Zaturdays: “Sonny’s!” aka The Slam Formerly Known As…

When I was probably 15, one of my crazy friends, Dave Berlusconi, told me in all seriousness “my friends call me Boots." I knew all of his friends, in fact I was probably one of two friends he had and never had either of us ever called him Boots. So the name name never took off other than as a way to make fun of him. "Get ‘em Boots, haha!" But at the risk of failing in the same way, this week's Zaturdays is an attempt to put a fresh face on something that's been around since, well probably since about 10 minutes after the first person tried to ride on a skateboard. I introduce you to what you formerly knew as the splits, my friends call it a Sonny's. My guess is that you probably never thought much about the splits, which is what happens any time your back foot slips off the tail of your board, usually when trying to land something. And the reason why you never thought much about it is because it never had a catchy enough name, like the Primo. Or getting Sacked. Or doing the Scorpion. Those types of falls are no more thrilling than a properly executed splits; they've just had better marketing behind them. Together though, we can fix this. Some history. I did not come up the name Sonny's. In fact, I wasn't even around when it was first chanced upon. But I have seen the video of the first known recorded Sonny's, which would be AMAZING to link to here so you too could experience the same level of Sonny's stoke that I have, but sadly the footage is on a VHS tape somewhere slowly deteriorating in some musty Florida storage unit. Anyway, the year was 1990, and the Fort Meyers crew, including Elissa Steamer, Matt Milligan, Matt Gee, AirballFM, and Allen Russell (who later grew up to become the @KingofYbor) were skating a seriously janky jump-ramp-with-hip configuration that was set up in the parking lot of an abandoned Sonny's BBQ restaurant. Long story short, a young local went for an early grab melon yanker over the hip, where upon landing his back foot popped off the tail sending him into one of the worst cases of the splits ever witnessed. From that moment, the splits would forever be known as a Sonny's. At least in Fort Meyers. Fortunately somehow someone in their crew managed to catch it on video and put the footy on a loop to be enjoyed over and over and over again. Still today, based on that one tape, the legend of Sonny’s continues to spread. There are basically three types of Sonny's. There's the normal run of the mill Sonny’s where your back foot slips off the tail on impact. And then there's the Ultimate Sonny's, which is triggered when the back knee actually connects with the ground and even reaches knee slide mode. It makes my MCL hurt just thinking about it. And then there’s the fakie version, where the FRONT foot comes off, that’s like a double whammy, the King of Ybor happens to be the King of backwards Sonny’s as well. You’ll see him performing a couple variations of in the video. It should be noted though, that to Sonny’s is more than just to fall in an uncomfortable manner. It’s also a total disgrace, a mark of shame, a humiliation. It’s like getting caught picking your nose in public, or lip-syncing to a Taylor Swift song. So any time you get caught doing a Sonny’s, watch out because you’ve given your bros a green light to add insults to your injury. And if you find the Sonny’s to be anywhere near as much of an embarrassment as we do, just pray that nobody gets your next one on video. - Paul Zitzer