The way to Malmo

The way to Malmo

Blood sweat and tears went into the Bowlbash’s blown-up 3D constructed theme object. A huge sink plunger made out of metal gauze and plates that represents the way that Bowlbash was drawn from nothing onto something which now embodies throughout the years, the platform for an incredebly skilled youth with guts and character that together form one of the greatest contests that moves across europe today.

It was at an ungodly hour when morning dew had just grabbed hold of nature and the organisation took notice of a very peculiar matter that happened just outside the Bowlbash Head-quarters in The Hague. Alrik had put the hobby constructed plunger for twenty seconds on a deserted sidewalk next to the Bowlbash caravan in a so deserted neighborhood that the thought that someone might steal it didn’t even come to mind, that’s how deserted the damn place was. But when Alrik came back it was as if the plunger had done ‘Poeff!’Â? and dissapeared. The plunger was gone and the place still looked deserted as hell. And this was just the beginning. The crew wasn’t even on the road yet and dumb shit started happening.

Bist du Ibrahim?
That was a dude’s first reaction a couple of hours later on our search for fuel in the middle of nowhere. We we’re about forty miles east of Munster when the Bowlbash van had come to a final halt on the highway’s emergency counterfoil after wheeling out a dry fuel tank. The dude seemed somewhat relieved and delighted as if he’d been waiting all day for this pusher to drop him the promised dope. A pusher called Ibrahim! I nearly felt sorry for the guy to tell em I wasn’t him, that we we’re just looking for a place to get some gas and if he’d have any suggestions. Not even three hundered meters away from the vehicle the dude told us there was a gas station around the corner from him. This was what you could call dumb luck… really! We we’re dumb enough to ignore the lit up warning signal on the dashboard that said, ‘Yo dumb ass, you punk bitches need to pull the fuck over and fill me up cause you’re gonna be out of gas soon’Â?, but on the other hand we we’re lucky enough to be out of gas within three hundered meters of a gasstation. We took turns carrying the jerry can back while the guy from A.A. patrol had arrived. Now came the scary part. Filling up gas had never bin so fearful. The tank was on the side where cars and trucks past you with an unregardless speed just a foot away from where you stood. The mechanic was brave enough to sacrafice himself and pore the twenty liters of diesel while risking his life.

A good six hours after this incident we had finaly reached Denmark by ferry and I guess we must have looked like trailerpark trash when we drove out of the boat and collided onto some Danish border patrole that picked us out from an entire ferry load of cars, trucks and vans. First a routine passport check up, then they decided to turn it into a dog search and I’m telling ya, this dog was really a sad tale. This dog was ugly and I don’t mean just ‘stray dog ugly’ or anything, no, this is the kind of dog that had bin to hell and back. He was in bad shape this one! Looking like ten miles of bad road this muthafucker and smelling like a sewer that exploded right under your goddamn nose! Shit! This border patrole crew should be arrested for ‘horrifying-dog ownership’!

But thank god did all this suffering lead up to a good cause. A skatepark that must have been designed on some higher ground or something. The absolute realisation of a surface in which freedom meets inspiration. Here is where we got to hold the first out five contests of the season, the ‘Malmo Stapelbadspark Skatepark’.

At early daybreak ten guys started running up that hill embracing the Bowlbash caravan and lifting it up where it belonged, right on the hillock, forming the center of attention with the huge theme plunger and the pram filled with obscure black and white cardboard heads of competitors next to its entrance. The crowd got served an ill dish of high class skateboarding all under the surveillance eye of the godfather of style Mr. Christian Hosoi himself which amped up the finals a noch or two.

The swedish competitors were fully controlling the steep Stapelbadspark pool. As well as in their heats as in their best trick session over the stairs I was struck by technical ability and a variety of great style. Crooked grind over the stairs, frontside blunt in the deep end, what the hell were these guys thinking!

words by Abdul Qatbi