So here I am again, the Stoned Donald Trump of skateboard commentary. The first thing that comes to my mind gets blurted out and most of you agree with it, even if you don’t want to admit it. First, I want to shout out Jenkem for hooking it up with the HD version of this movie, even though seeing this in HD is pretty much like a getting a turd, but a turd rolled in glitter. And this is one long turd, clocking in at 1 1/2 hours. So if somebody can hook it up with a weed sponsor… It’s just like when Big Brother magazine offered to rate your weed if you sent it to them, except this time I just smoke it. Maybe one day Jenkem will even have weed articles like “CONVERT YOUR SKATE TOOL INTO A PIPE” or “TOP 10 TRICKS TO DO WHILE HIGH”. I’ve also really been feeling Girl Scout Cookies if anyone wants to send me a box. We can only dream.
I’m about 7 minutes in and I haven’t really missed much except for a bunch of dramatic slow motion shots and P-Rod getting hit by a car in the ghetto. I heard rumors of this mo fucka renting out spots in NYC just to get a trick for a Nike ad, and I’m suppose to believe he skates without people watching for traffic? Another thing, I don’t really get all the dramatic shots in skateboard videos. Like, is skateboarding going to get so serious that people are gonna start crying after a good part? Or start showing up to premieres in a top hats and monocles?
The shitty version of Megadeth starts playing and we get our first montage. I guess this is suppose to get the testosterone flowing, except in reality, Metallica is to Metal what Carlos Mencia is to comedy… a bunch of stolen ideas poorly executed. One thing I gotta say is damn, PUT FUCKING NAMES IN MONTAGES SO I KNOW WHO IS SKATEBOARDING. Half these fools look like they all shop at the same GAP catalog, I can’t tell most of them apart. Omar Salazar does save the montage by skating like he always does, like an absolute boss. I spotted a ginger in there too… probably Weiger Van Weinerschnitzel.
So what I’ve gathered so far is Pee Rod has organized a skate trip with a bunch of guys starting in Los Angeles. One of those guys is Jordhan Maxham… who I smoked weed with at Woodward like a decade ago. Good to see this dude still killing it. And right back into another montage with some mind numbing easy listening alternative. And, me gusta, we’re in Spain now. I predict a lot of shaved heads, soccer jerseys, and granite ledges. And boy am I right on point.
It almost sucks how much skateboarding has progressed with all the media we get fed every day, so many incredible tricks happening, yet I just don’t care at all. I do appreciate the bottles of Mountain Dew being placed in shots though. If you’re gonna milk the corporate tit, get every drop. I fully back selling out, shit is just good planning.
With more inspirational quotes from Pee Rod, we are hiking to the site of a skatepark that was buried by dirt. Oh, and now the locals are digging it out like some god damn skateboarding archeologists. It seems to be a huge tranny park from the 70s, which means P-Rod and his crew are gonna be out quick because they don’t play that shit. And finally we get coverage of a Mountain Dew tour inside a Mountain Dew funded video. Fan-fucking-tastic. More inspiration from Paul as he talks about always wanting to turn pro, as he signs autographs.
Wait a second, wait a god damn second… is that ANTHONY PAPPALARDO? Seriously? What a curveball! I guess if you want to show the polar opposite of a pro skater who accomplished everything he wanted, you find a skateboarder who accomplished regressing from pro back to nothing. It’s like that yin and yang shit… I get it. And this mother fucker is so poor it looks like he doesn’t even have griptape on his board. I can’t wait for every ultra core cool guy to just stop using griptape. If they thought obnoxiously loose trucks was fun, wait until they try this. And now this thing has gotten me laughing so hard, because they have Pops looking through trash for “spots” or “dinner.”
The more this video goes on, the more I think it’s just trying to make street skateboarding seem like the only kind of skateboarding. “We Are Asphalt” would have been a better title. I’m just saying, if you wanna represent skateboarding, why not pick the most well rounded skateboarder? It’s like picking Drake to represent all of rap.
The next part is really cool, it’s about a deaf skateboarder who found a place in our society. But how do you make this section as tacky as possible? YOU MAKE IT LIKE THE WATCHER IS DEAF TOO! Why would they edit this section to make the volume seem almost mute? We know he’s deaf, we don’t need an example. And honestly, they kid shreds hard. It’s like if you were watching a documentary about a blind dude and they just black out the screen the whole time they’re interviewing him.
This thing is so long, I need to pack another bowl… I’m missing another montage, but I looked over at my screen and saw some asian people staring; so yeah, there’s that at least.
Well this all makes sense because, turns out, we’re in China! It’s amazing how they talk about the Chinese barely knowing about skateboarding there, yet they manufacture probably 80% of skateboards (including plastic knockoffs, blanks, etc…) out there. We get to see a spot where the security guards spray down the spots with water while you skate. Doesn’t seem to be working as they just sit there with a hose as everyone skates. Try some cooking oil spray, it’ll be way funnier.
Now an unexpected stop at Skatetopia, where probably no one in that bus wants to skate due to the lack of ledges, stairs, and gaps, but hopefully we’ll see some good footage. Nevermind, it’s just a lead in to the falls montage.
But wait, now things are hood as fuck because we’re in Brazil, where people light spots on fire with lighters and gasoline. Not sure why he did that, but I guess I don’t know hood life like that. Sorry, but I don’t care about any Brazil section without Rodrigo TX. It’s literally just the Spain section before, but with more hats and rougher spots. Equally shitty music though.
We are now cliff jumping with the Chief. Jamie found the highest section of the tree to jump from, I wonder if anyone there cracked a Leap of Faith joke? Now there’s a little visit to a DIY park where people skate through fire. I guess towels aren’t cool anymore, now it’s all about throwing gasoline down and lighting it to evaporate the water. I can’t wait till some dumbass kid sees it in this video and goes to try it at his local wood park. Seriously, I’m calling it now.
More montage, with more shitty music and more slow mo celebration sequences = more I don’t care. I’m pretty glad this whole section of the video is just talking about how badass Jamie Thomas is. It’s a nice break from all the lame shit, and P-Rod trying to narrate like a dyslexic reading off a cue card on live TV.
Now in Dubai, where P-Rod claims it’s such a new city that nothing has really been skated. So someone on this RV tour is driving to Dubai, but so what, why the fuck not? And I might be wrong, but the entire Dubai section seems to be set to a DMX/Indian dance song. What the flying fuck, seriously? I’m so confused, X is yelling at me over some sitar sounding dance music. What in the actual fuck is going on? Even I’m not high enough for this music. Clint Walker ends the section gnarly as fuck, riding away into a football field. Maybe signifying how skateboarding is slowly becoming a structured sport, that’d be some creative subliminal messaging.
Now we get a sky diving montage, which has jack fuck to do with anything, but hey, you got a really expensive budget, take advantage. Another montage that seems so repetitive you could replace it with any other montage in the video and I wouldn’t notice. And it looks like the video is gonna end with the crew skating a ledge atop a helicopter pad with some more inspirational P-Rod advice. I feel about as inspired as a dog after a support PETA commercial.
We also get a mob of skateboarders following P-Rod down a street while he babbles about how beautiful skateboarding is. Pretty mediocre ending to a pretty mediocre skate video. If I were you, I’d take the $10 it costs to see this and buy some weed. I can really only see this video being used to show you’re strange uncle who doesn’t know much about “today’s kids” all about today’s current state of street skateboarding. But who knows, I’m just some high guy.
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September 10, 2015 12:38 am
after reading this I’ve come to the conclusion the author is a dumb fuck who knows nothing about skateboarding, Good job scrub, when you learn to do a handrail you can have an opinion on the matter. GG mate
September 10, 2015 7:30 pm
Dude… Don’t comment on Jenkem again… These guys who write and post on here know more and probably been skating double the amount you have…Go back to the mall clown… This article is pretty accurate. And I’m skateboarder and a filmer. The only thing cool in this video is the filming aspect….
September 14, 2015 12:05 pm
I can just listed to it why am I reading?
October 2, 2015 1:59 pm
if you’re going to sell out…sell out all the way, put up Mountain Dew $ target banners and shit…paint the fucking town that antifreeze green and watch the money roll in.
yeah skateboarding is getting famous and everyone is pushing for skating in the olympics…the “action sports” die hards making back room deals to sell out to foreign investors from china. globalize! think Andy Mac…think Dew Tour…think SLS…think about that little short bitch who sold out to MTV and made a stupid show about his baby teeth believing he’s funny and selling out his board company to some licensing company…hooray for $kateboarding
October 6, 2015 2:50 pm
*SLAM!* Oh no! Our very own P-Rod also known as Paul Rodriguez is hit by a car in the best hollywood-thriller style. But a certain someone must be looking out for him since he’s lucky enough to get away with tiny scratch. A single drop of his Mountain Dew insured blood hits the asphalt and suddenly we find ourselves inside a microscopic spaceship descending into P-Rod’s very blood. Maybe you can actually tell from a persons blood, if he is a true skater or not. Zoom back out, and what about P-Rod? Of course all his pro-skateboarder friends are there to help him get up. After all they are made up of the same matter, perhaps even biologically related by blood. Now, the most epic sound track starts to play as P-Rod resurrects with divine knowledge ready to lead us all out on this spectacular journey called ‘We Are Blood’.
Okay, let’s get to it. Ty Evans has done it again. This time even more grandiose than ever! More Hollywood, more skateboarders, more skatespots, more slow-mo and more fire, surely all captured with the newest technology, drones and cranes. This monster is feature-length, however this fact is mostly due to ceaseless slo-mo. The theme is the community of skateboarding or as Ty puts it himself: “a film celebrating the universal bond created by the simple act of skateboarding”. But then: Montages of sky-diving, desert-racing, cliff jumping, helicopter rides – Simple? Not so much. Actually that’s everything but a skateboard film. What happened? What happened to good old skateboard flicks like Sorry or the all new Through and Thorugh, with the scope of individual skateboarders but also the team or community as a whole who were together skateboarding and not grilling sausages, shooting guns or setting everything on fire.
The glorious pioneer takes us all around the globe, from the birthplace of skateboarding; LA, to it’s capital of Barcelona, onto a sporadic tour of America, then the hastily developing China, the skateboard factory of Brazil and finally the unexplored Dubai quivering with potential for skateboarders. As the journey unfolds more and more skaters join the parade ultimately to follow P-Rod on their board to skate around the giant Globe-sculpture in Flushing Meadows, NY. Throught the film, P-Rod ponders on philosophical questions about the unique bond of the culture and it’s healing and accepting influence. On a crusade with the missionairies they patch up broken concrete and heal the deaf – Sound familiar? In the best of intentions Ty and P-Rod strive to show what skateboarding has to offer. However, they appear bragging and almost arrogant.
We Are Blood reminds me of a blatant and bored teenager. It is desperate to be noticed, it act out and it lacks focus.
Skateboarding once used to be bold. Not just as a physical activity but as a counterculture. It started out as a reaction of resistance. A resistance to all convention, the ordinary and the conservative – a subculture. Skateboarding was wild and rebellious, different, new and special. With more than 60 years of history skateboarding is inevitably going to evolve. Today skateboarding is turning into a rapidly growing mainstream culture; along with soccer and… I was gonna say baseball, but I would be lying. Today the number of kids that are skateboarding exceeds the number of kids playing baseball.. Today architects are designing city infrastructure in accordance with skateboard preferences. Skateboarding as we know it no longer exists. It is a good thing that skateboarding is becoming widespread; skateparks, contests and even skateboard schools, all makes it grow stronger. Yesterday on Street League Rob Dyrdek said that he was looking forward to see skateboarding as an Olympic discipline. But on what grounds? At the expense of what?
Can skateboarding outlast becoming a part of what it initially was a reaction against?