Junk Skating & Parallel Dreams

We sat down with Lance to do a commentary track on his Ban This part and ended up delving into "The Parallel" and "The Dream" as well. Enjoy.

Special thanks to Carples, Kurt, Rattray and Lance for taking the time.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xLw0MuMbw

Index of parts... sans commentary.

Lance, Neil and O - Ban This

Girl - The Parallel

The Firm - The Dream

bye.

a serious tea drinker.

The following question had to unfortunately be edited out of Lance Mountain’s CBI Interview back in July simply because the piece was already running a bit long... and I've regretted cutting it ever since. It’s being presented now simply because it has to be. Enjoy.

Alright Lance, what’s your favorite Neil Blender story?

So many things, man. He’s just one of those guys, ya know?

But I think I know what it is. I know exactly what it is. I was with my girlfriend then who is my wife now… it was right when Transworld started and they wanted me to work for them. This is what I remember anyway. A perfect Neil day… this was around ’83.

He called up just to see about me working for the magazine. Telling me that I had to get a camera to take some photos for an article.

“Ok, whatever.”

“Come to my house and we’ll go down to the magazine so you can meet the guys.”

So my girlfriend/future-wife and I hop into the car and drive down to Neil’s house. He’s actually renting an apartment at this point, living on his own. We pull in and the first thing that I remember is that he lives across the street from a Ralph’s. There’s a loading dock in the back adjacent to Neil’s apartment and he had totally gone out there and spraypainted this gigantic weird character on the wall. That was the first thing we saw where it was like, “Oh my goodness…”

I mean, I’d seen graffiti my entire life in LA but the way Neil had painted this giant rocking horse guy over at Ralph’s. Woah… I just remember telling Yvette, even though she’d met him before, but just reiterating that Neil is just… nuts.

So we go into his apartment and the cat is dyed pink. Pink food coloring cat comes to the door. We walk through the door and the living room is completely empty. There is one TV set by the wall and opposite that wall is a giant box. A 4’x8’ plywood box. Four feet tall, eight foot long box... with a couch on top of it. And he’s sitting on this couch that's on top of this box, watching tv with his head touching the ceiling. I ask him what the box is all about and he opens it up to show a mattress inside.

“Oh, that’s John’s room.”

“Ok.”

So I turn to the kitchen and Yvette is just standing there.

“What is that?”

There is a hole smashed through the kitchen wall. A hole, not a door, though it’s about the same height as a door and everything. But the studs and everything are there from where it had been smashed through.

“That’s the garage. I got sick of going around.”

So we get into his car… and it’s a hot car. I think it was a Dodge Dart or maybe a Volvo but it’s all painted weird. We hop inside and go driving down PCH to go to San Diego and Transworld. We're on this little bridge going over Newport… and everytime my wife and I go by this bridge, we think of this story just because we remember it so clearly, but a cop pulls us over. We pull over on the bridge… which is kinda sketchy. The cop comes to the window and asks Neil to turn off the car because it was still running.

“It will be off in a minute, sir.”

He’s totally trying to turn it off with pliers. I'm just thinking to myself, "Oh man, what is going on?"

He finally gets the car to turn off. The cop sees all of this and totally thinks it's super sketchy so he makes us get out of the car and sit on the curb.

We’re out there and my wife and I are being as quiet as we can because we don’t like to get in trouble. But Neil is just being normal Neil. Finally the cop looks at Neil and goes, “What’s that?”

We hadn't noticed it before but Neil has a tea cup hanging on a little chain clipped to a loop on his pants. It’s one of those pyrex drinking tea cups.

Neil lifts it up, looks at the cop and says, “I’m a serious tea drinker.”

So funny. And that was our day. That was it for us. And everytime we drive by that bridge, my wife and I will both say, “I’m a serious tea drinker.”

How rad is that? You just want to be like that but you can’t. You can’t be like that because there’s nobody in the world that can survive being like that. And it’s just the raddest. The raddest dude ever… by far. That story makes me so happy to this day.

Thanks Lance. 

chrome ball incident #877: the heated wheel

15

"a basic attempt at glee."

the obvious choice to end this impromptu TWS/Skate & Create tangent, Aggro Zone.
Neil''s bi-monthly showcase of all things Blender.

Scribbling meets shutter. Infinitely quotable and perfectly mysterious.Super good.

Crazy week coming up so please bear with me.

Big thanks to Quartersnacks and T-Moss.

Bye.

chrome ball incident x transworld skateboarding #8

Number 8 on the list needs no introduction... especially on this site. June '86. 

 

“Angles are a precious thing.”

Trying to capture the complexities of someone like Neil Blender within the confines of a few magazine pages borders on the impossible. But TransWorld’s attempt, conducted by Stacy Peralta with a jawdropping layout designed by Blender himself, remains our greatest peek inside a mind of staggering creativity. The piece’s loose format thankfully allows Neil to play around and be himself, inspiring a generation of kids in its wake to do the same.

Don't ever reply.

(late pass)

mark and eric's pack of lies

Mark:

So speaking of Blender…

I know, I know, each dot should lead to another new one, but there’s just too much beauty and mystery and straight-up magic in Neil Blender for me to just move on immediately. But I’ll do it with focus- his part in “Footage” from G&S.

By the time 1990 rolled around, Blender had already been there and done that. All of it. He was a vert legend by the early ‘80s, contributed OG street innovations (no-comply, anybody?), ushered in the era of mini-ramps, been a figurehead in the DIY board graphics movement in skating, given all the best names to all the best tricks, and generally been a unique and ultra-creative personality for years upon years. What all that seemed to add up to was a part featuring some of the most “I don't give a fuck” (in a good way) skating and speaking ever captured on video. Blender seemed like he couldn’t care less about being cool or doing anything related to what the cool guys were doing (note that this part was post-Hocus Pocus, post-Rubbish Heap), and as a result, he was the coolest ever. That’s kind of a cliché, but he epitomizes it. Some notes from the epic and savagely under-appreciated seven-minute part…

1) It opens with an illustration of possibly a seated kangaroo playing a lute for some cats? The tone is set.

2) Scene two finds him in the bathroom at a Super-8 motel with some cheap toy top, a cup, and a sink full of water. I want to pause on this fact for a moment. This is obviously down time on some tour. Rather than partying, getting chicks, shopping, buying weed, or whatever else most pros on the road would do with their precious down time, Blender has chosen a toy, a cup and a sink full of water. It’s these little moments that become the nuggets of both confusion and attraction for me, as memorable or possibly more so than most tricks in video parts. Anyhow, the top goes into the water, and his reply: “I hate that game.” What? This is a game you’ve played before? So many questions! How is the water supposed to factor in? Argh, the mystery has already begun.

3) “That’s the stuff people put in their coffee.” Lighting non-dairy creamer on fire in the street? Enough said.

4) Rocket tailblock on the ramp in the woods. Have you ever tried this? Just thinking about it is difficult.

5) “Guh-duls… guh-duls!” Imagine trying to use that call to actually get girls. He had the weird, vaguely eastern European accent down pat a solid decade before Borat emerged. I call to my two daughters this way at least once a week.

6) Fakie manual on a mini-ramp. People were not doing this in the streets yet.

7) OK, now the incredibly quick scene where he walks up, drops his bag and gets into an attack crouch in front of a group of young kids… this might be the single most mesmerizing thing in a skate video I ever saw. When this video came out, my parents had just gotten a new VCR that had a slow-mo function, and I used that button literally hundreds of times while watching this scene. He moves like a graceful hunting cat, and the children are actually frightened. Look how they scatter. Why does he do this? Why do I need to see it over and over? Why is it so captivating? It’s like a scene out of Twin Peaks or something.

8) Back to the mini. This whole segment blows my mind. He does tricks that nobody ever did before and nobody has done since. If I could choose between doing the tricks he does in this part or the tricks Daewon and Haslam do in Cheese and Crackers, I would not hesitate a moment to take Blender’s quiver. The shopping cart/push manual, the fakie sweeper, the pendulum f/s rock, and on and on, all done by a 6-foot+ man on a three-foot mini while wearing full pads.

9) “Trip out, trip out.” Another moment I cannot explain my fantastic attraction to, and another phrase I utilize regularly whenever something is supposed to be weird but actually isn’t.

10) The scene in the shop where he analyzes a few graphics. This is probably the most widely known moment from the overall part because of the skeletons comment. Parking Corey O’Brien’s flaming reaper may have been the exact turning point in the transition from the ‘80s to the ‘90s in terms of board graphics, the metaphorical shot heard round the world. I think we, as a community, avoided skull and skeleton graphics for a solid six or seven years in the aftermath of this comment. That’s how powerful and how much a sign of the times it was. Neil dictated the future. It was right on then, and it is right on now. How skulls made such a comeback, I just don’t know.

And also the John Sonner comment- is he calling him a whittler, as in somebody who does small things, or is he calling him a widdler, which I was told means somebody who pees the bed? Either way, John Sonner retired shortly after this part came out.

11) Watching him throughout the part, I still notice his clothes. This was 1990- Limpies pajama pants, neon high-top Airwalks, side print t-shirts, chain wallets, etc. But there he is: skinny khakis, black socks, extremely basic low-top sneakers, t-shirts with no logo. Minimalism. Basics. Made me realize that when you really stand out from the crowd, you don’t need to advertise it outwardly. Actions speak louder than outfits.

12) The small spine. This session also blows my mind. The hand-out on a deck not much wider than his board. No-handed nosepick on a board with very little nose. Nollies over the spine, also with very little nose. And of course, inverts around the spine. Around it. I think that is the quintessential trick in the part. Never seen it again.

13) A few moments later, the music starts and you realize there has been no music the entire time, and you have been totally captivated nonetheless. As a HUGE fan of music creating the right vibe for a part, I must say that I can’t imagine this part with a song. It would have ruined it, would have taken away the hushed reverence, the silent awe that I appreciate it with. And it’s interesting- as the part fades out and you get the very Dino-sounding track, the super-8 footage, and the crusty Ohio wallride spot, you can literally see the initial contractions of the birth of the Alien Workshop happening. Within a few months, Blender would leave G&S, taking along Steve Claar, Duane Pitre, a pre-pubescent Rob Dyrdek, and a few others along to start AWS with Chris Carter and Mike Hill. Remember, when Workshop was first around, it was riding on Blender’s shoulders. He carried it. His aesthetic was a huge piece of what defined the Workshop look and feel, and still does to this day. I don't think enough people give him credit for that. And then once Workshop was up and running, he promptly disappeared. Into the ether.

This is already ridiculously long, so I’ll clip the string in a second. But to me, this is one of the parts that is bigger than skateboarding, more than skateboarding. It’s a moment that shaped my life in strange, unknown, but powerful ways. Neil Blender is one of the few pros who I admired greatly but didn’t ever meet- and I hope to keep it that way. Sacred cows and all that.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric:

Speaking of influences….

I suppose this one’s kind of a no-brainer since I did name my site after the guy. A little obvious, I suppose, but when the only other option is omission, you gotta do what you gotta do. The problem here is that when I try to summarize into words why Blender remains so special not only to me but an entire generation, long after he opted to fade into the background, I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Genius, for sure, but that’s too easy. An elementary observation like that just won’t suffice. Not for this guy. It’s larger than that… more abstract. In the most admittedly-vague terms, Blender is Blender. A rare breed of creature that is indeed unlike any other. It’s this remarkable sense of individuality he operates within that seems to be the source of endless fascination.  The way you can see his hand in whatever medium he decides to work in. This unique way he carries himself that has yielded a thousand stories and a million quotables. Everything he seems to do just exudes a pure Neil-ness. And that’s not an easy task. For example, back when skulls were big business, only Blender could go on coffee break and come back with a masterpiece. Sorry Corey O’Brien. And honestly, who else could forever alter the comfort Hugh “Bod” Boyle once took for granted whenever anybody uttered his name.

It’s like Neil was clued into something about skateboarding we’ll never know. An entirely different side that nobody else is even privy to. And he wasn’t willing to share. Why would he? He was obviously having much more fun than we were. His ads often ran like taunting invitations to a place we could never experience. Cooking ramps in his house. Wrestling Claar outside a toy store. Telling the announcer to shut-up mid-run before hopping off his board to spray paint a wall… The tricks he could come up with were only overshadowed by the names he gave them. There will never be another Blender. It was only fitting that he so often skated a replica of the moon.

I’ve never met Blender. Not face-to-face. We’ve exchanged a few emails and I’ve begged and pleaded for an interview a couple of times but that’s it. So this very well could be a romanticized notion of Neil… but at least for me, it’s true. And like Mark said with Jessee, I’ve really never tried to emulate him in any fashion… other than that one time I purchased a Timberwolves t-shirt. (Buying Dinosaur Jr. records doesn’t count.)

You just can’t imitate dudes like this… it just doesn’t work. So go ahead and take that shirt sleeve off your head.

As corny as it sounds, Neil represents to me the idea that anything is possible and everything is open to interpretation. There’s no set way of doing things and that often those scenic routes into the unorthodox are where the real treasures can be found. Stop being so damn serious all the time. Especially in skateboarding with it’s ever-growing set of social faux-pas and conservative tisk-tisks. It’s miserable and it’s dumb… which is why Louie Barletta’s had my vote for SOTY the last 5 years running.

I’m glad to see the Wheel is still Heated. It’s comforting to know that he’s still out there, intermingling with our world and active in all his pursuits. Permenantly in his own personal Aggro Zone. Just being Neil.  

chrome ball incident #583: spontaneity

"hey, how's everyone doing this year?"

I didn't even know NMB advertised.

Never seen this before. Still stoked on this.

Figured I'd start the week out some Blender action... double rail bart transfer always gets me hyped.

Had a great weekend and finally got some rest... definitely feelin' good and not nearly so "doomed" anymore. Sorry about that.

Definitely hyped on this week. Next three posts will be rippers that have yet to grace chrome ball's humble abode and I did get that edit approved so look for an interview on Friday.

And in other news, wowsers!

Big up to Quartersnacks, Mr. Max Schaaf, Jamie Owens and Robert Brink.

chrome ball incident #452: aggro zone

Q: "You can't think of any contributions you gave to skateboarding?"

A: "No. I just skated... did my part."

chrome ball incident #337: xenia

figured i'd go back to the essence for this one... blender's genius topsy-turvy spotlight from '86 with stacy peralta.

these are classic... but I've really been vibing off this one lately.

(i really gotta get one of those timberwolves tees)

and is that clear griptape in the coffee break ad or none at all?

good to be back. got a lot of theme-type posts in the works as well as several requests to take care of.

thanks for stopping by.

special thanks to leaves63.