I don't know what the legal problems he had to face were, but I really hope he gets his shit together for the Chocolate video. Seems to me that the most heavenly-gifted skateboarders are always the one who care the less. Man, if I had such a sick style I would be every day a the skatepark performing my bs nollie heels in front of the ladies.
I bet you guys have all seen this higly controversial sequence by now:
The aesthetic of that sequence is indisputable, but the great numbers of skaters able to reproduce it is just as indisputable. As a fan of Pops, I feel like he makes it really hard to back him. You know, it's like when your arty friend brings you to the modern art show and the conversation goes on this way: -I could have done that! -Yeah, but you didn't. Already criticized for his "back to the basics" type of skating in Fully Flared, it seems that since then, his skating has got more and more minimalist to the point that he hardly does anything else than ollies and 50-50s...
The style is definitely there and it's sure looks like a lot of fun, but come on, a lot of skaters can do what he does. So this brings the following question: does such skateboarding merit to be rewarded by a pro shoe and a really good salary, when you know that they're are tons of young amateurs with incredible style bustin' their ass out in the street? Besides, it is interesting to see that it would be impossible for an am to come up with such skating now. "Too basic!" the mustached board company would say. Hence, the hammer-race which makes every "who's hot" article incredibly boring to read.
A lot of people are going to try to justify his skating with the traditional East Coast excuse about the shabby state of the spots. Fair enough. But have these people pay attention to Eli Reed's and Zered Basset's recents video parts? It seems that the cracks doesn't prevent them from throwing highly technical maneuvers, neither from skating more than twice a week.
Anyway, meanwhile we can all wait for a DVD version of Photosynthesis. And before offically saying "Pops is milking it big time", we should and hope taht he has actually some incredible footage stored for the next Chocolate video. Time will tell.
