Theories of Atlantis

As much as modern skate videos provide all the pleasantries of acute throat cancer, I still occasionally stumble across a few that remind me all hope is not lost. 2009 saw a slew of skate videos hitting skateshop shelves and company websites and it’s amazing that with even with the over a hundred skate videos coming out, we’re still able to find inspiration somewhere in the pile.
Here are a few of the gems that got me the most sparked this year. I’m not claiming this to be a definitive list of anything more than the video parts that I was lucky enough to see and be inspired by in 2009.

#11 BOBBY WORREST-RIGHT FOOT FORWARD
I wasn’t able to narrow it down to 10, so I had to throw in an extra part. Bobby Worrest stood in as the token east coast guy in Transworld’s latest video offering, but ended up coming correct with some really impressive footage and lots of local DC area spots. I was stoked to see Matt Beach finally get some screen time and I back Joey Brez, but I’m not feeling the MTV, overproduced direction videos have been taking over the past couple years. So much contrived pole jams and lifestyle shots and not enough raw street skating. I give the TWS guys credit for producing some super clean videos with great filming for years and years, but lately with these big company videos it’s felt like we’re watching the intro to The Real World instead of a skate video.

#10 FORREST KIRBY-STATE OF MIND

The Zoo York video was in production for 47 years and featured people launching out of canons and Brandon Westgate actually grinding UP the Empire State building. But, on the night of the premiere, it seemed to be the general consensus that it was Forrest Kirby’s part that had the best overall feeling to it. More than just a series of single tricks, this part had the flow of a skater who knows how to put together a video part together.

#9 ALEX DAVIS-HABITAT WELCOME VIDEO
If I spent over a year filming around the world only to have it end up as an internet “welcome to the team” video, I would emit a sonic boom of anger so loud that even Joe Castrucci and the Habitat Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor would be able to hear it. But, with that being said, I was really stoked to finally see Alex Davis get his time to shine since he’s deserved it for a long time. But I wanted to see this part in an actual full-length dvd. Oh well.

#8 ANTHONY PAPPALARDO- Mind Field re-edit

Impossibles are the new pressure flips. And nostalgia is the new black. Quartersnacks may have produced the video of the year without having to film a single g’damned trick. Brilliant. I was more than jealous when I first saw this re-edit, pissed that I hadn’t thought of this first. But when the Pappalardo part appeared on the screen I realized that my feeble mind never would’ve dreamt up something so ingenius. My prediction for 2010….companies will attempt to pay Quartersnacks to do a re-edit of their videos. No publicity is bad publicity. Unless you just straight up remove team members from the video. Ouch.

#7 ELI REED-STATE OF MIND

Ok….yeah, so there’s the BTO song. But cue up Eli’s part, kill the audio and play Wu-Tang’s “Da Mystery of Cheeseboxin” and you’re set. Pretty insane breakout part for an am. I wish he would’ve had a cameo trick by Gangemi in his part though.

#6 DENNIS BUSENITZ-DIAGONAL
If Dennis Busenitz puts any amount of energy into a video part, the result is going to be epic. Diagonal didn’t disappoint. I feel like he spent a total of possibly 5 days filming this part. But it’s better than most skaters’ 2 year epics.

#5 BOB BURNQUIST-EXTREMELY SORRY

Ok, this is a tough one or me. To applaud a skate video with cartoons and claymation may seem a strange decision. I agree that hiring Jim Henson and some Teletubbies to make your company more sellable to little kids seems an insult to the efforts and talents of such legends as Rowley, Penny, Mountain and Appleyard. But to ignore Burnquist’s video part would be blatantly thumbing my nose in the face of the gods of gnarl. Circus rails aside, just the mere height of the tricks he did on that massive vert wall were enough to make one shit a golden egg. You can’t watch this part w/out at least expressing 7-10 “holy shit”s and 14 “What the fuck”s. Amazing. This part kept me in sheer awe until it turned into a Dukes of Hazard episode with Bob launching into the Grand Canyon like Wile E. Coyote. It was at this point that I set my TV on fire with mental death-rays and left the room.
(Lance Mountain’s pool part really should also be mentioned as well as one of the raddest things that came out this year)

#4 GRANT TAYLOR-DEBACLE/MIND FIELD
Grant Taylor became a new favorite in ‘09. Dude’s style shits on 95% of skateboarding. I wish companies would learn to team up and let their riders just have one really dope part instead of splitting them between two projects in the same year. If Grant could’ve combined his Debacle part with his Mind Field footage it could’ve thrown planets out of alignment and turned Coke into Pepsi.

#3 ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN-MIND FIELD
Speed, power and creativity easily puts this video part in the top of 2009. I just watched this part for the first time in a while and am shocked by how good it is. It likely deserves the 1st place spot now that I think about it. But the overall feel of the combined song, skating and editing still doesn’t grab me like my choices for #’s 1 and 2.

#2 HEATH KIRCHART-MIND FIELD
If rumors are true, Heath Kirchart arrives at skate spots by repelling from helicopters and spies on other skaters’ late night filming sessions like a rogue government assassin. But these eccentricities only add to the mystique of his video parts. I don’t know how the dude does it, but he delivers every time with shockingly good footage and a perfectly chosen song that makes you want to have a good cry and reflect on why your mother never held you enough as a child. Hats off to Heath for proving you don’t have to fly to Kazakhstan and rape the streets of New York to produce a compelling and powerful video part.

#1 JAKE JOHNSON-MIND FIELD

The only complaint I’ve heard about this video part is about the out-of-the-box Animal Collective song. But, as far as I’m concerned, the song was the perfect compliment to Jake’s mix of power and finesse. Rumors of tricks Jake had done for this part were whispered around the streets of New York like unbelievable urban legends. But the part even surpassed those rumors and expectations once it hit the screen. You could make several different arguments for your choice of the best video part of 2009, but I bet that 5 years down the road this will last in our collective memories as the most iconic video part of 2009.

Being obsessed with the mysteries surrounding ancient Egypt, I have found myself reading book after book about the subject and anything closely related. One thing that becomes blatantly obvious through even limited study of Egyptian culture is their worship of not just the stars above, but particularly with the constellation of Orion’s Belt. A constellation which represented their most worshipped of gods, Osiris.

This bizarre obsession drew them to construct the 3 great pyramids of Giza to actually map out the constellation itself. As amazing as this might be on it’s own, it becomes yet even MORE fascinating when further study brings you to discover that the Mayan culture, developing an estimated 4,500 years later but having no knowledge or contact with cultures beyond central America developed a similar obsession with the exact same constellation. And, strangely enough, developing advanced methods of architecture which they used to build an eerily similar complex of 3 great pyramids mapping out the constellation of Orion’s belt.
But don’t sound the theme from “Twilight Zone” just yet. Because there’s more.
Yes, as Theories readers should have come to expect, there’s a World Trade Center connection to all of this madness. That’s right my friends, the World Trade Center complex suffered 3 building collapses on the day of 9/11. And guess what the layout of these three buildings left mapped out quite acurately in their wake? That’s right. Orion’s belt.

(Buildings 1, 2 and 7 mimic the Orion pattern)
Strange, you say? How could that be? It must just be coincidence! Perhaps. But just to take the bizarre to the edge of believability, how about the uncomfirmed accounts I have read that this sculpture, depicting the 3 pyramids of Giza, happened to be on display at the base of the WTC complex the day of the attacks.
You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
So, when NASA announced that they were scrubbing the space shuttle and introducing a new vehicle for space travel, it shouldn’t have been any surprise that this new vessel that will carry astronauts to the moon and one day Mars will be aptly named, you guessed it folks, Orion.
OK, go ahead and play that theme song now.

Just checking back in to let y’all know that the site is back up and running. Apparently all of Wordpress went down for over 24 hours, that’s the site that hosts ours and about a million other blogs.
Have all of you had the pleasure of seeing the new Alex Davis introduction video on Habitat’s site? Amazing! It’s so sick to see an Ohio native finally getting added to the Alien/Habitat camp.
Also, if you didn’t manage to snatch up a copy of “Night Prowler”, I’m sorry to tell you but we’re sold out! Bah-humbug.
And, in case you’re under a few feet of snow feelin blue, here’s a funky little Christmas Jam I just stole off someone else’s blog site. Sorry boutcha.
Check out Lenox Ave’s take on The Little Drummer Boy.

Damn, the book of Broken Dreams is gettin thick, son. Just like y’all blog-nerds after the coming week of punkin pie and egg nog. The BOBD is a regular feature presenting 3 photos from my failed photo career that never saw the light of day, or that may have slipped under the radar. This week we’re featuring the shattered dreams of Ed Selego, Rickie Dixon and Andre Lezama all shot in Miami over 10 years ago……open da book.

Got a couple of new items in the Theories storefront today. Check ‘em out.

With the 9th year of the millennium beginning to sound it’s death rattle, a pale, travel-weary blogger sits with his bowl of half-eaten hippie-cereal and sees an easy opportunity. As the ball drops in Times Square at the end of the month, we will be marking yet another full decade of earth-time. Although this most definitely has implications to astrologers, esoterics, mathematicians, highlight-reel editors at every TV station on the planet and to Dick Clark, it more importantly has meaning to the skate-blog world. Yes, as 2010 approaches we’re given the opportunity to make it rain all over your sad lives with enough “best of” and “top 10″ lists to make your cyber-eyes bleed with glee.
Let’s start it off with the top 25 songs used in 20 years of skate videos……..click here for the results.

I was lucky enough to be at the premiere for “The Dango is Dead” video in Tampa last Saturday. I was stoked to see Johnathan Cruz representing Tampa with a really sick part, Kevrick Evans and James Coleman holding it down for the western Tampa Bay area and Jimmy Lannon ending it off with yet another amazing grip of footage. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely make sure to get your hands on a copy. Check the trailer here.
The video just released today in a box-set format featuring all five Westside videos.

Out of 16 years of Tampa Am and Pro contests, I’ve found myself filming all but 2 years worth. It’s always a grueling weekend to shoot the entire contest, but you get a glimpse of skaters from around the world and get to see them actually skate in person. Sometimes it’s the skaters who land nothing at all that stick out as the raddest of the weekend. Here’s a short mix of footage from my top 3 favorites from last weekend.

How the hell is this video part already 20 years old? Back when skateboards were basically skimboard with wheels this dude was shredding with finesse. The 20th anniversary of “Strets On Fire”…..enjoy.

“I talk shit on ‘em but I don’t dislike these people”…….if you haven’t had the pleasure of checking it out yet, be sure to head over to Slap to see Ricky answer the Slap Pals’ questions.