Enter Ye This Hall of Game

Controversy and reverence reigned in equal measure over CM902 Fest ’15 this week at Boca Raton Resort & Club.

Delegates packed the pink hotel’s stucco-encrusted event space in what promised to be a dynamic week of thought leadership and networking in this, the 15th anniversary of the famed Muska release by C1RCA.

Standing out among the thought-provoking programme were frank recollections and occasional fireworks courtesy of a panel representing close associates and advisers to The Muska during the period when the shoe was being designed.

“Real talk, it was the one for him, and a moment in time,” said Jurg Jourgensonn, better known by his rap name Rich Rich.

“The Es Muska model was the origination and the CM901 was scripture, but the ‘902 brought the word to the people,” claimed Rich Rich. “Fuck with me.”

“902” was used by many attendees as shorthand for CM902, the shoe’s unique alphanumeric brand name.

Several tents festooned the trade show floor where vendors hawked CM902 related baubles and shirts. Sometimes you would see a bird.

“Please understand that The Muska spoke through the shoe, had something to say,” said Maurice Patrice, the Parisian playboy socialite who spent multiple weeks poolside in St. Thomas with The Muska as the CM902’s design coalesced. Patrice, whose ultimate influence in the final design remains much in debate, spoke on the same panel as Rich Rich.

“Observe the shapes embedded in the upper, squares, just as fear pens man inside four walls, his own self doubt,” Patrice said. “The Muska, you must understand, he wished for us to overcome this.”

Rich Rich scoffed. “Nah son.”

“Windows, with panes, if you will,” Patrice plowed ahead. “Through which a man–maybe broke, maybe subsisting on malt liquor and borrowed joints and sleeping on a beach, but a man–could see his way toward a better future.”

Patrice dragged on a skinny cigarette and made several other remarks about the shoe but many attendees’ focus shifted at that point to third panelist Jeffrey Allen “Skunk” Baxter, former Doobie Brother guitarist and current missile defense consultant, who silently stormed from the stage whilst offering no intelligible explanation.

“Don’t get it twisted,” interjected Rich Rich, known for his time bodyguarding various Muska entourage members and a brief career as an assistant sound engineer affiliated with the MuskaBeatz movement. “He was playful but he was never playing with you. If you can feel me.”

Laced with several French profanities and suggestions that attendees should buy the new Rich Rich ringtone, the panel marked an emotional apex for the event, though perhaps not a spiritual one. Magdalena Brycewaite, a helicopter factory superintendent based in Topeka, stunned several onlookers with high-volume raves regarding a vision of the CM902 she said appeared unto her while praying.

“The red color way,” she shrilled.

It remains unclear whether C1RCA may re-release the shoe.

Keep Supermarket Sweep Weird, f. Austyn Gillette

Have you done any recreational drugs recently?
Halloween… It was psycho, I took mushrooms at like 3pm and went to Target. I ended up talking to this pumpkin for a little bit, and stayed up until 8am the next day. Two years ago on Christmas eve, I did mushrooms and went to Walmart because I always wanted to do that. We got kicked out, we tried to ride the elliptical on the second shelf. I like those places they’re interesting to me – they’re just overwhelming. Like you go in with the intent of buying a toothbrush but you don’t get a toothbrush, you get a swiffer sweeper and a banana peeler, only things that you don’t need. The superstores, I’ve had a good time tripping in them.

Superstore tripping. Is it a thing you do during holidays?
Yeah, superstore tripping. Now that you mention it – It’s going to be a holiday tradition now.

Too Many Cooks

Roots-rocking revivalist Yasiin Bey famously claimed in space that the knack to flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. So shall it be for SOTY, and the yearlong subliminal toilings or lack thereof that may or may not place a 24th precious metaled and pantsed man atop some lucky pro’s professionally burbling toilet tank. Whereas recent bald-faced attempts to remake personal brands in the Thrasher mode, just happening to drop video projects near year’s end whilst wearing around S-A-D tees, generally have fallen flat, low-key schralping one’s fanny off in front of the proper HD lenses may yet prove to be the reliable path. Consider:

Cory Kennedy: A cheeseburger in paradise on a seven-day weekend, Cory Kennedy this year has spent much of his permanent vacation garbing himself in gift-shop merchandise on Thrasher-affiliated tours. His love affair with crust continues and ‘what-me-worry’ Oakley blading approach to life has taken him into the deep end sans pads, another plus in the Thrasher galaxy. Certain stony adventures truly put him on the road alongside various Bru-Rayers, Fourstars and the current SOTY clique, but has he been hittin hard enough between all the good times to shut the door on would-be campaigners?

Bobby Worrest: In recent years Bobby Worrest’s inclusion on such a list may have served merely as Facebook Timeline-ready clickbait for aging e-commercers reminiscing on early Brick Harbor clips, but consider: Ten years into his career, the DC-area’s kid beard has sidestepped various shoe-sponsor travails, only to switch backside noseblunt a handrail in one of his three video parts this year, each certified urban grade with no artificial flavors and seasonings. A hard-earned corporate sponsor paycheck may be a consolation prize if Thrasher fails to be won over by days of Pulaski clip-logging.

Wes Kremer: Similar to now-teammate Jake Brown giggling his way around the loop at Tampa that one year, Wes Kremer wobblingly cruised through to late-summer bomb the galaxy via an unassuming video that contained a wallie late-shove it over a chunky hubba, a slappy b/s 5-0 down some other hubba and one of the larger switch backside bigspin flips on offer recently. (It also copped a TWS cover for the curtain call, which you could look like as a plus or a minus in Thrasherland.) Then this week he did it again, running yet another slappy variation down the Clipper ledge, hucking massive shifty kickflips and resurrecting hallowed Peter Smolik career touchstones. Wes Kremer approaches Jake Johnson level wallrides, keeps his bushings slack and meanwhile seems like he’d be doing much the same shit whether they were handing awards out for it or not, so the Phelps brain-trust could easily do worse.

Torey Pudwill: With the mane of a virile walrus and a love interest that could’ve come off the arm of a freshly IPO’d internet mogul, Torey Pudwill hardly requires Thrasher’s most-exclusive title to achieve fulfillment, but there he was last summer, bringing back the so-called suski grind, pushing his ever-longer backside tailslides and exhibiting that generally ludicrous pop en route to what’s billed as a blockbuster entry in the Plan B video, which for real really is seriously coming out. Torey Pudwill gifted unto High Speed Productions two Thrasher covers this year, but does his wiggly armed comet orbit close enough to the magazine’s star to get him over?

Dylan Rieder: Our black leather pant-clad dark horse candidate, Dylan Rieder’s muscular pop and eye for Soviet-era public art as background flair got him onto the front of Thrasher earlier this year, sporting sunglasses to boot. For all those years of brutality when Heath Kirchart prowled under the radar, could Dylan Rieder’s zeitgeist-capturing turn in Bill Strobeck’s “Cherry” and Berlin residency — including that pop out of the noseblunt — in support of his latest pro-model wing tip be too much for the Thrasher camp to resist? No other name on this list brought nudity to the table the way Dylan Rieder has this year.

Separately, if Danny Way repeated off the strength of his Mega-RampingTM “DC Video” part last decade, should Tony Hawk merit a mention for recording two parts this year with time left over to tame the Nessie-like hoverboard? Where does Mark Suciu’s MJ-sized “Search the Horizon” opus fall for Thrasher’s fiscal-year purposes? How many Wasserman Clients this year will garner a coveted nomination?

Torey Pudwill Sells the Sizzle, Not the Steak

What is indulgence in a place and time wherein health-conscious pros promote GMO-free diets, former Pissdrunx advocate smoothie-centric nutrition and others cut short vacations to resume filming video parts? Torey Pudwill offers the 20-shot sequence version of 2pac’s “Hit Em Up,” devoting roughly 45% of this finished product to an extended outro/rollaway. Cynics will find easy jokes about showcasing a quieter pair of arms, but perhaps T-Puds takes advantage here of the ongoing ‘homage’ trend to instead foreshadow a coming vacation post-Plan B video.