The 1990s Doomsday Clock moved one minute closer to the much-feared ‘midnight’ mark Thursday following an announcement that Ronnie Creager had departed Blind.
The surprise move marked the exit from his company of the last remaining featuree of the 1996 World Industries production ‘Trilogy,’ ballyhooed by several messageboard commentators as one of the two seminal documents of 1990s` schoolyard skating, next to ‘Mouse.’
“We cant thank Ronnie enough for all his contributions,memories and fun times over the years,” Blind officials wrote in a press statement shortchanged of apostrophes. “We wish Ronnie nothing but the best and look forward to seeing more amazing skating from him in the future.”
Ronnie Creager was not immediately available to post to his Instagram account. The move caught some observers off guard, abruptly capping a 20-year tenure on a company originally founded by Mark Gonzales under the World umbrella, where Ronnie Creager was the longest-serving team-member several times over.
Overseers of the 1990s Doomsday Clock, including an international assortment of blogmasters and aging skateshop employees, in response moved the clock’s minute hand one increment closer to ‘midnight,’ which would signal the effective end of the 1990s’ influence over kids and industry players alike. The setting currently stands at 11:51, following the Ronnie Creager announcement.
Clock officials previously had moved the minute hand closer to midnight at various times over the past 14 years, including after Steve Rocco divested Dwindle Distribution, when Joey Suriel and Richard Mulder became licensed to sell real estate and when Rick Howard did not contribute footage to ‘Pretty Sweet.’ The minute hand was moved farther away from midnight in 2006 when Daewon Song earned Thrasher’s ‘Skater of the Year’ award, in 2011 when Patrick O’Dell released the Menace ‘Epicly Later’d’ and also following DGK’s disclosure of the lost Fabian Alomar video part.
Guy Mariano’s comeback for the Lakai video set the clock back by a full ten minutes, the largest increment on record, igniting controversy among some pundits who claimed the trick selection in fact merited moving the minute hand closer to midnight and others who argued for setting it back by as much as an hour on general principal.
The clock has proven a magnet for criticism over the years, with some arguing that the 1990s are destined to live on forever in the hearts of those who truly believe, and others who maintain that the 1990s ended at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, an event knowed to some as ‘Y2K.’
Tags: 20 Shot Sequence, Blind, City Star Realtor, clocks, enjoy skateboarding, Eurythmics, Flavor Flav, Gonz, Nadia Shoes tho, Ronnie Creager, skate goat, switch tailslides, the Rolling Bears, Trilogy, Vision, Y2K again
March 14, 2014 at 9:21 am |
The ‘doomsday clock’ in this article is a great metaphor… and strikes to the heart of the anxieties facing the 30-something skateboarder (or at least me, anyways): what do I do when the dudes I look up to fade away? How the hell do I define my place in skating without visible, active role-models? Does the 90s generation end up aping those 80s guys who only dig pros from yesteryear, outbidding each other on eBay for legacy re-issues, whilst not really skating anymore and getting chubby…. or should one switch up attention from JB, Gino, Carrol, Creager, Kalis etc to dudes younger than us (as a Brit, I’ve got Chewy and Joe Gavin as ready made 90s-aesthetic approved candidates).. but is this a bit creepy? In a way its fuckin’ rad that skating has expanded so much demographically, and there isn’t the exodus at 29 any more – even with the onset of jobs, wives, houses and kids – but man it creates some occasional anxious late-night soul searching! I suspect I’ll still be at it after 39 – but am getting increasingly uncomfortable about what that’s going to be like – even though, as an optimist, its easy to see that the brains behind Polar, Magenta, Hopps, Palace, Scumco, etc. are all of similar vintage, so values and aesthetics developed through the 90s are more prevalent than they’ve been more a long time.
March 14, 2014 at 11:54 am |
The 90s being comprised of various Uraniums, Plutoniums, and other rare earths, I think you will find that it’s half life is in the centuries. It is no coincidence that Yuca Mountain and Kenny Anderson are the yin and yang of this cosmic balancing act. No complys are the birth defects caused by skating over contaminated spots such as Love Park. No coincidence that Alien Workshop did so much filming there. They were disguising their geiger counters with various cameras and tripods.
March 14, 2014 at 2:54 pm |
Beautifully articulated, dude. For me we’ll hit midnight when there’s no longer a Carroll pro model on the skateshop wall.
“1999s schoolyard skating”? Y’all mean 1990s, right?
March 15, 2014 at 12:00 am |
@Chris: Regarding the comment that you feel a bit creepy watching 18-24 year olds in videos, I think this isn’t so different from the many old dudes who watch college football. I’m 27 and haven’t stepped foot on a skateboard in years, but I still keep up with all the videos. I was just never that good, but still think it’s fuckin cool to watch
March 15, 2014 at 4:40 am |
very well written and truer than I would like to admit.
March 15, 2014 at 7:36 pm |
a return to form for boiltheocean, set your own clock back a notch…
March 16, 2014 at 3:43 pm |
Did the minute hand slightly wiggle backwards when Lucas skated in Adidas swishies?
March 17, 2014 at 6:30 pm |
Best post in a while.
March 18, 2014 at 11:22 am |
Isn’t any skating performed by Lucas rather many minutes worth for the euro clock, emphasizing the irrelevance of origin and a bigger,well deserved importance of european companys and skaters in skateboarding itself?
March 19, 2014 at 12:11 pm |
“Hey daddy don’t you know that things work in cycles, the way bobby brown be amping like Michael. It’s all expected, things are for the looking”
Who gives a fuck? The videos aren’t going anywhere. If anything this world is missing Neil Blender, not Guy Mariano’s skid row dumbed down mind that lacks all the style he had in Mouse and replacing it with shock value tricks. Skateboarding will die again, and then be popular again, and then be raw again. The clock is a great metaphorical image because the clock keeps spinning.
Older dudes need inspiration from videos? Weird. The feeling of pushing down an empty street is motivation enough.
Article: amazing
Comments: sad
March 21, 2014 at 1:44 am |
Time is a flat circle.
March 21, 2014 at 9:21 pm |
Best article ever written on 90s skateboarding.
March 25, 2014 at 7:03 am |
‘Guy Mariano’s comeback for the Lakai video set the clock back by a full ten minutes, the largest increment on record, igniting controversy among some pundits who claimed the trick selection in fact merited moving the minute hand closer to midnight and others who argued for setting it back by as much as an hour on general principal….’
Amazing.
April 1, 2014 at 8:15 am |
Paulo in Cherry had to have given the 1990s a minute back.
May 6, 2014 at 2:20 pm |
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