Diced Pineapples III: Nightmares, Dreamscapes And Wallrides To 50-50s

What became, oh best beloved, of the dog who caught the car? In the ancients’ telling, the dog received a car — as well as a seven-year loan, rapid depreciation and a set of factory floormats. The dog eventually paid it off but vowed to never again catch new, only pre-owned, and went on to live a fiscally responsible life troubleshooting code and grilling on weekends before meeting an untimely end after consuming a sack of Halloween candy.

In many ways this is the story of our time. But what about the other story — that of the slower, less tenacious dog, maybe a dachshund, that never really got after the car but yearned to see, from the chained comfort of his owners’ yard, one of his ‘dogs’ finally nab one? Eight years ago, a wordy and meandering internet-based weblog page theorized about a person, any person, wallriding up a vertical block, locking both front and back wheels atop the ledge and 50-50 grinding it while still in the horizontal/wallride position. It was in many ways a simple dream that nonetheless required multiple entries to poorly articulate, and then it spun unto the ether like so many twisted cigarette butts, flung from a novelty ashtray while pondering the power of positive visualization. “You can take something that was pure thought and make it reality” — Marc Johnson’s long-ago teachings at the knee of high school footballer Cliff Kauffman.

Usually when it comes to tricks, and increasingly in this daily-saturation, everybody-is-good age, if you take something that was pure thought, chances are that someone’s already made it reality on InstaGram, or on a jubilantly coloured curb in a VHS-only release from the days of yore. Yet this particular variation — wallriding a vertical surface, off flat, no bank, grinding both trucks from the side and not transitioning onto the top of the ledge — seemed to hover just outside the frame. That is until last month, when Www.Thrashermagazine.com uploaded the latest iteration of its ‘Plazacation’ series, setting loose a formidable lineup into DC’s Pulaski park, among them former mayor Darren Harper, current incumbent Bobby Worrest, prodigal son Jack Curtin, plazzaseur Mark Suciu, the incomparable Tiago Lemos and, critically, Rahzel Ashby, who hits the big white wall backside, edges both wheels over the top, scratches and rides back down, sealing the deal.

How many other iterations of this same trick have tumbled past weary blogspotters’ cracked and malfunctioning radars before this one finally rang the bell? With the trick tamed, is the next obvious step to look for someone to somehow incorporate a kickflip? Has Gustav Tonnesen probably already done this? In ‘Field O Dreams,’ after Kevin Costner’s character built it, and they came, and he edited and uploaded the footage, was he satisfactorily stoked or was he left only with an empty, searching feeling in place of the cosmic itch-scratching he had long yearned after, setting him on a path toward a moistened and post-apocalyptic life of solitary roaming and pee-drinking?

Kids

Billions of burgers flipped by McDonald’s Corp., five decades’ worth of James Bond movies and the estimated $100 million net worth of Wayne “Mr. Entertainment” Newton bear witness to how consistency and a reliable product can command a loyal clientele and lucrative following, if not adoring devotion and the occasional soiled thong hurled upon a pockmarked Las Vegas stage. Jeron Wilson, Chico Brenes and Mike Carroll seem to understand that there is and likely always will be an audience for specialized heelflips, nollie heelflips and backside smith grinds, even while those such as Gino Iannucci and Anthony Pappalardo don’t seem as interested in continuing to play the hits year in and out.

Whereas technology setpieces of “Pretty Sweet” invested heavily in the wow factor, DGK’s full-length debut, arriving after a series of mixtape-like one-offs and features like Kayo’s “It’s Official,” offers few surprises. A DGK customer knows what he’s paying for — although the “Chocolate Tour” as reimagined by Harmony Korine storyline here heaps disdain upon paying for what otherwise can be racked or heisted — and Stevie Williams & co seem to have put years of work into delivering this, an overlong, guest-heavy, ready-made blockbuster willing to elbow aside wimpier players for a spot as the successor to, if not the culmination of, vids such as “20-Shot Sequence,” “Tantrum,” “2nd To None,” “Ryde or Die Vol. 1” and “Street Cinema.” When 2 Chainz comes on here there is an earnestness versus uses by dudes hopping bars in Queens wearing twill trousers.

For an hour, DGK’s “Parental Advisory” glories in loudmouth rap music, camouflage pants*, gunfire, cameos from skate-rap touchstones such as Kareem Campbell, Fabian Alomar, Steven Cales, DMX and Beanie Siegel, shoplifting, loose-fit denim, shiny chains and hat-tags fluttering in the breeze, tank tops, small wheels, graffiti, and various jack moves. For those paying attention there are references to the Menace intro in “Trilogy,” the Bones Brigade in “Police Academy” and even a much-beloved pre-Slap message board pro-skater-dies meme.

No one will look to this video to register on the ATV meter but in the trick department DGK too delivers: Josh Kalis and Stevie Williams skate Love Park; Josh Kalis unloads his monster 360 flip and Stevie Williams cracks some switch heelflips. Wade Desarmo, one of those Canadians who maybe fell a little too far in love with tall tees over the past decade, stacks heavy-lidded picnic-table tech including a hazed-out hardflip backside 5-0 and an alley-oop frontside flip that ranks among the best in a year when Andrew Reynolds put out a video. Marcus McBride turns in a full section that ought to make any pro with a board out for longer than 10 years sit up and prepare an excuse and Rodrigo TX, who has quietly been on a non-stop hustle these past five years, loudly reps the defunct Es shoes company and snaps a terrific looking switch kickflip over a rail. Some of these newer kids with all the “D” names blurred for me, but Keelan Dadd has poise and good runs like the one with the switch kickflip frontside boardslide. Lenny Rivas, who made a serious run at Knox Godoy status himself, has gone grown man and turns a couple new helicopters onto the handrails. My vote for best-dressed dude in the skate game Jack Curtin comes through late in the vid and wrecks shop with some incomprehensible tricks like a switch shove-it 5-0 on a rail up against a wall and his hairball switch backside lipslide down the Clipper ledge.

Probably there always will be like-minded dudes out there doing it like Brandon Biebel but the clarity of purpose Stevie Williams puts to “Parental Advisory” sometimes makes it seem like he’s carrying a whole subset of the 1990s on his back here — nods given to all these little-seen skaters and rappers, a lengthy skater-on-skater-crime narrative that picks up where the Menace video that would never come left off in “Trilogy,” even going so far earlier this year as to deliver a Fabian Alomar part time-capsuled in from 1996, and then achieving the seemingly impossible by getting Kareem Campbell to commit to a skate project**. Coming out a month after “Pretty Sweet” secured DGK an underdog status they maybe relish, and the fact that every dude on the team managed to turn in more or less a full section can be read as an endorsement of any number of those motivational platitudes embroidered onto DGK baseball hats.

*of several persuasions
**no knock on the work that went into that song but the Crailtap dudes might’ve just happened to catch him at the store

5. Jackson Curtin – “Give Me My Money Chico”

Don’t know any particular reasons why Jack Curtin isn’t regarded as one of the heaviest dudes out there these last few years, or maybe I’m just not moving in the right circles, but his appearance in the LRG video this year validates the thesis and about half the part is total carnage in the most Smash-TV sense possible — switch backside 5-0 the Clipper ledge, switch backside nosegrind (and pop-out) into the Courthouse ledge drop, switch ollie SBN’s Bay Area wall, switch frontside blunt at the Pyramid ledge, and all those tricks on the Chinese block (the last one would come in around the top of any year-end list I’d do on specific tricks). Still among skating’s best-dressed and the onliest dude still wearing Muska pants in 2010, really pulling for more from Jackson Curtin in the coming DGK production.