Summertime Mixtape Vol. 8 – Justin Adeniran, ‘M1’

Justin Adeniran stands out among a long line of Pennsylvania-based nose manualers with magnesium-scraping powers to crank nollie frontside noseslide 270 shoves-it out and glide through Muni at leisure. The cap, the khakis, the switch heelflips and especially, especially the spots are a total package — a certain type of tragedy that Love Park no longer can provide a platform for his line building. Three years on, the nosegrind nollie flip in this section demands rewinds, and ultimate tribute. The video’s still available here.

Loaded For Bear

Whereas some of the “name” gaps particularly on the west coast have become sites for caged-bird shoots in recent years, decked out with roll-ins and banner ads and a cast of thousands, the city of brotherly love has kept JFK Plaza off-limits, to the point of throwing DC’s briefcase full of c-notes out the window a few years back. The jam-format contest trappings don’t make a Carlsbad or a Wallenberg or that one handrail Moose 360’ed any less gnarly of course, and the danger of friendly fire in a shooting gallery environment adds a kind of delirious unpredictability to the proceedings, but there’s a certain type of man-versus-beast purity to Tom Asta’s recent switch trip down the famed Love Park fountain as he kicks his heels into the Mystery reboot. I mean there’s still cops patrolling this spot, and bloodthirsty rogues and autograph seekers and Brian Wenning legacy defenders* around right? Regardless, awesome “form” on this and it’s made more forbidding by the way it looks like he’s got some backside drift going on.

*not like I’m not

A Family Affair

This preemptive Father’s Day post brought to you by the Wilt Chamberlain Genealogy Foundation

The whole mainstreaming thing that’s gone down the last decade or so hasn’t just put Cristal on the table and Aston Martins in the garage of your favoritest pros, it’s caught the attention of soccer moms and hockey dads the nation over, board by board and blown-out shoe by shoe. Perhaps a mixed bag in general, with each heartwarming father-son backyard ramp building session matched by EXPN-wise would-be momagers quizzing hapless team managers at demos, demanding a roadmap to Shecklerdom. Was it like this in the 80s? Surely Christian Hosoi could provide an answer that would save souls in the process, but I can offer only run-on sentences and Ace of Base references.

It would require untold riches in pixels and bytes to tot up the various positives, negatives and neutrals of more overt parental involvements. This Philadelphia Weekly story on Love Park casts skateboard parents in a new role, namely would-be defenders against (alleged) police brutality:

That’s precisely why 37-year-old Jen Chattin plans on attending this year’s [Go Skateboarding Day] with her sons. “I’ll even skateboard,” says the single mother of four boys. She’s fired up and ready to raise hell about the fact that a cop put his hands on her son.

It’s hard to say where the world’s moms and dads may fall in the spots-vs-parks debate but it’ll be interesting to see how things develop in the next decade or so, as this type of situation comes up more often, and the ranks of parents who skate themselves gradually expands. Aside from a clunky description of skate action at Love and heavy reliance on an internet message board as a source, it’s a good article, and see if you can spot the paraphrased Stevie Williams quote.

Bonus: This sort of amazing quote from one of the cops that talked for the story…

“It’s illegal for a reason,” contends Wilson. “They’ve broken those blocks [on the floor of the park] and popped them up so they can use them as ramps. They grind all that marble [sic] to shame. If they were just kids who rolled through and didn’t do any damage, that would be one thing, but they’re not.”