Stuff I've learned from watching skate video.

YOU KNOW HOW when you're watching a skateboard video and somebody comes in the room that totally doesn't watch skateboard videos and they're all like, "Oh, you're watching a skateboard video again?" But they say it all shitty like there's something better you could be doing with your time? You know what I'm talking about, right? Well, fuck that. I've been watching skateboarding videos for as long as I can remember. And I think I've learned some really important and insightful lessons by doing so. What have I learned? As always, I'm glad that you asked.

#1 IF YOU GIVE a 15-year-old kid all the liquor that he can possibly drink, without a doubt he will eventually throw up like crazy. And when he's done throwing up he'll pass out so hard that you can take a permanent magic marker and write as many funny things having to do with penises as you can think of all over his face.

#2 IF YOU FILM somebody crushing their testicles on a metal railing and then you take that footage and put it in slow motion, it becomes even more painful to watch. And every guy who has passed through the gates of puberty that watches it will totally be all like, "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh!" For real. Every single time. They might also grab their own junk to show how serious they are about their sympathy.

#3 IF YOU HAPPEN to run across an underpaid security guard who is either a) extremely overweight, b) marginally mentally retarded, or c) a member of the elderly community, and you harass the living shit out of them, they will totally give you a performance for your video camera that will elicit laughs from people who have never had to work a shitty job in their life. Fuck 'em, right?

#4 IF YOU FIGURE OUT how to use a Super-8 camera and you film anything that I type in the next sentence, then you my friend will have embarked upon a totally unique artistic endeavor: Birds in flight; trains; birds not in flight; sunsets; sunrises; people walking in a city; people artfully skating down a sidewalk or street; flatland tricks done very casually; anything in the woods. Did I mention birds?

#5 I FEEL LIKE this one completely needs a disclaimer. So here it is: Dear NYC, I have visited your fair, fair city and I am completely of the opinion that you are indeed one of the most inspirational and magical cities on the entire planet. That being said, I've learned that if you make a skateboard video that has lots and lots and lots of footage of people just totally rolling through the streets of NYC, then a whole shit load of people who watch that video are going to feel completely alienated. Most people have never even been to NYC. That's just true.

#6 IF YOU MAKE a skateboard video that pretty much doesn't have any skating in it but totally does have tons of footage of you taking pisses in your dad's face, there's a good chance you might end up with your own show on MTV. Which is actually pretty awesome because then you can wear eyeliner just like all the dudes on the cover of Spin. Oh, and you can also wear trench coats and top hats. Which is like, totally eccentric.

#7 NO MATTER HOW GOOD you are at skating vert, if you film yourself skating avert ramp and stick it in a video surrounded by street skateboarding, then your part is going to be skipped over when the video's played. That's just how it goes. But at least these days all you have to do to skip a part in a video is push a button. It's not like back in the VHS days when people didn't want to watch your vert part so badly that they'd sit patiently through a few minutes of fast forwarding. That makes it a little better, doesn't it?

#8 IF YOU MAKE a video that primarily showcases young men performing maneuvers down really, really large sets of stairs and scooting down really, really long handrailings, and you also show the repercussions of those maneuvers gone wrong, and you incorporate dripping blood into your motion graphics and have really "heavy" music to accompany your project, then you'll probably make a lot of money being completely derivative. (PS: We already know people can do lipslides down huge rails. We totally get it.)

#9 ANTI-HERO CAN MAKE a skateboard video with a VHS Dadcam in a week and a half that will be better than 87-percent of the other videos made that year. I know you think I wrote that just because I write for Thrasher, but I didn't. I just know that "Fucking gnarly" beats "Thousandth try" any day of the week. Nobody taught me that. I just know that.

#10 I'VE LEARNED THAT if you spend all of your time watching skateboard videos and getting totally into them and memorizing all of the songs and all of the fantastic maneuvers instead of actually getting your ass off of your couch and getting your ass onto your skateboard and living your own life, then you might end up being more impressed with skateboard videos than with skateboarding itself. And as a man of the world, let me assure you: You and your friends are just as important to skateboarding as any dude you see in a video. Except Neil Blender, but he's special.