Neil Blender #6.

"This world is in no rush, just the people in it." - Neil Blender

This is a drawing Neil Blender did of Eric Nash driving. It was used as a board graphic on G & S. I scanned this in from a sticker that I have. I'm guessing it would be from 1988 or 1989.

My friends and I had been skateboarding a couple of years when Powell Peralta's Ban This came out in 1989. I got the video for Christmas. We were all into Powell and Santa Cruz at the time as those were the big companies that dominated skateboarding. They were pretty easy to latch on to because they had the best skaters and the best products. But there was a segment in Ban This that started to change my way of thinking about skateboarding. It was the part with Neil, Lance Mountain and the photographer O. It showed the three of them skating sketchy ramps (sometimes in Neil's living room), having band practice and goofing around doing silly antics. The part was rather lo-fi compared to Stacy Peralta's normal high level of production, which made it stick out. To sum it up simply, it was fun. You felt like you could relate to Neil, Lance and O because they were just like you and your friends. It was somewhat of a breath of fresh air or more likely an intermission in the 77 minutes of high quality skateboarding and editing techniques that made Ban This. There's nothing wrong with all the best, but sometimes you just need to chill out a bit and have a good time. That's an important sentiment to hang onto in this day of big time contests, private skatepark enterprises, internet beef and corporate sponsorships. Relax.

Note: The Blender quote is from Gary Scott Davis' The Best Of Skate Fate 1981-1991 book.