Yeah, I haven’t posted forever, I know. I haven’t skated much lately either. But I think about skating every day. I’m 36, I have two kids, I own a business, I am a “respectable” businessman, and yet I check the Berrics every day. Multiple times per day. And I think about skating, a lot. Did I already say that? Yeah, it’s stuck in there. It doesn’t help that my 20-month old is now addicted to skateboarding as well. He even broke his first deck the other day. Well, a techdeck, but hey, he’s not even two, and he broke it proper, so I think he deserved credit.
Enough meandering. I had something to write about and I better get started before I forget it. I’ve been skating since the 4th grade, since I was five if you count the time my brother put me on a fiberglass board and gave me a push that resulted in me falling face first onto rough concrete and running inside the house bleeding. I’ve seen a bit of skateboard history. More than most of you that come to this blog, I’ll wager. But even though you’re young and I’m old, I think we can relate when I talk about “that skater we want to be.”
For me, the first one was Matt Hensley. H-Street came out with Shackle Me Not, which started out with Matt riding a board along a sidewalk doing no-complies and a nosepick on a bench. Something about the music, his skating, and that board with the two pointy parts on the side (skateboards weren’t as focused on pure functionality back then) resonated with me. I wanted to be Matt Hensley. I dreamed about skating like him. I watched the video over, and over, and over, and over again. I copied the music onto an audio tape and listened to it over and over and over on my sister’s portable tape player/stereo. There was something about Matt that made him amazing, yet attainable. Well, not that he was attainable, but it was as though, as good as he was, somehow I believed I could be that good too, and have that much fun skating. There were plenty of other good skaters in that video, but nobody made me feel like I felt when I watched Matt skate. I can remember the feeling to this day, and I cherish it. Gullwings, man, those were the most desirable trucks around at the time.
By contrast, as much as I loved watching Danny Way, he didn’t make me feel that way. The guy was too good. Too amazing. Same with Tony Hawk and a host of others. Their skating was unattainable. I couldn’t imagine ever being like them.
The next shot of “hope” I got was with the Blind video, Video Days, probably still my #1 skate video pick of all time, in part because it was so real, so raw. It was just a bunch of guys skating. I would watch the video and think “I could get my dad’s VHS camera and film my friends skating like this.” Not that any of my friends could do noseblunt slides or one-foot ollies to lipslide on a handrail, but…well, maybe they could. I mean, if Guy and Rudy could do this stuff, why can’t I and my crew? None of the stuff was staged, it was just as if a bunch of friends grabbed a camera and went skating around LA for a day. I watched the video and saw myself in Guy’s shoes doing that frontside 360 ollie, backside bigspin, and then fakie boardslide at that bank with the angled ledges.
After that, things got kind of crazy with Plan B, Girl, and progress in general. The first time I saw Mouse I didn’t know what to think. Guy did a switch backside bigspin flip that I haven’t seen equaled for style and ease to this day. It was over ten years before someone did a switch frontside shove it to switch crook on a handrail like Guy did first try and perfect. It would be a while before I got that feeling of “Hey, I could be that guy” again.
The next time it hit me was watching PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Day, or whatever it was called. PJ was sick. Amazing. And yet there was that feeling of him being a normal kid, just some guy who liked to go out and skate by himself. I liked to skate by myself too, and as I watched PJ I would think “Hey, I could be like that.” And there was something about it that you knew he wasn’t skating to be sponsored, or to make money, or any of that stuff, but just because he loved skating and was having a blast. Sadly, I haven’t gotten that feeling watching PJ in anything since. Maybe it’s just me, but nothing I’ve seen him do since looks as fun. I always get the feeling PJ would prefer to quit being a professional and just go back to skating by himself for fun. But again, I could be wrong.
The point is, there was something about PJ’s part that set it apart from all other video parts from that era. Something about him coming out of nowhere, being an unknown, and just killing it with that part. The soundtrack definitely helped.
I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since. I don’t get it watching P-Rod, Sheckler, or Ortiz, as much as I love watching those guys. I don’t get it watching Cole or Slash or Koston or Puds. I’m sure they’re all having fun, but it’s just not quite as raw, something not as natural. When I think back to those skaters I really connected with on video, what’s the common thread? I think it might be that the videos didn’t seem like they happened on purpose. Shackle Me Not, Video Days, PJ Ladd–all those videos kind of seem as though someone just threw together a bunch of footage for fun, filming skaters who were skating for the fun of it with no expectation that the video would do anything for them, but barging just for their own sakes.
Well, there you go, some thoughts. Can you relate?
I can see what you’re saying for sure. It’s kind of a love hate thing for me, because I was blown away by Nyjah Houston’s Rise and Shine part, but he and most of the skaters that you mentioned in your post are very commercial to me. Energy Drink sponsors, espn etc…
I think the commercial aspect of skateboarding pushes skaters to progress more than they would if the paychecks weren’t as big, but at the expense of the “rawness” of skateboarding that most of us know and love.
I love skateboarding, and seeing the progression is so fun for me, but I really do miss the raw feel that videos like Video days had. Nice post man!