For a few years, Thanksgiving edits commemorating under-sung heroes dear to our hearts were becoming a habit around here.
In 2016, we were thankful for Keith.
In 2017, we were thankful for John.
In 2018, we thanked Barnes for his contributions to society.
In 2019, we were ungrateful fucks.
Maybe it was the rigors of running a multinational skateboard media conglomerate. Maybe it was the crushing, psychic anxiety that the world was bound to unravel in a few months.
One of the great pleasures of skate travel is immersing oneself into the workings of a scene via its central spot. Every plaza has its own skate government, some loose form of a hierarchy, and sets of implied to not-so-implied rules that visitors can sometimes get a pass on. You can tell who the local legends are, even if they’re seated for 95% of the time, or who the lurker everyone diplomatically avoids is.
But the funnest part is watching the kids who are on the come up. (It’s also the part that you can observe vicariously via videos.)
The Rat Ratz dudes feel like that right now for Milan, and thus for Italy’s most storied skate spot. Already a step ahead of their last video from March, these edits still feel fun, playful, open-ended, and the scratches on the fisheye only add to the charm. It is almost like you’re watching someone’s drafts leading up to when they make the proverbial Leap™ — to the video that makes everyone who had been paying attention up until that point go “whoa.”
Words by Frozen in Carbonite
Filmed & Edited by Lee Madden
Last year, MIT scientist Andrew Sutherland helped solve an equation that had vexed the world’s premier mathemeticians for half a century: x³y³z³= k when k=42.
As this MIT news item states, “This sum of three cubes puzzle, first set in 1954 at the University of Cambridge and known as the Diophantine Equation x³y³z³=k, challenged mathematicians to find solutions for numbers 1-100. With smaller numbers, this type of equation is easier to solve: for example, 29 could be written as 3³+ 1³+ 1³, while 32 is unsolvable. All were eventually solved, or proved unsolvable, using various techniques and supercomputers, except for two numbers: 33 and 42.”
A mile or so up the Charles River, the elite ledge scientists of Boston use their own techniques to devise previously unimagined trick algorithms.
Making it through 2020 with a morsel of mental health in tact has required all of us to look for silver linings. For most, this meant reconnecting with those we may have fallen out of touch with, due to the hectic pace of pre-COVID life. For the Classic Grip office, it meant rekindling the flame with a childhood flatbar, taking it on a cross-country journey, and giving it the best summer of its life with a ragtag team of Canadian heart-throbs in tow (who you will recognize from Alltimers, Dime et al. edits.)
“B-Team Documentary” is a modern road film masterpiece — an Easy Rider for the the coronavirus age, Thelma & Louise if Louise was a 10-inch-high flat bar bought from a Canadian Tire, or simply Paris, Texas on a skateboard ♥
Broth is a new video out of New Orleans, and it features an ender section from Jordan Trahan filmed over the past two-and-half years. A lot of Jordan’s video output since 2015’s 5BNY feels like it has come via NB# vids, most of which are filmed on skate trips abroad. There’s a special charm to established pros filming hometown parts — think Gilbert’s Bust Crew sections, or Jake’s bro cam outing in last year’s Zeta Cacti video. Watching Jordan skate Louisiana porches, do bayou-side wallies, and string together lines at whatever that rusty pier Philly and them always skate carries the same feeling. (Yes, Jordan is from Lafayette, not New Orleans, but you get the idea.)
