Halloween Treat

Courtesy of Zero Skateboards

I’ve had a tough time with updates lately; too many tests and projects to worry about and get in the way. I really have wanted to put some stuff up on here; I just haven’t had the chance. Since today is Halloween I figured that I should probably write about something scary. Well I confess that my topic won’t be very scary, because other than Jake Brown’s fall at the X-Games, what is in skateboarding?

I’m going to giving you a look back to a widely popular video that was released, coincidentally on Halloween. Jamie Thomas and his company Zero Skateboards out of San Diego are notorious for their mind blowing skate videos. Dying to Live, which was released in 2003, was a video that wowed audiences by showcasing the Zero team’s handrail carnage, backyard pool murder, and stair set torture. Sounds like a horror flick doesn’t it? Well not exactly, but the video did inspire a generation of skateboarders to go balls to the wall in every aspect of their skating. Now you’ll see kids skating pools, stairs, handrails, and many more things to the extent that they are pretty damn good at it.

But let me get back to the video and talk about what else makes it special. The skateboard world knew who Jamie Thomas, Adrian Lopez, and Matt Mumford were. They all had ridden for Zero for quite a while and had established themselves as some of the top professionals in the industry. But what’s important is that Dying to Live introduced some now-household names to the skateboarding community.

Jon Allie, a native of Wisconsin, put together a great video part that included a lot of highly technical flip trick to grinds down big handrails. One of the big things that stuck out in his part was his nosebluntslide down the Hollywood High sixteen rail, one of skateboarding’s benchmarks. Now Jon has a pro model show with Circa and a variety of signature skateboards from Slave Skateboards, the newest venture from the Zero camp. Once a no-namer, Jon seemingly blew up over night and became an instant hit with many skateboarders.

Ryan Smith and Lindsey Robertson are two more that Dying to Live knighted with recognition. I group them together because they share most of the same sponsors and are commonly grouped side by side. Ryan tended to favor the big handrails where as Lindsey took care of the big gaps. Both have signature boards with Mystery and are now know for their disregard for bodily injury and their continuation of pushing the limit of how big good skateboarding must be.

Scotsman John Rattray was well known in Europe before this video came out, but in the United States the opposite was true. In 2003 Rattray stunned audiences with his mastery of every aspect of skateboarding. After all, the guy can do a 540 on a vert ramp and then go lipslide a 15 stair rail. Now Rattray as well known by many and has several signature models with Zero. Another thing that should be noted is that he has a degree in physics from Cambridge University.

The final and by far the most influential skateboarder the world found out about upon the release of Dying to Live is Chris Cole. Though he already had a great part in the Transworld video, In Bloom, about six months before the Zero video, it was in no ways comparable to the Dying to Live part. From 360 flipping large sets of stairs including the Rincon 4 to frontside boardsliding a ridiculously long hubba ledge (as seen above) Cole was amazing. He was promptly turned pro after the video was released and now has several pro model shoes and clothing lines with Fallen footwear and apparel. Nowadays there are lots of kids that want to be just like Chris; look like him, dress like him, and skate like him. I can’t tell you how many times I have been to the skatepark and there will be a kid there saying to his friends “Check me out, I’m Chris Cole” and end up trying to 360 flip a large set of stairs.

Perhaps that’s the scary part of this story, a group of skateboarders influencing a much larger group to do things like jump off buildings, grind handrails, and skate backyard pools. But maybe, that larger group is just simply dying to live. Happy Halloween.