Danny Graham vs. Art MD: The Battle!!! What Battle???

Next time, Danny and I should battle for record sales or something like Kanye West and 50 Cent, because as Danny's girlfriend quoted after the tricking battle: it was a "waste of time."

Remember that historic match between the great chess world champion Boris Spassky and the inexperienced, underdog Bobby Fischer (pictured)? Well, that was the way the battle "Art MD vs. Danny Graham" was hyped. However, our battle just wasn't as cool; in fact, it was lame. Even though he was the experienced Spassky-type, he acted a lot like the spoiled Fischer. During the '72 World Chess Championship, Fischer made several unreasonable demands and swore not to compete in unless all of his random demands were taken care of. He said he would not battle unless he had a higher chair than Spassky, the audience stood much farther than usual, the lighting was brighter, the matches take place on certain days-- everything was on his terms. Danny and I had agreed before our battle on several terms. However, he pushed the battle ahead by 24 hours and informed me of the change less than two hours before the timing he was requesting. So, why did I battle if everything was on his terms or nothing? Because me on a bad day without any of my terms being met can still hold up against Danny on a good day with all of his terms.

One of the terms we had agreed on was that we would either battle in grass or on spring flooring. I wanted to battle on concrete, grass, and spring to show diverse flooring and give an all-around look at both trickers. In addition, I needed an abundance of area space and height. However, once I arrived to the battle, it was pretty much karate pad floor in a confided area. There were fans hanging from the ceiling everywhere in addition to columns in random areas. Also, we agreed to battle on Tuesday (today); however, he had one of his friends text me to inform that unless we battled at 9:30 yesterday, there would be no battle at all. I received the text at 8:00. With no proper preparation, I still went. A $%^*& move in my opinion, but that's okay. There were several other terms in which normal tricking battles consist of in which this one did not due to obvious reasons.
The battle? What battle? It was a series of tricks. No crowd: it was practically a tricking session. No one judged. We tricked for three minutes. I ran out of space on many of my combos because we had originally agreed on grass or gym floor and I trained for the battle accordingly. Unfortunately all of the circumstances changed within an hour and a half of the battle and the battle wasn't so. Either way, Danny's promised slaughter didn't occur and the inexperienced trickster from New York... almost ran into a wall a few times. But there was no battle and certainly no slaughter. In fact, Danny looked a little scared. The footage his squad recorded should be up soon.

Hitchhiking to the Tricking Battle in Miami

Saturday morning I set out from my aparment in Brooklyn to catch a 3:00 flight to Miami. There were a few airline complications at Westchester County Airport (a.k.a. I missed my flight). I always fly out of WCA in White Plains, which is about thirty-or-so miles outside the Big Apple, because it's less hectic, less crowded, and you can usually meet a beautiful girl from Westchester who drives a Benz and lives off daddy's money. 

Because WCA  is such a small airport, Airtran only had one flight departing for the rest of the day and it was bound for Orlando. Close enough to Miami, right? I changed my ticket and 2 1/2 hours later at 9:30 PM I found myself rideless, friendless, and broke in Orlando, home of Disney and Sea World. So, what do you do when you are in a city 230 miles from your destination and you don't have money or an actually plan to get where you're going? You trick.... And enjoy the hell out of the adventure.

I did a couple flips on the side of the road a mile from the airport and caught a ride on a local bus for zero-fair and was dropped off near the Florida Turnpike, a direct route to Miami. At about 11 PM I found myself bound south, walking down the turnpike with my thumb up, watching cars speed by. I called a couple friends every hour on the hour as a safety net to send out a search party in case I was molested by a junkie disguised as a palm tree or robbed at gun-point and shot by a senior-citizen hooker. It could happen. Have you seen Monster? But I live in Brooklyn so I'm automatically arrogant enough to think nothing can happen to me and what haven't I seen before, flicked off, and walked past in the subway? 

I made it about eight miles down the road when I was picked up by a cop. He offered to take me to a truck stop so that I could catch a ride with  trucker from there, seeing as I had no money.  He drove me back to within two blocks of where I started. Back to square one.

To make a long story short, I woke up a lot of truckers at 3 AM, made electronic device barter offers in exchange for a ride South, made a couple deals, went to sleep behind a gas station under a palm tree, smoked my first Marlboro (it was that kind of night), woke up at 11 AM, missed my rides, tried to make other deals to no immediate avail, waited around until 6 PM, caught a free ride on a local bus to a Greyhound Bus Terminal that was closed, caught another local bus going the other way to downtown Orlando's Greyhound, bartered off an old digital camera in exchange for a $47 ticket to Miami, met a guy who worked for ESPN Magazine, networked to get Streetflips involved with some upcoming magazine events and shoots, met a beautiful girl, got on the bus, texted the beautiful girl halfway through the trip, got to downtown Miami at 4AM, walked five miles to Miami Beach, watched the sunrise as I laid across the sand and the waves rushed up to against my feet, passed out, woke up, confirmed the tricks battle against Danny Graham tomorrow, and came to the Apple Store to blog about it.

Just another day. 

NIKE & ADIDAS TRICKS TEAMS?

Future Fantasy Tricking?
Tricking with its own XM satellite radio channel?
A TV Channel?
Millions of dollars in bets going toward tricking?
Why not? Imagine:
"Today's tricks battle is Team Nike vs. Adidas. The winner will go up against Team Under Armour and the vicious forces of Art MD, Romeo, and Tony Surphman. :)
Anis Cheurfa and Kjer from team Adidas seem poised to dominate the cork variations battle, but Sesshoumaru and Kyle Mclean from Nike are are going to give them a run on the creativity judging. Should be a crazy battle.
Next week, the all-stars from the league will be chosen for the upcoming Tricking World Championship, where China and Japan will give the US a run for the money this year."

Back to the real world, the only thing of substance to report is the upcoming Art MD vs. Danny Graham of Hurricane Tricksters Crew battle. The date, time, and details are currently being worked out, but the battle will take place soon. The source of the battle is due to Hurricane Tricksters ongoing attempts to discredit and publicly rank on Team SF. Last week, 3 members of Hurricane went to a gym where Romeo of SF was training, and Danny Graham (a much more experienced trickster of at least five years) challenged Romeo, 16, to a tricks battle in which he recorded and posted on Youtube, especially emphasizing Romeos mistakes with crafty editing while, of course, disregarding his own.
I am certainly the underdog in this upcoming match and no one expects me to come close to Danny in the battle. I intend to make this one of the greatest upsets in tricking history. And also, this is a great thing because it's helping to boast tricking as a competitive sport which certainly steeping in the right direction towards the fantasy tricks teams and XM radio sports channel.
If the battle goes down this weekend, I'll have the footage posted by Monday.