Gooooooaaaaaaaalllllllll
Tom Schaar off the crossbar, Chris Joslin takes his tarp off, is this skateboarding? Vol. 48, Tim Pool quits again, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaaalllllllll
Rank: 1
Mood: 🏆
Dispatch: 12/09/25
Imagine for a moment — and for 99.9% of us, the imagination is the only place this will ever work — that you've just cleared the first leg of Elliot Sloan's mini-Mega Ramp. Despite its "mini" designation, you now find yourself speeding down another gigantic embankment, this, after rolling in on one of the largest ramps ever devised, and flying over a 34-foot tabletop, going faster than most people will ever go on a skateboard in their lives.
Before you is a 20-foot-tall quarterpipe. On top of that quarterpipe sits a football goal, which is roughly eight feet tall. As you plummet down the ramp and rush up the quarterpipe, you now have to figure out how to soar through the air, without grabbing your skateboard, land in a noseblunt-stall on the goal's crossbar, and then pop back into the transition, again, with no grab.
Good fucking luck.
Tom Schaar, building on the rank absurdity of this Vert's not Dead video part in April, once again reminds us of how awe-inspiring the highest-level of transition skating can be in his Skater of the Year-geared effort Curtains, published by Thrasher last Friday.
It covers all of the bases: life-threatening concrete park clip (that was also a Thrasher cover), a street clip featuring a vert-skater backside-360 (the Danny Way scoop that doesn't leave the ground), and mind-bending tricks into the quarterpipe at Bob Burnquist's Mega Ramp.
Speaking of Burnquist, and I know this may seem like a deeply disconnected thing to write the same week the world will bear witness to Chris Joslin's El Toro 360-kickflip, but Bobby B's guest trick in Curtains, a switch-front-foot-impossible off that giant kicker and up 20-or-so-feet to lipslide on his Mega Quarter, is the most impressive trick of the year.
Perhaps not as boundary pushing as Joslin's or as objectively terrifying as Kevin Baekkel's 50-50, but Burnquist is 49 years old and still skating in a stratosphere no one else can reach. Many of the tricks Schaar does on the Mega in Vert's not Dead and Curtains are things Burnquist did 15 years ago. They may be homages, sure, but he's also not taking the medium much further. That's not a slight, it's just the reality of Burnquist's legacy.
Dispatch: 12/11/25
Okay, I may need to rethink that last bit. Imagine for a moment — and for 99.9% of us, the imagination is the only place this will ever work — that you've just dropped into a ramp built on top of a ramp at Bob Burnquist's Mega Ramp. You now find yourself speeding down this doubly gigantic embankment.
Before you is a 28-foot-tall quarterpipe. On top of that quarterpipe sits a football goal, which is roughly eight feet tall. As you plummet down the ramp and rush up the quarterpipe, you now have to figure out how to soar through the air, without grabbing your skateboard, land in a blunt-stall on the goal's crossbar, pop and flip a kickflip, and take it backwards, back into the transition. Again, with no grab.
Good fucking luck.
He did it
Rank: 20
Mood: 😤
Besides the obvious enormity of watching Chris Joslin 360-flip El Toro in his G-Ma video part released by Thrasher on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest takeaway is his own reaction to riding away.
"I fucking tre-flipped El Toro. I fucking tre-flipped El Toro. I fucking tre-flipped El Toro." Joslin says to himself before screaming it to the friends, family, and media members swarming around him. "I did it," he screams while scooping his young children into his arms, and they scream it back. As far as skateboarding goes, it's an unusual scene. The self-affirmations, kids at the spot — it is odd, at least in this world.
But it's also moving, particularly because there's so much else behind the trick itself, as I wrote back in September, after seeing the on-the-ground photos taken by Atiba Jefferson.
That reaction from Joslin makes sense; this is redemption. He famously almost 360-flipped El Toro, riding away and falling off the board, sometime around 2018. After showing the clip of the near-make to the hosts of the Nine Club that year, he'd say, "fucking hell, do I really want to go back and do it?"
In 2023, a Storied feature detailed how hellish an experience those initial attempts were. The impact alone bent the trucks on two separate setups. In the piece, Joslin says that while he knows he didn't "do it," in his head, he did, and knows he could. But going back to get it, to suffer all over again, would just be for a clip, for other people. And if he did go back, he might even try something other than the 360-flip. He sounds as if he's accepted the moment and let it go.
Well, he went back and did it, for us — and himself, one assumes. What is most remarkable is how much time has passed between the previous attempts and the make (which one assumes happened this year). In the Storied piece, we see archival footage of Joslin toting his young child, still in a carriage, to El Toro, this fresh human being on the scene as their father risks his life. Some 7-8 years later, he returned with two walking, talking children in tow, both watching their father put everything on the line.
While that danger is very real (I previously compared the risk to Mark Coleman's daughters watching him get brutalized by Fedor Emelianenko), the payoff is sublime. A memory forever shared, his children witness to what will likely remain the greatest achievement of their father's professional career. The gravity of that is not lost on Joslin; you can see it on his face.
All those years in between the almost and the rideaway were filled with career highs, lows, intense garage-gym workouts, turmoil with sponsors, and more, culminating in this.
A stunt is enough to make a trick break through, but a story makes it matter.
He did it. He really did. Now, is it enough to earn himself a heavy bronze trophy? The competition has been stiff and this week has been full of incredible stunts...
Is this skateboarding? Vol. 48
Nothing has ever been more like skateboarding than Lady Train Stunts. In just shy of two minutes, we get a fully developed and creatively realized video part from Lady, a beloved, almost messianic figure who calls the Magic Railroad home.
There, she usually shows up when Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends are in greatest need, getting them out of jams large and small. Here, she shows a serious breadth of ability, along with tasteful trick and spot selection, throwing down everything from extended chassis slides to boosted 360-flips.
Lady in Lady Train Stunts by 5MadMovieMakers on YouTube
But this isn't your standard highlight reel set to music; there's b-roll that's transitional, tone-setting, and even narrative driving. Lady bombs hills and bombs into Diesel 10, her longtime rival, who actively discriminates against her and other steam engines. This bit of catharsis with a dollop of storytelling on top of her stunts cements Lady as a steam engine to watch and a true SEOTY contender.
IS THIS SKATEBOARDING?: Choo-Choo! (Yes)
RIP Bozo
Rank: Blech
Mood: ☠️
Oh, do you hear that nasally squeal? Mhm, that's right, reviled dipshit Tim Pool, owner and operator of Berrics for chuds, is out here whining, crying, and threatening to stop podcasting again.
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
Pool said a similar thing last year after news broke that he was, by his own stammering admission, an unwitting asset in a foreign influence campaign who just so happened to accidentally accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Russian government to peddle his brand of hate and bigotry, further inflame tensions in the United States, and also shit on Ukraine a bit.
This time, the "breaking point" is that the cost of running his podcast is too high to continue and he is going broke. Pool says that paying for increased "security" is what's putting his media venture in the red, claiming that his compound needs "armed guards," even alleging that someone opened fire at his studio in West Virginia on Saturday. However, he has provided no evidence that occurred, which means we are being asked to take an inveterate career liar at his word.
Pool says there's a "possibility" that the last episode of his podcast airs on December 19. If that were true, what a blessing it would be. What's more likely is that this is another fundraising grift, like the last time, and he's planning to take the holidays off and pretend the show is "done" before it's "saved" by the "generous donations" of his listeners.
Frankly, what an embarrassing existence Pool's is. To be such a petulant child about the horrible world you've helped usher in.
Okay, so, who is SOTY?
Rank: ?
Mood: 🤔
The winner of Thrasher Magazine's Skater of the Year award is due to be announced at any moment. You may even know who by the time you read this. For posterity's sake, my prediction is that Tom Schaar takes it. That blunt-kickflip is his Tyshawn Jones subway tracks backside-flip moment — the calculated, last-minute, after black hammer.
He's also trying out a new technique: having the biggest name in skateboarding history stump for you real hard:
I don’t know the exact criteria for Thrasher’s Skater Of The Year but here is my take for 2025: while we have seen some of the most incredible and inspiring street performances over the last year, Tom Schaar has single-handedly raised the profile and possibilities of vertical skateboarding. His skating is masterful and creative, on a level not seen since Danny & Bob enlightened us with what it means to truly go big (earning each of them well-deserved SOTY titles). And Tom somehow does it all with a style that is simultaneously stoic and fluid. His skating is now inspiring people to ride ramps and bowls for the first time - on a global scale - flipping the script on what a “vert button” actually is (in his case, it represents “replay” instead of “fast-forward). And here he is - less than a week after dropping a revolutionary part - pushing the limits of possibilities above Bob’s 28-foot monster quarter. The Tom Train has left the station at mega-speed and looks to be unstoppable, making him our obvious choice for 2025 SOTY
Can you say no to the Birdman? Although, you know what, give it to Ginwoo Onodera. Why not? You saw his frontside-bluntslide-double-biggerflip. Say that five times fast. Or give SOTY to that bail from Zion Wright — that was amazing. Gap to ass. His video part was great, as well. They are two exceptional talents with negative fashion sense.
On that note, SOTY season is just about over. What a run! Such content. We're fortunate to live in this time of bounty. Anyways, I'm running out of steam here, so I'm just going to do a mild plug for a big ol' Purple Post I've been working on for the last few months that should be out on Monday, so keep an eye out for that. Or not, it's up to you.
Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for reading. I love you.
Something to consider: Stake, a genuinely villainous online casino highlighted in this story, is a presenting sponsor of Street League. They get some of the best skateboarders in the world to do advertisements for them. Bleak!
If you want to give some money away, how about here:
Good thing:
David Roth
Another good thing: Boil the Ocean with some words for Kevin Wilkins.
A good pod round-up:
Justin
A public space thing:
District
A good thinking about a video game thing:
Gabriel Winslow-Yost
Until next week… now's a good time to get together with your pals and watch some vids.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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A collection of essays that I think you might like. The Edmonton Journal called it a "local book set to make a mark in 2024," The CBC said it's "quirky yet insightful" (lol), and it won Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2025 Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Photo via The Palomino.
