Recent Dispatch From the PJ Ladd Plane of Existence

A few months on since Plan B teammate and fellow ‘Tru, B’ sideline-sitter Colin McKay casually compared Boston flatground alchemist PJ Ladd to Queen Amidala’s downward-spiraling leotard flexer in ‘Black Swan,’ third-dimension wallie champ Tom Karangelov offers a somewhat more cosmic update on the recluse technician in TWS’ current and fantastic am issue:

TWS: Any news on the PJ Ladd front?
TK: Oh, dude, I skate with PJ a bunch. He’s working on a part, I guess they want to do a part just with him. He’s super into vibes these days. He wants to grow his hair out because he was telling me that the longer your hair is they’re like antennas. They reach out for energy. So his hair’s pretty long. He’s kind of got this mysterious vibe going. Not a lot of people know what he’s up to, and I think that’s cool.

Summertime Mixtape #3: Adrian Lopez “Misled Youth”

This video hit like the proverbial ton of bricks when it came out and the lineup’s still heavy 13 years later — Jamie Thomas, Ellington, Mumford, Greco and Adrian Lopez, who in particular was kicking new holes through reality at the time. Nobody was taking backside tailslides to the levels he pushed in this section, as far as both scale and distance (that gap to ledge here) and at the time putting that trick onto a rail at all was worth talking about. Zero’s trademark quick-cut editing is in full effect here but even if the clips weren’t trimmed to the bone I feel like this part wouldn’t be as visceral if it were padded out to four minutes or more. Because of injuries or side-project clothing lines or lofty standards or whatever Adrian Lopez exited the stage some time ago — seemed like he might have had some kind of reverse-Samson thing going on where his powers diminished once he dropped the Bic — but you look at a guy like Gilbert Crockett and think about frontside shove-its and backside 50-50s and it makes sense that the same dude put on both him and Adrian Lopez.