RetroBuzz: The End
This week, we look at some of our favourite skateboard videos of the '80s and '90s.
It's amazing how many respectable, 30-something suburban dads are former skate rats. When my friend and colleague Drew Fairservice, co-captain of the ship that is Getting Blanked, found out what I was doing for RetroBuzz this week, he immediately started asking me if I was going to include footage from his all-time favourite skateboard video, Birdhouse's 1998 release The End.
The End was kind of a game changer when it came to skateboard videos. It was cinematic, it was unusually well shot, and fairly high concept. The section in which Heath Kirchart and Jeremy Klein dress up in business suits and skate various corporate signs is legendary for two reasons:
1) They finish the scene by grinding over top of a burning tool shed. Klein came very close to accompanying the shed to a fiery doom.
2) According to legend, Kirchart actually had to have his jaw wired shut after he missed his first try at grinding that bus shelter. He came back and finished shooting later on in the evening.
