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Listen Family
Volume No.1 Issue No.9
October 2005

Florida is HOTT!

We have been on tour in Florida since the day after the surf expo in Orlando and it just ended on October 1st. Let me rewind that. Our tour started the day after the trade show in San Diego. It started up in
New York and worked its way to Florida. If you don't already know this, let me be the first to say that Florida is HOTT!!! I can't describe how hot it is....it's just HOT! It's hot all day and night. Clothes take 2 days to dry from your sweat after 30 minutes of skating. Don't even think about skating until the sun goes down. This was a lesson that only took 10 minutes to learn. Oh yeah, its rains a lot here too. It will just dump on you out of nowhere for about 5 minutes and this happens a few times a day. With all that in mind, we did manage to get some street skating in on our hectic tour of constant demos and singings. Thanks to all the shops and kids for coming out and seeing us and we hope to return again but next we might come out in the winter.

Mags

HAHAHA! I just have to laugh at myself for this one. I have been in a million shops this past month and have read every mag more than once, but for the life of me, I can't remember one thing from any of them. Maybe because it’s like that movie groundhog day when you are on tour. All I can remember is some kid doing a wall ride on the cover of one of those mags, and it’s only because I had a photo doing the same trick in slap about 8 years ago. Its funny how tricks, and everything for that matter, comes back full circle in skateboarding. Anyway, Rob G has our new ad running this month in Slap, Thrasher, Skateboarder, The Skateboard Mag and Kingpin.



Trips/Tours

As I write this we are still in Florida, well some of us are still here. Rodrigo left the Florida tour early to go back to Brazil and do some Brazil Nike demos, which he then will go off to Europe to meet up with Rob Gee and the LRG team. Following that he will meets up with the USA Nike team and jump on their tour. Looks like Rodrigo will be the international man of mystery for awhile.

Danny left the Florida tour early as well to meet up with Reda for his yearly Italy tour. It seems like we have been in Florida forever. Well long enough to have 2 people leave early.

The listen tour began in San Diego for 3 days for the trade show. Then we came home packed our bags and tool a flight to Philly. We flew into to Philly so I could show these guys some of my secret spots, but it rained the only time we had there, so my plan was a bust. From Philly we drove up to New York to pick up flow rider Jose Pereya, photographer Allen Ying and Brian Brown.

Our first demo was at Doug Brown's shop, Second Nature. Brian and Jose both ride for the shop and you can check footage of those guys from New York on the their website www.secondnatureskateshop.com We skated the parking lot in the school yard across the street from the shop and then Doug had a bbq for us behind the shop and it was a perfect start to our tour. Thanks Doug for the love.

We drove back to Philly that night and too tired to skate the next day we decided to spend a day getting cheese steaks and slices. Rob is the official food coach and knew all the good spots to eat in Philly without me telling him about them. We also stopped by to check out the 3 shops on South Street, Nocturnal, Subzero and Elite, just to say hi and catch up with all the old hommies.

From Philly, we drove down to Delaware for a demo at Kinetic. This was the first and maybe last demo for them, since the turn out was bigger than expected. Since we were the only people allowed to skate, due to lame insurance reason, when kids started skating we just turned our heads. Who was going to stop all these kids from having a goodtime? Not me and not Brannon, so everyone skated and had a goodtime.
I think the landlord had a heart attack from the million complaints he received from the other businesses in the shopping center. I know Brannon was getting shit the whole time, but he took it well and skated until it was too dark to skate.

From this demo we had to drive to Orlando and help build our trade show both, but Danny wanted to stop in North Carolina to skate a rail. Well North Carolina didn't happen because we got side tracked by going to the Apple store in the tax free state of Delaware. Rodrigo walked away with new laptop and Danny got a new 20g I-pod. Right now, if you buy a laptop you can get a free I-pod mini or pay an extra $90 for a 20g I-pod. Rodrigo also saved money by getting a student discount with his "student" id card. No tax and student discount, got to love Delaware. So after hours at the mall we headed south and didn't make it to the spot in North Carolina, but we did make it to South of the Boarder in South Carolina and bought fireworks at 4am. That's always a good idea. None of these dudes have ever been there so they were trippin on the supermarket size fireworks stores. We arrived in Orlando really early the following day after a long night of driving and we all crashed out as soon as we got there. Surf Expo was cool. For most of us, it was our first time to that trade show. The guys from Tampa made it fun over at the mini-ramp and Volcom held it down with the free beer. Our both was in front of some kind of street course. (Whatever).
Saturday night of the trade show, we had a demo at the skate park of Orlando. That park is FUN! There were a million kids there as well as some punk rock bands. It was a good time. We kept skating park until about midnight when those guys finally had to turn the lights out on us. That park was just way to fun to leave.

Now we are off to Mesh Skate Park. Indoor parks are hot! Even though it was a sweat box, we managed to stay there until about midnight also. They had a bbq for us and I got to see an OG head from Philly out there. Mean Gene Rosemerin. Gene is out there helping them add onto their park. Local Florida pro Ryan Nix also made it out to that demo. It’s always good to run into familiar faces when you are on tour. Brett over at Mesh is also an OG from New York.

Galactic G shop signing was the next day and Ken hooked us up with a bbq too. Florida heads love bbq but so does Rob G, he was in heaven the whole time. Straight from Galactic G we drove an hour west to Tampa and posted up there for a few days. Our first shop in that area was at Westside Skate shop and John Montessi hooked us up. I'll leave it at that. Southern Boarder in St. Pete was the following day and they had sushi for us. Pro skaters love sushi, but I hate that shit. Danny only eats Colombian food and sushi so maybe these guys knew something ahead of time, but I didn't tell them.

Anyway, they ate sushi and we watched some skate videos with the kids. The next day was a demo at the Skate park of Tampa. There were a lot of people there because they also have punk shows there in the back area. It rained basically the whole time we were in Tampa and spent more than just one day
skating the park. I was trying to get my practice on for the old man bowl jam and old man street contest. Clements you’re going down this year. Ryan took us out to eat in ybor after the demo and I got a calzone that was the size of a small child. Shit it was good; I just didn't know it was going to be that big. It figures that the one night it doesn’t rain in Tampa was Friday night. I was trying to get my ybor on since we were already there, but we had to use the time wisely and go out and skate while we could. So that it’s what we did, skated all night, slept and headed off to the next morning to The Compound in Bradenton. Another indoor sweat box, but still fun to skate. We stayed there for a few hours and then drove to Miami. I love Miami. I would move there one day if it wasn't so damn hot! How are you supposed to skate in that shit? After a nice long 4 hour drive and skating in a sweat box for a few hours, we had a demo the following afternoon on a blacktop in the hot heat of Miami. The demo was at brick city and those guys hooked us up with a bbq after the demo. Thank you Rick for everything. We all really appreciated it.

The next day was our first and only day off. I don't even know what we did. ha-ha. No, we went to the beach during the day and Brian caught himself a burn. After the beach we went street skating at night. Tuesday we had double duty to make up for the day off. First we had shop signing at MIA and then we had a demo that night at Control. Yes, another indoor sweat box. Matt Cantor runs this park and its fun. Chris and Ed from MIA came out skated the park with us. The next day was double duty again. First was the shop signing at Island Water Sports and a demo at ramp 48, our last indoor sweat box. Ramp 48 was a lot of fun. Any park with a mini ramp gets an A+ in my book and ramp 48 had a good mini. We stayed until it was way past closing time that's how good this park was. We might be the only team to stay later then anyone else. The next day we had a shop signing at shred shed and Joe had a pizza party for us. We ate pizza and watched skate videos with the kids. Following that was a shop signing at BC Surf and Sport. Blair is the man over there and is an OG Florida head. The next day was our last stop which was at The Groove Tube. Matt was our tour guide and showed us some local spots after the signing, but it was wet
and we couldn't skate. We did go to the park in Satellite Beach for a secret late night demo. It was a good way to end a long trip. Thanks again to all the shops and all the kids that came out. See you guys next time.

Contests

Goofy vs. Regular Oct. 21-23 at the Enites Park in Lake Forest, CA be there. I will be. It was fun last year so this year should be even better. Check www.gvr05.enties.com for more info.

Damn Am Oct. 27-30 at Volcom in Costa Mesa, CA. We will be there since Volcom is around the corner from us. Check www.damnam.com for more info.

Videos

The new 411, 13.3. is out now. Go out and buy it! This issue features a part with Rob Gonzalez and the rest of the Listen crew. These new 411's have been amazing so check out the last 2 if you have missed them.