Burnside Blowout 2004

Did you make it to the Blowout? If you didn't you missed out on some great skating and probably a free board, mine, but more about that later. First let me say Thank you to all of the companies that kicked down the product that Sage and I were kicking down to anybody within earshot.

Consolidated Skateboards - Cold War Skateboards - Seek - Habitat - Duffs - 88 Footwear - Terror Skateboards - NHS - Rebel Skates - Emerica - Vans - Globe - Cal Skate - MYG/Indamix Records - Darkstar - Skateboarder Magazine - Smith Optic - I-path - Luis Palau - Amerikan - I'm sorry if I forgot to mention anybody that donated. I will double check and make sure you get props later.

Initially I had planned to hook up skaters that were killing it and also those that were given the Burnside wake-up call, it kind of worked out that way.

Since I knew it would get pretty hectic later in the day, I made sure to take my runs when I first showed up. But not long after getting to the park, MYG showed up and asked where the stage was. I knew there was something I was forgetting. That wasn't the only thing I didn't quite plan too well, I didn't really have an alternative power supply for MYG to use, since my idea of stretching extension cords across the parking lot didn't quite work out. Sage came through in the end and called up Snowman to bring over the generator. Eventually MYG ended up on top of the big wall, looking over the park like he was a DJ God or something and throwing down the beats.

Once the music was blaring and the mood started turning festive, it was time to start hooking our fellow skaters up. At first I was just wandering around and checking out everyone's boards to see if it was time for a new one, I gave out a lot of boards that way, t-shirts too. Sage noticed that there was someone who should have been there, but wasn't, Kent. So after a quick call, Kent was on his way. So I just kicked it a little while with a blue ribbon and snapped a few pics until Kent showed up. He made a mistake right of the bat by handing Germ a couple 12 packs of beer to put in a cooler. Germ conveniently disappeared with the beer. Kent must have found Germ pretty quick though, because Kent was throwing beers at anybody who made eye contact with him, I even think he got a few people that hadn't. After the parks patrons thirst was thoroughly quenched it was time to start hooking the best skaters up.

Kent came over to the two product trucks, Sages and mine, to get a box full of goods to toss. After he was loaded down, he took off and ended up at the top of the big wall. It was funny as hell watching him hooking people up. Well, I don't know if you could really call it hooking up though, more like throwing at. Any time someone would skate under him and do something he would scream and throw something at them. Great stuff.

Unfortunately I didn't get to catch a ton of the skating going on. I was usually over at the truck kicking down product to everyone, but there was a decent sized crowd of people that showed up. Speaking of showing up, Tom Potter, mayoral candidate for Portland, made an appearance. I was able to spend a little time talking to him and he is really into the park and what it's all about. I made some requests for the park and he said to keep him informed and he would talk to whoever was responsible for those things to get them done. Tom Potter has been down with the park since he was chief of police. In the early years of Burnside all of the tools we kept down there were stolen. Tom Potter donated something like $600 to help replace the tools and later even worked with Ross Island Cement in order for them to dump unused cement at the park for us.

There's a lot more that I could write, but it's all kind of a blur, PBR will do that to you, so check out the photo page to see out all of the random pics I took. Like I said, I missed a lot of skating, sorry. You can see some decent skating pics on Sleestak too. Thanks to everyone that came out. I hope to do it again next year.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I lost my skateboard. I left it somewhere at the park while I was cleaning up after the Blowout and just realized it on Monday. I have no trucks or bearings right now and just dropped almost $200.00 on the Blowout. I planned on this being a fundraiser and then changed it up at the last minute due to differing opinions, so I don't really have the funds to get set back up right now. I did collect $5.00 though, thanks McBride, so I guess I did pretty good. So if you're reading this and ride or work for somewhere that can hook up trucks and/or bearings, drop me an e-mail at Burnsideskatepark@hotmail.com. Maybe one of you truck companies can add a Burnside local to your flow team. What do you think?

That's it. Go skate!