BY BRIAN PERRY
06/13/05

I always have a good time at Damn Am. All the Tampa guys are fun and having so many out of town skaters around gives some new life to the park. The bowl contest was Friday and it was very lively. The Minnesota nice factor was evident during the jam sessions but to tell you the truth I don't blame them. Josh Folley was trying his best to get runs in but there were several head on collisions at top speed that would scare anyone off. Jammin' Jay didn't seem to mind the multiple people on the bowl and fit right in with the craziness. Mike Owen is from Chicago and is one of my favorites to watch skate the bowl. Super fast and great style. I'd never seen Keegan Sauder skate before and he fucking destroyed the bowl. It was a pretty easy call that Keegan won the thing.

Of course it rained on Saturday so the day itself was less than aggreeable. It made the inside very stuffy. I was sweating just sitting there. But we cranked through the prelims at a decent rate. I think we started at 11 and finished around 8. That's really not bad considering the amount of skaters that were there. Lots of sitting, lots of judging. When we finished we had a nice cut of 30 skaters to come back the next day. That night we went down to City Billiards and had a good old time. I haven't seen that many people in there in years. They were totally understaffed and ran out of lots of stuff but that's okay. Running out of Pabst isn't always a bad thing. Probably saved my anus from some hardship.

Sunday the top 30 were cut down to 10. Locals that made the cut were Mike Munzenrider who ripped all weekend, Jamiel Nowparvar, C.J. Tambornino and Jr. Mint. Any one of these guys were capable of winning the contest. It was best run out of three so I figured Mint would kill at least one of them but I was wrong. Everyone knows how good he is already so he has nothing to prove but I wanted him to win just because he's Mint. Instead he bailed and got 11th. The only person to do worse was C.J. But he went balls out. Started his run with a gigantic 3 flip but bailed all his runs. C.J. has gotten so much better in the last year or so it's amazing. He's got no where to go but up. Munzie ended up in 7th and was a crowd favorite. Check out all the details at damnam.com.

Johnny Vang

Rothmeyer took some money off me on the Dodgers/Twins game.

Woody at his best and Dave Mayhew

Benji showing off the robot dance

Ulu and Banjo

I love the old lady in the left of this photo. Benji ended up hooking up with her later that night.

Tard

Me and Benji slow dancing

Dooner playing video bowling for $50 a head

Navarrette

Nesser's zit

Mayhew and Benji

A-Plus shows off his rack. That's so dumb.

Munzenrider in first place.

Vangina

BONER

Jeff Bauman

Badger at his finest

Ulu and Rob Sissi

Dom