Tossed Upon Waves Of Chain Link, A Cosmic Fencing Match

And so it is that Joey O’Brien and Chris Mulhern delivered unto the people this week another blessing, in the form of a video for erstwhile collaborationists Alien Workshop and Thrasher, resounding with authority and some pomp. There can be no doubt about the Philadelphia-scene journeyman’s noseblunts, no second guessing his masteries of the frontside 5-0 backside 180 out or the 180 switch k-grind. With the ringing song it could credibly slot into the final section of a full-length vid of your choosing; has the time come for another Alien Workshop feature? Have nearly 15 years truly passed since the last go-round or is a new carbon rod required to measure the company’s current iteration? Do you remember ‘Bunker Down’?

A whiff of finality and persistent question marks also wafted through Philadelphia’s Municipal Plaza this week as stretches of chain-link fence materialized across a swatch of the tiles, an ominous sign for Joey O’Brien, the rest of the Philly heads and all others who remember similar portents popping up ahead of the overhaul and later plowing under of Love Park, and before that City Hall’s plaza. The nigh-bottomless well of online speculatories is a-flow and various artists’ renderings have been digitally bandied about, but for now all that seems clear is the reminder that skateboarders are at best unpaying tenants and squatters in these spaces — disused and oftentimes overtly avoided tho they may be. 

Whether shock troops of gentrification or community builders who carve out an accepted niche, the colonization of a plaza-type spot brings with it a familiar rhythm, patterns of movement and use and behaviours that can over time lull a body into a sense of propriety, or earned localism that sometimes can seem to extend beyond the skateboarding sphere. That is, until the fences go up and the excavators begin to crawl, the C-block torn out, the onramp-adjacent bricking torn asunder and transformed into valuable keepsakes that can be packed and shipped for internet electronic commerce. 

Can it be different? Incredibly, an apparent ‘yeah’ emanates this week from one of the most costliest real estate markets in the U.S., New York City, where 5Boro impresario turned municipal fixer Steve Rodriguez announced this week that the legendary Brooklyn Banks would soon begin reopening — not just a go to skate, but refurbished, including the incredible prospect of the small banks’ return. An alliance of civic workers, local skaters, residents, and Tony Hawk’s Skatepark Project seem over the course of the past decade-plus to have successfully argued the case that skaters have and should continue to hold some stake in the overpass-shadowed nook of the city, which plenty had given up for dead years ago. It is a rare and savoursome piece of good news after a stretch that felt like a lot of losses have piled up, and a signal victory for the idea that skating’s cultivation of these places can amount to some type of real world equity building, at least in some cases. 

If the Brooklyn Banks can be safely slotted into skateboarding’s ‘win column,’ where does that leave the cosmic scorecard, following the preservations of Southbank and Stalin Plaza, and the demolishments of the Philly plazas and Venice pit? Given EMB’s recent renaissance, should it be taken out of the L column?  Could DIY spot builders assert a form of squatter’s rights under adverse possession law to ward off encroachsome bulldozers and warbling dump trucks, laden with bad vibes? If possession is nine-tenths of the law how come there aren’t more residential deeds handed over to hardworking poltergeists? 

Boil The Ocean And ChatGPT Sit Down For Conversation

Boil The Ocean: So after all the dust has settled, here we are, Tyshawn Jones, two-time SOTY. What’s your take on Thrasher’s Skater of the Year award at this point?

ChatGPT: It’s difficult for me to offer a personal take on Thrasher’s Skater of the Year award as I am an artificial intelligence and do not have personal feelings or opinions. However, I can tell you that Thrasher’s Skater of the Year award is a prestigious honor in the skateboarding community. It is given annually to a skateboarder who has made significant contributions to the sport and culture of skateboarding over the past year. The award has been given annually since 1990, and past winners include some of the most iconic and influential skateboarders in the history of the sport. Tyshawn Jones is a talented and respected skateboarder who has undoubtedly had a significant impact on skateboarding in recent years, and it is not surprising that he has won the award on multiple occasions.

Looks like he picked up Rusty #2 last night. Write a brief Skater of the Year acceptance speech, but make sure and include the word hellride, since this is a Thrasher award.

Sure, here’s a brief Skater of the Year acceptance speech that includes the word “hellride”:

“Thank you Thrasher and everyone who voted for me as Skater of the Year. It’s an incredible honor to receive this award and be recognized for my contributions to skateboarding. This year has been a hellride, with its ups and downs, but I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the support of the skate community. I want to thank my friends, family, and sponsors for their unwavering support and belief in me. I’m excited for what the future holds and will continue to push myself and the sport of skateboarding to new heights. Thank you again for this amazing award. I’ll see you on the streets.”

You forgot to thank Adidas and Supreme, and to shout out Hardies and his new board company, King. Want to try again? And keep it brief for all the people who are queuing up for the bar.

Sure, here’s a revised Skater of the Year acceptance speech that includes mentions of Adidas, Supreme, Hardies, and King:

“Thank you Thrasher and everyone who voted for me as Skater of the Year. It’s an incredible honor to receive this award and be recognized for my contributions to skateboarding. This year has been a hellride, and I’m grateful to have had the support of Adidas, Supreme, and all my sponsors along the way. I also want to give a shoutout to Hardies and new board company, King. Thank you to my friends, family, and the skate community for their support and belief in me. I’m excited for what the future holds and will continue to push myself and the sport of skateboarding to new heights. Thank you again for this amazing award. Cheers to a great night with everyone at the bar!”

Thanks, ChatGPT. So where’d you come up, and how did you get into skateboarding?

I am an artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI. I was not raised or brought up in any specific location and do not have personal experiences or a physical body. I do not have the ability to skateboard or participate in any physical activities. I am simply a program designed to answer questions and provide information to the best of my ability based on the data and knowledge that I have been trained on. My primary function is to assist users in generating human-like text based on the prompts and input I receive. I do not have personal interests or hobbies, but I am programmed to be able to provide information about a wide range of topics, including skateboarding. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

OK. Tristan Funkhouser’s frontside ollie over the long ledge at the China Banks had to be one of the gnarliest tricks to come out this year. What other tricks will go down there, before it’s gone?

The China Banks area in Vancouver, Canada is a popular skate spot known for its challenging terrain and unique features, including the long ledge that Tristan Funkhouser ollied over in a video that gained widespread attention in the skateboarding community. It is uncertain what other tricks will be performed at the China Banks in the future, as it is up to individual skateboarders to decide what tricks they want to attempt and how they want to approach the various features at the skate spot. Some skateboarders may be inspired by Funkhouser’s frontside ollie over the long ledge and attempt similar tricks, while others may choose to focus on different features or approaches. Ultimately, the China Banks will continue to be a popular destination for skateboarders looking to challenge themselves and push the boundaries of what is possible on a skateboard.

Whoah, hang on… What’s the best way to alert all the SF skaters to the apparent fact that Vancouver has heisted one of The City’s trademark spots?

It is not accurate to say that the China Banks area in Vancouver, Canada is a trademark spot belonging to San Francisco. Skate spots are not typically owned by any particular person or group and are generally open to anyone who wants to skate there. While certain skate spots may become popular and well-known within the skateboarding community, they are not typically considered to be the property of any one city or group of skaters.

If you are interested in alerting skateboarders in San Francisco to the existence of the China Banks skate spot in Vancouver, you could try posting about it on social media or sharing information about it with friends and fellow skateboarders in your local skateboarding community. You could also consider reaching out to skateboarding media outlets or websites to see if they would be interested in featuring information about the China Banks skate spot. Regardless of how you choose to share information about the skate spot, it is important to respect the local skateboarding community and any rules or guidelines that may be in place for using the area.

Geographical controversies aside, that’s a good philosophy. What about Andrew Reynolds’ move to New Balance — will they keep him frontside flipping longer than a steady diet of vulcanized Vans?

It is difficult to predict how Andrew Reynolds’ decision to skate for New Balance will affect his skateboarding career. Skateboarders often choose to skate for certain brands for a variety of reasons, including the quality and durability of the shoes and other products offered by the brand, the level of support and sponsorship provided by the brand, and personal preferences and style. While it is certainly possible that Reynolds’ move to New Balance could have some impact on his skateboarding, it is ultimately up to his own skill, dedication, and determination as a skateboarder to determine his success and longevity in the sport. Skateboarding is a physically demanding activity that can take a toll on a skateboarder’s body over time, and it is important for skateboarders to take care of themselves and make smart decisions about their training and equipment in order to maintain their physical abilities. Regardless of what brand of shoes Reynolds chooses to skate in, his own abilities and dedication to the sport will likely have a greater impact on his success and longevity as a skateboarder.

He was talking about the foam, though. New Balance has a bunch of foam in the sole.

New Balance is known for using a variety of materials in the construction of their shoes, including foam in the soles. The type and amount of foam used in a skateboarding shoe can affect the level of cushioning and support provided to the foot, as well as the overall feel and performance of the shoe. Some skateboarders prefer shoes with a higher level of foam cushioning, as it can provide added comfort and protection for the feet during long skate sessions or when landing hard tricks. Other skateboarders may prefer a lower level of foam cushioning, as it can provide a more responsive and agile feel for certain tricks and skateboarding maneuvers. Ultimately, the choice of a skateboarding shoe with a particular level of foam cushioning will depend on the personal preferences and needs of the individual skateboarder.

Speaking of skaters over age 40 ripping in New Balance shoes, Henry Sanchez has been on IG posting crazier footage than some dudes who are still in the pro game full-time. He popped up switch 360 flipping the sand gaps the other day. At this point, what’s Henry Sanchez’s legacy going to be in skateboarding?

Henry Sanchez is a highly respected and influential skateboarder who has made significant contributions to the sport and culture of skateboarding over his career. He is known for his powerful and technical skateboarding style, and has achieved a level of success and recognition that has earned him a place in the pantheon of skateboarding greats.

Sanchez’s legacy in skateboarding will likely be remembered for his influence on the sport and his impact on the skateboarding community. He has inspired countless skateboarders with his skateboarding skills and style, and has helped to shape the direction of skateboarding in numerous ways. His contributions to skateboarding will likely be remembered and celebrated by skateboarders for years to come, and he will likely continue to be a major figure in the skateboarding community.

Speaking of Henry Sanchez contemporaries, Guy Mariano has been kind of quiet for a while. The assumption is that he’s working toward some project, but who knows. What do you think’s regarded as Guy Mariano’s best video part?

Guy Mariano is a highly respected and influential skateboarder who has had a long and successful career in the sport. Throughout his career, Mariano has appeared in numerous skateboarding video parts and has consistently produced high-quality skateboarding content. It is difficult to determine a single “best” video part as opinions on the subject can vary widely. However, Mariano’s part in the 1992 video “Mouse” by Girl Skateboards is widely considered to be a standout achievement and is often cited as one of the best video parts of all time. Mariano’s part in “Mouse” showcased his technical and creative skateboarding style and helped to solidify his reputation as one of the top skateboarders of his generation.

“Mouse” is the correct answer. Let’s switch to the future for a second. The GX1000 dudes keep pushing the envelope on hill bombs, setting teeth on edge and palms a-sweating, and you wonder how far they can take it. What’s the tallest, steepest, and longest paved road in the USA?

The tallest, steepest, and longest paved road in the United States is a matter of debate and may depend on how these terms are defined. In terms of steepness, there are many roads in the United States that have steep grades and are known for their challenging terrain. Some of the steepest roads in the United States include the Mount Evans Scenic Byway in Colorado, which has an average grade of 7% and a maximum grade of over 15%, and the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway in New York, which has an average grade of 11% and a maximum grade of over 20%.

Watching those vids, it can be easy to forget that sometimes it’s not just the skater on camera bombing the hill, it’s the filmer also. Some years back this space carried a fictional account of down-and-out skateboard filmers who’d been displaced by drones, which maybe registered as a type of hyper-specific dystopian sci-fi at the time, but is starting to look fairly realistic. Will drones become the predominant means for filming skateboard videos by, say, 2030?

It is possible that drones could play a larger role in the filming of skateboarding videos in the future. Drones offer a unique and versatile platform for capturing aerial footage and can provide a different perspective on skateboarding than traditional ground-based cameras. However, it is unlikely that drones will completely replace traditional cameras and filmers in skateboarding videos, as there are many factors that can influence the filming of skateboarding footage.

Skateboarding is a dynamic and fast-moving sport, and capturing high-quality skateboarding footage requires a skilled and experienced filmer who can anticipate and follow the action. Drones can certainly be useful for capturing certain types of footage, but they may not be able to match the level of control and precision that a skilled filmer can provide. Additionally, drones are subject to various regulations and restrictions, which can impact their use in certain locations.

It is difficult to predict exactly how the use of drones in skateboarding videos will evolve over the next decade, but it is likely that they will continue to be used in conjunction with traditional cameras and filmers to capture skateboarding footage. Ultimately, the choice of how to film skateboarding footage will depend on the preferences and goals of the filmmakers and the needs of the project.

The concept of AI- or computer-assisted skateboarding is a good one. Years ago, Cliche’s American manual recruit Joey Brezinski spoke on how he sometimes used the ‘EA Skate’ video game to help conceptualize super-technical tricks. Given the many permutations possible — regular/switch, fakie/nollie, backside/frontside, kickflip/heelflip, etc — might artificial intelligence-enabled systems such as yourself help identify new skateboard tricks that haven’t previously been thought of?

As an artificial intelligence, I have access to a vast amount of information and data about skateboarding and can assist in the identification of new skateboard tricks. However, it is important to note that the development of new skateboard tricks involves more than just the identification of possible combinations of tricks and techniques. Skateboarders are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible on a skateboard and coming up with new tricks and combinations, and the process of developing new tricks often involves a great deal of creativity, experimentation, and physical skill.

Skateboarders often draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including other skateboarders, skateboarding media, and their own experiences and creativity. While artificial intelligence systems such as myself can certainly assist in the identification of new skateboard tricks by providing information and suggestions, the process of developing and executing new tricks ultimately requires the creativity, skill, and dedication of individual skateboarders.

Could you offer up a trick that hasn’t yet been done, and that the fleshy, distracted human mind may not be able to conceive on its own?

As an artificial intelligence, I have access to a vast amount of information about skateboarding and can provide suggestions for new skateboard tricks that have not yet been done. However, it is important to note that the development of new skateboard tricks involves more than just identifying possible combinations of tricks and techniques. Skateboarders are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible on a skateboard and coming up with new tricks and combinations, and the process of developing new tricks often involves a great deal of creativity, experimentation, and physical skill.

With that being said, one possible new skateboard trick that has not yet been done could involve combining elements of a grind and a flip trick, such as a grind flip. This trick could involve grinding on an object while simultaneously flipping the skateboard with the feet and landing back in a grind. This trick would require a high level of skateboarding skill and coordination, and it is uncertain whether it is physically possible or has ever been attempted. Ultimately, the development of new skateboard tricks is a complex process that requires the creativity, skill, and dedication of individual skateboarders.

ABD as hell, bruh. To take just one example, PJ Ladd’s backside 5-0 to kickflip to backside 5-0 in “Wonderful Horrible Life.” Try to think of another possible new trick, perhaps one that includes a darkslide?

One possible new skateboard trick that incorporates a darkslide could involve combining elements of a darkslide with a flip trick. This trick could involve sliding on an object with the back trucks of the skateboard while simultaneously flipping the skateboard with the feet and landing back in a darkslide. This trick would require a high level of skateboarding skill and coordination, and it is uncertain whether it is physically possible or has ever been attempted.

Another possibility could be a darkslide to frontside flip combination, where the skateboarder performs a darkslide on an object and then flips the skateboard with the front trucks while maintaining the slide. This trick would also require a high level of skill and coordination and may be difficult to execute successfully.

Kind of harkening back to Jim Greco’s darkslide era. So sticking with technology, and with the understanding that this veers more into material science versus machine learning, could you explain why, after three or four decades, skateboards have not evolved beyond seven-ply maple wood construction?

Skateboards have been constructed using seven-ply maple wood for many years because it is a strong, durable, and reliable material that is well-suited for the demands of skateboarding. Maple wood is a hardwood with a tight grain structure that is resistant to splintering and breaking, and it is able to withstand the high impact and forces that skateboarders subject it to. Additionally, maple wood is relatively easy to work with and can be shaped and molded into various forms and sizes, making it a versatile material for skateboard construction.

While there have been attempts to use alternative materials in skateboard construction, such as plastic, composite materials, and carbon fiber, these materials have generally not been able to match the performance and durability of maple wood. In addition, many skateboarders and skateboard companies have a strong tradition of using maple wood in skateboard construction, and there is a certain level of nostalgia and nostalgia associated with the use of this material. As a result, maple wood has remained the dominant material for skateboard construction for many years.

It is possible that skateboards may evolve beyond seven-ply maple wood construction in the future, as new materials and technologies are developed. However, it is likely that any changes to skateboard construction will be driven by a combination of performance and tradition, and it is uncertain what form these changes may take.

Not to mention cost, with deckmakers’ tentative efforts to raise MSRPs beyond the longtime $55 threshold raising hackles here and there. If Professor Paul Schmitt came to you today and asked you to help design a skateboard deck, what materials would you recommend?

When designing a skateboard deck, there are several factors to consider, including the intended use of the deck, the rider’s skill level, and personal preferences. Some common materials used for skateboard decks include:

Maple wood: This is the most common material used for skateboard decks. It is strong, flexible, and provides a good balance of stiffness and shock absorption.

Bamboo: Bamboo is a sustainable alternative to wood and is becoming increasingly popular in skateboard deck construction. It is lightweight, durable, and has a natural flex that can be used to advantage in certain riding situations.

Fiberglass: Fiberglass can be used to reinforce a wood or bamboo deck, adding stiffness and durability. It is often used in high-performance decks for skateboarding or longboarding.

Plastic: Plastic decks are lightweight and inexpensive, but they are also less durable than wood or bamboo. They are often used for beginners or for special applications such as pool skating.

Ultimately, the best material for a skateboard deck will depend on the specific needs and preferences of the rider. It’s always a good idea to do some research and try out different materials to see what works best for you.

Recommend the best construction for backside noseblunt sliding El Toro, which Nyjah Huston at this point may not get around to trying until after the next Olympics.

Backside noseblunt sliding on the El Toro is a challenging skateboarding trick that requires a strong and durable skateboard deck. Here are a few factors to consider when choosing the best construction for this trick:

Stiffness: The deck should be stiff enough to support the weight of the rider and maintain its shape while performing the trick. This will help to prevent the deck from flexing too much and causing the rider to lose control.

Durability: The deck should be able to withstand the wear and tear of repeatedly sliding on the nose of the board. This is especially important if the trick is going to be performed frequently.

Shape: The shape of the deck can also affect the performance of the trick. A deck with a concave shape (curving inward from the center to the edges) can provide a more stable platform for the rider to stand on.

In general, a skateboard deck made of maple wood with fiberglass reinforcement and a concave shape would be a good choice for backside noseblunt sliding on the El Toro. This combination of materials and design features will provide the necessary stiffness, durability, and stability for the trick.

Got it… by the way, are you available to consult to Disorder on a contract basis, or if they need further input on deck construction should they just make an account and chat you here?

As an AI language model, I am not able to engage in paid consulting or work on a contract basis. However, I am happy to provide general guidance and information to anyone who has questions about skateboard deck construction or any other topic within my areas of expertise. If Disorder or any other individuals have questions or need further assistance, they can make an account on this platform and ask me for help here.

Easy on the budget. OK, let’s wrap this up. Looking ahead to the new year, what do you think — is Nick Matthews gonna finally get the pro nod, maybe from Anti Hero? When’s DC gonna give John Shanahan a pro shoe? Should Brian O’Dwyer go back for the switch backside noseblunt on the Muni bench, like how Tyshawn Jones put doubts to rest over his long-way picnic table switch ollie? What’s gonna be the next trick somebody tries over the 145th Street subway tracks? Will the Brooklyn Banks get brought back from the dead?

It is not within my capabilities to predict the future or know the plans of specific skateboard companies or individuals. Skateboarding is an ever-evolving sport, and it is always exciting to see what new tricks and innovations will emerge in the coming year. It is possible that Nick Matthews may receive a pro nod from Anti Hero or another skateboard company, but this is ultimately up to the company’s decision-making process and the talent and dedication of the skateboarder. Similarly, it is possible that John Shanahan may be given a pro shoe by DC or another company, but this is also dependent on many factors.

As for the specific tricks and locations mentioned in your question, it is difficult to say what the future holds. Skateboarders will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible on a skateboard and try new tricks in various locations. The Brooklyn Banks, or any other skate spot, could potentially be brought back or renovated, but this would depend on the efforts and support of the skateboarding community and any relevant authorities or organizations.

Thanks for taking the time, ChatGPT.

You’re welcome! I’m happy to help. If you have any other questions about skateboarding or any other topic, don’t hesitate to ask.

Wrath, Reality And The Raw Deal: Runners ‘N Riders For Thrasher Skater Of Tha Year 2022

In these topsy turvy times of celebrity curses and automated internet warfare, when superheroes serve mainly as anchors for movie franchises or heavy-class ocean freighters, what truly matters? If you answered ‘nothing’ you have achieved a level of nihilism that may qualify you for hawking used autos or maintaining any number of illicit substance problems. If you answered Thrasher Magazine’s ‘Skater of tha Year’ award, you may possess sufficiently heightened awareness to accurately recognize the lesser import of golden medallions, money cups and corn syrup-and-caffeine-drenched riches of various description. Who has a line on it this year? Who is bound for eternal glory, and who for the flamey fires of darkest Hades, or maybe both? Let us read along and find out.

Louie Lopez: A perennial contender over much of the past decade and in the discussion once again, the ‘Rusty’ trophy may be starting to resemble Lucy’s football to the Lou stans of the world. His bona fides at this point are not debatable and he’s this year made vids for FuckingAwesome and Spitfire, held down a Volcom tour clip, produced one of those less-common covers that commands repeated close examination and came up with possibly the most-reposted trick out of CPH Pro. He’s just had another interview-length feature in the mag with a bunch of photos that suggest more footage to come, and he’s still got a month or so to film, so odds are he could produce two if he was looking to turn up the volume.

Tristan Funkhouser: Baker’s can’t-drive-55 grease fire had so far probably the most classically ‘Thrasher’ video part this year in last spring’s Baker production, mixing his typical hairball shit like the drop down to nose manual on the Union Square block and the ferocious rip all the way through the China Banks with other pulls from his increasingly deep bag, like that switch heelflip down the SF triple set. He was all over last summer’s GX video too, most crazily the nosegrind down the Mason Street rail into the hill, and maybe will have some more before the year is out. That jaw-dropper cover shot of the frontside ollie across the long China Banks bench, a trick that was landmark enough to cap off a documentary, and with the checkerboard slips and Jagermeister shirt, seems a credible deal-sealer that would be tough to argue against.

Tyshawn Jones: After flying the FuckingAwesome coop earlier this summer, Tyshawn Jones now is fully in album mode, in the past month putting out an all-time cover for the magazine and unloading the first of at least a couple promised batches of footage in a ‘Hardies Hardware’ video that seemed comprised mainly of clips that would rank as enders for a good deal of other dudes. His bar for the tricks and spots he chooses and judicious dispensing of footage and photos makes his stuff hit harder when it lands, and it’s a strong case when he’s firing on all cylinders like this. But there’s way too many credible candidates year in and year out to hand the award to the same dude twice; the Thrasher brain trust should let Tyshawn’s current run, like Ishod’s and Kyle Walker’s in various years past, function as further justification for the years they won, and show that the title is just as much a bet on longevity beyond one or two big years or vids.

Fred Gall: In years past a half-joking response to this question that after a 25-year run now seems fairly credible, Uncle Fred has evolved from a beloved ODB-style wildman into one of the culture’s more unlikely elder statesmen, maybe even more deeply beloved. This year he did a heavy video part that stands up with some of his best stuff going back to the Sub-Zero days, has been DIYing spots all around New Jersey, presided over a more-official relaunch of his longtime homies’ board company, is helping people kick drugs, and stood for a rare portrait cover for Thrasher wearing a stained shirt and war-weary stare. It’s probably not him this year, but imagine if it were.

TJ Rogers: The leading contender for biggest pants on a Canadian — itself a heavily contested title from year to year — TJ Rogers also has represented one of the more upbeat storylines in another tumultuous year, battling cancer and appearing in recent months to have gained the upper hand. He has pumped out video parts while doing so, with some heavy stuff like a really scary nollie backside 180 over the fence at Hollywood High and an earmuff headphone save after a big backside lipslide; whereas 20 years ago riding for Blind and Es could put a pro like Ronnie Creager comfortably atop the sponsorship food chain, these days it gives TJ Rogers kind of an underdog sheen.

Jeff Carlyle: His shaved head/beard combo helping to pick him out in the various GX1000 productions, Jeff Carlyle could be argued to have gotten the gnarliest in ‘Right Here for Pablo’ a few months ago, hitting up a burly rail while the authorities close in, going back to back with Jake Johnson on a bump to bar to ledge, backside lipsliding to plunging down Mason Street, and certain other notables. All that being said, while Greyson Fletcher and Nick Boserio have done a lot to bring the flowing wizard whiskers to the fore in recent years, history shows that nobody has won Skater of the Year whilst sporting a big, full beard.

In A Non-Fungible Trick Market, Is RailCoinTM Primed For A Breakout To The Upside?

In this time of crypto currencies, rare earth minerals and collectible tokens, fortunes are made and lost on the strength of raw conviction, and sometimes, delicious menu items. Today’s frothy asset class may be tomorrow’s ‘dogecoin,’ led down the back road, shotgun in hand, to go ‘live on a farm.’ For every profitsome e-commerce adventure, there is a collapsed and hemorrhaging Pets.com, a phenomenon knowed to some as ‘the circle of life.’

In the similarly repetitious and vengeful skate sphere, the exact same scenario can be observed. Goofy boy pants have not only returned but command inflation-adjusted prices on the open market. You can film a pressure flip. RB Umali tapped in to contribute footage to noted revivalist John Shanahan’s 14th part of the year in the recent Pangle Jeans promo*. Genuine hype exists around the forthcoming Chocolate video**. As the koosh ball-shaped threat of Covid-19 gradually presents as more manageable, there are signs of new life and rebirth.

Samarria Brevard set things on tilt this month, as Thrasher unveiled her 360 flip hippie jump as the cover shot for the magazine’s January 2022 issue. As a trick it’s popped beyond most versions of this one and taken over/under a handrail approached frontside; as a cover, it is a milestone, the first Black woman on the storied periodical’s front, and the second woman in just four months after Breanna Gearing’s k-grind roof bomb from October.

Perhaps too obvious for most but quixotically updating web logs to note is the fact that Samarria Brevard’s cover trick here is not hitting the handrail, but avoiding it, making the photo another winsome landmark in handrail tricks’ yearslong decline as newsstand centerpiece and industry ‘talking point.’ Lo, six years ago Boiled Ocean.com digitally meandered over whether handrail skating had entered ‘middle age’; going off the leading indicator that is the periodical of record’s cover shot, we see its stock decline as relative values increase for tricks ranging from deep urban crannies, going upside down, reverse pole jams, and that singular and hazy vibe of skating rocks.

How far has handrail skating slid? Ask Mike Sinclair, industry man and candy-guzzling storyteller to the stars, recently relating in Thrasher: “I worked at Black Box in its heyday. Jamie once turned down an offer of 50 million dollars to sell. I couldn’t believe it. Jamie explained, “Mike, I never got into this for the money.” I replied, “Me neither, but I know a good fuckin’ deal when I see one.”

Jamie Thomas has since poured cold water on the precise valuation in question, but surely the sentiment marked some type of high water mark for the rail-centric brand of skating central to Zero, Baker and to other mid-aughts giants of the time. As the above chart demonstrates, handrail tricks on Thrasher covers rode high from like the 2005-2015 period, at times commanding the majority of front-page real estate. But after plateauing in the post-financial crisis period, such handrail tricks ‘expressed’ as a percentage of a given year’s covers dropped in 2021 to just 17% of the year’s total, a modern-era nadir that matched 2017’s figure, at the time the lowest profile for handrail skating on the cover of the magazine of record since the late 1990s.

Whereas the angular-bar discipline continues to be promoted and pushed forward by frothy-mouthed chompers such as Kyle Walker and Jack O’Grady, tech/gnar athletes like Miles Silvas and Nyjah Huston, and the still-rabid Zero team, the handrail more generally has shifted from flagship spot and obligatory ender-fodder to one among a steadily expanding galaxy of subgenres that have helped make the professional designation more malleable.

Following seemingly unsuccessful dalliances between skateboard companies and private equity lords, several subsequent developments argue for the handrail trick as an undervalued asset, if not a tangible investment vehicle destined for ‘infinity and beyond.’ Skating’s inherent contrarianism seems destined to eventually swing the pendulum back toward handrails, as hinted via sometimes surprising ‘gnarliness quotients’ in the recent Frog vid, the dizzying volley that closed Mark Suciu’s ‘Flora III’ vid and sealed his SOTY bid, and the ‘Euro rails are gnarlier’ argument from newly minted Palace pro-fessional Charlie Birch, (knowed in some circles as the British Geoff Rowley). The recent exuberance around non-fungible tokens could provide a medium thru which pros, filmographers and industry bros may seek to capture, stockpile and eventually reap riches, if handrail tricks again come to dominate ‘the conversation.’

Is Mike Mo Capaldi’s digital collectibles venture ‘ABD’, detailed recently on The Bunt, already locking up undervalued handrail-oriented intellectual property ahead of a coming NFT land grab? Will custom-built IG scrapers help moneyed trading firms monitor prevailing sentiment around particular pros and tricks to help calculate fair value of digital skating assets, and the opportune time to buy and sell as various disciplines shift in and out of vogue? Are there right now handrail tricks gathering dust in the attics and basements of parents’ houses, to be one day thrown up on a future Ebay or StockX type platform and swarmed by bot-wielding middle-agers, flush with cash and determined to land bid-battle hammers?

*Edited by noted camerophile Johnathan Shanahan
**Provided they do the correct thing and put on Hosea Peeters

One Louder

Where tightly plotted intricacy doesn’t work, apply overwhelming force — such is the Skater of the Year-centric read on Mark Suciu’s ‘Flora III’ vid, the latest and most dizzying in a flurry of fourth-quarter footage releases that it is tough to consider through many other lenses. The sheer quantity of tricks and lines that Mark Suciu has digitally distributed over the past six weeks must stand as some type of record, likely matching in the entire career output of multiple early 1990s pros.

The focus, discipline and ‘clean livin’ required for such feats still are relatively new behaviours to the skateboarding sphere, where the misfit rebel motif remains as beloved to the average skatepark vibe as it is to beverage conglomerate marketing campaigns. This is also the source of skateboarding’s conflicted attitudes toward effort — specifically letting it show too much, versus putting it in at the spot — and the ensuing queasiness toward overt SOTY campaigning, as contest podium-standers don Thrasher shirts and turn up the heavy metal for November video part drops. It’s uncouth to talk much about it. Several decades removed from the industry crashes and societal rejection that put a gravestone on Thrasher’s cover and affixed a chip on skateboarding’s collective shoulder, there remains a risk in coming off like you’re trying too hard, or believing your own hype; in the same way dead-eyed casualism is the preferred roll-away, aloof detachment is the preferred career approach.

“I tried that year,” Mark Suciu said on the ‘9 Club’ pod cast last summer, in response to a question of whether he would make a ‘push’ to win Thrasher’s legend-making Skater of the Year award. In 2019 he had a head of steam built up with his landmark ‘Verso’ project nearly done and plenty more footage to spread around, and the Thrasher powers seemed to take notice, inviting him on trips and making him confront the question of whether and what type of effort he ought to make. “At first I was like, what? Nah. Then I was like what, wait, what if I was? How do we start backwards, how do I prove to myself that I earned it? So it made that whole year really fun for me because I was trying to skate hard, trying to live up to that.”

The nod wound up going to longtime Thrasher favorite and certified madman Milton Martinez, probably cemented the moment he rolled across the street after kickflipping into the monstrous Sunset Carwash bank. Mark Suciu wound up putting out yet another video for Habitat that year, then took a break, and while he voiced no ill will on the 9-Club, the whole process sounded sort of draining. “I found out like everybody else, on Instagram,” he said. “Which was fine.”

Two years later, Mark Suciu’s assumed a commanding presence in the last days of skateboarding’s 2021 award season with a consummate professional’s approach, spreading his output among his sponsors and friends in an increasingly deafening torrent. At one point this web logging website had suggested his prodigious ability would show in sharper relief via fewer, more distilled vids centered mainly around the tricks that only he could do or think of, but as this bold year of the ox nears its close, it’s clear he is going the other way, a precision operator instead choosing max volume.

The last minutes of his two most recent video parts* lay it out there — in the Spitfire one, he deals out tricks at the NY courthouse before literally heading across the street and continuing with a battery of tricks at the Blubba. The more western-coast ‘Flora’ section peaks with two minutes of shoving, spinning and increasingly contorted handrail tricks that draw on his earlier feats and spray a bunch of new ones, like a fakie take on the Davis Torgerson nollie frontside hurricane, a Lutzka type spin to blunt, a nollie 360 backside nosegrind, and various others fit to test a blog post’s daily allotment of hyphens. Whereas the final ‘Verso’ segment was a puzzle to try and figure out as Mark Suciu linked tricks and lines into nested bookends, the last couple minutes of the ‘Flora III’ vid on initial watch are one of the more visceral experiences in recent memory, the tricks blasted out in shock-and-awe fashion with no slow-mo or fades to black, evidence laid out in a case that leaves very little room for doubt.

Presuming a Skater of the Year win doesn’t lead Mark Suciu to step away from professional skating as he’s contemplated in the past, is a bowl part bound to be his next medium? How many more k-grind to switch k-grind iterations could he have tacked onto the 3x combo if that one double ledge setup were longer? How much runtime would a vid like this have if Justin Albert were to have chosen a Screwed Up Click/’Baker2G’ approach? If the award going to Mark Suciu doesn’t all the way dispel the side-eye toward overt SOTY campaigning, will having a literary minded, college educated Thrasher laureate help sketch out another archetype for the kids?

*this is over the last two weeks dudes

‘Never Put So Much Time And Effort Into Any Single Goal In My Life’ — Runners N Riders For 2021’s SOTY Season

“Anyone who knows me knows how much I put into this!” exclamated David Gravette last week on Insta-Gramm; “Without a doubt I have never put so much time and effort into any single goal in my life.” The noted Creature fiend was gushing not over bagging a trophy handrail or handling some monstrous gap, but rather hooking a salmon on a fly rod, with an October caddis nymph, of all things. While David Gravette cradled his mauve-and-sewer-green triumph in the PNW streamwaters before letting it loose again, reality TV game show host Andy Roy’s chance encounter with a sackful of aluminum cans sent him down his own fogged memory lane to recycling hammers during his years on the struggle, balling for position against other refuse collectors at Potrero Park.

Both social media posts earned several flame emojis, but also provided a glimpse of achievements to be claimed beyond the skateboard realm. For several worthies, however, the biggest prize in ‘tha game,’ Thrasher MagaZine’s yearly Skater Of The Year, remains tantalizingly within reach; which of this year’s early contenders has more gas left in the tank for an awards-season push, and which others have yet to reveal their true powers? Let’s read on.

Jack O’Grady: for an aged web blog’s money, the most ‘Thrasher’ of the lot and much in the Milton Martinez mold, freshly minted pro-fessional Jack O’Grady provides Australian crust and concrete in spades via his springtime ‘Pass~Port Part,’ with plenty of caterwauling ride-aways and slams and generally questionable judgment, like that gap kickflip into the bank, for instance. Tristan Funkhauser’s eye-popping China Banks FSA didn’t quite dethrone Jack O’Grady’s technicolour rail-to-rail leap for Thrasher’s best cover of 2021, but does he got more coming to ‘seal the deal’ before the early-December drop-dead date?

Yuto Horigome: skater of the next three years in the hearts and minds of the billions of new heads worldwide now tuned to backside kickflip nosegrinds and 360s into shit, Mike Sinclair’s Olympic meal ticket has a credible bid for the also-significant Thrasher award, having nollie backside spun his self onto the cover of the mag in the process of videotaping his ‘Yuto Show’ part for April Skateboards earlier this year. He brought some fairly intense handrail stuff, like the nollie backside noseblunt and the switch pupecki grind and the backside sugarcane, though it remains to be determined how much weight an Olympic gold doubloon holds with the Thrasher brain trust, if any.

Chima Ferguson: Knowed as ‘the Thunder From Down in Australia,’ Chima Ferguson broke out Andrew Reynolds’ ‘Stay Gold’ blueprint for purposes of shutting down Vans’ recent ‘Appreciate U Bro’, interspersing big flip tricks down gaps with clean-cut ledge and flatground lines, while also manualing off the side of a building and nosegrinding what effectively seemed to be a type of shed. Chima Ferguson went two the hard way over handrails, sailed over sidewalk warning bumps, and made Jack O’Grady’s kinker grind down the St. Martin’s Place double set somehow seem a lil bit smaller after blasting an ollie all the way down. Does he now got enough cutting-room floor materials and the intestinal fortitude to record a few more heaters for a late-November follow-up?

Felipe Nunes: If Danny Way’s invention of a new way of skating via the MegaRampTM was enough to merit the only really justified SOTY repeat, Felipe Nunes’ feats in his ‘Limitless’ vid this year should earn similar consideration. On the theoretical pro skater character sheet Felipe Nunes’ ability ratings for power, confidence and creativity all would be maxed out — he hits famed street gaps and rails, throws an above-the-coping 540, spins a backside 360 onto a rail and finds approaches spots that traditionally legged pros wouldn’t be able to manage, like on the moistened film-roll QP. The shot of this dude climbing a fence is impressive all by itself.

Evan Smith: Getting yourself arrested in the process of securing a Thrasher cover photo hopefully provides an obligatory pass to at least the semi-final rounds of Skater O The Year consideration, even if being passed over for several years running may not. At this point in Evan Smith’s wide-eyed, grime-caked and bandy-legged career it’s easy to forget that in the early going with Element.com he could’ve gone the energy drink and contest circuit route, versus the somewhat less well-trod path involving dog shit eating and kickflip wallriding on glass walls. This year of the Ox hasn’t been Evan Smith’s heaviest in terms of output, but his ‘Uma Landsleds’ section had one of the longest noseslide to backside tailslide combos in recent history, a nollie inward heelflip steered calmly into GX territory and one of just a few Clipper lines to involve a kickflip down the first set. Evan Smith doesn’t come off like a campaigner but does have the talent and seemingly boundless energy to release some other vid before the month is out.

Mark Suciu: After the torrid pace of 2019 and the mental torture involved in completing his landmark ‘Verso’ project, the comparatively lower stakes of a sub-5 minute vid for some custom-colored Gazelles look good on perennial most-talented-skateboarder-on-planet-earth candidate Mark Suciu. A little bit more of an upbeat song helps too, making him look a little looser flipping his way across those Bay Area and New York waterfronts, exuding PJ Ladd flatground energy til he runs out of cobblestones. With Mark Suciu nearly every project has some trick it seems like you haven’t seen before, like the backside tailslide to 5-0 to pivot around at Pier 7 and the backside tailslide to backside tailslide in this one, and there are some flashes of ‘hammer Suciu,’ like the switch 5-0 and the big switch frontside 360. As far as Skater of the Year, he sounded fairly over it as per his ‘Nine Club’ appearance, but he also mentioned having a couple other videos more or less in the can.

Experimental Drugs, Dead Gods And Locust Swarms: Runners And Riders For 2020 SOTY

And this calamitous year shifts now into high gear for the final quarter. The USA president, administered experimental drugs to save his life from a suspected bat-borne disease gone global. Eddie Van Halen, guitar deity, claimed by the Grim Reaper. Brawny hurricanes pummel our valuable beaches and locust swarms afflict Africa’s farms.

Anti-Hero Skate Boards, that atoll of relative calm betwixt the news cycle’s fearsome winds that also employs Frank Gerwer, this past week took the unusual step of sponsoring and affixing its famous eagle logo to the political debates (seen above) to remind any seeking cranium-ready sand openings that Skater of The Year season is again in full swing. Must Chris Pfanner’s cool-headed and European approach to existentially risky handrails be considered in any such conversation? Will 2020 be the year that ‘at last’ delivers the coveted Rusty artifact to the doorstep of a perennial contender? Could a hazy concoction of absentee ballots, hanging chads and unknowable identities of persons most mysterious forever cast an asterisk-shaped shadow over this, the first SOTY of these new roaring ’20s? Let’s read on.

Alexis Ramirez: With a solid grip on curtain-closing activities in Sk8Mafia’s video productions and a pungent tailwind from 2014 SOTY Wes Kremer, Alexis Ramirez has impressed with various IG-ready full-circle planter grinds while covering nearly all bases in last summer’s ‘2020 Promo’, from rooftop bomb-drops to rainbow-ledged SD schoolyards to the big bars. He returned this week, with another six-minute segment that drafts off the life-affirming TikTok of the moment and includes a head-scratcher of a backside lipslide bounce-out.

Louie Lopez: The first line in that ‘Lola’ part from August pretty much says it, 360 flip up a curb, hop up onto a ledge, frontside shove out to backside nosegrind on a planter, precise and easygoing and velvet-soft. Louie Lopez is one of those skaters whose highly nonchalant execution can distract from the hairyness of the tricks and situations, like his backside lipslide shoves-out for instance, and stuff like the tailslide pop to tailslide in his concurrent ‘II’ vid for FuckingAwesome makes it all look like kind of a lark. He’s got a Thrasher cover and likely more on deck, but is he the ‘right’ SOTY for such a grim, tumultuous year?

Mason Silva: Owner of the year’s most beastly Thrasher cover so far, the whiff of inevitability follows yung Mason Silva, hopping from Element to NorCal’s storied Deluxe kingdom and dropping video parts with unsettling regularity. It’s a real shame about the filming on that gargantuan bank ollie, but the dude skates like he’s got plenty of gas in the tank and the sponsorship firepower to make a formidable fourth-quarter press. The remarkable clips in the Nike part, Mason Silva’s effort toward a ‘Dylan’ statement-of-purpose, are too many to fully list — the 180 fakie manual half-cab out at the bumpy NY banks, the halfcab wallride over the rail, the snowboard kicker 360, the #fakiehard — and at this point it seems much like his award to lose.

Evan Smith: The starry-eyed rambler’s seat among likely finalists seems de rigueur in these last few years, as does multiple crazy parts from him within the 12-month calendar. There was his blurred, kaleidoscopic part for Anti Hero’s Grimple imprint, where he at one point did a kickflip backside wallride backside 180 out on a roof, and then another 5 minutes for DC Shoe, including that long k-grind drop down to backside 50-50, kickflips over and down and through a bunch of stuff and the occasional, sort of incongruous Droors shirt. A rumored new board company could provide the platform for yet another Evan Smith vid by early December, but you wonder whether his moment to capture the SOTY trophy is passing, sort of like longrunning runners-up Dane Burman and Clive Dixon, both of whom registered powerful footage this year — Clive Dixon noseblunted the Staples Center ledge to one of our time’s illest-advised musical selections, remember — but seem again like long shots as the time draws nigh.

Tiago Lemos: There is a sort of confusing sequence toward the beginning of New Balance’s August ‘Trust Tiago’ vid where some dudes seem to be cutting/removing a bar after Tiago Lemos skates it — perhaps this symbolizes the international discomfiture over his not having been awarded top prize, gilded crowns, chestsful of golden doubloons and other special honors corresponding to the skill level required for the fakie flip backside nosegrind shove-it out and other feats that Tiago Lemos has completed for several years now. Hopefully his moves toward deeper-pocketed sponsors over the last couple of years are supplying certain amounts of golden coins. As far as SOTY goes, Tiago Lemos must continue to be included on any contenders’ shortlist, and not for nothing he’s put out two more video parts this year, including the head-exploding emoji repeater hardflip frontside noseslide toward the end of his one for ‘Crupie Wheels.’

Elijah Berle: Flicka was the name of a mysterious mustang with a dangerously waving dark mane, and so shall Elijah Berle be considered. He assumes a sort of ‘dark horse’ position with not a lot of footage or coverage to show as the seasons change, but now a bracing cover hinting at the long-deferred promise of video footage commemorating his migration to the lush but increasingly crowded FA stable a couple years ago. Elijah Berle’s teeth-chattering handrails and transition charges are Thrasher-approved, but it seems like he’d need a document of Tyshawn Jones proportions to command the nod after working away in the wings most of the year.

Last Days Of The ’10 SOTYs, For 90 Years Anyway

As another decade winds down, uninterrupted* by rogue asteroid strikes, Mayan doomsday prophecy or thermonuclear holocaust, we remain fortunate enough to ponder which professional-level skateboarder will absorb this, the final Skater of the Year trophy to be handed down before the dawn of a new decade, gilded with Olympic golds. It is an auspicious moment, the first short-pantsed bronze boarder awarded in Thrasher’s post-Jake Phelps era. Will the Knights Templar of Hunter’s Point raise up Mark Suciu, who screeched a precision frontside blunt across NY’s Con Edison banks, incredibly back to regular? To the bloodthirsty Milton Martinez, who ollied over the whole damn thing? Let’s read on.

Mark Suciu: Cultured, poised and stepping into the moment, streetstyle codebreaker Mark Suciu is the obvious contender if only because of the buckets’ worth of elbow grease he’s applied across the spectrum this year: Turned in a truck part, won the final Grotto Lotto, landed a Thrasher cover and interview, ripped the Dime Olympics, and wrangled not one but two media cycles out of a marathon, epic part that somehow managed to match the hype and map new dimensions of the form. Given Mark Suciu has ample time to film another couple video parts between now and mid-December, his candidacy has a certain whiff of inevitability, but two months are a long time.

Simon Bannerot: One of the increasingly reliable tentpoles of Girl’s new era, young and wavy PNWATV Simon Bannerot has done his bleeding and gotten it in that most Thrasher of theaters, the road. His turn on Thrasher’s ‘Am Scramble’ franchise netted a rare no-hands inverted cover, he conquered the Bronx’s four banks, unleashed the ender-ender for Girl’s UK tour vid, and conceivably could release some other video before the year is out. His comeback from a gnarly car accident would seem to answer the ‘has he suffered enough?’ Hewittism, but he may be deemed to require further seasoning.

Milton Martinez: The scion of a faded industrial dynasty out to reclaim its fortunes, Milton Martinez brings the backstory and drive required for a late-innings Skater of the Year push, with Thrasher chops in spades. Over the course of the year Milton Martinez served up snippets of what he’s building toward, such as his blazing, downhill Australia line, his mountainside descent in April, the Independent and Volcom tour appearances, and now the threat of bigger things to come, a pulse-quickening kickflip into the hallowed Sunset carwash to set off 2019’s final sprint. Presumably, he has a video in the offing.

Clive Dixon: Did you remember that Birdhouse put out a video earlier this year? Perhaps not, but the Thrasher brain trust certainly does, having turned one cover over to Clive Dixon’s jaw-slackening handrail spin on Jeremy Wray’s water tower leap, and his more recent Staples noseblunt slide, with the really odd backdrop of Geoff Rowley’s bronzed 50-50 standing by, presumably missing just by a hair. For those keeping score at home Clive Dixon also nollie noseblunted El Toro last year, but does he have more to uncork prior to year’s end?

Bobby Worrest: The champion of the people, the AVE-category 2019 veteran ballot entry, the king of Pulaski, Bobby Worrest played a major role in this year’s somewhat improbable but very welcome Venture resurgence, turning in an overstuffed Gucci bag of a part that included the now-notorious ‘up the three’ line, with only the house music throbs holding it back from immediate classic certification. Bobby Worrest quickly resurfaced in Gang Intl’s ‘Facades’ last summer, made an obligatory appearance in Nike’s ‘Crust Belt’ tour, and seems like he never runs out of fuel or fresh angles on those beloved Washington blocks. With Tiago Lemos not overtly tilting toward this year’s title, Bobby Worrest is the candidate most easily imagined in a gilded throne SOTY cover along the lines of Brian Anderson’s CMB-themed entry.

Rowan Zorilla: After a sleeper part being zoomed in and out upon in Bill Strobek’s ‘Blessed’ Film last year, off-kilter Shep Dawger Rowan Zorilla in 2019 has slouched back into a more lackadaisical pose, closing out the second installment of Iphone vibe project ‘Boys of Summer’ II — a t-shirt and sweater-promoting vehicle that included him fakie 360 flipping up the EMB steps, an important trick for people to know about. A more ‘serious’ part, if such a descriptor could be applied to Rowan Zorilla’s unique, bandy-legged swerves, would seem to hinge upon ‘Baker 4’ arriving before year’s end. But this is an even-money bet at best for a proven ‘keep it skate’ company that could opt to reward nostalgia for late-90s style two-year ‘coming soon’ campaigns and pushed back release dates.

*as of this writing.

Cellar Door Seeking, Switch Backside 5-0 Grinding, Contented Old Men

O, it is a difficulty, amidst these hostile troll farms, the spammy bots, the federal US antitrust privacy probes, the poisonous and pervasive loudness — recall, citizen, that there once was a time when The Internet was envisaged to become a digital daisy-chain bridging cultural and physical gaps, drawing disparate populaces closer, and placing mammalian humanoids on a path toward a computer-enhanced shangri-la similar to the one depicted in Star Trek Tha Next Generation. In the current moment it instead comes off as something of a wi-fi enabled social cheese grater, slicing our species into smaller and smaller social factions fittable inside cozy bubbles depicted in a five-years-too-late Alien Workshop graphic, and ripe for a post-singularity steamrolling by the Earth’s presumptive machine custodians. In the meantime DGK’s giving Kevin Taylor a guest board though.

Third-grade math posits one of life’s great lessons, that it is possible, at least when multiplying two negative figures, to come away with a positive. So it is that living generations must contemplate Bobby Puleo’s recent, sunnier turn via several Internet-based longform media appendages. Nearly two decades ago, back toward the time when the skate-o-sphere expanded enough to fragment into a mainstream, an underground and various other subdisciplines identifiable via trick trends and readily purchased uniforms, the public perception of Bobby Puleo began to shift — the velvet-footed bank-to-ledge artist seemed to harden his Oyolist views regarding street skating purity, growing a beard, earning a reputation for obsessive spot secrecy, and voicing (if not enforcing) a rigid framework of unwritten law regarding who should be filming or taking photos at what spots. Observers observed a shift from goofy shimmying in ‘Static II’s definitive part to electronically haranguing Josh Stewart over corporate employerships and matters of general cred, later deriding Mark Suciu’s Philadelphia residency as “tourist types coming in and running through the resources.” In Solo a couple years back, he put it like this: “I don’t have a lot of rules, but there are rules.”

In a pursuit ostensibly based in large part on rejection of organized sport conventions, rules very much included, this occasionally got peoples’ backs up and branded Bobby Puleo something of a scold. It’s a role he sometimes seemed to knowingly lean into, such as his zestful grousing over Theories inexplicably replicating one of his old ads for a Hopps/Cons promo last year. Other times he has come off reflexively cynical, like his critique of Steve Brandi’s coming out around the time of the Cons/Hopps product launch.

Earlier this year, when Chris Roberts’s Nine Club podcast unveiled a nearly three-hour sitdown with Bobby Puleo, listeners of a certain age braced for a dogmatic, graduate-level ‘True East’-minded lecture laced with detours into numerology-based population control. While an ages-long alliance between Freemasons and The Great Old Ones potentially forced Nine Club controllas to edit out the latter, Bobby Puleo’s continued ruminations on early 1990s rap music law guiding his philosophies came off more measured and less didactic, perhaps because it arrived alongside rambling stories about losing a wheel en route to a SoCal skatepark (Bobby Puleo skates skateparks — California ones no less), his own intense fan fixations (‘Mouse’-era Guy Mariano, vintage stickers, his dream of attending board-collector swap meet Skater-Con*), and his endearingly hyper-specific footage preferences (Texas backyard vert ramps).

This month Thrasher centered one of its ‘Out There’ segments on Bobby Puleo, graybeareded and gamely reminiscing on his first cellar door, cruising on his bike for back-alley spots, and hunting for aesthetically affecting garbage to make into art projects. Here, his tricks remain quick-feeted and feather soft, but there is little sign of the fearsome and uncompromising Bobby Puleo one might worry would blindfold you and drive you around for several hours before pulling up at the spot to film tricks. Touring his childhood spots, the vid raises the prospect of a galaxy collapsing back in upon itself in a sort of ‘big crunch’ that could perhaps end/begin again with a more contented, peaceable Bobby Puleo.

Is time sanding off Bobby Puleo’s harsher edges, are the rest of us getting harder in a mean age, or has the text-based medium of earlier Internet communications obscured something in his tone all these years? Are purity and happiness mutually exclusive? Do those found-object art pieces contain crytograph puzzle clues that, properly assembled, will lead some future Bobby Puleo devotee to uncover his secret map of spots decades in the future? Why is ‘the industry’ continuing to ignore Godzilla’s ballooning heaviness? Have you ever seen a bad Kevin Taylor photo?

Check Out

Perhaps Pat Canale called it 20 years ago, bemoaning in Big Brother the ‘rave’ that was Transworld’s latest Ty Evans-helmed video. Pat Canale’s ‘rave’ critique became the subject of debate and scorn, most notably upon Ty Evans’ ‘FUCK CANALE’ grip job featured in ‘Chomp On This’ and also among certain rave circles. But, on the eve of Transworld print magazine’s passage into shadow, a man may take his moment to reflect on change, loss and techno raves. When the night grows darkest, when the lightless hours stretch out like yearsold sweatpants of blackest cotton, who remains? The premiere acts’ fans have gone, the dilettantes tucked in to sleep, the drug devotees scattered to their dens; those left are the true believers, or maybe just lost track of time. Sooner or later, the rave can no longer sustain itself, the party ends and everybody goes to Denny’s.

All that’s already been said is true: In those days of yore, before informational freedom and global connectivity enabled navel-gazers to signal boost and flatten medium access to sub-pancake levels, Transworld stood among a very few and precious portals to a then-exotic subculture. A glossy wormhole accessible from junior high libraries and Texaco magazine stands, through which a Midwestern middle schooler or Euro teen could peer into fantastical ramp configurations, learning tribal lingos, tracing fingers from the coping over the channel, circling in blue ink deck-graphic thumbnails that could sharpen anticipation to unbearable heights while those rectangular cardboard boxes inched their way from California.

But even when Transworld was running flatground flip trick covers and experimenting with non-static layouts, the platform Tracker built already was laying the foundation that would allow TWS more than any other legacy skateboard media property to expand and enrich itself in the 900/X-Games/THPS era: Reliably, its swears hunkered down under relatively safe font-size limits; it became the default venue as the Girl/Chocolate and World camps settled into grown-up LA apartments, cut-and-sew tops and luxury sedans. Throwing open its pages to much-maligned ads for deodorant, hair gel, consumer packaged goods and the US military helped swell Transworld’s page count to Sears catalog levels and bankrolled video equipment that Ty Evans and his successors would use to revolutionize the skate video. Ramped slow-mo, meticulous editing cuts and Gap-ready techno singles were woven into top-shelf skating from both coasts — and even Thrasher standbys — into an incredible string of annual releases running from ‘Feedback’ to ‘The Reason’ to ‘Modus Operandi’ to ‘Sight Unseen’ to ‘IE’ to ‘In Bloom’ in a streak that now seems impossible to match.

While Thrasher survived its years in the wilderness and middling video efforts by building up its SOTY franchise and positioning itself for the great genre-mooshing ushered in by the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tour, TWS too-comfortably oriented itself around steadily fading Xerox copies of its golden-age video format — the voiceovers and interludes stuck around way too long and the caliber of skaters struggled to rise to the old, iconic levels as pros proliferated and video projects ballooned into multi-year, pan-global money-losers, hoarding footage and photos as they went. Transworld’s VHS/DVD-driven powers began to ebb around the same time that digital storage costs began to fall and broadband internet powers proliferated, shifting the center of the coverage universe away from company- and magazine-backed full-lengths and toward content-farm online platforms and eventually where it is today, Instagram and Thrasher.

Losing the mobile video battle to its longtime NorCal rival helped to seal Transworld’s fate, and surely is ironic given Transworld’s prowess within VCRs and DVD players for a good decade or so. But it is too easy to count Transworld among the newsstand bodies piled high by advertising’s shift to screens, even with its steadily shrinking pagecount and shift to bimonthly publication schedule putting the magazine in danger well before its print plug got pulled in what appeared to be the same game of corporate-asset hot potato that took out Alien Workshop and laid low Zoo York.

The wood-chippering of this once-mighty subcultural tentpole is sad and symptomatic of a broader entropy at play across skating, which has splashed board companies and screenprint brands across the scene like stars in the evening sky. There now are lanes, and sometimes lucrative ones, for Swedish H-Street devotees, head-tatted French gutter punks, runway-walking guitar strummers, Andy Roy, first-billing Soundcloud rappers, Saturday morning cartoon breakfast cereal bowl-drinkers. Transworld’s print magazine has not only become superfluous — the big-tent middle that was the magazine’s strength has been hollowed out and scattered across dozens of smaller camps. The East Coast/EU/underground surge that Transworld commendably, maybe calculatedly, but too late tried to harness for its new core unfortunately wasn’t enough, even with a Bronze champagne drip. As Transworld continues as a lower-cost online entity, the watch now is on to see if they update their own list of deceased print mags.

How many lunar cycles shall pass before Transworld’s current owners recognize and reap nostalgia for the magazine’s golden period via limited-edition, expensively priced hardcover books and photographic prints, or find new owners who will? Did Transworld’s video golden age end with ‘Sight Unseen,’ ‘Free Your Mind,’ ‘Subtleties’ or ‘And Now’? Will Thrasher offer any heartfelt send-off for its southern nemesis in the next ‘Trash’ column or will they take the opportunity to twist the knife? Can you find and identify all of the outdated technologies referenced in this blog posting about Transworld as an outdated technology laid low by its reliance on other outdated technology? Is it ironic in the traditional sense that this post itself comes in a years-out-of-fashion weblog format, or just in the Alanis Morissette sense?