The ‘Kids Are Crazy Good These Days’ category is for clips that blow me away by skaters I don’t know much about. I don’t know what video this is from, but now I’m even more excited for Mind Field.
On my two week family vacation we stopped in Chicago to visit my uncle Frank and his lovely wife Dale. He’s been living off of his art for 12 years now which is super impressive. He’s also the frontman for the band Mental Insect which he’s been doing for years as well. I think their kind of on hold for now, but either way you should check out the video for Post Industrial Sex on youtube. Embedding this video has been disabled, but you can still watch it by clicking here. If you are interested in his art, give him an email and support a good cause.
I figure since I sit around at work all day and browse the web for skate clips, I’d start posting some of my favorites. Dave Bachinsky is amazing and this part is sick as well. I think the first trick should be the last trick and the music kinda blows, but whatevs, it’s sick.
I finally installed a youtube video plugin so naturally the first thing that went up is the Off The Couch teaser. This is going to be one fine video featuring full parts by several over 30 year old men who still ride skateboards. It’s gonna be a hoot. Basically it started when Brian Ball farted on me and I jumped off a couch all quick. Neil asked if I was ok and I said it kind of hurt. Somehow the name ‘Off The Couch’ got coined after that.The video will feature full parts from Brian Ball, Neil Thurman, Jeremy Frankovis, Rob Helmstetter, Jason Heidecker, Lazer Rubenstein (under 30 alert) and somehow me. Although I’m recruiting the help of the Null team to make my part at least somewhat interesting to watch. The goal is to have this video out around Thanksgiving this year. But who knows, there are no rules with this video.
Rob, Chad, me. Neil in the background checking his cell phone on his bike at a light.
Jason up in this piece too. How did Chad make the same exact face twice?
After cracking my deck it was time for a new one.’The crew was Lloyd, Brian, Rob, Jason, Neil, Chadman, Gabe, Fuzz and me. We started off at the steep bank/dirt spot. Decent warm up for most, but I was too tired from the night before. Chad got kinda gnarly though.
Next we hit this fun foundation/manny pad spot. I would normally have loved it, but the heat was killing me. That and I slammed super hard and somehow avoided breaking my shoulder on a curb. Ugh. Skating sucks sometimes. Neil and Fuzz killed it.On to another bank spot I was still being pretty lazy. Fuzz killed it again.Lastly we went to the Evans & Lapan spot and I filmed a line for my old man part. Halfcab flip, little shove, front shove off the kicker. Yippe filming blows, but you gotta get Off The Couch.
While waiting for Jason, Neil and Rob to show up at my house I rolled around trying some flip tricks. I finally landed some weird new trick I got from Rob. Fakie bigspin flip no comply. Don’t worry, it’s dumber than it sounds.Then we hit the manny pad area for a bit which is always fun. I didn’t skate it all that well, but it was fun. I cracked my board on a 360 flip. Doh.Next up was the rainbow ledge. After landing one 5-0 I decided to try filming a line which pretty much guaranteed the fun would end. And it did. I got the first two tricks – front 5-0 then ollie up the rock gap, but was never able to put down the boneless 180 over the bigger gap. And by ‘bigger gap’ it’s a gap that no one under 30 would ever consider calling a gap. I gave up after awhile using my cracked board as an excuse to not get the ollie up anymore.
Ollie was bummed when I said I was gonna go skating so we hit up Creekside (school across the street from my house) for about 30 minutes. Ollie was doing his name up curbs, wallieing half the time. Pretty rad to watch and it gets me hyped up. I was just kinda messing around trying random tricks like no comply grabs to front tail, 270 front tails and some other tricks I’ve never tried before and didn’t land.Then went out to Valmont with Nate and Rob and tried to break my record for number of falls in a night. Not sure if I made it, but my neck is super sore regardless. Rob is fun to skate with because he has lots of old man tricks and his style is super on point. Nate is always rad to skate with as well. He’ll always pull out some young kid trick that surprises me. I basically didn’t land anything all night, but somehow had fun. I attempted a few no comply pole jam things off the loading dock, never committed though.All three of us played a game of SKATE up a curb. Well, Nate and Rob played, I got schooled. I knew it would go downhill as soon as I bailed the first trick – back 180. Ugh. Lost the game on a no comply up. That should be a staple for a 35 year old. Nope. I think it has to do with how much drinking Josh and I did while he was here. I just can’t handle that much anymore.
Skated solo for awhile totally sucking. Jason showed up after awhile and it got a little better, but I was still sucking. Being tired and old blows. But we skated the curb for quite awhile and that was fun. I got a front tail shove out and tried some weird back 180 nosegrinds that didn’t work out. Party time.
A night hanging beers with JP always guarantees a rough next day and this day would be no different. We started at Rock Creek and it went alright. I got some fakie pop rock creeks on and Josh regained most of his arsenal like back tails and front disasters all steezey.After two huge burritos at Chipotle we set out for Commerce City. This didn’t go so well. Between the two of us we might be able to add the decent tricks on one hand. Ugh, hangovers suck.
Josh Pluger was visiting from the city of angels. The heat was kicking and the crew was large. First spot was red curbs. Josh is a bit shy like me and I felt a little bad about the crew being so deep at 8. But everyone is old and fun so it was cool. About the only tricks I landed worth a shit are crooks on the 2 stair ledge, front 50 back 180 out, front 180 nose manual and got a nollie front shove up a curb although I wanted it to land in manny.Next we went to Boulder ditch. Jason showed me up on a back smith stall and I sat down as did almost everyone.Rock Creek was the final destination and man it was a blast as usual. On top of not sucking on the ramp as bad as normal I managed to beat Fuzz at SKATE for the first time. I got lucky though.