Wrath, Reality And The Raw Deal: Runners ‘N Riders For Thrasher Skater Of Tha Year 2022

In these topsy turvy times of celebrity curses and automated internet warfare, when superheroes serve mainly as anchors for movie franchises or heavy-class ocean freighters, what truly matters? If you answered ‘nothing’ you have achieved a level of nihilism that may qualify you for hawking used autos or maintaining any number of illicit substance problems. If you answered Thrasher Magazine’s ‘Skater of tha Year’ award, you may possess sufficiently heightened awareness to accurately recognize the lesser import of golden medallions, money cups and corn syrup-and-caffeine-drenched riches of various description. Who has a line on it this year? Who is bound for eternal glory, and who for the flamey fires of darkest Hades, or maybe both? Let us read along and find out.

Louie Lopez: A perennial contender over much of the past decade and in the discussion once again, the ‘Rusty’ trophy may be starting to resemble Lucy’s football to the Lou stans of the world. His bona fides at this point are not debatable and he’s this year made vids for FuckingAwesome and Spitfire, held down a Volcom tour clip, produced one of those less-common covers that commands repeated close examination and came up with possibly the most-reposted trick out of CPH Pro. He’s just had another interview-length feature in the mag with a bunch of photos that suggest more footage to come, and he’s still got a month or so to film, so odds are he could produce two if he was looking to turn up the volume.

Tristan Funkhouser: Baker’s can’t-drive-55 grease fire had so far probably the most classically ‘Thrasher’ video part this year in last spring’s Baker production, mixing his typical hairball shit like the drop down to nose manual on the Union Square block and the ferocious rip all the way through the China Banks with other pulls from his increasingly deep bag, like that switch heelflip down the SF triple set. He was all over last summer’s GX video too, most crazily the nosegrind down the Mason Street rail into the hill, and maybe will have some more before the year is out. That jaw-dropper cover shot of the frontside ollie across the long China Banks bench, a trick that was landmark enough to cap off a documentary, and with the checkerboard slips and Jagermeister shirt, seems a credible deal-sealer that would be tough to argue against.

Tyshawn Jones: After flying the FuckingAwesome coop earlier this summer, Tyshawn Jones now is fully in album mode, in the past month putting out an all-time cover for the magazine and unloading the first of at least a couple promised batches of footage in a ‘Hardies Hardware’ video that seemed comprised mainly of clips that would rank as enders for a good deal of other dudes. His bar for the tricks and spots he chooses and judicious dispensing of footage and photos makes his stuff hit harder when it lands, and it’s a strong case when he’s firing on all cylinders like this. But there’s way too many credible candidates year in and year out to hand the award to the same dude twice; the Thrasher brain trust should let Tyshawn’s current run, like Ishod’s and Kyle Walker’s in various years past, function as further justification for the years they won, and show that the title is just as much a bet on longevity beyond one or two big years or vids.

Fred Gall: In years past a half-joking response to this question that after a 25-year run now seems fairly credible, Uncle Fred has evolved from a beloved ODB-style wildman into one of the culture’s more unlikely elder statesmen, maybe even more deeply beloved. This year he did a heavy video part that stands up with some of his best stuff going back to the Sub-Zero days, has been DIYing spots all around New Jersey, presided over a more-official relaunch of his longtime homies’ board company, is helping people kick drugs, and stood for a rare portrait cover for Thrasher wearing a stained shirt and war-weary stare. It’s probably not him this year, but imagine if it were.

TJ Rogers: The leading contender for biggest pants on a Canadian — itself a heavily contested title from year to year — TJ Rogers also has represented one of the more upbeat storylines in another tumultuous year, battling cancer and appearing in recent months to have gained the upper hand. He has pumped out video parts while doing so, with some heavy stuff like a really scary nollie backside 180 over the fence at Hollywood High and an earmuff headphone save after a big backside lipslide; whereas 20 years ago riding for Blind and Es could put a pro like Ronnie Creager comfortably atop the sponsorship food chain, these days it gives TJ Rogers kind of an underdog sheen.

Jeff Carlyle: His shaved head/beard combo helping to pick him out in the various GX1000 productions, Jeff Carlyle could be argued to have gotten the gnarliest in ‘Right Here for Pablo’ a few months ago, hitting up a burly rail while the authorities close in, going back to back with Jake Johnson on a bump to bar to ledge, backside lipsliding to plunging down Mason Street, and certain other notables. All that being said, while Greyson Fletcher and Nick Boserio have done a lot to bring the flowing wizard whiskers to the fore in recent years, history shows that nobody has won Skater of the Year whilst sporting a big, full beard.

A War Outside Your Window

Nike Inc. at last grants Ishod Wait a pro shoe, VF Corp.’s Vans same with Lizzie Armanto, Kader Sylla provides more of his pinnacle flick and laughs off Bill Strobeck’s filming foibles, but there’s no comfort. Too much fear and darkness, a planet casting for its footing grabbed and wrenched backward into what seems like a harsher and more brutal age, somewhere that seemed relegated to stale movie plots and militarized video game series. In an age that seemed sometimes to drown itself in shades of blurry and bleeding grays, the rapid reveal of a deep jet-black streak is a cold reminder of an old order that hasn’t gone away.

A year ago spring neared and a path out of a strange, lost year seemed close. Optimistic vibes emanated from Kyle Wilson’s fuzzy-hooded switch backside tailslide, and these mostly held through the variants and waves that obscured and fatigued the winding way back. The most bracing vid for this unsteady new year, though, comes out of embattled Kyiv, ‘Revolutions on Granite,’ a deeply felt documentary on the Ukrainian skate scene via Brendan Gilliam and Peter Dayton Conopask, which screened disorientingly prescient when Thrasher posted it this week.

The vid opens with talk of stone blocks embedded with hunger, blood and tears, and after the past few weeks of neighborhood bombardments, destroyed homes and fleeing families, certain phrases from the interviews seem to hang in the air an extra second or so: “We fought for our territory,” “on the world scene, we were no one,” “we always have troubles with our neighbor.” Some of this relates to the nascent Ukrainian skate scene, as isolated a backwater as there was amid skating’s worldwide nadir in the early 1990s. But the documentary’s power lies in the way it threads together the building — literally in some cases — of a scene centered on Kyiv’s Maidan plaza with the newly independent country’s furtive path out of the Soviet era and toward a freer state of being.

It’s easy for a western-world skater to see his or herself in the beanies, bleached hair and baggy denim that follows as the Kyiv skaters push the potential of their granite playground, and visiting pros like Fred Gall and (of course) Kenny Reed briefly suggest a future for the city as a vibrant satellite of the burgeoning Europe sphere — until 2014, when the plaza devolves into a literal battleground as pro-democracy protesters clash with figures hailing from the country’s Russia-aligned east. The plaza falls into disrepair, stone tiles broken with hammers to make projectiles for throwing, the memories of dead bodies strewn across the blocks too heavy for at least some of the locals to think of it as anything beyond hallowed ground.

There is a line late in the vid — “Whenever it feels like finally it’s starting, we’re gonna live great lives… there’s always something that gets in the way” — that now can be heard freighted with the awful calm of a hurricane’s eye, or reading yet again a throwaway text exchange with a friend just before they suddenly were gone. You hear the way some of these people talk and feel fairly certain that they are today themselves in a very real fight that perhaps the rest of the world thought was a thing of the past, but they clearly knew as a present threat. The open question is whether the documentary will prove to be an epitaph or a prequel, and it’s hard not to now come away with the feeling that this same question weighed on the minds of those who made it.

Thrasher posted a link to donate to Ukrainian refugees; it would be something if gift certificates were available to purchase from Ukrainian skate shops/parks/companies similar to how people have booked Airbnbs to funnel funds to displaced and besieged locals.

Hits Similar

A hot and tense summer, now bookended by violence and heartache. The world is in motion. There is a feeling of general unmooredness, less and less seems clear. Boys of Summer is selling a sweater that prominently boasts the Century 21 logo. Onetime gap phenom Auby Taylor recently released perhaps the best vert part in years. 10C41 has been previously discussed. Mixed media artist Chris Joslin this week captured the international malaise in a shirtless Instantgram post:”@Rockstarenergy,” he wrote, “hits different with some @ChickFilA.”

True enough. And so it is that skateboarding subconsciously reaches for comfort in the familiar, a well-worn anchor in the storm. Last spring, asphalt-leaping SOTY frontrunner Mason Silva offered a ‘Real to Reel’-flavored introductory part for the storied NorCal board concern. This summer, Brandon Turner stole the show in Sk8Mafia’s new vid, 20 years on from ‘Fulfill the Dream’ precociousness and channeling all that’s come since into a switchstance benihana. This week, roadworn Austyn Gillette followed up Former’s uncommonly heavy ‘Cheap Perfume’ vid by returning to the Habitat team, via a winking ‘welcome back’ clip featuring an obligatory acoustic guitar. Elsewhere, retro shoe models, including some that had no business reemerging from the CCS catalogues of yore, run rampant across shoe walls.

The biggest beneficiary may be Julian Davidson, lately of Element, this month resurfacing via professional endorsement deals for the Jamie Foy-led Deathwish Board Co as well as the percuolating Emerica Shoes. In a hotly gesticulating realm and arena which seems, on any given day, to be governed by track-panted Europeans, New York sidewalk spot impresarios draped in clip art, or Floridians, Julian Davidson is a departure in every way — a born-n-bred SoCalian from Long Beach, reared up in Element and TWS vids, whose Emerica intro clip centered on big rails and gaps. Such ‘consensus skating’ over the past decade became increasingly shaky middle ground as fragmenting subgenres pushed switch backside heelflips down the Wallenberg gap, fakie manuals across streets, and mile-long switch backside tailslides, but in these fluctuating times now perhaps holds the timeworn appeal of a John Hughes movie, a two-weeks-skated deck, a platter of warm lasagna.

Have you, dear reader, found yourself in bed, half-liddedly wallowing in WarmUpZone/4Ply‘s data-heavy gaze across toxic avenger Fred Gall’s formidable and beloved video catalogue? Will the Vent City Pod Cast choose an ollie for its trick of the week? How come Alien Workshop hasn’t flowed a bunch of the new Philly generation? Is Thrasher, which ran in the Louie Lopez issue a Baker 3 retrospective and lately has been posting up Baker 4 parts, in danger of becoming trapped in some sort of Baker nostalgia feedback loop that requires a moustache and wide-brimmed hat, or a bat facial tattoo, to escape?

The Rise of Hazzard County

The world is unfair. If you are physiologically tall, like Tyshawn Jones, it’s easier to do high jumps up things like the EMB six, even switch. If you are low and short, you possess an inborn advantage when navigating spots like the double duck-under bump to gap that Chris Jones skates in ‘365 Days,’ or not hitting your head in low-ceilinged parking ramps. If you possess super powers, you can bust through walls or save individuals from burning buildings or wallride heavy machinery.

Not every advantage is rooted in squishy biology. Generations reared under California’s staring sun and snow-free temperate temps can guzzle cheap imported beer and train for the Olympic Contest all year round, rich with spots and pools and parks all over the place. Denizens of crumbly urbanaties like New York and Philadelphia enjoy doing their tricks against the appealing architectural densities that power some of the world’s most important t-shirt brands. In America’s Pacific Northwest, fever-dreaming hellriders scooped and shaped ever-gnarlier concrete bowls, waves and swirly whirls into breeding barns to populate the ATV era.

But what if some massive, invisible force grasped this intricate and arousing ecosystem of genetic haves, geographical have-nots and assorted others, then shook it vigorously, erasing the standing order similar to a galactic Etch-A-Sketch? Under the microscopic, economy-smashing fists of C0V1D-I9 it is happening. Even as coastal dwellers in California, Washington, New York and Florida remain locked down to various extents, the Great South, Texas’ tidal grasslands and the Dakota fracking grounds are ripe for the proverbial ripping. While socially distant pros and bros sheltering in industry meccas await Amazon deliveries of Iphone tripods and annoy downstairs neighbors with IG flatground challenges, their Red state counterparts increasingly are free to hoover sand from freshly emancipated skateparks, reacquaint themselves with ‘Night Prowler’ fisheye proximities and clip up. In the fast-moving, fickle and fad-devouring world of skateboarding, kids may soon recall coastal dominance of ‘the culture’ only via moss-gathering YouTube embeddings and lore passed down in recreationally scented whispers of oldsters staking out the skatepark parking lot curb.

What would it look like if the industry’s center of gravity shifted below the Mason-Dixon line? Glimpses can be glimpsed via past exploits of past southern-state heavies including Opry-minded handrail cannonballer Ben Gilley, genteel Real retiree James Hardy, hot rod-loving and glam rocking swamp rat Sal Barbier, once and future hessian kingpin Jamie Thomas, Texan ditch coinesseur Michael Sieben. The image in sharpest recent relief comes from Atlanta’s Justin Brock, who dusted off his blue jeans, goatee and guitar rawk last week for a burner of a part for Stratosphere. His fakie master status remains intact in his current team management role, riding a long fakie 5-0 off a loading dock ledge and Rick flipping a sizable crust stretch, and the frontside bigspin is strong as ever, whipping one up a Chicago curb and then fakie down a heaping helping of stairs. He’s got a confident hand-point on the table-top backside lipslide at one point, and the nollie flip wallride enter is Jake Johnson-level force and mysticism.

Is the vision of a southern-led and -fried skate sphere, as laid out by Justin Brock, George Thorogood, Young Jeezy and Skid Row really such a bad thing? Will easing lockdowns draw filming trips to Midwestern and Southern states, delivering an economic boost to their budget motel chains, liquor stores and strip clubs? Would a longterm skate-industry tilt toward Southern and Midwestern states leave the industry dangerously vulnerable to hurricanes, tornados, dry county regulations and Boss Hogg?

For Posterity Purposes Boil Ocean Weblog Has Herein Transcribed Fred Gall’s Hail-Mary Call To Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk. Fred Gall. Two skate industry survivors, still in the game, against all odds. Surging gap-tamer Aaron ‘Jaws’ Homoki. Multicontinental crooner Burl Ives. The year: 2010. One fateful night at the U.S.-Canadian border, three of these would see their paths cross after border-manning authorities pinched yung Jaws, leaving his future in the hands of Fred Gall, his cell phone, and maybe, the international influence of Birdman ‘Tony’ Hawk. This week, nollie nosebluntsliding NGO-pro Ryan Lay resurfaced the legendary episode, which Boil A Ocean.Net transcribes here for historical reference purposes.

Tony Hawk: Yes.
Fred Gall: Yo, it’s Fred Gall, man.
Tony Hawk: Hey.
Fred Gall: Dude, I’m up here in Canada, man.
Tony Hawk: Yeah, I got your message, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
Fred Gall: Well, alright. Jaws got denied, man. I don’t know why I wasn’t with him. You know me, I like to do my own thing. But I think you’re probably the only man that could help him get in this country.
Tony Hawk: OK, I have no idea how to approach that. What, do I just call the Canadian border? I don’t know.
Fred Gall: Man, T-Hawk man, it’s Fred Gall man. Remember I skated your ramp? Brian Ridgeway!
Tony Hawk: Yeah man, I know, yeah, I hear you, of course.
Fred Gall: You’re the only one that can help us. We need Jaws…
Tony Hawk: I would be happy to help if you could give me a directive. I can’t just help without knowing something specific, or someone to call.
Fred Gall: You know what Tony?
Tony Hawk: Yeah.
Fred Gall: I appreciate you even calling back, man.
Tony Hawk: OK, well, like I said, I totally would be happy to help Jaws, if he gets in a situation, where he can call me…
Fred Gall: No, he’s in a situation, Tony!
Tony Hawk: If someone…
Fred Gall: You’re the only one! Listen dude, alright. I’ll set it up.
(crosstalk)
Fred Gall: Dude, where you at right now, man?
Tony Hawk: I’m in Los Angeles.
Fred Gall: You partying?
…
Fred Gall: Dude, they denied him at the border, man!
Tony Hawk: Yeah, I understand…
Fred Gall: He does fucking McTwists, dude.
Tony Hawk: I understand what happened. But I can’t just call the Canadian border, you’ve got to give me something specific, OK…
Fred Gall: No, it’s not over yet. Please…
Tony Hawk: OK, it’s not over yet, tell Jaws to call me.
Fred Gall: Tony, Tony, can I just tell you one thing? I love you, brother. I jumped off your trampoline into your pool. Back with Brian Ridgeway.
Tony Hawk: Yeah, I remember.
Fred Gall: This is Fred Gall, man.
Tony Hawk: Yep, OK. Thanks, Fred.
Fred Gall: Get him in the country!
Tony Hawk: I’ll try.
Fred Gall: Alright. Take care, Tony.

Rob Pluhowski Left Skating and Never Looked Back. Should More Ex-Pros*?

Former feather-footed kickflipper and current furniture hand crafter shocked and unnerved a freshly scrubbed generation of Instagramming careerists by summing up a decade’s worth of top-shelf sponsorships, parts in seminal videos of the time, and third-world nation touring under the steady navigation of Fred Gall, using a nonchalant trio of words that stripped the English sentence to its barest, basest components: “It was cool.” Further cows sacred to various strivers and Thrasher down-for-life aspirants soon trotted out for electric stunning and captive bolting: Being shown the door from an established career in skating was for Rob Pluhowski a good thing, he doesn’t skate anymore, and he doesn’t seem to miss any of it:

“I was 27 years old, I didn’t have a fucking board at 27 years old! And, I had a fucking kid. It was just a wake-up call. My daughter was probably only a year old and I was like what the fuck am I gonna do with myself? Like what am I gonna do. If figured I’d just like sever it, end it there, end on the highest note you can possibly end at without being one of those dudes like, what the fuck are you doing? Like why is he on a skateboard? I don’t want to look like a tired old man. That’s why I don’t skateboard today. I can’t do what I used to be able to do. I don’t want to be that dude. you know what I mean. Just leave it where it was.
…
Now that I look back at it, it just seemed right. I got out, and now where I’m at in life, I’m fucking happy, a pig in shit. That would’ve just taken this much longer, 32 years old, riding for Zoo York or something, like some hokey shit.”

Rob Pluhowski’s unsanded, unvarnished assessment of pro contemporaries, the skate biz in general and his former place in it attracts the same sort of grinning car-wreck rubbernecking in readers that any decent interview inspires, and for the time being helps to shore up that ever-eroding barrier between skating’s outlaw flavourings and what may lie ahead. But Rob Pluhowski’s commentary here differs from other, similar veterans’ tales, in that it’s dispensed free of any strings that might even tenuously tether him to skate industry machinations, or gooey threads of relationships that could coat an otherwise harsh and bad-sounding assessment with a sugary veneer of political correctness. It’s not even that he seemed unconcerned what people may think, but that he seems only vaguely aware that such people might even exist, and doesn’t seem much interested in sweating it too much either way.

In centuries past, once the beachfront fires for whale kills roared out the bulk of their strength, our bearded chieftans would sing softly to we youth: “If you love something, set it free; if it comes back, it’s meant to be.” Salivating as we did for that first sip of icey whale marrow, we never gave much thought to their lyricism or breath control. But the saying, like the whales’ mewled curses upon humanity and our harpoon technology, has echoed through the ages. Did Rob Pluhowski love skating? With his Bob Puleo visage and mannerisms, he’s maybe too New Jersey to really get wistful. Is it possible to love it, leave it behind completely, and eventually be good with that? If so, what verdicts does this hold for the ever-expanding, and seemingly older than ever professional ranks?

How come Rob Pluhowski’s bearing and worldview seems relatively rare when stacked against numerous interviews in which post-professional career plans include packing boxes in warehouses, described semi-humorously but nevertheless with an air of noble sacrifice? Between the reverence here and as unlikely an art critic as Danny Way singing praises, should the late 1990s/early 2000s Alien Workshop and Habitat graphics be elevated to that same pantheon reserved for Sean Cliver and Marc McKee’s World Industries era, and VCJ or Jim Phillips before them? Is it really we who loved Rob Pluhowski, and are now left to consider that we may have set him free and he did not come back?

*Yo it’s understood Pluhowski never was pro but stay with it for a minute here

#Trendwatch 2015: Personal Responsibility

What soul-eroding wreckage hath the tucked-in shirt craze of 2011 wrought? Plenty of yesteryear’s rascally character tropes increasingly are unapplicable in a brave land where oil-enriched royal dynasties shut down portions of their kingdoms to enable drone-powered filming romps and barely a month can pass without some Manhattan periodical fawning over skaters’ fashion sensibilities, amid assorted rumors of cats and dogs living together and stenchful glimpses of a new dinosaur age.

For alerts and rumours indicating the far reach of skateboarding’s current enamourment with grown manning look no further than Thrasher, that digital content barony built on crushed tall cans, DIY concrete projects and ill-considered body art, which presented this summer’s landmark ‘Stay Flared’ tour firstly as a lesson in proper diet and taking care of one’s self. Its poster child is Brandon Biebel, he of Redline binges and the pack-a-day Ja Rule voice:

Stay Flared saw an equally intense Biebel, though followers of his social media will know that this one is deadly serious about skateboarding, driven by healthy living and more pumped up than ever before. Most telling was his water consumption, specifically his ritual of “kicking a gallon” i.e. drinking at least a gallon of water every day.

“You want to join this club? You ready to kick a gallon?” he asked, incredulously.

The gallon club already involved several of the Stay Flared crew and Andrew Reynolds explained that back in LA they often send each other photos of crushed jugs throughout the day.

“These guys are drinking a gallon of water before 2 pm,” he said. “It’s pretty competitive. It’s, like, ‘Shit, I better start skating so I can finish my gallon!”

Reynolds’ involvement in the burgeoning and bubbly 2015 water affair is perhaps no great surprise given his years of sobriety recently augmented by ice-baths, fair-trade bananas, some sciatic foam roller and a substance known as ‘arnica gel’ (full list available in the Stay Flared Thrasher). But in an age where Fred Gall embraces domestic bliss and Andy Roy can hold down a $1000/month apartment in the most expensive city in America, it is fair to ponder a potential shift at hand.

With message-board vitriol poured steamily over do-nothing pros unable to film semi-regular Instagram clips that, in years past, would have been rewarded with Polo gear or studded belts for their devotion to various piling-out programmes, it is easy to attribute a more-responsible pro populace to the vagaries and ravages of age, mainly the fearsome potential of a day-job sentence lurking behind any final photo incentive cheque. Yet 90s babies also have proven themselves increasingly upstanding, between Austyn Gillette’s Habitat-endorsed high school ender, Mark Suciu’s BA pursuits and the Sabotage dudes methodically smoothing the Love Park ground and disposing of trash in the bargain, moves that recall the late-1990s citizenry of ledge-repainter Jeremy Wray.

Such are the lofty heights tested by this new wave of behavioral responsibility that Ride Channel of late has taken to truth-testing Slap Board rumors and garnering responses from the likes of Crailtap tour muncher Sam Smyth regarding alleged lynchpin teamrider permutations. Whether the Girl camp felt compelled to address potentially material and market-moving news in light of its recent investment injection remains needlessly speculated upon in the darknet.

Are more such fits of dependibility, sensible living and all-out rational action to come as various pros and industry andministrators test the fat tail of mortgage-debt exposure, and corporate structures absorb further xtreme properties? Do the recent spate of upstart board concerns require more self-starter fluid wrung from the industry’s collective pores, or instead offer a greased-up window that creakily enables hedonistic backsliding motions? Is Andy Roy next in line to host an HGTV show that harnesses his prison background for the purpose of frugally decorating tiny houses? Would the industry have found itself on a much different path had early ’90s loan sharks gone unrepaid?

Were Things Better When Habitat’s Logo Was Busier?

In these topsy-turvy times a bro can be forgiven for wondering if we are witnessing some wholesale collapse of ‘the industry.’ One day it’s Jason Dill and AVE leaving Alien Workshop, the next it is rumored to be Grant Taylor, then the Holy See that is the Slap board would have Austyn Gillette, Brian Anderson and Alex Olson all flying their respective coops en route to greener pastures and possibly other mixed metaphors further afield. Meanwhile footwear developers have uniformly failed to achieve, leaving no alternative for Chaz Ortiz to secure sponsorship suitable for his skills than a new shoe company invented by Lil Wayne*.

As we cast about for certainty and stability we look not to flighty teamriders or faddish deck technologies or the shifting cuts of cotton t-shirts, but to the graphic designs crafted to withstand the ravages of time and various silk-screen appliques. Faced with chaos and corporate identity crises, the beleaguered consumer still can safely plunk down funds for hard and soft-goods bearing a Ripper, Oval, Bighead, Flare, or OG of the Blind or Girl persuasion. So it is with Habitat’s famed and beloved ‘Pod’ logo, winner of the best new graphical design by a deck concern for the year 1999; however, a close review demonstrates a subtle shift over the past 13 years. Harken back to the original iteration of the Habitat logo, pictured herewith.

In the winter of 1999-2000 the planet was similarly on the cusp of change. Yellow shirts were commonplace and a presidential election approached a fine froth in the U.S., while computer scientists stayed up late searching for a digital harpoon with enough 1s and 0s to slay the fearsome Y2K bug. The Habitat logo as then envisioned offered safety and security, calmly explaining that Habitat was issued under the Sovereign Sect and that the company was focused on coexistence. The hand, leaf/wave and buildings represent ancient hobo hieroglyphs used by Fred Gall to indicate places of safety and cell phone reception in the New Jersey wilds.

If we skip ahead several chapters to the year 2013 much has changed, and the Pod logo no longer is adorned with horizontal lines and explanatory dialogue. What the Pod has gained in versatility, now shot through with camo, plaid and other patterns, it has shorn off in complexity, occasionally leaving off the H part on the left altogether and just having the circle and leaf thing. The viewer in such instances may be left to fend for his or herself, squinting and gritting teeth to recall aeroplane series, Mr. Dibbs instrumentals and the follow angle on Brian Wenning’s switch backside smith grind at Love Park. With so much now in question across the industry, should Habitat consider adding back some hot new glyph action to the logo? Have companies generally simplified their logos to shave weight from t-shirts and hopefully secure more X-Games medallions? Is Habitat only following the minimalist trek of technology hardware developers, rumored to be developing a new mouse with one button that does not click or connect to any computer?

*Perhaps more troubling is the growing realization that Trukfit and Spectre could ultimately dilute the already-established market for Hot Boy Wear.

Big Anthony Speaks The Magic Words, And The SOTY Pot Begins To Bubble

More or less on schedule with the arrival of shittier weather and the autumn crop of video premieres, Boil the ocean internet blog spot/space examines potential and plausible candidates for Thrasher’s 2011 skater of the year, known as the only award without several zeroes behind it that matters in the streets.

Dennis Busenitz
If it ain’t this year then probably it never will be for the dude, and these younger guns toting heavier hammers and rumors of Jake Phelps remaining cool on him further slim the odds. Drawing the curtains on this year’s most recent Real production was another stripe up on Busenitz’s arm and from over here his big win in Tampa (SOTY of contests?) bought one of the year’s more culture-affirming moments, but kinda still see him getting passed over again — which in the long run will probably rank him with Muska and Jamie Thomas, since aside from Bob Puleo and Marc Johnson it’s tough to think of many dudes exerting more influence on the ‘modern scene.’

Torey Pudwill
Pro footwear, his own week on the Thrasher website and backside tailslides of ridiculous proportions, Torey Pudwill has made strides since parting ways with his Alien flow packages. But was his midsummer Thrasher web dominance more like a marriage of convenience targeting unique page views than a lasting love affair? Calculated shot at SOTY status or not you’d be hard pressed to match the combos and waist-high ledge get-ups in terms of fireworks power, among both web one-offs and still-to-DVD productions alike. Pudwill would be a strong entry in a race that some years seems to go to the consensus candidate in lieu of a dominant MJ, Rowley, Arto or Daewon.

Grant Taylor
A favorite skater’s favorite skater type and for the past year-plus the recipient of many a slobbery photo caption via Thrasher, with fairly good reason. Grant Taylor possibly tops Leo Romero in perceived attitude negativity and also is an ATV mold-breaker. Meanwhile he’s managed to run an impressive and Heath Kirchart-like streak of non-communication that’s admirable in our Instagram laundry-airing era. No video part yet but he’s got good footage embedded in any number of crusty tour clips.

Brandon Westgate
Not letting up the bumps-to-bars pummeling he brought toward the end of last year, Brandon Westgate in 2011 also offered us a regular-joe turn in “Epicly Later’d” that sported a blue collar motif kinda at odds with the Marc Ecko corporate umbrella, but well loved by the canned beer/hair by Wahl set. Setting up shop on the San Francisco hills wins Nor-Cal points and he backside smith grinded up a handrail, Brandon Westgate is on his level.

Nyjah Huston
A 16-year-old kid who’s closing in on a million dollars’ worth of soda-pop contest prizes (this year), for the purposes of Xcel autosumming stair counts and degree rotations onto handrails Nyjah Huston could probably claim the little SOTY statuette on the basis of Street League points, and he generously gave a week’s worth of photos and requisite interview to Thrasher not long ago. Together with a to-come internet video part this kid figures as a contender but even without the tween dreadlocks look there’s sometimes a kind of lack of drama to his tricks.

Justin Brock
Every self-respecting blog list needs a dark-horse entry that makes some kind of rational sense, and for our purposes Justin Brock fits the bill. He is a southern beer swiller and a sometime loudmouth, he recorded a rollicking two-song section for the Real vid that peaked with a triumph over security, he jumped aboard KOTR mainly I think to support his bros and also swill beers (and lose). Has there ever been a glasses-wearing skater of the year?

Fred Gall
Good internet lists designed to create arguments and draw precious web hits also often include a darker-horse entry that is controversial. Fred Gall in 2011 courted controversy by taking off his clothes (again), going to jail (again), and wallriding a moving bus. There is a ponderous blog post maybe to be written as a compare/contrast of Fred Gall and Sean Sheffey’s careers and legal trespasses and their shared inclination toward switchstance skating, but for the purposes of this one, I guess Sheffey never won SOTY either.

Off Parole/As The Three-Striped Tentacle Turns

Around this particular corner of the internet a virtual candle remains lit for the skate career of Danny Renaud, filthy Floridian, and any signal that he is back aboard in whatever capacity is welcome. In recent decades Fred Gall has helped bring many great things into the world, including top-tier sponsorship deals for Steve Durante and the mid-90s catchphrase “skuhhh!,” and his Domestics clothes blog this month offers up a web clip that mostly features Paul DeOliveira but surprises with a Renaud cameo at the end that finds the dude not looking too much worse for some pretty serious wear. Any waft of this dude’s brand of swaggering grime is welcome, however fleeting.

Elsewhere in Florida, you could say fleeting to talk about PJ Ladd’s footage output these past eight or nine years, a minute or two here and there and a lot of it in pretty antiseptic park environments devoid of the kid-flipping-his-board-down-the-street soul that jazzed his Coliseum arrival. But there’s a gem now and then and if you look past the is-he-or-ain’t-he footwear choice in this Orlando demo clip that went up a couple weeks ago there are some. The kickflip noseslide shove-it rewound in my head for a day or two after first seeing this clip, partly because it’s the type of unassuming tech move that made his old footage so fun to watch, and maybe too because it’s a trick that tons of other people would make look like shit. Cool to see the bluntslide too.