speedy racing series placated for the interim. Consisting of the same Nitrous-boosting, traffic-skimming, rival-takedown madness, you battle against other Fast and Furious types with complete disregard for the highway code and your carbon footprint. This offers little new apart from some sneaky little shortcuts but, as a solid continuation of the highly addictive series, it manages to holds its own nicely. ED ANDREWS

SKATE ****

PS3, Xbox 360

If this game was any more realistic, you would be picking your teeth up from the concrete. Everything from basic ollies to complex flips stem from the analogue sticks and it is up to your soon-to-be-arthritic thumbs to master them. A must for both hardcore and armchair skaters. Jobs-worth security guards need not apply. ED A

THE DARKNESS *** PS3, Xbox 360

In The Darkness, you are Jackie Estacado, a Mafia hitman possessed by demons who enjoy munching on their enemies. This absorbing and atmospheric FPS brings the usual array of weaponry with the added bonus of a hoard of satanic minions to aid you on your killing spree. With Faith No More’s Mike Patton providing the demonic vocals, who could resist this supernatural dip into the New York underworld? ED A

SURF’S UP **

PS3, Wii, Xbox 360

As sure as night follows day, each Disney animated film comes with obligatory marketing videogame tie-in. Playing as one of ten ‘gnarly’ penguins from the film with such ubber-rad names as ‘Big Z’ and ‘Tank the Shredder’, you get to ride big waves and other wacky beach artifacts on ridiculous surfboards in the name of family fun (just excluding those members of the family above the mental age of five or those who have chosen not to pack a bowl). ED A

ALAN WAKE **** Xbox 360

The name’s Wake, Alan Wake. You play as the troubled horror writer whose nasty little nightmares are annoyingly coming true in a small town called Bright Falls. The game is free roaming and mission-based mixing both problem solving and good old-fashioned violence as the story unfolds like an ultra-scary Twin Peaks.

Peaks. Visually, the game is stunning with almost OCD-like attention to detail in terms of lighting, weather and general creepiness. Perfect for those who wish to spend their summer in a darkened room. ED A

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Go beyond your limits, live the passion! Surrender to the appeal of the Dainese No Impact Summer 2007 collection. From mountain bikes, tofreestyle motocross, kitesurf and jet skis for dynamic sports in total safety where fun is the name of the game.

Click on www.dainese.com to discover the Dainese playgrounds.

BOOKS

THE MOUNTAIN AND THE WAVE: THE QUIKSILVER STORY Phil Jarratt, Quiksilver Entertainment

In the late 1960s, a young Australian embarked on a quest to create the most functional boardshorts the surfing world had ever seen. His simple desire to combine wave riding with work gave birth to a little company called Quiksilver (you may have heard of them). Four decades on, and Quik remains the single largest surf-based apparel company in the world. Beyond its day-glo covers, The Quiksilver Story is a nostalgic tour de force concerned with the people, rather than the profit, at the root of this business fairytale. Here, success is a story best told through crisp graphics and even crisper words from the photographers, riders and creative stars who have made the industry the collective odyssey that it is. Nice work, if you can get it. ANDREA KURLAND

200 TRIPS FROM THE COUNTERCULTURE Jean-François Bizot, Thames and Hudson

Beneath the haze of sixties counterculture, a few radical people had some totally radical things to say. And the Underground Press Syndicate, a collective of rebellious newspapers and magazines, had enough beatnik balls for the job. This archive of cuttings captures that utopian spirit in all its defiant glory. Take a toke of the free love and lucid politics that would influence design, civil rights and future generations of maverick magazines and revel in a heavy dose of countercultural delight. Power to the people! AK

EXIT A

Anthony Swofford, Simon and Schuster

The intoxicating world of military life is never far from the thoughts of Anthony Swofford, whose own experiences were brought to life in the critically acclaimed Jarhead. This latest offering follows two teen residents of an American base in Jarhead Japan – obedient seventeen-year-old Severin and his rebellious love interest, Virginia. Written in a language that is accessible to all yet not without emotion, Exit A shows how the choices we make can affect us indefinitely. Chasing the success of Jarhead might be a daunting task for some, but Anthony Swofford holds his own, proving his worth with this well-paced fictional debut. ALEXANDER WOOD

ART, SKATEBOARDING AND LIFE

Andy Howells with Amely Greeven, Gingko Press

This goliath mix of art and anecdotes from pro skater/artist Andy Howells should be titled ‘A thesis on the multi-faceted nature of skate culture (double DVD included)’. Use your powers of literacy to explore eleven jam-packed chapters of blow-by-blow memoirs, or simply sit back, press play and let multi-media Andy guide you down memory lane. Whether it’s making a Xeroxed skate ’zine, soaking up Mark Gonzales’ pioneering street skills on a family holiday to OC, or starting New Deal with Ed Templeton, Andy’s abstention from ‘the system’ makes for some truly indulgent viewing. AK

DOT DOT DASH: DESIGNER TOYS, ACTION FIGURES AND CHARACTER ART Die Gestalten Verlag

The plastic revolution is in full swing. But if you’re still lagging, Dot Dot Dash is here to get you hooked. With a complete gamut of international talent, it’s a veritable who’s who of the designer toy world. The compulsive collector will appreciate an OCD-friendly layout: perfectly clean, crisp and organised. There’s just enough wordage to take you deep into the scene – and just enough white space to let the crazy characters do the talking. AK

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THE S K N A B A SHORT STORY

BY CYRUS SHAHRAD

Today’s editorial meeting was the worst ever. It appears that people simply aren’t buying Motor Homes Monthly – not that I blame them, or particularly care. I stopped listening around the time that the publisher began talking about redesigning the logo to appeal to younger readers (as if kids buy fucking motor homes), excusing myself and heading to the toilet.

I was barely out the door when the office television stopped me dead in my tracks. On screen was a news reporter in a long coat, one hand holding his hair in place as he spoke into the camera outside a windswept Maidstone Crown Court. And there, behind him, were the legendary flat banks.

I pulled up a chair and felt the years wash over me, my head suddenly cluttered with fragmented images and sensations: the unbearable excitement of grip-taping my first skateboard on the Surf Shack steps; Russ Mead boardsliding the silver rail outside the courthouse while the security guard watched smilingly; the time Whitey kicked his deck out from under him during a seven-stair heelflip and the thing torpedoed into the eye of a passing nurse.

Random, isolated images – except for one perfect day. The afternoon it all ended.

It was the last ever day of school, summer of ’97. The car park was a flurry of girls weeping and hugging, boys engaged in beaming conversations with teachers or sitting alone on the grass, heads in their hands. Most people were heading straight to the pub to warm up for a party that night in Tenterden, but Scott and I decided to drive into town in his beat-up Golf GTI, Old Dirty Bastard rattling the windows and shaking the speaker boxes in the back.

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I remember that the courts smelled like fresh coffee that day, and that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Everyone was out, and between tricks there were handshakes and bear hugs and excitable conversations about the summer holiday that sprawled impossibly before us. Scott landed his first backside tailslide; I managed to kickflip clean over a picnic bench from the waist-high walkway, rolling away like it was nothing despite the fireworks in my stomach.

After a couple of hours – sweat-soaked and ankle-dead, hands bruised and blackened – Scott and I counted up enough shrapnel to split a king-size bottle of Fanta from the corner shop and parked ourselves on top of the flat banks. From on high we sat and watched like kings of the court, the clack and rattle of so many boards mingling with the sounds of high-pitched laughter, hollers and highfives below us.

“Great fucking day,” said Scott, lighting a cigarette.

“True. But doesn’t this feel strange?” I said. “Kind of like the end of an era?”

“How so?”

“Me heading off to Cardiff, you moving to London. I don’t know. It’s like we’ve got our fucked-up childhoods on one side and our boring adult lives on the other, and right now all this shit that we’ve taken for granted,” I encircled the courts with a sweep of my arm, “it’s like I’m noticing it for the first time. And it’s all about to end.”

“Don’t think so deeply, dickhead.” Scott blew the kind of smoke ring that could knock over a small child. “We’ve got all summer to look forward to. It’s just a good day, that’s all. Here.”

Scott passed me the second half of his cigarette. “I guess you’re right,” I said, the first puff sending little clouds of satisfaction down my aching legs.

“Fancy a Maccy D’s?”

“Too right.”

And that was it. The rest of the summer passed by predictably enough in the same kind of blur that preceded it. Sure, there was plenty more sunshine, countless crazy parties, no end of tricks landed and a seemingly limitless supply of sugary drinks and cigarettes. But I don’t remember any of it – not like that last day of school. For that one, perfect afternoon, it seemed like the whole thing crystallised in front of me – like I could reach out and touch it from the top of those flat banks – and then it was gone. But at least I had it, if only for a moment.

And Scott was right, after all: it was a great fucking day.

this ancient, super compressed rock is a climbers dream the scorpions tarantulas and snakes seem to like it too

..._-- greg child .._-

5°11’N

60°46’W

After trekking through the dense, foreboding jungle of the Guyana Shield, The North Face® athletes Greg Child and Mark Synnott found Mt. Roraima–a place so remote it inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World. After enduring a treacherous climb filled with mud, scorpions, tarantulas and poisonous snakes they reached the summit and laid eyes on a world few have ever seen.

Learn how Flight Series™ gear can help you go farther, faster at www.thenorthface.com/eu. Photos: Jared Ogden.

www.thenorthface.com/eu