Deep Dive — Trung Nguyen on the ‘RESPECTFULLY’ Darkslide

Photo by Ryan Mettz 📷

Regardless of how extensively an interview is prepared for, the finest moments often drift into conversation unplanned and on a tangent.

The backstory to Trung Nguyen’s darkslide – which closed his part in Chase Walker’s RESPECTFULLY just over a year ago – may seem like an obvious topic to probe. However, it only came about after discussing a string of gear choices as rare as the trick itself.

Speaking to Trung for his Five Favorite Parts, talk of Brent Atchley led to talk of Chromeball Dunks and “the special Element board” which he took griptape-side down around the curved flatbar at Marcus Garvey Park, scored by Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.”

Asked for the run down, Trung recounted the year-in-the-making story of the darkslide with an uninterrupted enthusiasm that recalled A.V.E. discussing the Green Bench. Here’s how the most memorable enders in recent years came to be.

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Wish It Were Sunday

Here is a rundown of skate spots located at landmarks named after Martin Luther King Jr. — though the most famous is the ledge spot in Miami and that got omitted. (Also! The benches have been knobbed for a decade-plus, but MLK High School on 66th and Amsterdam has the janky runway 13 that got tre flip’d in The HSS Video.)

“You trying to skate?
“Where you going?”
“We’re going to ConEd.”
Nah, I’m good.”

👆 This actually sounds like 90% of the conversations ever had about Con-Ed Banks. Congrats to Max Palmer for his Best Special Effects Oscar nomination, and to Max Hull for his Best Director nod!

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This Year Halloween Fell On A…

Sorry, sometimes the headline is too obvious to resist 💋

WOW2G is a new 22-minute video by Eighty Twenty, Hell World, and the Travel Skateshop family. Half-New York, half-Jersey spots. Aron Moloney (first full part) and Derek Thor (second-to-last part) both crush it. The pinches on those switch front crooked grinds!

Also a decent dose of Jersey City footy in Neema Joorabchi’s new B-roll montage.

If you haven’t seen Fred Gall’s “Out There” on Thrasher, it fucking rules. Make yourself a nice sandwich and throw on his Bobshirt interview from 2018 afterwards.

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Late Pass: Chase Walker’s ‘RESPECTFULLY’ Video

A time machine would be pretty dope. Most people think it’d be dope because you could buy Bitcoin for a dollar in 2010 or whatever, but that’s stupid. It would be nice to do a good deed.

For instance, it’s hard not to remember those overeager Parks Department guys assigned to Marcus Garvey Park back in 2006 or so — when it first got renovated into the spot that you know today — and everybody who spent the first half of that decade honing their flatbar skills at Tompkins was there filming feebles until they threw up. Those maintenance dudes used to trip hard when the spot was new. They would give the classic “you’re scratching up the paint, if we see you again, you’re getting a summons”-routine, only to give up a few years later.

Imagine how much stress you could have saved them if you knew the future.

“Look man, fifteen years from now, a young man in Tru Religion jeans with an Element board is going to darkslide around the curve while Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’ plays in the background. Enjoy these simple times while you got ’em. Don’t fight fate.”

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