News From Osiris

“Operation Desert Storm”

Osiris team riders James Brockman, Shuriken Shannon, Stu Graham, Marius Syvanen, Jimmy Carlin, TM Kong and myself piled in the van and set out to Arizona. Our plan was to meet up with Skateboard Mag photog extraordinaire, Matt Price, and our on-location filmer with the nicest car in the skate game, Travis Adams. We had high hopes to do some street skating, log a few clips, skate a few demos and enjoy the fair Arizona weather this time of year. The mission was aptly dubbed, “Operation Desert Storm” and we were well prepared. We departed from San Diego to meet up with Caswell Berry and Corey Duffel who were flying into Phoenix the following day. A couple hours into the drive, our van crew met harsh resistance from the Arizona border patrol agents and we found our way into secondary inspection and an hour detour, only to be set free with no fines, penalties or arrests. We laughed off all allegations and were merrily on our way. This detainment was first in a series of harassments from various Arizona border agents, security guards, hotel managers and police officers. Even when the heat was on, our crew retaliated with golden vibes and avoided all potential busts. Once we met up with Caswell and Corey, our complete squad had been assembled and the good times were definitely rolling. Our scheduled obligations throughout the weekend were a demo at the Tempe Park Friday night, a skate jam at the Cow Town mini ramp on Saturday night, a demo at the Peoria Park on Sunday night followed by a dinner, drinks and game play at Dave and Busters with the Industrial crew. We did plenty of skating each day and the weather was on our side the entire weekend. Matt and Travis showed us around to an assortment of schoolyards, ditches, and undisclosed street gems. Thanks boys! Check the photos for a closer look at our trip.

A few weekend highlights that come to mind were:

1. The day we left SD, James Brockman received his first sample of his upcoming Osiris Pro Model to skate throughout the weekend. Needless to say, James was ripping.
2. Our first day arriving in Phoenix, Stu Graham received his first Pro Model board from Creature. Unfortunately for Stu, he broke the first one he set up by being “Street Stu” and popping a switch frontside pop shove it on flat ground. Luckily he set up another so he could do what he does best and annihilated every park we visited and absolutely slaughter the Cow Town mini.
3. Jimmy’s non-stop van antics and ability to skate every spot and manage to rack up tricks everywhere we went. Yeah Douglas!!!
4. Hanging out with Gareth Stehr the entire weekend, and witnessing his zany personality on a daily basis.
5. Shuriken tearing all of the spots to shreds and showing the locals a thing or two about pop.
6. Marius reuniting with his Finnish homey, Simo and being able to skate and speak his native tongue with an old friend.
7. Corey driving the team van after a festive night at Dave & Buster’s and trying to outrun several security guards who didn’t like our style. We were all having a good laugh, swerving and dodging the security guards in their silly Hummer H2-until the cops showed up. Duffman confidently exited the van, sober as a judge, and boldly asked the cops what the problem was. The security guards were harassing us!
8. Caswell cracking up uncontrollably while the cops were running all of our information for warrants once we finally got pulled over. Laughter is contagious, and Marius and I started dying. The security guard got so bummed I was taking photos.

When the dust finally settled, we all had an amazing time and look forward to our next visit back to Arizona.
Special thanks to Bob at Utility, Trent, Laura and Ed at Cow Town and Doug and the Industrial Staff.
Text and photos: Mike Fitz