Lip-Service

Well there are probably more important things to be writing about at the moment, not just in skating but namely my colossal research paper and senior thesis on competing representations of Vietnam in Soviet and U.S. newspapers (it's a thriller.), but something that caught my eye this morning is this tremendous, ridiculous and bitterly enraging run Ryan Sheckler, whom, by the way, I have NEVER posted a link of on this site or anywhere else, pulled off at the Simpel Session 2011 contest in Estonia.



Fittingly, I would think this time around, he got first place. Now I'm about as anti-contest as one can be, and reading about Street League in TSM with all its photos of billboards with Koston's face and an ESPN retaining wall and it's description of scoring and praise for the event was just about as sickened as I've ever been with that magazine, Dyrdek, and skateboarding in general. Initially I felt street league was a good idea, but I've decided I'd FAR rather watch pros and particularly ams hucking themselves madly to up the ante than see Sean Malto do all his go-to tricks at every stop. Who cares. And Dave Carnie's cynical, meanindering blabbery wasn't even enough to redeem that issue, which is a miracle I haven't experienced in about five years of subscription.

But back to Shecky. I'm sorry to the haters, including myself, but tossing that mammoth tucknee to start the run is a great way to get shit going. He looks like he's flying throughout half of the line. The massive kickflip, the smooth front blunt, the noseblunt to quick flip front board... all coupled with a nice backflip to finish off. What the fuck. How do you do all that in one minute, being Ryan Sheckler, and not even do a bs flip or tre? The life of Ryan seems to be getting more interesting.

In other non-knob-slobbing news, Jordan Hoffart had a nice little clip come out for Theeve trucks:



I've been, and probably always will be, a Jordan Hoffart fan. The second he manhandled a pole jam varial heel in Digital's Get Tricks or Die Tryin stole my heart, and any man who can dish out heelflip late shuvs, fs flip late shuvs, and even make front 180 front foot impossibles look good IN THE SAME PART as two tricks over the Kirchart gap is a godly creation all it's own. Not to mention his front tailslide mentionables and all his hucking adventures. This clip is no different, but because of the internet slew footage I'm not sure whether this is throwaway or Theeve's attempt to show off some well done filming and give a glimpse of what's to come from their media releases. Yes, he does a textbook heelflip, probably ate shit in that ditch after ollieing it, and did the rare but enjoyable kickflip noseslide shuv to fakie on that bank to ledge, which are all cool and made me keep watching. But the real highlight is the back 5-0. Should be pretty obvious which one I'm talking about. Unless I've missed something important, I've not seen anyone go up that spot. It's always down. And unlike the up-rail phase, I feel like this was actually a really, really good idea. It's like the tried and true skatepark methods of setting a bench above a euro gap. A really big one with very little bank. Which brings me back to wondering if this is throwaway or not. Could he have managed something else there?

Last on my little agenda is some Torgy love. I feel like I need to find more things to hate on, like YWS' recent bashing of uh, whatever that stupid twirly-stool shit is called. But I feel like that'd be a waste of my time and any readers, because the whole point of posting shit is to highlight notable clips that I come across in my entirely too frequent internet exploration.

So Torgy gets a Recruit around the same time as his Flow Trash part hits the internet. Interesting. As I told a close friends, I'm convinced that Mr. Torgerson belongs on my list of skaters that can do anything they set their mind to. Completely different than his Boondoggle part, although his Recruit does harp upon his nollie frontside hurricane, these two clips are nice and enjoyable: not too techy, some interesting trick selection, and some damn proper trick executions.

Recruit:


Anyone with eyes can see how good that little clip is. All I really want to mention is two things: his backside nollies (alley-oop to back 5050? alley oop into the bank?) and the fakie to switch feebs. Too bad they put Mikey Taylor's boring ass in there.

Flow Trash:


The song seems a bit risky, but I stand by risky editing decisions with all my devotion and energy, seeing as how I've made billions of them and failed at more than half.

So, eleven things I like about this video:

1. The first crook to fakie I've seen look good in a longgggg time
2. He's better than me at basketball even when ollieing gaps
3. Narrow fakie flips on intimidating mostly-open bridges
4. The manly switch push in the same line as the switch powerslide
5. Switch backlipping red rail
6. dropping down six stairs to keep speed
7. at the same time, the 'n' word in the song is changed to 'brothers'
8. Lipsliding just barely into a bank
9. Janoski deja vu on the nollie boardslide/tre flip line
10. Back 3 on flat in a line
11. The second angle of the green rail nollie flip.

I decided on eleven because as many terrible nollie flips as I see these days, that one really struck me as probably the most important trick in his part. The flick and catch is unreal. Pay attention to that back foot kiddies. Hell, I should probably take note too.