Five Favorite Parts With Beatrice Domond

Collage by Requiem For A Screen
Original Photography by Mike O’Meally

We are never not in the midst of a perpetual stop and go with “Five Favorite Parts.” (The last one was Suciu in …September!) With just three days left in January, going to make a public pledge on here to do one of these a month for all of 2021 ♥

The year’s first installment comes from the first lady of F.A. who has made straight-on no comply mechanics make sense to my no-comply-deficient brain more than anyone else — but not enough for me to actually have a breakthrough because no complys will never make sense ;)

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Kareem Campbell — World Industries/Blind/101: Trilogy (1996)

First of all, he skates to these two songs [“How High” by Method Man and Redman and “If I Ruled The World” by Nas] that my mom used to play a little when I was growing up. If your mom’s into something and then you find it in a skate video, you’re like, “Damn, that’s cool.”

I watched Kareem’s part first and then the whole thing. Videos make more sense together, they just look complete. I love the colors of whatever camera they’re using. It makes the jeans look so blue. A real blue, if that makes sense.

At the time I was like, “What is he drinking?” I didn’t know what Hennessy was. This is before Instagram too, so I thought it’s cool you can hear his voice and get to know the person behind the skill. And the crumpled up money too, it’s like, “Damn skaters get paid.” Little did I know.

It’s an awesome intermission. You get a little break and then he does that nollie hardflip in a line. Boom.

You get to take in his skating. You watch him skate to one song, get to know him and then see him kill it again. I like the slower pace because when you skate, it’s hard – and that’s why you film it, so people can watch and appreciate it. I’m in a period of my life where everything is selective; what I’m going to do, what I’m going to skate. Eventually you figure out how hard it really is. I like older videos because it looks they got back out what they put in.

Oh, and he’s got great flatground flip tricks. All my favorite skaters have good flatground. You can do that forever and I feel that’s important. When you see someone skate a handrail, they try a flatground trick afterwards and it doesn’t even pop, you’re like, “Oof…”

John Cardiel – Transworld: Sight Unseen (2002)

The transition skating kills, you’ve got Mark Gonzalez narrating and the reggae song, “Haunted and Nervous,” is so good. When I first watched the part, I didn’t know John Cardiel, but now the song makes sense. To see skating that way [for the first time], it’s like, “Who the fuck is this guy?” He skates so fast.

John’s such a nice guy. It makes his part even better, getting to know him. That’s the cool thing about skating, I guess, the people who you look up to can become your friends. That trips me out so much. Our legends are, like, 50 — or no more than 60.

Jake Johnson – Alien Workshop: Mind Field (2009)

I like serious companies for some reason. I like it to be fun too, but Workshop was a serious company and I relate to that side of skating, you know?

Now, some of these spots aren’t around – some of them still are – and it’s just, like, “Wow. This part still hits.” You could put it in a video now and he would have the last part.

There’s more to skating in New York. There’s people watching, there’s traffic. There’s just a lot going on. So if you’re trying to escape something [and focus on a trick], you’ve got to really zone in: the fakie heel at the Banks, this front tail on the orange neck-high ledge.

I don’t know when I first saw this, but I know I didn’t really “get” switch. I knew what it was, but I didn’t really care. But now, rolling up to something switch and backside… I mean, wallrides get me because I don’t understand them.

Jim Greco — Deathwish Skateboards: The Deathwish Video (2013)

This video got me feeling, like, “I need to go to L.A.!” because he skates mostly L.A. spots.

This guy has five different personalities in one video part. You can tell what he’s into just by how he dresses and does his hair. I’m not much of a stair jumper, but I love to see it because it’s one of the harder parts of skating. The song is sick [“Dead Skin Mask” by Slayer], he has really good nollie backside flips. I think I like this part so much because when you think of Deathwish, you’d think, “I’m not going to do anything in this video.” Then watching him skate a ledge and get technical, I’m like, “Oh shit, I could probably do some of this stuff.” You know? It looks more tangible.

Paul Rodriguez – Primitive Skateboards: Never (2018)

Part starts at 26:40

I don’t know, it made me emotional.

This is where the internet and social media come into play. I think I’d heard him say he wasn’t having a part. So I guess after it goes black, if you’ve waited for a part, you’re like, “Oh shit, he has one!” He Ryan Sheckler’d us – but the opposite way.

I like the nostalgic footage. There’s this guy who used to film him, he had a YouTube account. But he was putting out all of Paul’s old footage, just raw. When he was a kid, before Girl, when he was on City Stars, I think, so I was watching that a lot.

I like the Primitive videos; they do a good job with them. He does a lot of crazy ledge combos like the back smith back three. If you watch the outtakes, it’s insane. Like, “Dude, I’d take the first one!” and he kept going.

For some reason he can he can skate to this slow rap and it just works for him. Not a lot of people can do that. This could be a classic part. If it wasn’t HD and it was VX, it would be legendary. It was a small one, but I like it a lot nonetheless. It kind of reminds me of a Jake Johnson nowadays. Quality over quantity.

Previously: Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, Jarne Verbruggen, Breana Geering, Sage Elsesser, Bobby Worrest, Nik Stain, Anthony Van Engelen, Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbert Crockett, Ben Chadourne, Tom Knox, Louie Lopez, The Chrome Ball Incident, The Bunt, Lacey Baker, Andrew Allen, GX1000, Brian Anderson, Gino Iannucci, Josh Kalis, Sean Pablo, Wade Desarmo, Chris Milic, Chad Muska, Hjalte Halberg, Danny Brady, Bill Strobeck, Aaron Herrington, Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams