There’s a trend in skateboarding where skaters have little documentaries made about them, and I’m into it. As I get older and actual skate clips continue losing some of their luster, I enjoy learning about skateboarders’ lives and hearing them describe themselves, so long as we never regress back to “Life of Ryan.” (Nyjah, I’m looking at you.)
Nora Vasconcellos is the latest target for our prying eyes. Adidas threw a party to premiere her documentary, “Nora,” which was made by skateboarding’s #1 goombah, Giovanni Reda. As usual with any skate doc, you can expect lots of touching family moments mixed with clips of guys figuring out every possible different way to say, “She rips.”
LA skate premieres tend to have heavy lineups but there’s a couple of dudes you might’ve missed here. On the far left, writer Dave Carnie picks food crumbs out of his beard and tries to sell them to Chris Pastras as board graphic ideas. On the right, Sebo Walker sulks next to Roger Bagley, wondering when he’s getting a documentary. Why else would he voluntarily live in a van for years if not to create a dramatic life story arc?
Apparently Nora’s brother is a parkour dude. Watching some of his videos makes me feel like I’m in that movie Enter the Void about a guy who smokes DMT and jumps off buildings because he thinks he’s Donkey Kong. But Davis seems good enough without the DMT.
This boneless is only forgivable because it was done several years ago. Even Grant Taylor knows he shouldn’t be doing bonelesses anymore.
Skateboarders aren’t always the best at posing for photos. OK, cool, you painted your fingernails white and black and you’re throwing up some combo devil horns/shaka. What, do you make ska music on SoundCloud or something? This other guy is proud of being able to drink a whole beer, or confused about where his beer went?
By this time our photographer started feeling a little tipsy from the drinks. Either that or he accidentally turned on Rave mode on his camera.
Jeff Grosso is an O.G. shit talker on par with the most jacked skateboarder, Weckingball. How amazing would it be to see those two square off in some Instagram beef? It would be skateboarding’s McGregor v. Mayweather fight, only somehow with more whining and less integrity.
Here’s when the premiere turned into a karaoke party and Nora belted out the haunting, melodramatic 80s pop hit, “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” What do you think Nora’s other go-to karaoke songs are? Prince’s “Purple Rain”? Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”? Avril Lavigne?
Can’t recall what Nora is doing to Vanessa Torres here. Is she shanking her for getting in her way at Street League? Or just trying to start a super aggro tickling match? Whatever mayhem Nora brought, Samarria Brevard wisely avoided it. “I just turned pro, don’t fuck this up for me.”
You thought I was joking about Welcome rider D-Vargs’ auditioning for The Voice but he’s serious. He kinda looks like Chris Kirkpatrick from N’Sync, so maybe he’ll make it one day. If Welcome decided to release a pop music album it wouldn’t even hurt their Zumiez sales. Hell, it would probably double them.
We made a joke on Twitter about the entire skateboard industry being founded on men having crushes on other men and people retweeted the fuck out of it. Kenny is a perfect example of this, who wouldn’t want to buy this man’s board and get a little piece of that perfect jawline and beautiful skateboard maneuvers.
While all the other skaters were singing yelling at each other, skate media heads Aaron Meza and Jamie Owens brainstormed about getting into the documentary film game themselves. Benefits include not spending hours bent over waiting for someone to land a trick, and being able to make videos that make sense to anyone outside of skateboarding. Downsides include having people tell you over and over again how great they are, and still making videos that nobody outside of skateboarding really wants to watch.
Wait, what’s that on Aaron Meza’s phone? Oh, the defeated senatorial candidate Roy Moore? Say it’s not true Meza! No Meza… Nooo!!!!
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December 19, 2017 4:43 pm
Enter the void is about smoking dmt, not crack.
December 19, 2017 4:56 pm
DVargs is pro for Welcome now or was that just an error?
December 19, 2017 4:59 pm
noob mistake on us
December 19, 2017 7:32 pm
Shame, hope it happens soon for Daniel. I live in AZ now but I remember him just learning to skate when I was a Lake Forest Etnies local.
Always had the most positive attitude and was nice to everyone he came across.
Fuck yeah DVargs!
December 20, 2017 9:34 pm
Way to creep it up Reda, Nora looks worried