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Intro

 

By Cira Riedel

 

 

 

Danny Burrows, the editor-in-chief of Onboard Magazine, is an old acquaintance. He was my lodger in the Zillertal at the end of the nineties, in the wild Onboard times, when the crew still included Drew Stevenson, Gary Maidman and Dave Mailman, and always stood out for his razor-sharp intellect and charismatic sensitivity. He is also a fantastic pole dancer, an activity usually performed by scantily clad women.
He grew up in South America, Africa and the UK. He worked as a freelance photographer, author and copywriter for a long time before taking up his position at Onboard. He spent time working for sports, fashion and lifestyle magazines and also for the Guardian – for his serious side, as he says. He started surfing at the age of six with his sister, he skateboarded rather badly with a few mates and began snowboarding with a crew in “Beckton Alps“ (a dry ski slope in London) in the early 90s, even managing to attract a board sponsor. His Onboard roots run deep: he was involved from the very second edition as a freelancer.
His text reveals something of this charismatic, sensitive side and his words are no political statement and no action sport spectacle. They are words of love.

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Travelling

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By Danny Burrows

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Illustration by Jenay Loetscher
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All are intrigued by my journey. For most Crimea exists only as a tattered shred on a Soviet tapestry, sewn into the Black Sea in the same red material as its mother Ukraine. When you mention where you’re going there’s talk of radiation and revolution, the Charge of the Light Brigade and the darker, more contemporary fables of Mafia and internet brides.

So I told them I was going on holiday; not the whole truth of a beautiful girl, with eyes as black as split coal – I ask her if I can buy her a drink, she says tea. And an email slipped on a shard of paper under pale hand. They’re not things you recount without repercussions – mothers worry, fathers get a twinkle in their eye and everyone else sniggers – the foreign brides gag. Screw them. This experience, whatever it is or leads to, is mine – well ours I hope.

Beginning

We eat meat cooked in the fireplace tugged into chunks with a blunt knife. It’s burnt. There’s sweet wine in delicate blue shot glasses. An extra is served for the ‘house maid’ but at the end of the night it’s soaked up with bread and fed to Pelusha (which means soft and gentle one). There is a pink bowl of salad, with olives, tomatoes, lettuce and cheese, beaded with water. She hums or talks in a harmonic sing song, smooth and sweet, like quiet rhymes.

Russian rock sounds muffled through bricks and mortar. It’s midday and the dogs and cat are asleep in the dirt. She scrubs shoes in a bathtub that catches rain from the eves of the house. Wet shoes drip sullen dark stains down the wall.

The garden is a tangle of fruit, weed and flower, where the bows of apple, cherry, walnut and fig knot and pour jigsaws of cool shade on turned soil and an anarchic tussle of potatoes, radish and self-seeded wild flowers. Against the wall of the summer kitchen fruit jars are stacked like shells in old Russian ammunition cases.

Last night I found my ‘beach’, I saw the eye of the night open wide, cupped in cloud. Mountains stacked like waves recede in poster paint shades of blue. We crouch in a natural amphitheatre of rock where bats skid on icy air. Such beauty would make aggressors foul their guns and galvanize the will of defenders.
“How would you describe this place?”
I list worn adjectives.
“Words mean nothing here; it is just real, true.”

Can you fall in love to words?

I had not expected it. I was almost beyond hope. I was half awake, head clouded with vodka, on my back, covered with a rough blanket when the door opened. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Like this I can hear and see without seeing. It is as though you are not there. I knew she was close, I could sense. Then like warm air her lips touched mine, without pressure but electric, moist but not wet. I was trapped in sleep; fearing that waking she would recoil. How ironic, how stupid. The first kiss and I wasn’t there.

Middle

The phone silence makes me more alone. Time slows. I move around the house, each step leading to the next but no further. Has she no credit? Did my last message offend? Am I too full on or too distant? My mind spins in ever tightening circles. What’s the time? Silence.

Across the city millions of lit bulbs soak scenes of domesticity while from an infinite distance she texts me as her blankets warm on her: “I miss you.”
Sleep takes us to a place that is closer. Sleeping we are together.

Love?

I am sitting at Backchiseri Palace on a bench in a shaded corner of the gardens. A pack of school children scurry across the lawns in noisy chatter. I am waiting for her to come out of the gallery and see me sitting here. I arrange myself just so, writing. I want her to want me. The more I wait I begin to feel as though this is selfish. I would need to give to be given to. Come out. I guess love is to give without wanting or expecting. Caring without condition. If it comes back, it’s a reward. It has to be a continuous, unbroken flow; a circle. If it were a sound it would be a constant unobtrusive hum. The type that makes you warm when your eyes are closed and you are drifting. Supported, relaxed. Here she comes…

End

I have been cleaning my house – washing the floors, wiping blinds and windows. Under a pile of magazines was a brown envelope. I opened it and read “Ich heisse ….”, written in that pen that she said was like mine. It hit like a hard punch in the chest, breathless and hurt. This was the catalyst. I brush up the shards of two and a half years. The lighter she gave me in the club in Moscow, hand made cards with cryptic messages of love and the small blue bag from Tiffany that the ring came in. Each slides painfully through skin and meat, sharp and painful. I put the small things into the bag side by side. I will send it to her to do with as she wishes. Perhaps when she empties the contents out onto the bed, they will cut her as they have me. Harsh reality in a beautiful bag of ‘lies’.

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Something for Kate

Von Sanja Vidackovic

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Nothing could have stopped me at the time. As I sat in the plane and peered through the little window into the fascinating emptiness of the sapphire-black night, I had to take a deep breath. Was it all a mistake? Had I allowed myself to be ruled once again by the impulsiveness of my feelings? Was I really mad enough to think that I could survive for six months in Australia and New Zealand equipped with just CHF 800.- (or CHF 600 to be precise since I had just been relieved of CHF 200 at the airport for carrying excess luggage), a plane ticket, a season pass and my board bag?!?
The sight of the snow-capped mountain peaks towering over Queenstown confirmed what I had known deep down the whole time: I had done the right thing, I had to be here.
Aside from the memories almost too numerous to mention, such is their diversity, and the beauty of which can only be diminished by descriptive words, I had come into possession of another timeless treasure – the music of Something for Kate. Lyrics, melody and a raw voice, which imbue temporary emptiness with meaning, make me feel like shouting in moments of happiness and hold me when I feel lost.
Something for Kate (Paul Dempsey- vocals& guitar, Stephanie Ashworth-bass & Clint Hyndman-drums) live in Melbourne, Australia, have been together as a band for over ten years and keep to themselves what most of the industry would be only too pleased to trumpet:
that over the years they have received an endless list of national awards including prizes for best album, best band, best single and best artist…
Their new single The Futurist, from their “best of“ album The Murmur Years, was only released in Australia and, in Paul’s opinion, perfectly complements Danny Burrow’s story. Therefore we were grateful to accept this suggestion for an artistic exchange.
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Lyrics:

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“The Futurist” by Something For Kate
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A servant to no sweet heart of convenience.
No colour of love saw its emotion as evidence.
This transaction doesn’t tear my soul apart,
Just burn a hole in my pocket but not in my heart.
And the head tic’s taken more than it’s given,
It’s counting up to infinity, still doesn’t feel like living.
Black crosses up on a calender speak,
So many moments that can’t be made to me.

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I started walking because my heart was frozen and I couldn’t feel a thing.
Your door was open,
There were flowers on the table,
Holding up the ceiling.
Over the city,
Was the guys and the guns,
The money and the drugs.
Only looking for a quiet place to be where the future never comes.

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And the some time that’s gathering, its never going to be enough.
I just keep both filling up and filling it up,
And the difference between what you want and what you need,
Is if you’re hearts not safe at night,
It’s much harder to sleep.

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I started walking because my heart was frozen, I couldn’t feel a thing.
Your door was open,
There were flowers on the table,
Holding up the ceiling.
Over the city,
Was the guys and the guns,
The money and the drugs.
Only looking for a little patch of green where the future never comes.

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Ohh…
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I started walking,
I started walking through the birds and the drugs,
Now I’m singing in the park.
I found you watching all the lovers walking around like they’re glowing in the dark.
Over the city,
Was the guys and the guns,
The money and the drugs.
Only looking for somewhere else to be where the future never comes.

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Inside the city,
Was these guys with guns,
The money and the drugs.
I count my blessings for this little patch of green where the future never comes

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