Just finished watching Dennis Busenitz in Real Skateboards’ newest video, Since Day One, and have a few thoughts.

1. Real is just that- Real. They have kept it real for two decades now by showcasing pure skateboarding. No skits, no gimmicks, no B.S. Sure, we all love Max Schaaf, but a lot of companies would have hit their vert button and sent him packing.

2. I hate to rank skateboarders, but I often think about the legacies they will leave behind. With his most recent part, Dennis Busenitz has begun to approach the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) category. He isn’t in it yet, but if he keeps pushing as fast as he is, he’ll get there within the next five years. Of course, that is a long time, but am I wrong (and is it hearsay?) to say that he is basically Cardiel status at this point?

Unrelated to Busenitz’s awesomeness is a short little Converse Thailand tour. More than any of the big guns (Nike, Vans), Converse’s Asia game is on point. Below comes courtesy of Legion of Sorts:

Wait. Can’t embed the video for some reason. Check it HERE.

Before the skateboard became a viable tool with which to strive for fame, fortune, and hot blonde babes with annoying valley girl accents, much of its appeal lay in that a skateboard seemed to be a pretty effective way of sticking it to the man. Not an extreme, jihad-a-funeral-type sticking, or an overthrow-the-government way. No, sticking it to the man with a skateboard was rather a means of expressing that mild but persistent (writers block- adjectives taken from the lamisil on my night stand) desire to rebel, but just enough, that I think sits especially hard in young American males.

For suburban youth pushing across America’s pavement, their manifest destiny was ‘Fuck the man, but only until he ponies up a new complete’. The man could literally be a father, but could also represent teachers, police, government, or that one guy who looked at you funny in the hall in 7th grade. Yeah, that guy was wack. I totally thought about beating his ass.

I’m also not saying that everyone started skateboarding for this reason. However, I know that the first time I wanted to skateboard was when I was 8 years old and standing in line at a McDonald’s. A bitter, older man walked in demanding that the Golden Arch send its strongest strong arms to evict two derelict skateboarders from the parking lot who, as far as I could tell, were simply flipping their boards around and having the time of their lives. And, magically, pissing already miserable people off in the process.

I’m not trying to belittle skateboarding. I don’t think the rebellion attached to it is empty. At it’s silliest, rebellion in skateboarding is cutting the sleeves off your shirt so you could look exactly like Jim Greco circa 2001.

It’s easier to write about what rebellion in skateboarding is at its worst than what it is at its best. You decide for me whether skateboarding and rebellion are related (connected, inherently connected, inseparable), and what this relationship can be at its best.

That is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that sometimes skateboarding was simply a fun and creative way of flipping bird after bird. A way of releasing a (perhaps totally silly and adolescent, perhaps incredibly relevant to coming of age in America) frustration with… someone. The man.

Sometimes it just feels nice to say ‘Fuck you’ to no one in particular.

I’ve followed the story of the Maloofs moving the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim, but I haven’t done my due diligence. I can’t say they are in the wrong, because I don’t know that for sure. All I can say is that I wouldn’t trust this man with my daughter (if I had a daughter).

Skateboarding hasn’t had a down cycle, and it might never again experience a low like it did in the early 80’s and 90’s. If it does though, this whole experience reaffirms exactly what “I already thought about the Maloof’s, which is that they will be the first to get out of the skate game, or ball game, or brewing game, the moment it hints at slowing up.

Right now, I don’t want to think logically. I don’t want to explore the issue of whether the Maloof’s are right or wrong in moving the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim. All I know is that, right now, the Maloofs are ‘the man’ if there ever was one, and I’m pissed.

The word adrenaline sucks. It’s played out, a cliche. Funny then, that the first skateboard company to use it was pretty much the complete opposite of the 00′s mentality of big sponsors, big money, and big contests. Adrenalin, the oft-forgotten wood company formed sometime in the mid-90′s, was broke and gritty, and never spectacular.

I don’t mean it wasn’t good- it was. I don’t remember much about the art direction, but the overall vibe definitely had a Stereo Visual Sound influence. Check the clip below to see what I mean.

The team was talented, and one that a northern Californian like myself can’t help but be attached too with riders like Hanzy Driscoll, Justin Strubing and Toad. I don’t know where Hanzy or Strubing come from originally, but I think most associate them with the Bay Area. Maybe Hanzy lived in Santa Rosa?

Englishman Mike Manzoori as an answer to Stero’s Carl Shipman, a promising Mike Chin, and Jaya Bonderov, who eventually took his skills from board to camera, all have good footage in addition to the aforementioned dudes. From the beginning, with Hanzy’s wallride nose manual, until the end, with Jaya’s 50-50 on the Golden Gate Bridge, this 411 Adrenaline Industry section is full of memorable skating and editing.

Behold, the longed-for opposite of Extreme:

It’s nice to see a guy walk away from skateboarding at the top of his game (which I argued that Jereme Rogers did) and with his dignity firmly intact (which was not the case with Rogers, unless your definition of dignity is praising Jesus Christ nude on your rooftop at 3:00AM and then resisting arrest from Redondo Beach’s finest).

Everything Heath skated was bigger, longer, sketchier than what people were skating at the time. And he made it look great. Check his ride away from the back noseblunt in Sight Unseen- classic Heath.

Go and visit UC Irvine one day, then you’ll see.

It’s also nice that dude seems to be leaving the skate industry entirely. No hanging on, no sad fall from revered pro to fat TM, or to crouched and aching videographer.

Instead, Heath has ambitions and investments outside of the skate industry, and according to him, he already has enough money to never have to work another day of his life if he chooses not to.

Skateboarding can be sickening insular culture, and it needs Heath a lot more than Heath needs it. Here you can keep up with Heath’s current project of riding a bicycle from California to NYC.

Here’s Heath, back when it all began:

Eventually I learned that 36 Chambers is one of the greatest rap albums of all time, and that The Wu was just a group that started off on the islan’, AK Shaolin, willing to lease their name and logo to whoever came callin’. Their endorsements ran the gamut, from appropriate (St. Ides) to shameless (Method Man’s endorsement of Right Guard). In the end, I can’t blame any of the Wu for using the success of a few albums as a platform to try to get filthy rich. After all, they had kids to feed- in ODB’s case, 15 of them.

Wu Tang Clan’s relationship with skateboarding is not a complicated one. They did Wu Hardgoods for a little while, endorsing Bostonian Jamal Williams and notable switch frontside heelflipper Maurice Key. Rob Welsh really liked Wu Wear back in ’95. There is probably a good video part from 1997 with a Wu song that I can’t remember right now. So while Wu Tang is connected to skateboarding in more ways than one, the relationship has never been a strong one. At least, nothing like the relationship between launch ramps and Suicidal Tendencies that will exist until the end of skateboarding as we know it.

I don’t bring the Wu up because of they are a part of skateboarding. I bring them up simply because they, and their ability to spawn more endorsements than ODB children, reminds me of Rob Dyrdrek. You know, that one funny dude with the show on MTV.

With the exception of Ghostface, every member of Wu Tang has been involved in some seriously whack shit, mostly in the form of solo albums and collaborations released after Wu Tang Forever. It’s tough, really, confronting Wu Tang’s legacy: A handful of great (Liquid Swords, Only Built For Cuban Linx, Tical) albums stand to be overshadowed by a mountain of steaming turds.

After producing a small turd mountain of his own, Rob Dyrdrek has lost what my uncool uncle calls ‘street cred.” Confined to his own personal TF, there is a certain amount of poetic justice in the beginning of his part in Mind Field, when his smith kickflip pops up to bite him in the face. The filmer’s comment of “welcome back to the streets” or whatever rings true. Welcome back, Rob, to the streets where you built your career. Sometimes things on the streets get ugly. Then again, sometimes things off the streets get ugly too- just take a look at “Wild Grinders.”

The credibility that Dyrdrek has lost is the cred he solidified on the streets of San Diego in Time Code and kept up kept as he half-cab crooked through Droors ads for the rest of the 90′s. Even though Dyrdek was never a volume dude- he hasn’t had a part break the three minute mark since Memory Screen- his skating never fell short. His part in The DC video earlier this decade was surprisingly good, although the song (Eric B and Rakim’s Paid in Full) helped. Even his Mind Field part had its moments. Well, at least one moment.

It’s obvious that Dyrdrek still skates. Maybe not all the time, but dude still puts in work on the board. While his part in Mind Field suffered from a few tricks (smith kickflip, noseblunt) that should have been cut out, it was far from bad.

I won’t attack Dyrdrek’s skateboarding. Nor will I attack his image. Looking back almost 20 years to his flagship part in the Sovereign Sect’s Memory Screen, it is clear that he was pretty much the same backwards ball cap wearing dude then that he is now.

I will, however, attack Dyrdek’s endorsements, ’cause dude has got behind some seriously lame shit. When Rob and Big first appeared on MTV, I gave it a shot. Maybe Dyrdek is onto mainstream TV the same way he was onto Lennie Kirk back in ’95. After all, it is Dyrdrek. And that Rob and Big bit in the DC video wasn’t bad. But Dyrdek pushed the envelope, going from Rob and Big to Fantasy Factory to Wild Grinders. He made a movie called Street Dreams. More than that though, he endorsed things like teen credit cards:

And body spray:

Jeff Grosso used this analogy to talk about partying, but I think you can just as easily apply it to credibility. Grosso’s idea was that you get a certain amount of tokens, and if you are smart, you can spread them out and make them last a lifetime: You can drink a beer a night for the rest of your life, or you can drink 20 beers a night until you become such a wreck that you either die with a bloody rectum or are forced to stop drinking altogether

The same goes for endorsements: if your endorsements are consistently tasteful, and your skating just good enough, you can get away with the occasional moneygrab, be it a Sketchers ad or lifestyle shot for Oakley’s shades. Proof of this is that Koston backside 50′d a hubba in a full Lakers uniform for Oakley and people didn’t make a fuss.

But for every skater who tempts fate with an ‘edgy’ Pac Sun ad, there are five who tried and failed. These are the Frank Hiratas, the Kristan Svitaks. These are the skaters who found The Edge, and then stumbled off it into a hell of Nice Skate Shoes and 1031 ads that were stolen when Svitak and Chad Knight time traveled into 1997 and stole my 5th grade notebook.

As the late Hunter S. Thompson described it, “there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” If the good doctor himself couldn’t explain it, then I certainly can’t. But I am pretty sure it lies after Ollie Pop Bubblegum but well, well before Kreper trucks:
Wherever The Edge may lie, if the Muska hangs around for another five years, he and his Chadilac Muskalade are going over.

Dyrdrek, on the other hand, will never cross the edge. At least, in the eyes of most. He has enough talent, charisma, and relationships to keep his ‘core credibility’ forever intact.

But in my eyes- dude done drove the world’s largest skateboard straight off The Edge.

In honor of announcing video release dates and then postponing them and then postponing them again and then postponing them again and then finally releasing a video that is good, but not three years of extended deadlines good, I am hyping up my next blog post.

In honor of The Storm, Fully Flared, and Stay Gold, I would like to announce that, Sometime In July, State of Skate will drop:

A New Blog Post!!!!!!!!!

The biggest Blog Post!!!!!! Ever to come from State of Skate!!!!

Bigger than a Donger Ollie!!! Bigger than Gerwer’s Nose!!! Bigger than Active Erica’s Bosom!!!

This Post Will Be Big!!!

Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just keep pushing it’s release date back to generate hype.

Truthfully though, I am sitting on 1200 words that have been giving me as many problems as kickflips do Mike Vallely.

We’ll see…

As a friend of several of the SB crew, I can vouch for the fact that they are keeping a very close watch on skateboarding in China. This video is a good start. I’m really just posting it because I have an 800 word piece about Rob Dyrdrek and the Wu Tang Clan that I need to rewrite after an unfortunate incident with Starbucks Wifi. That will come soon. Until then, I will post outdated clips as long as I can peripherally connect them to China, skateboarding, or beef jerky. Enjoi It’s a Wrap.

Whether skateboarding grows here or not, now is definitely a cool time to be part of the scene. It’s like the early 1990′s all over again in that skateboarders are part of a super close group.Enjoi.