blade or die

The real deal Holyfield

If you’re ever fortunate to be around Kennan Scott when he’s not doing what dads do and he gets into story-time mode, you’re in for a treat mainly because he’s been doing influential shit in blading long before your balls dropped. For proof of that, check out his roving-reporter skills from Life+ from 2003 that made it to Rollernews this week:

It’s got Pat Lennen, Brandon Smith, Erick Garcia — otherwise known as all the fools that still sesh together on the weekends like the original Dyna team does. And, of course, the main attraction are the more youthful versions of Aaron Feinberg and Brian Shima doing shit seven years ago that still looks stupid as hell today.

But watching this only brings up misty-eyed memories of the Monx and Mindgame era everyone always points to when things were “right” in blading. But as we all know, things are changing again. Things seem to be reverting back to those times. Shit, when Feinberg can come back to win best trick at contests after a long break from skating, something has to be going on.

I mean, c’mon, what’s next? The Dirty Duo from NYC — Ryan Jacklone and Dave Ortega — gonna show up to a sesh, strap some old ass skates on and roll around for a bit? That’ll never happen.

Too Much Love Pier 62 Session Footage from I ROLL NY on Vimeo.

Pssht… like it’s the first time I’ve been wrong about something.

(Thanks goes out to our friends at I Roll NY for the head’s up to this beauty.)

And if that’s got you feeling all tingly and nostalgic, there’s more…

What section is that from?

We’ve all had those moments. You know the ones I’m talking about. You’re hanging out with some friends, playing shit on random from an iPod and a song comes up. This is where it could go one of two ways: you either sit there and scour your brain for hours trying to think of the video and section it’s from, or you have a know-it-all friend that can spit that shit out at random.

Apparently, back when sites like Angelfire were still available and relevant, some of those friends created a page like that “for the sole purpose of showing off.”

For example, since I’ve already mentioned Dyna:

Now when you’re sitting around with friends you can answer completely useless skating trivia and all sorts of other shit that will most likely prevent you from getting laid should you be within earshot of anyone who was contemplating such an idea.

Duck or the egg?

Blading is funny. It really is. Not the actual moving around and doing tricks part, but the other integral part — being online talking about blading. More importantly, it’s about who did what first and who gets to name it. It can get pretty heated so that means I love that shit.

So goes an epically epic battle in epicness between Logan Clarke of Iowa and Casey Bagozzi of California. The battle for naming rights of a grind maybe about eight people in the world can do.

Within one month of each other, the fabled grind was caught on camera.

Here’s Logan’s from the Iowa Connection:

Here’s Casey’s from Be-Mag:

Logan’s been spotted doing it before. People all over the place (read: Rollernews) had a million different names for it.

So, will the next edit we get to see consist of Casey and Logan slugging the shit out of each other for naming rights? Will our online blood thirst be vanquished as the two titans of technicality beat each other with socks full of quarters?

Nope. Logan and Casey would have an easier time trying to out nice each other. All that stupid shit arguing isn’t in either of their natures. That’s why they rule.

As Casey explained it to me, after his trick was posted that’s when he saw Logan’s. And Casey just shook his head at all the online nonsense. He concedes it should be called the Duck Hunt.

Battle over.

Why Rob G. should take over the world…

Rob G in Europe from Solo Collective on Vimeo.

Globe-trotting Robert Guerrero could easily be elected mayor of one of the cities he’s visiting. From there, after a few years of reforming policy, he could make a run for a larger office, like some cabinet position or something. Following successful terms there, he could rise to power and take a military-less stand and spread peace, love, raw foods, and rollerblading to the masses. His election, if done in a democratic online forum, would be easy.

Hail to the king, baby.

The shit in my cereal

As long as people — including ourselves — love comparing rollerblading to skateboarding to biking to surfing to everything else, we should all be thankful of one thing out there.

True. Those clanky aluminum wrecks of sporting equipment kind of are a slight blessing to us because of the constant comparisons. Like skateboards, or your friend who needs to learn to clean his bearings, you can hear those things a mile away. Usually the sound is being made by some little bright-eyed blonde kid that’s still a decade from knocking up some girl in high school.

Usually.

But here in lovely San Francisco, there’s a whole new kind of scooting that makes me shake my head. It’s especially bad in the neighborhood I work in, which is ground zero for, as George Carlin so wonderfully termed them, “self-important techno dicks” — guys with hands-free cell phone ear pieces, The North Face everything, and running shoes they’ll never run in.

But you know you haven’t made it until you sport one of these bitches:

Foldable. Portable. Able to be easily tucked in your cubicle at your internet job. Goes great with a Timbuktu messenger bag, too.

Suddenly, being a grown-ass man rollerblading in traffic at 8 a.m. doesn’t deserve even the slightest double-take. Even if your skates are black and gold leather, like mine.

Because, even as I wrote long ago for a similar column, some people just don’t like the idea of grown men in skates.

But, as long as we’re all about comparing everything to everything else, thanks Capt. Scoots. I owe you an organic beer or something.

Blade or Die,

— Brian Krans

P.S. — If you can successfully point out all of the obvious and not-so-obvious JSF references in this article, you really, really need to go out and get a girlfriend.