SkatePolitik

Who Reads Blogs?

2011-09-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently the numbers are thinning. Fuck it. I havent been up to date on internet videos in some time now, too many things going on. Have some park clips planned to come out soon as soon as i update my editing program. After that, this blog will probably shift focus to purely local content. Remember, video(s?) dropping in the next year. Holla.

P.S.
Remember a while back that Madars Apse clip I posted? who, oh who, is getting transworld coverage now? Mr. feeble fs flip fakie bank to bank, Madars Apse. Nice to see an artist get some recognition.

This is local-oriented shit.

2011-08-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

But hopefully worth a read anyways. I haven't been updating much at all, due to full time work and part-time skateboarding. But, the park featured in alot of the montages in here, Anti-Gravity in Newport News, Virginia, has been bought out/sold out behind the backs of the business owners due to the landlord offering their building to a rival skatepark in neighboring Hampton. The winning park is Meko's surf skate and more, a religious organization obsessed with Team Pain ramp construction and vigilant about helmets for everyone, probably because they depend on mommies to pay their bills and mommies dont like when little jimmy scrapes his elbow, much less knocks his head once in his life on a go-to trick.

So anyways. Anti was informed last wednesday that Meko's would assume ownership of the building as of September 1st, meaning strict session times, higher prices for some of us, no relaxation, no cursing, no doing as you please, wearing helmets regardless of the fact that youve been skating for 11 years and know that injuries will come despite protective equipment and helmets are the least commonly useful types of said equipment...... basically you will not be allowed to be a skateboarder there. you will be a customer, a bill-payer, someone who comes in at the designated session start time and gets kicked out by a fucking faggot on a loudspeaker when your time is up. End of story.

So. The crowd at anti, a decidedly older crowd than that drawn by mekos, is out of a home. prospects from an out of towner, living here for only 4 months and known for marketing promises that cant be delivered upon, include a private, monthly fee membership-based park at a privately rented location. As anyone with a head on their shoulders knows, unless youre the berrics or owned by a very rich individual, indoor places are subject to lease agreements and therefore fallible as fuck. The time has come for the peninsula half of the Hampton Roads area have a permanent skatepark, free for public use, designed by skaters, and helmet free based on age waivers. Essentially, we need what Norfolk now has: a park essentially built, temporarily staffed then left to the skaters intentions by the city. Because of recent limelight grabbed by Kevin Love and Trevor Colden and the planned new concrete park in Virginia Beach (the city's fourth currently open skatepark), the timing is essentially perfect.

Yet I get a facebook message not to talk negatively about a private space modeled after the berrics, driven by ad revenue, kept open by high monthly fees to a select number of people, and based on film content.

What the fuck is going on. The readers here know I'm a purist, and core values have taken over my life especially in the past year. Gone are the hate-rants on various productions, although since this site was initially based on industry banter that was in one form or another common currency. Now, my friends need jobs. my friends need a skatepark. the scene needs a skatepark. Every grindable spot minus the two skateable handrails needs angle iron repair due to years of use. is it so wrong to be against an indoor venture, doomed to fail, driven by a marketing 'expert'? when did petitioning the city for a public place become a last resort, especially when it has worked before, although not quite as planned?

The state of skateboarding, I have realized, is based on locality strengths. places with strong scenes either have a notable skatepark, or a plethora of spots. Newport news now has neither, and in fact, the neighboring areas (yorktown, hampton, gloucester, isle of wight, williamsburg) have nothing of the sort either. The scene here morphs on something like a four year cycle: a key park goes under, a key spot gets destroyed, a key filmer leaves or quits, and only a handful of the former scene members remain in the long run. its bullshit that this place goes through that; the talent abounding here is truly incredible to witness, along with the attitudes of those possessing that talent. Never have I been in a place where so many awesome people are subject to such shitty surrounding conditions. Culpeper came close, but thats a small town, and this is an entire half of an area code in a densely populated coastal region vital to American defense. Crazy how the world turns. Im not here to bitch, I'm simply here to relay my thoughts and observations on this area. This place needs a permanent park. Anti-Gravity had the best vibe of any park I've ever been to, and it will stay in my heart along with the people from that park for the rest of my life. Please support Newport News skateboarding. Visit this link and join the group, spread the word to other skaters. Separation of church and skate means get the 'state' involved and fuckin make a place where everyone is welcome to shred.

Build a Newport News Public Skatepark

Park Clip

2011-07-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

I've got a few gay tricks, R.J. has two clips, Rudy has one and Peter Smith has a couple as well. Made by Matt Dallmeyer, also featuring Zachary Highsmith, Josh Mohrbach, Daniel from Anti, and possibly others.

T-Puds. Biggest bang.

2011-07-04T21:00:00.001-07:00

Damn. highly enjoyable to watch. the berrics shoutout in the credits is lame. but the back smith backside flip is a mean one. and the bump to bar back tail, and well, the other back tail.

Watch that shit here.

pretty much a part full of backside tricks that are really, really fuckin sick. WHAT is Plan B actually saving for their 'video in progress'?

Also Morgan Smith won BATB IV. Sick. hyped to see him over PJ any day of the week after that Nyberg bullshit and something else I can't remember from recently. It's cool that three people on earth can nollie 540 bigflip or bigger flip or whatever you wanna fucking call it, the nollie tre front 180, in a flatground game of skate and avoid a letter. bizarre.

What happened to the Berrics?

2011-06-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

I dont know for certain. BUT my guess, and an idea thats looking more and more probable, is that he faked the hack for three reasons. one, theyre about to come out with a reconstructed version of the site. two, a supposed hack generates internet buzz which means even more publicity for them. Three, mike mo v koston is a key game and they can build anticipation and get people drawn in to the batb by putting it off yet another week. the berrics wins in every way.

My friend Hunter Gray asked me the question that makes up the title. After telling him, I decided it would be worth putting on here.

Yes, it contributes the buzz and inadvertently gives them publicity. BUT, it's kinda an important happening because even I was waiting for the games this week.

Really Honestly

2011-06-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

I've kind of stopped giving a fuck about the industry. Anyone that still checks this page would probably have noticed this by now, so this is more or less a blunt and obvious F.Y.I. Speaking of F.Y.I., if you haven't watched the Digital dvd of the same name lately, please go find yourself a copy along with a fat hot dog wrapped in melted cheese. You'll thank me.

But that little tangent aside, and beyond all the obvious anti-berrics rants I could have made in the past month but decided the cardio-workout it provides my feeble blood pressure wasn't worth it, I've decided I'm going to run this blog pretty much however I feel is most appropriate in the moment.

Today, is fun day. Much like my past three or four weeks living at Anti-Gravity, I've been watching internet clips only if they look like they'll be halfway inspiring.

I have a couple finds related to this. First off. Some of you may have heard of him a while back; he won a DVS contest and got flowed their shit for a year or something like that. Transworld ad with a rock tre flip, etc etc, other cool shit that a geek skater like me finds awesome. So this part, filmed in Hawaii, really hyped me up this morning. If you've seen his other footage, it should be fairly obvious that this is not the epitome of what this little Honoluluian is capable of. But it's sick regardless.

Also quite cool but on the geeky side, this dude named Kyle Kraus that frequents this forum where I usually go to be mean to morons and also happened to discover Jason's skating. Basically, Kyle does whatever the fuck his acrobat body wants to do, and this video is another fun as hell clip to watch. Lots of crazy pressure flips, which I expect from him, but also some sick sal flips and body flipping and just general killin it.

Lastly, this montage is a really good concept, edited and mostly filmed by my french friend Aymeric Nocus, known to most on the internet as MRCK. His idea was to put together a universal clip, using footage from LA, SF, France and god knows where else. and it came out super sick. It's a tad on the long side clocking in at 15:00 but it's definitely worth the watch. Peep it! Then go skate til your legs are dead.

Anti 1.5

2011-06-10T18:44:00.001-07:00

One and one half minutes. Filmed on R.j.'s pocket camera by him and Kenny Wonka (I filmed Londen's clip but left it out of the last montage accidentally). I slapped this bitch together in about an hour, pretty cool little clip, feel it out!

Featuring:
Julius Salters
Myles McIntire
Josh LeRoy
Cokey Stocker
Mark Caviston
Evan Dwyer
Jonathan Ruble
Chase Fuller
SB
Tony Monge
R.j. Venters
Taylor Shirk
Ryan Jones
Brian Henderson
Josh Mohrbach
Londen Lassiter

VX-of-Doom

2011-06-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Last park clip you'll be seeing from my dear old VX2000. Thank God. Sound is glitchy as shit, so hid that...... CCD's freakin out, so my usually lazy methods of editing had to include color correction this time around.

Featuring some rippers! Sorry there's no lines, per se. First anti clip i've ever made without me personally in it. Also the first one I've filmed entirely by myself, as a result. Fuggggg it.

Featuring:
Tyler McCoy (lens-hitter)
Matt Clarkson (360 guru)
Justin Hobbs (tech man)
Chris Vaneeklen (banger)
Londen Lassiter (late shuvver)
Grant Amspacher (park rat)
Neilson Thornton (green bean)
Cody Bamburg (film-fearer)
R.j. Venters (box-steezin)
Josh LeRoy (with a big R)

More later this week.

Things to Come

2011-06-04T18:20:00.001-07:00

Say hello to Charley.

oh yeah, vids gonna be bangin. squirrels.

Really though, couple park clips will be up by next weekend.

Lotsa footy

2011-05-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

I've very obviously been bullshitting about posting on here, mainly for a variety of not-so-befuddling reasons. Namely skating and being unemployed.

So while I had originally planned to harp on some of the highlights of the Berra-run DC ad campaign including such unfortunately sick clips as this, I think a much more appropriate post would be one to include two clips, one done by me and one by Charley over at sevenfiveseven.org, featuring a lot of the dudes working on putting together footage for Skatepolitik.

R.J. has a pretty intense drive to work out little filming projects on the side. This is the second one I've put together for him, this was all filmed on a little pocket camera and shows how to make shit happen with pretty much a camera, a board, and somewhere to put that camera. I edited this clip up last night, enjoy the R.J. Venters Showcase 2.0:

And also, Northside skatepark in Norfolk has been open for about a year now I guess, probably less. Anyways, I've been there a couple times but only skated it once, one very drunk Evan Dwyer backside flip graces the first clip slot in this bad boy, followed by a lot of Chase Norman gnar gnar that pretty much makes the montage all about him. Chad's mannerisms are on fine display in the intro. Filmed and edited by Charley Feher:

Unless I miss my guess and have a radical change in my life soon, this should be the first couple videos in pretty much what's about to be a storm of clips in the next few weeks. Stay tuned?

Cooler than BATB IV

2011-04-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

fucking stupid they arent doing the next round until next weekend. its ten americans versus six foreigners. their whole idea of 'us vs them' is down the toilet now anyways. not to mention, NOT TO FUCKING MENTION, that blown up street league bullshit that makes my computer look like sports center when i try to get onto the berrics. fucking stupid.

In other news, George Hanuschack does probably the hardest tight tranny trick I've ever seen in this rad little clip from Traffic. That pop shuv nosestall on mickey mouse world in DC is just nuts.

Traffic Report 4/27/2011 from Traffic Skateboards on Vimeo.

also if you haven't seen Figgy and B-Herm's b-sides by now, roll over to hellaclips and check them shits out. Really interesting stuff. But send them an email to remind them how to spell Hanuschak, not HanuSHUCK like they have it.

also check out Toy Machine's tour video, most notably Ed Templeton's across and down nosebluntslide on a park ledge. My mind may be faulty and distracted, but to my knowledge, I do not think I have ever seen a nosebluntslide, neither frontside or backside, across and down a hubba. Park or not. And the fact that boss-man over at Toy did that particular clip makes it even cooler.

Color Me Antigravity

2011-04-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

Edited by the homie/video collaborator Charley Feher. Featuring some of the dudes that will be in skatepolitik, and some randoms as well. I've got two tricks. Say WHAT? yeah, I feel the same. Strange seeing myself skate......

Color Me Antigravity from sevenfiveseven.org on Vimeo.

I have a brown shirt and I'm the fool that looks stoned in the intro. Yep. Check Neilson, the kid that back tails the small hubba and such and is also in the intro, and Londen, the skinny dude with the nollie double flip and switch back heel. Super rippers. Expect killer parts from them.

Since Day ONE

2011-04-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough to my feeble mind, I've seen no mention of this video on any of the major blogs I read. I'm sure pretty much everyone in the country is aware this video has officially dropped by now, but maybe not. If you didn't know, it premiered Monday in skate shops or other related viewing venues around the country. I'd like to relay my premiere experience, being as it really mortified my senses and destroyed my diminished faith in the current state of skateboarding while at the same time giving me immense hope for generations to come.

First of all, the start of the event was delayed a whole hour, presumably for a homie who was on his way from out of town, although I didn't ask. Everyone crammed into the little assembly of couches and second hand chairs in order to watch a projection of the film on a stretched screen which I believe is canvas or maybe even a really durable sheet. Who knows. Everyone was positive going into James Hardy's shreddin opening segment, but I could feel the enthusiasm dwindling during Donnely's part. Perelson naturally got some gasps, but once we hit Torgy's part things really went downhill. Apparently I missed the memo that the only thing people wanted to see in this video were perfectly filmed Ishod Wair and Dennis Busenitz segments. Who knew. Although I was naturally talking a little bit of shit about the absolute dominance spitfire shirts held over the wardrobe aspect, a fad down here currently, I was very pleased with what I was seeing. Now, whether it was on purpose or by accident, the two filming 'masterminds', used loosely, really blew it on their angles for the most part, diminishing the true nature of the spots pretty much throughout and flirting heavily with High-Def incompetency. Which apparently proved to be the breaking point for the younger crowd. Because of when I grew up, I have to admit I was having heavy flows of middle school nostalgia for when I first discovered skate videos and went through the backlogs of the VHS industry. Now I guess, people want Ride the Sky, Debacle, and Fully Flared every time they open up a DVD. But as I said, I was very pleased with what I was viewing. I could tell the spots were fucking gnarly, and everyone was more or less holding to a ridiculously high and uniform standard of skating, making the parts hard to distinguish at first because of how hard everyone was ripping.

Now, alot of my favorite skaters to watch are on the Real team. Naturally Busenitz and Hardy are near the top of that list, with Justin Brock being a heavy favorite because of his North Carolina native status. I also like Dompierre, and Torgy was one I was highly anticipating as well. I knew next to nothing about Ishod Wair going into this, but he's on that list now for sure. Ramondetta was one I've never been too into, but I still respected his footage and let his part change my views on him completely. Then there's Schaaf, who's always awesome, Huf, who was one of my inspirations although it doesn't show in my skating, and Alex Perelson whose Volcom clip recently had lit the fire in my heart. Donnelly I didn't know much about other than he was supposed to shred, and same with Massimo. So I had high expections of this video, and in all honesty, I feel like they were surpassed. I've watched this shit six times in almost 48 hours.

But back to the premiere. Kids were talking shit when they realized this wasn't the kind of video they were expecting, to the tune of "did he walk to keep up with this line?" and "this guy sucks with his big feet" (referring to Huf) and probably the most surprising "the first guy that doesn't suck and he doesn't even have a full part" when referring to Kyle Walker. Another dude even motioned the thumbs down when I glanced back at him. That's right guys, your words are on the internet. You little haters. So after the perceived reason for the delayed start time said "fuck this" and went to smoke a cigarette, I was able to recover from the shockwaves of hate that had encapsulated my immediate personal space. By the end of the video, after laughing either to myself or out loud throughout Busenitz's skate-everything-and-do-more-tricks-than-required-to-make-a-cool-clip part because of his wonderful little tacked-on flatground and front 180s, I was the first in a very short line to buy it and walked away happy but aggravated.

How, you might ask, could someone hate this video "because it has the most ass-shots I've ever seen" to quote the night again? Who cares? This shit was raw. 20 bucks for a rad book filled with Morford photos and the DVD with about forty minutes of bonus footage is a miracle. AND some of the money goes to the Johnny Romano Foundation. But I vented on the way home, in more or less shock that kids could actually hate a video enough to leave even before Busenitz and Ramondetta came on the screen. Or better yet, how could they hate a video with Public Enemy, switch flip the LOVE fountain, and a billion super talented dudes in it? Just didn't equate. I know the obvious answer is they want the super polished productions of lately, which has in many ways made me doubt the professionalism and HD format we had decided to use regarding the skatepolitik video, but damn. Definitely didn't see that coming. The messageboards have of course been a-fire with discussion of Real, oddly enough to the tune of massive support, even to the point of condemning those grime snakes that are searching for a free download link. Don't even think of coming to me, I've been in touch with DLX reps the past couple days passing on links I find. I will be understanding in the pirating of berrics productions and berrics productions only.

But to think of pirating this video is bullshit. In some ways the reactions of the younger generation made me like this video even more. This video makes me appreciate the act of skating itself, fuck the presentation. This is how it used to be done. You get the trick on film and you use it regardless, not throw away tons of usable stuff because the filmer sucks or there was a slight tremble in your line filming. People that can't appreciate that are gonna fade their way into life's many depressing nooks and crannies, and wallow in their own lack of success eventually anyways. Can't save them. Yes, right now their mass control over the internet skate world and the local parks is a proven yet annoying fact of day-to-day life, but there will come a time, probably very soon, where that will end. When skateboarding stops being the job all the post-millenium birthed kids aspire to as a viable career. When people stop giving a fuck about making their trendy bigspin and back tail trick selections look perfect with their vulcanized bland colored shoes and their tall socks and cut off shorts. Not that there's anything wrong with that style, but everyone's doing it. Basically, I feel like this video either will be a measuring stick for true skate lovers, or a common ground that eventually unifies the lifers with the maggots. I'm cool with both, I'd love skating to be less inclusive and slimmed down once more, but everyone already in the mix staying there is fine too.

Basically this video is a surprising return to older, less fancy presentation methods and vibes. Buy this shit. It's easy on the wallet, good for the soul, and this is a video everyone should own. Straight murderous skating the whole way through. These boys are the true future.

Wow

2011-04-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Time flies. Not really. But I know I haven't posted since March 11 and it seems to me just yesterday I was cranking out that bullshit. Anyways, lots of things have gone on in my busy absence, notably David Gonzalez blowing off (whether staged or not) Reda's pre-game interview, Nyberg's controversial game of skate last week, and of course his bangin, which because of greedy Berra is not available on youtube. I hate to say it, but you should probably visit the berrics to check out that clip if you haven't. Alot of people are haters, but I've never even seen a laser flip back lip, and anyone who does that with an elmo graphic on his board is beast.

Uhhhhh anyways there's probably alot of other stuff that I'm forgetting about, but right now, I frankly don't care. I'm swamped with my senior thesis paper, along with some other life disturbances and I've been spending lots of time filming for the skatepolitik video. That's right. I said there would be one right when I started this up. Unfortunately, probably anyone that reads this lost interest last month when I stopped posting. If my facebook hadn't been hacked and deleted, I'd blow up the facebook world with advertisements to get readers back, but that will have to wait until they restore my friend requesting privileges.

And as for a link, I edited this up for my friend the other day, he's quite the diverse skate rat, and will hopefully have a full part in the video. He self filmed a lot of this and had randoms and homies point the cam in others... it's a little 'HD' point and shoot type deal, real small. The audio was a mess because of the echo inside the park so... I removed it, more or less. Check out the grimy boogie-smear at the very end. It's a chill clip. I like it. Song's cool too.

Monthly Madness

2011-03-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

In six days it will have been exactly a month since I posted ROUGH online, and I'm assuming it's already more than that since I've written about anything anyone on Earth cares about. I could vent about my own personal problems at the moment but that's really not necessary, so instead of watching my dogs drag each other around by one leg I'm gonna do several things here:

1. The Bones video is FUCKING SICK. Yeah, we know, everyone wishes everyone had a full part. But Bartie is a monster, Decenzo and Gravette, throwaway or not, ripped to the hyped degree, and Jordan Hoffart cannot be stopped. Future legend in the making right there, easily. Front heel late shuvs are not something I ever expected to see, especially after creaming over Getz's kickflip late shuv over a park hip years ago. Also Dyet is a true grown-ass man. So gnarly. So..... ugly. Too beautiful. So that's out of the way now, basically. Go get that video. Buy it. I bought it. Hell, buy all the full length DVDs. Keep this shit going so I keep having things to get excited about other than plopping my ass on concrete to hunch my back and peer at my friends through a viewfinder and stuffing tapes into my pocket when authority shows up to bitch us out.

I must say though, pissed the land of Derrick Wilson's nollie heel down the Hollywood High 16 ended up somewhere other than the full length, since the attempt was in the promo. Bad move. Coulda really made Bones an industry must see with that one.

2. Tom Asta is now pro. Obviously you should have heard this by now. hellaclips.com probably enlightened you to his pro part, but here it is anyways, shoving his switch foot up Brian Wenning's fat ass with that switch heel:

Unfortunately, I liked his earlier footage much better. He's become an overnight sensation and he's turning into a carcass-hucking drone that does all his tricks to the fullest extent of proper. Like we definitely need more of that. WHY is he pro, and James Hardy, Hatchell, and such notables as Tancowny and Dane Burman (notice the camp affiliation, eh?) are not? Just because Chris Cole is backing him means he gets the nod before other gnarlier, more raw, and more creative dudes? I can't say I really understand. I don't dislike Asta, but I'm sure starting to.

3. Kyle Leeper has my favorite online clip in quite some time that some greedy bitch didn't try to charge to see, or didn't involve Randy Ploesser. The edit is epic, the skating is smooth and questionably slick, and the filming is fantastic. Hypes me up for slick skateparks.

4. Adelmo, as I mistakenly assumed when the LRG video came out, now has actually been separated from his dreads for real, in one of the most twisted fateful jokes life has thrown at a professional skateboarder probably ever. The vid explaining the awful legal mess is here:

DISCLOSED - ADELMO JR - DREADS from KAYOTV on Vimeo.

The sound might be off so try to pair what you hear with his lip movements and time them together in your head. He's a little hard to understand.

5. Randy Ploesser has a new part out from some video called Jake's Junt. Not his best, and some of the footy is recycled unless I'm losing my mind, but the front shuv wallride and the first well done fakie impossible I've ever seen are sick, and overall this clip is just fun to watch. Weird song though.

6. And last on my laundry list, Chad Fernandez from the Globe/World Industries days of yore put out a gnarly little part. Note the ender, which I feel speaks very highly for him in light of Figgy's front board.

Now if you haven't been keeping up with the "Glimpse" series on Da Playground, I'd suggest you add that to your list along with the BATB 4 which started last weekend. I've got Luan winning it all but we will see. Should be sick though. Ishod and Nugget was a great game, and so was the one with Torgy. But I'm not all about Reda's little praise sessions afterward. They're awkward. And pretty lame.

Also I suppose I'll post up this sick little local promo for a video out of DC, formerly a company full of either has-beens or people without steez. But the new blood seems to have corrected this, and this video is definitely cool, although I for one am completely over downtown DC footage since those kids up there essentially get a city of marble as a skatepark, and I equate whatever they do in the streets there as basically park footy for anyone else. Forgive me if that sounds unfair. But compared to the rest of the DMV area, downtown DC is about the only place that the spots aren't rough as shit. Nonetheless, Ghetto Birds down the Courthouse four are still very sick, and Stephen Jefferson is a monster.

Also I'm really hyped the Gold Rail is knobbed, although the performer of those tricks on it is Jonas Durney, a dude who grew up in the town next to mine. Once upon a time he was really sketchy and unnecessarily cocky, but hopefully that's changed, because the footage I've seen of him recently is pretty good for sure. The above promo was made by Leukemia survivor and Convoy filmer Adam Turrisi, props to him on the progression his videos have made.

had a ROUGH day

2011-02-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

BUT

I got the bitch online finally.

If you don't care much, you can watch the whole video straight through right here. It's also downloadable, but then again it's a video I produced so who would want to download it?

And if you REALLY don't care, you can check out my youtube channel, which has the intro as the featured video so you get an idea of what you're in for, and you can furthermore watch each part one by one depending on your mood or tolerance.

and for a ditty of industry watchery, the most interesting clip I've watched this week is undoubtedly Raven Tershy. Usually I really don't like 180 fakie 5-0s on bank to ledges and small quarterpipes, but this one is nuts.

Also in other news, Shane O'Neil's throwaway/alternate angle clip that came out has the first REAL frontside salad I've ever seen in it. And notably, an unused switch back tail backside 270 flip out in it. Strange why this is throwaway if you ask me. If I had to guess, he's pulling an early Kenny Hoyle and not accepting the slightly-less-than-perfect landing.

The downside is that it's wayyy too long, and Nugget looks like a pudge lil target for bullies in the beginning.

Last, Josiah Gatlyn, aka boring boy, put out this clip of his uh, '2010' footage, which I'm guessing doesn't include whatever Stereo is sitting on? Is that where he still is?

I found only four of his clips to really be up to par with the hype that once surrounded him, those being the backside nollie/fakie double flip line, the really really long bigflip, the nosebonk/lazer flip clip, and the transition line, but that ones only on my list because of how good the blunt flip was and that he did try to do something different other than stairs. However, he's still got some gnarly stuff off that curved block stairset and his lazer flip and fakie tre down the double set is pretty beastly too. But again, as usual, there's a catch... so. little. trick. selection.

Valentine's Bonanza

2011-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

In the midst of this gruesome holiday, I find myself just back from skating a damn flatbar only to realize my surprise dinner plans have been thwarted by my girlfriend who decided to visit her hometown today. Sweeeeeet. Anyways, seems like alot of shit keeps cropping up to post, and sifting through and deciding what's worth it amidst multiple cigarettes to boost thought process and a brutal porch-fire earlier this morning is not really working out. So. Since I spent too much time finding a fucking link for Lenny Rivas' "Glimpse" only to realize the embed option is on their site, I'm gonna talk about Kayo for a second to make myself feel better about getting my ass kicked on Black Ops, as is destined to happen after I hit "Publish Post"

The Glimpse series is fairly hit or miss, but essentially it's kayo's version of the Berrics. Needless to say, it's a breath of fresh air to see a park absolutely covered by graffiti and hear some good old fashioned rap music for once. If I have to watch something as utterly boring and generic as Mikey Taylor's Battle Commander from the Berrics again, I might really harm myself out of frustration. Kalis has had a clip, so has Marquise, Lima, and now Lenny. Lenny's is by far the sickest. He doesnt look like that skeleton inside a XXXL shirt from It's Official anymore. Nope, the goon look is gone, and his skating is interesting as hell, pretty much without warning. The whole reason I found out about this clip and "Da Playground" DGK park itself is due entirely to Mikey Taylor's Switch 180 front feeble in his Battle Commander. Yep, Lenny did it too. And although not as 'perfect' as Taylor's, the lock in is beautiful. Not to mention he does some damn interesting lines and some sick manny tricks. Do I now enjoy watching his footage? Yes, oh yes.

DA PLAYGROUND - DGK - LENNY RIVAS from KAYOTV on Vimeo.

Meanwhile, Marquise is still boring except for an inward heel manny front shuv, and Kalis filmed 50 seconds of his go-to tricks, which was a bummer. I fail to understand how he unleashed that retardedly good tre flip nosebluntslide in Habitat's Regal Road and has pretty much ignored that trick ever since. If it's been a while since you watched a perfect part, now would be the time to watch it. Interestingly, thinking about it, this was kinda the first of the one person, one part wave that has taken the internet and the world by storm. Although it wasn't designed for internet release, online parts and shit like Dylan all seem to have followed Kalis in Mono. Odd. It's like a grandfather that everyone forgets.

Probably because coupling Josh Kalis with the Rolling Stones was something his core fans didn't appreciate. But I found it marvelous.

Now in more recent video-endeavors, as you've hopefully seen, Dan Plunkett has got a nice little edit floating around. I'm not sure of details, mainly because I don't care, but my guess is that the footage was dubbed to VHS and then cut and chopped. Hopefully that's how they did it. If they did it all digitally then that kinda ruins it. But it's still got two factors going for it: the music, and Dan Plunkett.

Another video I can't find in order to embed on here is this little Reese Forbes ditty, where he evidently has decided to skate Barcelona Ass-Backwards.

http://www.dlxsf.com/popups/videos/ReeseForbes.mov

Click it with your little wireless USB rodent.

Lip-Service

2011-02-08T08:54:00.001-08:00

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.

Colorless Theory

2011-02-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

While Mystery bangs out the de-saturated color footage, I'm hiding my inability to properly set GL2 colors with black and white. First time using one and probably my only time. No fisheye available so the confines of the little park pretty much dictated the angles. I did not film my frontside flip, obviously, or the backside blunt line. Just some after-hours dick-around footage filmed in under an hour.

Also my own camera returned to my possesion and disposal this past Sunday so more park semi-shreddery should be forthcoming soon. In addition to my lazy ass finally uploading all of ROUGH within the weekend. Yay? Gay? Nay?

Ten Dumbassidies

2011-02-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

Dumbassidies - noun. (dumb-ass-id-eez). 1.A statement so stupid it leads one to question the intelligence of the person who created it. 2. A statement that cannot be forgotten and forever lives in memory because of the pure idiotic nature of it's content.

In the past couple years, I've slogged away easily for $9.00 an hour at a hole in the wall family-owned 'sk8' shop on weekends. I've not been a fan of their business practices or my bosses in general, but a paycheck is a paycheck and I lived with the guilt of circumventing my morals in order to make a meager living watching skate videos and listening to kids talk about their ollies. Better than getting shoved on the concrete in a grimy downtown apartment complex in the middle of the night with a gun in the small of my back and one in my ear cavity. Which was one of my esteemed experiences as a delivery driver for Dominos after getting laid off from said 'sk8' shop with no notice early last year.

Unfortunately for me I was asked to work weekends again after one of their employees quit because of the bullshit, and now I've again fallen victim to notice-less, cold, selfish business practices in which the owners don't give a FUCK as long as nothing bad is happening to them. So basically, I'm on a bit of a spree on denouncing shitty profiteering business practices which take advantage of skateboarding, all for the well-being of someone who has no damn clue about or care for skateboarding itself. So, for the beginning of my little 'series' which will continue through local newspaper editorials and letters to certain companies whose product is being misrepresented and/or completely stolen/copied, I decided a list of ten of the stupidest things I've heard at this place would be somewhat entertaining.

1/ "Lizard King sucks. Name one contest he has EVER won. Just one. You can't, because he hasn't."

- This one takes the cake. Perfect example of the atmosphere there. All about the win, all about the who's the best, the contest, the jock side of skating. I literally almost shit my pants when I heard this. It's like the hundred or so skate videos I played there never happened.

2/ "Ryan Sheckler has the best tre flips ever."

- does this include that mirrored one that was claimed to be switch?

3/ "Who's Stefan Janoski?"

- They even mispronounced his name

4/ "People are gonna think that being sponsored is cool so they'll buy servings of this drink for $2.75 a spoonful."

- Can't remember the brand name. But this one's from the boss. Some stupid energy powder that you add water to and drink, and they 'sponsored' boss-bitch's kid. No one ever bought any, of course.

5/ "*name removed* signed this deck, kid's are gonna buy it because they want his autograph."

- news flash. nobody wants to pay $40 for some kids signature ruining a deck. The board sat there for 8 months.

6/ "No surface will ever be perfect except skate lite, and that's just too expensive."

- Uh, actually, no surface is perfect at all. Skate lite breaks too. BUT if you build shit right, and invest in top quality from the get-go, you won't have chipped up plywood ramps covered in paint that you have to replace every six months. Talk about expensive.

7/ "there isn't one good trick in that Alien Workshop video."

- self-explanatory.

8/ "Those kids win every contest we have so they're not allowed to participate anymore."

- seriously? excluding shredders from contests. GREAT marketing strategy.

9/ "It's my shop so I'll sell whatever I please."

- after gripes about putting prices on stickers and promo DVDs that come with decks and also specifically say "NOT FOR INDIVIDUAL SALE." Criminal.

10/ "oh... well just get a sharpie and black out the scratches. You're a smart boy. Shoulda thought of that."

- This one definitely requires context. If you care at all, you're probably thinking 'what the fuck?'. The vice president of marketing for Hoffman Beverages, the local Budweiser/Anheuser-Busch distributer/producer, comes to the shop around Christmas to buy his nephews presents, because of all things on earth, the shop promotes and is a dealer for Monster energy, aka alcohol for kids. So the man rolls by with a couple of AWS(Dyrdek of course)/Monster collaboration decks made in limited numbers. He wants the boards gripped and to pick out trucks wheels bearings blah blah. So all is done as he says, and after another employee grips one of the big-man's boards, I discover that since nobody will agree to change out the crumb and grime riddled carpet on top of the work counter, the mostly dark green and black graphic is scraped all to shit from the gripping process. And instead of figuring out how to make it right, that's my boss' solution. Get a fucking sharpie. and color in the scrapes. Great customer service to one of your few supporters.

So anyways, expect a full-on rant about profiteering douches in local industries very, very soon. Meanwhile I'll probably be preoccupied talking shit about them across the limits of the South eastern corners of Virginia in newspapers and across facebook until they've lost all credibility they have outside of the skate world, since the skate world correctly coins them a joke already.

Good thing I used the hell out of that place after hours for dudes to come skate for free and chill.

And I'll toss in a cool little video as a reward for reading that:

Albert Nyberg, co-founder of Newsoul Skateboards and fresh out of Sweden. Quite a capable bastard in my opinion. Or anyone with a brain, for that matter. Even despite the shorts and the crazy socks and elmo shirt. Let me pause for a quick chuckle.

Anyways I like that he can toss in strange maneuvers like that flyout casper flip looking deal and proper frontside bigspin kickflips along with monster flatland fakie varial flips in lines with backside bigspin 5-0s on ledges. Plus the fakie frontside flip late shuv, and then all the stuff at the end when he's throwing down some tall rail nosegrinds and hucking fakie flips down 11-stairs.

and who can forget double set fakie hardflips and front 360 no comply bigflips with a nice little fakie manny bigspin at the end? Plus everything is done so well. Note the double flip/double heel line. The fakie fs flip down nine (or eight, if you don't count that last stair). The fakie tailslide hardflip. The front blunt back 3 bigspin.

And lets not forget the two ending clips. The sickest clip I've yet to see at Macba, and a ten stair 360 hardflip. Quality part. Great mix of tech, geek, and uh, tech-gnar? is that what people used to call Jordan Hoffart? Tech-gnar? Anyways, dude skates with speed and style and dresses crazy but the song fits amazingly and every trick is solid. One of my favorite online videos at the moment. Watched it about 10 times now.

The Baltimore Orioles

2011-01-28T11:27:00.001-08:00

Should be proud of this fucker. Front 5-0 king. Potential master of the backside air in the future?

Also, Nyjah's back on Element. Wonder what this means for I&I? is that worthless, selfish (no pun intended) brand back in the trash, where it came from?

Also I've been keeping tabs on news regarding the full length Bones video.... hopefully it's gonna be more sick and less forgettable than the only other recent small goods video I can remember, which was done by FKD.... and was brain-boring to watch.

Peep the Trailer. Bummed there's no landed Hatchell clips, but the ending clip is killer, their team list is impressive, and any rail that Adam Dyet chooses to nollie big heel back lip is fine with me.

THE BÖNES VIDEO TEASER from BONES WHEELS on Vimeo.

Daily Nothing

2011-01-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Soooo I was gonna make a post about how retardedly difficult Shane O'Neil's tre flip noseslide nollie backside 270 heel out must have been, but after reading about it on another blog I felt sickened with the idea of even talking about it, so I'm just gonna say that although I was stunned that P-Rod did nollie heel out of one in his recent part, Shane's sequence really caught me off guard and sent my brain spinning. Let's hope the footage is forthcoming soon......

Also, relevant to reading other blogs, I've decided that although I occasionally hate on certain skaters, tricks, and styles, there are four candidates (arguably five) that are 100% deserving of all the hatred the online skate community can manage to toss it's way. And that's about it. The way I see skaters is much like how I see bands.... no matter how bad the musical artist is, they are all capable of making ONE good song. That's how they get discovered, grow a fan base, blah blah. Not necessarily a good song for every taste and whatever not, but a song that's well put together in terms of catchiness/writing coupled with the mix and the instruments and length and whatever else. So in a roundabout way, I think skating is much the same. Every industry skater is capable of doing at least ONE thing that can either astound me or baffle me, one of the two. Usually, even guys I really don't much care to watch, end up doing a good two minute handful of tricks that I can definitely appreciate and rewatch throughout their careers. Others obviously don't see it this way. I'm by no means an open-minded person, but damn, give people some credit. I'm getting pretty down on the industry and the internet world recently due to shit like this. But anyways. My Four definitely hateables, and then the fifth, who may or may not be as hateable as the rest because of who he WAS, Rob Dyrdek.

1. Steve Berra. Fuck Steve Berra.
2. Jereme Rogers. This kid is so pathetic it's painful. Keeps getting worse too.
3. Ryan Sheckler. The whiner that goes big. Still a bitch.
4. Brian Wenning. The greedy fat slob.

Anyone beyond those four (or five) really needs some slack. If I happen to hate on one of someone's parts, so what. It's just one part. Seems like the whole world is so perplexed by how good the buzzworthies have become that the hatred starts to grow. I'm trying to think of anyone I've seen in recent times that I feel does not deserve their tiny little spot in the skate industry world, and I'm really coming up with nothing, unless you want to count Elissa Steamer, who even in her prime wasn't killing it like Marisa Del Santo. But she came first so whatever. Someone had to.

So other than that little bitch fit I just threw, my main reason for posting today is not to rant or post any kind of clip, but just to announce to the few that may care that as of next week, we will be beginning work on Skatepolitik the video. It's slated to last through July, and then August will hopefully be for post-production. DVDs will hopefully be either free or something like $5, depending on my finances at the time. It's gonna be a bit of a mish-mash video, comprised of essentially whoever gets footage out of the crews in Hampton Roads and the good old Culpeper group. Hopefully what we come up with will be interesting. Hopefully I won't have to postpone it. Hopefully Hopefully Hopefully.

Lots of hope in this damn post.

Brandon Westgate likes Multi-Colored Wheels

2011-01-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

And going really fast
and popping really high front 3s and other shit
and Haslam-ing that kickflip over the bar

I don't think gravity has control over this little man anymore. I like how he's one-upped himself even since Stay Gold.

EMERICA PROUDLY INTRODUCES THE WESTGATE from Emerica Europe on Vimeo.

Hard to Hate

2011-01-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

The berrics seems to have become the premier site for quality online skate parts. As much as I hate it, and as annoying as it is for Daewon's new part to hit iTunes only to have Steve Berra apologize for not de-interlacing the clip, it's still amazingly good. By the way, smooth one, Steve the Greed. Beginner's mistake. As shameful as this is, these berrics releases have become the cream of the online skate community it seems, and as cliche as online favorite Shane O'Neil has become along with the berrics rising power, you can't help but admire spot on production (de-interlacing mistake aside), quality filming, retarded trick performance, and the way that all three berrics paid releases feature guys doing tricks that just look perfect under their performance. Nuggets, P-Rod, and Daewon have all dropped parts with well-matched music, inspiring innovation, and buzzworthy compilation which have daunted my poor mind because of their source, all while becoming some of my easily rewatchable favorite clips of the past year and a half.

So anyways, on to Daewon's part. I am unsure how well his part has been watched just yet, since it was released in the wee-hours of the American morning and I and many others were unaware of it's release either until a/ message boards blew up or b/ I spread the news via facebook. But with this video part, Daewon becomes the undisputed champion of the switch crook with no holds barred, skipping down steps with the grind and tossing fakie tre flips out of such ludicrous lock-ins as nollie halfcab crookers. Not to mention fakie biggerflipping out of one on a flat ledge. Daewon has also upped the tech-tranny ante, fluidly executing a shoulder twister of a front shuv blunt variation with seemingly impossible tre flip feeble fakies and double flip boardslides, all the while busting out famous Cheese and Crackers ender kickflip front nosegrind switch, minus the Haslam and questionable back truck tap. And dare I even mention fs flip fakie 5-0. The blunt-to-blunt-to-blunt fakie around the pool coping hip from the DVS ads makes an appearance, along with numbing manny combinations, some risky ledge simples over a nasty drop, skinny full pipe flippery and a bizarre tre flip wallride on a metal ridged door fairly recently frontside wallridden. So let's review what Daewon has become undisputed master of, in my mind:

-Switch crooks
-fakie mannies
-popping to fakie on transition
-technical transition, both stalls and slides (blunt bigspin back noseblunt??)
-fakie tres
-tre flip fakies

Although I'd gander he was the champion of tre fakies and popping to fakie before hand, and even fakie manny considering his gravity defying ender in Skate More, this part cements those facts, and adds switch crooks and the ability to fakie tre into the mix without doubt.

Not sure how long this link will be up, and I hate putting up non-permanent links, but fuck it. And fuck you, Berra. I didn't upload this, I'm just posting it.

New Year's Dae from You're Welcome on Vimeo.

Also on the video front are severable notable and overwhelming drops from the past week, including Ed Selego's MIA skateshop video which I have yet to fully view, and Red Star Skateboards premiere of an online two-part project entitled Starcast, featuring Paul Machnau and Grant Patterson. Flying the Darkstar coop and the Blind camp respectively, these guys have seemingly left growing obscurity on a chance at possibly greater obscurity on a Canadian board brand. But with Machnau's part popping up online yesterday, perhaps the gamble is a good one, particularly for Grant Patterson's much neglected ability to huck nollie flips into anything, including boardslide on steep handrails, and toss late flips years before P-Rod's recent developments.

Machnau, specifically, strikes my interest. Popping up sparsely in United by Fate episodes, I cannot recall a proper Machnau part since the days of FSU and Battalion, and both those appearances were particularly ugly. Shredding rails beyond comprehension in those days, rivaled mostly only by Duffy's former works and Mumford's Opinion part, Machnau was stuck in the times with the bent forwards facing snap back, walmart carpenter jeans, and some ugly lanky style. But this little diddy from Red Star shows Machnau in full-shred mode, fore-going the cap in many clips, while spinning it backwards in others. He lands everything comfortably, and is a pleasure to watch, switch backside flipping that popular street gap that MJ busted up his face nollie back heeling, lipsliding the double kink that last I saw, Gallant was only 50-50ing (if it's the right rail.... Gallant's may have been shorter), and noseblunting the steepest handrail I've yet to see that maneuver go down on. Surprisingly the noseblunt wasn't his ender. But either way, watch this classically forgotten and usually semi-boring switch bs flipper/handrail master shred his way back into my memory with textbook perfect executions of some manly and modern grinds, along with some decidedly still-untouchable sized handrails sprinkled in for good measure.

As for MIA, I've watched Ed Selego's part and most of Ben Gore's, both guys I enjoy thoroughly. It's comforting to see Ed's Adio-clad toes hopping around through bank nosegrinds and nollie halfcabs again, although it's odd to see a couple clips clad in Nike's. Ben Gore has perfect executions of flip tricks and lots of popping over shit like trashcans and lightposts. But more on all that later.

Also I know I'm very behind on this, but it's worth mentioning that the Mystery online video, Color Theory, is agonizingly good. Tom Asta's part is too short, and that new guy, Sascha Daley, is a bit boring, but gets absolutely gnarly in the last half. Watch out for a big fifty pop out over a gap, a Quintuple set ollie, and a big ass triple set banger.

The 'agonizingly good' portion of the vid, aside from the handful of goodies from Daley's part, comes from a guy I'm beginning to think is featured too frequently on here. Skate-enigma Jimmy Carlin.

Carlin's best part to date, although somewhat lacking the Carlin-craziness that Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" added to his Feed the Need part. We get trademark Carlin tricks, such as the fakie bigspin inward heel, along with a boss of a Chetty Thomas and a fakie hardflip down a respected gap, which is probably the hat-trick of the video to my mind. Also watch out for a surprising use of the fakie laser flip, along with a pension for fakie flip tricks, doing one particular ledge combo you rarely even see done nollie. Front heels, big hardflips, interesting ledge performances, a sugarcane 270 shuv, and a particularly difficult and exceedingly rare ending clip round out a part that's pretty much non-stop enjoyable, with only one clip of filler that comes to my mind, which is the nollie heel noseslide/fs flip nosegrind clip. Very very good watch indeed.

So I'm strongly backing Mystery's incorporation of color, obviously. The new Virginia graphic is sick too. Stay tuned for more on the MIA video later this week, and whatever the fuck else pops up as well.

Regression

2011-01-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

So in battling my hemorrhaging muscle memory on my own shred-sled/shred-stick/push-plank/etc lately I've begun unfortunately sharking videos other people show me rather than finding my own to write about. By some twist of fate, I've been shown some pretty amazing clips in the past month, far more than I have time to write about. But, some stick in my mind, particularly recent ones, which comprise the reason for this particular post.

On a semi-related note, although it's not quite set up entirely yet, check out http://www.justgetsfuller.blogspot.com, which I'll be adding to the panel on the left side of this blog. It's an upstart video blog by my good friend Chase, who usually sends me far more video links than I can ever hope to feature or write about. So, since he posted I believe three times in a single day, give him some traffic if you're feeling an urge to watch what I find often to be hidden gems of youtube clips, sometimes of guys I've never even heard of. The layout will be finished this week hopefully? Who knows. He probably wants to borrow my laptop and work to fuck with it, so that I can't spend time planning a new update, like last week.

Anyways, Tim from Repthepep.com showed me this magnificent little coupling of talent and what I'm gonna coin as skate-mindedness. Skate-mindedness occurs in people born with brains geared heavily towards skateboarding. This does not always mean the coordination to actually skate to the specifications of their brain, ie: me. But this kid/guy/man seems to have both. I mean, if you're gonna powerslide up to a box and then immediately front crook fakie something, regardless of the difficulty of the box trick, it just looks good. Not to mention the overall mastery of his board he shows in the artsy sketch swerve and tall-ass nose stall on the fence in front of a dangerous looking little hole. The clip doesn't reek of seriousness, but if you can fakie heel switch front nosegrind frontside half-cab out on a box as absolutely solidly as this guy, it's hard not to take such goof-footage seriously. Sick song too. Queue massive heelflip frontside wallride now.

Say hello to Jordan Sanchez:

Another guy I have never personally heard of until I watched this clip but seems to have some internet notoriety, Carlos Lastra:

Guaranteed jaw-droppage in that clip. Some famous and legit spots as well. Although some things are a bit sketch (switch manny switch tre) and other things might be considered dork tricks by anyone other than Willy Santos (front shuv late flips out of manny), the kid has some serious balance and coordination. Note the rarely spotted double heelflip, which makes me wonder if that set is really that difficult to skate considering it's constant slaying in every new video (starting with supa's backside bigspin heel a couple years(?) ago). And of course the ender, which is what originally drew me to the video. Not a particularly pretty trick, but considering the textbook nature of his grass gap tre earlier in the video, his control over it is amazing.

Now for someone hopefully everyone has heard of, and loves. I believe I have featured him here before, and a nagging feeling invades my brain at the moment telling me I've posted his mag minute. But anyways, no comply 360 reverts, as in 360 revert after the 180 no comply we all know and love, along with some serious disrespect towards anything bordering on a wall make his mag minute quite a treasure, even though in the part following this it will be obvious which clips were throwaway or warm up, and for what reason.

Randy Ploesser:

And the Piece de Resistance (insert accent marks in your mind) for this post is as follows. I'm not even gonna say anything about it, other than frontside halfcab back smith. But it's easily one of the most original and enjoyable parts I've watched from any industry name in a while, and it's absence of traditional applications so abundant in other Am's video parts is refreshing to say the least. For the reader that was angered at my negative commentary on William Spencer, I believe the video below will show what I mean when I'm looking for original skateboarding.

I like original uses of a skateboard while riding it, not original uses of a skateboard in general. Though I am not against freestylers and such, I figure the thing has wheels, so not rolling around on it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I believe this is one of my most content-heavy posts in the short, quiet history of this blog. And with the exception of the mag minute, all three videos have joined my consistently re-watched youtube favorites list. Enjoy.

New Years Revelations

2011-01-01T14:04:00.001-08:00

Ten things you may not(or probably dont) remember about Oakleys Our Life:

1. Greg Lutzka's Front Board down that kinker with the bank next to it that Arto Back Lipped in Mind Field
2. Greg Lutzka's switch tre over that bump to flat gap that people still are only hucking regular tricks over
3. Lutzka's front 270 back noseblunt down Wilshire
4. Dave Bachinsky's nollie front foot flip down Macba, pre-P-Rods Me, Myself, and I
5. Rune Glifberg's ripped pants bowl runs
6. Rune's frontside channel ollie at the SMP park
7. Collin Provost was in it
8. Bob Burnquist's front flip
9. Bob Burnquist's pocket loop
10. Burnquist's over-vert boardslide fakie

And as far as video clips today, this is not by any means a professionally released or filmed video, but rather a clip of the amazing VA native Ben Hatchell (mostly) shredding the Powhatan Springs skatepark in Arlington. Note the nollie bigspin disaster by Skatepolitik's very own Chris Vaneeklen, also seen to the right of this post in a skinny cutout of a bigspin flip.

For those of you that are from my VA audience (does it still exist?), hopefully you've skated this park, and know the gnar-factor of both those tombstones he shreds. Not to mention the deep end of the pool, which is in the are of 13 feet if I'm not mistaken. Now, even though these tricks aren't really surprising from Ben, since many are in his standard repertoire, seeing them at that park brings home how retarded this little man is at transition, if not skateboarding itself.

And while we are on the subject of young tranny slayers (sounds bad), observe this little Independent clip of good ol' Jaws. Especially his 270 fs flip grab. And several clips which seem very familiar and may or may not have been in Buster O'Shea films. I can definitely say his ending drop in was though. Still shocking to see none-the-less. I think I'd be terrified to even stand on top of that thing.

I have alot of other shit to ramble about at the moment but I'll save it up until I feel the need to type again. In the meantime, happy 2011, glory be to another year of suffering and financial woe. Hallelujah.

Dear Berrics,

2010-12-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, sirs. Bless us with your Shane O'Neil bonanza but make sure you spend the day of giving squatting on youtube removing uploaded versions so you get more Christmas traffic. Why, oh why on sweet Earth, would one upload such a flash video to another flash video site?

I'll tell you why, Steve Berra. You greedy fuck. Because your site loads shit slow as fuck, not to mention I'm sick and tired of Stereo and DVS advertisements, and I absolutely cannot take it when your dumb needle of a progress marker on the timeline doesn't show up and I can't rewind something ridiculous and it has to buffer ALL OVER AGAIN. Plus that ploy for kids money that takes you straight to the fucking canteen when you try to even log into the site today unless you're smart and scroll past the tremendous ad. Pathetic. I Thought I should feel bad for flying off the handle on Christmas day and cursing on a blog, but you're seriously begging for kids' money like a damn bum. Seriously, pathetic.

Thank you Eric Koston for not being the grubby tool Steve Berra has become. I worship you in reverance. Not to mention, you don't manufacture kicker ramps to put up to a loading dock so you can skate a flatbar you put in place for a pro part. Or carry around flatbars and bolt them into the ground, or fridges painted to look like a famous sign, but much smaller.

Suck it, Steve Berra.

Oh, and for the readers:

enjoy a FREE and actually more enjoyable clip, an actual part courtesy of CJ Tambornino, formerly underlooked because of Torgy's part in Boondoggle. Observe the flawless kickflip front crook in perfect harmony with nollie 540 flips, nollie cab sabu flips, nollie cab double big flips, nollie 360 inward heels down sets, nollie backside bigspin kickflips (P-Rod and Gallant-exclusives), and other kinds of rare and beautiful trickery, including some delightfully incorrect no-complies that still get the job done and look decidedly awesome regardless of the hop-and-pop execution.

Merry Christmas world!!!!!

Except you, Berra.

Spange

2010-12-07T16:01:00.000-08:00

In high school, this meant spare change. Trivial, I know. But in some ways, the change in skateboarding since Mike-Mo's Forecast debut is seen in the same way; insignificant. However, it's QUITE the opposite. Usually I don't like doing this; drinking while typing distracts me from drinking, and I end up typing. Which is a shame. But I was watching Forecast about five minutes ago and marveling over how such a shitty video could still remain relevant in lieu of such temporarily interesting but now foregone films such as Jereme Rogers Neighborhood and other Pro-supported independent ventures. Forecast gave us two things, Mike Mo Capaldi and Ronson Lambert. One a curse, and one a gem. And no, I did not use those words in that order by accident.

Looking back on P-Rod's creation (Yes, I have been on his nuts lately since his Me, Myself and I part), I notice how many of the songs from his video ended up on my iPod throughout the years. I also notice how I still don't give a flying fuck about Nick McClouth or Mike Barker, and how despite back nosegrind lazerflipping a bench in a line, Jason Wakuzawa has been doomed by his short stature and his footage in Etnies Callicut's to fade into oblivion beside other smaller and better figures as Flip's Lopez kid, Daniel Castillo, and uh, Daewon Song. Not to mention Cody Mac. Unfortunately for Jason, it seems as though the skateboarding world is not quite ready to take on an Asian Invasion, which is a fucking shame considering some of the Japanese footage I've been watching lately.

But I'm getting side tracked. Mike Mo's opening part is not nearly the behemoth that his Fully Flared part is, but he still shows a mean switch tre and nollie front heel amongst numerous textbook landings and alot of switch back tail bigspins. Other than overall quality of trick performance, the biggest contrast from Mike Mo then to Mr. Capaldi now is his baggy pants. That's right, this video was somehow still produced during that day and age, and people still talk about it. Strange, to me. Lots of RJD2 and some progressive footage from Ronson, Capaldi, and what I would argue is P-Rod's best part up until the last month is actually a very good thing; but the time period and the filler skaters within it should have doomed it.

I guess this is really because of Capaldi. People, especially after Lakai's release and even still, a good three years later, can't let go of what that kid can do. I don't personally blame them, but he isn't Jesus. He doesn't skate the crazy shit Jake Johnson does, he doesn't go as fast as Wes Kremer, he doesn't go as big as Grant Taylor. He's just a formerly-more-interesting Paul Rodriguez. So that underlining factor, the discovery of Mike Mo before his first major video part, is my guess(and probably a damn good one) at why people even remember the name Forecast. But as far as what we actually gained from that video, I do believe it's Ronson Lambert. Long a man on my hate-list because of his obviously fake style up until recently, he does some absolutely mind-boggling technical things in this part, without any recognition. In fact, every part of his has been above the norm as far as skill, but he's been hurt by his speed of crawl approach to everything. Ironically, he seems to couple with Chris Roberts in a way, who also appears in the friends section. C-Rob had that wonderful Hot Chocolate part, then never learned anything new. But how easy he made everything look with that superb balance let him get away with some not-too-hard tricks done with textbook execution. A man before his time, I would say. A man with style, whose execution fell by the wayside of progression. He's kind of the anti-hero to Ronson Lambert, who at the time garnered comparisons to P.J. Ladd, which although forgotten, is not THAT far of a stretch. Ronson was doing incredibly difficult and strange ledge lines before the Flare attack on skateboarding. Again, a man before his time. And yet his style took away from it. Interesting, to say the least. Had Roberts' style and execution been coupled with Lambert's tricks, maybe Fully Flared wouldn't have had such impact. Who knows. But anyways, from this little ramble, check out Ronson's part and Chris Roberts' Hot Chocolate part and consider what I've said. Hopefully by any miracle you'll be able to appreciate them both a little bit more.

R-Lam

(notice the crook late flip (P-Rod, anyone?), bigspin front blunt on a bench, 5-0 switch crook 270 which is hot now, etc)

C-Rob(see what I did there? P-Rod? D-Gonz? What's next, D-Bach and M-App?)

Copyrights

2010-12-03T09:08:00.000-08:00

Internet copyright, much like we saw with Shane O'Neil's internet part, has claimed the life of my dear Paul Rodriguez link. My thoughts on this shameful little exercise of selfishness go somewhere along these lines:

If you want to make money off of some piece of skateboarding, there are two ways to do it. 1/ get a photo in a mag 2/ put out a physical video. I was geared up to claim that P-Rod's part was the first truly significant skate part to hit the internet in a digital-only format, but now that this has happened (and no, I myself did not pay for it, I have ceased to support Plan B like I used to), I feel that this is just another blow to the physical video. Yes, videos are going to be pirated either way. But releasing such a magnificent clip of Paul on iTunes for a price has the potential to destroy the video part forever. He knocks down barriers by the second, and to waste such a progressive part on an online release without a surrounding full-team video seems sacrilegious to me. Think of the best ending parts of the past decade; Reynolds in both Emerica vids, Daewon in Skate More, Rodney and Daewon in Round 3, Bassett in State of Mind, MJ in Fully Flared, Jerry Hsu in Bag of Suck, etc etc. Many more I've missed, I know. These parts are prime examples of how a video should operate; you like the video, maybe even love it, possibly disliking a part or two but by the end, that last part tops it off and hypes you up and that last part is usually what gets talked about on messageboards and skate park cigarette pow-wows.

So what good is it, a little less than a year from the supposed release date for the Plan B video (which was supposed to come out in '09 if I remember the company's rebirthed beginnings properly), to release such a monumental part from Target-boy? Would this indeed have been the ender in a Plan B release? Or is it simply another ploy to build hype for their release, not unlike the very sick Vamdalism (or Gustavo, should I say), Superfuture, and the Live After Death promos? By this point they have released about two full-length features worth of shit, to little effect. J-Rog's part on the Live After Death disc was probably Jereme's best part to date, but it's on a free DVD in TSM. Gustavo had a brilliant part in Digital's last release, and Gallant and Duffy have essentially wasted away some gnarly tricks in the sake of a forgotten promo. Now P-Rod joins the masses of those victims of Plan B's jaded effect on footage. Of course, I may be unfair in saying this, because I do believe P-Rod to be the most technically gifted skater on this planet, so perhaps he's capable of producing another such part in under a year. This could also set up an excuse to give Danny Way another shot at ender, even though I feel he has been hopelessly out-classed on his own creation by Bob Burnquist. So maybe even further of a stretch remains. Could Sheckler actually contend for ending part in the video-that-may-never-be? He has been curiously absent from coverage lately, as have most of the Plan B riders ever since Gallant's exodus, conveniently followed by a mash of coverage in Expedition ads. Hopefully, little bitch boy has been ripping and will rid himself of his jock sweatband and deliver some gnarly yet cheesy goods that even a hater such as myself could appreciate. Along those same lines, hopefully Plan B has a surprise waiting for us, which would explain this odd internet whoring attempt.

But I'm not placing my dollars on either one. For one, Sheckler does not seem like he'd ever be worthy of getting ender in a video chocked with legends and greats. And for two, I predict we will see one final promo from the Plan B monster before their video release gets pushed back once more, released online in parts or on itunes, and stuns the world with it's contents but gets quickly forgotten due to lack of personality. At first they were everyone's favorite company, because of their legacy and their decks. Then their decks started to cheapen, they lose Darrell Stanton, Lem Villemen, Brian Wenning, and Ryan Gallant. They pick up Pudwill, who bailed on Almost for questionable reasons. They essentially lost their sole after the half-desecration of their original lineup. Wenning, although predominantly figuring in my mind as one of the biggest assholes professional skateboarding has yet to see, is still an individual worthy of respect for standing up to Plan B's insistence on not paying him his wages, if what he says is true. Although he doesn't progress any more, and turned his back on Habitat, he still holds a great place in our history because of his earlier ledge efforts and what he did for the switch heel and stance combined. Not to mention the switch back 180 down the LOVE fountain. And this is the kind of man Plan B chooses to withhold pay from? Pappalardo hating aside, that's fucked up. It seems to me Plan B can't make up what path they want to take. Now under corporate management, they are walking a fine line as a company full of greats/sellouts, putting out videos that are redefining and at the same time restrictive of the actual progression a full length, full effort production could create.

Therefore, nazis that took down that youtube video, what's more worth it to you, being the buzz of the skate world for the next month, or splitting your $3.00 charge with iTunes for every kid that buys it? Is it the skating that matters, or the money? Is it the video that ultimately matters, or just the attempts to keep your company relevant in light of massive failures to deliver on your video release promises? We all know and love the footage coming from your company. But seriously, this is a bit far. You're giving up on the skate world and giving in to the internet craze. I support parts as good as this, but at least make me wait in Stay Gold fashion to sit on my couch covered in drool and tears as the last chords of the final song play through my roommates' tv speakers. The internet is a terrible place for making people pay for groundbreaking footage. You have dealt a blow both to the future of the traditional skate video, and to the future of internet footage releases at the same time.

Thank you.

Impossible

2010-11-30T21:34:00.000-08:00

Tricks that should be:
- switch front feeble an 11 stair handrail
- tre a 7 then lazer a 9 with no push between
- nollie hardflip and nollie late flip an 11
- switch back tail bs 180 back foot flip
- nollie hardflip crook
- perfectly switch bs flip a 9 to curb
- nollie front foot flip crook
- varial heel nosegrind back 180 in a four trick line (including an almost waist high nollie fs noseslide)
- proper fs 180 switch crook line with switch back tail heelflip
- switch flip crook and switch hardflip 5-0 in a line
- switch back tail inward heel
- any flip trick out of nollie front crook
- any flip trick out of tre flip noseslide on a non-flatground ledge
- cab flip back tail FROM THE SIDE
- switch front tail late flip 180
- inward heeling up 3 stairs, THEN nollie bs 180 late flipping the Belmont 9
- switch fs tail kickflip out looking like its regular
- switch flip back lipping a 9 rail at full speed
- nollie hardflipping Bryan Herman's Emerica nollie tre set
- switch back noseblunting a tall as shit 10 stair rail

Nollie fs flipping a man gap in a line with switch front shuv nosegrind, fakie varial heeling to nosegrind in a line with noseblunt fakie, and tre flipping a 15 aren't shabby additions either, although I'd at least considered them possible.

This is what P-Rod accomplished in his Plan B part.

Game Changer?

I'll probably need a new link by morning. From boring-but-skilled to fuck-Fully-Flared? I believe so. Wow.

Convert to Lutheran

2010-11-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

I watched Toy Machine's Brainwash last week and didn't get to pay attention to it like I would've liked (SAM...) but I had the pleasure of finding most of the parts on youtube today. While watching Daniel Lutheran in two separate clips I became a fan, although originally I was kinda put off by his tall socks and shorts that come out occasionally. Compare these two clips:

His mag minute, full of what you could call circus tricks. Note the kickflip foot plant on the pole, nose bonk manny, and the ball assault. The tre footplant manual and the backside powerslide(?) manny are my favorites; but the real point of showing this clip is to set up a complete 180 degree portrayal in the Toy vid:

Notice the massive backside nosebluntslide, the gnarly and tall back lipslide shuv of death, the big big big 5050 from flat followed by a massive fly out ollie, the ditch feeble, and the hip to ditch nollie heelflip bomb. Lots of amazing stuff, lots of pop, lots more style than his mag minute for sure. And lets not forget that Gonzalez/Sandoval/Gravette/Provost/Elmendorf sized 5050 at the end.

While I'm on the subject of Toy Machine, I'm a bit upset at the shortness of some of the parts, ex: Provost, Bennett, Marks, Layton, but each part is pretty damn gnarly, aside from the sometimes obnoxious soundtrack(Collin's part). Bennett had some of my favorite clips of the vid, notably his switch polejam 5050, and Marks, despite a friend's criticism, had some absolutely amazing clips. A switch tre lipslide done a good bit bigger and cleaner than my beloved Guy Mariano is hidden in there, along with a Carlsbad nollie inwards that isn't on par with my favorite Carlsbad clip of all time (Billy's switch big heel) but still damn good. Provost had alot of his signature tricks from Stay Gold in his, such as the ditch front feeble, big frontside flip, and a nice and long tre and hardflip. As for J-Lay, well the boy has big boy pop to match his big boy stature, and he's the owner of the best switch tre in skateboarding in my eyes.

But Leo.

Mr. Skater of the Year 2010, I feel like some of his clips were throwaway from Stay Gold, particularly the front board on the bank to hipped red rail, although that trick itself is still very, very sick and quite unpredictable, from personal experience. I believe my favorite aspect of this part is his use of flip tricks, which were glaringly absent in his masterful Emerica part. However, Toy Machine made a mistake when it comes to this skinny fellow, and they showed WAY too much of his pushing. I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, but it looks out of place compared to his perfect skating, like he's not leaning into it or stretching his leg in front of him or something along those lines. Anyways, that's not to detract from the tall 5-0 and smith near the end, or that blue rail front feebs, but it does piss me off just watching him push up to that flyout to curb. Highlight clips include the lofty backside flip over the rail to the hill, the back 180 on the tall yellow railed flyout, and his crook pop-out, mid-double set.

One final observation about Brainwash; did the whole team go through a flyout fad the past couple years?

Hey, Joe

2010-11-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

Or should I say Cody McEntire, finally pro for Think?

I hope that's not his last nollie bigspin, for starters. His are so proper it'd be a shame. Note the lip tricks, aka buttery quick backside flip noseblunt (which he also does down the hubba, what?), blunt flip nosepick, the back tail backside flip variants, and the absolutely incredible ending trick which made me laugh quietly to myself while I'm supposed to be doing a paper.

Not as creative as Suciu's double rock, but everything is so.... good. Such control. Even on the sketchy switch heel back smith.

Mad at the Mag

2010-11-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

Always a fan but never a close follower of TSM's Mag Minute series, I was informed yesterday of this little canadian man's offering and had to check it out.

Things I like:
Heelflip front noseslide on a handrail
Nollie shuv crooks on a handrail
Fakie Heelflip
Bennett Grind
Nollie frontside flip
Nollie Flip Manny
Switch Back tail front shuv
Big Nollie heel and Nollie flip
Nollie back 180 nosegrind
Everything else
The ender

Things I dont:
The first line. Wasn't nearly as good as his other clips.

Brandon Del Bianco:

The ending switch backside flip and the fakie heel at around the 1:18 mark are not textbook executions of the trick; the fakie heel is slightly crooked, but the beautiful nosedive from the flick foot makes it one of the most glorious tricks I've seen recently. I'm not one to trip over a flip trick over a gap, but this is seriously just amazing, especially for such a rare trick. I'd watch a fakie heel over a nollie one any day, even in the case of Del Bianco's massive one several clips later. The switch backside flip is also not a textbook execution. You can see the similarity in his SS BS KFs to his switch back 180s; he uses his back foot to guide it once he's dipped the nose appropriately with the front, much like accomplished skaters do with their regular back 180s. But, the backside flip rarely works the same way switch, which is why I love the way he did this one so much. He literally catches it mega-ramp style and pushes it into the wind with his back foot. There was no monster pop, no perfect catch, just speed and a steezy back foot on an interesting execution of a rarely wonderful trick.

Back Again

2010-11-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Weeks of computer issues coupled with 40 pages of writing assignments led me to almost a month neglect of poor skatepolitik. But nearing the end of the semester equals three things:

1. Christmas comes soon, aka fixed VX2000
2. New Laptop
3. More Time

All three are damn essential to what I like to do on here. Starting issues I want to address but will save until tomorrow are my recent purchases of Habitat's Origin and Krook3d. I've watched Habitat a couple times and am utterly stunned by Austyn Gillette, particularly his hardflip over that roll-in manhole gap that Billy Marks kickflipped and subsequently tre flipped, and then Westgate frontside flipped. But more on all that later when I'm not at work and not needing to be thinking about other things.

So we'll go to the Politikal vault. Chase Fuller has sent me several remarkable links lately, we'll start out with Mark Suciu, who has footage on the Origin disc.

Quick-ass feet. Tranny mixed with some tech, and some originality to boot. Highlights are the proper and clean bluntslide back lip line, the early box to box combo, front feeble around the corner, wallride double(?) flip and the fakie hardflip down the stairs. Mentionable also are Daryl Angel's halfcab 5050 the hard way, and the Nguyen kid's bluntslide monster pop to fakie. On that note, why are so many skaters endowed with the last name Nguyen? Seems to diminish the recognizability of the nickname "The Nuge" for good ol' Don.

The second clip I'm gonna post is one I know absolutely nothing about. I'm assuming they're all Austrailian dudes (Jasi, get facebook lurking), but the artsy nature of this clip is pretty incredible. Skating is good, filming is on point for the most part, and the spots..... dear god. The orange wallride is a feat in itself, then that beautiful banked piece of art and the board pyramids, all set to what I'm assuming is a track from 90s weirdo spacemusic protege Enya. Not a pro level vid, like Mr. Suciu above, but still entertaining despite its length, and worth a solid viewing.

God willing, I will be posting about one of the aforementioned DVDs tomorrow.

In real life news, for you central VA lurkers, Tim Smith is opening up his skateshop, Culpeper Skateboards, on November 13th. Seen some pics, got some sick stock and plenty of it, and Tim's always had good taste in hardgoods. Swing buy! I mean, uh, by. Buy some shit and support Culpeper's first core shop.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your flight has now arrived

2010-10-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

and Morgan Smith is on it:

Everything done proper. Not the technical masterpiece of Ronnie Creager's BANGIN', but when you can huck perfect switch fs flips over hubbas, duplicate your tre lines and bigflips down sets, slide nollie fs flip tailslide flip outs, manhandle some manuals and properly switch varial flip, it's hard to ignore the level of skill and diversity the flip-trick-fiend possesses. Balance, pop, style, tricks.... and nollie flip nosegrind 180s. Id say the Berrics park is now, in Culpeper terms, 'killt' (like our park) but every time I think that something like this happens.

Hopefully an appearance on the Berrics will boost Morgan's popularity. Other than Creager I'd peg him as the most talented still on Blind, noting his Blind Video debut part as evidence. Unfortunately, the only drawback to this clip is the disturbing Akon/Lil Wayne collaboration. Possibly aiming to get him more coverage with soundtrack popularity, I'm not a fan of the track, or Lil Wayne (or Akon, for that matter) being paired with skateboarding in any way. Particularly professionally.

Hopefully, he has arrived. The man is a monster on that toy beneath his feet.

Let's Do Pootube

2010-10-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Several items on my several week hiatus list:

-Jimmy Carlin
-Leo Romero
-Transworld's last voiceover fluke rediscovered

FIRST off, Leo Romero, as time has shown since Stay Gold's release, seems to possess the underground favorite part, arguably tied with B-Herms. Leo delivered nicely on the mouth-watering promises of his RVCA part, and managed to up the interesting factor based on some questionable footage tactics most part-makers have avoided since the late 90s. Whenever you start out a part with the most massive handrail nosebluntslide I have seen, you're in good graces. Especially when said handrail trick is followed by several flawless flatland tricks, without slowing down. Now, I do wish there was more flip trick variety, other than a switch fs flip and something else which escapes my memory. They lacked the visual appeal of his other skating, minus the switch 180/nosegrind nollie heel line on the picnic tables, which would have been exceptional except for the fact that his part fell AFTER Herman's. Szfranski also suffered from the picnic table syndrome with his nosegrind nollie flip, but he is not the focus right now (although it should be noted that if you watch his Baker 3 part, he pretty much follows the formula of go-to tricks throughout his Emerica part). However, amongst highlights is his nosegrind nollie big heel on the same table, which fits nicely behind the aforementioned line. Anyways, the real gold of his part is his ability to do multiple hammers on the same tremendous rail (read kickflip front 5050 and back 180 nosegrind, front 5-0 and front feeble, and the ending massacre). Gapping out to front feeble is an affair still in it's infancy, in fact gapping out to rails seems limited to 5-0s, 5050s, board, lip and noseslides, and crooks. The feeble/smith/noseblunt/nosegrind era may well be ushered in due solely to Leo, if my predictions are not far off. Doesn't speak poorly for the tricks that they were executed perfectly, and in the seventh gear of hauling-ass. A somewhat surprising secondary trend in his part, considering his internet fame cornerstone, was his up-the-rail proficiency. The crook up the red rail was undoubtedly amazing, and his nosegrind pop out was a favorite. The ending 5050 was mind-blowing, but lacked a smooth practicality that skateboarding so often favors (hence why Richie Jackson is not a top pro, and Mullen/Freestyle has fallen by the wayside). Considering Collin Provost and Brandon Westgate's ability to go up rails as well, I somewhat expected Leo to begin upping the ante (if 5050ing up a famous handrail isn't considered such a move) with at least some technicality. Either way, pop, rail proficiency, and his from-the-ground-up approach to handrails negates his considerable lack of flip trick hucking and other-wise technicality into what may well be a run at Skater Of The Year. Who knows. I'd pick Reynolds, considering the effort he put in to each clip, but skate politics are wonky sometimes.

Since Stay Gold isn't on youtube, here's RVCA and his Baker Has a Deathwish part with the beautifully filmed stalefish and several of the rails from his Stay Gold part:

Note the nosegrind up the bank, which I'm wondering if it was from the same day as his Emerica nosegrind nollie flip.

STALEFISH

SECOND on the menu, a Jimmy Carlin ditty I watched a while back. The kooky dude is an unsung and underestimated skill-wizard, probably daunted by his shoe sponsor and Mystery's formerly black and white view of the world. Note the fakie hardflip in a line, fakie 360 heel switch manny, and the ending clip. Who does such tricks so cleanly? No other.

Lastly, in watching the last undertaking of the Jon Holland/Jason Hernandez TWS duo (and also the last TWS video to have the constantly protested and lame segments of voiced-over sentimentality), I noticed a distinct level of modernity that gets lost in the lack of significant bangers, the shitty soundtrack, boring titles and trendy/forgettable editing. This is not to bash on more recent films; however, you can see where the Transworld videos since this one (And Now, Right Foot Forward, Hallelujah) have gotten their rhyme and reason. The artsy shots, speedy lifestyle and scenic shots, general happiness/brotherhood aura.... all first established in Let's Do This. Lost in the slur of failure by the dwindling partnership is the moderately exciting throwaway Clint Peterson part, some ledge-maneuvering precedent to Fully Flared by Peter Smolik, a hell of a part by the stylish little Calloway ninja, and a hell of a montage. Guzman and Brown have solid parts, but lack cohesion and true jaw-dropping nature, which is where Peterson's part prevails (cohesion, cohesion, cohesion!). Yet the true gem of the video is a tie between Calloway and the montage (which is not on youtube?)..... See below.

Calloway:

The point of all this is to highlight how much the Transworld videos have evolved just in the past seven years since implementing the annual system of release. Also, although hard to watch all the way through without falling asleep, each part from Let's Do This would be a solid internet part these days. Look up the other ones not posted here, take a second to enjoy the forgotten TWS 'masterpiece' *cough cough*. Cool vid, albeit a bit boring, but definitely had some good stuff in it, especially for it's time.

Tapdancing Trooper

2010-09-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

Goes to show why flips out of front nose and nollie back heels out of just about anything are tricks that are not done for a reason. Our boy here, a weird twist of Jesus Fernandez and Janoski-appearance, has some stock-ugly hardflips as well. All that aside, the smith tricks are impressive as possible these days, and the kickflip front crook variants just as much. The way he sits in the grind before the shuvit is something rare, and the quick footed nollie varial flip out is surprising considering there is indeed a definitive tweak on the front crook. Styled front crooks that are technically progressive = rarity for sure. But the smith's are the real focus. I do not know who the opening guy is, I assume it's a cut from the previous part. He deserves credit for that smooth front blunt backside flip and the massive, late-spun frontside flip, whoever he is. But like I said, the smith variations. Damn. Front smith varial heel, front smith double flip, front smith varial flip, back smith hardflip, kickflip back smith tre? As much as tapdancing can get old, tricks from smith grinds and backside crooks will always make me happy on the inside. His 5-0 skills are apparent too; but the lock in for smith's makes them that much cooler.

Leo's Stay Gold part discussion is still coming. Came across this and felt like it was easier to post after a 12 hour day.

Chaos Among Men

2010-09-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

So there's a good bit of drama in the DGK camp over clothing representation, loyalties, and self-preservation. I'm not gonna go much into this saga, because I have never seen anything like it, and I believe it will pan out on it's own rather quickly.

The fight:

The speech?:

The feud appears to be between the DC street master Darren Harper and Stevie Williams. While Harper has caught a legitimate amount of shit for doing this with such a respected skater/businessman/owner, considering the balls it takes to go at such a man at a Redbull sponsored event in public in front of a large herd is pretty remarkable. The fact that Spencer Fujimoto clocks Harper in the face with a skateboard of all things WHILE Darren is pinned down makes this really a meat and bones subject. This does not bode well for DGK; how can a team manager, aka Spencer Fujimoto (henceforth referred to only as "Pussy" or "Bitch") smack another skater with a board in such circumstances? While a physical altercation because of sponsor circumstances is somewhat pitiful and completely unnecessary, it doesn't say much for the Dirty Ghetto Kids that their owner and Fujifilm team manager have to team up against one of their own riders simply because they don't like his decisions. I can think of many new meanings for their anonym, but the word that comes to mind most is singular and all telling. Disgusting. This is not how business is done, this is not how respectable 'businessmen' behave, and this is not how you fight. Nothing good is coming from this, regardless of who's at fault. The DGK brand as a whole stands to suffer from this escapade, and I for one hope it rightfully does. I also hope Bitch either loses his job, or gets smacked around gang-style in the back alley of an industry gathering.

In other news, I have not gotten to post my one-sided discussion of Leo Romero's Stay Gold rail-raiser part yet, which should hopefully happen this weekend, bald-dog problems notwithstanding. There are several other items on my 'To-Post' list, including a diddy on Jimmy Carlin and some smaller name clips and notably, Skate and Create with all it's glory and three-striped disappointment. But the most exciting issue to my mind is the recently announced plans to release Element's "Trio" on DVD.

Yes, an internet video coming to DVD post-release.

Only weeks ago I was complaining to a friend that while internet video footage and release is a satisfying commodity for someone like myself and a good outlet for the monster quantity of good but not DVD notable footage many paid-skaters are capable of producing these days, it's a shame some of these releases aren't designated afterwards for free DVD or Special Edition circulation. Coming particularly to mind is the Element Europe video, DC's "Skateboarding is Forever", and "Trio", with Dylan's Gravis part rearing in my mind before a copy of it came with my Skateboard Mag issue. Thrasher's Tragedy was much a success in it's popularity due to mag distribution, and I couldn't help but wonder what the harm would be in putting out such significant and non-video-unified parts on discs like that, for they no doubt have more value than the bullshit Analog tour discs that usually accompany publications. Specifically bothering me was my utter adoration of the Trio parts and my inability to view them with a beer and some pizza rolls from my large television. Adio and DC take note, this kind of release will hopefully play to the generation of DVD buyers harvested by the release of "Stay Gold" and those reminiscing for the golden days of the video release alike, in addition to providing the instant access granted by online debut. To have a company actually come up with the idea to put these creations on disc, whether it be for more money or more widespread audience, is a seeming dream come true. Hopefully we see more of it in the future; in the meantime, start saving your spare change and buy Trio and support this idea.

Shoulda Seen This One Comin'

2010-09-09T09:48:00.001-07:00

Fakie to fakie. Will we see the famed snowboard 1080 soon? Ugh. Take a barf bag up there with you, Bob.

Grown Ass Men

2010-09-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

B-Herms. Allegedly injured twice trying both tre flip AND hardflip down Hollywood High 16 (maybe the tre was the idea after said hardflip appeared via another talented soul's feet in Hallelujah?), and according to a friend a patron of only skating seriously on Sundays, Bryan's part in Stay Gold is something of an enigma and a masterpiece all at once. With more than a minute of picnic table lines in the same school yard and his potentially historical Walk of Fame kickflip nosemanny, his part seems divided into a sort of intro/chill sesh and actual banger hunger. Unfortunately for the critical, variety pursuant viewer like me, Herms does two nollie inward heels, two nosegrinds, three hardflips, two tre flips, two switch fs flips and two switch front heels in addition to repetition of these go-to's in his picnic table party and another nollie inward in the video's intro. It seems a bit saddening when some of the only variety present in his part is a nollie flip, although his opening 12 set nollie tre flip in all its perfection and loftiness lends weight to balancing the equation. Faux-scientific analyzation aside, Herman's talent is highly evident despite injury and the go-to curse. Tricks at the same spot in the same clothing lend a bit of awe to the fact that he can toss undisputed bangers (plural, mind you) without even leaving a gnarly spot. I'm led to believe his part took a very small amount of time to film as far as being healthy and productive goes. It does diminish the impact of the part, however, that his ender was predictable and also a trick he is famous for, and also considering what Reynolds accomplished at the same spot that did not involve flipping frontside in the same video (not that skateboarding is about comparison, but certain things do need consideration). Yet this part will probably be one of the most remembered in Stay Gold; Herman's last full outing was Baker 3, and some time has passed since we saw him at his growing stage in that release. Sporting a chain necklace and a large stature, each trick has such pop and control that it literally dwarfs Kevin Long's following segment in a rather unexpected and unfortunate way. Plus, the standout status follows the unique nature of his part, including the daring to have such a long schoolyard segment and so many tricks at the same spots. If not anything else, the first half of his part, from the Walk of Fame through his switch front heel/nollie inward line, will be the guts of the remembrance, and the most significant footage of Bryan possibly ever. After all, it's hard to forget such a massacre of one spot, with such pop, variety (cough?) and relaxed feel. It's not at all unrealistic to imagine that these lines were seriously a by-product of boredom and a good session, either separately or in combination. Either way, to have the ability to amass a part like that requires a certain industry respect and notoriety, and to successfully release it in such an anticipated video is a feat all its own.

Now, although his part lends an air of the nonchalant to an otherwise serious video full of life-threatening maneuvers, that's not to say that I don't still find myself wishing for a part he went for 100%. But that not being the case, we are left with a little glimpse into the talents of this man, and the timeframe and issues with which he had to deal with to release it. As Reynolds said in his video discussion, Herman may not have tried, but he easily walked away with one of the most memorable parts of the video based purely on who he is, and how it was done. Pretty cool, to say the least.

Stay Bold

2010-09-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's just the sites I frequent, but the 'blogosphere' seems to still be digesting/waiting/watching Stay Gold instead of writing about it. Unfortunately I've had the time in my past couple days (or blew off things and made time, rather) to watch it about fifteen times.

The video in itself stands for so many different almost paradoxes that it's somewhat mindblowing. Emerica ushered in their new generation (Westgate, Preston, Provost, and above all FIGGY) with this instant classic, and at the same time seemed to really put a sort of cap on the skateboarding generation that grew out of the late 90s. Kirchart's retirement part, which seems more of a memorial montage than anything, is the obvious piece of evidence. Seeing such an icon, such an individual and true mind fuck as Heath Kirchart disappear into history amongst echoing drumbeats and 10+ year old footage is something that doesn't feel like it's even happening. It's fairly chilling, really, to watch his part. All the night clips, the complete lack of other people in almost every clip, the solidarity of his on-screen presence and the mind numbing effect of his footage and style mixed together perfectly punctuate the end of Heath's career and essentially an era. The hill bomb birdie flyer right before his mega ramp surprise seems to perfectly sum up Heath Kirchart, and this farewell clip coupled with his Mind Field Opus leaves you in a bit of a blown mindstate full of nostalgia and thoughts of This Is Skateboarding, Sorry, and Photosynthesis. The eerie aura passes into the surreal intro, full of naturally Emerican long exposures and time lapses. It also features Jerry Hsu's only regular stanced clip, and some very un-B-roll footage (notably Provosts fs flip over, ironically, the rail spot Heath raped in Mind Field).

Westgate starts off the birth of this video with the speed we expect, but the lack of variety we don't. Herman's part is for another discussion, Marquis Preston bursts on the scene with a frail frame that somehow reminds me of Terrell Robinson, and Kevin Long (why not Spanky, still? he's still so little) shows variety but not alot of speed and some disappointingly undeveloped style which leaves me wondering what happened to this once-golden child. Pussy gotcha hooked, is my guess. Past those parts, the most remarkably diverse and surprise parts go to Aaron Suski, Collin Provost and Justin Figueroa. Provost rips anything in his path, including a trippy concrete park bonanza and steez never before seen in his footage. The boy has obviously done a bit of maturing in terms of his skating as he grew, and the results are amazing. He looks nothing like the little Element boy, and his song fits his grungy appearance and lazy style in a way almost reminiscent of Appleyard's flip song, but not as legendary.

Little Jamie Tancowny, as an aside, tops his Strange World part easily, in my opinion. The gnar factor is up by full points but he seems to get lost easily in the slew of monsters he co-stars with. On that note, I did not realize how absolutely out of control his hair is. I'm also surprised Reynolds didn't mention him as one of the guys that IS the future in his filmed discussion a while back, considering the boy has perfect tricks, lots of speed and a good style. But anyways. I want to rave about the oddities of Suski's part and touch on Figgy's so to save space I'll stop there.

Suski has some surprising rail to ledge tricks, a handrail clip, and even a NBD on a well-known gap. His song is an odd one, but each spot looks incredibly interesting and he seems to choose his tricks perfectly. Undoubtedly a solid step above his State of Mind part, which I had seen and assumed that he was getting ready to call it quits until his opening trick in this kicked me in the gnar balls. Braydon's next with surprising cleanliness and weird shakespeare actor attire, easily my favorite footage of him. The biggest part of the lesser names though is Figgy. A monster nollie front feeble, rails that look big even compared to him, a skatestopped big ol' 5050, and speed speed speed aid his grind-heavy part that's allegedly paving his way into pro-dom.

Due to the strangeness of Herman's part I'll save my thoughts on his segment for tomorrow, and since Leo deserves a post of his own he shall wait as well. I can't justify wrapping up this little synopsis without discussing the real gem of the video, the other half of the 'end of era' theme I touched on earlier. Although I could mention Ed Templeton and his lack of footage as more proof, speculation is he's stashing it all for a final Toy part. I could also ponder the absolute brutality Jerry Hsu has gone through and wonder if his career can continue to grow or if he's actually secured his legend status and may end up taking a smaller role in future videos. But it's too early to tell, and he can nollie back tailslide, so Reynolds it is.

The Boss snagging ender from such a starry line up is a feat in and of itself. Especially compared to the tear Leo has been on with his innovative rail techniques, and Drew's age, and his presence as the curtains in This Is Skateboarding.

But he did.

And he did it damn well.

The song is beautiful. In all reality, this along with Heath's Mind Field part are the only two perfect examples of closing parts I can think of. Yes, Hsu and MJ and Cole had epic segments that affected the world in this decade, along with Pudwill recently and other notables you can think of, but these two in particular are so perfectly suited to the music and contain such a level of refined skateboarding and classic individuality that there really is no denying the level of mastery contained within. Andrew's is THE perfect part. The opening daddy-display reminds you of his age and the fact that this may well be his last full part, and the presence of so many of today's big-boy hammer spots (carlsbad TWICE, the 5 block, the 11 with the huge hubba above it, wallenberg, hollywood high, the 14 that used to have the middle rail, the 16 he kickflipped so long ago, the red rail on the rocks, the UC Davis(?) gap at the end...) lacking only Wilshire, El Toro, and the LOVE fountain to my memory is enough to make anyone die at the thought of making a gnarlier part at any age. Most are happy to get a trick at any of those spots, and he gets tricks at all of them for one single part. Not to mention the two NBDs down carlsbad, two hammers on the five block, multiple six block clips, etc etc. In the extras there's a bonus video about his perfectionism, and contained within are the other two varial heels he did down hollywood high along with countless back 3s and his original back heel down the five block, his first fakie flip down the six block, a night-time PERFECT nollie front heel down the twelve that he threw away because it was his only night clip, and a previous version of his 10 set-16 set line. The sheer ability to huck tricks like that multiple times until you feel they are perfect is just astounding, particularly examining other feats at those spots, such as Sierra Fellers ollie north down the five block, and considering that the Boss back 360d that spots upwards of five times just to get rid of arm motions or twisted torsos. The work ethic and dedication of that man makes him a legend even with his footage unconsidered. But to look in his part and see the staple tricks you expect, the fs flips, the back heel, the back 3s, caballero, bs flip, etc fused with tricks you never saw coming like the heelflip back tail, switch heel back tail, back tail back heel, fakie tre down 11, noseslide front shuv and others is the making of a true classic. Nicely tainted with his trademark style, you see what you expect to be done done better, and what you don't expect done perfectly. Surprise and amazement coupled with his history, his status, the song, filming, and the possibility of finality = the perfect part, the perfect ender, and the undeniable mark of a legend that should leave marks on the minds of skaters for the next decade at least.

Madder, Madder..... Madar?

2010-08-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

As promised, young Element Euro rider Madars Apse is appearing in this post as a perfect illustration of my two part should-be-cool and should-not-be-done list. Notice the three shuv (or bad impossible?) down MACBA for example.

Even though it was posted in July, this dude is remarkably worth noting. Dressed like an American and looking like his every trick is done with floppy shoes and a soggy board, the boy pulls off a 9 set no comply along with a Dylan-caliber frontside flip and manages to make every trick memorable somehow. Note the fakie front board.... around a rail? As if that trick isn't awkward enough. The pop out of the dirt on the opening feeble, the pole-jam-like first 5050, the crooks pop over on the inward curved handrail, the front board pop out before the big ass knob at the bottom, the tremendously long round rail 5-0, the nasty kinks on the last 5050, and the ender (a spot I have never seen skated that way, or even assumed possible).... honestly the only clips I don't particularly care for are the 3 shuv/impossible and the switch inward heel. My favorites though have to be the kickflip 5-0 transfer into the bank, and the barrier wallie back 360 launch.

So Mr. Apse aptly demonstrates the ugliness of 3 shuvs while at the same time showing the beauty of the scary as hell no comply 180 down gaps/stairs. I can now start my list.

-----The TRICKS That Should Be COOLER List-----
(TTTSBCL)

1. No comply 180s. Not as a flatland trick. This trick is a primo-king, and it pretty much has to be done right to work down a set or gap. For reference, view Louie Barletta's part in Subject to Change, and anything of Mike Ruscyzk.

2. Boardslide to Hurricane grinds. Jason Adams is the usual king of these, although unfortunately Scott Decenzo pulled out a lovely frontside one in Vamdalism. Like a more risky and potentially awkward footed variation of the boardslide feeble, I don't understand why this trick gets so little use. Just that little powerful nudge into hurricane fits so well with today's passion for 5-0 to switch crooks and the likes. But gnarlier.

3. Slides or Grinds into manual. While not a specific trick, this technique almost always looks good, although some may think it too geeky or combo-like. Joey Brezinski has been doing them for years, and Tyler Bledsoe and even Pete Eldridge had examples of this in Hallelujah. The best, or most eye pleasing, variations I've seen occurred in Luan's part in Extremely Sorry. It's pretty much impossible to go wrong with these types of clips, so why are they not in every video at LEAST once? C'mon. Get creative and show off that fuckin' balance.

4. Nosebonk Pole Jams. Adam Alfaro blasts one of these in his God Save the Label part, if not his Back in Black segment. It's the perfect combination of three tricks. The pole jam, the nosebonk, and the crook(bonk?). The little lift it gives the do-er to jam right at the end is reminiscent of a transition nollie bonk, and since it doesn't require full commitment to the pole, I don't see why they don't appear more often, particularly into banks and across gaps.

5. Late shuvs. Everybody loves a late shuv. Look at the last month of posts for perfect renditions of them by Chris Pfanner and Jordan Hoffart. The problem with these, I think, arises from the ugliness of late flips mixed with late shuvs, although separately both are beautiful tricks. Plus, nothing feels as cool as quick kicking your board and landing back on it. The delayed action of the trick is really cool to watch too, I believe it might have something to do with brain processing time because it seems to fool the vision for a second. Always a good trick to see in any part, particularly with a backside 180 before the shuvit.

6. Halfcab Grinds. As reminded by Taylor Bingaman and also Grant Taylor's part in Mindfield, halfcabs are simple and fun to pop, and look pretty awesome. Toss that bitch into a grind and you couple it with weird timing, making it hard. Yet these types of tricks look much less awkward than nollie front 180 versions, and are much rarer. Assuming everyone has been halfcabbing since their first year of skating, this is yet another maneuver that has no reason for it's all but complete absence in skateboarding footage.

7. 5050 360s. Not much to say about this one. Like tailslide 270s and shit like that, if you can haul at a 5050 and completely rotate a 360 out, it's gonna look sick. Ahem, Vince De Valle and Darrell Stanton (frontsider and backsider).

8. Heelflip lip tricks. Very hard to come by examples, the closest I can think of other than friends of mine in the past is Sean Eaton in The Beginning with his heelflip backside pivot, and Chris Troy in God Save the Label with his blunt backside heelflip. We all know it's easier and more coping friendly to flick kickflips on transition. But considering I grew up seeing a good friend toss Varial Heel rock fakies, nollie front heel tail stalls, heelflip backside pivots and feeble, heelflip nosestalls, and blunt heelflip fakies..... where are they in skating? I know those heelflip pros out there have them stored away somewhere. Hell, even the switch heelers. Where are they at? Show us the footy, boys.

9. Sugarcanes. Hard, very hard. To do right, at least. But even a basher, like Dylan's in the pool in his Gravis promo, is a delight to the eye. Lets not forget Patrick Melcher's transition rips, and Sammy Baca's handrail usages. This trick looks awesome, end of story. Levels above hurricanes, for sure.

10. Bonelesses. I'll put on the bulletproof vest for this one. Watch the Slave video, and see even Matt Mumford cracking the hell out of them. Or Grant Taylor's massive one in Debacle. Better yet, lets take a look at Danny Dicola in Slave's Radio/Television:

Bottom line is, these aren't the bonelesses all the lame kids that couldn't kickflip used to do around the skatepark on flat. Learn to properly snap a boneless and launch them, and you've got yourself a legit, spread out booster of a ramp trick. Or even a gap trick, as Kerry Getz so riskily reminded us in Skate More. Go boneless.

Also when watching Danny's clip, notice the blunt body varial grab and keep that in mind for the ROUGH premiere tonight in Norfolk. Come out and check it!

Hoffart.... One Step Beyond?

2010-08-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

Adio, once creators of the technologically magnificent One Step Beyond (and also ball-droppers as far as skill and noteworthiness in that video), have since been non-existent on the video-front. Unfortunate considering their hold over Kenny Anderson in previous years prevented him from having a significant showing since about 2003, and their sponsorship of notables Sean Eaton and Jeremy Wray and Anthony Schultz among other talents have also deprived these dudes of proper or recent coverage. Hopefully their trendy internet series in the wake of Trio and Skateboarding Is Forever will remedy this flaw. By the looks of Jordan Hoffart's ridiculous shoulda-been-a-dvd-ender part, they're trying.

I suppose the beginning is supposed to be some kind of dream-state about aliens and perfect front lips down steep handrails on narrow stairsets. But I don't really care for the bullshit-heavy intro near so much as the actual part. The first few clips are boring, with awkward landings and lacking the now-trademark Hoffart charge-speed. But after a beauty of a varial heel(never saw that coming, right?) and an ever beautiful fs flip late shuv, everything is how it should be. I believe Hoffart is one of the unsung yet more talented individuals of this generation of skateboarding, and his relationship to the late front shuv is similar to that of Chris Pfanner with the back 180 late shuv. Big gaps, proper slides, and variety along with oversized Bones tees litter the part, with too many highlights to mention (front 180 front foot impossible, roll in gap to 5050, street gap kickflip....). Expect lots of pop, big hubbas, handrail tech, and some stuff that feels like throwaway but looks cool as shit. Oh, and beware, Kircharts street gap gets two NBDs across it, and his heelflip late shuv over the fence is one of the best single tricks I've seen in years due to the size of the fence, the cleanliness of the landing, and the rarity of the trick (except in previous Hoffart footage). Adio pulled off one damn good segment, albeit with help from Jordan's talent, and not withstanding some poorly done ramped slowmo's and some aggravating double angles at the end. Can they do nearly as well with the rest of the series? I hope so, but my hopes are not yet raised.

Too Much to Manage

2010-08-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

All of a sudden videos are coming out left and right. I'll try to keep up. The Tricks-That-Should-Be-Done-More-Often list will come soon.

First order of business, from the apparently Maryland-based "Something Wild" video, we have a nice lil' tre flip and a big ol' bigspin down a gap you should recognize, or else you need to leave the page:

It's no Chris Cole switch fs flip, but damn. And they're only shop riders, hopefully flow somewhere. Ian Smith does the bigspin and Eric Kunmann performs the tre flop.

Now the main show. Gravis produced one of, if not it's first, full part for any of their riders, featuring the ever-skinnier, ever-highwater-ier Dylan Reider. Good songs, ridiculous impossible over the bench (and proper, at that), massive pop, and a proper kickflip shifty.

Untitled from vincent on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, it's off of youtube so you have to copy that link until I figure out how to embed vimeo properly. Hell, or even embed a link right.

Things I like:

Simply, his tricks. Good selection, execution, speed, and steez. Plus pop equals good formula.

Things I don't:

-V-neck shirts that are too small
-Rolled up pants that are too small
-Giants

Yet somehow his skating is still thoroughly enjoyable. Trends are indeed changing. Another video from the Element Europe project I'll be posting soon has more proof of this, and perfectly demonstrates both an ugly 3 shuv from my "don't list", and a beautiful rarity from my "do list". All in the same part, PLUS trend-relevancy? I about came my pants.

ROUGH tomorrow

2010-08-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Barrier session, minus the good tricks. Songs ABD, tricks suck, smith was a 270 attempt, and both smiths were a different day. But what do you do with tricks that aren't good enough even for a montage? Throw 'em away....

whatever. Premiere tomorrow at 5:30, then again at 6:00 pm at Mike's in Norfolk next saturday. I'd beg for viewers but I'm not that gay. Come out and enjoy?

Could Be, Should Be.

2010-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

First off, Chris Roberts has learned a new trick. First time since, uh, Hot Chocolate, unless I'm mistaken. Front board nollie back heel ad? Very cool, it's even a trick I haven't seen. Who woulda guessed.

Anyways, I've been watching videos from the '09 that I haven't watched in quite some time, partially spurred by seeing ads and a check-out on Ben Skryzpek, who I'm not even a fan of really. Considering that my first thought on watching God Save The Label last year was that Peter Raffin and good ol' Ben had no future in todays skateboarding. Sketchy styles, boring tricks, goofy all around appearance. Now, Peter Raffin is in TWS and Skryzpek is getting compliments from the industry. Big what the fuck? BIG what the fuck.

Ben's part:

After watching this the other day, I grew to appreciate a sort of Fred Gall/Steve Durante beautiful bruteness in his skating, perhaps caused by his upbringing in Maine. To my knowledge, not much related to skateboarding comes out of, goes into, or has anything to do with that state. I'm actually pretty sure even the news doesn't care about Maine, nor the elections, and possibly not even it's inhabitants. Now regarding Inhabitants, I realized that Ben's style of grimy skating on perfect spots would be far better suited as a member of the Habitat squadron, particularly considering his surprising Mag Minute:

Maybe his board is still a bit small for him, but at least those hideous, obvious-flow-box converse's from his Label part aren't there, and in their place is a beautiful fakie flip fakie manny clip, a boosted fs flip and fs heel, a buttery kickflip back noseblunt, and a downright naughty flyout kickflip. Coupled with some eerily missed fakie mongo (Ryan Decenzeo in Hallelujah brought me to this particular emotion), I have hope for him. Regardless tho, I say he belongs on Habitat, or some kind of Kayo company. He doesn't skate fast enough or grimy enough for Label.

In the same vein of thinking, I've consistently noticed Chet Childress has a bit of a short arm on one side. I wonder why this is, and I can't find anything on it. Clues would be appreciated, if anyone still reads my bullshit. Oh, and while watching his black and white depressing Burnside session of a Label part, I realized he is undoubtedly the master of Back Disaster variations, although perhaps not the base trick itself.

Last random thought involving tranny and moving us to my next point, WHY have I never seen footage of a proper, hell even improper, grinded back smith back 270 on tranny? Seems like a beautiful trick in concept, and the stall variant isn't only mildy cool but also fun as shit. Let the hunt for footage begin.

Finally, I've been watching obviously too many videos lately and I've compiled a little list of tricks that really should just not be done, or should have become obsolete by now. I'll do this in two parts for the sake of uh, readability. Basically because I'm tired of typing and need a cigarette. Perhaps next time I'll include prime examples.

-----The TRICKS that should not be COOL List-----
(TTTSNBCL? Everyone else is using acronyms... reference Blueprint's newest vid)

1. Boardslides/Lipslides over to bluntslide on the opposite side of a ledge. I believe Shuriken Shannon does one well in his Label part, forgive my redundancy. I think the only viable execution of this for anyone else though would be back lip to front blunt, but seriously, anything else doesn't look at all appealing and honestly the idea isn't even that crazy for it's execution to warrant it's ugliness. Evidence: Tyler Bledsoe's Front board over to back noseblunt in Hallelujah. Hated that trick.

2. Nollie Varial Heelflips. This bitch is seriously ugly. Can't scoop a switch varial heel right? WELL THEN, just charge something nollie and flick your back foot back. Every time I see this trick, it isn't even caught, it just drops. Plus, something about the general rotation just looks sloppy, even compared somewhat mysteriously to fakie varial heels, which actually look sick and are considerably rare, even more so than the fakie hardflip. For a good one, check out basically any >30 sec clip of Chico Brenes. Back to the nollie ones, something about African American stair jumpers seems to coincide with this one, and while Antwuan and several others have pulled this trick for parts multiple times, a particularly bad aftertaste exists on Kevin Romar's one down the Sacto triple set in Digital's Smoke and Mirrors. Ew. Good spot though, Don't get me wrong. Oh, and they're still awesome into mannys and grinds. Just not as a flatground or gap trick.

3. Frontside 180 Nosegrinds, Fs 180 out. Seriously. It looks like a more rotated noseslide. Probably feels like one too. Seems like a good way to do something on a hubba if you're scared to go for something more than a boardslide/noseslide motion.

4. Bank Frontside Tailsides. Aren't even hard. Yet they pop up in parts ALL the time. At least go like 10-15 feet. Or do it on a quarterpipe or something steep.

5. Switch crooks on handrails. They never lock in, fall out of place, and look pretty much accidental every time. Hubbas, please. Or Fakie ollie in, at least that way it'll lock in AND look sick.

6. Layback Front Boards. If you can't do it without touching your hands, then don't do it please. Hands are meant for grabbing coping, occasionally pushing away from wallrides, and grabbing boards mid flight. Not touching the hubba. Like.... Ever.

7. 360 backside shuvits. Nobody can tell if you're doing a bad impossible, or a good 3 shuv. Or even what trick you're trying. Plus, they don't really pop and catch that well, unless you're Shane O'Neil.

8. Smith to 5-0s. You don't even have to do anything other than lean back like you're popping out. Looks stupid. I think to actually look cool, a rail combo either has to involve a pop into the second trick, or the board has to transfer onto the other side of the rail. Ie, crook back lip(shut up, I like them), Feeble tailslides (Carroll and Mikey Taylor), Feeble smiths, Feeble lips, smith to boards.

9. Switch backside smiths on ledges. Or anything, really. Rarely are they done on anything long enough to lock in, and doing them off the end of a short ledge looks lazy and ugly. A smith, much like a feeble, isn't truly a smith unless it's locked in. Otherwise you're just angling at the ledge and glancing your back truck on it on your way back to Earth. Sorry, Pete Eldridge, but that one in your Hallelujah part in the line was the reminder for how much I hate this one.

10. Novercrooks. Oh, sorry, overcrooks. I've seen like, three good ones. Two of which were done by Taylor Bingaman (Halfcab overcrook, which I still wonder if it was supposed to be nosegrind, and backside overcrook down Hollywood High 16, again wonder if it was supposed to be nosegrind). Much like salads and suski's, I don't even think it's really possible to control your tweak on nosegrinds and 5-0s down a handrail to the point where you're doing a 'tweaked' version of the trick. Why not just call it a tweaked nosegrind, since it's not truly locked in like a crook should be, so no one will freak out about how awesome it is? Novercrooks for president.

Back and Finished

2010-08-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

Soooo the ROUGH video is finished and off to get copied onto more discs than I care to look at, which means several things:

1. Go to one of the premieres.
-Culpeper: 5:30 pm Sunday August 22, 105 East Davis St.
-Hampton Roads: 6:00 pm Saturday August 28, Mike's Sk8 Park Norfolk.
-Fredericksburg: Saturday August 28th some time, more details coming soon.
2. No more desperate all day street missions for a while
3. Time to be on the computer where I don't have to search for songs, get footage sent from North Carolina, download fonts, fuck with images, and edit video parts.

So, before I get off the topic of ROUGH, observe the out of date promo from last year:

Just so you know what kind of pizzazz you're dealing with.

On to blog business, recently Andrew Reynolds showed up with this fascinating little ditty about Stay Gold, which I am currently shitting my pants waiting to see.

-Several things he said that I found fascinating:
---He so confidently proclaims tap-dancing ledge tricks over, right on the heels of such dancers Torey Pudwill and Tyler Bledsoe's parts in Transworld's Hallelujah (to be discussed later) drops. True? not really. Going that way? Yes, I think so.
---In that vein, he labels Wes Kremer, Grant Taylor, and Brandon Westgate as the new thing. Interesting considering only one of them is on Emerica, but then again considering the footage, speed, and grace all three tackle the world with, I'm not too surprised. Kremer particularly has gotten mention on here, and strikes both Tim and myself as a young Busenitz. Support for Westgate's case should be forthcoming in Stay Gold by the looks of that easy monster kickflip, and Grant Taylor's drop-in on the Nike tour from the newest Transworld serves at exhibit C. This makes me wonder his take on such noobies as Cory Kennedy and Shane O'Neil, and their perfect brand of technical wizardry and effortless stair-hopping, as evidenced by both the sequence and the corresponding Hallelujah footage of Nuggets switch flip back-lipping a handrail. Regardless, the Boss made some good picks throwing out those three names.

-Random Tidbits I've been brewing on:

---Krooked's filmer for their 3D project built his camera himself, with technology he claims is from the 30s. Talk about tremendous use of time. Good thing the cover of The Skateboard Mag 3D issue came out so well, or else he could well be working on a video the world would turn their head to.

---Josh Kalis seems to have started racking up footage after his move to DGK. Is Stevie reunion really that motivating, or is it possible that Alien skaters actually get LESS coverage than the somewhat anti-media DGK? See his no footage switch big heel street gap sequence, his kickflip back noseblunt ad, and pretty much a couple pages out of each skate mag publication for confirmation.

---Brian Wenning is on Jereme Rogers' Selfish skateboards. I can't help but wonder if the fat, selfish, mean, two-faced, cocky, non-progressive dirty motherfucker is actually doing it as a career move, or if him and J-Rog are trying to play a big joke on the industry that has blacklisted them. Either way, the teammates are a fitting couple.

---Lastly, after watching Hallelujah and oddly finding myself enjoying Ryan Decenzo's part on the whole more than any part other than Bingaman's, I realized that, as with most brother pairs, one is simply boring as hell and the other is amazing. Scott's Vamdalism part got somewhat battered by me on this blog, and in retrospect I believe it's because of his baggy pants and completely unremarkable style. Ryan, on the other hand, has those sometimes awkward pushes, the lankiness, and the crazy hands of the likes of Pudwill, Evan Smith, and Ryan Lay. His kickflip crooked, which apparently he did twice, is just amazing. His whole part is pretty balls to the wall, and it strikes me as pretty amazing that a dude that is THAT talented and yet possessing a completely unmarketable style other than his ability to be gnarly can actually make it in the skateboard industry. Thank God.

Things to learn from Hallelujah:
-Bingaman is indeed a young Cardiel, and shreds everything.
-Torey Pudwill still does ubsurd things with his hands, note the lengthy back smith and his TWS cover 2nd try back 5050.
-Eldridge is still doing the same tricks seven years later, but still proper as hell
-Frontside Hurricane fs kickflip rail transfers are actually possible
-That Colorado fool William Spencer does some seriously stupid shit on a skateboard that I find even more embarrassing than freestyle.
-David Reyes RIPS and is shorter than my kitchen table at the same time.

Bootleg

2010-08-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

In light of the release of Transworlds newest video, I felt like it would be a good time to look back on 2003 Pete Eldridge and wonder why the world forgot about him. While the opening song has been used in other vids and the end method of fade-slowmo-fade-slowmo with no music is pretty damn annoying, who else was switch noseblunting handrails back then? And better yet, who else can switch front noseslide like that?

Brent, Jart, and madness

2010-08-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Although I enjoy his laid back cruising, I'm tired of seeing Brent Atchley never try.

Other than all the clips including and following his metal halfpipe line, Brent suffers from an acute disease known as frontside-ollieitis, and I'm frankly tired of them. Where are his snappy blunt front 180s? Lightning scooped tres and nollie cabs? what about the nollie front heel disasters and general diversity that Element somehow coaxed out of him once upon a time? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Brent-hater. But damn son, give us something to watch. You aren't pro just to do the same thing over and over.

Now, in other news related to actually 'trying', we have young Cian Eades for Jart skateboards, which by the way have a pretty impressive sophistication about their website and footage for a brand I know nothing about. In the latest issue of Skateboarder, I noticed what I didn't want to believe was a sequence of a lazer double flip. I checked their website, and saw with my own eyes this:

http://jartskateboards.com/jart.tv/?p=0&v=21

(Please copy and paste, the link thing isn't working and I don't really care since I embed everything else)

I don't know if this is switch, but this looks like one of those tech-nerd tricks done wonderfully right. I'd like to see it in normal speed to fully pass a judgement, but from the looks of it I like it more than tre double flips. Hopefully we won't see it again for a while though, because I don't like how lazer flips are becoming more and more popular. I miss the feeling of 'oh, what?' when they'd pop up.

Lastly, check out this little online ditty I found involving some dudes that post on a forum I used to frequent. Tech-nerd can be applied here as well if you choose, but the results of the video are impressive and damn near jaw-dropping. Particularly considering they're just dealing with one of those lame pre-fab metal parks we've all come to know and hate.

If it doesn't hype you up, at least it's something you don't see every day. I'm trying to build an appreciation for anything that's put together with care, skateboarding/editing/filming/whatever elements that may be. I've got another one stored up too, so put on your Mullen boots and prepare for a circus trick maniac that actually has skill when rolling. Didn't know they existed?

Me either.

Back to Bidness

2010-07-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

Sooooooo as some/all/none of you may know, last thursday I was robbed at gunpoint by two faggot-ass thugs in the ghetto while on delivery runs. One of them was angry enough that I only had a $500 phone, $20 bucks in cash and three food items that he even went as far as to cock the hammer on his piece and tell me it was coming on the count of three. Now, naturally, I'm no longer at that job and amongst picking up the pieces of that night and working on finishing up the Culpeper DVD entitled "Rough", I haven't had any time whatsoever to post. I could ramble about all the things that have distracted me, but you now know the main reasons so I'm assuming no one else cares past that point. In fact, probably all shreds of caring ceased to exist when I stopped posting two weeks ago.

So.

Back to bidness.

I'll have a legit post up later about the new Brent Atchley clip and a somewhat startling ad in Transworld that I have yet to decide my feelings about. But for now, since I'm craving a chicken wrap from 7-Eleven, this piece of park play will have to do. These clips have been laying around for anywhere between forever and last week, so those of you who I bullshitted by squatting on this stuff, my apologies. This is what happens when I stop park filming, I guess.

Take note: Londen's late shuv was first try.

Vamdalism = 100% Gustavo

2010-07-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

So, while there are about 10 different posts I'd like to make, I'm still short on time working on finishing up filming for the ROUGH video. But, upon reading BTO today, I became aware of the Plan B am video, Vamdalism.

Feast your corneas:

Scott Decenzo, as BTO mentioned, is indeed boring. While gnarly, I only really enjoyed his switch front feeble, opening front nose 270 shuv, switch heel back tail shuv line, switch back tail shuv on the bank, back feebs back 180, and front board to hurricane. Of all those tricks, only the opening noseslide, feeble 180, and front board hurricane struck me on the first watch. The boy looks awkward no matter which stance he's in, so stance recognition was much harder for me. Not to mention, I'm sick and FUCKING tired of seeing people switch back tail that long concrete rail. I've seen it in parts three times now. Seeing an ABD a second time is annoying, but not so bad. But to see it a third time, in a Plan B publication? Completely unacceptable. Plus, once Felipe Gustavo comes on, you literally have to rewatch Decenzo, S.'s part to even remember it happened.

Gustavo is a young, more interesting P.Rod. It's just a fact. The technicality in his part had me dropping my jaw and spilling my beer. Nollie hardflip noseslide bigspin, fakie hardflip tailslide, noseslide, tre flip nosegrind reverts in lines with kickflip nosegrind back 1's on picnic tables, nollie front noseslide 270 shuvs on the belmont rail in lines after a perfectly swerved bigspin up the three..... Felipe seriously chooses the absolute hardest ledge tricks in skateboarding and lines them like they're nothing. Perhaps the master of the kickflip crook AND nollie flip crook, his part left me craving for a full video part on DVD so I could rewind over and over. Also, I like how he took the ABD switch back tail and fucked it over with a beautiful switch flip into it. Take that, Decenzo.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Hardflip back tail on a handrail? Oh, wow. Just wow.

Eminem

2010-07-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

I know it's unrelated and generally mainstream of me, but listening to Eminem's last three singles defines him as a pure motherfucker. There is no other word. An emotional yet truly expressive individual taunting the entire American public doesn't come along often. His indifference towards the limits of decency are appalling and awe-inspiring at the same time.

As far as pure motherfuckers go, observe Darren Harper:

A local hip-hop track and footage of pure hood, his obese pop and pure "I-don't-give-a-fuck-but-to-make-it-rain" style is refreshing. Not the usual steeze I'm into, but the pure offensiveness and brute beauty of it makes it something remarkable.

May I say, Darren Harper is probably the only magazine-mentioned skater I'm genuinely afraid of.

DC on the mind

2010-07-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

Usually if I'm down on skating or have a bit of a regressive period I like to sit down and watch Shaun Gregoire and Randy Ploesser's parts from Birdhouse's "The Beginning". So I was gonna post both their parts for lack of time for a true update, but when youtubing Gregoire's part, I stumbled across some Washington DC footage that I had not seen.

The aforementioned Birdhouse part:

There's alot to love about this part. The candycane bank was a steep bastard, and he front 3 bigspinned it. Wallie Church is also steep, and mad thin. Note the front blunt. Georgetown Quarterpipes...... well, there's a slew of things wrong with those, and he chooses nollie bigspin nosepivot 270 as a trick on it. Easily the techiest trick I've yet to see on that thing. The bent pole is gnarly, the nollie heel bank is sketchy and ghetto, the Gold Rail and Welfare easy busts..... So much about Gregoire's spots and trick selection make his footage appealing. I'd be willing to call him the master of DC skateboarding in the present without a doubt. With a unique style that really doesn't seem industry correct, I'm sure some out there would disagree. But anyways, fuck them.

This part is the first I stumbled upon after looking up his birdhouse part. Much of it seems to be throwaway from his birdhouse part. The nollie into the sketchy bank, the smith on the bent pole, and the smith on the bank to dock ledge. There's other stuff that I can't justify as throwaway for any reason. Ollie up courthouse, backside flip down? The nosemanny shuv line at wallie church? The tre flip front crook stall on white walls? Damn.

Some of the footage in this old Bradley Rosado compilation has some ridiculous clips on some of the city's more famous spots. Weitzel switch big heels the courthouse four and noseblunts down Red Rail, Jack Curtin shuv nosegrind reverts off the Freedom ledge, Gregoire's effortless blunt flip on Georgetown QPs (which I'm probably gonna make a whole post about later), his varial flip and nollie heel down the pit, and the kickflip front board line at Gold Rail.. Another thing I like about this montage is the quality of footage and the presence of most of the names I know of from up there and elsewhere on the underground East Coast. Two good Pete Broderick clips, Daniel Kim footage, Jack Curtin, Jimmy Macdonald, Zach Lyons, Gregoire, Billy Roper, and Alex Hanson. Hanson in particular has a knack for interesting tricks, such as the back smith pop to rock fakie on Georgetown, the tremendous switch ollie, and the ride-on switch fifty big heel. Oh, I wonder if Weitzel thinks he's doing hardflips? Because he's not.

Lastly, the oldest clip I came across, from the first Static.

John Igei is undoubtedly a monster. The switch hardflip down the white steps is really something I can't understand. How people line that spot is completely remarkable. The murder of Freedom Plaza even in that era in the form of nollie front noseslides and nollie front heel tailslides is in a league all it's own. Skating these spots like we did last weekend and then looking at years old footage like this has my respect for DC skaters at an all time high. Regardless of the year, those guys have been there pushing the limits on federal buildings, rounded marble ledges, ghetto concrete, and all kinds of odd findings (note the out-of-fountain kickflip, Bloomer's mailbox wallie front 180, and all footage of the pigeon bowl). In my opinion, DC footage is probably the most interesting footage of any particular metro area to watch, due to it's unmistakable nature, it's architecture, styles, and closeness. DC is wack as fuck, but it's one of the sickest scenes on the East Coast aside from the little manual wankers at the Archives.

Sole = Trio

2010-07-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Since the apparent folding of Element's footwear series (thank God), three parts from their would be video entitled 'Sole' have been released online in a trilogy. The featured skaters being Chad Tim Tim, Levi Brown, and Darrell Stanton.

It appears that father Tim Tim, back from injury finally and fresh off an interview in last months Transworld, is back in the saddle in terms of his career. Fitting in nicely with the ledge trends as of late, he hurdles proper switch backside flips and switch back smiths along with a slew of switch back lip and back tail variations going a damn decent speed and making everything look easy. I was not originally a fan of Chad, or others like him which were just too natural on the board (ex, Danny Garcia). But after watching his Time To Shine part multiple times and seeing his berrics footage, I came around. Check out the back lip to sugarcane on the up ledge, and the fakie boardslide 270, which was a brilliantly chosen trick for that spot. Also, he does some hucking in this section. Refreshing.

His ender doesn't really feel like an ender, but thinking about it more and more that shit would have been incredibly hard to pull off. OH, and beware, his intro is way longer than it needs to be. There seems to be a trend with phones in this internet offering, also. Strange to say the least. Does Apple have an advertising agreement with Element?

The second part of the trilogy is Levi Brown's part. The first thing I noticed is his Toyota Tundra, and wondered as to why my girlfriend didn't hunt down this part before me. On that note, there was about zero industry buzz about this release, which surprised me a bit. Hence why I'm almost a month and a half late finding it. Perhaps it was overshadowed by the Plan B partnership news. Anyways, Levi also has a long intro, and he does Chad Tim Tim's ender frontside. The first 50 seconds of his part feels kinda funny, like it's not really his best efforts. However, he displays a startling degree of variety, and once you get to the wallie to hill bomb, the rest is a GRADE A part. Levi seems to be one of the masters of snap on his flip tricks, and his wall frontside flip and massive wall kickflip coupled with his smith flip (one of the best I've seen) and his absolutely crisp fakie tre before his water adventure ender all add evidence to my theory. Sometimes he flicks so fast I can't even see the flick on this laggy internet connection.

Oh, and watch out for a guest skater by the name of Jesse Plumb who rears his head in a couple clips. Should be obvious which ones. Final note on Levi's part: Gap to picnic table noseblunt.

Now, I was gonna toss some hate on Darrell's part because his opening ledge combos really are not very appealing, other than the back lip to back bluntslide. However, early in his part there's a steep wallride bluntslide front 180 which caught my attention, and as my hopes for some Stanton Spinning grew, he nollie cabbed that massive sixteen or whatever it is that he cannonball back 180'd and backside nollie'd several years ago. There's too much high impact insanity to mention here, so I'll highlight his ledge massacre (front feebs, back 180 nosegrind, front blunt), his front tail 270 big drop (which blows everything else done on that ledge out of the water), his epicly filmed ditch gap inward heel, the appearance of the rare switch bigspin and switch bigflip down sets, the fifty back 3 (great spot use)... see? Too much. The long lens angle on his ender, if you've heard that lame mainstream song where they say 'oh, oh oh, oh oh, oh, my, god' unfortunately cropped into my head when he landed.

Solid internet video, save for the long intro in each part, the iphone appearances, and some bummer ABD's in the form of Tim Tim's flyout switch flip that served as Rodrigo TX's ender in the LRG vid (and no offense but Rodrigo is a bit more of a powerhouse than Tim Tim, so again WHY was that his banger? I even liked Chad's more) and Darrell's nollie tre into the steep sidewalk bank. But I loved the aforementioned skaters rock tricks, both the nollie cab and the tre which appeared in Tim Tim's interview, and although Tim Tim's part seemed like the most uniform and interesting throughout, both Levi and Stanton got fucking down in their parts. Pretty stunning, now I just need to watch them with the music up and outside of a library. Peep all three parts. Not a perfect video, but it makes me wonder what Sole would have been like. And this was free, and had some hefty clips in it. Up yours, Berrics?

Unforunately or fortunately depending on who you are, my computer charger got Dog-raped so I have no home computer for several days. I probably won't update again til the weekend. I've got a list of things to post about though, so don't worry or worry depending on who you are, there'll be more bullshit to read in the coming week.

Watching some people... it never getz old

2010-07-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

Gnarly:
Front Boards
Front Lips
Ollies
Front 180s
Back 180s
Kickflips
Heelflips
Fakie Ollies
Fakie Frontside halfcabs
Frontside Flips
Frontside 360s
Fakie flips
Switch Flips
Back Heels
Backside Flips
Nollie Flips
Fakie Fs Flips
Double Flips
Tre Flips

Well used:
Front heels
Halfcab Crooks/nose variations
Fakie Front Heels
Kickflip nose mannys
Kickflip mannys
Nollie heel nose mannys

You can pretty much sum up every single Kerry Getz part along those lines. Interesting how an arsenal pretty much consisting of 25 go-to tricks can last you more than 10 years worth of video parts. 14 years, actually, unless my math is wrong. Which it may be, because math sucks. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure it's 25 tricks exactly, I counted that list pretty quickly. Anyways, the first Getz part I ever saw was his dinkling in Toy Machine's "Jump Off A Building." I went through the trouble of looking up links to each of his video parts that I'm aware of, including his park segment from the aforementioned Toy vid and his Berrics Battle Commander, which offered probably the most diversity out of any of his videos thus far. However, something about how he puts his feet, how he lands, the way each trick is done.... it doesn't get old for me. Watch the quickness in his "Inhabitants" mini ramp intro, and the technicality. Couple that with the gnarly factor in that same part and also in "Skate More", and consider how old he's getting to be doing that kind of shit. Notably, the massive stair hop he hauls ass for, reminiscent of his LOVE fountain front 180 line. Anyways, onto the videos:

Jump Off A Building:

His first full part, this is where we first see his double flip obsession begin. Note the FS Flip down the bush gap, which, if any of you remember that video well enough, Elissa Steamer ollied in her part, and bailed a kickflip on. Why is she pro, again? Lets not forget his monster LOVE fountain kickflip at the end, which was a statement in and of itself at the time.

Jump Off A Building Park Segment:

One of his most diverse videos, and it's all park. Full cab heels, and the beautiful kickflip late shuv at the end that baffled me for years. I think he was made to skate transition, really.

Photosynthesis:

I don't know if this really counts as a part per se, but his fs flip melon always was worth a look. One of the better Habitat parts from that video for sure.

Mosaic:

One of my favorite parts of his, and I feel like one of the only ones he has actually gone out of his way to try for. The Philly footage is classic, the Barcelona clips, the ending lipslide.... not to mention the editing. Also, his roll in to back 180 and roll in to kickflip in this part are notable since he went back and heelflipped that same spot in Inhabitants, which is one of my favorite clips of his and one of my favorite heelflips ever caught on film.

Inhabitants:

My favorite for sure. The mini ramp stuff, the tweak on the opening nosepick, the flyout tre (not to be repetitive, but also one of my favorite tre flips I've ever seen.)..... so much to love. Good song too. Whole video was great, but this part and Fred Gall's were standouts.

Skate More:

While I don't like the opening anger segment, even though I'm aware of his temper, I love the casual opening line and the song, and the big stair ollie like I said. This is the part where he double flips over a handrail frontside. Damn. This is also the part with his big stoney 5050, the always slightly leaned front 360s, and the barcelona fakie fs flip.

Battle Commander:

Although in terms of tech he's not quite with the times, his double heel, double bs flips, and triple flip up the euro all show some work on Mr. Getz's skills. Very admirable and surprising little showing, the most variety he's displayed since..... his last park clip.

Mr. Rogers Geighborhood

2010-06-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Or Geighboyhood? Either way, listened to these two uh, "songs" on the way to DC this weekend, thought they were worth a mention.

His varial heel rewind and the big ol' switch bs flip are both pretty damn sick. But, It's J-Rog doing his standard shit on an indoor hip. Big fucking whoop.

"Listen, hop up on that board and grind, never record again BITCH what was on your fuckin mind?"

'nuf said.

Ender, Ender, Ender

2010-06-27T18:50:00.001-07:00

I can't even pronounce this guys name. Like Friday's post, I stumbled on this on Transworld's site under Oliver Barton's weekly youtube segment. I was kinda put off by the maddening into soundtrack and some of his more conventional tricks (boring?) but damnnnnn if boy doesn't get down in this part. His boardslide pop to fakie on the bank to ledge, kickflip 5050 the double kinked hubba, his tranny segments at the end, the tremendous drop in on the weird backwards L thing... I could go on and on. A very solid and extremely well rounded part, with some obviously 2006 (aka Pre-Flare) style and trick selection. It's a bit long, which hurts is. But I looked it up and this was the closing part for the video it was in, a production from Alai Skateboards, a Spanish deck company. Talk about an individual. This part is pretty magical in itself; it feels epic in my mind after watching it three times. I feel like I need to sit down in opera seats with rich-people popcorn and prepare for it each time. I just wish some of the clips didn't feel like filler. Anyways, enjoy. I've been out of town since Saturday morning so I have footage to capture.

Polar Opposites

2010-06-25T12:34:00.001-07:00

Helped out by Oliver Barton's top 5 Youtube feature on Transworld's website, I came across exactly what I was looking for: Chris Pfanner footage I hadn't seen.

Ironically, I find this one day after I spot Nesser's street gap shuvit as one of the most beautiful I'd ever seen. And here we have THREE, count 'em, THREE, amazing pop shuvits. Pfanner is no tech wizard; he's much more a practitioner of mastered basics. But in his case, it's not about the trick selection so much as how each one is done and the amount of pop vested in his spindly legs. Note the extension on the fifty kickflip, and how he rolls through that grind like he's riding on concrete flatland. Also notice the launch (pop isn't a good enough word) on the late backside shuv down Macba, the tremendous triple set cab, and the snappy backside flip melon. Unfortunately, he suffers from a lack of variation.... all his rail tricks are either front boards, front smiths, or front lips, and he has ALOT of back 180s and cab/half-cab variations. Oh well. I feel like he is the ultimate advertisement for Anti-Hero boards... how the FUCK he doesn't snap a deck each time he sticks a trick is beyond me. Sure, he's probably about 120 pounds. But being a downright gnar-hucker, I'm still utterly surprised. He's like a less techy, more interesting Willow.

Two clips above my Pfanner discovery was a unique and very modern part from Erik (j?) Pettersson. Although I'm unsure why his middle initial matters, it's how his title shows up so whatever. As an obvious techy, he's about as opposite as possible from Pfanner's part.

Polar might not be the best word for this comparison, since they're both from Europe. But I digress. There's alot to like about this part, even more so than Pfanner's part. The complete lack of arm movement on his flatland nollie flip, the proper varial flip in the first line, the unfortunately-spread-eagled-yet-very-well-controlled switch tre on flat (three spread-eagles in one part? pushing it, Mr. Pettersson), the fs smith bs flip, the launched backside flip out of the bumpy brick bank that I have never seen before, the ultra clean nosegrind pop over..... etc etc. His style is clean and loose, yet he pulls off the bullshit move of 180ing over a bench into switch manual, which I had previously thought was only a trick for the guild of the tight trucks, since everyone else seems to touch their wheels accidentally or break their board's nose putting it down under so much gravity. This part is probably the best thing I've watched all week, save Nesser's blue collar welcome clip. And even then, the geek side of me likes this more. Good shit, good shit. Thank you, Oliver Barton.

Ness is More

2010-06-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

Steve Nesser, as you have probably heard, is on Ipath. Observe one of the most beautiful pop shuvits of all time, and some burly and well-selected tricks from one of the few footage-producing shop owners and one of the yet-rarer men to make Adio's look good, other than Kenny Anderson and Anthony Schultz.

I found his part to be better than most internet parts I see lately, and most of it is damn worthy of a major video part. Nesser is underappreciated by the industry in ways I can't put into words.

A while back I bought the East Coast production YouGottaGetThat, and never found a moment of memory to write something about it. Possibly because the popular blog boiltheocean.wordpress.com also posted about it about a week before I started this. Anyways, while Mike Peterson holds down my favorite part of the video and Kyle Berard comes in a close second (due to some jaw-dropping clips at local spots and parks), Connor Champion and Gilbert Crockett follow up closely. And since their parts are on youtube..... they're the ones you get to see.

Champion..... of the front crook:

Lots of proper tricks and a good dose of steez to a song I never would have thought possible to use. For a dude I'd never heard of, this part is absolutely top notch.

Although the video was somewhat negatively affected by Bobby Worrest's same name/same part companion (and also a co-filmer, possibly a producer? Not sure on the producer part, buy it and watch the credits and let me know so I don't have to turn on my walmart DVD player), the filming, editing and generally the skating was all top notch, with clips from many locals I recognized and big name dudes alike. Also, RVA's pro representative.... Gilbert Crockett, whom was coincidentally good friends with one of my hall-mates from freshman year. Interesting. Check his part, love the song, buy the vid, and upload Berard and Peterson's parts to youtube so I can talk about how fucking amazing their North Carolina footage is. Thank you.

Tube Tuesdays

2010-06-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Showcasing some massive switch pop and some interesting hardflip variations, Chase sent me this link of Aquil Brathwaite, whom I had never heard of. Doubtless, he sent me this link due to his love affair with hardflips and all things nose manual. I found it to be a pretty interesting link as far as random youtube clips go, and upon some googling he appears to be on the Famous Stars and Straps brand. Other than Darren Harper, whom I would never speak ill off and am actually fairly scared of, being on Famous seems like a bit of a questionable board sponsor. My guess is the baggy pants and the hardflips and the mounds of pop are the main reasons for his selection. Anyways, aside from some ugly sketch on maneuvers such as the double flip front board, his titanic switch ollies over that big white block and his hardflip backside rotations are nothing short of amazing to my feeble mind.

While questing for more of his footage on Youtube, I also found this Red Bull Mini Mania clip:

Now, this clip disappointed me. Although on the whole it was an enjoyable little video, not one clip in it other than Donny Barley's alley oop Front Disaster was out of the ability levels of myself or my roommate. I was somewhat elated to see some of the stalls that I do regularly committed to grind-form, such as the fakie back smith to fakie. I'm not claiming we could produce as smooth a style on the whole as these sponsored soldiers did, but damn if they didn't even attempt to push themselves. Barley's bigflip, hell Barley's footage as a whole, and Brathwaite served as highlights, with Zered and the Dompierre brothers both feeling unmemorable other than Nick's cab back disaster. While this may be a tad too much introspection on a simple mini ramp clip, I felt it was worth mentioning since I had so many thoughts on it.

In other much more fascinating news, Dave Bachinsky is rumored to be off Adidas..... for a real mini ramp treat, watch his Hubba clip from almost three years ago:

While the ramp is shallow, the extension smith flip and feeble back 180 and the ease with which he smacks down nollie back heel tail stalls and flips into noseblunts and front 180s back out is hard on any ramp. Not to mention feats like nollie bs flip tail bs flip and his ending clips. Although a Crockett-move would be nice resulting in a Vans deal, I see Bachinsky ending up with another corporate shoe as much more likely, perhaps DC. Hopefully he doesn't go Gallant and end up on Circa.

Anyways, Bachinsky off Adidas doesn't strike me as nearly the landmark as Adelmo's recent removal from Ipath footwear.... while Dave is undoubtedly the bigger name by now, Adelmo fits the classic Ipath mold, and this move is much more a shocker in my book. Adelmo in Supra's? Gravis'? Ugh. I thought Ipath was MADE for guys like him to ride for. I suppose I was wrong. I'm curious where both of these guys will end up.

On an unrelated note, check out Brian Anderson's boneless front smith ad in the new Transworld. One bonkers of a non-traditional handrail trick for sure.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to update, but with finals week and the tempting allure of living ten minutes from warm atlantic water I can't be sure this week will be productive.

Classic Styles for Miles

2010-06-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

So I haven't had time to update for a couple of days with trying to find places to live and shit like that, but after watching State of Mind parts this morning I tried searching for an Eli Reed pro intro part, since I figured there would be one somewhere in compliance with the rest of the online industry these days. I didn't find one, to say the least. But, I found a pretty interesting Flushing Meadows Park clip featuring Rodney Torres on the Zoo York site, as we see in clip 1:

While I'm not sure how old the footage in the beginning is, I found his lines to be pretty damn good regardless of how old they are, especially considering I haven't seen much footage of him pretty much... ever. Notice his grainy nosegrind flip, and the kickflip/tre flip combination into the Courthouse bank I mentioned in the Rodrigo/LRG post. The feeble to 180 nosegrind line and the backside flip fakie manny were both pleasant on the eyes, particularly the feeble variant since I had not yet seen one of those. The big varial heel over the rail, the table tre flip noseblunt, and the line-of-the-solid-landings, aka the fs flip nosegrind line ending in fakie 5-0 flip out, all surprised the hell out of me considering how modern the spots and tricks were, and also considering the 4 or so year old DVS' he's sporting. Anyways, for once I found it entertaining to watch some baggy pants footage, and since all the tricks were interesting and his style was nice and relaxed, I decided this little clip should get much more attention than it probably has (not that me writing about it will help, though.). Enjoy a throwback. The Flushing history, brief though it may be, is interesting too.

Classic Style video 2 is coincidentally, a welcome video. It features one of my early favorites (and a national favorite, apparently), Expedition/Circa's own Ryan Gallant, after his pretty spectacular sponsor change-up a few months back. Although his under-2-minute part contains 8 ledge variations involving the backside tailslide and back 180 switch fs crook and five bluntslide/nosebluntslide variations, and that parking garages typically don't have benches unless you're pressed to come up with throwaway footage, his little intro-diddy still oozes with his style, as evidenced by the kickflip nosegrind line with no push and the hardflip manual with his front foot battling to hold on. I'd say the kickflip nosebluntslides (backside in the ditch, frontside being the real highlight), the aforementioned hardflip manny, and the GIGANTIC backside flip over the bench are the real tricks of mention here. Hopefully he still has the variation he has shown in all his previous parts, and hasn't gotten so caught up in his now-signature back 180 switch crook to fore-go his steezier standards.

Note that he doesn't have the new era in many of his clips. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because that beanie looks awkward. Regardless, skating to the diplomats and not moving his arms gives me a breath of relief when viewing a rare bit of Gallant footage, no matter how repetitive. Let's start building high expectations for his Expedition Part? Whatever happened to his Plan B footage, I wonder.

Two Anti-Minutes

2010-06-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

And the introduction of a rough version of the SkatePolitik video tag. Hooray for progress? Anyways, some chilling and filming, I had to go to work so that's my excuse for why it's only two minutes, not three.

Skateboarding is Fornever

2010-06-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

Somehow, maybe it's just me, but somehow it seems that DC's online am project "Skateboarding is Forever" got lost in time without any real banter surrounding it. This could be for one of several reasons:

1/ It wasn't put out all at one time, and people (like me) forgot to keep checking on it
2/ It wasn't that memorable. Still very good, but not incredibly Memorable
3/ In my mind, it didn't feel like each part was finished
4/ Greg Myers

When Matt Miller, Marquise Henry and Wes Kremer's parts came out, I eagerly drooled over youtube to see them. Greg Myers..... well, crazy arms, some not-too-gnarly and somewhat boring clips.

Wes Kremer:

PROBABLY the best part of the video as far as skill. Motherfucker has so much variety it's sinful. The wallride lines are beautiful, he can rip some hard nose variations on tranny, he used the hell out of that japanese playground transition, and can Ben-Hatchell long, kinked rails. Not to mention fakie hardflipping stairs in a line, fakie nosegrind switch fs flip out, fs blunt flip to fakie off a ledge, and switch noseblunting a damn steep ditch. Usually I notice pro's stacking up on their go-to tricks, which I don't particularly mind because it helps them push everyone's limits by setting the bar higher at landmark spots (Hubba, NYC's pyramid ledge, Carlsbad.... those three come to mind as ones that have really gotten their asses kicked because of go-to tricks). But watching Wes' part..... what are his go to tricks? The only trick he did several times was backside wallride variations...

Anyways, the real point of this post revolves around another member of the DC amateur roster. I came home from work last night and my girlfriend had been watching the parts of DC's vid online, strangely. She said she liked Matt Miller's part and sat me down to replay that one. God knows why she was watching it, but I like Matt Miller alot too so I sat down and joined. Half way through she switched to Myers' part because "he's so small!" and about that time I took the computer and clicked the tantalizing Evan Smith link on the side that I had never watched or even known/heard about. Damn.

I love how his grungy, lanky style absolutely does NOT fit the DC image. But I loved this guy's part, even if he's no Wes Kremer he has a hell of a lot of personality to his skating. He also gets down on the Japanese playground, both clips of which are sickkkk and a great use of the spot. His ledge stuff is most of the gold here though, with clips like that bluntslide step up to back nosegrind on the step above, the front 180 fakie front smith that I have no idea what name to call it, and the front lip to front crook in a line.

Other notable moves:
- Kickflip feeble in Durham
- Perfect hardflip over that rail
- Feeble back 180 to flat the steep bank
- The front noseslide/180 nosebonk/fakie flip/switch heel 5-0 line (flows so good)
- Back tail nosemanny nollie flip and the final five tricks following it.

Mr. Evan Smith is another guy with tons of variety, although I noticed feebles and front noseslides pop up a few times. Regardless, each and every clip in his part was pretty much remarkable, everything fit together extremely well with the song of choice and reminded me of parts from about four years ago that stuck to you not because of how many barriers they just shattered, but how well done they were. (Flip parts, Geoff Rowley Chicagof, Kerry Getz Jump Off a Building, Janoski Inhabitants, Girl parts, McCrank eSpecial...... to name a few that stick out to me, regardless of time). Crack open a cold one and fullscreen that shit.

Oh, and I actually kind of hate 360 shuvs, I think they look rather ridiculous and ugly most of the time, but the angled rotation on his 3 shuv at the end is easily the most interesting execution of that trick I've yet to see, Shane O'Neil's Carlsbad hammer included.

Footage of the ad....

2010-06-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Tim

Jake Johnson from lugo lugo on Vimeo.

I had not realized how huge that bank was. The car wasn't in motion, which is somewhat of a bummer, but the sheer ridiculousness of that spot, that trick, the guards, and the cars at the bottom are leaving me so shocked that I'm gonna snag some McDonalds and go pay $10 to skate indoors like a fat spoiled fuck.

NOTE: Check out Allan Williams' photo of Chris Vaneeklen's P-town Bigflip, permanently residing on the right hand side of this site.

ads, ads, ads.....

2010-06-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Soooo in the June issue of Skateboard Mag, I noticed two interesting sequences...... both of P-rod, and both completely related and unrelated at the same time. Both photos were of nollie back 180 front foot flips, one in an article about Tampa Pro over a hip, the other as the Plan B ad on the inside of the back cover. Two page fold-out spread. Oh yeah, and the second is down the Belmont 9. I'm not sure where he got the idea to huck this trick, but it's a good bit outside of the text-book trick selection realm that P-Rod likes to dwell in, and being a fan of late flips, I think its basically sick as fuck, especially down the nine. Perhaps P-Rod will finally start using his unlimited talent to test his imagination. I'd be hyped.

I also have to pay homage to Riley Hawk's hardflip crail grab over the ditch table top in Arizona. I have NEVER seen that trick. and it's a beauty, in all its awkwardness. I can't even grasp the idea of grabbing that trick crail. but since I haven't even hardflipped on flatground in years..... who knows. Hardflippers out there, got an opinion?

The last mag-bit I want to mention is in the July issue. I don't think I've ever been quite so hyped on a switch back 180 as I am at the one Jake Johnson does in the two page Gravis ad. Where, after popping over a pretty tall rail into a bank, he ends up in traffic with his legs under a moving car. I can't tell if the car actually hit him, or if he powerslid into it and rolled in front of it without somehow getting rolled over..... but judging from the distance he traveled on the pavement after contact with the vehicle, I'm gonna guess he at least got bumped. I'm sorry, as stupid an idea as it may seem, bombing a switch back 1 into moving traffic is gnarly. It reminded me of Karl Watson's switch ollie to hill bomb in the intro of his Kayo part where he almost gets nailed. But better. Because he actually went into multiple cars, and presumable had contact. Very, very interesting and well-done ad in my opinion. Grabs your attention, gets you hyped, and only has the Gravis symbol and name, and the word 'Jake.'. Sick.

I'd like to scan these sequences in later, but I work 10 and a half hours today/tonight so I'm probably gonna get lazy and skip that step at least until tomorrow, if not indefinitely. A better idea would be to go snag a copy of the new issue, and laugh at Dave Carnie's terrific assholery in the Mail section.

and speaking of hardflips... I've been getting hyped on some older parts lately, and I happened to notice Chet Thomas' god-knows-how-many-years-old Battalion part from the only (and hopefully only) Darkstar video ever made..... keep in mind, this was YEARS before the ledge revolution we're experiencing now, and have a watch at how seasoned ol' Chet tosses hardflip nosegrinds and fs flip nosegrinds and foolery like that. Best part to come out of that video hands down.

Anti-Minute

2010-06-10T17:19:00.001-07:00

One minute from Anti-Gravity. Cody Bamburg, Blake Scott, and yours truly with the first two sketchy tricks.

Berrics Bonanza

2010-06-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

There's a couple things from the Berrics tidal wave I feel are worth discussing. Even though it's old news somewhat by this point, Shane O'Neil's pro introduction part is still hot shit last I checked. While his steez is on point and the last half is beyond ridiculous, (*braces for hate*) the first half feels kinda lackluster, save for his perfect nollie fs flip over the bar and everything from his nollie inward heel front crook line through his gap to back tail bigspin, and then his nollie heel crook flip out, backside biggerspin (bananas, anyone?), front feeble fs bigspin, and then the bank-of-death-with-no-runup kickflip. Don't get me wrong..... I loved his part. BUT for the shit this dude is capable of, quite notably the last minute or so of his part, much of the beginning felt too easy for his skill level. Maybe it's just me, but I put this guy pretty damn close in ability to Cory Kennedy in my mind, except slightly less technical and more reeking of steez. So basically, aside from those tricks I mentioned and his opening nollie flip boardslide line, I feel like he could have had a 2 and a half minute part that absolutely blew the pants off 85% of the video-lurkers out there, paid skaters included. Instead we get a piece of Berra-profiteering with some unnecessary filler, yet a memorable and somewhat monumental part all the same. Paying for an online part? From the Berrics? A pro video debut that's not in a major release? All pretty groundbreaking.

Anyways.

Starting with his ridiculous crook variations (I have never seen a crook nollie tre on any street spot even close to as legit as that one), he pretty much rapes what I had considered plausible from a kid his age. Or anyone, for that matter, save Mr.Phenom-Kennedy. His switch back smith heelflip alone I could talk about for about three pages, since that trick is still rare regular, and back smith flips are still all the rage WITHOUT the heelflip aspect. I can't decide if I'm more a fan of that trick or of the back smith bigspin tail as far as aesthetics go. Yet the obvious ledge trick king of his part, which actually MEANS something considering the options, is that damn switch flip back tail bigflip. Which. Was. Perfect. Nuggets is also the first person to do what I'd consider a genuine backside overcrook, which I usually feel end up resulting accidentally from the problems of backside nosegrinding down a handrail.

I have to say, I'm a bit bummed his back 180 5-0 and tremendous nollie back heel (hello, Jerry Hsu...) were in his Transworld interview, not to mention I don't have many positive feelings for the angle on the latter. His ending trick.... well I would have gone with the Nollie Back Heel if I was the editor, but is that at a park? I really can't tell. Difficult: most definitely. But a flatbar ender? Didn't get my juices flowing like the nollie back heel did.

I'm scared to post the link I have since Berra apparently has been on an internet-stalking quest looking for links.

So ponder his Debacle part:

Note the ridiculous opening line. And how pretty much every clip of his is memorable. Perhaps watching this in comparison will help explain my earlier comments on some of his pro part. That nollie halfcab? switch flip front crook line? nollie flip crook nose manny? Perhaps this part is why his three shuv down Carlsbad didn't catch me by any degree of surprise.

Two things I want to mention before I move on:
- I love love love how he doesn't lose speed on some hard-ass shit. ex: the big back 3, and the switch flip back tail bigflip.
- I miss his Oakland A's hat. But now I can get one, even though I've disliked the A's since Mike Bordick came to Baltimore, circa 1997. Baseball tangent. my bad. But that green and yellow looks sick.

NOW...... the second thing, and I shall be brief. As described in Rob Dyrdek's Interview (yes, yes I know. The Skate League horse is gonna get beat in this space until its a rotting skeleton.) in the June issue of the Skateboard Mag:

(Evan's sidenote: the interview is not up to date with today's riders)

Nieratko: Who do you got so far?
Dyrdek: Chris Cole, Pudwill, Lutzka, and Sheckler
Nieratko: No more X Games or Doo Doo Tour for those guys?
Dyrdek: No.

NO?!?!?!?!?!?! This is big, BIG shit. Sheckler is the Dew Tour poster-boy. Lutzka, confined to one competition? Cole? When I was squatted on my porcelain king's throne this morning and read those words, I literally..... shit. Exclusivity contracts with pros like that may well cripple mainstream competition venues. The more I read about this Skate League, the more I like the idea. He even says "I'm splitting any merchandise revenue and any TV deals with all the riders. I want every pro to have the same contract." To go back to baseball in comparison, this ain't anything like actual competitive sports' contracts and organization. I believe Robby's got his head on straight for this one. Especially since six questions later he states "I couldn't put together a legitimate, solid part" in reference to his Mind Field part, and explains his lack-of-direction from damn Fantasy Factory as the cause. Bravo, Rob. Humble and smart all at once. At least you got that fs bluntslide ender in there.

Anyways, we shall see how this league stuff all pans out.

and speaking of Chris Nieratko, a post about him shall be up sometime this week....

Gimme My Good Songs, Chico

2010-06-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Skateboard Mag and LRG were kind enough to dump a free copy of LRG's full length video in with their latest magazine. While I'm not sure how important it really was for Lifted Research Group to actually do a skate video, the results were pretty good, other than the notably shitty soundtrack in Rodrigo TX, Chico Brenes', and Jackson Curtin's part. But besides that, we got to see an Adelmo haircut (WHAT?!?!)(EDIT: naive assumption on my part, it was Frank Gerwer), more Kelly Hart footage, and a reminder of why Karl Watson still has a skate career. Simple video, not mind-blowing in any way but a good watch.

Five things to notice:
- Kelly Hart has ballin' nollie frontside heels
- Chico Brenes has spawned some variety since his last part.
- Adelmo's fakie ollie/switch inward heel line is a work of art
- Andrew Langi: Kickflip Blunt fakie. wow.
- Karl Watson is probably the master of the hardest non-flip ledge tricks ever. Seriously. front 180 switch manny to switch back lip? nollie halfcab crooks TRANSFER? not-small feats, no sir.

Rodrigo's part (notice how the first song is pretty much entirely a forgettable segment, despite such things as his back 180 nosegrind on that tall yellow rail and his effortless switch ledge tricks. His part could have been epic with better song choice, although i'm not sure he outdid his Flip performance in this one. I do like the slaughter he laid down at the Courthouse ledge to bank though, that was unprecedented)

I think its important to point out his nollie backside bluntslide at 4:55, the switch fs flip nosebluntslide at 3:19, the line with the nosegrind 180 popout at 4:36, and his switch backside flip 5-0 on the little picnic table at 1:52, not forgetting his flushing grate gap tailslide hardflip. I have to wonder two things: why switch shuv that flyout that everyone else does like, nollie back heels in lines on? and why the switch flip ender, when kelly harts switch heel over it was one of the most perfect switch heels ive ever seen?

The last bit of this long rant will be based on Karl Watsons 2 minute part:

note the ledge tricks: switch 5-0 to crook in a line, switch crook to back smith, bigspin front board that wavy ledge, switch frontside hurricane in a line, nollie nosegrind to switch back 5-0/suski/? (i dont believe in suski's, for the record)... along with those two i mentioned earlier. favorite trick of his part hands down is the switch backside bigspin heel on that outcropping spot of Slash fame from Ride the Sky.

I could say alot more about this video, but I want to keep it short..... ish.

last thing:

five things to watch out for:
- some ABDs or throwaway clips
- Rodgrigo Peterson's part was too short
- The editing might be worse than the music
- Adelmo/Gerwer's voice
- way too much talking about Mr. Swindler Chico

The SkatePolitik...

2010-06-07T09:43:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the SkatePolitik. For anyone who doesn't know, politik is German for politics. Following Tim's lead, I decided to birth this little creation for the sake of commenting on new DVDs and internet videos, posting the random skate clips I come across all the time, putting up the videos I make personally and those that come from RepThePep.com and other friends of mine, along with pretty much anything skate-related that I feel should be online. This will NOT be mostly text heavy, although I will occasionally type a good bit. With the conclusion of the ROUGH video in a few months, I'll be starting a project under a a name similar to this blog with some good friends from the 757, and the progress from that will also appear on here, for the sake of pleasing the none-too-happy cpep lords that dislike footage of people they dont know.

anyways.... hopefully this thing will grow into something pretty cool. if not, fuck it. who cares.