Anybody Out There?

Once again, I realize no one is reading but this seemed too weird to pass up. You know how when Tony Hawk's Pro Skater came out it created a whole bunch of little kids screaming "900!" at any pro skater within ear-shot? How it seemed to heighten all non-skater expectations of what skaters were supposed to do? Well, I'm thinking Ryan Sheckler's new private park is a pretty good testament to that. The only thing I have to compare it to is maybe those custom parks you could build in Pro Skater. Yes, I'm speaking from experience; I did indeed spend much of my thirteen-year-old life building countless custom parks in my borrowed edition of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. But back to the park. Who would want to skate that? I'm not denigrating Ryan Sheckler's skill; he's probably one of the few that can actually skate it. But that's the constant battle in the Shecklebot controversy: it's not that we as skaters don't think he's good -- he certainly is -- but more that he seems to misrepresent skateboarding at every turn. This park footage is jock skating. Sorry if that sounds ignorant, but that's all it is to me.