Style

Style….Thats what I’m titling this piece. Style is an extension of oneself. And if you don’t have style….I probably don’t care about you, again. Being unique on this planet is important….yes you could disagree and shoot this down 17 ways till Sunday, but again I don’t care. Why Why Why? Because style is everything…It's your swag, the way you carry yourself, how you talk, the way you get girls or guys. Without it, your just another number….Who wants to be that?

Why is the Supreme Cherry trailer above….Good question. I wanted to use this as an example. A lot of in the know people have come up from skateboarding (Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Thomas Campbell, Jason Lee, Mike Mills, Pharell, Chloe Sevigny, Babyghost_nyc…just to name a few) Skateboarding is creative…..It is an art. It forces you to think differently and use the worlds landscape as a canvas. It’s also just you and the board, no coaches or team bringing you down or getting in the way of what your doing (I like team sports too) The fact that you have to be creative when skateboarding actually starts to give you a persona or a style. Its how you interpret the way you skate something. From grinding a bench to front lipping a hand rail. So many people do it differently. And thats whats fucking cool…watching 3 different people do the same trick completely different. (So what the fuck are you getting at!?)

The Supreme Cherry video directed by Willam Strobeck is a perfect example of a curated group of ill mother fuckers skateboarding with Style. And when I describe style, its not only the way they all do tricks differently, but its the way they dress, say, and do. They don’t give a fuck and to me thats what skateboarding is. Unique people not giving a fuck and living the way they want to live.

Sidenote and very important to me: Everyone is good at everything now. Youtube teaches kids how to do a kick flip at the age of 3. It’s mind boggling, I learned my first kick flip at age 13 through trial and error…30,000 trys later with no guidance online. Now heres what it comes down to. I would 100% rather watch a kid kick flip down a five star with smooth clean style than watching a kid kick flip down a 15 stair with flailing arms and no style at all….It just doesn’t look good. And it will probably get you nowhere. So please, don’t go on trying things if you can’t do the basics with style, in this day of age….it will get you nowhere.

Back to “Cherry” …… Its funny to me because a lot of people hate on almost every kid in this video because they are doing their own thing. Take Dylan Rieder for example…..Lookin all fashiony. Thats rad. That has opened so many more doors for him. He can dress and not only do girls love him, its takes him out of skateboarding into many different experiences. Why wouldn’t you want that to happen to you? You want to be stuck in your boring little home town with your boring ass life. No No No…..Now, lets be honest Dylan was blessed with the looks and so was Sean Pablo and Alex Olson (Girls, look them up if you don’t know who they are, you will thank me later) But that shouldn’t hinder you from being unique and develop a style. Take Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine….Both are not models (Sorry guys), but they have managed to develop a style whether it be the way they dress or shoot films. Fuck, Spike dated Karen O for a long time and was married to Sofia Coppola and Harmony dated Chloe Sevigny for a super long time. They in the last few sentences have done pretty remarkable things.

So to tie it back into the Supreme Cherry video. Watch it…….These are the new kids coming up. They have style and maybe dress wack in your opinion, but you better “recognize” because these are the fuckers who are going to be stealing your girlfriend from your boring life and doing big things as time moves on. Think about it, develop a style….work on it….It will pay off. And remember Style is not just for skateboarding, its how you do everything in your life….from painting, shooting photos, playing music, to speaking in public and telling stories…Stand out and develop your way of doing things and be consistent. Consistency is everything….if you can’t be consistent with your style and you keep changing, then no one is going to remember because your confusing them. Do it as much as you can until people can watch or look at something and immediately know its you or your work. Then your getting somewhere, I promise.

Sidenote 1: You dont need money to have style. Stopping thinking like that...style comes from the streets and the streets aint got money....Hence young creative mother fuckers. Go be one.

Sidenote 2: Currently wrote this on a Virgin America flight to New York Fashion week and I guarantee I see most of the Cherry dudes at the in the know shows and parties rubbing elbows with todays greats…planning their next collaboration together….. it’s just how it works….Style……Style goes a long way.

Update!!! since I wrote this....William Strobeck at it again with "Joyride"

Update!!!! Below, The even later piece  "The Red Devil" by William Strobeck