New Things

Gizmo: This is Nike Skateboarding’s new women’s team video. While it usually gives me heartburn to hype up mega-corps, I’m gonna do it here. I liked this film. I dug the progression-through-the-generations angle. I dug the straightforward, unfeminized, unapologetic, unpretentious, unpreachy, un-wannabe-inspiring delivery. Gizmo isn’t trying to be anything that it isn’t. It’s a banger action edit, featuring people who are women. And that in itself is a statement. Next task for Nike: push it beyond “separate but equal” and integrate your lady rippers into your dudes’ edits.

Pic by Andy Wright

The passing of J2 Rasmus: J2 was battling cancer. Now he’s on the other side. I hadn’t seen him in many years — since I don’t know when. I remember him most from when I was clueless-but-thought-I-was-cool teenager on the Vail snowboard scene, where J2 and Megan presided over us as actually cool and tough older kids. I remember that he helped me jump my old POS Audi 4000 when it died in the Sunridge parking lot. I remember drinking 40s and riding aspen rainbows. I remember getting a lot of shit from him. You had to be on your toes around Twos. It’s how respect has been taught through many generations — by smart people giving snot-nosed kids a hard time (does that happen anymore?) Anyway, his wit was razor sharp and I remember him never giving any fucks about authority or what you thought — which was as inspirational of stance to me then and as it is now. Today, I’m thinking of his family and close friends, and of the mystery that brings us from dust into stardust.

Functional minimalism: Now more than ever, I’ve been into the act of non-acquiring. I work in advertising where we think up creative ways for our clients to sell you things. But in my private life, I don’t want to buy anything more. I’m just sick of it. Like I’ve been dabbling in mountain biking this year but I always just wear street clothes and my skate helmet. They work. And crotch blowouts notwithstanding all my jeans are just fine and will last me until eternity. Denim purveyors be damned. I don’t know — it’s started to seem like a crazy snake-biting-its-head-off kinda circle to me. If you keep getting new things, where does it ever end? Less. Maybe it’s more.