Respect Authority

The blogodome’s coverage of Thrasher’s Wallenberg contest held last weekend continues to pulsate, but today it’s more akin to the throbbing of a split knee or sprained ankle. To appreciate the level of difficulty inherent in skating the steps to Beezlebub’s throne, one first must witness the falls that provided the broken backs for the eventual victors to land upon. If that’s too Advanced English Composition and Rhetoric for most of you skate rats out there, let’s just put it a bit more simply: people falling is, and will always be, entertaining on some visceral level between masochism and sadism.

But more importantly, you’d need more than a few Monster Energy Drinks simmering in your stomach to send yourself hurtling down the famed Wallenberg four. Although I have to imagine these guys would have had an easier time landing their tricks if Thrasher’s feared helmsmen Jake Phelps wasn’t barking in their face with a megaphone the entire time. I guess it’s all part of the challenge. Then again… it’s probably just more of that sadism thing I was talking about.

Some people wear ball gags and get whipped by their girlfriends. Other people pick up skateboarding. That’s the best part about living in America — we all get to choose our sickness.

When the skateboarding community isn’t abuzz with illegal substances, it typically opts for something… well, skateboarding related. This week has been all about Thrasher Magazine’s Back to the ‘Berg contest, the 4th annual assault on the legendary steps of Wallenberg. And like the stairs it was founded upon, the contest was appropriately huge. Of course, not all the best skateboarding has to be on the epic scale of the Wallenberg four, nor does it surround itself with the type of media fanfare Thrasher editor Jake Phelps would have probably made fun of just a few years ago.

While the Wallenberg news may be hard to avoid, sometimes the best of skateboarding has a way of slipping past us… particularly if it happens in Europe. The industry across the Atlantic has been consistently growing over the past decade, and with its own assortment of companies and magazines, it’s becoming increasingly easy for American skaters to feel a bit left out. How the tables have turned — at least we’ve got YouTube. How else would we be privy to this raw, blistering section featuring Dennis Busenitz in a display of street skating at its purest? Short of backpacking across the old world like so many of our J. Crew sporting, recent college graduate counterparts… we wouldn’t be.

Seriously… you know you’re good at this shit when you put an ollie at the end of your part and nobody even complains.

Years before the current age of global media infestation, skateboarding was but a facet of American dreaming for poor, dejected European skaters — just like Taco Bell, cheerleaders, and actually getting arrested for smoking marijuana. But they hardly need to dream now, especially with Euro-centric magazines like Kingpin giving away free copies of Adidas’ European skateboarding video Diagonal with its latest issue. Like I said, at least we’ve got YouTube.