#POWERSLIDEWATCH2013 b/w “Like Red Meat To Starving Wolfs”

Though fetishized and taken to strange new places in recent years by Frenchmen, the powerslide, much like its close cousin in the mid-line revert so derided by Ricky Oyola, is at its best when spontaneously and sparingly sprinkled. The annals of history bear beloved black markings from marquee powerslides such as Rob Welsh’s backside skid down the SF hills in “Free Your Mind” and lengthier frontside ones rassled by Dennis Busenitz in “Roll Forever,” and whispered “what ifs” will forever trail Guy Mariano’s turnaround at LA High in “Mouse.” Busenitz more decisively combines the two for what will be one of the year’s better-remembered powerslide/revert type moves in this new Adidas Madrid clip, viewable around 5:48, shortly before a really cool step-down ledge trick. This clip is also notable for the most actual Mark Gonzales skate footage in one place in about several years and for deepening Mark Suciu’s typecasting as a perpetual video clip getter to whom varial heelflips come as easily as an ollie, or weed leaf emblems to mid-length socks.

On a related note, watch this space in the future for a half-baked ramble on how Adidas’ geographically oriented team clips are the new Transworld videos, dropping with the regularity of a semi-working clock with solid, if formulaic, production values, a similar devotion to indie rock staples and a steady supply of quality skating.

Stream-Of-Consciousness Rant Touching On Wet Willy’s Contributions To Small-Town American Culture, Emerging Markets Wealth Distribution And The Innate Hypocrisy Of Tree-Hugging Graphical Concepts? Jason Dill’s Got U

In case you missed it.

Thrasher: What’s skateboarding look like from where you’re sitting?

Jason Dill: It seems like skateboarding is like India. You’re either insanely rich or you’re fucked! There’s no middle class in skateboarding. We’re selling these skateboards to little kids. They like lame shit. Kids like some bullshit. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve done a lot of fuckin’ demos. I refuse to do them anymore because I don’t need to come to your town for 20 fuckin’ people who show up and no one cares. I’ve been to every small town at least twice. I remember a time when kids would come up to me to sign their boards and I’d tell them, “Hey, neither Wet Willy or Flame Boy is going to come and do a demo for you. Go get a different board and I’ll sign that.” I refused to sign a Flame Boy or Wet Willy. It just pissed me off. Talk about getting mad about something that is so far out of your control!

After that I pretty much refused to sign Element boards. Are you fucking kidding me? You know what I had the most in the world? It’s when people are like, “Oh, go green!” and it’s bullshit. I hate that fake eco green marketing shit. Power to the planet? You cut down a tree and glued it together with fuckin’ toxic glue and then paint your little save-the-world message on it? Oh my God, you’re a fuckin’ asshole! Wow! I hope they made a whole lot of fuckin’ money.

That’s the point where I can’t believe people still want me around. Wow. I’m still here? And they still want me to perform tricks on film? I still get to create? I still get to make my shit? I still get to lose my mind trying tricks and feel super insecure about my age and freak out? But the checks keep following me. The checks have followed me my whole life. The checks have followed me since my mother and me’s shitty little apartment that we had to move out of because she couldn’t afford to pay for it without me pitching in. I moved out onto my own and these checks have followed me ever since.

I’ve never lived a real life. Dyrdek’s got a Fantasy Factory? Great. I’ve got a whole fuckin’ fantasy existence. I got to spend 14 years being a drunk, drug addict alcoholic. I come back for one year and work and everybody’s high fiving me and you put me on the fuckin’ cover like I never did anything wrong? Are you kidding me? I want to stay in this forever! Go to jail, come out sponsored! That’s why skateboarding still fuckin’ rules!

Thoughts On The Current State Of Skateboarding But More Specifically The Eternally Springing Hope Brought On By A Recent PJ Ladd Video Clip

Although certain other Boston-area pro acts are as associated with rap music as with nollie 360s in recent times, PJ Ladd’s career may be the one to most closely track the fortunes of the Wu-Tang Clan. Both arrived out of left field, offered something very different than the going thing at the time of their respective debuts and garnered legendary stature amongst tweens fine-tuning kickflips off quarterpipe decks. Arguments could be made that neither one so far has surpassed the bar set for themselves straight out of the gate, though “Forever” and “Really Sorry” had their moments (Inspecta Deck’s human-fly escapade in the “Triumph” video, the fakie frontside heelflip backside 5-0 on one of those notorious window ledges).

The years since have seen certain Wu members and PJ Ladd trade in various overcast and colonial-constructed eastern seaboard streetcorners for sunnier but less-descript locales of southern California, while combating the dilutive effects of fame and fortune, and inevitably misplacing some intangibles in the process. There are rich message-board seams to mine as to why PJ Ladd has yet to properly follow up the “Wonderful, Horrible” paradigm-shifter, instead offering dribs and drabs of footage across a decadelong shuffle of shoe sponsors and road trips. This latest clip, from the X Games “Real Street” series, is more potent than recent skatepark fare when it comes to resurrecting ghosts of a kid whipping off flatground tricks in lines that most people hadn’t conceived of — here a fakie frontside 180 b/s 5-0 shove-it and a frontside 180 switch crooked grind frontside shove-it out that perhaps have been notched somewhere in the wilds of Youtube, but probably not so well, and another rendition of the floaty sort of revert out of a crooked grind that once helped PJ Ladd defy some parameters of physics on one of those window ledges some 10 years ago. Nice to see the fakie flip frontside noseslide 270 shove-it again.

Sort Of Like Klein & Kirchart’s Bittersweet Signage Symphony, Except With Some Vehicles

When not stacking characters for his next interview, Anthony Pappalardo has taken some time out to skate. For those not inclined to root through a 20-page Slap messageboard topic and various instagram postings here’s what seems to be the recent gist:

As a reminder: