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.

The Count of Tuscany

disposable 2: in stores now

The other day, I was pleased to see that Sean Cliver had finally gotten around to publishing a sequel to the epic tome Disposable. In addition to functioning as one of the classic "research laboratory" books of all time, it serves as a narrative of the rise of World Industries and its zeitgeist as expressed through the graphics of Cliver and McKee, primarily. Hand in hand with that, of course, goes the parallel narrative of Cliver's inevitable departure from Powell and the subsequent "war" between Powell and Rocco. Oddly enough, this summer Blind and Powell entrenched themselves and declared war once more--the video wars, that is. It would be a lot more dramatic if videos "mattered" moreso than whatever is on the berrics on any given day. It should be noted that it is 2009. Steve Berra and Nike control the industry. Once again, this in irrefutable proof that we live in some kind of crazy Futureworld.

ANYWAY, first, a little prologue. A few weeks ago, I went skating after work when one of those epic early summer thunderstorms struck the spot. If you are unfamiliar with mid-Atlantic regional weather patterns, there are two of them 'round this time of the year:

1. hot and humid as fuck

2. raining

So, I paid a visit to the shop. Down the block, the video premier for the latest Powell video offering was letting out--the same theater as the Fallen premier and the Mind Field premier about which I did not write.

The title of the video itself encapsulates just one of the reasons why I hate this company. It just seems kind of disingenuous, and also suspiciously like a shot aimed at Ty:

"Hey, we used to be this big shitty generic corporate company. NOT ANYMORE! WE'RE ALL ABOUT HAVING FUN SKATING! Not like those other dudes with their big super serious video productions! No ART here! Art isn't fun =(. Jumping down stuff is fun!! Powell are the fun dudes now! The shoe is on the other foot!! FUN. You know--like jumping down stuff.

As sometimes happens with this kind of event, attendees received stickers--1 ft.-in-diameter stickers with the Powell logo. You know, this thing:

I threw up a little in my mouth. As we all know, kids love stickers. However, they did not have the same violent reaction to Powell promotional material as I did. I saw some bros and they asked me "Hey, did you go to the video premier?"

"Nah I hate that company." They laughed, but I was dead fucking serious. I hated, and still hate Powell.**

By all accounts, their video is "sick," contains decent enough skating, and the ender ender is one of the more "extreme" frontside tailslides ever executed by a human being on this planet. However, I will never watch said video in its entirety, and most certainly will never by psyched on it. Why? For the same reason a Red Sox fan will always hate the Yankees. Even though World is, in essence, a shoe company now, I still retain allegiance to dwindle, and, by extension, blind and almost. It's still fuckin' Daewon, Rodney, plus the evolutionary Henry Sanchez*:

However, while Powell is still corporate and generic, so is World, or whatever corporate entity it has become. Twenty years after functioning as a canvas for Mark Gonzales' artistic "weirdness," and 15 years after having the sickest lineup(Creager, Milton, McBride, Sanchez) of any company ever, blind has somehow transmogrified into Digital Skateboarding: The Board Company.

To the kids at the aforementioned video premier, Powell is just another company with dudes that are good. No different from blind. Why do I retain a world view that is twenty years old?

I think it's because, just like the Red Sox and Yankees have changed, once one is a fan, according to Bill Simmons' rules of being a fan (which are somewhere out there on the internet) you can never switch. Even though the team 100% changes from the badass quality that made you dig them in the first place. Let's continue this analogy via baseball. Even though I am a Met fan, I will use the Red Sox as an example because I backed them hard as fuck in their battles against the Yankees in the first half of this decade. The Red Sox up uptil 2005 exhibited a badassness that was never more apparent than this epic battle that occured during the 2003 ALCS. I think I listened to most of it on WFAN. This was one of those events that, as one watches it unfold, one mentally repeats to onesself "I can't fucking believe this is happening and how fucking awesome it is." Kind of like the Pistons/Pacers thing.

Usually, though, the end of whatever made the team cool begins when one dude (Johnny Damon) moves on for more money. Then they bring in another dude that is super fucking good but doesn't really fit in, but the dudes kind of accept it because he's super fucking good (Matsuzaka). Pretty soon almost all of the original dudes are gone. However, you can't stop backing them, because sometimes they show that spark of why you were fucking psyched on them in the first place.

Creager does that. The next time a summer afternoon thunderstorm throws a monkey wrench in your plans, spend an evening revisiting his body of work: Cocktails. Superconductor Supercollider. 20 Shot. RvD1. RvD2. Memikmati. What If. I think that's everything; I might have omitted Gullwing: Revival. And this summer's offering, the creatively titled The Blind Video. I guess they decided against Blind - The Video: filmed on Earth - The Planet. Before we get to Creager's part, specifically, as a whole, I stand by my contention that The Blind Video harkens back to Trilogy with its sometimes shitty filming (think Clyde f/s heel over table), haphazard 80's-centric music supervision, loose clothing, and tech-for-tech's sake ethos (think Maurice Darshien Key sw f/s heel t/s). Danny Cerezini skates like an amalgamation of Photosynthesis-era Appleyard and Paul Rodriguez. Okay, if that's too hyperbolic, maybe Rodriguez with more creative trick selection. For example, you think he's going to go nollie n/s down that one hubba but he goes nollie bluntslide. By the way, Cerezini also maintains a blog, which is kind of interesting. I guess he didn't get the industry-wide memo re: self-promotion via "twitter." If I was into that sort of thing and set my mind to following some shit, I would follow kelch, york, nick t., whoever the fuck else...it would be just like hanging out under the wave. Trip the fuck out.

ANYWAY, Laitiala cuts down on the happy feet from that Digital part when he skated to "Blue Monday" (again--fucking amazing music supervision) and switch hardflips that big-ass set of stairs in Barcelona with the urgency of a Finnish commando defending the border against Soviet invaders. James Craig is, like, "one of us" so it's always sick to see what he comes up with. However, for my money, it's all about Creager and how he, by skating local spots in, I presume, Arizona, continues the pattern he established in 1992 by existing outside of time, which is kind of what this site is all about. Either ahead of, behind, or beyond, as shown by this unscientific chart:

Even though, by setting up shop in Arizona, Creager seems to have eschewed the industry in general, he has pursued other avenues to keep his shit out there. Specifically, his youtube channel shows that he's smart enough to know that "kids today" don't go to actual retail facilities to purchase and watch videos--they pretty much just watch what's out there. It's also a good destination if you need that extra "push over the cliff" to land that b/s tail double flip out or whatever the fuck. This particular video, however, captured my imagination, documenting Creager's construction of some kind of miniramp with a ledge in the middle. It also inspired the "retirement community" comment in the previous post. Truth be told, once I put in my 30, i would certainly agree to ride out my golden years in such an abode. Also of note: Creager, the small-wheel, skinny-board, fakie-360-flip-manual dude, wields power tools more effectively than a certain mute-grabbing, wall-planting, vintage trans-am driving, breaking-all-the-rules former resident of Edison, NJ and fellow former Rocco employee.

Draw your own conclusions.

*as astutely noted by some dude on SLAP

**that Mark Suciu kid is good as shit, though--he should be on a better company.

ps. if Creager ever created music, it would probably sound like this. or Dream Theater.

final thoughts re: mariano EL

Aside from apocryphal vVdeo Days footage, Lockwood revisited, and Van Engelen's encapsulation what it must be like to watch the dude skate, the one revelation that devastated the most in the 10 episodes of Mariano Epicly Later'd was the fact that most of the "LA" dudes ended up with substance abuse issues --with varying degrees of severity.
I'm not going to attempt to get into "why" here, but one time when I was at a party, a dude and I were discussing drinking as a passtime, and he said the following:
"It helps fill spaces in time."
Think about that--if one is a pro skater, unless one is on a Ty Evans filming trip, there is very little structure, unless one chooses to create it. What's the most one can skate in a day--three, four hours? Money combined with no structure, combined with an age at which one traditionally pushes the limits of acceptable behavior, substance-related and otherwise, can sometimes lead to individuals not making the best choices.

Ironically, I recall some Big Brother interview in the late Nineties in which they asked Guy about his personal finances. He replied that, basically, his mom was his accountant and she looked out for his interests in that respect. But, like Dave Eleffson said in the Megadeth BTM, "If you're spending $500 on coke and heroin, you're going to have money problems." That reminded me of what Bill Simmons refers to as "The Coke Era" of the NBA--approximately '78 to '84, when a whole bunch of talented dudes, like David Thompson and Micheal Ray Richardson, blew out their careers due to prolonged affairs with the White Lady.

The '84 draft pulled the league out of that malaise, but Stern, in his infinite wisdom, establised a rookie orientation program to proactively address these issues and help dudes who were getting drafted right out of high school develop tools to deal with suddenly having access to millions of dollars and a limitless supply of scandalous bitches and associated accoutrements.

The Rocco '92 to '95 era was skating's version of the aforementioned Era. Dudes got unprecedented salaries and fringe benefits, with little to no mentoring. It was almost as if Rocco conducted some kind of sociological experiment--what happens when one gives adolescents unprecedented amounts of money and impunity? I also discussed this policy in my review of The Man Who Souled the World, so I will not discuss further.

What I'm getting at here is another one of those "alternate universe" scenarios of which we are so fond around here. And it goes a little something like this:

One of the only comments of note on the VBS site lamented how Peralta "blew it" by not repping the LA dudes harder circa Public Domain.

Let's say Peralta breaks free from George Powell due to creative differences. He adopts a foward-thinking mindset, realizes that the Steve Saiz's of the world are driftwood in the imminent "street skating" tsunami, and sets up permanent shop in the LA office. Starts a new company with the L.A. dudes, plus Pat Fucking Brennan, Bertino possibly, so now you're looking at a proto-blind with Mariano, Johnson, Diaz, Rodriguez, Pat Fucking Brennan, possibly Bertino, also McNatt, perhaps. Sick, no? Maybe a talented young graphic designer by the name of Sean Cliver follows him on his way out the door. He also adopts more of a mentor role, like he did with the Animal Chin dudes.

Who knows how the 90's would have played out...

On the other hand, if one believes Disposable, the union of Rocco and Cliver was decreed by the fates--like one of those freeze-frame scenes in a Scorsese film.

ps. according to Megedeth BTM, Dave Mustaine went to rehab 15 times.

pps. To my dismay, Guy did not elaborate on that one time he went to a "C&C Music Factory" video shoot with Billy Valdez..