Pusher Man

Across his three-decade career, Gino Iannucci has been many things, to many persons: embodiment of detached cool in World’s golden age, skate celebrity roomie, successful hesh-fresh bridger in the gap/rail era, vanguard enlistee for Nike Inc., retail boutique proprietor, graybeard fashion model. Whereas his reputation for yeti-like elusiveness overlooks certain late-period productivity bursts, he remains enswaddled in mystique. In the geometric sum total, Gino Iannucci is the preeminent living example of skateboarding as qualitative versus governance by contest score, ollie height, or NBDs crossed off that cosmic list.

Respective paychecks aside, Gino Iannucci’s subcultural durability has outlasted any number of hot-shoe contest killers, a fact unlost on Nike’s brandwise strategists, who made him one of Nike’s initial signees for the sportswear conglomerate’s final, successful push into board-skating. His enduring presence on the roster helped counterbalance Nike’s pursuit of more obvious Street League contenders and future Olympians. Even if he increasingly leaned upon skatepark one-foots and giving interviews, Nike and other sponsors enjoyed a direct link back to the Gonz backside heelflip, the nollie switch k-grind shove-it out, the Roslyn banks greatest-hits list. As the old Slap message board saw went, “I’d rather watch Gino push.”

The phrase may now face the ultimate test. As Nike and Adidas show signs of culling their skate programs, Gino Iannucci seems to have come to the end of his swoosh-clad run, with recent Adidas-sporting IG story clips earning giddy reposts from the likes of bearded beach kingpin Lucas Puig, and demonstrating Gino Iannucci’s still-considerable clout with bros of a certain age. Almost entirely absent from the FA video output since signing six years ago, he has of late revived his Poets imprint and in recent weeks has posted promotional vids almost entirely reliant on his famed left-foot propulsion technique, in one hopping up a curb and then riding off a sidewalk, in another cruising down a mellow rural road, before the other day including a skatepark pyramid nose manual and pivot fakie.

Could it be that Gino Iannucci is following in the careening, center-line footprints of his East Coast forebear, Mike Vallely? In the 2001 black denim document ‘Label Kills,’ Mike Vallely’s section revolved almost entirely around pushing, an unconventional move later immortalized by Mike Vallely naming his punk band ‘Revolution Mother’*. At a time when professional clout chiefly was measured by stair count, Mike Vallely’s choice to showcase the push and its direct descendants, such as the boneless and no-comply, was to VHS watchers equal parts confounding and inspiring. But similar to the Hot Boys’ 1974 hit ‘Respect My Mind’, it signaled Mike Vallely was thinking bigger and broader, setting a trajectory toward a more malleable ‘personal brand’ and career that would place Mike Vallely variously on hockey rinks, fronting Black Flag, and astride Paul Blart, Mall Cop, in thin air.

Can Poets sink or swim on the strength of Gino Iannucci’s push, or will it require some handrail-assisted Miller flips to ‘seal the deal’? Do you think Gino could take Paul Blart? Could instructional Youtube vids and advanced AI technologies help mechanics-challenged youngsters and career-extending oldsters alike fine-tune their own push techniques? Have the stars already foretold an inescapable destiny in which Gino Iannucci and Mike Vallely join forces on the hockey rink to lead a final showdown against the forces of evil, perhaps with Paul Blart as a stuffed-shirt official?

*Also likely referring to multiple revolutions of the board’s wheels while pushing

Tha Agony and Tha Ecstasy

For all the mumblings of Peter Pan syndrome and deferred adulthood attached to pro-level boarding careers and various man-amhoods, such pursuits are not built for the fragile: Marking one’s day-to-day progress by recording hard-fought clips destined to be trimmed to a few seconds each and pasted into a Thrashermagazine.com web-video in a couple years’ time, clinging to fleeting victories during which a hammer is performed, landed and hand-on-death-lens marked, then past, perchance to plow through a 30-pack and next week try for another one. Anthony Van Engelen speaks of grappling with emotional voids after completing big video projects, and witness the deep valleys leading to an uncertain but undeniably triumphant peak in Jamie Thomas’ cold war with the not-long-for-this-world Clipper ledge.

Love/hate relations betwixt bros and boards are to be understood and forcibly massaged when circumstances demand. But what of those emotional pump tracks entangling teamriders and sponsors,? Chris Cole and his new Plan B family celebrated their new partnership this month, grinning and committing various spelling transgressions as the onetime Zero heavyweight joined the ‘Tru’ camp. Any career-minded gnar merchant gathers a certain amount of lumps along the road, and Jamie Thomas like other pros-turned-entrepreneurs signed up for an extra helping by starting his own companies and seeing dudes he put on later pack up and leave. But Zero proved to be one of the relatively few sellers of skate goods to not only publicly acknowledge the departure of a team lynchpin in Chris Cole, but go so far as to post a brief retrospective video and wish him well.

Few others do — Brandon Westgate’s decision in April to join the Element family after seven years holding down the Zoo York family passed with little notice on Zoo York’s Instagram. Gino Iannucci’s Slap board-shaking jump to Fucking Awesome just shy of 19 years as a red block head drew nary an official peep from the Crailtap camp, though months later his former teammates can’t finish interviews without being asked about it. Whereas Streetcorner headbutt sendoffs now rank as just another hallowed memory of 1990s realness and sour jpgs are a Web 1.0-ready if rarely utilized substitute, the default seems to have become an Orwellian electronic eraser applied to the team webpage, removal of the defector from relevant social media hype circles and moving on.

Like insurance and the signing of openly gay athletes, is skateboarding again in danger of being outpaced by major-league sports when it comes to acknowledging contributions from longstanding-but-departing riders? The Seattle Mariners deployed a warm statement of gratitude when outfielder Ichiro Suzuki bounced after more than a decade on the squad, and later publicly big upped him when he got his 4000th hit playing for the Yankees.

Besides agreed-upon stacks of legal tenders, what if anything do companies owe their independent contractors who toil atop handrails and within ditches in the name of endorsement deals? In Alien Workshop’s ultimately transient dissolution last year, some of the then-remaining abductees seem to have received no official word of the shutdown at all, much less any word of thanks:

Jake Johnson: It’s a strange one. Nobody said good bye. Mike Hill didn’t throw in the towel. It’s strange. It was on the internet.

Omar Salazar: I never spoke to anyone. No one ever called me, I’m just like, who is running this thing? They got rid of the only dude who I was talking to [Chad] who told me to stick around. And that’s how you get rid of people after all these years? I was bummed and then got hurt.. But no phonecall. No Rob Dyrdek phonecall… I mean jesus, who are you, man? I thought we were homies, bro [laughs]. Just kidding. Whatever.
…And I still haven’t got a paycheck like, oh, here you go, thanks for your time. Cause I could sure as hell use that for my medical bill right now. Thats all I gotta say about that.

Should the resurfaced Alien Workshop, now promoting a new tribe, offer some parting nod to the former pros who hung on til the bitter end? Did Rocco write thank-yous to the former sponsors of riders he stole, or rather did he demand such sponsors publicly acknowledge the service of their former riders for purposes of free promotion? Do digital thank-you notes count? What is the Instagram equivalent of a dismissal-by-headbutt?

I Am the Street Dream!

In classically rambling and excitable fashion Jason Dill seems to have confirmed the messageboard-melting news that Gino Iannucci, that much-beloved train station tour guide, 360 shove-it bringer-backer and Chocolate graybeard, dipped from his tourmates of nearly two decades in favour of the ankle- and belt-bearing set at Fucking Awesome, sending several seismic waves across sectors of the internet that continue to draw valuable kilowatts from loose-fit denim, Youtube renderings of VHS video and also RZA productions. To interested observers, the transaction resembled Tumblr acquiring AOL, or perhaps Bronze Hardwares absorbing Prodigy*.

Among moneyed old-guard deck men, dark talk is afoot of Jason Dill’s potential next power move, after scooping Dylan Rieder from the smearily dissolving chambers of AWS and seeming to have taken in a number of additional former teammates with an eye toward soon launching his own Chocolate-esque sister company that may or may not be named for that violent and longtime side hustle of Gino Iannucci and graphical subject for one of his first Chocolate boards, ice hockey. Speculation has mounted, as it is wont to do, around just how much of a kick in the pants this may be for the Crailtap camp and/or a late-career left turn for Gino Iannucci, who recently booked his most productive 14 months ever but nonetheless still is hard to imagine as more than a spirit-guide, sipping Starbucks and grinning and shaking his head from a nearby bench as Dill and AVE’s floral-printed progeny publicly urinate and shoot their mouths off at the spot.

Beyond a collegial relationship at 101 two decades ago** this may not all be so weird, however, when one considers Gino Iannucci through the prism of the Guns’N’Roses music, the birdie tattoo, and various engagements involving bleached hair and vests. You can imagine a trick sprinkled here and there into Bill Strobek Vimeo uploads, which may be a positive thing for a dude whose past video entries occasionally have exhibited signs of too much baking soda in the pot, or an endorsement of GZA’s advice to the youngsters re: “weak rhymes/mad long.”

Whereas acquiring Dylan Rieder went some ways towards reconstituting the Dill/AVE axis as it had arisen in Dayton, signing Gino Iannucci may alter Fucking Awesome’s outwards profile and raise thorny queries. Can Fucking Awesome still be regarded as an underdog, or is this an organic progression of the current wave of small companies flexing their developing fiscal muscles to acquire name-brand pros from established rivals? To what extent is this an endorsement of Jason Dill’s fractured and frizzy vision versus a no-confidence vote in the anti-heroic stylings of Crailtap in recent years? Or is it strictly a dollar thing? Perhaps most crucially does this move set the famous 1990s Doomsday Clock closer to or further away from midnight?

*The rapper and or the web portal
**Which continued to persist into 2012, as pictured above.

Gino Iannucci’s Most-Productive 14 Months Ever, And Other Assorted Notes On 2013

2013 fucked around and turned out to be a banner year footage-wise for Long Islander and long weekender Gino Iannucci, doing a mini-Beyonce with a quick minute of mostly-park footage uploaded without warning Christmas Eve by hardworking Brick Harbour elves. Pinning down Gino when he’s on his board doesn’t seem to have gotten much easier over the years, despite his willingness to wax nostalgic on video about train station parking lots, but if you put this footage together with his tricks from ‘Pretty Sweet’ plus the inexplicably trimmed extra footage you’d have a nearly three-minute section that would readily accommodate a Mathematics instrumental.

10 Other Video Parts

-Derm – ‘In Crust We Trust’
One of the oblique thrills of marking time via local scene videos jockeying for YouTube chart positioning is that you may or may not ever see any of the dudes again, or, you might. It’s an open question as to whether Eric Dermond desires or will have any type of ‘career’ in the industry but his section in the enjoyably grimy “In Crust We Trust” felt like watching “Subzero” era Fred Gall skating “Inhabitants” era Fred Gall spots, topped with a nicely bone-crushing slam.
-Kyle Walker – ‘In Color’
-Mark Suciu – ‘Philadelphia’
-Jordan Trahan – ‘Boros to Bayous’
-Matt Nordness – ‘Hurry Up & Try’
The intro with the blocks is almost enough all by itself.
-Jake Donnelly – ‘Jake’s VX Mix’
-Evan Smith – ‘The Evan Smith Experience’
This one seems to have come and gone pretty quick, but Evan Smith loosened up his trucks and floored it and recorded a bunch of fairly heavy tricks for this.
-Lucas Puig – ‘Bon Voyage’
-Ben Raybourn – ‘New Ground’
“Horse pool”
-Cole Middleton – ‘Video X’

Thrasher: Have you ever exercised in your life?
Fred Gall: I started lifting weights a little bit to try to buff up when I thought I was going to jail.
-Thrasher Jan. 2014

The Rise of Coloured Pants

Increased embrace of shorter/smaller videos from the likes of Emerica, Nike and Habitat harkened back to certain early-90s practices that make current economic sense — the trend toward ever-larger teams and vague desires to recoup travel expenses via blockbuster video projects remain at odds with the general public’s tendency toward watching individual parts on Youtube and skipping back to watch specific tricks rather than whole parts. Meanwhile some of the wealthiest professionals, including Theotis Beasley, Ishod Wair and Nyjah Huston, participated in their own early-1990s style revival by sporting loudly coloured pants and in certain instances what appear to be swimming trunks, signaling a potential new front in the swag wars.

Hrm

Not at all sure what to make of this new Gino Iannucci ad, which I had to see a few different places to even fully believe was real this afternoon. He’s skating again, so obviously a plus. But first sequence out the gate in how long and it’s a two-tone ledge trick with a full b/s 360 by the end of the day? Guy Mariano must be sharing his vitamin water.

Nike’s emissaries promise some lengthy interview in the near future, but unless it involves passing dipped cigarettes with Jereme Rogers any explanation of how this sequence came to be will probably end up less than 100% satisfying. Don’t get me wrong though, this is pretty amazing..

Fuck You Money

Deviating a bit from mining the R&B charts for tenuous pro skater comparisons

Taking a break from beating the Koston shoe-sponsor horse into a fine, not-all-that-humorous powder has provided some time to really ponder on the whole thing. Like, perhaps Koston’s abrupt ship-jumping isn’t predicated on some brass-ring grab or a valiant effort to shore up Lakai’s balance sheet, but rather a wish to live out the remaining years of pro-skaterdom in whichever kicks he sees fit.

The above pic, which purports to depict Koston skating a pair of Adidas, suggests that he may be having a jolly old time sampling the ever-expanding skate shoe buffet, confounding internet speculators, and why not? Koston’s been a loyal soldier for the past 15 years or so, if you aren’t looking at his trucks, and if he hasn’t earned the right to play the field before Nike makes the official announcement, well, who has.

However – 1990s reference incoming – it would be kind of cool if Eric Koston played this thread out for the rest of his career. Forthcoming multi-zillion-dollar contracts notwithstanding, he’s already got some money, and if there ever was a working pro skater out there that can get by without a shoe check, he’s the one right? A video part featuring a smorgasbord of skate shoes on Koston’s feet would probably be kinda jarring, but could serve to remind that there once was a time when you could maybe skate another company’s board/shoes/shirt and the footage wouldn’t be slated for the low-res web clip file. An element of mystique even – recall if you will Gino’s Reeboks from the 101 part, the shoes that launched a thousand Slap board queries; to a lesser extent, the Sauconys sported by Smolik in his TSM interview or Simon Woodstock’s clown shoes.

Soldier’s story

And I’m tryin to ignore it

So what’s the line on the long-awaited Gino Later’d that premieres tonight? Inspirational Cardiel-style True Lockwood Story? A reprise of the rather dark WESC calendar interview? Surprise conversion to fundamentalist religion? Fixed-gear bicycles?

For all his VX1000 grit, O’Dell brings reverence for skateboard royalty when it’s called for, so it’ll likely be somewhere in the middle, i.e. long on career highlights, some good stories, probably more humor than we’re used to with Gino Iannucci. There’ll probably be a couple episodes on Keenan Milton.

With 10 episodes we’re in for a long ride either way, and it’s probably not out of the question for Nike or Chocolate to issue the thing as a career retrospecticus the way Vans did with Cardiel. However, I’m guessing there won’t be a whole lot in the way of hope for another video part or anything. The dude said as much in the preview, right?

As far as I see it, our only real hope for any substantial Gino comeback lies with Guy Mariano, who put dude’s name at the top of his skate-buddy wish list on 48Blocks a while back. As far as reunions go, such a thing possibly would surpass Muska’s tracking down of Tom Penny in Europe on that one Circa tour, back when Muska enjoyed Fab Four levels of fandom, Rattray still skated for Blueprint and Chris Cole’s pants flapped freely in the wind. You may remember this era from the TWS video “Videoradio”, the one where they managed to lose 2/3 of the footage on the flight home. But I digress.

I mean, if ever there was a dude with carte blanche to milk his career in skateboarding, it’s Guy Mariano, and now that Guy is back, the sheer potential of a Gino Iannucci comeback would allow him to put out like two tricks a year and be good for another decade, easy. There’s kids who look back fondly on his part in “Hot Chocolate” and marvel. So he doesn’t gotta do much. More stuff like the Nike video would be fine. Even though he just reopened his Poets shop in Long Island, the skate shop business generally is not the velvet goldmine the Zumiez 100k club might lead you to believe.

So while I’m looking forward to the trip down memory lane and all the old LA footage and everything, what I really hope is that this Epicly Later’d answers this question in some way. Although maybe that’s the point, that the man himself doesn’t know if he has a comeback in him. All I’m saying: a couple tricks a year. A nollie 270 switch backside tailslide here and there. We don’t need much, you know?