Trisect

“Jim Jones,” intoned Cam’ron on the intro to his 2007 comeback release ‘Public Enemy #1.’ “That was my partner, that’s my friend. He ran with me over ten years, he deserves all the success he gets, he worked hard to get it. But what you all motherfuckers got to realize is ain’t nothing lasts forever.” The Harlem Wolf, as several resources have termed him, was responding to rumors of a private falling-out with Jim Jones amid a seemingly broader disintegration of the Diplomats, with Freaky Zeaky jailed, Juelz Santana pursuing blighted collaborations with Lil Wayne, Cam’ron sparring via his two-way with 50 Cent and Jim Jones innovating basketball influenced dance crazes.

Like many of Cam’ron’s escapades this one offered a lesson to the skateboard industry, if only it had been wise enough to listen. Not a year after Cam’ron described his internal feelings, Nike began selling the Red Lobster dunk (no relation to the restaurant) to rapturous acclaim from east coasters and crustaciophiles both. But it was not all gravy within the house of the lobster shoe, as a year later the competing Blue Lobster dunk (also no relation) surfaced, effectively dividing the market for footwear inspired by succulent shellfish and likely cannibalizing certain revenues. Just as the ancient clay tablets foretold, further fragmentation struck when Nike put forth a Yellow Lobster dunk (still no relation to the seafood restaurant enterprise), cementing division not as a passing phase but rather a permanent state of affairs for such shoes, and few have heard tell from them since.

Is an upstart Green Lobster shoe inevitable, or has the door been thrown wide for pretenders to the shellfish shoe throne such as the Crawfish dunk? Perhaps, but one wonders whether Jason Dill, AVE, Chris Carter, Mike Hill and Rob Dyrdek listened and/or learned from Cam’ron and his friends, where the lobster shoes so clearly did not. About 18 months since the first cracks appeared in the Sovereign Sect’s geodesic dome, it now appears to have splintered into three factions, each seemingly genetically superior and limitless by design. Yet in the torrid and dismembering flesh-chiseler that is the board-and-wheel biz, which if any will survive to issue a Bo Turner guest board? Boil the ocean internet site takes a bleary-eyed look.

Fucking Awesome
The Supreme-scented, occasionally active t-shirt project of Jason Dill was dusted off and promoted to a full-fledged deck and t-shirt entity following Dill and AVE’s joint Workshop defection in spring 2013, and after a game of corporate hot potato with AWS as the overcooked stem tuber in question. FA Worldwide Entertainment, as it is known when parents, teachers or big-box friendly magazine writers are about, stole a march on rivals last year by commandeering much of the ‘Cherry’ runtime as well as follow-ons ranging from ‘Joyride’ to ‘Illegal Civilization 2.’
Special Moves: Bill Strobeck, DKNY, Vans money, comparisons to early World Industries, all those ams, Gino Iannucci somehow
Vulnerabilities: Key man risk in Jason Dill, already-sprawling team, potential for further dilution via alleged sister company ‘Hockey’

M(other)
Strip-teased via Tyler Bledsoe’s Instagram account, this supposed Alien offshoot flecks at Pentium-powered graphic design with plenty of woodgrain; said to be headed by former AWS business minds Chris Carter and Chad Bowers, this entity also seems to have effectively abducted the remainder of the post-FA Alien team, including Tyler Bledsoe, Gilbert Crockett and Jake Johnson.
Special Moves: The most-productive limbs of the Alien Workshop corpse, several of whom seem true believers in the vision out of Dayton; well-sized team to deliver a 15-minute optimum timeline video; clean slate
Vulnerabilities: Staking out distinct visual-arts real estate, Jake Johnson making good on his subliminal threats of quitting the biz, possible crosstown beef with…

Alien Workshop
In retrospect perhaps a no-brainer given its established brand value and the American dollars sunk into it on non-consecutive occasions by television persona Rob Dyrdek, Alien Workshop officially is in reboot mode, recently unveiling boards and shirts via a Habitat-esque Tum Yeto tie-up. The Slap boards have this effort helmed by Dyrdek, former G&S silkscreen necromancer Mike Hill and a TBA team that’s been alleged to potentially include everyone from former Alien flowee Paul Liliani to twice-named Cosmic Vomiter Rob/Bert Wooten to late-shove it hoister Lee Yankou and, er, Johnny Layton?
Special Moves: Those visuals, recognition amongst mall-shop purchasing bishops, a stout backcatalogue
Vulnerabilities: Rob Dyrdek’s thirst for recouping invested capital, some 13-plus size DC Lynx for any new inductees to fill, the evil banality of retrograde series graphics

In an already overgrown forest, can three yung shoots tap the life-sustaining sales nutrients and social-media followers required to sprout and grow in the shadow of a wilted giant? Are Heath Kirchart’s affections currently being vied for? Which among these newly anointed tribal leaders can look upon his erstwhile competitors and speak Cam’ron’s magnanimous words for Jim Jones: “I wish that man nothing but the best of luck and success and I hope he goes all the way to the motherufcking top and has a great career. Best of luck beloved.”

Iron, Ink and Elbow Grease

Seeing sounds

One of the things that continues to be worth celebrating about “Mind Field” what, a month after its release is that it represented a return to form for Alien Workshop in the art direction department – the MF ad campaign was generally pretty good and the preview clips were always quality, but as far as board graphics and the editing of other recent DNA video projects, some of it was a little pedestrian considering the source. So at risk of exacerbating what was probably Alien video overkill last month I thought this Transworld slide show/interview between Mike O’Meally and Mike Hill was a sort of interesting read and companion to the “Visual Workshop” feature on the DVD, as the sometimes gloriously low-fi work that went into the visual cacophony seems to have been at least as intensive as the dudes heaving themselves up, over and onto railings, and it’s cool that paper mache remains a viable art form somewhere.

MO: Are there any special things that people should look out for in this next video that is different to the last ones.
HILL: I would probably think that we went to greater lengths to come up with something original for the titles and that was the spark that me and Chad talked about originally that really got us excited about getting back in to building rigs to film things. In the past I would say that I didn’t really care about titles so much but we came up with something’s and we wanted to see if they worked. I’m stoked on that, also maybe having some bright colors in there. Just cause it contrasts cool with grainy black and whites and to me, too much of that made it Memory Screen 2009. I don’t really want to do that. I’d rather progress, so to me doing things to where a little bit with the technology and maybe a little bit with the fact that we can get some get some different effects easier now than then because then there weren’t really any computers, earlier on so if you film something it was what it was. Where as here you can get it kind of close and you know that you can tweak it a little in the computer to get a total glow.

Vicious cycle

He’s probably not too excited about Diamond either

There’s nothing like a good Jason Dill interview really. He’s frequently semi-coherent, names names and talks shit freely, and he seems to have a really good memory in spite of how much drugs he’s supposed to have done. I was thinking the other day actually how it’s been a while since Dill shot his mouth off and lo and behold, Don Pendleton talked to him for a feature at Black Lodges, a webzine/online artist collective of sorts that features a blog by Eric Stricker, presumably moonlighting from TWS message board supervision.

Most of the interview involves Dill waxing Dillish on Polaroids, his grandma’s photo albums and being vaguely heartbroken, but at one point Pendleton gets him going on the topic of streetwear and his own streetwear company Fucking Awesome. Then the cantankerous Dill materializes, nursing a serious case of seller’s remorse:

Yes, I am a cynical fuck. I can’t stand the brands that are out here. That’s why I killed my brand for a while. But every time I try to kill Fucking Awesome, I end up bringing it back and people are asking for more. I can’t stand these fucking brands. I can’t stand any of that streetwear horse shit anymore. I can’t believe I ever got into it. It is what it is, you know.
…
Like, I made a clothing company and I’ve got fucking skateboard rappers wearing it. And I’ve got Paris Hilton’s latest boyfriend wearing it on the E! Channel or whatever. I don’t want that. And people wearing it on the covers of their fucking lame albums. Fucking dumb. I hate everything.
…
Yeah, when I first did Fucking Awesome, it took off like a rocket. One day it was just our funny little thing and it was fun….we were selling it through Supreme and they helped me launch it and get it out there. I remember the guys at Supreme were like, ‘Enjoy yourself now because it’s going to suck eventually.’ And I was like, ‘It’s not gonna suck.’ But yeah, it really sucks now.

Certain of us could be like “well, what did you think would happen,” but we all know that accomplishes little besides maybe chalking up a couple internet snark points. But it reminded me of a similar hard-learned lesson learned about a decade ago by one of Dill’s bosses, Mike Hill, about not being able to choose your audience and seeing your baby co-opted by retards. From Sean Cliver’s “Disposable”:

The success of the alien graphics came gradually. It started out as a cult following but then developed into a trendy nightmare. People would tell me how our shirts were really popular with ravers. This was the last thing the Alien Workshop was about–a bunch of overly social people dancing to techno while dressed for year-round trick-or-treating–and it was quite devastating.

One day a shop account called and said Madonna had just been in their store and bought one of our shirts. He was all excited and thought we should be, too. I remember going berserk and screaming about why would they sell it to her, that they should have denied her. But you can’t control these things. It happens to bands all the time: the people who drove you away to the point of marking something yourself out of frustration end up your customers.

Addendum: the illustrious Police Informer also was on the Jason Dill wavelength this week.