I am the biggest Nineties nostalgist you will probably ever meet. I listen to every obscure alterna-rock band from said decade like Superdrag, That Dog, and Seven Mary Three. I attended the first Texas is the Reason show (they opened for Quicksand). I used to tape Stretch and Bob every Thursday nite on a magnetic tape and listen to it on a portable magnetic cassette tape-playback device. However, one piece of Nineties nostalgia frenzy by which I was not
captivated was the recent bio-pic hysteria over Notorious. It just seemed too cheeseball, not to mention the fact that, by all accounts, it should have been titles The Sean Combs Story featuring Chris Wallace, or some shit...
That got me thinking: who in our crazy little world warrants a biopic? Or, rather, whose biopic could possibly be interesting? Lennie Kirk? Tom Penny? Shef?
The story of S. Williams has most of the classic story elements -- rags-to-riches, a Steinbeckian cross-country journey, death, birth, half-cabs with extra tongues. He interests us because his body of work, dating back to Fine Artists, is so relentlessly transcendent, yet some of his moves, seemingly made two steps ahead like a chess grand master or some shit, seem 100% mercenary, cynical, and sometimes baffling. A recurring dichotomy, for sure.
People forget that Stevie basically had to re-learn skating in the mid-Nineties. I would often see him randomly at the Cube (the epicenter of random lurking) on some "hey, can I skate your board?" shit. He would then proceed to kickflip nosemanual the whole island. I believe 5:06 was filmed under similar circumstances. Granted, it wasn't to the same higher-power extent as Guy's recent comeback, but to go from learning sw back tails and relearning heelflips to world-beating ender status in 2-3 years certainly warrants mentioning.
Most recently, he opened a questionably-named shop in Atlanta across the street from the more established local shop, at perhaps the worst possible time since the Great Depression to launch a retail operation. Presumably, this move is inspired by Atlanta's current status as the nexus of some kind of post-millenial African American cultural renaissance. Positioning DGK in this context places skating in general in a different sociocultural realm than it has ever been. How this plays out, however, remains to be seen, as does the end product of any musical ventures like the Skate Property mixtape, from the same school of titling stuff as Get Tricks or Die Trying,,,
Indeed, amidst the frenzy of year-end retrospection over the past six or so weeks, the one piece that was completely overlooked was the DGK loft video that was removed from the internet after two days, presumably due to haranguing and buffoonish ridicule on SLAP. In general, though, DGK affiliates (pun intended) literally setting up shop in Atlanta is one of the most interested and overlooked subplots in the whole industry, which, in general, is boring as fuck.
What may have been lost on many is the self-depricating humor of S. Williams. To the undiscriminating observer, he may have appeared mesmerized by back to back Lambos, but, I mean, come on now, a fridge with half a 2L bottle of sprite and frozen biscuits made from scratch (reference to an obscure Hardee's commercial), and the quintissential empty product box. Plus the bed where Mr. Williams' neural synapses fire indiscriminately and visually. Once again, Mr. Williams is smarter than you think--metacognitively being aware of how his brain functions has enabled him to visualize and execute shit like sw heel fakie hardflip out and the line in that one Chocolate commercial.
(Who has auditory dreams, anyway? Besides Keith Richards when he came up with "Satisfaction." Although, come to think of it, I used to have extremely vivid dreams in which I played guitar for Bon Jovi, and some in which I thought up these crazy Dragonforce-style power metal anthems....)
Unfortunately, based on recent entries on the DGK "blog" or whatever that may be, ATL has met DGK dudes not with open arms but with FRUSTRATION, except for the chess board spot, which yielded perhaps the most mind-numbing sequence of 2008. Taking a throaway trick from the Virtual credits and banging it out on a knee-high ledge is the
kind of move one would expect in the post-FF era, but not with such classic form in such a unique setting. Unfortunately, this is the only evidence of production (video coming soon? Dwyane Fagundes?) from the DGK relocation. Also, based on the Expedition site, Stevie appears to be on the mandatory China filming trip with Kayo peeps, so hopes of a North America (yes, I would accept Van plaza footage at this point) Williams part this year remain in jeopardy. Maybe, for all the post-millenial cultural renaissance shit going on in Atlanta, perhaps other locations would prove more productive. Raleigh, NC perhaps? Isn't some kind of plaza taking shape there? Maybe even my fair city, which one could consider a slightly-economically-disadvantaged persons Atlanta-- historically African-American learning institutions and all.
ps. With regard to the current dearth of hassle-free spots in Atlanta, I noted a potential foundation spot to the Northwest of the world-famous Blue Flame:
View Larger Map One could probably scrounge up, just from digging in the couch cushions in that place, enough cash to build some decent ledges and a bank .
pps. Yuck.
