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It's just too bad that this is what created Jakes's infamy. The dude kills, but now he's the fall-down guy to the entire world.
He's not the fall down guy, he's the get back up and walk off the ramp after falling 40 feet guy. He's the guy that made people respect skateboarders a little more because he doesn't quit. Hey, at least people are talking about skateboarding right?
He's fall-down, get up to you and me... well, plus he's Jake Brown to you and me. Everyone who's hit me up about it has been "hey, didja see that guy fall? Holy crap!" That's all they see, fall. When coworkers or other people around here find out I skate, one of the first questions is "you ever fall, man?" Either that or they tell me about how they quit back in the day because they broke a pinky toe or whatever.
What I'm saying is that as skateboarders, we're better qualified to know how gnarly Jake is... he'd just landed a retardedly fucked up trick, and bailed out of a trick we better understand the physics of (as well as understand why he went away from the wall) and all that... all the general public knows is that skater-fall-down-go-boom. I'm just saying that I wish Jake had his name in the spotlight because of how fucking good he is, but if this shit benefits him in the end, I'm 100% down for that too. I've long thought he deserved as much from skateboarding as he could get, but I think the reason he's famous now insults his talent.
As far as people talking about skateboarding... I don't know anymore. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I wish skateboarding was smiled upon enough so that every kid had access to a good skatepark, but frowned upon enough so that skating ledges in the city was still illegal. I think skating has a certain dignity because of it's illegality... I also think it makes you appreciate spots more when you know you have to bum rush them.
I know skateboarding's characterization in the media (Larry King, ESPN, , Fuel, etc) has no effect on my skating, but I don't think it's wrong to care about the perception that skateboarding has (or is developing). I don't like skateboarding being seen as some kind of jock thing, especially considering that I skateboarded as a kid
despite jocks. Non skaters will never see skateboarding as we see it, but if they're going to have a perception of it, I'd rather it be something else than what it is. Meh.