It has been observed that the skateboarding industry is like high school, replete with jocks, nerds, overachievers, fashion victims, would-be authority figures, substance enthusiasts and vengeful, scheming captains of the water polo team who drive tricked-out jeeps and are partial to ripped jeans. Sticking with the analogy, last week we saw a long-running couple, recently broken up, each show up to the prom with new dates. Here was Blueprint, determined to pick up the shards of its spray-heart logo and shake off an ignominious dumping last fall, escorted by a half-dozen unknowns from the Southwest, and Mike York, who I like to imagine wearing a seersucker suit and white corsage. And then the former Blueprint squad, trotting out a sleek new name and logo spotlighting their Old World roots, ready to move on.
Look at Blueprint, chin out in an ill-fitting getup, dudes with blond dreads and Canadian management, trying at some kind of statement setting its team makeover clip to “Coming to America” (presumably by way of Quebec). As the would-be masterminds behind Ice Cream Shoes will attest it’s not easy to pull a Kareem Campbell when it comes to plucking unknown ams from the skatepark ether, and the pressure may be giving their filmer a case of tremors. Yet the former Blueprinters, offering pedigreed graphics and a trimmer team, may have the harder path. The stakes may be lower without this company having carried the UK on its back through the late-90s universe expansion, but it still arrives from some of the dudes who made all those legendary videos, and with no Canadian owners in the wings it’s all on them this go-round.
Both companies have an obvious fixation on America, economic or otherwise, and it is not difficult to see opportunities for them to jointly tap into American’s long-running love affair with familial turmoil and fractured relationships. Could a grudge match demo-tour produce 411 “Road Trip”-worthy highlights as each squad looks to one-up the other? Is there a potential sequel to last season’s “One in a Million” pressure-cooker meltdown to be had by confining the two teams to a “Big Brother” style condo to chew one another’s limbs off over British skate lore and whoever drank the last beer?
The respective team pages are telling. Are seeds of internal strife already germinating within Isle? A solid two-thirds of the team lists some variation of “green” as their favorite color, while boss figure Paul Shier stakes out the other side of the color wheel with “orange” and Nick Jensen boldly declares “not green.” Can they stand against the newly united Blueprint group, which have no history but seem to be on the same page when it comes to cuisine, roundly backing Mexican and BBQ variations? And will Isle continue to stick with the British spelling of words like “colour”? For that matter, will Blueprint?
Tags: Big Brother the TV show rather than the magazine this time, Blueprint, City Stars, color, colour, Isle, making friends, Margaret Thatcher, Mike York, Nick Jensen, Paul Shier, seersucker, the British Empire, the emerald isle, Tremors the movie
boil the ocean 
March 29, 2013 at 7:09 am |
Weird you say British spelling of the word, “colour”, I would have just said the correct spelling of the word, “colour”.
Why do North Americans have such a problem with silent letter too?(Can’t help myself)
The newest Blueprint edit had me cringing, somebody is smoking crack over there.
Shame Turf skateboards is down too, that was a company that made some good productions.
On the plus point I hadn’t seen the GYROS edit before which I watched following the Blueprint reboot clip and was hyped to go out skateboarding.
March 29, 2013 at 7:09 am |
silent letters*
April 2, 2013 at 1:46 pm
We use silent letters too (“psychology” for example). It has yet to be problematic for me of anyone I know that you Brits spell “color” with a “u.” Some goes for center v. centre, etc. It’s not very hard to figure out…
But if you want why we spell “color” different (as opposed to having a “problem” with it, here you go: “Both spellings are many centuries old. Color, now regarded as the American spelling, in fact predates the United States by several centuries. In early use the spellings vied for ascendancy with several other spellings. Colur, culoure, and coolor, for instance, were all in the mix before the modern British spelling gained permanent prevalence in the 17th century.1 The American preference for color took hold in the middle 19th century thanks in large part to the conscious simplification of English spellings by people such as the lexicographer Noah Webster.” -Grammarist
March 29, 2013 at 7:10 am |
Mike York is still a beast. FTC edits over new Blueprint ones.
March 29, 2013 at 10:38 am |
Wow. The filming in that Blueprint “Coming to America” clip was fuckin awful.
Best of luck to Mike York. It’ll be interesting to see how Isle takes hold (or if it does) in the US scene. I hope they do well in any case.
Anybody know what’s going on with Danny Brady? His Lost and Found part is an all-time favorite for me.
March 29, 2013 at 1:49 pm |
He’s now on Palace along with Benny Fairfax.
Some solid British companies have emerged from Blueprint’s demise. The National promo that got released today is wicked.
April 1, 2013 at 12:34 am |
Why is Canada so insistent on giving me reasons not to like it?
Isle forever!!
April 1, 2013 at 4:54 pm |
J Wussler over mike Yorkatron all day. J Wu get your proper props son!!! Ftc loves J Wu no homo!
April 2, 2013 at 2:42 pm |
Jaysus, kool that you gave a shit to even bother providing a response to my utter pish comment. As you clearly point out the roots of language can date back to any type of trivial shite, but sometimes I can get pretty anal about how language turns out. Like how Capt Kirk says buoy in the original Start Trek series, versus how some American wold pronounce that word now. Or the extremely horrible pronounciation of the word, “niche” by P rod or rappers.
Eddie Lee, I am not Jason Wussler if that is what you are implying.
But Jason Wussler is ill, not sure if you could say better than Mike York, but the front blunt to backside nosegrind at pier 7 by Jason Wussler in the late nineties/early 00’s was really ahead of its time.