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Danny Way, mid descent - photo by Grant Brittain

Whenever my mom asks me why I’m still skateboarding at my age, as if it’s equivalent to picking your nose (which I haven’t grown out of either), I wish I could transport this picture into her mind.

A wise (and perhaps autistic) guy I used to skate with once told me, “Skateboarding is the closest we can come to flying.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that airplanes have been around for over 100 years, plus I liked the point he was making anyway. It only makes sense in a way that somebody who’s really experienced skateboarding could know. The speed and danger and freedom and shit… fuck, it is a little bit like flying, isn’t it?

And I guess, just like anything that goes up in the air… at some point, you must come back down.

A while back, I posted up a music video directed by Patrick O’Dell that paid tribute to Matt Hensley’s part in H-Street’s Hokus Pokus. At the time, I couldn’t find Hensley’s original part despite several dedicated minutes of scouring the Internets. However, today we spell “retribution” D-Q-M… since I recently found the part on DQM’s blog.

Before Hensley’s part gets started there’s a brief vert section — that reads almost as a cautionary notice, which is unfortunate. People who are still hating on vert are as bad as the fucking jocks. Ever taken a fall on a vert ramp? Those dudes wear pads for a reason, and it’s not because they’re “on their knees” all the time — it’s because taking a digger all the way to the flat fucking hurts. Just like skateboarding should.

A very young Danny Way makes an appearance at the end there as well. After watching him murder that ramp at his age, it’s really not that surprising he was jumping out of helicopters a few years later. Okay, actually, that is still really surprising.

As I get older, I find I enjoy watching vert skating more and more, which is probably mostly just a testament to the fact that it’s been years since vert’s been popular in skateboarding at all so it’s got a bit of a novelty factor in addition to nostalgic value. That’s a serious two-for-one. When will vert come back? Um… I guess maybe whenever the current flip-in, flip-out phase passes which, honestly, could be never considering it’s been going on since like 1992.

Alas, here’s a parting shot from more interesting days, courtesy of The Chrome Ball Incident.

Matt Hensley, indy grab - photo via Chrome Ball