And with nobody paying attention, Theotis Beasley drops the best part of his career on Transworld’s website back in May.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt4A0Ex56kQ?rel=0]
That Nollie kickflip 360 banked manual to 180 out was just crammed in the middle there. Damn.
Back in 2009, Corey Adams made a feature length narrative skateboarding movie. I heard it was kinda like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with Rick McCrank as the nemesis and Steve Olsen as the local skateboarding cake shop owner. Machotaildrop never got released, and other then a trailer here and some Manwolf apparel there, it seemed to be lost to obscurity and bootleg status forever. Read all about the tragic saga in this 2016 Vice Sports article.
After reading that article and doing not all that much internet searching, I discovered you can indeed watch Machotaildrop, or even purchase it for download, through Vimeo. The rental is 3.99 and download is 9.99. Warning, the Fuel TV watermark in bright yellow on the lower right corner is on the entire thing, though. Still, for less than the cost of a pint, you can finally watch Machotaildrop.
For right now, let’s revisit the best shoe commercial ever made.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW3CwVtLtHY?rel=0]
With all respect to long quintuple-kinked handrail 50-50 grinds, Evan Smith was robbed in 2016.
While not quite on the scale of the handing of Guy Mariano’s trophy to David Gonzalez back in 2012, Evan Smith handed the world a basket of amazing skateboard parts in 2016 (plus lots more) and should’ve been crowned. More footage than many pros will log in a career. On Thrasher’s website alone he dished out three full parts that year.
While Evan might not seem to care about the missing trophy for his mantle, we are blessed to witness the psychedelic innovation, baggie shirts, street 540s, and Kenny G hairstyles over and over again. Even better, the carnage continued into 2017, and Evan finally seems willing to drop parts he didn’t score himself. [Note: that linked Spitfire part came out on the second day of 2017, and can practically be grouped with the rest of his dominance of the previous year.]
For your consideration, the opening volley of Evan Smith’s assault on 2016 AD, from January: Time Trap.
Tom Remillard’s recent Thrasher video filmed entirely at the Los Angeles Court House brick transitions got me thinking about the time back in early 2014 that Bobby Worrest filmed a full legit online part for Krooked entirely at Washington D.C.’s Freedom Plaza.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N9mjjDY4_0?rel=0]
Known mostly for Pepe Martinez, Reese Forbes, Eastern Exposure 2, and a few tricks here and there since, I was pretty confident Pulaski Park had been remodeled or skatestopped or somehow rendered completely useless for skateboarding long ago, but not a damn thing changed.
Hometown Turf Killer is a unique concept for a full part and stands up as a strong part and not just a novel gimmick. It was the #1 video part of the year according to Boil the Ocean and, I thought, combined with the Quartersnacks and Luxury & Loudness parts from that year, he had a legit shot at SOTY in 2014.
What other parts feature more or less one skater at one spot?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3AJGyXxW20?rel=0]
Cameo Wilson Full Pro full part from back in 2014 is a prime example of the sad state of skate videos in the age of internet parts – here today and gone later today. This one is definitely more than a hastily assembled ‘welcome to the ranks’ edit; This is five plus minutes (well, nearly 4 minutes and then some B-sides) of heavy tricks on international obstacles. It deserved more than equal billing with whatever Firing Line was tossed on the pile later that day. I feel bad that this part came and went so fast.
All those locked in rails and legit stair bangers and what did Cameo get? A “Teaser” on Thrasher on June 17th, then the video drop on June 30th, a link to a “21 Questions Interview” on Darkstar’s website (since lost) about 3 days later, and then… well, congrats on the pro status but that’s all she wrote.
Odds are good that if you didn’t peep Cameo’s part on the day of its release, it was probably too deep in the endless scroll of Thrasher’s site for you to notice by the time the July 4th holiday rolled around. And unless you are a big Cameo fan or are somehow concerned with the non-Lutzka/Decenzo roster of the Darkstar team, you probably haven’t had the impulse to look this part up over the past 3 years.
Does all this footage and hundred-dolla-bills belong in the internet landfill? Hell no. Cameo Wilson’s Full Pro is serious internet skate video Buried Treasure. Dig it up, dust it off, maybe add it to your youtube playlist or download it, and keep it alive. This part may very well be Cameo’s legacy to skateboarding and it is pretty damn good. And we’re letting it slip away.
At the very least, take a few moment right now to revisit the twisted smith-180s, near-misses with speeding autos, stand-up 5-0s through the kinks, and several rails that haven’t been seen since. I don’t know if we’ll ever see footage like this from Cameo again, so don’t let it rot underground.