Respect Authority

IPATH, the skate shoe brand that you can always rely on for a stash pocket, recently put up some new footage from Australian emissary Richie Jackson. Aside from representing the proud former prison colony, Jackson also seems to be sponsored by the 1960s. Like, the entire decade. So his outfits may look a little silly in 2009, and I feel like I might be able to smell him from here, but his trick selection is incredibly unique and with perks like free love and experimental drugs, who could really say no?

It’s cool to see a relatively unpopular trick, such as the hippie jump, getting adapted to modern skating in a way we haven’t seen before. Perhaps more impressive than the ludicrous hippie jump flip combos, though, is the fact that Jackson pulls them off (for the most part) without looking like a total dork. And I mean, that’s fucking tough to do when you’re wearing a tasseled vest made out of an old couch.

Something tells me this probably won’t be the next big trend in skateboarding; but just because something isn’t fashionable as far as the skate media is concerned, doesn’t mean it isn’t fun anyway. Fuck, plenty of people still do pressure flips and slappy grinds when they’re goofing off with their friends, even if they’re not including them in their video parts. And considering how regularly we hear from disenchanted pro skaters, relating to us the tortures of getting paid to wake up at noon and skate every day while filming for a highly anticipated video, it becomes clear pretty quickly where the real heart of skateboarding lives. Maybe not necessarily in pressure flips, but wherever it is that skateboarding and fun collide most gruesomely for you.

And these weird hippie jump variations are definitely fun to watch; they’re innovative, they feel fresh while still calling back to fundamentals of skating, and most of all, they’re probably hard as fucking hell to do. Especially while tripping on mescaline for days on end, so I really have to hand it to the guy.