Jay Riggio: Video Days
I remember I had gotten word somehow that Blind was about to release a video. I’m really not sure if I had heard it through friends or read it in a Thrasher at some point. Either way, I couldn’t believe it. Even back then in 1991, at the impressionable age of 13, I still subscribed to the skeptical mindset that if something was too good to be true, it usually was. True or not, it hadn’t mattered entirely. Just the mere thought of a Blind video was enough to boost my imagination into a steady haze of hope and nervous anticipation.
Blind may not have been considered the best team in skateboarding at the time, but they were indisputably the most respected. And at the guarantee of sounding like a 60-year-old dad who wears sweatpants, they were the coolest. Mark Gonzales, Jason Lee, Rudy Johnson and Guy Mariano…c’mon. They were the frothy cream of the street skating crop. These guys were at the forefront of modern day street skating and for good measure, teenage vert prodigy Jordan Richter was even on the team.
Back then (much like now), skateboarding had fallen prey to a sort of soulless, corporate cheesiness that brands like Powell Peralta and Vision regularly displayed. But Blind, like their umbrella company World Industries, reacted with irreverence. Blind personified the ‘we don’t give a fuck attitude’. The company felt fresh, exciting and against the status quo - the way skateboarding should always be.
Back in 1991, skate media coverage existed almost exclusively in print. The idea of frequently released video parts was unheard of. In fact, a pro or am was lucky to get a shot at VHS glory at all. When it was confirmed that Video Days was on the way, it had been years since any of the Blind riders were captured on video. A prepubescent Guy and Rudy were featured in Powell Peralta’s Ban This years before. Mark Gonzales last seen in some obscure Vision video. And as for J. Lee and Jordan Richter, I can’t remember one video that they were in before that. The truth of the matter was, there was such a demand to see these guys skate that even if Video Days had turned out to completely suck, it would still be good.
Somehow, I convinced my mum to let me pre-order it on her credit card. I can’t quite recall exactly how long it took to arrive at my front door, but I remember panicking at times. What if my pre-order was never processed correctly? What if the goddamned thing had been lost in the mail? What if my copy was defective? I arrived home late one summer evening from skating to find the shipping box was waiting in my bedroom. The actual video was packaged in nothing more than a standard VHS sleeve with a cheap sticker folded around its side. I ran downstairs and gently placed it into the VCR. In silence, I watched the video straight through. When I reached the end, I was called to dinner. I made sure to press rewind before I ran off to the dinner table. Afterwards, I watched it from start to finish three more times.
The video was almost too much to take in. From the mind-blowing skating to the documented personalities of my heroes, absorbing it in small intervals was my only option. I can’t go as far as to say that I recognized the genius of Video Days off the bat, nor can I say that I even placed much importance on Spike Jonze’s onscreen credit back then - I had only recognized his name from photo credits in skate mags. All I knew was that Video Days made me want to skate like never before. There was magic in it that to this day seems difficult to place.
The speedy, frisky style of the pint-sized Guy Mariano as The Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back’ carried his skating like the track was composed just for him. Mariano’s fast lines encompassed an urgency as if he couldn’t wait to roll away from his next trick.
Rudy Johnson’s clean style, skating to the now legendary but then unheard of Dinosaur Jr. cover of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’.
Hell, even Jordan Richter’s mostly vert part was good, intensified by the fury of Black Flag’s ‘My War’.
Then there’s the classic Mark Gonzales part that begins with the classic Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory clip. “We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams,” says Mr. Wonka to the brat-faced Veruca Salt. Then slamming almost explosively onto the screen with a John Coltrane score behind him, Gonz’ part begins.
His freeflowing style is limitless as he cruises through street lines with his trick selection, ridiculously ahead of its time: frontside 270 ollie lipslides, tall backside nosegrinds, a Wallenberg ollie, a double kink rail that’s still gnarly by today’s standards and so much more. Again, at the risk of wearing dad sweatpants, after the completion of Gonzales’ part, the previous Willy Wonka clip makes perfect sense. As skateboarders we have the ability to make the music and dream the dreams that have yet to be founded, making magic along the way. And Gonz’ part was just that - fucking magic!
And the last part, the curtains, they belonged to Jason Lee. His part began with some solid vert runs (that’s right, vert!) and quickly jumped to a full-blown street part: smooth kickflips, kickflip back tails, 360 flips, backside flips and frontside and backside 360 ollies and even a bigflip over a hip. J. Lee skated the way we all wanted to but never could. Flawless style that is practically impossible to replicate - although, the trend of bushy sideburns and cargo shorts are attributed almost solely to his Video Days part.
It’s amazing to think that it was 18 years ago that Video Days surfaced. And perhaps what’s even more amazing is how brilliantly the video holds up, even by today’s very different, far more judgmental standards.
The way it was filmed, the vague 'Low Rider' theme, the skating, the legendary skaters doing the skating and the simplicity in Spike Jonze’s vision. Who could have predicted that one 24 minute skate video could impact skateboarding and ultimately pop culture so immensely? Shit, nobody could.
I still have my original VHS copy of Video Days. I don’t watch it as much as I used to and I certainly can’t claim to skate half as much as I did back in 1991. But one thing that remains is this: I will always be a skateboarder.
And whenever I do find time to skate, I take pleasure on looking back on the skating depicted in Video Days as a reminder that skateboarding is and will always be one thing: fun.
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Awesome