Five Favorite Parts With Poe Pinson

📷 Photo by Norma Ibarra

Poe had some of our favorite clips in Johnny’s “CREASED” video for SB, so we asked Poe what some of her favorite video parts are. The final selection brings it all full circle ;)

+++++++

Chris Haslam — Almost: Round Three (2004)

I didn’t grow up watching this video, but the first time I saw it I was like, “Oh yeah!” I love when people have a perfect balance of “silly” tricks and heavy tricks in a video part — and the stuff that probably started as a joke, but ended up being serious, like the one-footed frontside boardslide shove-out on the handrail. Who does that? I remember thinking he’s just playing around, just doing shit. The song [“My Favorite Game” by The Cardigans] can get stuck in my head, too.

You think “he’s setting up for this,” and then something else happens, like the shove late shove at Flushing Meadows. It’s such a good trick for that spot, even though its random and kind of fried. To me, that’s a perfect trick over the grate.

I love people that have a balance of maneuvering a skateboard, and it being kinda funny but also serious.

Marisa Dal Santo — Zero: Strange World (2009)

I watched this kind of late. Lisa Whitaker showed me it when I was on my first trip with Meow Skateboards to Arizona. I think I was 14 or so.

She was like “What! You’ve never seen this?”

“I don’t think so…”

“You’d know if you’ve seen this.”

I was baffled too because I spent most of my childhood looking up girl skateboarders online and trying to find every bit that I could. My mind was blown that I’d never seen the gnarliest part ever.

It was inspiring: the big rails, the big stairs, the section where she does a kickflip front board and backside flips over the rail into the driveway, the smith tailgrab and the tuck knee and the giant crook and front board all back to back.

Sometimes it just helps seeing that things are possible. I feel like my body would have combusted if I had tried to skate like that [beforehand], but once I’d seen Marisa, I was like, “Dude, I can totally throw myself off of a roof like guys do.”

I started skating when I was four and I didn’t have internet access until a long time after that. I’d look up “girl skateboarding” and Elissa Steamer in Welcome to Hell would pop up; I’d seen Bootleg 3000. I was obsessed with Elissa Steamer, and the Girls Skate Network videos that Lisa made. There were a few classics, but you had to dig deeper. There would be younger girls skating — I remember seeing this girl who was the first to do a 540. That stuff was starting to get pushed by the time I had internet access. I was maybe 10 or something.

I didn’t even know skate videos existed for the first few years I was skating. I thought towns just had a skatepark, people would go to that skatepark, and that was it. I guess in my head, I was just going to the park to play, like, that’s just what people did.

Bob Burnquist — Flip: Extremely Sorry (2009)

I loved this so much when I was a kid. Extremely Sorry was the first video I saw. It made me realize there was so much that could be skated. I didn’t know about a Mega Ramp or anything before that.

There was a random Game of S.K.A.T.E. contest in Jacksonville at Orange Park, before they re-did the skatepark. I won a deck and my friend Nick won a video, and he didn’t want the video, so I took it. It was so fun; I’d just watch that. I was younger than 10 and I remember loving the claymation and Louie Lopez. There’s this kid skating these rails and doing crazy things and he’s in a video with these adults? I was mind-blown by that.

But Bob Burnquist was the part I was most excited to see every time I put on the video. To this day, I can’t imagine going the speed of a car on the highway and doing a switch flip 5050 on a rainbow rail. It doesn’t make sense. There was a funbox at my local park and I would pretend it was a mini Mega Ramp.

I’ve watched that video so much because it was the only video I had. By this point, I’ve watched all of the Sorry videos and it’s funny because Extremely Sorry definitely isn’t the best one. If I didn’t have emotions attached to it, it wouldn’t’ be my favorite, but due to the circumstance, it is.

Dane Brady — Polar: I like it here inside my mind, don’t wake me this time (2016)

He’s skating the elements. Earth, water, everywhere. I like random nature skating. He’s using the whole spot and the whole landscape to skate. It’s relatable, which is why sits nicely in my heart and brain. Where I live, there’s this one spot that you can skate at night with lights. It’s this crazy store that’s pink, yellow and blue. In the past few years, they’ve built curbs and a manual pad. Whenever I skate there, I always think about this part. I’ve powerslid up the curb before. I like how he’s not really skating “spots,” but he is still doing cool tricks.

Karim Callender — Johnny’s Vid by Johnny Wilson (2023)

Even though I’m not from New York, I had a 5Boro board when I was pretty young. I was like, “What is this ‘5Boro?'” I looked it up, and that was the first time I saw Karim skate. I was like, “Oh! New York. Five boroughs.”

I watched Johnny’s Vid before I ever met Karim, and I always thought he was sick. It’s cool skating with him now and seeing his process of tricks. But before ever having met him, you can see his whole personality going into every trick he does. No trick is halfway done. You can watch any of his video parts, see his energy and know that if you were to be around him, you would feel it.

It’s the same deal when I’m skating; if I want to pop onto something or into something and it takes big pop, sometimes I’m like, “Dude, Karim would ollie onto this and use his whole being. Maybe I’ll try that.” When I’m trying something, I’ll think about him. I’ll think, “What would Karim do?”

He’s one of those skaters where if you haven’t met him but you’re a fan of him — if you meet him, you’ll be an even bigger fan.

Previously: Dick Rizzo, Karim Callender, Salomon Cardenas, Diego Todd, Ish Cepeda, Will Marshall, Grant Yansura, Ryan Lay, Nikolai Piombo, Hayley Wilson, Frank Gerwer, Gus Gordon, Max Palmer, Etienne Gagne, Jacopo Carozzi, Nicole Hause, Matt Militano, Evan Wasser, Ryuhei Kitazumi, Sarah Meurle, Vitória Mendonça, Andrew Wilson, Ben Kadow, Chandler Burton, Pedro Delfino, Johnny Wilson, Nick Michel, Wes Kremer, Jordan Trahan, Ariana Spencer, Elijah Odom, Greg Hunt, Zered Bassett, Neil Herrick, Trung Nguyen, Nick Boserio, Elissa Steamer, Casper Brooker, John Gardner, Bobshirt, Brandon Turner, Shari White, Nick Jensen, Tony Hawk, Naquan Rollings, Jack O’Grady, Josh Wilson, Maité Steenhoudt, Jahmir Brown, Una Farrar, Chris Jones, Mason Silva, Beatrice Domond, Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, 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