Tom Penny talks like Andre The Giant

[Sick Duck]

I remember that video of him skating the bowl in amsterdam. He was drinking beer, looked pretty out of it and kept bailing fs ollies over the hip. I think he ended up landing one tho

[TheDraught]

I remember that video of him skating the bowl in amsterdam. He was drinking beer, looked pretty out of it and kept bailing fs ollies over the hip. I think he ended up landing one tho

Yes I remember he landed at least one trick and surprising clean too.  But after all this is the man who learned 540s on a vert ramp after some bottles of wine.

I would like to see that Amsterdam footy again (and unfortunately there was only a photographer at that 540 session) but at the same time I can imagine him wanting that footage "banned".

[hot take]

Just here to say a few random things that come to mind.

1: He reminds me of one of the Beatles, even though he doesn't have the Scouser accent like Rowley of course. Not sure which, probably George Harrison

2: I've met and seen him a bunch of times at demos, contests or just at spots and he never seemed kooky. Just staying in the background and out of the spotlight. The only kooky thing I have ever heard about him was at a skate camp in France. The Deathbox (company that changed name to Flip later) team were there the year before as "counselors" and beat up kids and threw them in a canal near the camp. Not sure though how much he was involved, this was around the same time he was stealing that lady's purse in the Menikmati extra's so probably just a part of growing up and being on the road at a young age

3: In interviews he said he reads quite a lot of books, he likes to play chess and is fluent in at least Spanish and French apart from English of course. For sure he's not a dumb-ass

4: Since his mother bought a farm near Bordeaux in the mid 90s she must have been doing better moneywise. Property was a lot cheaper back then of course, but anyway. Maybe she decided to invest some of his Flip/eS royalties into that farm, I hope so. I can't imagine Tom caring too much about money, but that's just a guess.

5: He does care about his image though, especially for his son. There was some footage of him at a bowl in Amsterdam  about 10 years ago where he didn't look too good, was either drunk, high or both and started talking to some girls. Not really harassing them, they were more like laughing and thinking who is this guy and why do they film him?

The guy who apparently posted that footage was/is a poster here and later wrote:

I orignally uploaded that clip but after a while people from Flip contacted me to take it down, even saying that Penny himself wanted it banned hoping his son would never see it, so I chose to respect that...


Which is cool I guess. Whole thread is here: http://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=63861.0

6: He does have a driving license, there was one clip from an indoor bowl somewhere in France (I think) that started with him parking and getting out of a team van. I remember a lot of people in the thread about the clip were surprised to see him driving.

Can't find that clip or thread though, wasn't too long ago, in my mind something like 2014. I remember he dropped in and did some stuff on the flat bottom. Like dropping in, a shove-it or 360 flip at high speed on the flat bottom and then a trick on the opposite wall. Quite crazy actually.

7: I just found this clip, I had seen footage from this day before but never knew Reynolds bailed twice and Penny delivered twice, in his best of styles. (Around the 4:20 mark)



A bit symbolic even because at that time a lot of people were joking that Andrew "stole" Penny's kickflip and made him retire in Europe. After all, Penny was doing huge frontside flips everywhere, the first to do them over big rails for instance, and then all of a sudden he disappears and then guess who starts doing even bigger frontside flips all over town? :-)

I love Penny.

It was a KR3W/Supra video where he was skating an indoor bowl.

[TheDraught]

^^^ thanks found it now. He was ripping that day:

[HombreezysShittyPasta]

Does he just not ever see his kid? Seems far removed from having a role in his life. The ramp story was noble indeed but i mean even more basic things than that like being around

[EastKremer]

Tom Penny's recent interviews seem pretty normal. Not sure why people are saying he's autistic or too drunk to string together a sentence. The man just enjoys skating while being high.

To add a little context to what's already been said about him, I think his accent comes from Oxford. He was raised in an unstable situation where there wasn't a lot of money and moved often, sometimes sleeping in car or a closet. That's part of what gave him his carefree wandering attitude I suspect.

To all the people that make fun of him for having a minder, you should remember that it's because he's incredibly valuable to Flip so they do it, otherwise Tom would still just be chilling somewhere on a skateboard doing his own thing. That minder was hot, I'm told. And now Tom bangs her on the regular. Who has the last laugh? Motherfucking Tom Penny.

/thread

You are all salty cause your fs flips look like Muska which is totally cool too but don’t come to the Internet and say someone is a kook cause your friend told you once he saw *insert pro name here* and he wasn’t as nice as he expected to be
 

[43]

Always fucked with Tom but never heard him speak before. I always assumed he was fried because of the stories you hear but he seems like a sharp guy with a good sense of humor.

As Guru said it’s mostly the voice so I’m going to nominate him for dopest skater who raps.

[GardenSkater77]

Expand Quote

I remember that video of him skating the bowl in amsterdam. He was drinking beer, looked pretty out of it and kept bailing fs ollies over the hip. I think he ended up landing one tho

[close]

Yes I remember he landed at least one trick and surprising clean too.  But after all this is the man who learned 540s on a vert ramp after some bottles of wine.

I would like to see that Amsterdam footy again (and unfortunately there was only a photographer at that 540 session) but at the same time I can imagine him wanting that footage "banned".

I don’t even care about the rotting teeth part. Wish the owner would clean up the parts with him talking. He looked better in that graffiti bowl than all his indoor park footage over the last 15 years. He had the best flow in that clip. I watched the shit out of that. Love Penny. Saw him at the 96’ Radlands comp. skated the park the day after and Rune an Penny stopped by. Penny was smoking joints whilst skating. So fucking rad.

[Nigel Houston]

You all probably know about the Cult of Tom Instagram already, but here it is:
https://www.instagram.com/cultoftom/

The guy who runs it is a solid dude:
https://illpaper.com/skateboarding-instagram-account-cult-of-tom-penny/