Mike V: "1st Plan B video: 1st video to turn people off from skating"

[Strike A Pose]

Why is this old motherfucker who barely skates anymore getting so emotional about Mike V?

Lame as hell, Gipper!

Move on with your life!

Seen your footage and you suck both as a poster and as a skater, i probably skate more than you do and im almost twice as old as you.
GTFO

Lol!

Get mad, faggot

I don't give a fuck!

[b.v.]

I think the hardest part to convey about that time period was how fast things changed and how slowly it trickled down into the outer lying areas. I remember looking at a magazine and seeing Aaron Murray doing some layback slide on a bank, and 2 pages later templeton is boardsliding a rail. Dudes got left behind, a lot of them too.

That time period squeezed A decade of progression into 3 years. Every aspect of skating changed. Clothing styles, board styles, trick and spot selection. I lost 90% of my skate buddies in that time frame. They just lost interest because shit was so tech,gross and cliquey. I never got the jock vibe from plan b then, but looking back I can see the mindset.

I just remember skating downtown, and I was all about impossibles ,lateshoves and 1 footed ollies and I was wearing some classic early 90s plaid pants or something goofy and the kids down there had massive cut off pants and only did noseslide combos and switch flip tricks 2 inches off the ground and I got laughed at because I didn't have a dwindle board and I actually tried to pop my tricks high. It was a weird time, slowly I conformed because I had no one else to skate with and after a while it wore on you. I had fun but not much of it. I broke so many boards first day back then.

It's fine to watch a few minutes of an interview and come up with an opinion, but this is one topic that if you didn't live through it, you really have no clue about what went down and how it affected the skate world. Mikes is just one perspective. Skating collectively needed an ass kicking and change. And if it brought us to where we are now with most anything being accepted, that's fine by me.

[natenola forever]

The thing thats lame about this argument is their were always people that held the fucking torch for Old School skateboarding, if thats what you believe that don't worry about videos and all that other shit. There was a punk rock house here in New Orleans and those dudes built a mini ramp and dug up 80s boards and kept their shit alive. The best thing about it was they actually progressed at the version of Old School skating they loved, they didnt care if people laughed at their boards and clothes. I think the best thing about the early 90s is skateboarding became so underground and clickish that it got rid of everyone that wasn't really down for skateboarding. The late 80's had an epidemic with kids who just carried skateboards cuz it was punk rock and anti establishment, when they were really fully buying into that establishment.
I guess Vallely never saw Not The New H street Video or Useless Wooden Toys i feel like those were the 2 videos that really changed shit.
The funny thing about the Blind video  is no one cared about that shit as much as people make it to be, truthfully people didnt even care about the Gonz mainly cuz he was considered old school. People respected him but no one really cared very much, what i remember about the blind video is everyone bitching about how much the music sucked. I went toBeach Plus one time in the 90s and they had so many leftover copies of the Blind video cuz no one really care about that shit, it's uplifted by all these people that are all about "The good old days " of the 90s.

[McBrandt]

The thing thats lame about this argument is their were always people that held the fucking torch for Old School skateboarding, if thats what you believe that don't worry about videos and all that other shit. There was a punk rock house here in New Orleans and those dudes built a mini ramp and dug up 80s boards and kept their shit alive. The best thing about it was they actually progressed at the version of Old School skating they loved, they didnt care if people laughed at their boards and clothes. I think the best thing about the early 90s is skateboarding became so underground and clickish that it got rid of everyone that wasn't really down for skateboarding. The late 80's had an epidemic with kids who just carried skateboards cuz it was punk rock and anti establishment, when they were really fully buying into that establishment.
I guess Vallely never saw Not The New H street Video or Useless Wooden Toys i feel like those were the 2 videos that really changed shit.
The funny thing about the Blind video  is no one cared about that shit as much as people make it to be, truthfully people didnt even care about the Gonz mainly cuz he was considered old school. People respected him but no one really cared very much, what i remember about the blind video is everyone bitching about how much the music sucked. I went toBeach Plus one time in the 90s and they had so many leftover copies of the Blind video cuz no one really care about that shit, it's uplifted by all these people that are all about "The good old days " of the 90s.

Beach Plus in Ft Walton Beach? I stopped in there back in like '00 when i was on tour with my friends band, and bought a new Zero deck I was stoked on.

[Star Whores Episode I: The Fellatio Menace]

I think Mike V is in too much of a niche category of skating for him to be a central voice on how the professional world of skateboarding has evolved over the years. He has stayed in the same place for so many years, its only natural for him to be bitter that his brand of skating is the fastest to become obsolete no matter how many times he reinvents it. Unfortunately for him, street plants do not look as good through the nostalgia viewfinder as does Mike Carroll skating EMB or anything Mark Gonzales had done over the years. I'm not saying that the progression that the kids today are showing have nothing to owe to what Mike V has done in skateboarding, its just not as much of a clear connection in the story.

Its tough for niche skateboarders who have had great careers like Mike V and Nate Sherwood to carve out their place in how they brought skateboarding from 1982 to 2012. Even though no one will ever turn pro again because they did pressure flips and street plants,(Doug Brown, excl.) they will always play a big part in how cul-de-sac kids, dudes nothing but a backpack and a bus ticket, and bowl barneys alike will look at skateboarding.

As I have always said to people, the best kind of skateboarding does not happen in contests, street leagues, and is rarely recorded. Skateboarding is what you make of it, and niche skateboarders inspire to make it in a different way.

Unfortunately, all this is boring fodder for a skate documentary compared to Danny Way's career of ledge dancing to Mega Ramping.

[Seamus_McShamebag]

mike v is pretty gnarly, no doubt hes a good skater but "questionable" fits him better than that video. he definitely comes across to me as one of those gay guys who tries to be super masculine to make up for it

I can relate to that in a way, I am actually a super masculine straight guy and I have started wearing one of these to compensate...

[stephop]

Hokus Pokus was the 1st plan B type video except they just put a trillion people in it but there was infinite sick shit in that video way ahead of everyone. Questionable was just fucked in that regard too. I can't say one way or another if it was good for skating or bad. It was definitely the only other video besides Hokus Pokus when I was skating basically every day that I literally felt I was way behind as far as what tricks they were doing. It's all relative. No matter what era of skating it is there was always people that tried to do new and more technical shit. That's just the way it is. Only thing I really hated about early 90's skating was them trying to sell small ass wheels for 30 bucks.

[baconeggandcheese]

Was watching free lunch and found something extremely relevant, check out how Creager felt when Questionable came out: "scared...hopes and dreams of a professional skateboarder just got shot down...etc"

3:03

Skateboarder Ronnie Creager - Free Lunch Interview

[ziggy]

How strange. Creager was the PJ of his day. No reason to be insecure.

[Skate Edge]

I started skating between Questionable and Virtual Reality (Jan. '93) and when I saw Questionable, I thought, "Fuck this.  I'm just going to pretend it's still the '80s and do bonelesses."  And I did.  And I still skate.  And I even know some flip tricks now. 

My point is Mike V may have a point.

[FUSE]

there are some good points on both sides of this argument.  it might be an east coast thing, but mike vallely was one of our favorite dudes back in 89-90, so his "the hottest skater" comment holds some weight.  however, someone said he's a walking contradiction and that's on point.

i think mr. reagan backs up mike's point the best in that if you WEREN'T ALREADY SKATING when questionable came out, you might not want to start.  for real heads that WERE skating though, questionable was pure fire.  that said, for me and creager alike (although he rips me to shreds), questionable made us think we couldn't possibly become pro.

still think virtual reality is better and whoever said video days wasn't shit is fucking retarded.  also, shackle me not was more groundbreaking than hokus pokus or not the new simply because it came first.

[xenu]

  also, shackle me not was more groundbreaking than hokus pokus or not the new simply because it came first.

this is one of those sentences where capitalizing certain words would help

[Reggie Dunlop]

Yes, Mike V. is lame
Yes, Questionable was an important video for skateboarding's technical progression.
Still though, his point is completely valid, no matter how much anybody here who didn't skate back then can appreciate that video now.

All correct here.

I think he explained himself well here. I think he saw himself getting passed by. In terms of ability, he did. And it happened fast. H-Street (then with Plan B) was jockish. i.e. Jason Lee's mock out of Ternasky in Video Days.

Also, those dudes were kinda dicks at the time. They were also teenagers.  They were making way more money than the rest. The rest weren't making shit. But, the rest couldn't do what they did.

[FUSE]

  also, shackle me not was more groundbreaking than hokus pokus or not the new simply because it came first.

this is one of those sentences where capitalizing certain words would help

if you'd seen all three of those videos you wouldn't be confused.  if you haven't, you should.  as far as i remember, shackle me not was the first video to use regular video cameras.  powell-peralta pretty much had a monopoly on skate films before that.

[CossRooper]

I don't exactly love Vallely but what he said wasn't as bad as people are making it out to be. Some of the heavy hitters of the pre-questionable era, guys like Mike V, Hensley, Dressen, Tom Knox, Jim Thiebaud, Frankie Hill, Ron Allen, Donger, etc., just had talents that didn't match what became the standard: handrails and uber-tech. Anyone who was there during the transition saw it happen and saw their role models become obsolete to the industry. In this interview he was talking about that, not saying the Plan B video turned kids away from skating, it spawned new expectations and set a bar that a lot of guys couldn't meet. The first Zero video had a similar effect, but on a smaller scale. These videos also made kids skate differently and resulted in huge progressive surges.

I don't see how anyone who wasn't there can act like they know what it was like, you all can have opinions but talking like you know all about it would be like me telling an old hippy what I think of the 60's or talking to old punk rockers about how todays [fake ass] scene is just as rad as the late 70's. Or fuck, its as stupid as me acting like I know how it is to be a teenager right now. I'm not there now and a lot of you weren't there then, thats just how it is. As skaters we saw skating enter a dark time while completely changing. He's just relating his interpretation and his experience.

However, his skating isn't more "artistic," thats bullshit, its just how he does things, and the jock/athletic turn that skating took was not during the Questionable times of 92-93 so he's off point there. That started around '95 (first X Games) and slowly grew into what it is today. It's stupid popular so too many people do it and they're not humbled from being societal outcasts, now they're actually "cooler" for being skateboarders, so there's more room for bad attitudes and less need for unity between skaters. There's a reason people are nostalgic about the early 90's that's hard to understand. Skating is still the best thing in the world but it's a different beast.

QFT

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

wait...Donger killed it for years after Questionable came out. Snap like that will never be out of style.

[MexicanSpaniard]

I can't watch that much mikev or read all of this, he is trolling skateboard media, mental gnars to the hate posts about it.

[layzieyez]

I didn't even bother watching the video of whatever Mike V. is talking about.

I'm just going to say that when Shackle Me Not dropped, I lost some friends in skateboarding.

When Hokus Pokus premiered in Honolulu, I know of some friends who quit the next day.

By the time Questionable rolled out, my friends who are lifers to this day were the ones I watched that video with.

It's easy to look at Questionable and think, man, why wouldn't everyone want to skate that way or that everyone was at least close. 

What you need to do is compare videos like New Deal Useless Wooden Toys to 1281, and then to Da Deal is Dead because I think this reflects the reality of those times best. 

Watch what progression looked like and tell me if that even looks fun because that is what it looked like in one of the bigger companies of that era.  Just imagine how that shit looked like in person in the suburbs. 

This is what some of us remember and think about when people who weren't there reminisce about times that didn't exist.

One last parting thing I want to add.

I met Jeremy Wray in 1994 at Little Five Points in Atlanta while he was walking around without a board waiting for the demo to start.  We went to lunch at Fellini's and while walking around with him, I saw other skaters who didn't recognize him at all just vibing the fucking shit out of him because that's how the scene was back in those times.  The fucking evil eye from so many randoms because he was dressed like a skater but didn't have a board.  Tell me you'd like to be a kid starting skating in those days when one of skateboarding's fucking legends got that kind of treatment.

[sluggers]

I didn't even bother watching the video of whatever Mike V. is talking about.

If you are not even going to bother to see what the thread is about then anything and everything you write is invalid and no one gives a fuck.

[layzieyez]

I didn't even bother watching the video of whatever Mike V. is talking about.

If you are not even going to bother to see what the thread is about then anything and everything you write is invalid and no one gives a fuck.

Oh no!  I better go and watch the fucking video right now!

Yeah right.  Get bent.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

I didn't even bother watching the video of whatever Mike V. is talking about.

If you are not even going to bother to see what the thread is about then anything and everything you write is invalid and no one gives a fuck.

Your a fucking retard.

[friendly dave]

I didn't even bother watching the video of whatever Mike V. is talking about.

If you are not even going to bother to see what the thread is about then anything and everything you write is invalid and no one gives a fuck.

Your a fucking retard.