In Which Rakim Is Ignored and Various Techniques Sweated

One effect of the seldom-challenged objective to get more kids into skating, backed broadly by companies and other entities whose welfare entwines with selling skate-related goods and services, has been the homogenization of tricks. Whether a factor of once-platinum selling trick tip DVDs or YouTube channellers, mathematical norms seem to support the theorum that with more people skating and learning tricks via widely available and standardized sources, form and approach seem bound to gravitate toward some common center. The coveted Penny/Reynolds flick is no longer a technique possessed of some dudes and not others, rather it is the norm, increasingly rare to deviate from.

The thrillingly unorthodox cover of his month’s Thrasher features Jim Greco, who put the flick debate on front street with his ‘Feedback’ dissertation on ‘mob’ vs ‘flick’. The Thrasher feature for Jim Greco’s most recent late ’80s video revival piece, after last year’s enjoyably indulgent/indulgently enjoyable “The Way Out” vid, includes a photo showcasing classical mob styling on a schoolyard bank, suggesting that Jim Greco, who once strove to curb his mob, now may be embracing it in some throwback move consistent with his recent nostalgia tripping among first-generation Birdhouse videos, the H-Street era and other childhood recollections of one who grew up on the opposite side of the continent.

Whether or not ‘mob’ kickflips look good, as a retro affectation or not, is a matter for the courts to decide and above the pay grade of poorly managed blogging web pages. However, the recently proffered notion that Chad Muska’s ‘illusion’ frontside flips looked good, wrongheaded as it is, speaks to a similar, latent yearning for diversity in trick form that seems to have been squeezed out in the online video age. Setting aside the singular proclivities of ‘mob’ godfather Mark Gonzales, the comparative spread between a Kareem Campbell kickflip, a Tim O’Connor one and a range of others throws into relief the relatively few outliers from the norm today, such as Brandon Westgate.

Beyond throwback questionings, could skating’s politics-bucking globalization push offer a cure? In the far corner of this hemisphere, Magnus Bordewick and his Torey Pudwill arms suggest it may be so. Following his thumping ‘Firetre’ part from a year or so back the tricks in his ‘Tigerstaden’ section erupt as much as they flip; the 360 flip and bigspin kickflip slow-mo’ed on his Instagram have the board nearly going vertical as his feet kick at the camera frame’s edges.

Could such diversification in trick form rise with a wave of women’s video parts greeting the new year? Does Ryan Hickey present a more preferable alternative to the resurgent illusion-flipping technique? How much do the expanding menu on shoe walls, from minimalist suede vulcanites to puffed-out rubber boots, play into the physics and appearance of a given trick?

5. Daan Van Der Linden – ‘Holy Stokes’

Every few years some new kid arrives and inspires comparisons to Tom Penny — Andrew Reynolds, Ali Boulala, Eric Fletcher, Wes Kremer — now comes Daan Van Der Linden, racking up unbelievable tricks and co-signs galore since emerging from his Dutch incubator that presumably also gestates ideas like the rarely glimpsed Madonna noseblunt or the handrail hippie jump. Daan Van Der Linden’s own feather-light ease extends as much to his preternatural ability to survive rough spills as it does to jaw-droppers such as the frontside crooked grind pop-over, the early-grab rail ride, the pop-shove it off the vert wall and the cliffhanging frontside wallride. His skating doesn’t seem weighted with much self-awareness when it comes to the heaviness of some of these tricks, perhaps insulated by some Penny-type fog.

Bring Hither the Fatted Calf and Kill It

As the blind oracles foretold, Lennie Kirk is proving to be the guiding touchstone for skateboarding in 2016, with his devotion to hammer-handy fish multiplier Jesus Christ’s ’33 resuscitation and Lennie Kirk’s own unlikely rise from beneath that Pac-Bell van foreshadowing the timely return of top-shelf talents to the turbulent and beery pool that is skating in 2016.

Paul Rodriguez, he of the multi-sponsor fitted and long-distance switch 360 flips, already rolled away the stone and commanded the grave-cloths removed from the pro career of French double-flip enthusiast Bastien Salabanzi. With the Christian season of Lent upon us, Paul Rodriguez would play at the Lazarus legend again, this time bringing out onetime fellow City Star Devine Calloway for what by some poorly considered blog webpages’ count would be his third go-round with the skate biz, after his initial City Star twinkle, his Chocolate grown-up resurfacing some years later and post-‘Pretty Sweet’ bonus footage low profile. Nothing’s changed, it would seem, and besides his apparently mostly successful kicking of a costly New Era habit, he could’ve popped out the fakie flip 5-0 and that Crisco-smooth bigspin immediately following his still-impressive TWS part nearly a decade back.

Days later on the other coast, long-lost Tompkins wunderkind Yaje Popson officially moved his 64-Crayola wardrobe into Alien Workshop’s radiation-proof geodesic dome, itself recently restored to life via Rob Dyrdek’s Street League and television show dollarydoos. Despite what sounded like dual knee injuries, a somewhat dispiriting parting of ways with the Crailtap camp amid the heightened and heated ‘Pretty Sweet’ filming campaign, and the bucolic pleasures of small-city life in Brazil, Yaje Popson’s tricks remain super on point (switch backside smith grind, that pyramid ledge trick) and as suited as any to the worthwhile project that is refurbishing the Sovereign Sect, though maybe a little bit less surprising than Devine Calloway’s rebound given last year’s Sk8Rats turn and how he plainly spoke of missing it all. A TWS interview promises heavier hitting yet to come.

The limited economic prospects, increasingly crowded competition for unique eyeballs and impressions, and ever-present risk cocktail of age and injury raises questions around the logic of gone-once pros and bros returning for further bites of the industry cherry. Yet return they do, from Tom Penny’s bleary trip back in ‘Sorry’ to Guy Mariano’s wristguarded tech triumph in ‘Fully Flared’, the Muska’s single-gloved victory lap with Element, Christian Hosoi’s post-prison bid adventures, Supreme’s Paulo Diaz exhumation, and the extended post-Shorty’s go-rounds enabled by Sk8Mafia. More curiouser may be how such prodigal sons typically not just are welcomed but cheered back — witness last year’s outpouring of support after Kevin Spanky Long’s return journey to Baker put him again astride a pro board and back in the proverbial van.

Is the skate sphere unique in its tolerance for such wilderness years, spent consuming substances, recovering from blown-out joints, pursuing alternate careers or raising families? In the parlance of major-league team sports, comebacks usually are intra-game affairs, with some allowance for those rare talents drawing sufficient investment to bide a season or more in physical therapy, but clawing one’s way back into the professional universe after years away seems a rarer feat still, whether fueled by Kenny Powers-level moxie or some other chemical reaction. But even with a decade or more off magazine pages, digital video discs and relevant social media mobile networks, it’s difficult to imagine an increasingly fragmented and nostalgia-shaped boarding industry turning its collective nose up if long-faded lords like Sean Sheffey, Alex Gall, Scott Kane, Mike Maldonado, Billy Valdes, Pat Channita, Tim O’Connor, Jon West, Ted de Gros, or Gideon Choi turned up with a video part approaching their respective primes and the gumption to keep at it.

Does skating’s willingness and seeming zeal to re-embrace its wandering prodigals flow from the same spiritual mountain spring that nurtures tendencies to stockpile decks skated beyond any reasonable use, pack grocery-store boxes full of even lean-year Transworlds, and scour Ebay auctions to expensively recapture some spark first kindled in a long-lost CCS catalogue? As skating is lassoed, saddled, broken and eventually led head-down and besequined into that great Olympic rodeo, replete with floodlights and sad clowns, will lapsed pros resurface more often or must all spare dollarydoos shower down upon the podium-bound few? Has the YouTube age made it harder or easier for pros to recatapult dormant careers? Is Brian Wenning at Love Park right now? Yall saw Jeremy Klein’s kickflip bench stall in the Greco movie right?

Mayan Calendar Fail And Some Other Notes From The Year That Was

Ten more parts
-Austyn Gillette – “Unlimited”
This dude’s footage always is worth checking for — switch backside flip at the end had the craziest catch.
-Keelan Dadd – “Parental Advisory”
-Russ Milligan – “Business As Usual”
I think Russ Milligan at this point may be destined to go down as criminally overlooked, but it’s good he’s found a niche in SF.
-Forrest Edwards – “Wild Power”
-Nate Broussard – “Secondhand Stoke”
Somebody could make a case on how this dude’s languid style and focus on simple tricks might’ve helped refocus Dylan Rieder in his evolution toward the Gravis part.
-Ross Norman – “Civilized”
Ross Norman slayed in “Last of the Mohicans” a few years ago and he’s apparently been putting in time at his own personal Love Park. The heather-gray crew-neck sweatshirt is overdue for a comeback.
-Gilbert Crockett – “Cellout”
-Conor Champion – “3Hunna”
Attention video makers, the farther “Carter 2” fades in the rear-view mirror, so does the bar grow higher for any use of Dwayne Carter music in parts. Ponder this as we take in Conor Champion’s huge switch backside tailslide.
-Brian Peacock – “DC China”
-Adrian Vega – “Outdated”
No super-secret recipe here, just clean tricks at good spots and a brassy song.

What is the over-under on how many months will pass before Mark Suciu is rated pro?

Just curious, the stance here is obvious. There was this one too.

Ten shared parts/promos
-Alien Workshop – “Cinematographer”
If they would’ve sold this part alone via Itunes for $4.99 I think they might have been able to keep AVE in Dapper Dan for decades. Companies should think about devoting their resources toward pumping out well-produced smaller projects like this every year or so, versus these five-year global slogs that wind up relegating half the dudes’ footage to a bonus reel most people will watch twice. Jake Johnson’s nollie wallride here is the real deal.
-Adidas – “New York City”
Adidas and Dan Wolfe have been making the best tour clips out for some time now and this ranks at the top of the stack, up there with the Greece one. Pete Eldridge’s loosey bought him a ticket to years’ worth of message-board dissertations on style.
-Politic – “Introducing”
–“Ordos”
These vids that offer peaks into weird crannies of the world are super worthwhile.
-Polar – “No Complies & Wallrides+shuvits”
-Palace – “N***** WIT ALTITUDE”
-Tim & Eric – “Secondhand Stoke”
Helping hand on the front flip warms the heart
-Dennis Busenitz/Real team – “Cinematographer”
-Bobby Worrest, Daniel Kim & Tim McDermott – “Stop Fakin 2”
Worrest, lines at Pulaski
-Lucas Puig & Co. – “Adidas roadtrip”
The red hat and those cement boobs got a lotta mileage this year. Between Cliche and Adidas and those blue shorts, is Lucas Puig officially the most Euro pro out?
-Magenta – “Hill Street Blues 2”

The rise of Riley Hawk

It has been interesting to track Riley Hawk’s come-up these past few years and his moves. Flying the Birdhouse coop and farming his hair and scumstache under the Baker banner was one thing but all the footage done recently is another, he’s got an interesting take on the heelflip and he’s moved onto a bigger canvas from the ledge combos that got him on the radar a few years ago. This one is my favorite among the several sections he made this year.

A re-re-rise of Tom Penny
Tom Penny footage these days is a crap shoot, but this brand-new clip from the DC “Embassy” park is the best in quite a while. There is still some magic in those feet, between the switch nosegrind, switch frontside flip and ollie impossible.

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.

8. Wes Kremer – “Not Another Transworld Video”

TWS ran something billing Wes Kremer as a sorta Tom Penny heir, maybe down to the giant switch frontside flip and transition flippin and general sort of loopiness, but his first line here suggests he’s a little bit too hyper to fit the mold, what with running off the curb all cockeyed and whipping his board around and beelining for the red curb. What keeps this part really re-watchable I think is the range of different tricks he does on different shit — to roll the TWS idea further you could say he goes Muska on the hubba ledges, Reynolds on the gaps, Duffy on the moistened rail, maybe Jimmy Lannon on the hydrant? Between this section and his stuff in the Sk8Mafia video (watch the line at 3:01) Wes Kremer had a big year for sure and that pop shove-it noseslide out of the bowl in the TWS part still looks magical to me.

Street Sweeper

Between these Pappalardo clips, Deluxe’s zip-zinger features and this recent Brent Atchley commercial there seems to be a wave of cruising-oriented video coming out lately, coincidental or not. Depending on who’s doing the cruisering and where, such clips can be alternately boring, sublime or non-affecting, but all these clips recently reminded me of the above Tom Penny part from one of my most favorite and least-discussed videos, ATM Click’s “Come Together.” An early Manzoori/Miner production at a time when both were sponsored by the company, after working through some early days of being Gonz’s new and soon-to-be-discarded toy (and prior to its current form as a “mini logo” deck purveyour). The company was some type of sister to New School and home to a budding Jon West, who skated to “Andy Warhol” by David Bowie in this video that was really more like an extended friends-section, roping in everybody from Mat O’Brien to Hondo Soto to Jamie Thomas to Mike Frazier to a clip of Rob “Sluggo” Boyce hitting what looks like a backyard kicker on a snowboard. This mini-part by Penny gets squeezed in somewhere in the middle and is really just a couple launches at the Santa Rosa park and a lengthy street ramble that puts a lot of the dude’s greatness front and center — the supernaturally relaxed mannerisms, casually caught flips and a general kind of meandering genius. The song works too.