Scratched fish-eye: my slow burn in Europe with Enjoi.

BEFORE BEING ASKED TO GO ON THE ROAD WITH ENJOI I was hiding out in New York, and as I often do these days, halfway hoping and halfway dreading that someone would invite me on a tour. Matt Eversole called and asked if I'd like to accompany them to Portugal and Spain--great news! In all my years of skate photography, it's the friendships I value more than anything. Jerry Hsu has become something of a brother to me. And they are all great friends. I would very much love to travel a country as amazing as Portugal with them.

HASSELBLAD HEIST

BEFORE DEPARTURE I had bought new camera odds and ends. My camera bag was looking tight, but on the night before the trip, when I left: my car briefly to deliver a birthday gift, I returned to find my window smashed and the camera bag stolen from the trunk. It was devastating. So I brought with me on the plane what I could, an old camera and a scratched fisheye and made due. No Hasselblad, no radio slaves. Just some rundown lenses and a slow motordrive. Hopefully it's well enough for you.

In Portugal we had great hosts. Diogo had taken off work for the week to show us around and Ricardo Fonseca and others joined us in skating. Everyone from Enjoi came except Bobby Puleo. Bobby is one of my favorite skaters in the world, but sometimes his totally neurotic, unpredictable behavior makes me wish I was shooting bullets at him rather than photos. But it's his odd personality that makes him the unique skater he is, and his part in the Enjoi video will blow minds Anyway, maybe it's best that he opted to dig through trash in Brooklyn rather than go on tour.

USUAL SUSPECTS

As for the trip:

--We had Jerry Hsu, who's my total bro

--Caswell Berry, who has such a huge heart and selfless personality, and is one of the gnarliest and most stylish skaters in the world

--Tony Manfre, who talks in a NorCal barney accent and says things like: "Dude, I'm just hella stoked on skating, I'm trying to come up!" or "Kraftwerk is so sick, they're like so before anyone, like hella beats like, way before rap." I can't really do it justice, but he's always funny and I like hearing his nonsense

--Jose Rojo, who always calls everyone a Buster

--Clark Hassler, who never said anything

--Louie Barletta, an insane alcoholic with a big smile, and a lot of laughs

-- Matt Eversole, or "black anger" as I liked to call him

--Chris Avery, who disappeared this trip to go on a vision quest and find his spirit animal, which was I think Eeyore from Winnie the Poo 

--Warren Jenkins also came as a special guest

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

SMOKING BECAME A HUGE PASTIME ON THIS TRIP. Kids, seriously, don't start. Only idiots smoke, and yes, that's what we are. Me and Jerry had a joke that at any segue, or pause, or transition, we must light up another. Jerry would sometimes say "A new song is on, time to smoke" or "Did the van just start?" and pull another grit out of the pack. It's odd because, six months ago, neither of us smoked at all. I was reformed, and he just lost his mind. I was going to call this the "Enjoi Smoking Tour" but didn't want to send the wrong message, especially given how oddly impressionable the kids I see at the skatepark are. We are all familiar with the sight of clones of some pro or another skating around the street course. I don't want to see any fake Asians in tattered clothes with bedhead and chain smoking next time I'm at the park.

Tony Manfre was the worst; he'd always steal your lighter. He'd ask to see it, light up, and then put it straight into his pocket every single time. I learned to light his smokes for him. He and Jose smoked as much as anyone and yet neither of them ever bought a pack the entire trip. I'd walk into the room and it was as if I was a pro with a sticker pack at a demo; "Let me get a smoke!" But enough about that, a dead customer is not a buying customer and I can't kill off all my readers. If you smoked as much as these guys I'd be amazed if you didn't fall dead by the time you got to Photograffiti.

After a week in Portugal we ended up at Jerry and Kenny Reed's apartment in Barcelona where most of us crashed. Also residing with us was a relatively unknown amateur skater who I'll just introduce as "Worst Dude Ever." He always referred to the innocent act of going skating as "Trying to come up" and he seemed to be the most hated dude in town. Many dinners were spent lamenting on his various acts of big-headedness. He seemed to be paranoid that people were out to get him or were biting his style. Dude, sorry for writing this, but homie, calm the fuck down, you will earn only the things in life you deserve. Whatever, never mind.

Jerry's apartment was always very hot in the morning, and the rooms were strewn with crumpled dudes on every inch of the floor. I would always wake up to Caswell and Tony arguing about some unknown trivial detail. after five minutes they'd forget what they were even fighting about, and the debate would be reduced to "Dude, all I'm saying is you're stupid."

"No man, you're just so hella stupid."

Barcelona is of course the current skate mecca. This has already been lamented on to death in skate magazines, but there is a higher concentration of well-known skaters in that small town than anywhere else in the world. Every night the various teams and cliques would converge at the Plaza Reial and get drunk around the fountain. The Moroccan men walk around and sell beers for cheap, and the skaters all get really drunk and scope out (but never actually pull) the packs of Finnish, Swedish, and backpacking Boulder Colorado hippie chicks. It's basically a drunken tourist square. But the skate bro talk kind of drove me insane and although l liked almost everyone there, individually it was too overwhelming all at once. I liked to refer to it as "ASR Square," but it was a vortex I couldn't help but get sucked into.

One night we went to a strip club on La Rambla. It was 15 Euros to get in, rather steep, but the events that unfolded inside made it well worth it. Let's just say that both Matt Eversole and Caswell Berry ended up (at separate times) completely naked on stage. I have never laughed so hard and been simultaneously so creeped out at once. I have an increased respect for those guys now, and they have both made "Best Dude Ever" status in my mind.

On this trip everyone ripped so hard it was amazing. We would get Like four awesome photos every time we went out; it was hard to even keep up. Caswell, Tony, and Jerry especially, incredible.

I imagined this being a 16-page article, and that with some severe editing. But because Michael Burnett has a boner for Bastien and the Zero team, this piece has been condensed into nothing. I'm sorry. Maybe I can use all the extra photos in a future article hyping up the release of the Enjoi video. That would be pretty uber.