7. Elijah Odom – ‘You Deserve It’

The record indicates that particular tricks, carried off in proper form and in the utmost time, can be enough all by themselfs to register placement on a year-end wrap list published on a web ‘blog’, and in this year, such an individual is Alltimers sponsored Elijah Odom, and specifically his fakie shove-it nosegrind across the step ledge in the company’s full-length vid from November. With enough time and thoughtful character placement, its praises could properly be sung (typed), though one may run the risk of short-shrifting a ton of the other material packed into this part, like the length he gets out of the backside 180 nosegrind on the big white Pulaski wall or the boosted fakie ollie over the rail. This dude is an East Coast bruiser with a silky backside flip and the muscle to plow through serious crust, like the backside 50-50 on the traffic barrier or the Philly step frontside nosegrind. He’s got a great fakie backside tailslide in the recent ‘Rascal’ video also.

Was Jamie Foy’s Yellow-Shirted SOTY Surprise an Implicit Rebuke Of Overt Trophy Hunting or Gasoline for More?

In an age where fortunes are made and dashed again with the fateful tapping of a touchscreen or a practiced turn before the correct lens, does anything remain inevitable? The SOTY campaign, one of Thrasher’s sturdiest tentpoles in a domination of new media forms that other, older publications could learn from, is proving increasingly tough to pin down as potentate pros’ lust for the Rusty statue tilts video releases toward a year-end glut and dudes go all in with bones and ligaments as autumn shrivels the leaves to warmful tones.

Throughout much of 2017, a heavy whiff of inevitability trailed yung Louie Lopez, once derided among Flip 3.0’s crop of hard-to-watch tween pickups, now a fully formed ATV testing the limits of his considerable powers in all the correct venues. Even before his Spitfire part hit, rumblings could be sensed that this was Louie Lopez’s year (or major sponsors believed so), a concept that seemed more and more certain as he ripped the SPoT to pieces en route to first place, joined Jake Phelps and co. in a cobranded Thrasher and Spitfire trip, and bounded up and across massive walls and onto the mag’s cover*. Hash tags endorsing his candidacy piled up and in recent weeks, following his searing ‘West End’ part, he was positioned as an Arto Saari heir apparent, while an interviewer wondered about a post-SOTY life for Louie Lopez.

What happened? With a meaty thud, much is swept aside by a buzzer-beating trip down a double-digit sized stair set, same as the multi-kink hulk that Kyle Walker conquered to gazump Evan Smith last year. Fate opened a lane for Fred Gall-shaped Floridian Jamie Foy this year, dispening tickets to Thrasher’s KOTR and Am Scramble trips, and Jamie Foy pushed the pedal all the way down. It is difficult to remember or indeed, imagine a faster rise — getting on a board company at the start of the year, a pro board a few months later, and then Ty Evans’ ‘Flat Earth’ film, providing a ham-going fourth-quarter opportunity that Jamie Foy took once again, carving two notches into the famed El Toro set. If Skater of the Year campaigns are evolving into meticulously planned, months-long efforts to strategically release footage, get your guy onto the right trips and pump up the IG volume, is there a certain allure in getting behind the bowling ball barreling toward all the carefully set pins?

Is the speed of Jamie Foy’s ascent, from amateur to pro and SOTY the same year, a reflection of or reason behind the breakneck pace driving skate media these days? Will a starring turn on Thrasher’s Viceland series become a prime propulsion toward future SOTY titles, as Vice veers frighteningly close to MTV territory in terms of thirstily mining skating for TV fodder? Could the nod to Jamie Foy also serve as a quiet acknowledgement that it shoulda been Fred Gall one of those years? Do we, the slack-jawed viewer, remain the ultimate winners even as Skater of the Year campaigns grow more overt and assertive? Do all the stair counts and smoothly executed pop shove-it reverts fall by the wayside when considering the way another perennial contender, Tiago Lemos, forces the world to reimagine what is even possible?

*With The Skateboard Mag gone away, does Thrasher revert to the shorthand “the mag” again?

Eric Koston, Exploring The Potential For Hammers In Personal Wardrobing, May Suddenly Have Del Boca Vista On Smash

At Boil the ocean custom sceptre repair and old-tyme blogginghaus we make few pretenses to the effect that our ultimate loyalties lie elsewise than with the 1990s torch-bearing set, and it is against these currents that we swim when trying to weigh the personal bearing and heaviness of the newer faces on Girl/Chocolate, as juxtaposed in particular across “Pretty Sweet.” The task grows no easier when you have Eric Koston, a five-star general in the game who wears a jersey that says Champion and eats a bowl of Wheaties every morning, pushing around dressed like he’s got his mind set on the shuffleboard court and the early-bird special.

Initially “Pretty Sweet” finds him dressed for the PGA tour, schralping a California ditch in a soberly striped shirt and well-appointed swoosh hat, but before long he’s going for that high-risk 360 flip to switch manual off the drop where he can be seen breaking out the neon crayola crayon tees and, importantly, the camo. You may not guess it coming from a dude of his stature, but I am beginning to suspect that Eric Koston does not have a firm grasp on the efficient use of camo. Case in point being the run down the brick banks where Koston, possibly in a fit of wild abandon, chooses to combine a striped soccer jersey with some camouflage army fatigues, breaking several international accords against pairing stripes with camos. Later he indulges in some cut-off blue jean shorts while going all Jake Johnson down an APAC staircase.

More recently, Koston has been noticed swanning about certain European properties in a floral print hat, basketball jerseys and faux leopard skin, like some headphone-endorsing, crash helmet-wearing Tony Manfre.

While curiously diverse the point is not to catalogue the various and sundry fashion combinations that Eric Koston chooses to pursue, bizarre though some may be. One can imagine Koston, more than two decades into the video deadline grind and flush with Nike contract payments, grumpily rejecting any claims on tightly choreographed shirt/pant ensembles and thrusting his fingers deeper and deeper into whatever bottomless and mouldering duffel bag he has in tow on the current filming tour, cobbling together increasingly outlandish getups and upbraiding any youngster that hazards a question or sideways glance. You can begin to picture him treating a particularly day-glo hue of pants, better left undiscovered in some discount bin long since abandoned by a merciful god, as a personal challenge not to be left unaccepted and preferably matched with a pair of banana yellow sneakers, a cantankerous grin perched on his lip and maybe a bingo card stuffed into his back pocket.

Will Eric Koston’s embrace of ultra-technical, two-sided curb tricks reach a peak concurrent to his recent exploration of colorful and multi-disciplined outfits, potentially involving a sombrero? Has Koston finally gone “too far”? Is this all a natural (though somewhat delayed) reaction to the white tee/blue jean uniform of 1995?

Six Pictures Of Danny Renaud Skating Again, And One Other, Cribbed From Various Instagram Entries

“The recovery process was hell. I was confined to wheel chairs and walkers. I had a halo around my left leg for about 6 months and one on my right for two years. I had to sleep on my back, coffin style, the whole time. Talk about taking tossing and turning at night for granted. I had to learn how to walk all over again. I couldn’t start my recovery until the halo’s were off. The day I got my second halo off, I walked around a lake that was about four miles. It wasn’t until last August (2011) that I got my last surgery where I had my Achilles heel lengthened and scar tissue removed for more range of motion in my right ankle.”

“I’ve been skating a lot, trying to get this footage for Mike Atwood’s upcoming video, Incognito, which should be good. All the Florida homies and then some. So far I’ve got a small part, but you know how it goes. It’s a nightmare trying to film, but I’m working on it. I’m also taking some business classes in New York because eventually I would like to start up my own small company.”

Thanks to those users from whom these photos were yanked. For rewatching purposes.

Slim, French and Dynomite

As a sorta postscript to the last couple rambles, formerly Cliched professional JJ Rousseau offers one spin on a post-honeymoon occupation, setting in as lensman for a day at the foundation with recent summertime ambassador Lucas Puig. He seems to be vying with Mark Suciu for lines of the year, will anybody in the Crailtap production get in their way? Section bears ties with another former pro, Alphonso Rawls, who reveals that the three-stripe idea has been done not once but twice before. That frontside 180 to fakie manual, I can’t stand it..

7. Evan Smith – Independent Trucks Part

Remember being drawn to rewatch this part because of the meandering street lines, especially the ones taped at night. These are the type of clips that capture that free and sorta sneaky feeling that I think Brian Anderson was getting at in the “Modus Operandi” voiceover, but with less soundstage strings attached, just pushing your board down some empty street doing tricks without having to worry too much about cars or pedestrians or running out of pavement. Before this clip I didn’t pay Evan Smith a lot of mind but this is a well put together section that’s judicious about filming a few good rail tricks at good angles and throwing in odd curveball, like the ender. This part is a good bookend to the Zach Funk one in terms of spots and I like to mute the volume and put on “Planet Caravan.”

Jimmy Lannon: Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Killa season

Prior mutterings in this space asked readers to imagine a more perfect world, in which magical creatures offered significant discounts on quality goods and towheaded Floridian Jimmy Lannon was a well-paid professional. Balding scientists with spectacles and powerful space telescopes continue the search for this land, but the new vid from Sunshine State VX impresario Joe Perrin offers a fully realized glimpse, as Lannon bops and wheelies his way through sun-drenched alleyways, ollieing every hydrant and waist-high pole in sight.

This dude is so good to watch and a prime example of making a sorta focused trick list go a long ways (not to insinuate he’s limited at all). Lannon gets as urban as your favorite borough-combing cords wearer with more pop and a penchant for fakie ollieing up big ledges. In this alternate universe we’ve described the hot approach is fakieing up shit rather than riding up rails; Steve Durante, you are on the guest list.

Rumors swirl that Jimmy Lannon, a longtime Lakai flow box recipient, basically showed himself the door at Element after declining to climb aboard its floundering footwear ship, and who knows whether that’s true or if it was a wise longterm career move, but the footage for sure was better served with a Junior MAFIA-flavored ender section in “The Dango Is Dead” than being trimmed and tucked into whatever next Element project. On that note we’re obligated to point out that it’s worth investing in the DVD, which comes with the OG “Dango” as well as “The Good Life” and a handful of other videos that make you realize Montessi’s Westside shop at this point boasts a video franchise that’s both longer and more quality than some board and shoe outfits. There’s also a sick part from a kid called Jonathan Cruz who does nice-looking nosegrinds in tight spaces, order it off Westside’s site.

Getting the Dirt Out

News, of the best sort – belligerent loudmouth and Floridian style impresario Danny Renaud is well down the megaramp roll-in of recovery, recently captured mid-noseslide. What were we saying the other day?

Last of a dirty breed

Hit your burglar alarms

I got Joe Perrin’s heater of a video “Last of the Mohicans” a while back and after a couple weeks of watching it I’m basically left with a bunch of questions: Is Fred Gall the grindingest dude over 25 in the skateboard realm? Is he the grindingest dude period? Did Steve Durante skate to a Blues Traveler instrumental? How did Josh Dowd roll away from the last switch wallride in his part? How come so many of these Florida dudes wear beards?

There’s East Coast grime and then there’s Florida grime… sweaty, mossy, crushed glass and dead brown rat grime. And haze. I used to think it was just fogged up cameras but after watching “The Good Life” a billion times along with the older Statics I have come to understand that the air in Florida literally sweats, creating a sort of light fog. This is known to meteorologists as the Gershon effect.

In spite of my usual “too long” complaint, which in this instance I will amend to “just a little bit too long,” the “Mohicans” video knocks on pretty much all levels. The lineup has familiar dirts (Danny Renaud, Jon Newport, Jimmy Lannon, Joel Meinholz), lesser-known dirts (Dowd, 80s Joe, Ross Norman who skates sort of like Andy Honen) and a generous sprinkling of random others such as Durante, Jack Sabback and Todd Jordan, as well as Cincinnatianites Al Davis and Dave Caddo.

Skating-wise it’s along the same lines as Josh Stewart’s “Static” stuff, with maybe less cellar doors and more manuals. Also less reverence for mouldering brick structures. Highlights: Fred Gall’s meaty switch wallie in his opening line…Al Davis’ b/s 180 switch frontside crooked grind revert…Durante’s seen-it-before-but-bigger-this-time switch backside tailslide switch heelflip…Caddo’s frontside 180 switch crooked grind…Ed Selego’s towering nosegrind…80s’ masterful switch heelflip over the gap…Renaud’s entire section as usual but most especially the backside noseblunt revert. Man.

It builds to a sweaty, bearded crescendo, Josh Dowd’s closer part, which is pretty much one shocking switch move after the other. Switch backside lipslide to switch backside 5-0, that kind of shit. The switch frontside crooked grind up above. A big switch 360 flip at the end of a line. Hopefully somebody puts him on.

So right, this is one of the best videos of the year. Besides Josh Dowd it also features a lot of beer drinking, night skating and occasional gunfire. Buy it from Killa Tapes so Perrin can film Dango’s antics in HD next time.