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.?

In Which A Recent Krew Video Inspires Us To Tally Up Some All-Time Lords Of The Bucket-Hat

They say history is written by the victors, and when it comes to rewriting certain chapters, or revitalizing them for the purposes of revivalism, maybe we say the past is best remembered by those popping bottles and making it rain in the club at any given point in time. Current bottle-popper and kickflip backside noseblunter Lucien Clarke remains among the hottest ‘boarders out of London and as an employee of Palace possesses the subcultural capital to deploy for the purposes of making his mark on the scene, whatever it and that may be. So it is that this meaty clip released last week by Krew clothes documents his daring decision to get behind the bucket-hat, that vestige of late 1990s fashion long since wadded up in the fist of time and used to clobber some smaller, clumsier dimension for forgetting to stoke the rescue fire.

A Palace-branded white button-up that a waiter or Dylan Rieder might wear commands a $200 asking price on Ebay, giving the company and its team-riders gravitas in the accessorizing game, and doubling down on the bucket-hat is in keeping with prior Menace-aping efforts. But are Lucien Clarke’s shoulders broad enough to pick up and carry forward the bucket hat’s noble legacy? Here is a look back at some of its esteemed practitioners throughout the hat’s golden age.

Andrew Reynolds: The Boss is an obvious influence on Lucien Clarke’s massive nollie backside kickflips, and during his Birdhouse-moppet era a bucket-hat held down Reynolds’ locks as he launched himself down gaps and rails in “The End.” The fact that his hairdo looked sort of like a bowl cut only adds to the mystique and credibility of the hat.

Jason Dill: Probably run more as a novelty item that completed a Dr. Hunter S Thompson ensemble for a brief juice-sipping clip that featured in TWS’ “Feedback”, Dill’s foray came early in his deep dive into alternative fashion that would lead many an impressionable youngster down the proverbial garden path throughout the ’00s. You get the sense that Jason Dill probably was not that invested in the hat necessarily, but it’s interesting to ponder how he currently views its place in the world, and whether he agrees with Lucien Clarke that it is ripe for revisiting.

Chad Fernandez: Even before Chad Fernandez was drawn into a verbal sparring match with an unpaid tween amateur he gave the impression that he had something more to prove than other pros, which is maybe why in retrospect he seemed more invested in the hat when rewatching clips like his part in Osiris’ “The Storm.” A decade later Chad Fernandez has shifted to beanies for this 2011 part that features some genuinely out of hand stuff like the ollie up to crooked grind at the beloved bench-to-stair spot, a nosegrind on the rail recently wooed by Sean Malto in the Girl/Chocolate video and a high-speed one footer.

Ronnie Creager: The lord of positive vibrations was an equal opportunity endorser of headware in videos such as Es’ “Menikmati”, in which Ronnie Creager managed not to succumb to the pressure of conceptualizing a lengthy, autobiographical intro that may have featured costumes. Of all those mentioned on this brief list, the desert-dwelling Creager may today have the most legit claim to wearing a bucket-hat in the course of his current day to day, which could also involve golf and checking in on Easter Egg packages that may lie around the Southern California region unclaimed for fifteen years.

The Medium-Sized MNC Star T-Shirt Is The Message Dudes

Quartersnacks the other day posted up this deep dive into Sect adherent Jake Johnson who sounds like he’s spent the better part of the last year pondering ponderous thoughts on a skate-oriented pilgrimage to Pittsburgh as part of a broader effort to reconnect with his inner dirtball. The idea wins kudos at this blog webpage, where such concepts are prized above sponsorship by big-box retail chains. One of Jake Johnson’s ponders involves the “message” that underlies skateboarding, a potent smoothie of rebellion, aggression, creativity, pain and escapism, some of which might be lost on a generation coming up with parks aplenty and tweet-ready reality idols straddling the primetime viewing hour. There’s a separate message though for which Jake Johnson feels more personal responsibility, transmogrifying his board into a ball-point pen and the streets to an 8.5×11″ piece of white printer paper:

“My sponsors give me a lot of freedom. For the most part, they understand that me developing a concept, message, and my style of skating is the most important thing for their company. They’re willing to do whatever it takes for me to skate my best, and they trust me that I know how to do that. A lot of companies don’t.”

Thinking back on “Mind Field” Jake Johnson from what I recall worked hard to root the footage in his working frame of reference which was mostly New York at the time, setting up kind of a contrast to Josh Kalis’ various beefs about Greg Hunt not incorporating enough of his Barcelona tricks, but whatever. The comment (and whole interview really) signal that Jake Johnson found an early grasp on what somebody can do with the career opportunity he was handed and seems to be thinking hard about what he wants to do with it.

Who else thinks in terms of this “message” thing? I think Leo Valls and the “Night Prowler” guys definitely have an aesthetic that they’re looking to promote with their skating, built on what Ricky Oyola and Bob Puleo developed, a sorta homesteading purity for the streets. When Jamie Thomas cued up that clip of himself skating over that bridge in Chicago at the beginning of his “Welcome To Hell” section I think he had an idea he wanted to get across, same with Jim Greco and Stevie Williams a couple years later. Jason Dill is a dude who you can imagine looks at his message as a malleable and mutating thing. Mike Vallely’s career arc cast him into a spot now where you could say that “message” is nearly all he puts out, versus skate tricks.

There’s some comments made in the (too) long-gestating “Epicly Later’d” on Menace along the lines that Pupecki, Valdes, Suriel et al were at the time some assortment of castoffs and misfits corralled by Kareem Campbell to fill out his allotted corner of the Rocco empire. Maybe that’s partly true, but you gotta think that the mastermind behind our still-beloved “mNc” star logo had his own type of message in mind, having to do with communicating through vaguely scary hand-signals and 360 flipping through sidewalk cafes. If all he wanted was some square pegs he could’ve got Adam McNatt and Ryan Fabry.

Raging Dill

International tastemaker, former Sal Barbier employee and affable guy-on-the-couch TV guest star Jason Dill is in the messageboard headlines again, only this time for skate tricks. It’s a departure for Dill, one of the most quotable/misquotable personalities in the biz, and who seems very much aware of it. What do you think, this is the third career renaissance for Jason Dill? Fourth? Would it be pointless hyperbole to submit Dill as the Madonna of useless wooden toydom? Does this site traffic in any other sort?

The cynical book is easy to make on Jason Dill, who could be perceived putting himself just far enough ahead of the pack when it comes to trick trends, outfit choices and various cultural movements to appear streets beyond the yellow-shirted nollie crooked grinders of the early ’00s or the energy drink-hatted ledge swirlers of our current age. His occasional mouthiness — witness this month’s Thrasher, “We axed the Scientologist and acquired two new ams” — marks him as something of a snob, which maybe he sort of is, but any and all of that stuff I feel like is balanced out by what’s just as obvious to anybody who’s followed Jason Dill for any period of time, and he basically lays out later on page 149: “as a fan of skateboarding myself…”

Whatever foibles he’s got it’s hard not to root for a dude who lugs around several suitcases full of skateboarding history and potpourri underneath that now-dormant afro puff, hitching his filming wagon to some long-forgotten H-Street dude’s section 20 years ago or seeming to wear a wrist cast as some type of fashion accessory. Whether or not I personally recognize or relish whatever references and insinuations he’s baking into his tricks, you appreciate the effort to bring something more nuanced to the table with one eye on the history books and the other kids who may or may not pick up on it.

Rightly or wrongly sometimes I get to wondering about how skating is different than or same as big-league sports like basketball or football, and professional fandom is part of this wondering. Like, does Johan Santana subscribe to the MLB network so he can Tivo Joe Mauer’s at-bats? Or does Brian Urlacher have a shelf of VHS tapes handy in case he feels like watching some games with the Fridge? Do basketballers discuss it in the locker room if some dude on another team made a glorious slam dunk? On our end how many pros you think went out and bought the DVD/begged for PMs on the Slap board when “Stay Gold” came out? How many dudes with pro shoes on the market right now could rattle off Mike Maldonado’s last trick in “Welcome To Hell”? Should it matter?

Jason Dill And His Shirt Raise Important Concerns About Submitting To The Man, Dudes

swallow(if you can) from william strobeck on Vimeo.

Iconoclast boardsportsman and outspoken tastemaker Jason Dill is back at it again, this week controversially dropping video footage that prominently features a tucked-in t-shirt. The web clip, posted above, proved instantly divisive on the ‘Net and has raised fresh questions around the “institutionalization” of skateboarding as corporate interests exert ever greater control over team dress codes and branding.

The issue has festered since the early ’00s when Baker/Bootleg teamriders sparked outrage and tingled curiosities by donning fitted sportcoats. The latest escapade by Dill, known for provocative fashion choices such as Diesel jeans and nudity, alarmed industry observers already concerned about the growing influence of “the man.”

Jason Dill first signaled an embrace of the tuck last summer when he, along with noted dressers Alex Olson and Eli Reed, were spotted tucking in tank-tops at the Maloof Money Factory contest. Dill recently reprised that look at Brandon Biebel’s skatepark where he demonstrated that a more-constricted waistline need not interfere with basketballing feats. But expanding the initiative to include t-shirts opens a new front in the steadily growing furor and presents aging boarders with another dilemma around the already murky standards of conduct in the elder statesman role.

A little over a decade ago Dill spoke of chafing under the norms of mid-90s California skate-code, which required a certain bagginess of pant and support for Wu-Tang Clan singles. Could his venture into tucking shirts reveal similar discomfort with fashion standards that have in the past 10 years more closely aligned with Jason Dill’s personal tastebuds re: tightness and expense? Is this really a big marketing ploy for a new line of Fucking-Awesome belt buckles? And will Jason Dill laugh all the way to the bank as five years from now we all vigorously are tucking and he sharply moves to un-tuck in a scenario that is like Dr. Seuss’ cautionary tale about the Sneetches?

Let It Snow

Crash pad

Downtown New York artistic circles today mourn the death of Dash Snow, the former IRAK graffiti artist, sometime nudist, and all-around hipster deity who was also heir to an art-collecting dynasty. His work in the medium of Polaroids, collage and, err, his own semen has been alternately praised and derided, but what’s generally overlooked is the instrumental role his work played in Jake Johnson’s addition to the Sovereign Sect.

But first a word on the “hamster nest,” among Snow’s innovations that did not include bodily fluids:

Saatchi got them a fancy hotel room on Piccadilly. They had to flee it in the middle of the night with their suitcases before it was discovered that they’d created one of their Hamster’s Nests, which they’ve done quite a few times before. To make a Hamster’s Nest, Snow and Colen shred up 30 to 50 phone books, yank around all the blankets and drapes, turn on the taps, take off their clothes, and do drugs—mushrooms, coke, ecstasy—until they feel like hamsters.

Flash forward to the summer of 2007, when Snow and affiliates expanded on the idea for a gallery show; while the skateboard world was transfixed by the resurgent career of Peter Smolik, a young Jake Johnson endured a literal trial-by-fire intro to Jason Dill’s brand of artsy weirdness, as related in the most recent Thrasher interview issue:

Any good Dill stories?
One of the first times I went to skate with Jason, Brengar and I met him at 2 am at this art gallery downtown. It was this 10- by 10-foot cubicle room filled with newspaper shavings. It looked like this giant human hamster cage with little pieces of paper fluff everywhere and weird music playing. Jason was there and he got Brengar to film his buddy lighting an aerosol can on fire while Jason skated as fast as he could and ollied into this big hamster cage.

Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba

What happened to that boy

As Sir Elton John famously sang through the mouth of an orphaned cartoon lion, the circle of life is evident in all things, even or perhaps especially the Alien Workshop skate video. New careers are launched, even as others film a handful of low-impact ledge lines on their way toward that inevitable twilight. We could jawbone about professional obligations and numerically stack pro model shoes against tricks in the video, but that won’t get us any further than a Brian Wenning alphabet ledge trick (to keep it vintage DNA for ya’ll) so let’s focus on some of the “Mind Field” veterans who, ahem, showed up for work.

In Jason Dill of course we have somebody who’s been in the skateboarding business for about two-thirds of his life and has actively given a shit about his contribution to the whole ball of wax for at least half that time, if not longer, little shit status notwithstanding. He cares to the point of calling people out on shit that the rest of us would probably let slide, or at least silently simmer until some drunken industry function spills onto a post-bartime sidewalk; he seems to have a very definite idea of what skateboarding can be and puts no small amount of consideration into what he does, how he does it and when. Whether it’s lifestyle factors or some new less-is-more inclination (which I can get down with to some extent) Jason Dill’s video parts and coverage in general have gotten more spare in the last few years, putting whatever tricks he has into sharper relief – I think I like his “Mind Field” part better than his shit in the DVS video, if nothing else because there a noticeable absence of Cass McCombs droning, but also due to the fact that he seems like he was going for it a little more on this one. Clarity of vision, or the whole trying-harder-for-the-Alien-dudes thing. Lots of feeble grinds in uncomfortable places, updating the Photo-era 180 to 5-0 sequences to contemporary abrupt transition spots* and generally weirding up Pappalardo’s non-Flare minimalism. I want to believe there’s some deeper symbolism behind letting the phone float away at the end of the section. Something to do with Chris Carter taping him, right? Or maybe he lost his phone?

For Josh Kalis it seems simpler – he’s laid out his philosophy of professional-grade skating several times, likening it to a ladder, or staircase to heaven, or, god help us, a 12-step program. First you get the flow… then you get the pro board… then you get the women. Or, shoe deal. Pro model shoe. Video game. Reality show (or not). Like that. Learn new tricks along the way, take the tricks you know to different spots, do them faster. Not real complex. At this late stage in the game Kalis probably could get over cycling through tricks from parts that Kids Today haven’t even seen (kickflip noseblunt/411 Alien industry section, frontside flip nosegrind/411, switch backside noseblunt/”Sixth Sense”) peppered with the usual 360 flips, switch backside tailslides and so on, but darn it if he doesn’t keep on trying. He’s been talking up the possibilities of the bigspin for years but really pushes it in “Mind Field,” with fairly dazzling results, and when he turns up the heat after Marquise Henry’s cameo the general badassness of the entire affair makes it easier to overlook how some of his tricks don’t flip as fast as they once did, and how the classic eagle swoop form is missing more often than not. But with all the bigspin tricks, the taller-than-a-building switch backside flip, the 360 flip off the Barcelona bump, this might be the best Kalis part of the white cap era. And he’ll have more of course.

Anthony Van Engelen, I have no clue whether he thinks in these terms or not – you want to think his skating is totally visceral and from the gut, the way it translates on video, an idea (or not) and then a full-speed charge. But who knows. He does seem to have gone through some shit during his years in the wilderness, so maybe he’s been plotting, but his new voracious appetite for big rails and off-the-wall tricks (I’m thinking like the fakie f/s 50-50, and the spin-around ledge stuff) kind of seems like he’s shooting first and asking questions later when it comes to mapping this stuff out. I’m not sure if this time around quite matches the platinum standard AVE set with his blazing debut in “Photosynthesis” or the refined and elevated “DC Video” part, time will be the judge I guess, but it’s awesome to see him so hungry again. Depending on the day, this is one of my favorite three parts in the video. That fuckin’ switch frontside noseslide. Ollies straight onto rails = the new nosegrind pop-outs.

*I enjoy the phrase “abrupt transition” and plan to use it often – thanks Deer Man of Dark Woods

Vicious cycle

He’s probably not too excited about Diamond either

There’s nothing like a good Jason Dill interview really. He’s frequently semi-coherent, names names and talks shit freely, and he seems to have a really good memory in spite of how much drugs he’s supposed to have done. I was thinking the other day actually how it’s been a while since Dill shot his mouth off and lo and behold, Don Pendleton talked to him for a feature at Black Lodges, a webzine/online artist collective of sorts that features a blog by Eric Stricker, presumably moonlighting from TWS message board supervision.

Most of the interview involves Dill waxing Dillish on Polaroids, his grandma’s photo albums and being vaguely heartbroken, but at one point Pendleton gets him going on the topic of streetwear and his own streetwear company Fucking Awesome. Then the cantankerous Dill materializes, nursing a serious case of seller’s remorse:

Yes, I am a cynical fuck. I can’t stand the brands that are out here. That’s why I killed my brand for a while. But every time I try to kill Fucking Awesome, I end up bringing it back and people are asking for more. I can’t stand these fucking brands. I can’t stand any of that streetwear horse shit anymore. I can’t believe I ever got into it. It is what it is, you know.
…
Like, I made a clothing company and I’ve got fucking skateboard rappers wearing it. And I’ve got Paris Hilton’s latest boyfriend wearing it on the E! Channel or whatever. I don’t want that. And people wearing it on the covers of their fucking lame albums. Fucking dumb. I hate everything.
…
Yeah, when I first did Fucking Awesome, it took off like a rocket. One day it was just our funny little thing and it was fun….we were selling it through Supreme and they helped me launch it and get it out there. I remember the guys at Supreme were like, ‘Enjoy yourself now because it’s going to suck eventually.’ And I was like, ‘It’s not gonna suck.’ But yeah, it really sucks now.

Certain of us could be like “well, what did you think would happen,” but we all know that accomplishes little besides maybe chalking up a couple internet snark points. But it reminded me of a similar hard-learned lesson learned about a decade ago by one of Dill’s bosses, Mike Hill, about not being able to choose your audience and seeing your baby co-opted by retards. From Sean Cliver’s “Disposable”:

The success of the alien graphics came gradually. It started out as a cult following but then developed into a trendy nightmare. People would tell me how our shirts were really popular with ravers. This was the last thing the Alien Workshop was about–a bunch of overly social people dancing to techno while dressed for year-round trick-or-treating–and it was quite devastating.

One day a shop account called and said Madonna had just been in their store and bought one of our shirts. He was all excited and thought we should be, too. I remember going berserk and screaming about why would they sell it to her, that they should have denied her. But you can’t control these things. It happens to bands all the time: the people who drove you away to the point of marking something yourself out of frustration end up your customers.

Addendum: the illustrious Police Informer also was on the Jason Dill wavelength this week.