boarding competition that has been held in Kimberley for the last five years now! God knows why it is held there but I have a suspicious feeling that it somewhere fits into the multiple reasons why John Block has been found guilty of corruption, fraud and money laundering. With all these reasons for exploration in tact we set out into the unexplored territory of the countries outback. There are some interesting places on this tip of the African content, and the question whether the machine would still function if some them would disappear completely did pop into my mind as we sped through some of the smaller towns. Towns where you could literally blink and not even know that you had been through a spec of civilization. Places that don’t know or don’t even care what shame and scandal the Sunday paper would bring on a weekly basis. Which political pawns had been moved around on their behalf or which idol had been dropped and shattered from a lifelong career path of fame, fortune and murderous rage. Out there it’s all about survival. Hiding from the sun and the heat as we sped through the flatlands in a bus full of Babylon with no air conditioning. Our overflowing iceboxes were dutifully filled at each garage or shop we passed along the way. My ideas of a holiday was shrunken to tiny particles as I realized that we were basically in a race against time to document every single skate able terrain that we passed through a long the way. Most places we had found or tracked down via satellite were covered in dirt, muck and grime and had to be cleaned, swept and sometimes disinfected to skate. So we spent many hours of hard labor digging through piles of dirt to the amazement of local towns folk who had no clue on why there were a motley crew of guys in a van cleaning up some forgotten pool
or dusty water ditch along the side of the road. Cleaning them only to inflict pain upon themselves as they pushed their over heated bodies to the threshold of sanity. Skateboarding is a very demanding mistress when it comes to pain and its addictions. Addictions which lead to obsession and finally an ecstatic release of joy as a rider would roll away clean from the concrete curves they chose to ride for the day. By mid week the grinding agenda had taken its toll on their battered bodies and the moans of their tireless efforts could be felt by every one as we rose our heads in the mornings to continue on this journey of destruction. The nights were spent mostly under clear stars and open fires where we camped or stayed in some forgotten motels, resorts or modest hotels where we could lay down our melted heads and recover from the day and its forced hours of sunbathing. By the end of the trip a stoic sense of calm and self-reflection could be felt throughout the cabin of our rusty ship that seemed to have
miraculously sailed us through all of our destinations. Having mostly been listening to SLAYER along the way our ears had been begging for some kind of a break from the hell that we had unleashed upon them while our eyes were filled with memories of open landscapes, sunsets and unprovoked beauty, which we will remember till the end of our days. The closer we moved to civilization and my electronic devices started functioning properly again the realities that I had escaped from started forcing itself back into my life through a series of beeps and bling’s to remind me that my life was still waiting for me in a small white office in lower Kloof St. As I got home a unpacked my dusty bag, floated in my bath and mentally downloaded my whole experience into the back of my memory banks while simultaneously dreading the sight of the overflowing mail boxes on my computer.
HITS FROM THE VAN Slayer
Slayer
Slayer
Slayer
Slayer
Show No Mercy
Hell Awaits
Reign in Blood
South of Heaven
Seasons in the Abyss
1983
1985
1986
1988
1990
Metal Blade
Metal Blade
Def Jam
Def Jam
Def Jam
THE LAKE
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