Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Just be his friend






You all saw his part. And you were like, "What?" And then you were like, "Dang..." And then you were like, "Where's that spot? That looks fun..." Then you said some words that I won't repeat here because I'm not a fan of swearing. But don't kid yourself, you know what I'm talking about. And you said it because you wish you could do half the tricks that AJ does in his part...

Andrew Jackson, that's what I like to think AJ stands for, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Anyway, AJ is an undercover ripper, meaning you wouldn't think he'd pull off so easily and effortlessly all the millions of tricks he can do. He's got the GPS guided skate system that sends his boars flipping and flying through the air and landing exactly on point, with his body following suit. He can flip into just about any grind you can think of, regular or fakie, and he'll take these tricks down stuff, not just on ledges. AJ is super consistent with a ton of really hard tricks, and he makes them look super easy to do. So filming his part was a lot of fun because we got to see him do really hard, crazy tricks in just a few tries.

I didn't trust AJ at first. I thought he was after my Lucky Charms, so I was a bit weary of him. What I mean is that I thought he simply wanted to use me because I have a camera, lens, and knowledge of the editing system. I can't think of anything more annoying than people just trying to use you for what you have and don't want anything to do with you. So I was a bit weary of him at first. But after an arduous, rigorous screening process, we found that AJ just wanted to skate. And, as it turned out, that AJ was cool to hang out with outside of skating, which is always a huge plus and a requirement for full Bolts of Thunder rider status. After discovering these qualities, AJ was fully indicted into the team, and he's been riding solid ever since. Let that be a lesson to you...

Pretty much every trick in AJ's part was a solid trick. No fillers of any kind to simply take up space. Every trick is solid and unique. When we were filming the part, AJ kept wanting to get 360 flips in lines, but we wouldn't let him. Matt's got a good eye of what should or shouldn't be in our videos, and lines stock full of 360 flips don't have their place. Not over and over at least. So as it turns out, AJ only has one 360 flip the entire video, the one at the beginning over that gap. I'm really glad that's it, because it place of every 360 flip he would have done, he did a different trick, and you get to see AJ's variety. My favorite tricks of his are the varial heelflip and 360 flip over that gap at first, the bigflip front board and heelflip front board down the rail on the gap, and his last trick. I like every trick, but those are my favorite. Seriously, watch his part again, and you'll see that every trick he does is crazy and super clean. I guess that's all I have to say about AJ's part. In closing, AJ's a super rad guy, way nice, and just down to skate. So when you see him, don't bear your teeth and pound your chest because that will simply scare him off. Instead, just be his friend...

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