Are Texas Plants Bigger in Texas?

By Paul Zitzer

Video footage is great and everything, BUT. There’s a list of reasons it’s also not. You can’t ever tell how gnarly the spots are, you don’t know how many tries it took anyone to make anything, and the energy can be lost due to something as common as a bad song choice. That’s why seeing (and doing) real live skateboarding beats even the best video part any day of the week. Case in point: the Texas Skate Jam at Southside Skatepark in Houston. It’s been going down for 18 years now, and during that time has raised over $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which arranges experiences for kids with life threatening medical conditions. And a huge thanks to Deluxe, Circa, Baker/Deathwish, Nike, Skate Trash, Vans, and Curb Slayer for supporting something that’s really really worth supporting by lining up promo gear and sending out dudes on their teams.

Which brings us back to the live skateboarding. The bowl jam was nuts and video could never capture the vibe, no offence to our SPoT Life episode on RIDE. Here are things we talked about afterword. Ben Raybourn. He didn’t spend much time in the bowl but he didn’t need to. Everything he does is pure gold. Backside disaster handouts to frontside revert are one of a kind and he’s got tricks like that, back-to-back, for days. Tristan Funkhouser looks like a 12 year old and skates like a 23 year old but is somewhere in between I think. 17? He did Texas proud with THE gnarliest Texas plant that has ever been done. If I’m wrong send me a link to one that’s gnarlier. Please. He took it six feet out of the deep end of the bowl, on the Southside sign that’s set back a good two feet from the lip, wall jam style, beyond and then some. Nolan Johnson showed up looking like some type of Technicolor hobo and proceeded to do the best invert of the entire weekend on the first wall of his first run in the super heated session. He also did a Phillips 66 in the shallow which I would have told you without a doubt is not possible at all before I’d seen it. If you don’t know what a Phillips 66 is you haven’t been watching enough episodes of Grosso’s Love Letters. Maybe you’ve been out skating. Moving on, Daniel Vargas doesn’t need tricks, his style could get him wherever he’s going, but that didn’t stop him from taking a lipslide around the corner, down the street to the grocery store, and back. Twice. BTW, if you didn’t know, the Welcome team rules it. Big ups also to Chris Gregson. He’s a Blood Wizard who filmed half of Extremely Sorry and is also one of the best bowl skaters in the world: frontside flip to disaster to BACKSIDE Revert. He also took three heavy slams, including a couple collisions in less than five minutes. Oh, and Auby Taylor padded up and learned inverts, but not after over rotating two of them to full back splat.

Back to the street course, a few things to note: Shep Dawg Taylor Kirby looks like he’s probably pretty good based on video parts that are out there. See him live and you’ll freak. SO good. Tre flip 5050 on the rail? Yes. Moving on, Brazilians can all nollie and pop switch tricks higher than skaters in any other country, including the country of Texas, studies have shown. Tiago Lemos and Carlos Iqui proved this again. Auby Taylor again, he’s even better than that amazing Krooked part he just had on Thrasher. Fakie flip a bump to bar? Fakie flip back tail a rail? Fakie flip back lip? Boom boom boom. Lastly, Jack Olson won Tampa Am last year for a reason, and it’s apparent whenever he skates. He’s coming back for it this year and we just might see the only other repeat since Luan did it. He also threw down a kickflip front blunt shove it on the handrail. First or second try.

After the live bit was over it was back to video with the premier of the Southside 20 Year Anniversary video. The video is amazing without even having to say “for a local video.” Yeah Houstonians! Oh, and Raybourn has a full part, entirely filmed at Southside. They’re killing the game out there in Texas, and I’m sure the spots are gnarlier than they looked.

Honorable mention of the weekend goes to Internet celebrity Chris #Mango Millic who somehow maintained a very low profile despite wearing turquoise pants.

Video by Jean-Luc Vida
Words and photos by Marino Nicastro Check full results here.