The Further Rise Of The Machines

If the Skater of Tha Year race is becoming all about December surprises, chalk one up for Hal. In a move this week that sent jitters down the spine of every red-blooded opposable thumbs-haver, a motorcycle made a late bid for the top honor in boardsportsdom, brrraaaapping its way through multiple famed ‘hammertime’ spots — and straight into an uncertain future for the planet in general.

The antics of the motorcycle, piloted by/likely possessor of one Justin Mulford, are captured in the Fox Racing-endorsed video part ominously titled ‘Dead Man Walking.’ In it, the motorcycle and Mulford (a sometime associate of David Loy, who is knowed to come under the influence of techno* music) jointly pursue rubbery, two-wheeled wallrides, nose manuals and euro-gap jumps across any number of SoCal locales familiar to many remaining loyal to humankind’s seven-plied achievements: picnic tables, drainage ditches, a mixed-action sport hit on Hollywood High, and an ender-ender at the famed Staples Center hubba.

It is plainly shocking to see a motorcycle rival the likes of Pedro Delfino and thoroughly deserved SOTY laureate Mason Silva for pure balls-outiness at scale, and to understand how quickly machines have assimilated innovations such as Tyrone Olson’s jump ramp-to-handrail. Still, the vid ought to come as little surprise to the ranks of the living, even considering 2020’s varied distractions. The truth is, machines have for years inched closer to supremacy not just in feats of mathematics, strategy and linguistics, but they increasingly have demonstrated a number of athletic and ‘extreme’ flexes that indicate an unalloyed lack of fear, and a certain zest for embarrassing humankind.

Just as the animatronic Chuck-E-Cheez band once intoned to pizza-soaked schoolchildren, everywhere there are signs: Rob Dyrdek’s creation of the Street League numerological trick scoring system, transforming tricks into machine-readable currencies; later, among Bob Burnquist’s organic coconut groves, the gyrating, thrusting antics of a helicopter gone ape all over the MegaRampTM — a scene-stealing performance that increasingly reads as a dire warning rather than the extreme entertainment spectacle as which it masqueraded, in those gentler times. FuckingAwesome, understood to be the largest company in terms of t-shirt revenue, followed a Henry Sanchez ‘Terminator’ tribute board endorsed by Anthony Van Engelen with this year’s T-1000 model under the Hockey imprint, for human three-day weekend Andrew Allen.

Eventually, when semi-autonomous completes enable even the least-coordinated barneys to film Brian Peacock combos using self-filming drones, will skaters of the current epoch be considered as backward and masochistic as we today look upon hack drivers and whalers? If this sort of motorcycling catches on widely, will cops scale tickets according to the offender’s horsepower? Is this all turnabout for conjuring the MegaRampTM from Evel Knievel phantoms? Ought we all gird for the day when self-aware monster trucks, filming video parts in a post-singularity wasteland, crush the remaining legacy skate spots to dust, mixing in the wind with the charred remains of humankind?

*short for technological, which itself is a reference to advanced technology

3. Andrew Allen – “Prevent This Tragedy”

A lot like Anthony Van Engelen did 10 years ago and Henry Sanchez did before that, Andrew Allen’s market strategy relies in part on bringing a hairball ramp-dog mentality to switch backside tailslides and frontside k-grinds — out the gate here he reverse suplexes a rail (backside) and careens into a big angry hill that eventually decides not to play nice. The big backside flip into the bank, switch backside 5-0 the creamy colored ledge and the switch b/s tail down that sorta wavy hubba emphasizes Andrew Allen’s smooth and sensitive side, and by the end he comes off a little better with the hills. “Prevent This Tragedy” was one of the better videos of the year, hopefully Thrasher keeps this ball rolling.

Andrew Allen Is the Best Pool Skater Working Right Now

Thought you thought

Looking at the pic above, in the Alkaline Trio-themed new Thrasher, kind of blows me away. First of all, because it’s a big hill, with steel poles menacing anyone who might try and roll down it. Second of all, you may notice that Andrew Allen is not just rolling but jumping into it. Third of all it’s even crazier because he’s doing this jump backward-footed (switchstance in the new-school parlance) and fourth of all it’s yet crazier still since he is a pool skater on Anti-Hero who wears Dickies and knee socks.

It’s obvious that the boy is in way over his head. He basically says as much in the Thrasher–

It was super windy and I’d been bailing it, so I decided, “I don’t care. I’m riding away on the next one.” I really had no control of my board. I was bouncing off the wall. I just got fed up. I hit the kink at the end of it and I don’t really know what happened — just closed my eyes. I woke up on the ground with a couple of scrapes. Cheated death a little bit, but not really.”

With hair as tall as an embattled late-night TV host, Andrew Allen is a living, breathing, sponsored testament to the fact that proper grooming, great lift and a can-do attitude can earn one exceptions from many of the limitations this earthly life foists upon us. He has been infected with a love for the new style of street skating, with nary a backyard pool to be found in his section of the excellent new Thrasher/Cons video (a welcome throwback to the mid-00’s glut of free promo DVDs). Like a post-darkness Anthony Van Engelen or a pre-web 2.0 Salman Agah, the pool skater Allen brings a weightful tangibility to his ledge and gap shit that makes his tricks come off looking a bit more significant, as opposed to your usual stick-limbed tween in stretch corduroys and one of those puffy-topped ski hats with semi-ironic knit stitching upon the side. He doesn’t crush tricks like Pete Eldridge does but everything looks like there’s a little more meat to it (see: switch b/s tailslide kickflip, switch backside lipslide, noseblunt pop-out).

Somehow going back to the above photo, this trick taken on its own kind of encapsulates the whole vibe of “PTT” — Thrasher-approved tech/gnar chemistry heated to the verge of bubbling over, which of course it inevitably does. Also plaid and a beanie.

Beast of Both Worlds

The Which Beer Project

Like Guns’n’Roses and Metallica, peanut butter and chocolate, Hall & Oates, some combos seem predestined somehow – bear witness to Girl and Anti-Hero’s “Beauty and the Beast” tour, already inked into the annals of legendary road trips, and the video the best tour documentary to come along since probably “Harsh Euro Barge.” It’s no “Barbarians At the Gate” or “Shit” but I’d definitely rate it above the bloated “Super Champion Fun Zone,” and let’s be honest, in the late 00’s, making a tour video that’s worth watching more than once is no mean feat. Even O’Dell and his all-seeing VX1000 struggled against that bar with last year’s “Wild Ride” doc.

The 10 Beast Moments:
10. McCrank’s Miller flip subtitle – he skates for Girl, remember?
9. Gerwer no-handed climbing the ladder / Koston crapping out on the boat
8. Jack Rebney Beast edit cameo
7. Trujillo’s hardflip – Scarface sidewalk gap soundtrack
6. Wizard staffs – on track to become as ubiquitous as Half-Cabs, or played out like Leo Romero’s black eye game?
5. BA’s pants sag – Gerwer’s AH sombrero
4. Malto’s nosegrind pop-out – Peabody gap to b/s smith grind
3. Julien Stranger nollie noseblunt – Alex Olson brick nosegrind
2. John Cardiel – backside 50/50
1. Mike Carroll, Japan air – very possibly the best trick caught on film this year: