Monthly Madness

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.

Lip-Service

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

Recruit:


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

Flow Trash:


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

So, eleven things I like about this video:

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

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