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| SUMMER X'GAMES 13 /THE BAD, THE WORSE, AND THE UGLY. |
| BLKPRJKT |
A preamble in the form of a disclaimer:
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I championed the X-Games at their inception. While many in the industry cried "foul" and groused about corporate america stepping in to make sizable profits and create a homogenized, mainstream friendly affair out of skateboarding, I saw it differently. What I saw at the outset, was an opportunity for professional skateboarders to be compensated for their talent and the risks they take in the ever-evolving perfection of their art. Before the X-Games, it was hard to imagine pros making a legitimate "living" from skateboarding with the exception of the bones brigade at the height of it's popularity. For the rest of us, the non-pros, the lifers who were well past their prime, we already knew about punching the time clock, but as a professional "athlete" shouldn't someone like Bob Burnquist, or Bucky Lasek, or Sandro Dias, be able to skate and not worry about being late for their shift at Wendy's? It made sense on a personal level, and for the skateboard companies worrying over the money issues, the level of foresight to perceive a coming boom in their sales and profits, was minimal, if it existed at all. The x-games evolved over it's 13 season lifespan, with event changes, format changes, the abolition of qualifying, and always with more and more advertising revenue on the line. My opinions on it have changed quite a bit since those early days, and we're all painfully aware of what a shameful disgrace the x-games has become; an over-commercialized hunk of shit produced by the Disney empire, a vehicle for Madison Avenue to ram hygiene products down our collective throats, and the stepping stone for Sal Masakela to improve his career status by leapfrogging on to other gigs like entertainment news shows. In case you hadn't figured it out by now, ESPN does not give a shit about skateboarding, only that skateboarding gets good ratings when presented as a circus sideshow/stunt production. Don't be fooled into thinking the network wouldn't drop skateboarding like the proverbial hot potato, should it's ratings dramatically decline. In spite of all of this and many other negative aspects of the "games", I have the utmost respect for each and every participating athlete. Albeit, hand-picked for marketability, they remain amongst the very best at what they do. I stand firmly by my opinions that the x-games are pure rubbish, but you would be wise not to mistake my opinions on such things with any sort of negative opinion about the skaters. They remain untouchable in my mind, regardless of this ring they have thrown their hats into.
Monumental crap.
"We've never heard of you" is just a chickenshit way of saying "you wrote bad things about us":
Just as we have in the 2 previous years, we applied for our x-games media credentials. Those badges that allow us access to the venues to cover the skateboarding events. MRZ crutched it into the media center on Wednesday to pick up his credentials and was flatly denied. After a 2 hour long argument with an un-named media herder, MRZ came up on a single photographer pass, but we were completely shut down beyond that. Perhaps it had something to do with a man called Franklin Lindblatt and his family,(whom we will give you an update on later) or perhaps it's just another symptomatic function of the ESPN officials complete failure to afford reasonable access to legitimate skateboarding media outlets. The number of all-access VIP morons in attendance vastly eclipses the number of specialized media personnel who seek to cover the singular positive aspect of the games, the skateboarding itself. I think it's a safe bet we probably won't apply for credentials next year, not because we don't want to cover the skateboarding for our audience, but it hardly seems worth it.
Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins lifts a proper Andrecht on her way to the gold level of the podium...
with the family pit crew in full effect.
The Jake Brown incident:
I spoke with a longtime friend who is a firefighter/EMT. With Jake's near tragic slam being a news item across the country he had already seen it numerous times and I asked his opinion on Jake walking off of the ramp within minutes of taking a hit like that. He told me that whoever was supervising the medical team at Staples Center on Thursday night should be terminated immediately. He went on to tell me that standard safety procedures would dictate the application of both a neck brace and backboard, and that once Jake was stabilized and immobilized he should have immediately been transported to a trauma center for a full evaluation. Now we all know that Jake is one tough customer, but you have to wonder about the motivations of any QUALIFIED medical team who would allow Jake to get up and walk off of the ramp. Of course you have to understand what a gigantic ratings coup this event was for ESPN, to broadcast live, globally, one of (if not)THE scariest slams ever witnessed and to be able to show Jake walking away, disoriented but smiling. In fact I am going to openly accuse ESPN, here and now, of putting Jake's life at risk for the sake of their own personal gain. I'm going to back this allegation with this question: If ESPN wasn't so self-serving in this moment, then why haven't their copyright lawyers demanded that all re-broadcast versions of Jake's slam be removed from youtube.com, pursuant to their own legal guidelines? Ah-Ha, you selfish fucks. I'm just glad that at this juncture, despite some serious internal injuries, Jake is slated to make a full recovery. It could have played out far differently and far worse, but thankfully it didn't. Unfortunately, in time, the memory of Jake's insane 720 will fade, but no one will ever forget the subsequent piledriver into the flat. Had it been Jason Ellis, he might have gone through the ramp, through the earth's crust, past the molten core and emerged in his homeland, from the sheer force of such an impact.
Big Ben skating with pain-a-plenty.
Crack medical technicians: "Take it easy big guy, we're not live, you don't have to get up and walk off like Jake Brown was forced to do..."
The high cost of everything:
Consider these numbers for a moment. During Thursday's events at the Home Depot Center in Carson, parking cost a reasonable 5 dollars. On Friday the price jumped to 10 dollars. As for Saturday and Sunday, parking rates rose to 40 dollars. Parking for media clocked in at 20 every day. Consider too, that this year at Staples Center, absolutely no strobe or flash photography was allowed for media. Of course every little kid in the joint was firing blurry shitty photos with a flash cell phone, or disposable camera, and for a price media could have access to rental strobes at the whopping rate of 550 dollars per day. 550 dollars? Fuck. You could rent an entire rig and gear package for less than that and conduct your own photo shoot from all of the right angles and vantage points, at another venue, without being relegated to some shitty pit. Couple to these numbers, the cost of petroleum in the Bush deuce era, and the cost of a drink or two at 4 dollars a pop and it's a genuine wallet drainer. Did I mention that the x-games is an alcohol, drug, and smoke-free event as well? Apparently it's a mixed message, it's perfectly okay to be above the influence of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, so long as you are completely under the influence of Taco Bell, Mountain Dew, Right Guard, Schick Quattro razors, Axe body spray, and Navy recruitment propaganda.
Awash in an ugly sea of corporate branding oversaturation, Lester still remains focused while driving this powerful frontside invert home.
Webcasts have never been so entertaining:
I chose to bring up the live webcasts online to catch some of the action that was not televised live. It affords one the opportunity to see how an event played out, before it was tightly edited down into a schlocky, compressed piece of extreme shit for later broadcast. Ah, the magic of live webcast technology, small quirky pixelated images beamed directly to your desktop computer. And what's more, since the camera personnel know they aren't shooting live television pictures, their quality control is nearly non-existent. A 12 second audio delay during the Street finals event made it rather annoying to watch as well. But perhaps the best moments of the webcasts occurred between events, during "down time" in the rigorous event schedules. First of all they employed perhaps the dumbest and blondest girl ever, to perform voice over during these periods of low activity. "Hey you guys, you wanna keep it right here for the skateboard big air men's final coming up in a little bit, Danny Way will be bringing out something new to defend his gold medal from last year's big air event..." Okay stoops, I guess you didn't get the memo about Danny's knee surgery just days prior? In addition to the inane ramblings of this hired hand, if you watched the webcast you might catch such gems as Sal calling repeatedly for make-up, production people complaining about producers, and a lot of overall confusion as to who was supposed to be doing what, and when. It was sort of a behind the scenes look at how the whole show ticks, or doesn't, depending on your sense of humor. It was hard to retain any sense of humor however, when the "Legends" guys were chastised for continuing to skate when their time slot was coming to a close, to make way for the live telecast of the pro finals. Live TV... Except for car chases, it pretty much blows.
Some of the finest moments of the live webcast ocurred when Duane was taking a moment to compose himself on deck, at which point he gave menacing hand gestures of the single finger variety to each and every camera. Unfortunately, those choice clips never made it to prime time. Color coordinated invert.
Good job, short-shorts!
"First-ever" disease:
If you watched the televised action you constantly heard announcers chortling gleefully, while proclaiming proudly "that is the first ever 720 double tail whip performed in x-games competition history!!!" and other such exclamations during their color commentary. Never mind that the guy has pulled that trick countless times prior, and perhaps even in other competitive situations. Fortunately during the skateboard street competition, you never heard that sort of thing coming out of Duncan's mouth. But in the larger scope of the x-games, the apparent philosophy is that the athletes' creation of new moves is wholly facilitated by the games themselves. Never mind the self-motivation of these athletes that allows them to continually progress. Firsts are firsts, and repetitions are repetitions. Blackhart's first roll-out and roll-in at a Gilroy pool, McGill's first McTwist in Sweden, Caballero's first Caballerial at Winchester, Tony Hawk's first 900... those are vanguard moments, true firsts, not to be confused with the practiced and dialed versions contained in a canned routine. I guess it's okay for the TV people to get excited over such things, but they really ought to temper that pants-shitting with a bit of historical back story, and I'm not talking about a half hour of Travis Pastrana double backflip drama for your mama.
This is not the first frontside air P.L.G. has ever pulled in the history of summer x'games competition, but his corny "wiping the sweat from his brow" gesture, before getting used by the hands of Shaun White as a floor wipe, was definitely a first ever.
The fine art of corporate branding:
Certainly, the level of visual advertising and promotion at the x-games has reached an apex of tastelessness and over saturation. Sure, watching a motocross race is kind of exciting, but I could do without seeing the United States' Navy being proudly touted 17,000 times per lap. I can't remember which branch of the military was represented last year, it was either the air force or the army. I can just imagine the joint chiefs of staff in a smoke-filled backwater room of the pentagon, locked in a mortal debate over which killing machine should be promoted at this year's event. Perhaps due to the rising "unpopularity" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the navy was chosen, since it's involvement has been minimal in these conflicts. Smart recruiting really, "Hey kids, in the navy you don't have to be boots on the ground in the line of fire, you can kick back on our fully armed cruise ships in the Persian Gulf and huck tomahawks at the 'terrorists' from a safe distance". And hey, the food is superb too. How on earth the military should even factor in as a corporate sponsor at a youth-oriented event such as this, is beyond my moral comprehension. On a lighter note, let's consider the Subaru "Huck-O-Meter" on the deck of the mega ramp at Staples Center. A large, inflatable structure designed to measure the height of the aerial maneuvers performed in the airspace above the 27 foot quarter pipe. This device mimicked a thermometer, complete with rising red mercury level and a projection height reading. It reminded me of those absurd public art pieces at the gateway to LAX that cycle through a spectrum of soft diffused color, gigantic ever-morphing phallic representations designed to gently welcome weary travelers to this forlorn city. The same could be said of the "Huck-O-Meter" which could easily be construed as the representation of a penis becoming rapidly engorged with blood during an erection. Beautiful.
I'm not sure what's more disturbing about this photo. The physical attributes and clothing habits of this inhabitant of planet Taco Bell, or the fact that on this strange planet, black foam rubber represents meat.
Good shots of Andy Mac are rare indeed. Maybe it's because nobody likes him. So for you AMAC fans out there, here is a really torqued frontside straight legger, well above the influence.
Wishful thinking produces results:
For 3 years running ESPN has hyped the shit out of Shaun White, holding out for him to capture a vert gold medal. The olympic gold medal snowboarder, winter x games medalist, and general media/marketing darling, looking as if he was cut from the same genetic material as Carrot Top and Rocky Dennis combined, has finally given ESPN what they wanted, a gold medal performance in vert. He definitely deserved it based on his third and final run, and for a change he looked as if he was really skateboarding, not snowboarding on a skateboard which often appears to be the case. Perhaps now, the hype can die down a bit, although chances are you're going to see even more of this kid in television commercials, and perhaps he can settle back into what he does in his down time, which is, according to Rolling Stone magazine, wrecking $300,000 Lamborghinis and living in an exclusive gated community in northern San Diego county where his friends are allowed to party in the pool house, but NOT in the real house. Nothing against young Shaun, the kid rips, it's just that I'm not down with the concept of TV poster children, especially when their perceived value has nothing to do with skateboarding. Perhaps next year Shaun will be forced to compete in the rally car races as well. Then, the network can have multiple extremists competing across the board. Maybe Shaun will team up with Travis and they can be the Target rally car duo from hell. I'd rather see them racing side hack though, after all, that would be far more extreme than ripping around in a subcompact car with a turbocharger.
"You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round, round, round..." Oh shit, sorry. Shaun White. Aerial maneuver.
Jubilant tomato.
Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention:
I blew it on Sunday. I went skateboarding. Consequently I missed all but the third and final runs of the vert event. I also blew it when I opted to watch it on television rather than the webcast. There is nothing worse than being told by a talking head that "while we were away" someone skated a flawless run, but never being shown the actual run itself. I'm talking about young phenom, Alex Perelson, who has quietly been honing a precision vert attack for quite a while now. Had my credentials not been denied, I could have witnessed Alex's runs with my own eyes. In fact that is the one resounding lamentation in my mind; missing the skateboarding in person. Then again, the money I saved on parking alone will fund an impending trip to Vegas for skateboarding, among other things. I probably won't even bother applying for media credentials next year. After all, if anyone at ESPN reads this article, I will probably be blacklisted anyways. A lifetime ban. That's the tough part about telling the truth sometimes, it's the right thing to do and yet it is treated as a taboo. Look at our government. Truth, and justice for all? Wrong. Lies, and justice for some. The truth is not to be found on television, but we all know where the truth exists. The truth is found where the rubber meets the road, or more precisely, where the urethane meets the concrete.
An epitaph of sorts, the last page of the worst story in American history:
Franklin Lindblatt was laid to rest in Moline, IL on July 23rd, 2007. The reported cause of Mr. Lindblatt's demise was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His estranged former wife, now widowed, is said to living comfortably as a kept woman on the grounds of a vast estate in northern San Diego county. Her 3 children are reported to be training heavily in hopes of becoming the next multi-tasking child prodigies of extreme sports. As for ESPN, the circus tents have been rolled up, the donkey show has been retired, and Sal can jump back to covering breaking news about Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Ritchie, that wonderfully drunken trifecta of Hollywood slutdom.
As for us, well it's time to focus on more pressing business, the daily regimen of rolling truths.
For other photos check the gallery:
-BLKPRJKT / PHOTOS MRZ |
Tuesday 07th 2007f August 2007 22:16
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