8. Joey Guevara – ‘Atlas’

Joey Guevara is a hill-mining San Jose footsoldier in the Mark Suciu mold who presses somewhat faster and looser than many and spices lines with some tricks you don’t see too often, ranging from a switch frontside noseslide to a kickflilp backside lipslide to a fakie backside nosegrind revert (frontside) and an Ellington frontside noseslide. The song they used here clicks with the skating going on, in a Satva Leung sense — as in nothing overly bombastic (there’s a 50-50 danger dismount though) other than the sorts of tricks and runs you may wish you could do on the way to work or the store, in particular if you worked at the bottom of a hill with a vertical pole wallie and some treacherous whoop-de-whoops.

Hillside Strangler

The re-emergence of the transition/all-terrain discipline over the last 5-6 years has brought much good, including renewed reverence for certain ’80s pros, pants of the canvas persuasion and counteracting the counter-intuitive notion of striving to keeping one’s action sporting sneakers crisp. However, a potential rogue thread woven into this fine flannel has been the de-emphasizing of the street grab in favor of the bowl or vert variety. Here we wade into a minefield of hot words and controversy and people rightly will point to various stink-bug stylings and the horrendous notion of tuck-knees down gaps, and it’s folly to argue, though I would submit that the melon grab is the exception proving the rule in this case.

Years ago I misplaced the Thrasher containing the above Satva Leung photo but it stuck with me to the point that when I ran across it on some blog I hurriedly right-clicked away to reclaim this digital rendition, glad to no longer feel obligation to paw through old boxes of mouldering magazines after it. The shot came to mind during Brandon Westgate’s SF bombing run and more recently in Elissa Steamer’s memory-lane trip back to Ed Templeton’s island of misfit toys. Don’t recall ever seeing footage of this trick but the boost Satva Leung looks to get off the sidewalk bump points to a separate righteous melon grab employed in a PA ditch by another former Toy Machiner, Bam Margera, in “Jump Off A Building.” The case could be made that this was some type of golden age for this move given that “Thrill of It All” dropped around the same time featuring a good backside rendition by Jamie Thomas, who also on behalf of Emerica deployed the notorious “ninja” varietal. What other melon grabs deserve to live on for perpetuity in Valhalla, hall of the slain? Does anybody got a good switch melon?

Did He Or Didn’t He? The True Story Of How A Ledge Trick Tom Penny Did 10 Years Ago Continues To Baffle Investigators

Yall seen this recent spate of lost Tom Penny footage, no doubt sending the original VHS-dubber of the semi-legendary “Penny Files” tape to check his watertight plastic tub for scratch marks, sleeve rips or other signs of six-foot-under rotations. The above Vimeo clip is a good footnote to the “Sorry” revival period as he transitioned from the mid-90s apex to the XXL solid-color tee era, and all the matching sneakers and doo-rags that came with it.

However, for a dude famed for languid movements and lackadaisical attitude towards life in general this clip boasts one of the most illusory optics ever captured on DV cassette since Satva Leung’s famed hell-welcoming switch frontside flip — I pose to you the question, does Tom Penny or does he not shove-it out of the backside 5-0 at 2:08 above? After about a dozen passes I’m fairly sure that he does, but hard to be 100% without one of Spike Jonze’s massive slow-mo cameras.