The Summer of My Life!

coolgrrlsparty
Posted 12 November 2004   munich@nite

Huntington Beach, CA – 2004

If you are from cold and gray Germany there is nothing better than spending two months in sunny and crazy California. I had so much fun within those two months it was almost scary! I had lunch with Texas Terri, ran into my old buddy Tony Hawk at the XGames, saw Social Distortion live (eventually!!!), interviewed the Backyard Babies, celebrated my 24th b-day with the boys of the Skulls and launched with Frank a new line of skateboards in my free time.

So here is a short wrap on my hot summer escapades tour on the West Coast:

XGames of Surfing, Huntington Beach

Frank and I went down to the beach to watch the XGames of surfing. A lot of the pro riders such as Pam Anderson’s on and off boyfriend Kelly Slater and Rob Machado showed up. They had two teams who were surfing in four heats against each other – East Coast vs. West Coast. Unfortunately the East Coast Team (feat. Kelly) won just like the year before. And the waves weren’t as good as they usually are in HB, but it was cool to see those surfers giving their best.

XGames of Skateboarding, Staples Center, LA

Right after watching the surf contest we hopped into Frank’s truck and drove up to LA to witness the X-Games of skateboarding live. I don’t want to go into detail here… but it is really easy to sneak into the X-Games… hahaha. And guess who was the first person I saw? My old buddy Tony Hawk skating Danny Way’s big jump ramp. As you all know, Tony doesn’t compete in contests anymore but he still loves to skate and he probably couldn’t resist the temptation of riding this brand new type of ramp. Danny Way is the godfather of big airs so guess what the ramp looked like: It had two roll-ins (one high and the other one very, very high), a sort of bank/funbox in the middle and a HUGE quarter pipe right behind that. That means: You drop in on the mega roll in, you will probably be speeding towards the first obstacle, so you have to jump over the funbox without losing speed, then you will head towards the HUGE quarter pipe that will kick you out as high as you have never been before. That’s exactly what Tony did. He took the very, very high roll in (of course!), did a 540 over the box and then pulled off a HUGE air on the quarter (unfortunately I was sooo close the quarter pipe that I don’t know what kind of air he did. I guess, he did a lien air but I really don’t know). Except for him Omar Hassan was the only guy during the practice session who made it to pull off another air on the quarter pipe. After their practice session, I had the chance to talk a little bit with Tony but unfortunately he was too busy to spend more time with me. Anyway, after that Frank and I went inside the Staples Center to witness the all-girl bowl contest. Lyn-Z Adams won, as she did a lot of clean airs and lip tricks, but she also made it to throw down a kickflip indy grab. The FIRST kickflip indy ever done by a female in a competition! Cara-Beth Burnside also skated hard and fast as she always does but the judges clearly wanted Lyn-Z to win. I wrote more about it on our Cool Girl Skateboards page in the news section.

Right after that, the men’s best trick vert contest took place. Sandro pulled off a 9 bs grab! So Tony lost his monopoly on that trick. Pierre-Luc Gagnon did a kickflip varial mctwist and Danny Mayer pulled off a kickflip mctwist! UNBELIEVABLE! I was just screaming my lungs out the whole time! The last time I was at a big sk8 contest is a couple of years ago and I just could not believe how much skateboarding has improved! If someone had told me that PLG is able to pull off a kickflip AND varial mctwist I would have probably said that he must have played too much THPS on his playstation. Jake Brown also tried some 9s but Sandro was the only one to throw one down. So the results had to be:

  1. Sandro Dias
  2. Pierre-Luc Gagnon
  3. Danny Mayer

After that ,we went home and I realised that I was badly sunburned. OUCH!

Backyard Babies, Troubadour, LA

Yeah, yeah, yeah! That’s all I can say! “Men what do rock, baby!” I interviewed Nicke and Dregen right next to the Troubadour. You can read all about it in our outrageous interviews section. I LOVE those guys!

YMCA skatepark, Encinitas.

This skatepark is so awesome! I wish we something like that in Germany. Two concrete pools, a very, very nice halfpipe, and a huge street parcours. For the first time in years I did some skateboarding myself, and it felt a little bit awkward at first but I had a lot of fun that day. Also because of Frank’s cool nephew Shayne who shared his helmet with me. And just as I wanted to leave, Texas’ Mike Crum showed up. We talked a little bit and he is still one of the nicest and weirdest guys in the skate biz. It was really a cool day.

Action Girl Tradeshow, Long Beach

This was our first tradeshow with Cool Girl Skateboards and the response to our products was overwhelming. People loved our pink&punk style and someone even wanted to buy our kat girl booth decoration. We gave away tons of free CDs, stickers, buttons and candy.

All the big names in the sport, fashion and cosmetic industry had a booth there, such as: DC, Tony & Tina, Pussy Deluxe, Girl Powder, Dirty Diamonds, Beauty Natzi, Monson Boards, Lip Service, Grind Queen, Concrete Jungle and many, many more! But, of course, our booth was the coolest!

There were a lot of events going on during the tradeshow such as yoga seminars, fashion shows, live concerts by bands like Mudbath and a skateboard contest. The Venice Skateboard Association organized a high-jump contest and several other contests which all had the format of sk8 sessions. A lot of girl skaters showed up such as pro Sasha LaRochelle, Liz Brandenburg, a sk8 girl pro team from Phoenix and the VSA riders. Those girls kicked ass!!! They fully utilized the super park course and the miniramp. The youngest girl skater who showed up was 8 years old and the oldest one was probably Skatemom who must be in her 40ies. It was so good to see all these girls having a good time and ripping it up! They all loved Cool Girl Skateboards and plastered our stickers all over the place.

We met so many cool people at this year’s Action Girl Tradeshow that I just want to mention some of them who help to push girl skateboarding into the limelight: www.actiongirl.com
Heidi of VSA, the LaRochelle family, Skatemom, the whole Girl Powder team, Kazusa and Jamie of Action Girl, HB Wahine and the one and only Tammy of Wicked Wahine!

Social Distortion, Ventura Theatre, Ventura

Oh my God! This was the best show of my life! I am so grateful that Frank drove all the way up to Ventura so I could witness Social D at least once in my lifetime. Thank you so much! Read all about it on our bands we like page.

The Skulls, the Adz, DEK @ the Galaxy, Anaheim

Thanks to Billy, James, Kevin and Sean of the Skulls my 24th b-day was a blast! Read all about it on our outrageous interviews page.

The Vibrators @ Fitzgerald’s, Huntington Beach

Oh what a night! Frank’s brother Charlie decided to spend the night at the Coolgrrrls Headquarters. First we took him out to dinner at Zubie’s where they serve big pizzas and cheap beer. After a couple of beers, we all got a little silly and Frank said he just wanted to pass out some flyers for our CGs party at Fitzgerald’s which was right around the corner. So we all went inside and stayed for some more hours and some more beers watching Firecracker 500 and the old school punks the Vibrators. Pete Vibrator played pool against me first and then against Charlie. I am probably the worst pool player ever and I lost twice! Charlie was better than me but he lost either way against Pete. The show was pretty good although my memory is a little blurry.. but we definitely had a lot of fun that night.

Cool Girls Nite Out #4 – Cool Girl Skateboards Launch Party @ Fitzgerald’s, Huntington Beach

Another fun night at Fitzgerald’s. I already wrote a special feature on it so you should check it out. Especially the pics are really great!

Zeke, Alex’s Bar, Long Beach

When the air smells like diesel and testosterone you can bet that the high octane driven balls out in your face rockers Zeke play a show near you. Zeke actually were just about to go on tour with Motörhead (finally!!) when Lemmy cancelled the tour because of his health. Bummer! But nevertheless, those tough guys from Seattle played a solo show at Alex’s Bar and it was awesome! Alex’s Bar is a really cool place. It reminds me a lot on the infamous Wild At Heart in Berlin. It’s just a little cleaner and they don’t serve ‘Mexikaner’ there. But it is a really cool rock club. Zeke played their asses off just as always. I had the pleasure to see them live before at the Rheinkultur festival in Bonn so we talked a little bit about their European tour before they went on stage. Actually they are really nice guys since they are all sobered up now. Whoowoahh… Zeke sound like a roaring hotrod mixed with a AK 47 and lots of rock’n’roll. I just love that band! But again, they didn’t play my favourite song ‘Live Wire’.

The Dragons, Casbah, San Diego

What a bummer! One of the best bands ever split up after 13 years! But Frank and I had the chance to watch the amazing Dragons playing their last show in their hometown. It was a very emotional evening but also one hell of a rock show. We also interviewed Steve Dragon and this is probably one of the very last interviews of the Dragons you will ever be able to read. Check it out!

Wicked Wahine Sk8 Contest, Glendale Skatepark, Glendale

After a short nap, Frank and I drove all the way from San Diego to Glendale in the early morning. We set up our tent at the sk8 park at about 10am and then I met two girls from Germany who came all the way from Münster and Bremen to participate in the sk8 contest. Actually Chrissie is a friend of mine and we had met at various sk8 contests in Germany before. Karen was a friend of hers and she was going to participate in the Vans Triple Crown of Skateboarding in HB the following weekend. I was stoked to see those girls! We had a lot of fun. Frank and I also decided to make Karen part of our skate team since she is a terrific street skater. This was also the first time that I ever saw my favourite girl skater in person, Heidi Fitzgerald from Texas. She is the raddest skater chick ever. No one grinds pools faster and gnarlier than her. And no other sk8 girl has more tattoos than her. She also loves rock music and so we ended up talking about music and the early days when there was no such thing as girl contests and how much the situation has improved for girl skaters all over the world. Heidi also loved our skateboards and we gave her the Kat Girl deck. After a while Cool Grrrl Alisha showed up and it is always fun to meet another CG in person. She also started talking with Heidi and they both realized that they are both from Texas and even have the same tattoo artist. As we say in Germany: The world is one small village! Alisha is way cool and she looks so much prettier in person than on the pictures of her column. She ran the booth with me and we talked a lot that day.

The sk8 contest was pretty cool. They had a grom section for the really young kids. The grom contest was won by the youngest and cutest participant, Lexi Barlcay- who is also a Cool Girl team rider now. She is so tiny, and she ripped so hard! Big airs and grinds! Yee-haw! Then the AM contest took place which was won by the amazing, AMAZING Apryl Woodcock! 12years old and pure TNT on wheels. Grinds and slides in the over vert corner, blunt feeble to fakie,… I have never seen a girl ripping a pool harder than she did! She is amazing. We also interviewed her for our Skateboard site. She is the future of skateboarding! So keep an eye on her! The pro contest was spiked with names that sound like the creme of the crop of girl skateboarding: Holly Lyons, Jewels, Nicole Zuck, Heidi Fitzgerald,…. Mimi Knoop was unbeatable that day and showed a lot of stylish tricks such as fs inverts. Heidi was hurt and could not give a 100% but she still skated fast, loud and gnarly and therefor placed second. The best trick competition followed and who else but Apryl Woodcock won it doing a “slide’n’roll” in the over vert corner. The contest was way cool and Tammy BamBam Tangalin and her team did a great job! Thanks to those guys for everything. Although the contest had been awesome, I was so glad when it was over since I was really, really, really tired. We didn’t go to the after contest party, but from what I’ve heard it was a blast. www.wahineskate.com

Results:

Pro’s:

  1. Mimi Knoop
  2. Heidi Fitzgerald
  3. Holly Lyons

AM’s:

  1. Apryl Woodcock
  2. Jean Rusen
  3. Rose Bernfeld

Groms:

  1. Lexi Barclay
  2. Felicity Corra
  3. Chelsea Olsen

My Rockstar Sunday

I slept in that day. The Wicked Wahine contest still stuck in my bones when I hopped into the shower to prepare for my Rockstar Sunday. First I had a date with Texas Terri for lunch on Sunset Boulevard, and then a date with Billy Bones and his lovely wife Christina for dinner. Both Terri and Billy had called the house earlier that week to set up a meeting. I had never met Terri before in person and I was pretty nervous when we drove up to Hollywood to meet her. She sounded very, very nice on the phone and we talked for hours but still, everyone told me she was scary and I felt really nervous when I sat down in the restaurant waiting for her. Finally she came and we had lunch. What can I say?! Terri does look and act like Iggy Pop but she is also one of the nicest people I have ever met, because she is real. She is not faking anything. Terri was born a rockstar and doesn’t need to act like that. She is plain honest which felt pretty good since I am from Germany and Germans tend to be plain honest the whole time no matter what the consequences might be. We talked a lot about music, Scandinavia, men, and Terri’s upcoming European tour. Actually I interviewed her a couple of weeks later at a tour stop in Munich, Germany. You will be able to read it soon. Terri was also pretty tired because she had just come back from a Dead Boys show with a tribute to Stiv Bators, so she was swallowing down liters of black coffee while we were talking. She told us all about that and about her strange encounter with Gene Simmons. Terri is a walking rock’n’roll bible because she knows everyone and has more than a 1000 good stories to tell. We ended up talking for 3 (!!!!!!) hours in the restaurant. Terri is still on tour in Europe and Scandinavia, so if you get the chance, you should really try to go to one of her shows because she RAWKS!

Just after that, Frank and I went to Amoeba record store, which is the perfect place to waste your time looking through thousands and thousands of records. We did that before we met up with Billy Bones of the Skulls. I bought Frank Social Distortion’s Another State Of Mind DVD and then we walked to the Cat and Fiddle (I think that was the name of the Irish Pub) where we met Billy and Christina. They were both soooo nice! Billy showed me a picture of him with Joey Ramone and probably Marky Ramone (I can’t quite remember right now..) back in the 70s, when punkrock was dangerous. It was a really cool picture. He also gave me a Skulls sk8board, a rare copy of Therapy For The Shy on vinyl, and their new single on 7inch. He showed me a lot of photo albums with pictures of their various tours. And there was also a picture of me and Jessica in it!!! I cannot even remember that they took a picture but that’s was very funny to see a picture of yourself in some rockstar’s picture book. Then we talked about politics and to me it is really unbelievable that GW got voted again… sad but true…. I just watched Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 and now I am even sadder. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should really watch it since it is another eye opener. But it’s too late now anyway… oh well! Anyway, we also talked about the Silverlake Film Festival and the Green Day show Billy and Christina just went to. We talked and talked and talked and this whole Sunday I had one big smile on my face. I think that was the BEST SUNDAY OF MY LIFE! Thank you so much Frank, Billy, Terri and Christina!!

The Supersuckers, Big Show, Martini Ranch, Encinitas

This was also a very, very funny night out. The Supersuckers played their country set and their rock set in one big show. I also interviewed Eddie Spaghetti for our outrageous interviews page!

The Sahara Hot Nights, UC Riverside, Riverside

My favourite girl band! And guess what? I also interviewed them!

Silverlake Film Festival, Hollywood

Thanks to Billy, we got VIP access to the whole festival where they showed such great movies as the Yes Man. But we had not come there for the films, but for the punk bands who also played that night. BTW: this was also my official good bye party since it was only 3 more days before I had to say bye bye and fly back home. The first band on stage were Kevin Preston’s Prima Donna who sound like the New York Dolls, but who look a lot better! Hehe! Kevin is a gifted guitar player and they sound so much better live than on their record that I have recently reviewed them for our page. I am sure they will get a lot bigger within the next few years. The next band up were Egor Spectre, but I have to admit that I did not watch them because I had just found out that drinks and food were for free; so couldn’t help myself and I took advantage of that. Hehe. Then the Stitches entered the stage! What a cool band! Their singer somehow reminds me of the guy from the New Bomb Turks. The atmosphere was really good already, which was probably due to both the Stitches and the free drinks. Then after a short break, the legendary Skulls went on stage and the crowd went ballistic! They played hit after hit from Aye, Aye, Aye to the Random’s cover I Hate New York. Everyone sang along and it was just the purrfect good bye party for me. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH GUYS!!!

Those were probably the highlights of my California dreams. It still feels like a dream and very unreal. I spent two months in Huntington Beach and saw and met every band I ever wanted to see. I went to all the big skate contests and we have our own line of skateboards now. This all feels very unreal. But I know that it is all true, which feels really good. Of course, I did more within those two months than I mentioned here in my short wrap. So I want to use this opportunity to thank a lot of people who made my stay so unforgettable. Thanks so much to: David, Tammy, Todd, Liz, Diane & Gary, Charlie & Kelly, Shayne , Haley, Marcia, Tony, Jordan, Jen, Chrissie, Karen, Jen Malone, Kelly of the Marketing Factory, Mel @ Finger, Nancy of Nitro Records, Matt Moffert, Steve, Jason, Billy, James, Christina, Kasey, Kat, Kevin, the Stifle guys, TxT, HB Wahine, all the awesome bands, all the skate shops who support us and everyone I met! I didn’t have one bad day during my stay in HB. Thank you all so much. It really was the summer of my life!

GreeZ

Sabine “Beans” Schenk

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