4 ms·

I've always been fascinated by Rodney Mullen, and only learned years later he was nicknamed the Godfather of skateboarding. And with good reason! He rose in fa

by lloeki 5y ago

I've always been fascinated by Rodney Mullen, and only learned years later he was nicknamed the Godfather of skateboarding. And with good reason! He rose in fame at a young age, pulling up insane freestyle tricks, yet started before street skateboarding was a thing, and was overnight rendered obsolete. But he went on to reinvent himself and created so many tricks, some he's still the only one able to do, or do with anything close to that level of mastery. He then suffered a medical issue where his hip joint fused... Wasn't supposed to skate ever again but came back from it, relearning everything with a different balance. He's over 50 now, and skating with such style[0], pulling off one-handstand flips which is insane at any age. I respect Tony Hawk, but Mullen is an alien alright, less popular but so much more fundamental for skateboarding. https://youtu.be/xjMGAQCXppc https://youtu.be/xjMGAQCXppc

brandall10 5y ago
I wouldn't say Mullen is less popular, at least amongst skaters. I skateboarded in the mid to late 80s and had a Powell Peralta Mullen board (in addition to a normal street/vert board), so my memories of Mullen really were of this geeky kid in helmet and pads doing the impossible and rarely messing up. More than anyone else, I would watch Bones Brigade VHS tapes on slow motion to figure out just how the heck he pulled this stuff off. I have a theory that freestyle never went anywhere because Mullen was just too good - no one watching him could ever think "yeah, I could do that". That's not to take anything away from Tony Hawk, but for instance, he had contemporaries like Hosoi to keep him in check. Mullen was an island. So happy to find out years later he transitioned to being the king of street skating. Obviously many of the street tricks he invented were on that tiny freestyle board, so he deserves the title regardless, but it's just so cool to see he had a second career and has maintained relevance into advanced age like Tony.
mycologos 5y ago
I know relatively little about skateboarding, but there's a certain genius-from-restriction, literally tinkering-in-the-garage romance to Mullen's skateboarding journey that I really like. From Wikipedia [1]: > When his family moved to a farm in a remote part of Florida, Mullen began perfecting his flatground techniques in the family garage; he has said that the isolation and lack of terrain naturally guided him towards freestyle skateboarding. Mullen cites July 1979–August 1980 as his "most creative time," a time when he was predominantly a loner who counted the cows of the family farm as his best friends....[i]n 1980, the 14-year-old Mullen entered the Oasis Pro competition, defeating the world champion, Steve Rocco. Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  > Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees. Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees, and I cannot imagine how I would pick up anything BUT mini ramps and verts now, and even then, probably very little air, and just grinds, slides, and carves. I was never a pretty skater, but my signature trick was a double kick indy on flat. It was ugly, it was way to fast, but it was something I could do that no one else around me could. Sure I couldn't nollie inward heel, or 360 flip, or tail slide, but I could double kick to indy. I'm still look back fondly on the sheer number of attempts before I could land it consistently forsaking learning all the other tricks everyone else was learning, just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to.
  - thatcat 5y ago
    >just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to this pretty much sums up the joys of skating
  - marttt 5y ago
    > Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees ... Are stunt scooters safer in this regard? Asking because I just bought one for our 7-year-old son. I've been involved in jump-and-run sports all my life, but I do feel somewhat uneasy. This is Kids with Only Two Knees, Wrists and Ankles and Only One Skull meeting Really Hard Surfaces, hm. Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie? BTW, in Early 1990s Estonia, during the strange mixture of post-communist socialism and predatory capitalism, essentially only one kind of skateboard was available. So this was pretty much all you could see; these were everywhere, and sold with a ridiculously low price: https://bit.ly/2SihYmd https://bit.ly/2SihYmd
    - atoav 5y ago
      As mentioned above I skated for more than 10 years and have perfectly fine knees (and all other joints as far as I can tell). And I did crazy stuff, like jumping down stairs higher than myself etc. My younger brother fucked up his knees by playing handball indoors (rapid changes of direction are bad). So I think it really depends on the individual, and what they are doing. Some people destroy thwir knees by stepping out of bed the wrong way. Make sure the kid warms up and does stretches before going for anything crazy, that helps a lot.
MrMember 5y ago
Rodney Mullen is an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography if you haven't read it. When he was entering freestyle competitions early on it was never a question of who would win but rather who would come in second behind Rodney. Nobody could compete with him because he was inventing new tricks (many of which are still staples of street skating) at such a rapid pace. His commitment was otherworldly. When he was in his teens he would get home from school and skateboard until it was time to go to bed. Every day.
axegon_ 5y ago
I wouldn't say he's less popular. I like to think of both of them as the two sides of the same coin. Within the skating community there's probably not a single person not knowing both names and a great amount of detail about both of them. If anything I'd argue that if you adjust the publicity around both of them you'd see that they've dragged in similar proportions of people. But over time little to none stick with the ultimate goal to become their modern version. I suppose it has something to do with what is popular as a whole. What is interesting is that overall skateboarding is a subset of rebellion or at least it's viewed as such and back in the day that was considered a good thing within the community. I'm not sure what's the situation now. The point is that at least during the 2000's neither Hawk or Mullen were representing that rebellious spirit all that much which is why people were going in other directions. Now that I think of it, there's the Thrasher Skater of the year award[1] which accurately captures every era over the last 30 years. Public competitions, to street skate-rats, to the "we're in a videogame, let's throw ourselves down the biggest set of stairs we can find" to... Uugh.. As I said I have no idea what is happening now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_the_Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_...
- lloeki 5y ago
  Maybe "popular" isn't the correct word, maybe "mainstream" is? To illustrate, people far removed from the skateboarding crowd see me with a skateboard and jokingly refer to me as either "Tony Hawk" or "Marty McFly", not because of any resemblance in skill mind you (I'm not even doing vert, and even then, I can barely heelflip) but because these are the people that conjure images of skateboarding to them, whereas they of course have no idea who Mullen is. In that sense Tony Hawk has entered pop culture like no other skateboarder has. > As I said I have no idea what is happening now. There's another revival in progress. The scene is getting incredibly more diverse. See Killian Martin's videos by Bret Novak, very dance like, awesome filming and storytelling. There are more women that ever, which is way overdue. There are old skaters still skating. There are both old and new skaters aiming for a healthy lifestyle. The "old, rebellious way" is still there, it's just not the only way to be a skateboarder anymore.
LocalPCGuy 5y ago
I grew up watching Tony Hawk take the world by storm, but Mullen was the guy that could do all the tricks you dismiss as impossible to pull off when BSing with buddies about what-ifs. His control of a skateboard is legendary.
thatcat 5y ago
He invented the ollie which enabled most other skating tricks.
switchstance 5y ago
This video (and their others) seems heavily inspired by Olivier Gondry's music video for Tiga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk

by lloeki 5y ago

brandall10 5y ago

I wouldn't say Mullen is less popular, at least amongst skaters. I skateboarded in the mid to late 80s and had a Powell Peralta Mullen board (in addition to a normal street/vert board), so my memories of Mullen really were of this geeky kid in helmet and pads doing the impossible and rarely messing up. More than anyone else, I would watch Bones Brigade VHS tapes on slow motion to figure out just how the heck he pulled this stuff off. I have a theory that freestyle never went anywhere because Mullen was just too good - no one watching him could ever think "yeah, I could do that". That's not to take anything away from Tony Hawk, but for instance, he had contemporaries like Hosoi to keep him in check. Mullen was an island. So happy to find out years later he transitioned to being the king of street skating. Obviously many of the street tricks he invented were on that tiny freestyle board, so he deserves the title regardless, but it's just so cool to see he had a second career and has maintained relevance into advanced age like Tony.

mycologos 5y ago

I know relatively little about skateboarding, but there's a certain genius-from-restriction, literally tinkering-in-the-garage romance to Mullen's skateboarding journey that I really like. From Wikipedia [1]: > When his family moved to a farm in a remote part of Florida, Mullen began perfecting his flatground techniques in the family garage; he has said that the isolation and lack of terrain naturally guided him towards freestyle skateboarding. Mullen cites July 1979–August 1980 as his "most creative time," a time when he was predominantly a loner who counted the cows of the family farm as his best friends....[i]n 1980, the 14-year-old Mullen entered the Oasis Pro competition, defeating the world champion, Steve Rocco. Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen

jermaustin1 5y ago
> Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees. Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees, and I cannot imagine how I would pick up anything BUT mini ramps and verts now, and even then, probably very little air, and just grinds, slides, and carves. I was never a pretty skater, but my signature trick was a double kick indy on flat. It was ugly, it was way to fast, but it was something I could do that no one else around me could. Sure I couldn't nollie inward heel, or 360 flip, or tail slide, but I could double kick to indy. I'm still look back fondly on the sheer number of attempts before I could land it consistently forsaking learning all the other tricks everyone else was learning, just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to.
- thatcat 5y ago
  >just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to this pretty much sums up the joys of skating
- marttt 5y ago
  > Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees ... Are stunt scooters safer in this regard? Asking because I just bought one for our 7-year-old son. I've been involved in jump-and-run sports all my life, but I do feel somewhat uneasy. This is Kids with Only Two Knees, Wrists and Ankles and Only One Skull meeting Really Hard Surfaces, hm. Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie? BTW, in Early 1990s Estonia, during the strange mixture of post-communist socialism and predatory capitalism, essentially only one kind of skateboard was available. So this was pretty much all you could see; these were everywhere, and sold with a ridiculously low price: https://bit.ly/2SihYmd https://bit.ly/2SihYmd
  - atoav 5y ago
    As mentioned above I skated for more than 10 years and have perfectly fine knees (and all other joints as far as I can tell). And I did crazy stuff, like jumping down stairs higher than myself etc. My younger brother fucked up his knees by playing handball indoors (rapid changes of direction are bad). So I think it really depends on the individual, and what they are doing. Some people destroy thwir knees by stepping out of bed the wrong way. Make sure the kid warms up and does stretches before going for anything crazy, that helps a lot.

MrMember 5y ago

Rodney Mullen is an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography if you haven't read it. When he was entering freestyle competitions early on it was never a question of who would win but rather who would come in second behind Rodney. Nobody could compete with him because he was inventing new tricks (many of which are still staples of street skating) at such a rapid pace. His commitment was otherworldly. When he was in his teens he would get home from school and skateboard until it was time to go to bed. Every day.

axegon_ 5y ago

I wouldn't say he's less popular. I like to think of both of them as the two sides of the same coin. Within the skating community there's probably not a single person not knowing both names and a great amount of detail about both of them. If anything I'd argue that if you adjust the publicity around both of them you'd see that they've dragged in similar proportions of people. But over time little to none stick with the ultimate goal to become their modern version. I suppose it has something to do with what is popular as a whole. What is interesting is that overall skateboarding is a subset of rebellion or at least it's viewed as such and back in the day that was considered a good thing within the community. I'm not sure what's the situation now. The point is that at least during the 2000's neither Hawk or Mullen were representing that rebellious spirit all that much which is why people were going in other directions. Now that I think of it, there's the Thrasher Skater of the year award[1] which accurately captures every era over the last 30 years. Public competitions, to street skate-rats, to the "we're in a videogame, let's throw ourselves down the biggest set of stairs we can find" to... Uugh.. As I said I have no idea what is happening now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_the_Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_...

lloeki 5y ago
Maybe "popular" isn't the correct word, maybe "mainstream" is? To illustrate, people far removed from the skateboarding crowd see me with a skateboard and jokingly refer to me as either "Tony Hawk" or "Marty McFly", not because of any resemblance in skill mind you (I'm not even doing vert, and even then, I can barely heelflip) but because these are the people that conjure images of skateboarding to them, whereas they of course have no idea who Mullen is. In that sense Tony Hawk has entered pop culture like no other skateboarder has. > As I said I have no idea what is happening now. There's another revival in progress. The scene is getting incredibly more diverse. See Killian Martin's videos by Bret Novak, very dance like, awesome filming and storytelling. There are more women that ever, which is way overdue. There are old skaters still skating. There are both old and new skaters aiming for a healthy lifestyle. The "old, rebellious way" is still there, it's just not the only way to be a skateboarder anymore.

LocalPCGuy 5y ago

I grew up watching Tony Hawk take the world by storm, but Mullen was the guy that could do all the tricks you dismiss as impossible to pull off when BSing with buddies about what-ifs. His control of a skateboard is legendary.

thatcat 5y ago

He invented the ollie which enabled most other skating tricks.

switchstance 5y ago

This video (and their others) seems heavily inspired by Olivier Gondry's music video for Tiga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk