The Tony Alva documentary

Given that he is (whether people like it or not) the originator of lots of the core messages of skate culture - from ‘style is more important than tricks’ to the notion of a skater-owned brand - I figured this deserves its own thread.

Just watched it.
Lovely to see Grosso again but poignant to hear him say ‘I never expected to be 60’.
I’ve got plenty to say on this but happy to shut the fuck up for a bit.

Watch and discuss or don’t.

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Grosso just thinking - “Hey, remember at the comp when I stole that chick off you, back in the day Mr Rock and Roll?”

Not to take away from his massive part in skating history but I thought it was mainly just a back slapping 50min infomercial about Alva… very surface level. Did we really need it (again)? Some cool footage of everyone though, I’d not seen.

It just reminded me how much I/we miss Grosso and that sucked.

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Things to take away from the new doc - “Fuck”, “Chicks”, Josh Brolin is fit and the non-jocks turned out to be quite jockish.

The Clark Gable bit was amazing though.

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That was really good.
Nothing we didn’t already know but that’s okay.

That bunker dude has his own doc on amazon prime. Worth a watch.

The Harry Jumonji doc is on Prime. That’s a good one.

Maybe my second hand embarrassment couldn’t handle some of it.

Screen Shot 2020-09-19 at 20.46.50

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You’re not punk enough dude.

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I can’t bring myself to watch this, even for Jeff. I loathe Tony Alva.

Agree with most of the above but despite the cringe I enjoyed it.
It is pretty crazy that he’s still skating at 60/not dead too.

Like everyone else, I enjoyed the Grosso bits mostly, that’s justification enough for its existence - plus I’m sure Vans have been bankrolling his life to some degree for decades so it’s seems fair for them to get a payback of sorts.

Plus, it’s less cringe and a lot shorter than the Bones Brigade documentary.

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More Danforth here as he’s been mentioned.

“I put mongo on the map. I don’t give a shit.”

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Yeah the crying was weird as hell.

The Fred Durst was weird as hell

Will watch this for Grosso. Alva is a sketchy prick.
Probably a generational thing, but I’m surprised he didn’t go down in seconds with the rapey social media call outs of late.

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I didn’t know much about Alva and don’t feel like I know more now, really.

Seeing Grosso mad me equally happy and sad. I never met him but he’s like that old uncle that always has ill stories and knows loads about life. The kind of person that you sit down and listen to, the kind of person you admire and respect a lot, but also the kind of person that gets stoked when you call him a prick. The best kind of person.

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Apologies for the slight tangent but this seems like a good place to put this and I love stuff from the ‘elder era’.

Here’s Alva and the UK’s own 70’s skate superstar ‘Mad’ Mark Baker in Southport of all places in 1978.

From what I remember Mark Baker moved to the States and became a very famous party organiser in New York.

His story is interesting and touches on Alva’s significance at the time from a UK perspective.
Hit the Harrow photo below for more.

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Also - double extra points for running a board with ‘Fight Nazis’ on it on his first cover many, many years ago.

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Wow, that interview is crazy. What a life he’s led!

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Yep. Never knew about Mark Baker but that was a good read…

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Haha - I cried when they took it off of Netflix.

Glad you enjoyed it. I’ve been meaning to post that for ages.
What a crazy bastard.

The story about him going surfing with Alva in Speedos with a foam board is so good.