Greed is Good. Greed Works.

The end of summer. A time for reflection. A time to break down to its essential components that which is truly important. A time to pull out one's favorite sweater on the first day that it's cold enough to wear a sweater and not be looked at as some kind of weirdo.As usual, much of my reflection centered around pre-2000 World Industries. Two very specific events precipitated this: First, the release of Disposable: A Skateboard Bible. Subsequent to that, my long-awaited purchase of and immersion in the World Industries Complete Video Collection 1989-1996. I did not, alas, purchase Disposable 2. I pulled that move where you read the book in three minutes in Barnes and Noble. One night my friend Sam read a whole Bukowski book there. How the fuck do they stay in business. ANYWAY, Disposable 2 focuses on more 1960's/1970's decks this time around, without much of the narrative that made Disposable 1 so critical. However, it does feature about three pages of world/blind/plan b/101 decks that were absent from the first book, including this "Kareemsicle" graphic, a piece that holds particular meaning for me because I specifically remember asking the guy at my local shop if there were any controversial World boards in the back. I seriously doubt that is what I said verbatim, but you know what I mean. In addition, the gentleman also brought out a Henry Sanchez board with a Daniel Dunphee graphic that looked very similar to this:

I ended up setting up the Sanchez board, taking it to Israel and skating the Tel Aviv park. I think I simply kicked it down to my friend when it wore down to the nub. As one would imagine, this graphics retains a great deal of sentimental value, elevating it to "holy grail" status. I'll look on eBay every few months, but I've pretty much given up hope of every tracking it down on the "NOS" circuit. I was reminded of this during the bonus footage in the world box set, in which York, Karl Watson, and Shamil skate some marble benches in and around some BART station with crisp new world/blind boards--the Rudy Johnson "sparkplug graphic, for example-- that they undoubtedly focused or sold to some french tourist after skating it for three days or some shit.
Disposable, indeed.

I felt a certain apprehension taking the above photo of the kareemsicle board in B&N--kind of like that scene in Wall Street in which Charlie Sheen pretends to be a maintenance dude and scans a shitload of inside information with that "hand scanner" device--

--a peripheral that probably cost something like 3K back then in the late Eighties. Speaking of Wall Street, a particular piece of news about said film also punctuated the end of this summer: a possible sequel that allegedly will do to hedge fund managers who live in Darien, Connecticut what the original did for insider trading corporate raider motherfuckers that summer in the Hamptons. This is usually when I would descend into some elaborate Gekko/Rocco analogy, but I don't think it apt this time around. Granted, both displayed an astounding level of unorthodox business acumen and were vilified by colleagues for said practices, but Gekko's mind lacked an actual philosophy besides "greed is good." Rocco didn't buy out Foundation and liquidate Tod Swank's office equipment or some shit like that; he simply acquired his most valuable, most progressive am and published a hilarious ad about said acquisition. Along with a gallery of equally ridiculous ads, the Rocco philosophy is encapsulated on three video discs in the World box set. As for the commentary, Rocco himself and Rodney Mullen do the honors for Rubbish Heap, mainly giggling to themselves and muttering "What the fuck happened to that guy?"


Clyde Singleton, however, hits a home run with his commentary on 20 Shot Sequence. In true trip-the-fuck-out fashion, this career highlight reminded me of another end-of-summer ritual: COLLEGE. First year, I happened to meet the only young lady in my class who, for lack of a more effective term, was "down" with the skate scene and all that entailed at the time. If I recall, she had kicked it with Ethan Fowler and the Menace dudes (not at the same time, that would have been a crazy one though) the previous summer. One evening, we went to some hip-hop club on Canal St.; the only song I can recall them playing was this. I think they played it for like half an hour straight. ANYWAY, at one point she tapped me on the shoulder:
"You see that guy right there?"
"Yeah."
"That's that dude Clyde Singleton."
Trip the fuck out. As I recall, he was shorter than I thought he would be. I later ran into him at Astor Place, where he attempted to acquire cigarettes and aggressively sell product, as was the norm.

So once again, life moves in fuckin' circles, bro--14 years later, I sit down on my coach and trip out on Mr. Singleton's uproarious yet concise and insightful commentary regarding Henry Sanchez ("the Mexican Terrell Owens"), Lavar ("well on his way to smoking too much weed and ruining his career"), and Maurice Key ("hustling before dudes even knew what a hustle was").

In his reflection on Gino and Kareem's parts, though, Singleton deconstructs the mid-Nineties aesthetic down to its lifeblood: looking cool on a skateboard. What else is there? That's what it's all about, right? "It should be against the law to look that cool on a skateboard," he proclaims as Gino b/s nollie fakie nose manuals at Wallenberg. As Kareem's ("Don Cornelius on a skateboard") part kicks off, Singleton lets us know we are in for "some cool shit." For all Kareem's sketchy business dealings, his part in 20 Shot embodies what made the Nineties so fucking cool. A certain way of doing things. Procedural knowledge. But from where does this knowledge originate?

Maybe it all boils down to influences. I remember some Tim O'Connor interview where he states that "kids today" are how they are, style-wise, because of the influences that they have. It is what it is, nosegrind tailgrabs and b/s nollie bigspins* and all. Indeed, the dudes that one looks up to when one starts skating are one's most essential stylistic influences; to this day I can't for the life of me shed that almost-falling-off straight-legged style that Kareem and Clyde utilized. Stripes on a tiger.

Along those lines, Kareem and the other LA dudes became what they became because they learned, through practice and osmosis, from the coolest possible influences. When they started, everyone idolized Hosoi and the Venice dudes. Those fine gentlemen invented looking cool on a skateboard and synergized skating with the "fast life" of clubs, women, and everything that entails. When Shiloh and Kareem and the eventual roster of World/Blind/101 first started killing it, who was killing it the most? Jason Lee, the dude that made street skating look cool while concurrently progressing hard as fuck. The best possible influences. World/Menace/Blind/101 as a Nineties hip-hop-influenced Hosoi.

Javier Nunez Is a Bulletproof Tiger with the Mind of a Fuckin' Scientist

alternate post title: Javier Nunez can land a fucking guitar. Has Tampa supplanted California as the locus of the American Dream? I postulated this theory after the harmonic convergence of the final ep. of Eastbound and Down and the Tampa pro finals. Like many dudes that weekend, Kenny Fucking Powers rode off into the sunset headed for Tampa, leaving a "gaping hole of need" of a woman at a suburban North Carolina gas station. The mission: one last shot at redemption. [insert Active Erica / April Buchanan commentary here] The location: Tampa Pro, which year after year provides entertainment value, of late centering less and less around the contest itself, with its increasingly cynical winning runs by that dude with the triple-collab hat. Alas, in 2009, a Matt Beach moral victory was not to be. However, I could not have been more proud of Mr. Nunez, who reprised his guest spot in Stevie's part in the DC video to the tune of 3K and a Dean (Darrell Abbott's final guitar sponsor) Flying V-type guitar. Throwing in that "wheedle-wheedle" George Lynch shred action was rad too. Note to Mr. Nunez: if you are indeed left-handed,and intend on learning the instrument, i highly recommend learning to play the guitar right-handed. It just gives one so many more options, you know? Plus, I know for a fact ESP does not manufacture a left-handed George Lynch pro model. However, I can think of at least one left-handed dude that took advantage of the symmetry of the Flying V design: Back to Mr. Nunez. My congratulatory sentiments are somewhat conflicted; as everyone knows, it's not very menace tech to try in contests. Years past, dudes might have flung a couple fakie inside heel attempts on the flat bank before blowing per diems at Mons Venus. Not this year, though. Maybe Javier is starting to actualize his potential, fourteen fucking years after getting on Menace. As it is, he's already one of the premier nollie h/f dudes ever--up there with Charles Lamb. I have no idea what it is, but that particular part of the world produces the best switch heel dudes par excellence. Maybe the catalyst is some chemical compound in the Arthur Kill that wafts over to Bayonne, back over to SI and then down to the Raritan Bay where it infects Wenning and Durante, or some shit like that. Now, If I were Bill Simmons I would compose some elaborate 20,000 word extravanza relating Powerisms to shit that went down at Tampa, but I'm not. So, all you get is a cheap story from the Nineties. And it goes a little something like this: I once ran into Kareem, Javier, and Cales at the pizzeria down the block from Supreme. Kareem related that his master plan for Javier was "the next Guy Mariano." I'm not sure if dudes who have been dubbed assuch have fared as poorly as dudes who have been dubbed "the next Michael Jordan." Maybe worse. As for Nunez' board sponsor, it's by all accounts "sick,"but their existence reminds me of that episode in Season 2 of The Wire in which Stringer Bell askshis econ professor how to make a profit in an oversaturated market. His answer, in a nutshell? Change the name. The theory postulates that the juice created by the "newness" of a new brand alone will increase sales. And if you think about it, in a market as oversaturated as "hardgoods," every time a new brand appears there's that one group of kids that are all about it--Deca, Deathwish, whatever. I am unsure, however, that this particular phenomenon took place for Shut. I have yet to see one of their boards anywhere. I suspect that they are one of those operations that is "big in Japan." Their graphics are legit, but the team lacks cohesiveness and identity to a certain extent.Felix doesn't help (see recent youwillsoon post). Derek Fukahara blew doors with one of the most talked-about tricks (varial heel ng on a handrail) in one of the most memorable parts in one underrated videos (Filmbot Files) of the past decade, then vanished. Back to the actual Shut product-- I think they utilize Chapman wood, making that manufacturer and its various clientele, specifically Zoo and Cliche, the only boards my local shop carries that are manufactured in our fine republic. And the last time I had a Chapman/Number 9 board in my posession, I traded it for a green 101 shirt and Whatever, including the box. This was possibly the most one-sided trade in the history of product trading. I found this out the other day when I went to get a board, and it came down to a limited-edition Tex Gibson guest board and a Dill. Note: realized that I just mentioned Dill. I'm not trying to fight you, bro; I fucking purchased your pro model! If you insist on fisticuffs, though, I'm at the foundation spot almost every weekend.I could never actually skate any kind of signed and/or numbered deck, so the Dill it was. I was surprised to see, however, the following counter-litigation (NOTE: there has never been a successful skateboard liability suit in this country -- I did a rudimentary LexisNexis search) device: Bummer, because up until then, one of the main things Burton Skateboards had going for it was the Paul Shmidt connect. I wouldn't be suprised if they were still availing themselves of his services, or phasing them out, or a combination of the two. Who the fuck knows, man. All I know is that if I ever gripped a board and forgot to remove the "warning" (or in the case of crailtap products, size) sticker, I would die of obsessive compulsion alone.