The second clip of 2006. This is a direct relation to the clip I wrote about last week, “Brigitte”, also from 2006. The same circumstances as before. It is compiled “greatest hits” footage from the “Hurry Up and Die 2.0” sessions. In other words, clips that were filmed (mostly) after the January 2003 premiere of “Hurry Up and Die”.
Again, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I don’t know why I chose the clips I did. They seem to span the timeframe from 2002-2006. Some were actually in Hurry Up and Die and/or Beez. My only guess why I reused some clips was, it was nearly impossible to post a full length video online at that time. Even Youtube allowed only 10 minute long videos for maximum length. I suppose I just wanted to show off some of the coolest moves I had happened to capture, and this was the only way to do it.
Let me get the first trivia out of the way right away. That “cool” effect in the beginning of the video was me filming through the holes in a Savier brand knit winter hat while zooming in on some trees at Riverside. I’ve always been one for practical effects. Follow @anti_cgi on Instagram!
Mini Video 34 – Godstar from Josh Ellis on Vimeo.
Behind the scenes in the editing room. Elliott was at his most glorious. Heated sessions of MK2 on the regular. The most unsavory battles were obviously the Jax vs Jax face off, otherwise known as a “Jax Off”. (Credit to Russ on that terminology). My computer sat directly across from this personal arcade. It probably explains why I only made two video clips, clocking in at barely over 4 minutes run time for that entire year. Who’s got time for editing when you’re tempted to relive the arcade glories of the past?
Another issue was the fact that Sparks brand beverage was still lawfully on the market. Fueled by caffeine and GMO corn syrup malt drink, too much time was spent prancing away at the local 80s night, putting on “Rock Man” childrens’ sized Halloween costumes, and just the general process of “getting weird on beer”.
All of those time wasters are true, but it has just come to me that I know the real reason why I failed so badly at making more stuff – the hard drive I had all of the video footage stored on died. I was sat down making a new clip, and the drive went out in a blaze of glory. I have only just now, 12 years later, made serious progress in recapturing all 100 or so of those DV tapes. The moral of the story is, backup! I don’t even know if it was plausible in those days for a normal person to be able to backup gigs of data.
Chicago, 2003, Rock becoming one with the urban fauna. I’d like to imagine the descendants of these bunnies are still running the block. A long line of glory traced all the way back to when Rock gave them a nice little rub. Their verbal histories, passed on from generation to generation, remember him as a king. Their one true living god handing out pets and happiness, asking for nothing in return.
This photo was taking slightly before the ledge to ledge ollie featured in the video. Did upping the cuteness meter help John do the trick? How can we discount the theory? The bunnies were unsure, yet in the end willing to receive the pets only a towering man-god could give. Maybe some sort of bunny magic helped John to hop, hop, hop over the dangerous pit. I hate myself for that. 🙁
Same day. James with the frontside blunt. Look at how nice that ground still looks. Look at how square that ledge still is.
This was the time period where this spot was basically some sort of rollerblade mecca. I remember rolling up and there were what must have been 100-200 kids blading their asses off. So many sagged sweatpants. So many terrycloth head bands. The wax on the ledges was inches thick. It was truly a sight to behold. Long before I knew Dave Ruta, I saw him roll up to one of these sessions, say “you guys aint doing this shit while I’m here!!”, and they all bladed their asses out of there. Legendary. Follow @koolmoeleo on Instagram!
John Rockafellow – 50-50. I’ve never exactly liked this photo. My fault, not John’s. The goofy angle just makes the pipe look way lower than it really was. I’m unsure of who filmed the clip. I’ll just guess Pat Forster, I keep giving him credit for all of the other clips, why not.
This was always a difficult spot, and not many successfully got a sweet taste of glory here. John was the first!
Ben Vance – Noseslide. A different day than in the video. Same idea. I always thought it was really cool how Ben tied both ledges together in a line. It’s great how he busts the noseslide in the video in a sort of silly nonchalant fashion. It’s almost like he’s laughing at it on the way down.
James has a long and sordid history with his friend, the frontside board, on this rail. Or is the rail his friend? I’ve seen this rail do things to him that a true friend would never do. The rail is definitely not his friend.
It seems he spent his teens and twenties coming here to catch a thrill whenever the need struck him. Quizzing my own brain, I can think of several different times he came here for a wild ride. The smith in the video was the wildest of them all. He took a beating like Rocky did from Apollo. Even though he could hardly walk for days after the smith battle, just like Rocky, victory was his.
Nothing from this trip to Minneapolis was in this video, but hey, we threw some crap off a bridge right before this. Solid crew!
The Bush years were really hard on Pizz.
“The Ender”. A trip to Madison. Greg was going ham like that chomping monster shown at the end of Hellraiser. “Never enough.”, Russ’ favorite quote from the movie applies. I’m not well versed in Madison “ABDs”, but as far as I know he was the first to kickflip and frontside flip over the rail here. I was filming, Pat Forster shot the photo on my camera. This photo shows a frontside flip down the stairs, sans rail, which I don’t remember happening. Did I film it? No idea. There’s another photo which looks like a frontside 180 over the rail, but I guess it’s the frontside flip taken just a touch too late. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. If anyone wants to discuss Lord of the Rings, I’ve been rereading the series for the first time in almost two decades. There are a lot more differences between the books and the movies than I remembered.
I’ll leave you with a relic of the times:
