You Cannot Be Serious: Gino Pushing

Click to Enlarge. Times Square doesn’t look that cool anymore, does it?

There is a great new Nike commercial that features “Gino pushing.” Ending a skateboarding commercial off in Times Square, or even acknowledging Times Square in anything skate-related comes off corny and touristy 99.9% of the time. Times Square has a lot to do with New York, but absolutely nothing to do with New York skateboarding — even your typical “Summer Trip to NY!” montage knows to avoid it.

BUT, if you want to have Gino Iannucci fit into a lineage of James Dean circa 1955 (the photo was taken several months before he died), and a 1980s John McEnroe Nike ad campaign referencing the original Dean photograph, that would apply to the .1% space available for exceptions. It’s like the skateboard-equivalent of the final scene in Boogie Nights where Mark Wahlberg is doing an impression of Robert De Niro doing an impression of Marlon Brando. Or something.