I’ve felt increasingly isolated from skateboarding over recent years. Whilst I continue to skate two or three times a week, nothing from the industry resonates like it used to and I’ve felt the connection I once had to the culture dissipate to almost nothing. I felt that even my previous love, the obsession of my life, might have been a lie; did it really ever mean that much to me?
Last week I watched MJ’s Pretty Sweet part when it was randomly suggested by YouTube. I immediately followed that his magnum opus in Fully Flared. Then Hot Chocolate. Then Yeah Right. Then Man Down…
I fucking love skateboarding and I think, well I know, I love it most of all because I love what Marc Johnson showed me it could be.
Have felt really down all day. The heat and work stress isn’t helping, but I felt myself getting a bit emotional listening to Built to Spill earlier, which is ridiculous.
But then, maybe it’s not. Skateboarding is so integral to who I am as a person and MJ’s been my favourite skateboarder for probably 20 of the 25 years I’ve been doing it. You just presume the people you admire and are influenced by are always going to be around, especially those who have a connection to your youth.
Was going to put something on insta, but only like 4 people would know what I was on about, so I’m just putting my bummed out ramblings here.
Like @BvS this one hit harder than I was expecting and I’ve been trying to work out what about MJ singled him out from a lot of other good skateboarders of his era, to the extent that his passing has had such an impact. Apologies for the essay that follows but this is what’s been rattling around in my head today.
I think for a whole generation of skaters, it’s hard to sum up the impact that MJ had. A large portion of skaters attribute value based on video parts. Maybe less so now but for a lot of us that is how we still benchmark. In that world, MJ is the daddy. His output was so prolific and so far ahead, it’s hard to know where to start. To me, when done right, a video part it an art form. MJ has so many stand out parts, but his Fully Flared part to me is the pinnacle of the art form. Cutting edge ticks, ground out over several years of graft that (we now know) pretty much left his life in turmoil. The result was fucking amazing, gritty, three (brilliant) songs long, perfectly curated, and not a scrap of filler. I will argue blind with anyone that tries to tell me that anyone has ever done it better. But skating aside, there was something that set MJ aside from other pros - like Koston for example, who definitely had a similar video output. To me, MJ was the thinking man’s skater. Self-aware, always giving an intelligent and insightful take on the industry and what it’s like trying to operate in it, even if it was controversial. I always remember the shot in Sidewalk from a Lakai tour where everyone had multiple Ipods but MJ just had a Bukowski novel. It was that sort of thing that raised him above other pros to me, and something that clearly translated to the way he skated. There were a few skaters who you could say were on his level technically, but there was something more intelligent about the way he put tricks together. Then there was his style. He could (and often did) make otherwise illegal tricks look sick - lazar flip over a road gap!? And his kits clearly had as much influence as any Jim Greco or Dylan Reider. I defy anyone who watched Modus or Pretty Seeet to say they didn’t want to throw on a shirt and chinos or raw denim jeans and a white tee and just hold your arms locked in position after landing a trick just a bit longer than necessary, trying to pretend they were MJ. If there was a skateboarding top trumps, MJ would be that motherfucker with near perfect scores in all areas. It was sad to see the fall out with Chocolate and I would loved to have seen maybe one more part (possibly on Enjoi) to end things out, but fuck it, to me that dude’s legacy is untouchable and I doubt they’ll be another one like him.
When I think of Marc, I think of unique impeccable style, aesthetically pleasing tech yet also gnarly, and a whole lot of laughs. That combination in a single person is pretty rare.
I hope Louie, Jerry and co are holding up alright.
Utterly shite news to wake upto yesterday morning.. One absolute faves since first seeing his 411 Pro Files section back in the mid 90’s. I was beyond stoked to see him skate at The Works Skatepark in Leeds about twenty years ago now. It absolutely fulfilled the mid 90’s skate rat in me… Rest in peace Marc x
Did it ever come out what actually happened with him burning all his bridges with Crailtap? I remember nobody really coming out of it favourably but it seems to have had a massive personal impact on MJ.
There was Carroll’s Jenkem interview at the time and then MJ’s response in a Nine Club interview. I imagine the truth is a mix of the two and whether he got blacklisted within the industry I don’t know.
It’s a shame they didn’t get to have a reconciliation.
It was all down to shoe contracts and agreed leaving/reveal dates of him going to adidas from Lakai. He had a shoe about to or just had dropped on Lakai and they wanted to push it first.
Then the adidas video came out and made it official before their gentlemen’s agreement had finished. I could be wrong but to me it always looked like adidas were the ones that messed the whole situation up.
My version of events is that lakai was in seriuos financial difficulties and wasn’t honouring their contracts and salaries. Marc found an opportunity at adidas and took it but also informed rick and mike of hid decision. They told him to hold off from announcing the team switch so that they could offload stock. Away days came out and MJ featured which rubbed Mike the wrong way and he aired out hid grievances via jenkem I think. Marc had his version of events via monster children but I think the interview was deleted
I hate to say, but I assume that was about 2 minutes of AI assisted content writing based on a sudden spike of popularity around the news in the instagram algorithm.
