words and photos \\ Zach Malfa-Kowalski

I joined up with the éS team
on the second leg of their US tour in the sweaty streets of New York City. The plan was to skate around the east coast for about a week and make some appearances at the local éS Games of Skate taking place. The team arrived in New York City just as the heat and humidity swept in. Skating with a big group of people can prove to be very difficult in NY especially when there's distractions galore and a million ways to get lost. The rain seemed to get the best of us most days, canceling the chances of cruising the streets. Pizza, flavor ice, and night crawling kept the crew busy until we headed our way down the east coast.

é Jimmy McDonald, crooked grind into bank
Jimmy and I both live in New York but never skated much together before this trip. We roomed together the whole time and found pleasure in having the coldest hotel room possible as neither of us regularly enjoy the cool feeling of air-conditioning back home. Somehow we got sometime at this rail in Harlem and Jimmy got crooky a couple times before the boot.

é Kevin Terpening, b/s flip manny
KTerp is a righteous dude. He can usually be found wandering far from the crew and sneaking tall cans wherever he's at. He did this trick a couple times making sure it was perfection.

é Mike Anderson, f/s air
As a usual escape from the rain, I took the boys to the Autumn bowl in Brooklyn. On a day with torrential downpour, you must walk across a weak bridge of floating palates and random wood to make it in. Most forget the bowl's leaky roof, which is another danger to avoid. Who knows how many people have air'd this thing, but Manderson was blasting huge ones and looked like he was having quite a good time.

é Jimmy McDonald, tailslide drop to disaster
This was the first spot of the day. Somehow after missing four trains, we finally got the crew on the subway up to Harlem on a nice hot day. Most of the crew warmed up and sweated it out on the molten basketball courts. Street vendors cruised by making a killing off of ice cold drinks and frozen flavor ice. Jimmy was off in the distance on the other side of the courts skating a part of this spot i'd never seen anyone hit. He got this move and we kept the day moving, pushing through the streets the rest of the afternoon.

The ride was surprisingly exciting,
sitting next to Mike Anderson's thirteen year old brother, Jake, aka Janderson. Passing through Washington D.C. was especially exciting with the young Janderson. Like a kid in a candy store, Jake's eyes lit up as we embarked on a physical learning adventure through DC's many spots and historical landmarks. Every night of our stay in DC provided some entertainment coming back to the hotel as it was mobbed with hooligans and police breaking up parties.

é Danny Garcia, nosepick
Going where he's never gone before. Stylish, tall Danny could be seen playing the guitar and spending many evenings with Mike Anderson's little brother teaching history lessons.

é Josh Matthews, switch lipslide
The length of Josh Matthews' switch lipslides have grown in direct correlation with the length of his locks. Witness his piling adolescent tendrils here, back in summer, and then when you see him slide one across 3-Up/3-Down in coming months you shall note his curly mane unfurling in flowing cascades of downy moppage.

é Kellen James, sw bigspin boardslide
Always avoiding rain, we got some under the cover of the Gold Rail roof in DC, and Kellen got this trick right before we got the boot.

é Josh Matthews, b/s Smith
Josh Matthews ripped this back Smith right before the rain set in again. Josh had been on this trip for the past two months and was psyched that the end was near. Light at the end of the tunnel.

é Mike Anderson, boardslide
En route to Virginia Beach, we passed this rail off the side of a two-lane highway. A true diamond in the rough, Mike got stoked and put this down in two or three tries as we were scolded by a couple of bewildered church goers.

The trip was a bit of a blur.
We were retracing footsteps, heading south then back north in a mess of scheduled appearances. The last leg of the trip we ended up in Virginia Beach where none of us knew of any spots. The first night, we combed the area only to find strange amounts of shitty beach food and carnival rides. Places like "Brooklyn's Finest Pizza" didn't really entice us in Virginia Beach. We also discovered a strange secret sect of Eastern Europeans working all the carnival rides and pretending that their birth place was that of Virginia Beach. We all met up on the beach for a late night dip and got ready for our appearance the next day. At an early morning breakfast at Denny's we came upon more of these strange Euro "Virginia Beach" accents. The rain came again, canceling our last appearance so we headed to possibly the worst movie any of us had ever seen to kill time before the airport. Then it was all over.

é Jimmy McDonald, switch f/s noseslide
Home court advantage on this switch f/s nose from an NYC resident.

é Mike Anderson, lipslide to noseblunt
We stopped at this ledge on our way to another game of skate we had to appear at. With limited time to shred, everyone went to work. Mike warmed up and took the gold with this hotcake maneuver first try.