40 break

Let’s use Chris Cole’s SOTY as a stepping off-point for some chatter around the new Black Box Dist. videos, how aobut? OK then.

File Pat Burke alongside David Gravette, Bryan Herman and other gleeful rabble-rouser types who seem to want nothing more of this earthly life than to cut class, smoke ditch weed and kickflip shit. The scuzzy Virginian’s section in the Slave production “Radio Television”, maybe/probably the best one in a good video, has that slightly intoxicated spark of youth that for a lot of us made this whole thing exciting for reasons aside from jumping gaps and sliding blocks, in the days before you could skate the prefab park for your gym class credit. (For this blog’s next trick, it will stand with its virtual hand held up in front of a virtual bulldozer bearing down on the virtual habitat of some cute and furry mammal like maybe a certain species of marmot.)

Meanwhile the kids like young Pat Burke probably would not care, similar to how he may or may not have cared about potential internet nitpicking over a sorta-janky switch kickflip he does before the fakie heelflip to switch crooked grind in this section, or any potential consequences involved with nollie backside flipping into a big scary bank. There’s the opening mudbath and also a noseblunt/lipslide surprise sort of thing in here that suggest a Spicoli/Trapasso/Lebowski type of rolling with punches going on with his skating*, and it seems as if he likes his one red striped polo shirt about as much as switch frontside heelflips, and both probably suit him.

At the risk of getting a lil too Larry Clark here–there’s a kind of rotten majesty that this section has in spades, a who-cares spark that dims when dudes get older and battle their demons and gotta skate for their mortgages and car notes and whatnot, even if they’re lucky enough to be packing a backside heelflip informed by a few summers at Lockwood or something. Well, except maybe Duane Peters. Then again it’s probably an indication you’re getting old yourself when you watch this kid Pat Burke slide a little whooping noseblunt on a quarterpipe and envy the whole scenario for the trick itself, but also that school’s-out-for-the-weekend feeling that gets fleeting pretty quick. Hold onto it, young Burke, and make sure you thank the gods of onion rings and canned beer for giving you your switch heelflips and all the sweet animal feasting stock footage for the video.

*and the clip with the biker maybe indicates he expects the rest of the world to roll along with him

Tonight Creature Skateboards will be premiering there new video Hesh Law at the Drive In.

This will be so rad. There are no tickets just first come first serve.  The place holds about 150 cars so be sure to get there early.

The really important thing today is that you watch this entry in Thrasher’s “Saints & Sinners” tour, which features one of the more blistering bowl sessions I’ve seen pretty much ever – witness, if you will, street skating by Neil Heddings; Sam Hitz’s Matterhorn Screamer 5-0 grind; the corresponding nosegrind; Al Partanen’s caballerial; and my favorite, the determined fakie pump around the bend. Gravette’s ollie-out-ollie-in is the icing on the cake. Yow

Santa Cruz Skateboards + Santa Cruz Scion + 300 hot dogs mauled = epic demo?

Yes, it was broughted, and yes, I have a god damn tummy ache.

XTRM Sports Network:

So, I got Creature’s Riprider cruiser in the mail the other day, and this thing is a cruiser like no other.

For one, it came in a coffin-shaped box.

For two, it was PLASTIC, or some other space-age polymer whose formal name I am unfamiliar with.

Three, it is TINY coming in at just over two feet in length.

Fourth, it weighs A TON, and that’s the best part–it will last forever.

When you’re six feet under, you can rest assured the Creature Riprider will be alive and kicking. While it is doubtful that a flip trick can be performed on such a tank, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw Smolik rip the Riprider out of the hands of Street Navs and start switch tre-flipping across Ocean Beach.

I think Jimmy Carlin already hardflipped Hedding’s. Oh wait, that was the Hacksaw. Got a Riprider, you say? First person to send me a video of a flip trick on the Riprider gets a big fat package of whatever I have laying around the office which includes but is not limited to this vintage Jimmy Astleford t-shirt. Look for the Riprider and many other great mini cruisers in the MUST HAVES of the November issue of TWS.

Written by: Eric Stricker

Cred: Transworld Skate

“Fuckin, I don’t know”

Okay, can I just tell you my favorite thing about this new Transworld video, even more so than Kenny Hoyle’s opening kickflip, or Richie Jackson’s paisley pirate outfits, or Nick Trapasso: no fucking voiceovers. This closely approximates my personal reaction, except on a couch. I was wearing basically the same amount of body armor.

Pretty much every time a TWS video has come out in the last few years I’m inclined to think “hmm, this is the best TWS video in years” which may or may not actually be the case after a few weeks of viewing. But this time, guys… this time for sure (no Bullwinkle) I think “And Now” really is the best TWS vids in quite some time. There’s been some hoopla in the magazine about how this is like the new “In Bloom,” which I can see, sort of. But that begs the question: who’s gonna plump up and fizzle out Alex Gall style? My money’s on Sean Malto personally. Mostly because he seems like such a volatile, angry drunk.

Transworld videos at this point are basically an institution, like Madonna for instance, and if you took the 20 or so videos they’ve put out over the last 15 years (TWS that is) you’d have a fairly accurate roadmap of trick trends, skateboard fashion, and evolving film/edit techniques that generally represent the best in skate videos at any particular point. A lot of the credit goes to Ty Evans, who presided over the TWS golden age of “Feedback”/”The Reason”/”Modus Operandi,” but the revolving cast of filmer/editors that has passed through those hallowed AOL/Time Warner doors since has taken up his blueprint and soldiered on, with mostly positive results. Filming innovations and high production value aside though, there’s Ty tropes that maintained long past their expiration date, like the intolerable voiceovers (some sounded like they were reading off a fucking teleprompter) and the vaguely hilarious inanity of the titles.

So it’s cool that “And Now,” humorously inane title aside, tones down the starry-eyed “wow, skating, man” aspect and keeps things moving. No overblown intro montage (not too overblown anyhow), no goddamn voiceovers, no skits unless you count Richie Jackson’s whole part. Reckless dumbass David Gravette comes out blasting with his charbroiled rail moves and winds things up with a trick that’s sure to get some novices sacked before the snow flies. Matt Miller I was really looking forward to and he came through with a solid part of fairly straightforward skating, fakie flip body varial noseblunt aside. (That’s what it was right? I had to rewind many times.) But generally he had a minimum of the polejam/wallie/manual combos that TWS videos have showcased heavily the last couple years.

That of course is handled with psychedelic aplomb by Richie Jackson, dark hippie avenger from Oz, who twirls and skids and somehow powerslides down stairs. Some of the tricks are pretty inspired and I was relieved to see him work in some more standard-issue shit, like the b/s 5-0 revert and the switch 360 flip, because sometimes I get the sinking feeling that these guys known for doing nutty/dork/novelty tricks all day long may not be able to actually skate any other way.

Kenny Hoyle is just great. The angle on that switch bigspin heelflip he does over the hump is so good. A prime example of a skater who on paper might not sound that sound exciting but the way he lands tricks does it all. I love watching this kid skate. Nick Trapasso is sort of the same (see the way he rides away from the double-set switch frontside heelflip) but freakishly talented enough to inspire head-scratching and rewinding. There’s some stuff I’m not into at all, like the nollie tuck-knee, but it’s hard to complain much. It’s like he can do anything. Both the song choice and the electric blue socks are kind of untouchable.

Then there’s Sean Malto, who seems to be the living, hardflipping nightmare of every skatepark old guy who narrows his eyes and mutters “damn kids” as some 9th-grader glides down the rail. Switch kickflip frontside k-grinds, cab feebles, et cetera. It goes on for some time. I can imagine people complaining that the marquee tricks have already been in ads, but for me, the full gnarliness of those tricks didn’t quite translate through the 2-D photo format, although that could just be my brain problem at work again. Malto, though: So much command and confidence, and he’s so young. At least he looks young. Trainwreck used to look young too. If my calculations above are correct Malto will soon be sleeved up and bloated from alcohol misuse, so as long as the legions of skatepark old guys can keep their guts in check til then, the last laugh may yet be theirs for the laughing.

In summary, best TWS video in years. I think. No voiceovers!

When I was little I used to read skate magazines and bug out at the crazy stories spun by pros in their interviews because they seemed to live such wild, reckless lives. Case in point: the Andy Roy interview in BB, which I could scan if somebody hasn’t already done it, Shiloh, etc. Jim Gagne of all people had a really entertaining interview in a mid-90s Thrasher I have somewhere. And Ryan Kenreich, I think, had a pretty hilarious interview in the waning years of BB where he broke down his lengthy arrest record.

Nowadays of course most interviews are bland as plain yogurt–name, sponsors, hometown, how’d you get into skating, blah blah–and the stories about getting fucked up and whatnot have become pretty passe, if not quaint. But now and then I read something that, while it doesn’t bug me out like it would in the past, produces a laugh or something for the same reasons.*

Anyway, in the May issue of Slap there’s a tag team interview with David Gravette and Devin Appelo that was pretty funny. I have to marvel at the logic at work in this story, really.

David Gravette: It started out as five of us walking through the streets with ski masks. One of us was carrying a crow bar, the other one had a thing of rope, and the other dude had a flashlight.

Devin Appelo: Didn’t we have a saw?

DG: No. Anyone who saw us out the window was gonna call the cops, but these guys are idiots so I was just running with it. So we walked to the house–it’s this big Indian museum with a bunch of Indian artifacts. Taylor’s plan was to jump on the roof and take a smoke ventilation piece out and rappel in. We found out when we got there that the shingles were too icy to climb up, but Devin used his crow bar to pop the door open. We walked in and hung out for a bit. I had to convince Taylor not to take a bear pelt. He was running around with the bear pelt over him pretending to be a bear and ran into a pole. Then Taylor and Devin wanted to light a fire in there.

DA: Dude, how cool would it be to light a fire in there?

DG: I was like, no, we gotta go.” So we left and Devin was like, “Let’s get on this train, it’ll take us back to where we wanna go.” So we get on this train in the middle of winter in Portland and it’s so cold. We’re holding on and it started picking up speed for a second and I was like, “Dude, we’re not gonna be able to jump off if it keeps going!” It kept going for a bit and it got pretty scary, but then it slowed down and we hopped off. We weren’t really close to anywhere near where we wanted to be, but it was alright.

Slap: Spell “alligator.”

DG: Fuck you. What if I get it wrong? I can’t even try right now; it’s too dangerous.

DA: Dude, I could never spell that word.

DG: I can write it. A-L-I… Does it got two L’s?

DA: No, I don’t think so.

DG: It’s just A-L-I-G-A-T-O-R, right?

Slap:There’s two L’s, but I’ll give you an “A” for effort, idiot.

DG: Dude, this is gonna make me look like a dumb ass.

Despite (because of?) his general idiocy Gravette has been skating like a man possessed this last year. He landed the new TWS cover with one of his kinker rail attacks and the photo above from the Slap interview is pretty bananas. I half-expected Reynolds to tap him for the Deathwish lineup, because shitty as it is, third-tier companies like Creature tend to have a hard time hanging on to their young guns. Plus he has the TWS video part coming up. Get your money up Navarette.

*Like many skateboard bloggers I am over the hill and nurse serious nostalgia for the 1990s. Don’t get mad, I’m only being real.