Australia Day Three - Globe and Thrasher's Tizzy Pizzey

I just love saying “Oz.” It brings back childhood memories of fun times and care-free summers where I used to ride my bicycle for hours on end. Why? No idea. It just sounds fun, so when we got the opportunity to visit the land down under, it was sort of like, “Uh, really? You want us to come down there? Uh, sure.” I mean, come on, did I really think this silly contest stuff was going to take me to the other side of the world, literally? No way.

From the moment that I spoke to the first Australian on Qantas Airlines, I know that my experience was going to be a great one. 24 total hours of travel later, we landed in Brisbane and our journey began.

Here are some random facts about Australia that an American might care about:

• We’re staying in this place called Surfer’s Paradise on the NE coast. The Vibe Hotel is super-nice and we have a great view of the ocean, but it’s not exactly the most authentic part of Australia. It sort of reminds me of Huntington Beach and Renton Milar told me, “You’ve got to head out to other parts.”
• There is a 15-hour time difference from Florida. If it’s 9am in Oz, then it’s 6pm the previous day back home in Tampa. To fly here we left late Monday night and got to Oz at 8am on Wednesday morning

Waiting for us in our rooms was a backpack full of goodies and an itinerary of the anticipated activities. Each day there was to be an event and followed up every evening with a party. The party that went down on Wednesday night was a mellow art show featuring a few photos and some wood sculptures carved by the legendary Lee Ralph, who was in attendance. From there, the skating began…

Don’t ask me what “tizzey” means. I have no idea. However, I do know what Pizzey is…it’s a park with a legendary bowl that is really, really gnar. It’s got cracks, bumps, no coping, odd corners, and none of the trannies are even close to the same.

Before the “contest” began I was sitting around talking to some other Americans about how insane of a bowl it truly was…how even the gnarliest bowl/pool rippers like Rune and Berard were having a tough time getting used to the thing. Hell, Brian Patch slammed just dropping into the damn thing because it’s so bumpy throughout.

The idea was to have a bit of a Jam. The only rule was that there were no rules. This meant that there were no timed runs and no official panel of judges, only a little bit of guidance from the announcers and a grip-load of cash to be given away.

It was rad to see the locals in there ripping with the internationally recognized professionals. It was a skate session in its truest form, with spectators cheering and suds flowing, and the likes of Navarette and Drehobl enjoying the scene.

The fun got started with a bang as Shane Cross nailed the most perfect bs noseblunt possible and earned $400 straight from the hand of Jake Phelps. Shortly after that Omar Hassan immediately nailed a 540 and got $450 handed to him. It was on. There was constant action for the next hour and a half. Berard did the bs sugarcane revert. Mumford did a bs lipslide and fs boneless over the channel. Childress got the bluntslide to backside disaster.

As the sun started to set, we had none other than Adam Dyet join in and blast a kickflip melon about three feet out. Finally, at the last minute, after nearly an of hour of attempts, Chalmers landed the switch tailslide revert over the hip, which was aptly titled “Cardiel's Revenge,” for the noseslide that Cards did over it in the Tent City flick, and put $350 in his pocket.

The only decision left was choosing the Overall Ripper of the session. It was a toss-up between Mumford and Omar, so we split the remaining loot and crowned them both. Then us microphone jocks had a couple of VB’s and bolted out of there back to the hotel to grab some grub.

I’m sad to say that I missed the Slam Skater-of-the-Year Party. I bet it was a good one, but I could barely stay awake at the dinner table, falling asleep at a bar was not what I had in mind. I think that the time change had finally caught up to me as I hit the sack barely after 10pm.

Mark Appleyard broke his board doing this nollie big spin tail grab back disaster so he borrowed Steve Stratton's board. He broke that one, too

Shane Cross sat on this backside noseblunt for just a fraction of a second. That's the right way to do them

This is video footage of Adam Dyet's kickflip melon and a small sample of the scene at Pizzey

I heard stories about how there are these huge lizards everywhere right in the mix of the city streets. Sierra Fellers and Terell Robinson actually caught one. This apparently is a small one

Globe and Thrasher are treating everyone super good. No, XXXX is not super porn, it's Australian beer. The tour bus thing that takes us everywhere is stocked nice with the sauce

When we showed up at the Pizzey Bowl, the ripping was already going down. This is Matt Mumford on a back lip

That's David Gonzales doing the skating and Mike Burnett from Thrasher doing the picture taking

Greg Lutzka - glad to see he does frontside airs the right way

Right next to the Pizzey Bowl is a really crappy concrete park. There was a nice side session going on at the little quarterpipe. This is Sierra Fellers hopping out of a frontside pivot to fakie

Terell Robinson was getting his blunt variations on. This one is a finger flip out

I was talking to Chris Haslam about the last contest he skated with us. He said he couldn't remember which one it was, but someone at SPoT took a photo of him with a toilet. Ha! I had to explain the whole "take a poop" thing to him. This is a frontside blunt

Part of the scene at the Pizzey Bowl. It's on a lake with some great scenery. That's Alex Chalmers doing a switch tailslide revert on the craziest hip you'll ever find

When your upper body is twisted up like that, you are not coming in regular from a frontside grind. Chet Childress is ollieing out of this one to revert

Kyle Berard was hurt but he still threw down

Greg Lutzka got himself a nice tourist shirt

I'm a fan of the small and medium sized ones myself. Oranges, peaches, cup cakes - oh yeah

Chad Bartie's mullet is so rockin'. I want one now. This is a frontside nosegrind and that's Rhino's rig taking a much better photo of it than I did

Clements and Schaefer were on the mic all day with Jake Phelps

So far, this is the only kangaroo I've seen. After asking about kangaroos so much, I realized that's like someone coming to Florida and asking where all the gators are at. It's not like they're just chilling on every street corner or something

Make sure you sin so Jesus will save you. I sin enough to save about 30 people

Omar Hassan was destroying all day, but I didn't get any good photos of him. I'm starting to really suck with this camera thing

Some money was given out for the best barefoot trick. Once that was announced, it was a full on trailer park feet session. This guy's got a trailer park feet stinkbug blunt fakie for you

Omar Hassan with a can of the local sauce. Very tasty

Turn your computer upside down and that tatoo still says "Thrasher." Jake Phelps was like, "hell yeah, down for life. I don't know about leg tats, though."

It is a fine pleasure traveling the world with this crew. Kyle Berard, Adam Dyet, Ryan Clements, Brian Schaefer, and Jason Rothmeyer

Ok, skating's done and now it's time to get the nightlife rage on. The hotel we're at is full of skaters. The balcony right below us is Chima Ferguson's room. These are some of his Aussie lady friends from Sydney

We took the tour bus thing to the Slam Magazine Skater of the Year party. It was a huge club packed with a 3 to 1 girl to dude ratio with a nice mini ramp session going on in the back. Seriously, can things get any more fun than this? I'm still waiting to wake up from this dream

Chet Childress and Blair from Transworld take advantage of the free drinks

What? Joey Brezinsky's here? Hell yeah

Every time there's a party with an open bar, there's always that one dude that's triple fisting. This time, it's Tony Tave. I bet he drank all those beers switch

Kevin from Nike SB, Steve Stratton from Volcom, and that one dude from that one company. Damn, all the homies are down under here with us

I made plenty of new friends and of course can't remember any of their names. This dude has a company that makes the shirts he's rocking right now. I can't even remember the company name

Sierra and I met a nice crew of Aussie ladys that hung out and had a few drinks with us. Everyone here is super nice and down to meet a random stranger anytime

Part of the scene at the Slam Magazine Skater of the Year party

The Aussie girls like their piercings. I can't remember their names of course. They had to leave early because they were getting up at 5:30am to drive the roach coach. You know, the truck that pulls up to the construction site and serves up sandwiches and coffee. I bet those construction workers are psyched when these hotties show up for breakfast

Ewan Bowman from Flip with some funny money

Terell Robinson looks like he's about to stick that middle finger in his eye. This is at midnight when our night was forced to end because the tour bus was leaving and the party was super far away from the hotel. It is now Friday morning at 11am. It's 8pm Thursday in Tampa right now. I'm finally used to the time difference