articles : New Zealand jiggy.....
Lets keep in mind that New Zealanders are heavy drinkers due to cheap beer, liquor and wine. So here I am, after 1 hour of hiking, meeting up with one of the skaters that started it all. The guy that made royale. Meeting up with Arlo, Azikiwee, Mike Opalek, Mike Giacinti during the Asian X was a great experience but as real as it is, I'm meeting up with Brooke Howard Smith.
We met at a local skateshop and shocked I sure was; an authentic looking New Zealander. We then proceeded to pick his band member up. And yes, like any other NZ driver, wild. The next rendezvous point was at Brooke's house. Wow, a three story flat all to himself with a 98 Apple G3, a sound proof music room, heaps of musical equipment and tonnes of wine.
So here I am chilling with Brooke at his house and his drummer in which their band is currently third in the NZ music chart. We talked about everything from Poynter shoes, England clothing, Fiziks frames and obviously alcohol.
Brooke works from this basement workroom. He still runs Poynter which he started 3 years ago, runs the England clothing straight to US with the magnificent Jon Julio and designs website www.tadpole.co.nz. We later went to the Poynter warehouse. Where all shoes, t-shirts, bags and caps are kept. I also got a chance to see the new model. It's a high-cut shoe. Looks good. That's all I can say before I get killed by Brooke. Next stop, back to the house where Brooke showed my his websites in which some are award winning in NZ. We shared our opinion about incorporation of Flash into HTML. Great, now two techies talking about computers and designs instead of skating.
I left soon after. He and his mate was going to go drinking at 5 in the afternoon. Brooke invited me to 'Beam Bar' in town for the night which you obviously know what the reason for. I didn't make it cause it was my flatmate's birthday party that night and we were to go up the ' Auckland Sky Tower'.
I had such a good time sharing thoughts with Brooke. The passion for skating still so strong in him. He still skate ocassional at the age of 30 and runs the only skater owned shoe company and one of the most influential and stylish clothing company in the industry, England. Before I met Brooke, I thought that I was going to lose touch with skating due to my geographic position in NZ. Thankfully, I'm totally inspired from now onward with an even more clear mission. I'm not sure if it's because I'm looking at skating from my heart. I will not betraying something that I've grown to love so much. I know I will keep on skating until my body permits and be involved in the sport in whatever form. But for today, I will keep myself busy with the computer.
- yeng