[ ] Opening an Olive Garden restaurant in Tuscany, Italy
[ ] Putting a Panda Express store in Shanghai, China
[ ] Outback Steakhouse opening in Sydney, Australia
[ ] A Polar Ice factory in Antartica
[ ] A Velveeta outlet on the moon
“We felt there was something missing in Europe, a place where our friends and team can ride and enjoy street skating without the street hustle,” said European Skate Category Manager Ruben Garcia.
Way back when, there was a point in which my room went wall-to-wall with magazine page paneling that pulled heavily from the old TWS photo issues with lots of full-bleeds, “Sightings” and now-vintage DCSHOECOUSA ads. Jim Greco’s switch kickflip down the old Med Choice gap in the Nirvana shirt was featured, and I think a Neal Mims roof gap 360 flip. This is one of several reasons I could not run a scans blog, alongside a fuzzboxed memory bank when it comes to who had ads in what issue and generally being poor at scanning I think. But on top of the Cory Kennedy sequence from the Transworld below there were at least four pages I’d tear out of the new Skateboard Mag if I was doing up a new wall, starting with this Ryan Lay 5-0 — the perilously close-to-the-wall switch b/s lipslide a few pages later is another one* and so is Anthony Schultz’s bump-to-fence blaster on page 112. Anybody care to guess what the fourth one is?
*They’d have to be on different sides of the room though because I’m not about to put two photos of the same dude right next to one another, bad form etc
The burgeoning web 3.0 endeavor “Already Been Done” nets a gimme mention on our web-space today by posting up some 411 industry section-era Josh Kalis footage that has the Love Park ledges, DC Lynx and wind pants you might expect, but also spices things up some with a few lesser-used arrows from the Kalis quiver (switch frontside crooked grind, reverse Pupecki) and some of that urban camo with the dark red blotches. A cursory search of Wikipedia’s camoflague page has revealed little as to the technical name of this camo persuasion. If anybody (such as the camo professors of Quartersnacks maybe) should know the identity of the black/white/dark gray/dark red camouflage pattern please chime in below so I can avoid looking so silly next time some good footage pops up that somehow incorporates this pattern.
For a second I thought about titling this “Hey Mr Tambornino Man” and now I’m sorta thinking about it again
With getting a signature model shoe now the dividing line between the men and the boys occupying the pro ranks*, and sponsored amateur status splattered across various distributor/factory/direct programs, there are more rungs than ever for today’s hungry young am to traverse on his way toward that gold-plated Honda Civic in the sky. Theoretically I guess it’s possible to still get over on a blazing Tampa run or sheer hype but it seems more and more like dudes need a stack of Youtube-accessible DIY video parts to even get in the door, and you better have another stack to feed the internet footage monster so you can squeak past and claim the princess/treasure/golden Honda. Crazy tricks help but the Tweet-addled public’s attention span has shriveled to miliseconds and they’re gonna forget that triple-set switch frontside heelflip in a matter of weeks, if not days.**
And so, from the land of ice and snow comes CJ Tambornino, ravenous and bearing some brain-scraping new footage at The Skateboard Mag website. Despite being dubbed King of Chicago last weekend Tambornino is of the same Minnesota scene that birthed Davis Torgerson’s nollie frontside hurricane grind and this clip sees the dude looking to up some antes as far as concocting several what-the-fuck combos that I personally have never seen before: switch backside tailslide inward heelflip bigspin out, nollie 360 inward heelflip, switch hardflip frontside crooked grind. And then, switch 360 flipping a triple-set. Sleep, crazy footage monster…
What Tambornino does, or is able to do, with his newfound “Best Week Evar” status remains to be seen but his general topic is trending to the max just now all across this internet, prompting widespread disbelief, miscellaneous style critiques and this amusing anecdote from Slap board user “liver knees”:
I saw this guy skating in Barca back in March, I’d never heard of him then but have since seen a couple of clips on Platinum Seagulls. At MACBA, he was doing this line at the top ledge near enough every go: nollie heel/nollie flip noseslide (whichevery he felt like I guess), nollie 360 inward heel, switch flip tailslide/switch tail flip out (again, whichever he felt like) then switch tre off the ledge. I was dumbfounded, a guy I’d never heard of doing a trick I’d never seen in my life, every try, in the middle of a line. That’s why you shouldn’t go skate in Barca unless you’re comfortable being sucky at skateboarding.
We here at BTO kicked up our feet some time ago, which makes it far easier to sit back and let something like a switch backside tailslide inward heelflip bigspin wash over you. It also makes weekends less stressful, makes peanut butter sandwiches taste better and also helps to avoid internet footage monsters.
*unless we’re counting TV show money I guess
**PS, what happened to that little kid who had that amazing kickflip to b/s wallride over the gap, to a dumpster/electrical box? Anybody?
Not Lizard King or T-Pain, or even Billy Gibbons
Back in 2001, when men were men, pro deck sales were still on the upswing and PJ Ladd was wrapping up a game-altering East Coast shop video part, plucky softgoods concern Planet Earth released the largely overlooked “F.O.R.E. and Friends,” a city-hopping video that brought together the likes of Kenny Anderson, Felix and a young Terry Kennedy* to celebrate the rising star of Forrest Kirby, who at the time occupied a place in skateboarding where he basically was like everybody’s lovable little brother. Whether donning a doo-rag or skidding banger noseblunts, FORE was down with everybody and stood poised to take his place amongst top-ranked professional athletes everywhere, before stepping back to attend CCD and pen faith-based memoirs.
As you can imagine we live in less innocent times nowadays. International jewel thieves still are at large; 50 Cent is having problems selling CDs of his music and snitches roam the streets. Yet some things are not so different. Dustin Dollin remains a glorious mess for instance. Varial kickflips are still better left alone unless you are Brian Anderson. Whereas we once had Nate Dogg, we now obey the robot voice of Tallahassee Pain, and while skateboarding once ruffled the hair of a towheaded kid from San Antonio, in 2009 everyone wants to be down with the Satan worshippin’, razorblade abusin’, crazy-eyed rail/gap/other killa Mike Plumb.
And just as T-Pain took the stage at the Grammy awards and beseeched award-winning artists everywhere to hit him on the hip for collaborative art pursuits, Lizard King seems eager to get down with anyone and everyone possible — his journey from a one-foot backside lipsliding amateur contest oddity sponsored by Think has brought him into the house of Reynolds, and more recently he’s spreading the endorsement love amongst entities including but not limited to Jake Brown and Sean Sheffey’s not-sure-if-it’s-real-or-not clothing venture “Laced” and, ah, DC Shoes? Lizard King’s three-ring circus is such that you are never certain what to believe, what is true and what is just bleary-eyed delusion.
Other traits shared with T-Pain: a boisterous nickname, a penchant for outlandish behavior that might be really annoying in other people, and they’re both friends with people who have tattoos on their face.
A healthy work ethic and the big-tent approach has worked for T-Pain, just as it has served Lizard King well. And despite the media ubiquity of both it’s hard not to cheer for them. They are too tirelessly and exuberantly weird to root against, neither seems to take himself too serious, and for the most part it wouldn’t do any good anyway. In closing, if Mike Plumb contributes an autotune hook to a JR rap song you all owe this web blog $1000.
*who had yet to learn bluntslides from Stevie Williams
boil the ocean 