• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

This blows my mind every time.

for the record, i do not skate. i enjoy watching others skate, and im glad to film or take pictures. rodney mullen is ridiculously talented, and i must say, i secretly hate him. he does amazing things and makes them look effortless. he makes more money than i ever will. overall, he just makes me feel bad about myself every time i see one of his videos.
 
You see, I grew up playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I had absolutely no interest in skateboard nor knowledge of it before this game and I had never seen an actual person skateboard when I started playing it... What I'm trying to say is that after that, there is no way real life can live up to what I had imagined this sport to be after being immersed in a video game "simulation" (I use the term very loosely) for years. I never had a "skateboarding phase" like a lot of kids do, I had a "skateboarding game phase" and knew nothing about the actual sport, lol. Then I started watch bits of ESPN and FuelTV and I think thats what killed any possible interest in actually getting to know what goes behind making that board and 4 wheels look so amazing. I wondered "where are the hour long grinds? where are the endless combos? where is the score multiplier accelerating towards infinity?" It just didn't satisfy the 'extreme' portion of extreme sports that I had come to expect thanks to a game.

That said I think Rodney Mullen is to that plank of obviously God-inbuded wood and wheels made of magic what Victor Wooten is to 4 strings and wood probably cut from the same tree as said board. The guy is amazing and probably the only skateboarder I can truly enjoy watching even after THPS ;p
 
Mullen is my favorite skateboarder of all time. Mad respect for a guy that can do half of that stuff, much less as flawlessly as he does. Anyone that can kick-flip onto a picnic table, manual across, three flip into a nose manual onto the next table, front foot impossible into a rusty slid onto the next table and pressure flip off deserves everything he can get.

Also, I can into this thread intending to post a fail picture, but Mullen is just pure win.

lowsound
 
This video should be accompanied by one of Mullen-contemporary Natas Kaupas:



Kaupas was one of my skate heroes when I was a kid and he was the Rodney Mullen of street skating before Rodney Mullen was the Rodney Mullen of street skating.

bc
 
Yeah, that's from a skate video called "Opinion" put out by Globe.

I was a HUGE Mullen fan when I was into skating. Had his shoes and everything, hehe.

His old globe shoes with the little bubble under the heal were the best shoes ever made for skateboarding. Actually, he is wearing the shoes that I am talking about in the video that Mark posted. I cannot for the life of me understand why there isn't a single shoe manufacture out there that can make a shoe as good as those. The toe lasted forever, the laces were hidden and they were so comfortable. No one makes a shoe with lace protection anymore and it sucks because I can go through a lace in an afternoon.

lowsound