I’d like to take a moment (or 9) and show you some things that get the skateboarding juices flowing through my veins and make me want to go grab my board and skate over to the spot under the BQE at Union Ave or the KCDC ledge. This is something all skaters can relate to, as we all loved to get a new skate video and invite all our friends to watch it. Usually it’d be at the house that was closest to a nearby skate spot. This is because 100% of the time, everyone is super stoked to go skating right afterwards.

It’s rare that this feeling ever goes away for anyone who was into skateboarding. To this day, I get so excited to go skating when I see a dope video or clip on the internet. It just keeps on happening, especially since the videos coming out keep getting better and better.

Another thing that gets a skater juiced is something most of us also never lose. A special talent that we develop while in our skateboarding heydays that I like to call, the Skater’s Eye.

Skater’s Eye is when you’re traveling around somewhere, and you see something that looks skate-able. It’s either plain as day like a skatepark (which the Skater’s Eye will see from far distances with minimal structural definition) or some random area in a back alley of a city that has knee-high marble/granite ledges, transitions or perfectly angled banks. You never expect it, but the Eye will catch it, causing you to do a double take, and then say out loud, “Oh shit! Look at that spot! Where am I right now? I need to come back here ASAP!” While I can definitely elaborate further on Skater’s Eye, I’m going to focus on videos for this post.

Watching a skate video, and the all powerful Skater’s Eye, totes gets the heart pumpin’, and are things that never leave a skater. So, now that you’re up to speed on a small portion of what it’s like being a skater, let’s get those juices flowing with some videos, shall we?

411 Video Magazine Issue #1

Starting where it all began for me, here’s the entire 411 Video Magazine Issue #1. Now while this video is not one that has a dear place in my heart (those would be 411 Best of Vol. #2 and Vol. #4), it’s the first ever video magazine for skateboarding, and as Jeremy Wray puts it, it started a revolution.

It was 1993 and skateboarding was making a mainstream comeback. The X-Games didn’t start until the summer of 1995, so there wasn’t any skateboarding on the TV. The only way us kids who didn’t live in California or anywhere else that might have had a skate contest going on were left with buying a skate video produced by the skateboard companies themselves. Sure, it’s not like it was rare occurrence for a skate video to come out, but there would be some dry spells and sometimes you need your fix of newness from the skate world as it was always evolving.

Enter 411VM. They were the first ones to produce skate videos in a periodical format, and lots of kids would subscribe to these videos and get to see the latest and greatest tricks from their favorite pros on a frequent basis. This definitely helped the sport immensely as this kept the youngsters on the bleeding edge, and by the time they matured into amateurs and pros, they were doing tricks never before seen or attempted since they were building on what they saw in recent skate videos. Thus the cycle continued and the new youngsters got to see what new pros were doing on the latest issue of 411.

Fact: You know you’re a skater when you get goosebumps from the jazzy drum intro in the 411VM theme song “The Box Car” by Sol. Enjoy:

Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song

A few years later, in 1997, there were 2 highly-technical street skaters that stood out from the rest. One is the undisputed grandfather of street skating, Rodney Mullen. The other was a younger Korean-American skater who is regarded as one of the best technical street skaters of his time, Daewon Song (his wiki needs some touching up, btw).

Fans of each would argue who is better or who can do one trick while the other couldn’t, so a video series called Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song was created and had 3 rounds. This is Round #1. Get ready for some of the most advanced street skating probably ever:

The Leap Of Faith

That same year, 1997, something else happened that made all of us pick our jaws up off the floor. Rodney and Daewon were dropping our jaws with insane dark-slides and 360-flip into nose manual 180 heelflip outs, but then there were the guys that went BIG. The Leap of Faith wasn’t just BIG though, it was HUGE. It made kids say “holy fucking shit” in front of their parents when they shouldn’t be saying “holy fucking shit” in front of their parents.

Jaime Thomas was one of those guys that went big. He would grind and slide handrails down 12-stairs, and land various flips over large gaps. But when Zero’s Thrill of It All came out, Jaime proved that there probably won’t be anyone else who goes as big as him.

The Leap of Faith is an 18 foot 8 inch drop next to a 27-step staircase (27 stairs in the skate world is A LOT) located at Point Loma High School in San Diego, California. Not only did Jaime attempt to ollie it, he also threw in a nice melon grab and made it all the more amazing. I apologize for the spoiler: he didn’t land it and skate away, but it really didn’t matter. The sheer fact that he even attempted such an insane drop made him a hero in a lot of young eyes. Actually, when the kids saw this one, most of them just shat bricks:

By the way, Jaime was unharmed from this fall. Notice how he does a decent roll out once he hits the ground. Very similar to what those Parkour dudes are doing these days. However, there was one other skateboarder who attempted this drop. His name was Richard King and he broke his leg in his attempt. It was featured in the video Manual Labor by Step Up Ring. See it here, but be warned, it’s a little bit graphic. There were also 8 rollerbladers who attempted the Leap of Faith, and none of them successfully landed. 2 of them broke their ankles on impact and 1 other broke their skate. An elevator shaft was built in 2002 right were the skaters would jump, so it’s pretty certain that no one will ever successfully land the Leap of Faith.

Girl Distribution

In 1993, a skateboard company called Girl was formed. It was started by pro skaters Rick Howard and Mike Carroll, as well as film director Spike Jonze and skater girl Megan Baltimore. Girl Skateboards went on to grow into Girl Distribution and had 2 other notable companies under it relevant to this section of the post, Chocolate Skateboards and Lakai footwear. The following 3 videos, Mouse, Yeah Right!, and Fully Flared are the gems of Girl’s videography.

Mouse

A year before the last two videos above were released, in 1996, Girl released their 2nd video called Mouse. It was a tour de force at the time, as it started to blur the lines between skate video and feature film. Spike Jonze obviously had something to do with that. The music was great, the skating was some of the best, and the video is still one of my all time favorites. The fun title sequence backed by “Three Is The Magic Number” by Bob Dorough should give you an idea of what’s in store with this one. It’s even complete with a Trainspotting reference:

Yeah Right!

7 years later, in 2003, Girl released another video that blurred the lines of film and skate video, called Yeah Right!. Even more so this time, since it was basically a full length movie at 72 minutes. It was also the first skate video to use hollywood-type special effects, including a scene with chroma-keyed skateboards (think green screen) that allowed them to remove the skateboards from the video in post-production and made it seem like the skaters were floating across the parks and down handrails.

This video is a special one for me and my friends. One of the skaters, Gino Iannucci, is from Port Jefferson, Long Island. I grew up in Huntington, LI and the rest of my crew were from Roslyn, LI so it was pretty cool to see him skate in this video. Now, this wasn’t Gino’s first video (he was in Mouse as well) so we’ve seen him before, but it was the first ever video where a pro skater featured footage from THE skate spot we all grew up skating during those wonderful years, the Roslyn Train Station. Pay close attention to the first trick he does right after his title sequence, where he ollies up a curb onto a bank and then kickflips a set of stairs set into the bank, landing on the other side of the stairs, and rolling off the bank and curb. THAT’S the Roslyn Train Station. He does a few more tricks at the spot in the video, but that was the moment right there. The moment we all were watching together and screamed “NO WAY!!!” in unison. FYI: None of us even attempted flipping over that staircase like that. Amazing:

Please note: this video is a little wonky for me when played in Safari, but it does work. Just hit play and then move the playhead a lil to get ‘er goin’.

Fully Flared

Hoe. Lee. CRAP. I’m not even going to describe this video except tell you it took 4 years to make, lived up to the hype built up during that time, and won Best Video and other awards at the 2007 TSAs.

If you are going to watch ANY of the videos on this page in it’s entirety, make it this one. Even if it’s just for the über epic “explosive slow-motion” title sequence. It probably wouldn’t hurt to continue to watch into the first skate section of Mike Mo Capaldi with Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go” as the soundtrack, as well. Soooooo good. Make sure you’re sitting down and the volume is UP:

You may need to jiggle the playhead for this one too.

Miscellaneous

Here are 3 more videos that are definitely worth mentioning, and that I have found to be awesome, pretty, and inspirational to me recently.

Awesome

Longboarding is an extensional passion of mine. It’s a great way to get around town, and is in a lot of ways more convenient than a bike. It also lets me have that feeling of surfing the streets while getting around quickly, since it’s wayyy faster than a regular skateboard.

Bombing hills on a longboard is the bee’s knees, and if you’d like to know what it’s like, this is the best video I’ve seen on these here internets that’s almost as exciting as actually doing it (but not quite). I’m not sure how fast they are going, but the fact that they catch up with, and then pass a car at @ 4:30 might give you an idea. I think they have even more fun on the second run. I highly recommend you watch it in HD on Vimeo:

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

Pretty

This next video is a one I came across very recently. Yesterday in fact, by way of the Goldwizard. Reminds me of Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors… on a skateboard. Again, HD highly recommended:

Wizard Smoke from Salazar on Vimeo.

Inspirational

Last but in no way least, here’s an example of why Mike Vallely is one of my all time favorite skaters. I guarantee that I will one day be like the dad Mike interviews in this video, and build something for my kids and their friends to skate on in our own backyard.

Actually, I have a dream that I seriously plan on making a reality where I’m going to build a skatepark in the ground, and then build a house on top of it. That way I can have a roll-in in the middle of the house, and it won’t be completely obvious as to where the roll-in leads to. When guests are over, the clueless will ask, “what is that?” and I’ll tell them, “oh, that’s just the roll-in that leads to the skatepark in the basement”. Then they’ll be all like, “whaaaaat?”.

Skaters will see it and say, “dude… um… why is there a roll-in in the middle of the house leading to the basement?”.  That’s when I’ll just hand them a board and tell them, “why don’t you find out”. It’s gonna be soooo awesome. If my kids don’t even get into skateboarding, good. Then they won’t get in the way while I shred the hell out of the place.

Here’s the video:

Update:

A new video was just posted to Mike’s blog, and I just had to add it here. The last video was an example of why he’s one of my all time favorites, but this video entirely encompasses all the reasons why this guy is my hero. I literally would not be the person I am today if it wasn’t for me looking up to him during those years growing up skateboarding.

Nothing but positivity, honesty, selflessness, integrity, compassion, honor, and most of all, respect. Fuck yeah.

In Conclusion

There are so many more videos to out there that are amazing, but these are the ones that stand out for me. My heyday was my high school years, and these videos were the ones making me jump on my skateboard and go hard as hell back in those days, even if it was freezing cold outside and all I had was the wooden funbox I built with my dad on the street in front of my house. They still do. I hope maybe some of these videos do the same for you or a skater friend of yours.

So, what I’ve really been trying to say is…

Once a Skater, Always a Skater.

Boneless at Lansdowne Park, MD by yours truly circa 1998