6.19.2008

chrome ball incident #64: the red telephone



While also serving to dramatically improve one's skills, a negative aspect of surrounding yourself with legends is that their shadows make it that much harder for you to get your shine on. I always found this to be the case with the criminally-underrated Rudy Johnson. Imagine finding yourself alongside such absolute kings in the midst of their prime (Guy, Koston, Gonz, Sanchez) and be expected to represent... forget about it! But while not the marquee player that fills the seats like those other dudes are, holmes was still mad solid.

Take Video Days for example. He killed it. Absolutely killed it. Yet when was the last time you heard anybody really talk about his part with any depth? Granted you have your go-to favorite parts and the part that everybody skips (sorry Jordan) but Rudy's part is amazing. So many tricks that are still being done today were seen in his part for the first time and there's no doubt that he would have gotten curtains in any other video during that time. But I suppose its a victory in itself that we're still even talking about his part at all, as being cushioned in between Gonz and Lee would've been a death sentence for just about anybody else. I guess the classic catchphrase of "and Rudy's part was good, too" is really all you can hope for when sandwiched in between some real beasts... a scenario that seemed to come up in Rudy's career over and over again.

9 comments:

Keith said...

Rudy and Guy were my favourites in Video Days when it first came out. Years later, Jason Lee's part started growing on me.

Rudy was always one of my favourites. The fs nollie flip up three and then switch bs flip down three. Amazing. I was at New Spot when he did his first line in Goldfish. There's a second set of stairs after he did the nollie flip and he bailed a 360 flip.

All those Rudy youtube clips are in rough shape.

Watson said...

Nice.

I think also underrated is how stylin Rudy was. His shit was always so smooth.

I've never EVER watched all of Jordan Richter's section. I forget what magazine it was, but they were talking about Video Days and they listed all the people in it and DIDN'T list Jordan Richter. Aahah so harsh. Sort of like Ryan Fabry in Questionable.

chops said...

yeah keith, i noticed that rudy video days clip in particular was looking pretty haggard. Plus, I gotta say that I'm pretty jealous of your time in SF during its golden age, and doubt I'm hardly the only one.

but rudy and guy when it came out? no Gonz?

watson, that fabry part remains one of the biggest disappointments my friends and I ever had due us tripping out over this part the year before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_3PRylQLYw

yeah, its another rough encode and that clip hasn't aged well at all (that tranny stuff is a snoozer) but in '91, it was unbelievable. i remember us actually looking forward to that as much as the pros parts when it came out. and then it dropped with that horrible bubbles joint (and i love bad brains)... it was such a bummer.

Didn't he ride for television shortly before both he and that company faded into obscurity?

Keith said...

Gonz footage has never really done it for me. Not sure why.

Rudy has an amazingly smooth style. Long arm style. But he's not that tall. I'm always surprised how short a lot of pros are in real life.

As for Fabry... I remember he had a PE ad doing a kickflip to bs tail on a bench. Never saw that AI meats video before. He's got a strange style. Especially in Questionable. Speaking of that video... the copy I grew up with had the Gonz doing a foot plant over the pyramid at the Powell warehouse. A friend of mine got a copy of it from Colin before it was released. Supposedly Gonz was pissed and told Plan B to take him out of it.

Justin said...

I've always partial to Rudy's section. The Dinosaur JR cover of the Cure is great.

chops said...

yeah, i just read about that gonz edit in the Carl Hyndman interview over on bobshirt. i've heard alot of stuff like that about Mark. I know he got into with Kosick over the phone when big brother started... "Fuck you, I'm not down with your scene" is roughly the quote.

and justin, your blog is really good, man. steve claar, neil blender, barker barrett... very nice indeed. everyone needs to go there, pronto.

admin said...

Rudys part was always my favourite on video days. i think it was cos he was a similar age to me and as someone else said the dinosaur jr cover was so sick.

hairfarmer said...

I believe the exact quote was: "Fuck off fatass, I'm not down with your scene." I think it was in the quotes section of a Big Brother.

Fabry definitely had at least one ad for Television, although I don't remember the trick.

I'll chime in and say that without a doubt Gonz has my favorite part in Video Days. I was never that stoked on Rudy's part, although I agree that his trick selection was pretty modern for back then.

chops said...

that's the one, hairfarmer.

and while all parts are not without their merits (does liking Jordan's song count?), Gonz's part absolutely crushed it for me. Probably my all-time favorite video part to be honest. And had me wondering what that damn song was for like 5 years (John Coltrane - Traneing In).