What Gemstones Remain Undiscovered as Content Miners Pick Clean the Caverns of Skating’s Past?

As the information age and its college dormmate, the digital revolution, fire up the bong and begin to shake their 1D20s and 1D12s, all becomes clear. In this smartphone-cradled realm, plated armour and halberds are enchanted with mystical powers via every new social media connection, and the currency of the kingdom is not gold pieces, but the minutes and hours that a web site is able to waste for people while they are at work or school. It is a fertile and lush land where ancient treasures lay hidden beneath piles of broken links and half-remembered Geocities pages.

What remains though when advancing into a mine long abandoned by content-hungry Dwarven lords? Torch aloft, our adventurers descend past craters and caverns where long-ago interviews with Fred Gall, Andy Roy and the Muska were extracted; deep pockets still are visible where the Steve Rocco doc and Disposable book once lay, chasms representing the riches of the John Cardiel and Ali Boulala Epicly Laterds, and Gio Reda’s Brian Anderson feature. There still are bits and pieces to be chiseled loose, drawing weekly bands of podcasters to run their fingers across well-worn walls and sift piles of cast-off ore cluttering forgotten crannies.

Do hidden gems still lurk? Yet-untold stories revealing and seminal to know? It is a question of value judged by the many-tentacled beholder’s cursed eyes. Deep, deep within these caverns and shafts, work still is done. In recent years the enchanter MuckMouth, guided by the chaotic-good sages of the Slap boards, set forth on a mission to track down and electronically quiz nearly every half-remembered pro or amateur who contributed footage to company vids or 411s over the past three decades, from Eric Sanderson to Jason King.

The roustabout bard Jenkem, who some believe on a mad quest to put down to parchment each minute that passed during Rocco’s reign in the castle World, this year brought forth from these blasted pits the endearing tale of the World Industries customer service rep, JD, heretofore remembered only in a few thousand novelty trading cards packaged with a magazine printed more than 20 years ago. And last week the leather-armored mercenary HavocTV unveiled a surprisingly engaging 29-minute documentary on Carlos Ruiz, known mainly for backside lipsliding El Toro 10 years ago, around the apex of the hammer era before trucks loosened up, ATVs reignited transition and wallies garnered fresh relevance.

Before the crackling hearth within the Foaming Stein tavern, grizzled warriors deep into their cups will mutter that these mines have been stripped to worthless hulks, that delving into these clean-scraped bowels wastes time and hit points better reserved for still-rising formations charted by Jason Dill, Lev Tanju, Pontus Alv or Alex Olson. But if you find your way to the darkened table in the back, there sits a hooded figure, sometimes spinning a yellowed Nicotine wheel, paying bounties for artifacts he insists still are hidden within this slate and limestone:

The car rental agent who handed over jeep keys to Josh Beagle and Ronnie Creager prior to the filming of ‘Barbarians at the Gate’: Little is known about this rental agent who literally provided the vehicle for what still stands as the most uninhibited tour video of all time, a document of nudity, crack cocaine and the St. Louis Arch that provided an early platform for Heath Kirchart and diminished several farmers’ yields across the U.S. grain belt. Key questions: How did he first get into renting automobiles to people? What were his early encounters with Josh Beagle like? How would he describe the jeep’s condition upon checking it back in? What is life like after renting cars to pro skaters?

The bus driver for Osiris’ ‘Aftermath’ tour: It is widely agreed that anything that ever happened in skateboarding, past or present, occurred on Osiris’ 2001 ‘Aftermath’ tour — and this person would have been behind the wheel the entire time. Who hooked him up with his first bus? Which weapons did he use to enforce the legendary ’number one rule of the bus’? Which Osiris pro would he have trusted to take the tiller in the hour of need? If the answer is not T-Bone, why not? Have any subsequent bus driving assignments held a candle to the auspiciously titled ‘Aftermath’ tour?

The investment bankers who managed Big Brother’s $600K sale to Larry Flynt Publications: Jenkem’s highly entertaining 2014 interview with World Industries’ former CFO tugged back the curtain on the financial fence-jumping and knob-cutting that went into World’s sale of Big Brother magazine to the Larry Flynt empire. What other Rocco deals were there? How ugly a mess were Big Brothers’ books? How were valuations calculated for the souls sent in by Big Brother readers responding to an offer for a free World t-shirt in the Andy Roy issue, and did these souls then transfer to the purchaser of World after the $29 million changed hands, or does Rocco retain these in some foot locker within his beachside residence?

Bobby Worrest’s Phenomenal Pulaski Part Offers A Glimpse Of The Great Skate Recession

While recent ‘one-spot’ video sections have generally revolved around transition of one type or another, be it DIY concrete (Chet Childress, ‘God Save the Label’), mega-scope wood scaffolding (Bob Burnquist, ‘Dreamland’) or backyard dipping bowl (Lance Mountain’s still-amazing part from ‘Xtremely Sorry’), Eastern coast action-sport action hero Bobby Worrest this week released via the Internet a for-concentrate edition of his grimy, technical stylings filmed entirely at DC’s famed Pulaski Park. It’s easy to formulate arguments around why this is probably the ideal setting for Bobby Worrest’s brand of unvarnished ledge gnawing, the white and brownish blocks serving themselves up for any number of switch backside kickflips and noseslides, that seat-of-the-pants 180 nosegrind revert and a rarely observed backside noseblunt shove-it, peppered with various over-the-shoulder traffic checks, nose stalling and an abrupt half-cab end-runner.

It had been speculated that Bobby Worrest taped these tricks during the 2012 government shutdown, though various media accounts of the time period thoroughly debunk this era as some free-bust, sovereign credit rating-imperiling Shangri-la. Something far simpler and more grim may be at work here, that is, a shadowy economic strangler that seems to be marauding amongst the smaller, more independent industry members and choking them out in various financial ways.

Hark, ye: Erotica author and shop owner Chris Nieratko speaks on the slow death of the demo, wherein the ‘sad state of our economy has halted almost all domestic skate tours if they aren’t within a short van ride from Southern California.’ Elsewhere, Jamie Thomas posts an update on Black Box Distribution’s restructuring efforts, while Baker trimmed long-timers Braydon Szafranski, Kevin Long and Jeff Lenoce in what’s described as a survival tactic. Months-long jaunts to Barcelona seem to have been traded for weeks-long China visits or more common, domestic road-trips that increasingly appear pasted together by bros as opposed to cos.

A hometown-centric skate part of Bobby Worrest, himself a refugee of the Sole-Tech slim down, could reflect any number of other factors, such as a preference not to go anywhere or an abundance of stacked footage with an easy packaging hook. Would though such a futuristic vision of more-budget parts such as this be so dire? Brian Panebianco and Ryan Higgins delivered one of the best videos of the past 14 months centered on the resurgent Philly front that is doing what scenes used to do; that is, draw people to it rather than inspiring Orbitz email alerts for vacation destinations. Lucas Puig’s drip-drab of French foundation-spot footage over the past year regularly topped certain others’ polished video offerings, and the punctuation-marked Gravis clip that revived the Dylan Rieder movement years back earned Internet plaudits for deeply mining a close cluster of LA spots.

Will coming years more deeply segment have-not pros from those lifted on tides of multinational sport apparel largesse, capable of securing weekend skate-spot permits for the pedigreed few that can command widespread online sales powers? Would this be a bad thing? Will the Great Recession and regulatory ‘uncertainty’ continue to hover long enough over landlords and property owners so as to give locale-bound professionals a reasonable buffer zone before having to expand their legal/ticket budgets? Have certain Barceloniyean bartenders begun to feel the financial pinch of fewer moneyed American professionals wetting their moneyed, professional whistles after long days of nude sunbathing, or did moneyed American professionals become/stay that way by judiciously regulating their tipping behaviours?