Menace: A Multi-Part Sociological History (exhibits H-L)

In all honesty, when I started this project two summers ago, I did not consciously intend for it to take as long to complete as the Menace/All City/City Stars video. I’m not nearly that “meta.”

However, it certainly seems appropriate. I had the outline on my wall the whole time; other shit just kept coming up. Now, the time is right. I will try to post five exhibits per week until I get to exhibit “AA.”* Who knows if I will adhere to that schedule, though. Again, this doesn’t seem inappropriate. Setting and reaching short-term goals and building them into long-term goals is not very menace tech.

To refresh your memory, the original post, including a rationale for this shit and exhibits A-G, can be found here.

“Yougottagetthat” Video Premiere Report

playoffs?!?!?!

I often wonder if release date–specifically, time of year–affects videos’ sociocultural impact. traditionally, the prime time to release a video is the summertime–to conincide, one assumes, with the time dudes are skating the most. For example, Virtual, Photosynthesis, Goldfish, Trilogy, A Visual Sound, and, yes, even Fight Fire With Fire all were unleashed in the summertime. This is a philosophy to which the good people at Transworld still hold true, and presumably will until a tectonic plate shift hurls the San Diego area into the Pacific Ocean. The big exception, of course, is EE3, which I purchased from Supreme at the tail end of a brutally extended winter. It came with that poster and cardstock card that listed all the montage appearances in order.

obligatory year-end superlatives (2.0)

Primus haircut, Primus t-shirt

Video Part of the Year:

Dennis Busenitz – Diagonal. Less a video part and moreso, to paraphrase Martin Popoff, a blueprint for living a faster, more powerful, more effective life. It’s almost as if he obtained one of Jim Thiebaud’s poetry books, apprehended, and put theory into practice. This was also the only part this year that, after viewing, the following exchanged happened:

Me: “Dude did you see Busenitz’s part in that Adidas vid?”

One of the Dudes I was Skating With That Day: “Yeah…”

Both: “Dude…” [shake heads, stare off into space]

NOTE: Truth be told, I believe very strongly that it is cool that Thiebaud published a “chap book” of poetry in 1991. Especially in San Francisco. I wonder if he tried out any of his shit at any open mic poetry nites. One must consider context; I mean, fuck, even Vallely was semi-intellectual then. One could even consider Vallely’s regression as a metaphor for the cro-magnonization of the nation as a whole. But that’s a topic for some other dude’s Pop Culture Studies* PhD dissertation or some shit. 

“if you’re not a guido, then go ‘fuck your face.’”

keep it cool

One of my favorite Stern bits of all time is when he goofs on Springsteen–specifically, that particluar affectation that Bruce takes on in certain songs and stage raps. You know what I mean–like he’s from some Kentucky coal-mining town or some shit, with no job prospects besides doing whatever his daddy done did. Anyway, Stern would basically say “Hey, moron–you’re from Freehold, you live 45 minutes away from the biggest city in the world, why don’t you just take a train there and do whatever you want?!”

In essence, that is how Wenning came up. That’s also why, whenever dudes clown on him for the hour or so of unintentional comedy he  released over the past year, including the basement/living room interview, the hyperbolic “blasting guns” videos ,or the “heavy hittas” site in general, I  somewhat take offense. Not A LOT–I mean, what do I care–but the circumstances under which he blew up in 98-99 and the part of the world from which he came make it contextually–I dunno man–kind of smug. I mean, whenever I saw him there, the dude was the dirtiest kid at the banks–no easy feat, for sure.

Kind of like that fucking show Jersey Shore (which, as many of you do, I watch religiously);

you see, pimpin’ is big business

and it’s been going on since the beginning of time

and it’s gonna continue straight ahead

until somebody out there turns out the lights on this small planet

I found the above in the library the other day. Trip the fuck out. It basically functions as an addendum or corollary to my previous post about the World box set. Clyde brings to light some of the same points, especially with regard to Rocco. However, I do have a couple [Popeye's chicken] bones to pick here. First, not including The Creeper among the list of elite Nineties graphic design dudes.
Come on now.
In addition, including the almost universally-maligned Lick in any list of elite Nineties videos surprised the fuck out of me, but if he’s co-signing the XYZ vid and Uno it kind of makes sense from the persective of Mr. Singleton’s un-edited mindstate. However, when combined with listing Alphonzo Rawls as one of the elite talents of the whole decade, that seemingly left-field choice caused me to draw the following conclusion: Alphonzo Rawls is underrated as fuck. I would also go so far as to say the following:
Alphonzo Rawls was The Black Danny Way.
The dude was one of five or so people in the whole world that could pull legitimately cool, progressive shit on both vert and street. Alf, however, displayed a much more palatable delivery than Way’s trademark “mechanized Aryan super-soldier” style.

Maybe an “In Defense of Lick” post lurks somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind. That might be too challenging of a thesis, though. Here’s my deal: Lick will always have mad personal nostalgia value because it was the first video that my friend acquired after we all started “going hard” at skating. Consequently, we hung out at curbs all day in the middle of the summer and tried to find as many 2 cm ledges down stairs as possible. This was before kids started using the term “hubba,” so I think we called them “jibs” or some shit. However, much to my dismay, Lick’s ponderous length, cliche security guard encounters, preponderance of helmet footage (mostly filmed at a Mezozoic-era version of the Berrics known as the Powell SkateZone), not-very-memorable skating, and questionable music supervision* have relegated it to the shitcan of history–even moreso that its philosophical counterparts Da Deal is Dead and Whatever. Indeed, if I remember correctly, the dudes in Lick sported a pastel-colored pant for each of the pastel-colored test pattern bars on the box cover. I could probably write a dissertation solely about the pants of Lick. Consider, if you will, Misha Gundman; in addition to skating to some kind of wacky Swedish rock ‘n roll (I thought Sweden only produced death metal?!), one could probably fabricate two additional garments from the cuffs of his pants alone. All this didn’t matter to us, though, because, in essence, we were just fuckin’ psyched on how exponentially beyond what we were doing the skating was.

Like Alf’s part. Funny thing–in the Next days, he was essentially on the same level as both Way and his bro Koston. Unfortunately, by the end of the decade he had become just another 16-stair f/s boardslide dude. Back then, however, It seemed like Alf and Koston were both spawned in some grassland Southern California commune where all those wacky H-Street multi-spine Frankenstein ramps popped up. At least, that was how they existed in the ol’ Theatre of the Mind. Furthermore, Alf’s pro models sported some of the coolest album-cover rip-off graphics ever:

hard as fuck

And this–well this is really just too cute (image from skateandannoy.com):

His part in Lick, in addition to containing a line at that indoor basketball court ledge that went around in a complete circle (bro) and a caballerial back-foot flip and that Marc Johnson trick from that Chocolate commercial sixteen years ago on vert, features an early-Nineties hip-hop classic from Positive K that may or may not have been ghost-written by Grand Puba or BDK or one of those fuckin’ guys. Skate videos and hip-hop videos from this era had a lot in common (click to enlarge below Venn diagram). I spent countless hours watching both. They both were intensely intimidating, yet simultaneously attractive as fuck, portraying a world I would have given my left arm to have been a part of. Looking back, though, they both seem more than a little goofy–just some bros filming their bros on some bro-cam shit.**

The tune, “Night Shift,” is a gripping tale of how a gentleman–in this case, Positive K himself–uses his interpersonal skills to persuade young ladies to join the ranks of the world’s oldest profession. Not only does he persuade them to make this vocational decision, but, as you can see from the video, they deliver to him their gross earnings on a handsome wooden table. Said table is indeed a fine piece of furniture, despite being fabricated by someone other than Anthony Popparlardo. Seriously, I also like how all the girls in this video, and in videos in the early Nineties in general, dressed like they were going to an interview at a law firm or some shit. That’s class, baby.

Another classy, timeless, transcendent element to “Night Shift” is the following life lesson from Big Daddy Kane:

Man, you got to work your women by the scale

I mean, if she skinny, make her bring you home a good penny

And if she fat, make her pay like she weigh

Seriously–if Lick is The Outsiders, that’s the Robert Frost poem.

*notable exception: “Releasing Hypotical Gasses” by Organized Konfusion, which I only realized was cool when I became a college radio hip-hop backpacker years later. And the Tribute version of “I Don’t Know” at least five months before VR (I seriously just now realized that. I don’t know why that didn’t register the first time I saw VR; perhaps that particular facet of my skate nerdery had not yet developed). And “Don’t Stop “Til You Get Enough.” Come to think of it, the music supervision wasn’t that bad. Alice in Chains was kind of an inspired choice, but I would have chosen something from Jar of Flies. In all honesty, I am shocked that no one has used “I Stay Away” in a video part yet. You wanna talk about a record that transports one on a journey through time and space? Fuck. New AIC record is decent btw

**which makes Hype Willams the Ty Evans of hip-hop videography

Greed is Good. Greed Works.

The end of summer. A time for reflection. A time to break down to its essential components that which is truly important. A time to pull out one’s favorite sweater on the first day that it’s cold enough to wear a sweater and not be looked at as some kind of weirdo.As usual, much of my reflection centered around pre-2000 World Industries. Two very specific events precipitated this: First, the release of Disposable: A Skateboard Bible. Subsequent to that, my long-awaited purchase of and immersion in the World Industries Complete Video Collection 1989-1996. I did not, alas, purchase Disposable 2. I pulled that move where you read the book in three minutes in Barnes and Noble. One night my friend Sam read a whole Bukowski book there. How the fuck do they stay in business. ANYWAY, Disposable 2 focuses on more 1960’s/1970’s decks this time around, without much of the narrative that made Disposable 1 so critical. However, it does feature about three pages of world/blind/plan b/101 decks that were absent from the first book, including this “Kareemsicle” graphic, a piece that holds particular meaning for me because I specifically remember asking the guy at my local shop if there were any controversial World boards in the back. I seriously doubt that is what I said verbatim, but you know what I mean. In addition, the gentleman also brought out a Henry Sanchez board with a Daniel Dunphee graphic that looked very similar to this:

I ended up setting up the Sanchez board, taking it to Israel and skating the Tel Aviv park. I think I simply kicked it down to my friend when it wore down to the nub. As one would imagine, this graphics retains a great deal of sentimental value, elevating it to “holy grail” status. I’ll look on eBay every few months, but I’ve pretty much given up hope of every tracking it down on the “NOS” circuit. I was reminded of this during the bonus footage in the world box set, in which York, Karl Watson, and Shamil skate some marble benches in and around some BART station with crisp new world/blind boards–the Rudy Johnson “sparkplug graphic, for example– that they undoubtedly focused or sold to some french tourist after skating it for three days or some shit.
Disposable, indeed.

I felt a certain apprehension taking the above photo of the kareemsicle board in B&N–kind of like that scene in Wall Street in which Charlie Sheen pretends to be a maintenance dude and scans a shitload of inside information with that “hand scanner” device–

–a peripheral that probably cost something like 3K back then in the late Eighties. Speaking of Wall Street, a particular piece of news about said film also punctuated the end of this summer: a possible sequel that allegedly will do to hedge fund managers who live in Darien, Connecticut what the original did for insider trading corporate raider motherfuckers that summer in the Hamptons. This is usually when I would descend into some elaborate Gekko/Rocco analogy, but I don’t think it apt this time around. Granted, both displayed an astounding level of unorthodox business acumen and were vilified by colleagues for said practices, but Gekko’s mind lacked an actual philosophy besides “greed is good.” Rocco didn’t buy out Foundation and liquidate Tod Swank’s office equipment or some shit like that; he simply acquired his most valuable, most progressive am and published a hilarious ad about said acquisition. Along with a gallery of equally ridiculous ads, the Rocco philosophy is encapsulated on three video discs in the World box set. As for the commentary, Rocco himself and Rodney Mullen do the honors for Rubbish Heap, mainly giggling to themselves and muttering “What the fuck happened to that guy?”

Clyde Singleton, however, hits a home run with his commentary on 20 Shot Sequence. In true trip-the-fuck-out fashion, this career highlight reminded me of another end-of-summer ritual: COLLEGE. First year, I happened to meet the only young lady in my class who, for lack of a more effective term, was “down” with the skate scene and all that entailed at the time. If I recall, she had kicked it with Ethan Fowler and the Menace dudes (not at the same time, that would have been a crazy one though) the previous summer. One evening, we went to some hip-hop club on Canal St.; the only song I can recall them playing was this. I think they played it for like half an hour straight. ANYWAY, at one point she tapped me on the shoulder:
“You see that guy right there?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s that dude Clyde Singleton.”
Trip the fuck out. As I recall, he was shorter than I thought he would be. I later ran into him at Astor Place, where he attempted to acquire cigarettes and aggressively sell product, as was the norm.

So once again, life moves in fuckin’ circles, bro–14 years later, I sit down on my coach and trip out on Mr. Singleton’s uproarious yet concise and insightful commentary regarding Henry Sanchez (“the Mexican Terrell Owens”), Lavar (“well on his way to smoking too much weed and ruining his career”), and Maurice Key (“hustling before dudes even knew what a hustle was”).

In his reflection on Gino and Kareem’s parts, though, Singleton deconstructs the mid-Nineties aesthetic down to its lifeblood: looking cool on a skateboard. What else is there? That’s what it’s all about, right? “It should be against the law to look that cool on a skateboard,” he proclaims as Gino b/s nollie fakie nose manuals at Wallenberg. As Kareem’s (“Don Cornelius on a skateboard”) part kicks off, Singleton lets us know we are in for “some cool shit.” For all Kareem’s sketchy business dealings, his part in 20 Shot embodies what made the Nineties so fucking cool. A certain way of doing things. Procedural knowledge. But from where does this knowledge originate?

Maybe it all boils down to influences. I remember some Tim O’Connor interview where he states that “kids today” are how they are, style-wise, because of the influences that they have. It is what it is, nosegrind tailgrabs and b/s nollie bigspins* and all. Indeed, the dudes that one looks up to when one starts skating are one’s most essential stylistic influences; to this day I can’t for the life of me shed that almost-falling-off straight-legged style that Kareem and Clyde utilized. Stripes on a tiger.

Along those lines, Kareem and the other LA dudes became what they became because they learned, through practice and osmosis, from the coolest possible influences. When they started, everyone idolized Hosoi and the Venice dudes. Those fine gentlemen invented looking cool on a skateboard and synergized skating with the “fast life” of clubs, women, and everything that entails. When Shiloh and Kareem and the eventual roster of World/Blind/101 first started killing it, who was killing it the most? Jason Lee, the dude that made street skating look cool while concurrently progressing hard as fuck. The best possible influences. World/Menace/Blind/101 as a Nineties hip-hop-influenced Hosoi.

Shiloh himself, along with Richard Mulder, provides commentary to Love Child and New World Order. and also elucidates one of the critical components of the Rocco philosophy. During the Love Child credits, when Jovantae’s fakie 360 flip manual revert comes up in slow motion, Socrates mentions that, in the process of filming it, he was unaware that Turner was going to 180 out. Shiloh then cites said seemingly unconscious move as an example of the “fluid,” improvisational nature of skating. Taking a fuckup and turning it into something cool through some kind of nebulous unconscious process.

On some Steve Vai type shit. A dude like Steve Vai doesn’t plan a solo; he just does it. Along those lines, Clyde also specifically goes into his process during one of his improvised lines in 20 Shot–the process of not knowing what one is going to do next. That is one facet of what makes this genre of skating so much fun.**

Even though former Rocco employees Jason Lee and Pastras created an organization with the mission statement [insert Dennis Hopper voice] “Skating is like JAZZ, MAN!! It’s FREE-FORM!!”, Stereo was more about appropriating the Blue Note album cover aesthetic than applying Coltranian principles to skating. Rocco facilitated actual free-form improvisation.

*I concur; in general, it’s kind of a half-assed trick. Can be cool on transition though, or if your name is Mark Appleyard. For the most part, though, b/s nollie bigspins are to nollie bigspin heels as varial flips are to 360 flips.

**The “making of a line” bonus feature, documenting Daewon’s 15-trick line at the beginning of his Love Child part, convinced me that Daewon is AT LEAST in the conversation of best skater ever. If he were a guitar player he would be Steve Vai–a dude with an encyclopedic body of work that’s been so ahead of everyone for so long that everyone takes it for granted. Not sure who Clyde would be; at first I thought Vernon Reid but that’s too obvious. The dude from 24-7 Spyz? Help me out here…

A Short Interview with Jason Dill

interview conducted 8/18/09 at approximately 6:50 PM

You referenced Henry’s part in Tim and Henry’s as inspiration for your part in Mosaic– You’re referring to the part with all those lines–
Yeah.
That was in a recent interview. I was kinda just thinking out loud. It wasn’t the main reason why I did it; I just remembered that Henry’s part in Pack o’ Lies just seemed so flowy, and the way he did lines–he would do such long lines. I liked that–to watch someone taking the time to go around a trash can.
I think in that same interview you referenced Ziggy from The Wire as your favorite actor–
That was a joke. That’s my friend P.J. who lives with me. He’s on the show.
Are you a fan of that show?
I love that show. I would watch that show even if James or Leo Fitzpatrick weren’t on it. So into it. I would like it even if my friend’s weren’t on it. Actually, I wish my friends weren’t on it so I could like it even more.
Who was your favorite character on [The Wire]?
I’d have to say [pauses] McNulty. He was always fuckin.’
Do you remember your first graphic on 101?
Yeah–Winnie the Pooh.Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin [unintelligible]
Berrics vs. the World park–which is better?
World park. Jesus–are you kidding me?
Were you at Lockwood when Keenan switch flipped over the table?
I’m in the background. You see me run and throw my board down in the background.
What were your impressions of that moment?
I was hyped for Keenan. Then he turned around, and he almost switch heelflipped it.
My final question is about Gino–a dude that has a cult following, I guess you could say–
Fuck yeah he does.
What do you think is so iconic or transcendent about him or his skating?
Gino? You watch the guy push down the fucking street, and it’s entertaining; it’s beautiful. Nobody skates like that. Nobody looks like that on a skateboard at all anymore. All these kids are fuckin’ jumpin’ at shit and doing all this…
It would be insane to skate like Gino. No one skates like him. He’s like a…like an ice skater.
Well, that’s all I got; thanks for your time [reaches for post-it note to write down URL of site]
Nah that’s okay I don’t really use the internet that much. I’m sure I’ll hear about it, though.

Whatever Needs to be Set Up for a Caine Gayle/Lennie Kirk MMA Bout…

Set.

That.

Shit.

Up.

But seriously, I don’t even know why I am writing about MMA now. Maybe it’s the fact that two Nineties luminaries have chosen its discipline as a post-skating vocation. Maybe it’s that banner ad that was at the top of the SLAP board for a minute. Maybe it’s the fact that an MMA “dojo” appeared next door to one of my local shop’s locations. The shop moved. Oh, it’s doing fine now, but the dojo remains.

Truth be told, for the record I do not perceive Muy Thai, Brazillian Jui Jitsu, or any of the various permutations and combinations of martial arts that have come to be known as MMA as kooky activities at all. One of my closest friends from way back does Brazilian Jui Jitsu, and it seems cool and everything. I prefer good old-fashioned boxing–”the sweet science.” Truth be told, though, I also sometimes like to drive my Lamborghini around downtown Philadelphia late at night–just to clear my head, you know?

ANYWAY, like everything else, I suppose, the recent MMA explosion has its legit and kooky permutations. As far as taking it up post-pro skating, the way I see it, choosing a discipline to which one is a complete novice and mastering is is definitely cooler than taking a position as FKD Bearings (what ABEC are they again?!) team manager or whatever the fuck. Although, I find it interesting that in most of these “where are they now?” pieces in Skateboarder or whatever, most dudes have some kind of “cool guy” job like firefighter or, in the case of Adam McNatt, tattoo artist. You really don’t see too many washed-up pro office managers or CPA’s. I might be wrong, though (Lib Layraman? You out there?). BY THE WAY, McNatt’s interview is also notable for his admission that Titan Trucks were forged from the rare molecular compound known as “legitness.” Unfortunately for the human race, said molecular formula has been lost to the sands of time. Fuck. This, I’m afraid, is not even close:

Maybe I am writing about MMA because it somehow gets lumped in with skating in the category of ne’er-do-well activities that are relevant to the interests of gentlemen in the 13-35 age range. Indeed, if industry rabbis are searching for a cause of the industry’s lack of profitability, it’s probably the across-the-board proliferation of such ne’er do well activities, including new shit like text messaging, Call of Duty, and social networking. No one’s busting out the launch ramp, or even the prefabricated “ramptech” box, and setting it up in the cul de sac anymore. The thing about skating is that, out of all the “cool guy” activities like surfing, snowboarding, wakeboarding (You’re on a boat. Once you get a chick on your boat, it’s basically a wrap), dirtbike riding, etc., it is the least “cool” in the popular imagination. “You’re riding around on a little piece of wood on plastic wheels, what the fuck is cool about that?” I’ve heard the naysayers say. Granted, skating reflects a certain elan in urban areas like NY, LA, and possibly PHILA, but in the rest of the country, for the most part, it’s a joke. And for your average 13-year-old, the ability to effectively text message or socially network is more valuable than the ability to do b/s tail bigspin outs or whatever the fuck.

ANYWAY, Speaking of Gayle and Kirk, a surprising amount of the discourse in the ol’ print media this month centered around the apartment complex in which the Alien dudes lived in Carlsbad or wherever the fuck in the San Diego area during the mid-Nineties. I never thought of that area as a Nexus for epic shit in the vein of Mike and Greg Carroll’s apartment or the Lockwood/menace_tech Los Angeles “fast life” scene, but 15 years later, I suppose it was. Trip the fuck out.

Who all lived there again? Alien dudes, Clyde, Pre-TMZ Muska? Tom Penny maybe? Fuck, dude. It was like Melrose Place without that one redhead, Tiffani Amber-Theissen, that short-haired blonde, or Locklear.

mad underrated

First, Jamie Thomas relates the tale of how he took a young Kalis under his wing (“eagle-swoop” pun intended) in the aforementioned San Diego-area community, only to have the dude quit TM to apply for a job at Real. That is, until Dyrdek recruited him into the Sect. I gotta tell ya, though, from an “alternate universe” perspective, Kalis under the tutelage of pre-Twitter Thiebaud,** Hufnagel, and Drake Jones is kind of mindblowing. Who knows, though; it would be hard for his career to have been any “better,” you know what I mean? Then Lennie Kirk, at the outset of an epic behind-bars interview, recalls the partying ways of the Alien dudes and references taping Stretch and Bob, as was the wont of Nineties backpacker hip-hop folk. How did he pick up WKCR in San Diego, though? Maybe he and Drake mailordered tapes from Fat Beats, sandbox, or some shit like that. Ah, the Nineties, when, in order to obtain a mix tape, one had to send a postal money order via the postal service, and wait to receive a magnetic cassette tape via said postal service.

Fuck it though, all the aforementioned shit is apocryphal. Pros could pretty much do whatever the fuck they wanted back then. They didn’t _really_ have to film that much, and the internet was mostly academic (besides USENET of course), so if a dude did something WACKY and regrettable, the whole world didn’t know about it instantaneously. The only fuel for the ol’ theater of the mind was whatever inside jokes made it into the Big Brother “news” column. Our sole point of reference, however, is the 411 “Roomates” segment with Pupecki, Gino, and Keenan, which is probably the best thing 411 Productions ever produced (the Jess McReney WOF is up there). I might be wrong, though; I kind of lost track when they did that whole “re-numbering” thing. ANYWAY. where to begin with the Pupecki/Milton/Iannucci piece– Pupecki skating a brand new crisp City Stars board? Keenan smoking and playing Playstation 1 simultaneously? Gavin the three-point specialist? The most awesome part, I think, is random girl sitting on the couch while Gino and Keenan battle in NHL 2000 (you think Gino always played as the Islanders?).

I mean, who is this girl? What is she doing there? The world will never know. I do, however, think it’s funny that, because blackberries were not yet invented, she’s just kind of staring at her hand.

That’s enough for now; I could probably write a while dissertation about that 411 segment. Or maybe a television series–A group of young, transcendentally talented skaters, some industry hangers-on, and a few scandalous bitches try to make it in a Los Angeles condominium complex during the pre-9/11 boom years. Here’s my two-second pitch: it’s like Melrose meets The Hills meets Street Dreams! Quick! Someone get Aaron Spelling on the horn!!!!

What?

*I’m trying to recall if Tiffani Amber-Thiessen was on Melrose Place, 90210 1.0, or both. It turns out, both.

**The recent banter between Thiebaud and “The Ringer” re: Twitter is really just too cute…

The Count of Tuscany

disposable 2: in stores now

The other day, I was pleased to see that Sean Cliver had finally gotten around to publishing a sequel to the epic tome Disposable. In addition to functioning as one of the classic “research laboratory” books of all time, it serves as a narrative of the rise of World Industries and its zeitgeist as expressed through the graphics of Cliver and McKee, primarily. Hand in hand with that, of course, goes the parallel narrative of Cliver’s inevitable departure from Powell and the subsequent “war” between Powell and Rocco. Oddly enough, this summer Blind and Powell entrenched themselves and declared war once more–the video wars, that is. It would be a lot more dramatic if videos “mattered” moreso than whatever is on the berrics on any given day. It should be noted that it is 2009. Steve Berra and Nike control the industry. Once again, this in irrefutable proof that we live in some kind of crazy Futureworld.

ANYWAY, first, a little prologue. A few weeks ago, I went skating after work when one of those epic early summer thunderstorms struck the spot. If you are unfamiliar with mid-Atlantic regional weather patterns, there are two of them ’round this time of the year:

1. hot and humid as fuck

2. raining

So, I paid a visit to the shop. Down the block, the video premier for the latest Powell video offering was letting out–the same theater as the Fallen premier and the Mind Field premier about which I did not write.

The title of the video itself encapsulates just one of the reasons why I hate this company. It just seems kind of disingenuous, and also suspiciously like a shot aimed at Ty:

“Hey, we used to be this big shitty generic corporate company. NOT ANYMORE! WE’RE ALL ABOUT HAVING FUN SKATING! Not like those other dudes with their big super serious video productions! No ART here! Art isn’t fun =(. Jumping down stuff is fun!! Powell are the fun dudes now! The shoe is on the other foot!! FUN. You know–like jumping down stuff.

As sometimes happens with this kind of event, attendees received stickers–1 ft.-in-diameter stickers with the Powell logo. You know, this thing:

I threw up a little in my mouth. As we all know, kids love stickers. However, they did not have the same violent reaction to Powell promotional material as I did. I saw some bros and they asked me “Hey, did you go to the video premier?”

“Nah I hate that company.” They laughed, but I was dead fucking serious. I hated, and still hate Powell.**

By all accounts, their video is “sick,” contains decent enough skating, and the ender ender is one of the more “extreme” frontside tailslides ever executed by a human being on this planet. However, I will never watch said video in its entirety, and most certainly will never by psyched on it. Why? For the same reason a Red Sox fan will always hate the Yankees. Even though World is, in essence, a shoe company now, I still retain allegiance to dwindle, and, by extension, blind and almost. It’s still fuckin’ Daewon, Rodney, plus the evolutionary Henry Sanchez*:

However, while Powell is still corporate and generic, so is World, or whatever corporate entity it has become. Twenty years after functioning as a canvas for Mark Gonzales’ artistic “weirdness,” and 15 years after having the sickest lineup(Creager, Milton, McBride, Sanchez) of any company ever, blind has somehow transmogrified into Digital Skateboarding: The Board Company.

To the kids at the aforementioned video premier, Powell is just another company with dudes that are good. No different from blind. Why do I retain a world view that is twenty years old?

I think it’s because, just like the Red Sox and Yankees have changed, once one is a fan, according to Bill Simmons’ rules of being a fan (which are somewhere out there on the internet) you can never switch. Even though the team 100% changes from the badass quality that made you dig them in the first place. Let’s continue this analogy via baseball. Even though I am a Met fan, I will use the Red Sox as an example because I backed them hard as fuck in their battles against the Yankees in the first half of this decade. The Red Sox up uptil 2005 exhibited a badassness that was never more apparent than this epic battle that occured during the 2003 ALCS. I think I listened to most of it on WFAN. This was one of those events that, as one watches it unfold, one mentally repeats to onesself “I can’t fucking believe this is happening and how fucking awesome it is.” Kind of like the Pistons/Pacers thing.

Usually, though, the end of whatever made the team cool begins when one dude (Johnny Damon) moves on for more money. Then they bring in another dude that is super fucking good but doesn’t really fit in, but the dudes kind of accept it because he’s super fucking good (Matsuzaka). Pretty soon almost all of the original dudes are gone. However, you can’t stop backing them, because sometimes they show that spark of why you were fucking psyched on them in the first place.

Creager does that. The next time a summer afternoon thunderstorm throws a monkey wrench in your plans, spend an evening revisiting his body of work: Cocktails. Superconductor Supercollider. 20 Shot. RvD1. RvD2. Memikmati. What If. I think that’s everything; I might have omitted Gullwing: Revival. And this summer’s offering, the creatively titled The Blind Video. I guess they decided against Blind – The Video: filmed on Earth – The Planet. Before we get to Creager’s part, specifically, as a whole, I stand by my contention that The Blind Video harkens back to Trilogy with its sometimes shitty filming (think Clyde f/s heel over table), haphazard 80’s-centric music supervision, loose clothing, and tech-for-tech’s sake ethos (think Maurice Darshien Key sw f/s heel t/s). Danny Cerezini skates like an amalgamation of Photosynthesis-era Appleyard and Paul Rodriguez. Okay, if that’s too hyperbolic, maybe Rodriguez with more creative trick selection. For example, you think he’s going to go nollie n/s down that one hubba but he goes nollie bluntslide. By the way, Cerezini also maintains a blog, which is kind of interesting. I guess he didn’t get the industry-wide memo re: self-promotion via “twitter.” If I was into that sort of thing and set my mind to following some shit, I would follow kelch, york, nick t., whoever the fuck else…it would be just like hanging out under the wave. Trip the fuck out.

ANYWAY, Laitiala cuts down on the happy feet from that Digital part when he skated to “Blue Monday” (again–fucking amazing music supervision) and switch hardflips that big-ass set of stairs in Barcelona with the urgency of a Finnish commando defending the border against Soviet invaders. James Craig is, like, “one of us” so it’s always sick to see what he comes up with. However, for my money, it’s all about Creager and how he, by skating local spots in, I presume, Arizona, continues the pattern he established in 1992 by existing outside of time, which is kind of what this site is all about. Either ahead of, behind, or beyond, as shown by this unscientific chart:

Even though, by setting up shop in Arizona, Creager seems to have eschewed the industry in general, he has pursued other avenues to keep his shit out there. Specifically, his youtube channel shows that he’s smart enough to know that “kids today” don’t go to actual retail facilities to purchase and watch videos–they pretty much just watch what’s out there. It’s also a good destination if you need that extra “push over the cliff” to land that b/s tail double flip out or whatever the fuck. This particular video, however, captured my imagination, documenting Creager’s construction of some kind of miniramp with a ledge in the middle. It also inspired the “retirement community” comment in the previous post. Truth be told, once I put in my 30, i would certainly agree to ride out my golden years in such an abode. Also of note: Creager, the small-wheel, skinny-board, fakie-360-flip-manual dude, wields power tools more effectively than a certain mute-grabbing, wall-planting, vintage trans-am driving, breaking-all-the-rules former resident of Edison, NJ and fellow former Rocco employee.

Draw your own conclusions.

*as astutely noted by some dude on SLAP

**that Mark Suciu kid is good as shit, though–he should be on a better company.

ps. if Creager ever created music, it would probably sound like this. or Dream Theater.

The Brotherhood of the Tactical Pants

made in China

Hey, remember last summer when all those rad internet promos came out?
That was awesome.
The Traffic promo, in which Jack Sabback’s part fuckin’ powered the rest of the summer, lingers in my mind’s eye most prominently. Pandemic, too. Haven’t watched that one in a while. The fact that someone actually made a skate video based on The Wire still kind of blows my mind.
ANYWAY, the Expedition internet promo Hello Hello Hello performs the same function circa 2009–at least until Matt Beach’s part in This Summer’s Transworld Video becomes viewable by the general public. An acquaintance of mine who attended the premiere confirmed my suspicion that it is a possible life-changer.

Even though I have expressed disdain for cynical China filming trips in the past, Expedition’s philosophy–which basically has not changed trajectory since 1998–and the personalities attached (WELSH, Enrique, the dude from Laguna Beach, the dude whose graphic is a Jameson*bottle, the Ottowan) make this promo of so-called “throwaway” footage appointment viewing. IF, that is, one backs this subgenre of loose-clothing tech ledge refinement. If so, one will surely appreciate the vibe therein–not to mention the most non-illusion switch 180 flip ever.** Even if the music supervision sounds like the dude just turned on Sirus XMU and picked the first five songs that came on.

BY THE WAY, the illusion flip backlash may have gone too far when dudes are doing kickflip late nose pivots on flat. Just an observation.

Let’s revert to Welsh, though. As psyche-defining as the Free Your Mind and Aesthetics video parts might be, Welsh might have entered Gino territory–a zone where any footage should be viewed contextually with the entire monumental career arc in perspective. However, I envision Welsh following Creager*** into some kind of skater retirement community in the AZ sunset with mellow ditch spots and a miniramp in every backyard.

* “Bushmills? That’s protestant whiskey.”

**If Beaubeau from Staten Island took action on BATB, I would bet this week’s grocery money on Kelly Hart Sunday morning. Bet everything you own on it.

***Creager-related post coming soon