Frontside rock-n-roll Picture: Bernie McGinn
1967-2024
Skateboarding died immediately…because it does each on occasion.
And though all of us have these unseen strings connecting us, pulling us a bit bit this manner and that, they’re bumpy alliances at worst and tailwind kinships at greatest, and so all of us cruise on and modify our trajectory a bit bit, smoothing ahead and shifting down the road.
However that is an eruption. A bomb.
Right now we misplaced Invoice Miller.
In my world, Invoice was a skateboarding drive. Studying tips, embracing tradition, main by means of motivated instance, and carrying the heavy torch by means of one among skateboarding’s smallest and most Lord-of-the-Flies eras: the early 80s.
We have been fortunate. There have been a number of yard ramps and there have been a number of punkers to point out us the best way. And Invoice understood the task like few did. He confirmed up at each session with a number of new tips. He knew skateboarding’s most obscure particulars. He tuned in alongside the road connecting punk and skateboarding and willingly shared what turned our soundtrack, our values, our ethos.
However largely, he was the neatest, the funniest, probably the most sarcastic, and probably the most motivated skater in our bubble.
In your world, Invoice was the visiting highway tripper, he was the interstate communicator, and he was the only real organizer of the Midwest Newbie Ramp Sequence (M.A.R.S), selling and working his yard vert contest collection in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and his dwelling state: good ol’ Nebraska.
Take heed to the person himself on Invoice Miller Reside, 2023
Earlier than Lincoln, Nebraska, even had an actual skate store, Invoice petitioned the largest skateboard corporations to assist his efforts, after which he transmitted these summertime contest rituals to the remainder of the disconnected. By way of Thrasher Journal’s month-to-month communiques and skateboarding’s only and most underground community of zines, Invoice invited like-minded weirdos from all around the nation to ply their maneuvers within the pleasant confines of the ever-present Center West yard vert ramp—typically inserting within the prime 5 of the very contests he organized.
Invoice Miller was peerless, he was unmatched, and he was the fucking greatest.
Frontside lapper Picture: Matt Bramlette
There might be extra eruptions, there might be extra bombs, skateboarding will expertise a zillion deaths, and there’ll at all times be bumpy connections that skateboarding unapologetically supplies for all of us. It does not appear proper, but it surely occurs, and it is very unhealthy and really silly and it’ll occur once more.
I do not assume I am going to write his identify on my sneakers. I will not put on a black armband. I am simply gonna be unhappy for some time. After that, I am going to go locations the place we skated collectively, the place we labored collectively, the place we discovered collectively, and I am going to smile. As a result of I believe now he isn’t solely in my ideas, however he is aware of my ideas—he is aware of your ideas—and that is gotta be fairly rattling candy.
Relaxation nicely my stressed buddy.
Relaxation nicely to the Birdman.
––Kevin Wilkins