Flexin

It has been widely theorized that Mother Earth, known around some parts as GAIA or “Big Bloo,” periodically unleashes natural disasters to right global wrongs and remind her solar passengers who’s boss. Hurricanes, earthquakes and several Ja Rule albums have been attributed to nature correcting itself in a natural fashion. There is an unconfirmed science rumor that the comet which ended the dinosaurs’ reign was actually minding its own business when the earth, weary from hauling heavy lizard flesh around the sun for eons on end, intentionally floated out into the troublesome space-rock’s path.

Flash forward several years to when Girl and Chocolate released their high-def opus, “Pretty Sweet,” ostensibly like ODB for the children staffing the team. If Guy Mariano’s comeback section half a decade earlier in the Lakai video proved he still had it, closing out a production otherwise given over to hot shoes who hadn’t yet picked up a board by the time Guy Mariano was sprinkling LA confetti upon jubilant skid row dealers sounded a clarion call to old dudes everywhere, in the same way that Eric Koston’s part in “The Chocolate Tour” a decade earlier inspired the true life story of “Murderball.”

Even as winter’s unrelenting icy grip has punished would-be green shoots attempting to poke their buds aboveground this spring, so too have industry oldsters answered this call over the past month, refusing to yield to the current crop of handrailers and manualites. Transworld’s generally short-in-the-tooth production “Perpetual Motion” gave the curtains to the non-threatening hammers and gently shampooed hair-stylings of Julian Davidson, but at that point the trick of the video (50-50 handrail gap, also in the running for overall filmed achievement of the year) had already been performed by Silas Baxter-Neal, who in that lineup of uppers and comers counted as its vet, when you factor in his old-soulness and general SOTY gravitas.

Weeks later the security camera-laced Deathwish production launched with the breakout section recorded by probably the oldest or second-oldest dude on the squad, Jim Greco, he for whom 1,000 cattle have been slain to date in the ongoing search for a jacket that encapsulates just how feckless he is feeling at any given moment. Greco darkslides, across benches and from 360 flips and down handrails and switchstance, but amongst all that razzle-dazzle he appears to have cleaned out five years’ accumulated DV tapes worth of backside 360 lipslides down big handrails and certain big jumps. Jim Greco’s own post-sobriety turn in “Baker 3″ always seemed to me kind of scattered after his angry energy in “Misled Youth” and that “Baker2G” part that birthed a whole subgenre, but this one came off like he really, really wanted to go for it, kaleidoscopic outfits be damned.

Now as socialists around the world unite to march for solidarity and universal health-care coverage and tax deductible bail payments for regular- and goofy-footed independent contractors alike, Jason Dill and Anthony Van Engelen take their turn to shock the industry, except this time by quitting their jobs rather than doing them. Yet the abrupt flying of a couple decades-deep dudes from their long-time coop — where millionaire boss Rob Dyrdek had effectively given them lordship over the springier chickens — already is seen by message-board plutocrats and industry pundits as a game-changing moment and perhaps the greatest identity crisis facing Alien Workshop since Lennie Kirk seriously devoted himself to armed robbery.

Will Jason Dill get on Palace? Is skating inherently a young man’s game, except for vert and the giant mega-ramp, where it’s a middle-schooler’s and middle-ager’s game that may reward you with an SUV? Is Mark Suciu actually a 40-year-old bro who had been quietly filming in various towns under assumed names over the past 15 years, and is the steady release of footage a sign that he may have died sometime early last year, leaving the executors of his estate to periodically drizzle out tapes to sponsors in a Tupac-like series of posthumous releases that will subsidize the multiple wives he secretly and illegally maintained in small towns across the U.S.?

Are We As A Subculture Strong Enough To Stick Together As Mike Carroll Goes Gray?

Around 18 short months ago the singer Chris Brown released the Toto-sampling single “She Ain’t You” and later had the planet on smash. The move was a unique look for Chris Brown, coming off a domestic violence scandal that rocked the industry, potentially lost marketing revenue, and left the nation jaded on celebrity relationships. Now, Chris Brown, performing in a tan outfit and with a wide-brimmed hat that was not really a cowboy hat but looked kind of like something that Michael Jackson might wear. He modeled certain parts of his new song on the original Michael Jackson song and another part on Sisters With Voices, and sold ringtones. Chris Brown hit #5 on the R&B charts and went gold in Australia in what some characterized as a turning point for his career.

This web blog sometimes speaks openly on topics including ageism, the arrow of time, and futuristic battlefields littered with the limbs of damaged ‘mechs, some brought down by SRMs aimed at the groin. One can try and mentally prepare for the unknowable, spinning curveballs that life places upon you, but only so much. So it was that longtime watchers of Mike Carroll encountered several surprises in recent months — one, hints and several suggestions of gray hairs along the sides of his head during the Eric Koston Epicly Later’ds. The second was a revelation that he had not long ago been diagnosed with that feral-sounding disorder that brought down J Dilla, lupus.

On the cusp of this new decade’s full-length offering from the Crailtap camp the hype cycle is unsurprisingly focused on any potential star turn from the reinvigorated Guy Mariano and whether this may be enough to achieve a magazine trophy, some limb-risking efforts on behalf of this crop of would-be torch-picker-uppers such as Elijah Berle, the length of Marc Johnson’s er video section and whether an allegedly more relaxed filming schedule might manifest itself in a movie that doesn’t carry the weight of the world in terms of production effects and moody techno. I have not heard a great deal about Koston. And though there have been offstage mutterings to the effect of ‘this is really the last hurrah for some of these dudes’ you have to wonder in the year 2012 whether it is really the last hurrah for some of these dudes.

Versus the clockwork-like recording of NBDs that Eric Koston has been able to turn in over the past two decades, Carroll’s career has always been a subtler affair with less fussing involved, that synthesizes the EMB cool-guy envelope-pushing with the self-deprecating launch ramp antics that Girl got into along with some rap CDs and crew cuts and sometimes a rave event. But if one or the other retires effectively upon publication of the “Pretty Sweet” video project, which would deal the heavier blow to an industry already disenchanted with slowing board sales, widespread (alleged) doping and the twin career flame-outs of Pappalardo and Wenning?

Has Mike Carroll ever made a bad video part, over what is almost a quarter of a century now? Recently he issues the same sort of weary commentary as Gino Iannucci around any further footage being largely given over to recycling old tricks at new spots, but when it comes to those frontside flips and backside tailslides, should that matter? Eric Koston’s Epicly Later’d series suggested that his pro career represents a rare bird that continues to peak, but what of Mike Carroll’s — across the Plan B and Girl catalogues, is there any easily identifiable high point?

Hrm

Not at all sure what to make of this new Gino Iannucci ad, which I had to see a few different places to even fully believe was real this afternoon. He’s skating again, so obviously a plus. But first sequence out the gate in how long and it’s a two-tone ledge trick with a full b/s 360 by the end of the day? Guy Mariano must be sharing his vitamin water.

Nike’s emissaries promise some lengthy interview in the near future, but unless it involves passing dipped cigarettes with Jereme Rogers any explanation of how this sequence came to be will probably end up less than 100% satisfying. Don’t get me wrong though, this is pretty amazing..

Bros in Time

For whatever reason this week we’re seeing a lot of themes around the glory of bro-ness popping up here and there, so I’m going to avoid retreading tha Plat’s recent odes to the season in favor of more other shit that warms the darkened cockles of aging skateboard hearts*. Such as this time warp Guy/Rudy pic, featured in the new and generally entertaining Wallride catalog. (Check for the Skate Mental dolphin deck and Carroll’s up-rail innovation.) We can sweat the Crailtap crew’s growing pains as they try and chart their course with the ’90s steadily shrinking in the rear-view mirror, but then they’ll parcel out photos like this, or empty the footage vaults for the box set, and future generations of face-tattooed Christian fundamentalist rappers can be forgiven. Too bad they’re not driving a Civic.

Tenuously related is this Lakai commercial for the nold Rick Howards, which I’ve unfortunately yet to sample, in which our pal gets some help from a couple IATSE Local 33 friends. But not Mike Carroll. If 411s were still coming out and I was still watching them I would for sure be waiting on new Lakai spots.

*inevitably bumming out the anti-bro-feeling Carbonite

Koston’s Shoe Future Still In Limbo, I Find Myself Disagreeing With Tim Dowling

Guy Mariano on Converse like 15 years ago

As expected, the Guy Mariano VBS episodes have provided a pretty glorious wallow in the 90s nostalgia mudhole, and I was wondering what they would do when they got to the “Mouse” era – I kind of had this idea that they might just put up the part itself as the week’s episode and move on, because, really, what’s there to say that hasn’t been said a hundred times over and who wouldn’t watch it again.

But they did it up in properly nerdy fashion and got into editing choices, and pretty early on it’s brought up how they put the switch shove-it k-grind as the last trick, which really wasn’t something that resonated with me much at the time the video came out but does kind of represent not just the genius of “Mouse” and the way it was put together but to an extent videos of that whole time frame. Tim Dowling, who more or less achieved skateboard legend status himself off that part, talks about how he used to think the switch b/s tailslide shove-it ought to have been the last trick, which I’m sure prompted a whole other (younger) group to furrow their brows and mouth the words “nuh uh switch front shove crooks”… but both of these are far too on the nose, something that I’m sure Rick Howard completely understands and would instantly brush off with some muttered “uhh, it’s just a skate video” comment. Which would be true.

Whether or not Guy Mariano’s part in “Mouse” would still be the best part evar if it ended on (insert preferred/gnarlier trick here) is a question best left to those who deal in alternate dimensions and infinite worlds*… but I do think “Mouse” would’ve been a slightly lesser video had they put Koston last, big trick heroics and all. Perhaps the point is the build-to-a-peak model needn’t be the only way to look at putting together a part, similar to how the best-part-last-second-best-part-first-etc roadmap isn’t necessarily the sole path to skate video greatness. We’re all aware of Osiris’s problems but a nod to their ballsiness for ending not one but two vids on shared parts; as long as Baker Bros. productions tend to drag, and they do, they deserve credit for playing out the thread til the bleary frayed end. Or how about Foundation, giving the last section in their most recent production to an only sort of reinvigorated Ethan Fowler.

*like maybe Rick Ross

Boil the Ocean’s SOTY Short List

Early and often

Dubious nomination process, predetermined winners and your vote doesn’t mean shit – sound familiar? It’s Skater of the Year season, and while you can spam Thrasher’s inbox with all the Busenitz ballots you want, but he’s not gonna win, and chances are Phelps already has a name rattling around his spectacled skull, sans any cares for what the rest of us think.

But for better or worse SOTY remains the only skateboard honor that means anything, and the winners, even those that hadn’t already bondo’ed their legend status, have proved the High Speed honchos prescient in the end. So pardon me while I throw out some wild guesses as to who’s in the running this year.

Silas Baxter Neal: An ad in every magazine and a video part for every finger on your hand over the last couple years. He’s a Thrasher cover-getting SF local with Pacific Northwest roots who made his big video debut in Rocket Science a few years back, but even though SBN is one of the steadily declining number of newly minted pros-cum-amateurs who can count his dues paid in full, career-wise, if he won he’d be greener than BA when he got Pen-and-Pixeled for the 1999 SOTY throne.

Billy Marks: Phelps has long been a Zero fan and has teased poor Billy with the SOTY/Tech Deck ad conundrum for years, and if Marks ever were to have a shot at it, this would be the year I guess. He has a big video part and a big Thrasher interview going for him, but other than that he’s been kind of quiet, unless you count the ping-pong videos. Plus if he won he’d have to produce another 10 pages of photos for the issue and he seems like a hopelessly lazy dude, ping-pong prowess notwithstanding.

Bobby Worrest: He skates for Deluxe companies, drinks shitty beer, has churned out boatloads of footage these last couple years and seems to possess a Thrasher-approved “who cares” attitude, as well as a sense of humor. On the other hand, like SBN his professional career is none too long in the tooth, and unless you count all his internet antics (which I certainly do) he hasn’t put out a legit part this year.

Guy Mariano: Thrasher likes to give SOTY to longtime legends recently (Daewon, Marc Johnson, Danny Way again) and Mariano is pretty much about as legend as they come, except perhaps for John Legend, or Robert Neville. He sets the high bar for street skating video parts and then comes back a decade later and does the same shit for comebacks, what the fuck? On the downside, aside from some of the first Flared-era photos, not much of his recent coverage has made it into Thrasher, and possibly worse for his SOTY candidacy, a lot of said coverage has been in TWS.

Rune Glifberg: This year’s dark horse candidate – representing one of the more SOTY-heavy squads at Flip and an old-guard transition titan who so far has avoided tarring himself with the X-Games brush, Rune turned in probably one of the best profiles of the year to date a few months ago in Thrasher. While Dyrdek’s UAV will turn into a pumpkin before the Flip video comes out this year Phelps has proven more than willing to hand out preemptive SOTY awards like so many Tomahawk cruise missles, as Rowley and Appleyard can attest.

Lizard King: I get the feeling the Thrasher bosses have a deep and abiding love for Michael Plumb, but a helping of hairball photos and a side-order video part (even if it is set to Killa) do not an SOTY make.

Ryan Sheckler: As much as nobody wants to think about it, I have a sad feeling that this is a real possibility, as Phelps’ determination to prove his don’t-give-a-fuckness combined with Sheckler’s boring win at the Thrasher handrail contest and the prospect of selling a metric ton of magazines are very real factors. I’d like to think that Ballard would tender his resignation should this event come to pass, and Thrasher has taken the occasional swipe at the golden boy from San Clemente, but Phelps’ recent comments that Sheckler is in the running haunt me in the wee hours of the night, even if he was joking. Not funny.

Vote for Barack Obama next week.

In the mood

Like they did with their Pink Motel trip a while back, Fourstar put up a video of their New York catalog shoot the other day, which suspiciously resembles your usual workaday skate photo hunt, except, you know, with Guy Mariano and Mike Carroll and whatnot. And check it out: an HD video without a trace of slow-mo, no symphonic music, not even one shot of somebody wiping sweaty hair from their face and ice-grilling the camera like “one more try, man.” Just saying…

Addendum: Hey, where the fuck was the Gonz? It’s New York City right? Also just saying.

Three-peat

“You like me, you really like me”

Guy Mariano cleaned up at the TWS awards last weekend huh? Street skater of the year, best video part and reader’s choice, the latter of which is especially impressive from one of the magazines that was backing Sheckler so hard, and the exclusively 10-year-old demographic that they seem to be writing for. Now I’m not looking to get crucified or anything, but I kind of get the feeling that this is one of those deals where they’ll honor a dude’s career by recognizing his recent work after ignoring him for so long. Like how only the last Lord of the Rings movie got an Oscar, or how Scorsese only just got one for “The Departed” and not “Taxi Driver” or “Raging Bull” or “Goodfellas.”

Not that Mariano did much for most of the last decade that didn’t come in a little plastic bag. But the TWS awards, such as they are, are in their 10th year now… Mouse came out in what, 96? They gave Jerry Hsu all those awards last year and the enjoi video came out in early 2006… well, like writing, math isn’t one of my strong suits, but you see what I’m getting at. Considering the drama of the whole comeback story, probably Guy could have taken a dump on Abe Lincoln’s grave and the TWS squad would’ve given him an award for something or other. Now I’m not saying he’s not an amazing skater or that his Lakai part sucked or what have you. I’m just saying.

So does Mariano deserve that handful of weird globe thingies? (In all seriousness he did seem really touched, in a cool way.) This is of course a trick question as no dignified person should have to suffer being named TWS’s anything, and we all know the only award in skating that matters is SOTY. Whatever. I’m happy for Mariano and I remain very very glad he’s back. Here’s some leftover Berrics footage they posted up today. Still a beast.

But way more interesting is that TWS got Stevie Williams and Corey Duffel to present the award together, which struck me as kind of ingenious, sort of like when Thrasher had Nikki Sixx present the trophy to Tony Trujillo. Except with teenage racism. To everyone’s eternal disappointment Stevie didn’t knock Duffel out in front of a packed house, but it does raise the possibility of similar odd-couple award presentations to come. Some potential combos:

-Mike Vallely and Mike O’Meally
-Chad Fernandez and Knox Godoy (perhaps Knox could open the envelope and call Nandez’s cell phone with the winner’s name)
-Henry Sanchez and half the skateboard industry (video screen in the background could feature a photoshopped picture of the Golden Gate Bridge in flames)
-Sean Sheffey and Ryan Fabry (or maybe Earl Parker and Chris Senn)
-Steve Berra and Jovontae Turner
-Heath Kirchart and a crew of Midwestern crack dealers
-Ed Templeton and David C. Novak, CEO of Yum! Brands, which runs Kentucky Fried Chicken
-Tony Hawk’s dad and Rodney Mullen’s dad
-the SF twins

Want you back

The Guy Mariano who made a comeback in “Fully Flared” didn’t bear too much resemblance to the Mouse-era Guy who set (and still holds) the gold standard in west coast schoolyard skating. The old Guy showed up in a few clips, like the line with the fakie f/s noseslide, fakie pop-shove it 5-0 revert on the flatbar. But then there were all those wacky slide/revert/grind/flip-out tricks. And there were some other tricks from photos and interviews that never made it into the video at all.

Shred or Die put up this clip the other day, which was filmed by RB Umali in Italy a few years ago, and apparently uploaded by Xgames vert guy and Tony Hawk satellite radio show host Jesse Fritsch, of all people. Anyway the clip has a lot of footage that seems like cutting room floor shit from Fully Flared, and includes the big bank switch b/s tailslide that was on the cover of the Skateboard Mag. It also has a line in there with a fakie k-grind and a switch b/s tail that, if you squint your eyes, looks like it could have maybe been filmed 10 years ago. Good shit.

Italy tangent: is this country some kind of black hole for skateboard footage? I heard from a buddy of mine a while back that he was on vacation in Italy and ran into this local skate-tour-guide type who showed around Reda’s crew on that first trip he took with a bunch of skaters who came from Italian backgrounds, i.e. Gino, Pappalardo, etc. Anyway this tour guide dude sat my friend down and popped in a tape of Gino footage that was filmed there, which didn’t show up in either the Hot Chocolate video or the Nike video. Somebody get that uploaded and quick…

And back on the topic of Mariano switch b/s tailslides, this