1. Brett Weinstein – ‘Realm’

For a while now Brett Weinstein has been cutting ‘Trilogy’ ledge lines through Chicago’s little-heralded plazas, and cracking through its industrial craters and dark alleys, but the increasingly well-crafted ‘Deep Dish’ flicks have packaged up his nighttime prowling with a doom and gloom well matched to one of skating’s most-avoided cities. In ‘Realm,’ their best one so far, Brett Weinstein guns through tricks with the spry urgency of ‘Wonderful, Horrible’ era PJ Ladd, like on the line with the 50-50 backside 180, and generally busts out in all directions — up stairs, down them, fakie manualing around corners and rattling up loading docks. And when the confounding prospect of launching out of a concave fountain to grind a round planter isn’t enough, he incorporates Zubaz. The dude does not slow down; check for him in Theories’ Chicago clip and Deep Dish’s joint vid with Snack.

7. Daniel Kim – ‘Spirit Quest’

‘Spirit Quest’ beat its 1:20:00 clock with moving mirages like Daniel Kim’s mindbending mirror wall-push sequence towards the beginning of this section, which takes a couple watches for slow-witted captains of windbag web blogs to fully comprehend. In a star-crossed year, Daniel Kim indulges a taste for exotic and enigmatic tricks that may never be as huggable as a hardflip or backside smith grind: Switch japan grabs, the pop-shove it nosegrind tailgrab and his barrier-clearing switch kickflip tailgrab mix Daniel Kim’s robust ‘Belly of the Beast’ tech with the type of cosmic syrup Jason Dill maybe was sipping when he conjured a 25-year-old coping trick on the cover of Thrasher in ‘Mindfield’-era Alien’s waning days. Few were those bringing wholly unthought of tricks to the table this year, with or without one white glove.

In The Great Dice Game That Is The Skate Shoe Business, Gravis IVSK8 Wagered, Rolled And Lost

Winter arrived early this week for the action-goods provider Burton, as P&L discontent forced tough decisions at the top that abruptly left Nordic sweater Arto Saari, stylistic watchword Dylan Rieder and others shoe deal-less and set adrift on the ice floe that is free agency in the current economy, increasingly resembling a scene from one of the early, J Strickland-helmed Baker videos where a poor dude is rolling on the ground and groaning in super slow-mo. Is what it is and all involved are wished well, though things appear somewhat brighter for pro and am endorsers of Analog brand pants, who according to this press release will enjoy certain hand-holding procedures throughout this difficult period:

Regarding the Analog surf and skate teams, we will be working with each team rider individually on an exit plan to transition them out of the brand.

The gap in sponsorship largesse is expected to be felt most heavily by Southern California thrift-store proprietors, several leasing agents and various weed spots, while the hardgoods industry collectively contorts and careens as it attempts to financially nose manual through a global recession period. As consumers we lose out by way of a thinner selection of goods available for our paycheques and one less competitor to keep honest rival shoe sellers. Yet the untimely demise of Gravis’ “IVSK8” lineup could signal that a deeper and more troubling loss already be lurks elsewhere, buried among footnotes in the great balance sheet of our psyches.

Foisting another footwear choice on an oversaturated population, backed by a big snowboard concern and incorporating a rather on-the-nose identifier amounted to long odds facing the Gravis venture from the jump, but was the company’s true crime being too daring? The much-derided Dylan pro model and later loafer drew wide attention but by all accounts made relatively few sales when stacked against the various iterations of the half-dozen vulcanized templates that have domineered shop walls for what seems now like the better part of the last decade, possibly the longest span of time a shoe trend has held sway over a previously fickle subset of trend-hoppers.

In a time of war abroad and economic upheaval at home, have our shoe choices skewed too far toward the safe, familiar and disposable, virtually ensuring that even the likes of PJ Ladd cannot persuade us to spend freely on a technology-forward, expensive signature model? Did Gravis roam too far off the stylistic reservation without a properly tested avalanche transceiver? Or must we make conscious, tribal decisions to periodically embrace outlandish design silhouettes so as to maintain our group ‘edge’?

Rose-Coloured Glasses, Made In Philadelphia

Recently while aboard a luxury locomotive I gazed out the window to take in the urban decay and peacefully zoned out on the loading docks and warehouses, snapping to after realizing that it had been several minutes and probably it looked retarded to whatever secular co-passengers might’ve been paying attention. One of those increasingly seldom times when a person can still feel as though these pursuits might set them apart in some fundamental way from the rest of the whoevers, and coming on the heels of the pretty emotionally heavy Oyola “Later’ds,” casts Ricky/Bobby/Traffic and the rest in a whole different light.

I ask you, who but a truly cockeyed optimist looks for and sees potential for good times in a sea of crumbling concrete foundations and pissy public parks and disused traffic barriers? What sort of a person launches a hardgoods affair, in 2011, out of the east coast without Marc Ecko rhino pants money and with a full-time truck driving job? What sort of a person would professionally endorse this company? What sort of person devotes the last decade-plus to filming this stuff for unprofitable video enterprises? Does spot-seeking and those who live the attached lifestyle require a person to be naturally outfitted with rose-colored goggles, or are they earned like a samurai’s blade or a unicorn’s wish-granting powers?

Elsewhere on the east coast, Du Flocka Rant gives the children a reason to believe. (via quartersnacks)