Summertime Mixtape Vol. 10 – Steve Durante, ‘Inhabitants’

For a minute or two in the waning days of the Dubya Bush administration, Steve Durante looked about ready to form Habitat’s new core. A Jerseyite rocking a Fred Gall bun, Steve Durante translated the Wenning hunch and ledge tech to the pivot fakie/brown cords era, ratcheting up the difficulty quotient a notch or several with tricks here like the switch frontside shove-it 5-0, the switch backside lipslide variations and the nollie noseblunt pop-out in the middle of Cincinnati’s most knowed loading dock ledge. This dude was one of the few on the national scene putting in time in Philadelphia during the lull between the Stevie/Kalis era and the Sabotage resurgence; the line here through the Muni plaza still could slot seamlessly into any of the latter crew’s vids. 

Metaverse Metachorus Metaverse

Ten more
Javi De Pedro, ‘Heritage’ — wallie backside tailslide with no bump and some of the year’s most heavily boned landings
Dick Rizzo, ‘The Reuben’ — It was a wrap when Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz came in.
Ronnie Sandoval, ‘Appreciate U Bro’ — Heavy drama, but among our best in the bowls and embankments
Josh Arnott, ‘Impressions’ — Kind of off-putting to see DC retros pushing across U.K. cobblestone but maybe all you need is a killer backside tailslide and 360 flip?
Jordan Trahan, ‘Bunny Hop’ — The kickflip over the garbage bin immediately gets noticed to the all-time listmakers, along with Danny Garcia’s ‘Mosaic’ one and Tom Penny’s in ‘Welcome to Hell’
Mark Humenik, ‘Bert’s Vid 2’ — This dude sometimes seems like he is dealing with some form of lower-body ADHD where his feet get agitated if they aren’t doing a trick every few seconds
Grant Taylor, ‘Constant’ — Over the next few years, a handful of residents will have GT and Thrasher to blame for crowding up their downhill alleyway
John Shanahan, ‘SabotageXDC’ — Jimmy Gorecki deemed the nollie backside flip over the can the trick of the year and was he maybe right?
Tyler Surrey, ‘Vagando’ — Top-shelf filming and out-of-the-way spots combine for one of the more enjoyably disorienting and surprising vids from the always-reliable Tyler Surrey
Jacopo Carozzi, ‘Baker Video With Jacopo’ — The master of Milan’s Love Park with the endlessly bubbling pot of ledge tricks

1. Joey O’Brien – ‘[untitled] 005’

Marathon man Joey O’Brien has been the torch-bearer for long-distance Oyola lines through downtown Philadelphia since he linked the Love Park ledges with the underground parking ramp in ‘Sabotage4,’ and deep thinkers could probably draw some similarities to what has seemed like years of toil through flow arrangements that up to this year hadn’t elevated him the same as Love/Muni alumni like Kevin Bilyeu, Jahmir Brown and the incomparable Jamal Smith. Joey O’Brien came into 2021 with a presumed Adidas hookup and no discernible/official deck deal, served notice with an Alien 2.0 vid and then proceeded to blow the doors off last summer with a nearly 10-minute footage barrage supervised by the impeccable Chris Mulhern. It was pretty much relentless — whereas other dudes may get a clip on a given rail or ledge, Joey O’Brien does three or four, skating construction sides and dodging snow piles, seeming able to backside flip out of anything. At Philadelphia’s Municipal Services Building, one of the single most heavily mined spots over the past five years or so, he finds eye-popping new stuff to do, bigspinning on the angled bannister and popping a tile to jump over the back of the big handrail, with nigh-incomprehensible twists on the benches, like the backside 180 to frontside nosegrind. Beyond the Muni orbit he covers all bases — on the bumps to bars, flying a backside 180 onto a black-diamond cellar door; he’s got shove-it nosegrinds both ways on the rails, a frontside version of the ‘Suciu grind’ and a leap of faith gap to nosegrind. The year’s work for Joey O’Brien winds down with a richly deserved pro board and a Skater of the Year ‘contender’ nod from Thrasher, and he seems on the cusp of putting out another video.

The Snowblower Is The New Bolt Cutter

The story of ‘earth’ (the planet) is defined by the eternal tug of war between man and his environment. Viewed from above, land is carved into multicoloured squares and circles, crops to feed man’s teeming billions. Below ground, humans tunnel into soil and rock to extract minerals and gemstones that power cities and festoon foreheads. While tropical islands are constructed from trash or military equipment, each day people display their own minor triumphs over nature, driving heavily laden trucks up hills, relaxing in aeroplanes, boldly growing plants in Antarctica.

Erik Herrera, young fleet-foot now riding officially for Chocolate, this week put up another W for humankind, melding numerous pushes and an anti-ableist cement slope to fling a backside flip over a sidewalk and up a five-step, stoking out Tyler Pacheco and mankind generally. Despite the lack of a slow-mo angle, this backside kickflip more narrowly represented another ripple in the decadeslong environmental push and pull that birthed, developed and continues to define skateboarding. Asphalt embankments provided the friction and gravity for Z-boys of old to approximate surfing sans water; the pools later barged helped ferment the outlaw raiderisms that would be required to persist through the skatepark closures and vert ramp scrappings that would follow. Forced adaptation to office plazas, loading docks and schoolyards required fashioning tricks and entire disciplines around the street biome, working within the terrain’s natural limits and sometimes toppling them. The ingenuity required to translate picnic tables and staircase aids into platforms for innovation and progression allows a new form of vision, like slipping on the enchanted sunglasses from ‘They Live’ and seeing the Sistine Chapel in a New Jersey backyard.

Watching backside kickflips like Erik Herrera’s, on screens powered by rare earth minerals and housed within temperature-controlled rumpus rooms made out of dead trees, it’s easy to feel victorious. Science and technology have provided bondo and sawzalls and the power to make nigh any spot skateable; Thrasher’s March 2021 issue featured a how-to interview with a masked superhero knowed only as ‘Knob Buster.’ Those with mall shop and video game money, properly funneled into the pockets of laid-back warehouse landlords, have unlocked private TFs capable of sidestepping both security and inclement weather.

Yet all of this is a feint, dodging the real and ultimate authority: weather. No less a visionary than Mike Carroll recognized the climate’s paramount rule when, in the ‘Modus’ credits, he mutters his capitulation to the wind, seeking solace in the embrace of a video game controller when persistent breezes made all flip trick attempts pointless. Pat Duffy and Ronnie Creager and Marc Johnson wowed generations by taking on handrails and pic-a-nic tables in the rain, but these remain novelties, with malevolent nimbostrati continuing to reroute domestic and international filming trips to local bars. Even in these pandemic times, the only surefire cure for winter is southbound airfare.

Or is it? The same combination of ingenuity, courage and hardheaded masochism that hurls bodies repeatedly down stairs in pursuit of the clip, and that certain euphoric zen, are now pushing the meteorological envelope further than ever before. John Shanahan’s uncanny ability on the slippery snow-skate is one thing, but as blizzards rake the U.S.A. over past weeks, ways are being found to best even the uncooperative climate itself. The Philadelphia contingent again curls their collective lip toward any barriers before their ledges and cans — deploying a damn snowblower to cut paths between Municipal Plaza’s benches, leaving gaps for young Chris Falo to push and pop over as needed. Further west, Josh Kalis’ Grand Rapids group took the same approach to liberate an even more minimal spot from old man winter’s icicle-fingered clutches, in Boston and Cincinnati they’re skating snowbanks. Kevin Bilyeu’s bubblegoosed nose manual and trash can kickflip aren’t even the point, it’s the principle involved.

Is the snowblower the new bolt cutter? Could an iced-over parking lot or frozen Canadian pond, properly Zamboni’d, host a powerslide event worthy of a wintertime Dime Glory Challenge? Will the future bring affordable and localized weather-controlling machines to skateparks and leave yet-to-come generations that much more confused over why anyone bothers with street spots at all, or will varied temperatures, locales and other environmental trappings be required to properly model the premiumly priced softgood pieces that will support the pros of the day?

Boil The Ocean Blog Is Out Here Asking The Tough Questions About Godzilla’s Body Image And The New Matt Militano Part Dudes

Hollywood isn’t ready to talk about the summer blockbuster season’s biggest open secret: Godzilla has let himself go. Just when the human race needs the apartment block-sized reptilian avenger most, it appears that Godzilla’s typical between-battle sabbatical has swelled his girth to even more immense proportions, potentially posing a tactical disadvantage as Godzilla goes up against triple-headed ne’er-do-well King Ghidora and/or attempts to tuck in a dress shirt. “Why do I seem to be the only critic-columnist on the planet earth who’s even mentioning this obvious fact?” blogs movie Blogger Jeffrey Wells, suggesting that the film industry is loathe to offend overweight moviegoers by focusing on Godzilla’s extra tonnage. Elsewhere, as Godzilla thumps vigorously in the rain against his rubbery adversaries, the radiation-birthed behemoth is proffered as a ‘thicc icon’, mainly regarding his wordless powers of persuasion to lobby Mothra and Rodan into defending our planet against Ghidora.

Like many Godzilla plot points, the non-debate over Godzilla’s heaving, scaly waistline provides several key takeaways for the skateboard-selling business. This week upon their Instagram platform, Politic Boards performed a digital mea culpa for what has been one of the most nagging, obvious and yet rarely discussed question marks hovering over the past decade: How come Ross Norman, velvet-heeled flip trick practitioner and genteel southern person, is not pro? “It’s my fault he’s not,” Politic’s managers this week said. “I thought he didn’t care too much. So when I did finally ask him, he was so happy to be part of the family I felt terrible I didn’t ask earlier.” The professionally endorsed 7.75″ aims to correct the oversight, along with a reliably cracking debut vid showcasing Ross Norman’s long-beloved ‘Trilogy’ drip: nollie 180 switch k-grinds, fakie backside nosegrinds, mirror noseblunt slides with Rob Welsh vibrations, the ribbed tanks and white tees come included.

As any clued-in Godzilla observer realizes, however, as soon as one existential threat is fatally body-slammed into the urban rubble, ancient forces and mankind’s bottomless hubris already are awakening another laser-eyed city wrecker via military testing and/or occult rituals. Now comes Matt Militano, onetime early casualty of Alex Klein’s blighted OIAM season, now a nearly decadelong journeyman of flow programs and scene vids, sporting a spaced Stefan Janoski visage and weaving together enjoyably tangled ledge combos along the U.S. East Coast. Matt Militano’s time in the trenches has produced his share of video parts and assorted potpourri, but his entry in Zach Sayles’ new ‘Vanish’ vid is the most thorough accounting so far of his deep and varied skills — ranging here from a tall backside flip up to fakie manual on one of the tall Muni cans to a backside 180 out of a Brooklyn Banks wallride, to a thorough working-over of the colored Philly step-up blocks and an unexpectedly long backside nosebluntslide popped off a cellar door. The whole vid, with a mix of Sabotage and GX associates, can be had for $10 here.

With Ross Norman’s long-awaited professionalizing finally complete, what companies now will tend to Matt Militano’s too-long overlooked shoe, board and bank account situations? Say Palace, what about Jamal Smith anyways? After Matt Militano and John Shanahan, who will be the third to officially make the backside nosegrind to backside noseblunt a trick trend? Who had a bigger impact on rap music production: Bob James’ rhythm section arrangements or Godzilla? Is Godzilla the long-rumored ‘fifth element of hip hop’? If Godzilla came back skinny in his next movie, would theories begin a-swirling about a Gucci Mane-type clone, or would people simply buy his new mixtape?

4. Jamal Smith – ‘V Nice’

Palace’s ‘V Nice,’ documenting some Los Angelean residence by the famed swishy short manufacturer, arrived like a heady midsummer night fever dream, one where Lucien Clark had a part in Trilogy and Danny Brady seized control of an anti-aging serum that also contained plans for as-yet unfathomed bank-to-bench moves at Lockwood. Whether or not Jamal Smith’s powers to go viral have obscured over the years his excellent skating is a debate for podcasts yet to come, though only after flavored soda waters have been sipped empty and the clock has passed the 45-minute mark. Currently, it seems clear that Jamal Smith is among the most inventive minds working in the frontside shove-it medium; in ‘V Nice’ he is hitting PJ Ladd levels over the Santa Monica sand gaps and pushing one of the grimier switch 360 flips on the market. And his grinds sound good.

At the February Meeting of the International Brotherhood of Skate Video Character Actors

Bill: Alright, let the record show this is Bill, representing the FDR managers and chair. I’d like to call this meeting to order. Can those present identify themselves for the minutes?

Len: Len here…

Ghostrider: This is your Ghostrider, present.

Murgatroyd Simmons: Murgatroyd. Here. On the phone from Milan.

Bill: Very good, we have a quorum. Let’s get to the new business then?

Ghostrider: We need to address Philly, one of our largest chapters.

Bill: No doubt. Does anyone have a motion on it?

Len: I’ve been traveling and not able to look at this closely yet… They shut the park this week, I saw… but… then Kyle Nicholson was still gunning for the switch 360 flip? Did I see that right..?

Bill: He’s switch 360 flipping on borrowed time, I’m afraid. The fences are up and the machinery moved in.

Murgatroyd: That’s a real bummer. Complete bummer.

Ghostrider: It’s a real blow to our brothers and sisters at the local chapter and to all of us. I assume I don’t need to recite for all of you the stats, between videos’ migration to Instagram and Vine and whatnot, all the private TFs, and the swelling rosters that pack the remaining full-lengths… I mean, it is really, really tough out there for any character actor, regardless of tenure or talent, to get meaningful screen time in skate videos these days. Any chapter, period.

Murgatroyd: Thank God for Fat Bill.

Len: Well, thank God for the Sabotage dudes… I mean… they provided roles for more members than nearly all other videos put together over the last few years. CJ the Picture Man, Joe McPeak… the tank-top gobbler… Philly Jesus, Snitch…

Murgatroyd: Well hey, we should talk about a strike. Right?

Bill: It’s worth discussing.

Ghostrider: It may put the issue on people’s radar, but we need to get input from the local chapters on a move like that. There’s still good work to be got from the shop and independent videos and folks may not put that aside lightly with times like they are right now. There’s no more “…and you’re watching 411.” Transworld’s move back to the VX and weirdly abrasive paper for the new issue’s cover suggests a grittier direction, I’ll grant. But they’re a long way from ‘Free Your Mind’. It might just be some novelty thing.

Len: And, if these dudes in Philadelphia really will have to make their way without Love Park… you know, they may need our support there… It’s a two-way street.

Murgatroyd: True, well, good point.

Bill: There’s some mail on this, actually.

Murgatroyd: From the Philly chapter?

Bill: From some blog website. I guess people still do blogs. There’s a lot of run-on sentences and some made up words.

Len: What does it say?

Bill: It’s like a condolence card. Offering sympathy and solidarity in tough times for everyone who helped revive one of the world’s great spots, with minimal help from any company sponsors or corporate interests, producing some of the best skating and videos of the past decade. Thanks the Sabotage group and the rest for building a scene as raw and vital as any of the earlier Love Park heydays. Says it was both rousing and really sad, all the footage and photos this past week. The penmanship’s poor, it really rambles. Anyway then. I’d like to motion for canvassing the local chapters on a possible strike to call attention to the plight of our colleagues in Philadelphia related to Love Park’s closure.

Murgatroyd: Seconded.

Bill: Very good. Let’s keep an eye on this one and keep Philadelphia in our thoughts.

Murgatroyd: If there’s no other old business I’d move to adjourn, fellas. I’m meeting, you know, a gentleman caller.

Bill: Only other thing was a moment of silence for the Brown sisters. I suggest we adjourn with that.

All: Seconded.

Heated Seats And Pants With No Pleats

“There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it,” grumbled the dark lord Sauron in a recent and grumbly voiceover advertising the new Star Wars movie. “The dark side, and the light.” The vibrant world of wookies and hard-partying ewoks again has fallen into strife and discord, lousy with massing storm troopers and crashed spaceships. It represents an extension of what is perhaps the nation’s best-known workplace drama, in which the rigors of toiling under the Emperor’s exacting standards caused Darth Vader to crack and fail to recoup the Empire’s lofty investment in the initial Death Star, then resign his position before construction on the second could complete.

Darth Vader, like so many other career professionals laboring under layers of blubbery bureaucracy, encountered distressors* that occasionally drove him to lash out at colleagues and competitors, employing telekinesis and a lazery sword in equal measure, often illegally. As hinted by the Star Warrior-baiting Santa Cruz decks of yesteryear, Darth Vader’s broiling frustrations may mirror those gripping the skateboard sphere in these, the autumn days of 2015.

Like an incredulous Death Star space welder handed a snorkel, a flathead screwdriver and an unconvincing clap on the shoulder, stakes and requirements for workaday professional bros seem to ratchet ever higher while the constraints of a turbulent global economy seem intent on culling the industry herd. Once high-flying board affairs like Alien Workshop, Zero and Girl are undergoing painful evolutions, while rumors swirl around the future of Dekline shoes and Adio has taken to advertising former team riders. Signature-model toting professionals increasingly are expected to bear the responsibility of marketing themselves via crowd-courting internet pages, and we live in a time when not only is it unshocking to see a marginally-known amateur break off tricks like Gabriel Summers’ shiveringly gnarly nosegrind, it also is de regueur do it nominally for free. Olympic endorsement contracts would beckon skateboarding’s IOC rule-compatible 1%, while remaining ne’er do wells contemplate crowdfunding raisers to sop up medical bills.

Are stress levels within skating’s grand talent pool rising to a Vader level in which colleagues get choked out at sit-down meetings? You hear these things, but it is hard to know for sure. There are signs and siguls, including but not limited to growth in powerviolence-sprinkled parts and graphics, or soundtracks bearing murderer music. Vignettes tucked into ‘Sabotage 4’ and the ‘Our Life’ video, two of the grittier and grottier outputs of recent weeks, feature fights with authorities and passersby, recalling a previous industry crunch that manifested itself in part via board-to-drill combat.

Veins of latent but palpable anger burble beneath the overcast surface and betwixt combusting switchstance tricks in Gilbert Crockett’s ‘Salt Life’ video part for the redubbed Quasi, an outfit forged from the wreckage and occasional raw feelings of DNA’s highflying corporate adventure gone kaput. Quasi’s initial video look transposes some of the hi-contrast and sharp cuts of their graphical concepts, anchored in a somewhat deeper trench of Gilbert Crockett’s technical skating, including a crunchy switch backside smith grind and one of the more eye-popping switch shove-its in recent memory, and peppered with enraged grunts and a viciously celebratory board beating.

Has the quantity of cathartic, building-slapping wallrides and wallies risen in lockstep with the industry’s general level of fiscal insecurity? Will snapchatted pro boxing matches emerge as a multipronged answer to slackened incomes and late night instagram sniping? Do conspiracy-mongers see all of it as symptomatic of a divide-and-conquer strategy amongst deep-pocketed sportswear and drink manufacturers?

*versus happier eustressors trafficked among those hard-partying ewoks and jawas