Corey O'Brien #2.

Pailhead.

I've had the conversation a few times with a few different people about whether Corey was deserving of pro status. For better or worse, I've always wound up on the side of defending Corey. I've got a couple of reasonable points in support of him. I'm not claiming he was the best pro ever, but he was talented enough. Granted his part in Streets On Fire does not exactly feature top of the line ripping, even for where street skating was at back in 1989. His part in A Reason for Living ups the shredding to an acceptable level for a pro from 1990 who skated street and vert.

One thing that Corey had going for him was how videos were made in the late 80s/early 90s. Other than the top pros, most companies only spent a day or two filming many of their team riders. Whatever you got for that afternoon might be it for all the material for which you will be forever judged on YouTube. Another factor is that in the early days of video making, guys would only try something if they knew they were going to land it fairly quickly. This included giving up on a trick that could have been landed after a few more tries instead of moving on to something else after three tries. Although in Corey's case, I feel the tricks he did he could get every time since it wasn't the biggest variety ever. Those were the moves he liked doing and stuck with what felt good. Everybody has a slightly different approach to skateboarding. Finally given the short amount of time to film, factors like being hurt, having a hangover, or simply having an off day would have a larger impact on how your part turned out. And let's face it, some people don't like skating in front of the camera. It's not called the bail gun for nothing.

Now getting back to his Streets On Fire part. It doesn't have a lot of skateboarding in it. The skating it does have is curb and mini ramp trickery. There are plenty of lifestyle shots so you get a glimpse of Corey's interests. He plays pinball, shows off his tape collection, and possibly has a pet snake. There are several shots of his reaper board graphic. These videos are commercials to sell products after all. He matches the image of a skater on Santa Cruz team: a punk rocker who skates curbs and ramps. Sometimes the parts all fit together and explain why maybe one person is sponsored by a particular company and maybe another person isn't.

That's my two cents on the matter. A number of these points can probably be used to stick up for other pros of a bygone era. I also hope Corey never did anything horribly wrong with his life to completely invalidate all of these words.

Note: There was a nasty magenta ink splatter all over this ad that I cleaned up for Corey's photo. You can still kind of get a sense of it on the page.

The photo is by Bryan Temmermand.

Thrasher - May 1989 Volume 9 Number 5