Summertime Mixtape Vol. 5 – Dustin Dollin and Lewis Marnell ‘Chichagof’

Beyond your typical personal chemistry and blood oaths, one key to great skate duos of any era is a certain peanut butter-meets-chocolate stylistic matchup. It was true for Jason Dill and AVE, for Louie Barletta and Jerry Hsu, for Mike Carroll and Rick Howard, and it was true for Dustin Dollin as he introduced his preternaturally gifted ‘filmer’ in Volcom’s 2004 pronunciation challenge to tongue-tied shop employees worldwide. Dustin Dollin by this point had established himself as one of the highest-functioning soaks among the Baker squad, solidified via Transworld’s ‘Sight Unseen’ and ‘Baker2G’. By this point his rapid flick, penchant for hairy crooked grinds, and frontside heelflip were known across the hills and dales, but Dustin Dollin’s tricks had a little different flavor when sandwiched around those of relative newcomer Lewis Marnell, who was toward the beginning of his too-short run. The Dunks still were fresh and the hair had yet to dread but other pivotal pieces in the Lewis Marnell repertoire — the heelflip, 360 flips both ways, the switch varial heelflip — already were fully formed.

As We Consider The Potential For International Interest-Rate Watchdogs To Turn Their Gaze Upon Street League Scoring, Here Are Several Charts

In recent days the undersea volcanic trench that is Rob Dyrdek’s business empire sent up another frothy cascade of bubbles that made ‘internet waves,’ as his Street League subsidiary jockeyed for position and unique eyeballs among an increasingly crowded and soda residue-sticky field of contest franchises. Rob Dyrdek, who skate lore says steered his investments away from P-Jays Undapendent just ahead of the great backpack rap bubble’s bursting in the early part of the last decade, is revered among newly pro’d auto-shoppers pondering the lease vs. own question for his business acumen and counter-intuitive moves, which oftentimes leave lesser investors in the dust and gazing up toward what appears to be an increasingly lofty ivory-tower perch.

Rob Dyrdek has proven that he cannot be bound by common rules and statutes of business 101, just as he cannot be constricted by typical contest guidelines, going on to design his own rules and then breaking those just the same. Rob Dyrdek has revamped various business lines altogether, for instance reviving the noble tradition of metallurgy and advanced alloying in the Serbian basin and more recently buying his pet small horse a pager. For his next move, Rob Dyrdek seems set upon reconfiguring the social stratum. A while ago we explored the concept of a top-1% designation for pros flexing to the tune of private skating facilities and other perks. Due to the power of Street League, pro skateboarders now clean the clocks of NFL union members in terms of earnings growth, perhaps delivering a cosmic blow against the jocks of the universe, right where it counts.

According to cited figures, social media friends of Street League man to man could take on the country of Australia in a brawl and stand a good chance of winning, depending on what time of day the fight started and whether Australia had just eaten a big meal beforehand. The popularity of the Street League has enabled each league cycle to hold sway over TV and internet streaming services for more than 315 hours, or roughly four months.

Yet has Rob Dyrdek’s appetite for risk led him to chance losing it all? The British Bankers Association’s approach to formulating the London interbank offered rate, a worldwide benchmark for floating rate lending, has come under fire as trading desks allegedly leaned on rate-setters to quote artificially high or low rates, part of a plan to skew the Libor’s fixing and reap rewards in the markets. Untold sums lean against these rates in the form of mortgages, auto loans and futures market bets, all of which have come into question following regulators’ allegations.

Could the Street League’s unique method of contest score calculation draw similar scrutiny? Should smelting be added as the long-rumored “fifth element” of Street League? Do you remember when Rob Dyrdek mastered the 20-stair rail in that old DC commercial and AVE turned in an uncredited cameo as a construction worker? Is AVE in the 99% or the 1%? Same question for Rob Dyrdek’s small horse but in terms of horse earnings?

McDoubles

Royale with cheese

For those who started skating decades back there’s shit being done now that of course seems unfathomable in retrospect, for instance, switch 360 flipping double-sets, 360 flip noseblunts, nose tattoos and so on. Then there’s a whole other world of tricks that are the type of thing that theoretically were within the realm of possibility, but so out of hand as to be restricted to idle speculation during recess or in the wee hours of a sleepover after the third watch of “Public Domain,” and it is into this category that this sequence from the new TSM falls: Tony Hawk blasting a quarter century’s worth of contest-honed McTwisting over Aaron “No” Homoki’s parlour trick somewhere in Australia.

The Nieratko-penned article on this trip is a generally good one by the way – brief and BB-tinged, it’s telling of the way things are reshaping at the ‘house that Hawk built. For one, there’s an amusing Shawn White diss, and much is made of the fact that the Birdman was in the van* as opposed to sipping Chardonnay on his Lear jet or whatever on their city-to-city jaunts. Plus, the dude skated street with the bros (who included his son) and threw down his personal plastic when more juice was required to keep the distillates flowing. Who can say whether the B-House corporate account remains solvent. Perhaps Willy Santos, who also has a Birdhouse ad this month. No shit, Willy Santos. Either way, Birdhouse continues to be home to some genuinely dirty/dedicated dudes and there’s effort being put in over there to have a say in the way things are right now.

*they rented a van