NEIL BLENDER RIPPING SADLANDSNeil Blender epitomizes the greatest aspects of skateboarding: individuality, innovation, creativity, speed, power, flow, agility and performance art. At the end of the 70's skateparks he emerged as a top amateur and as the 80's progressed, as a top vert pro, consistently placing high in contest and inventing various tricks. Towards the end of the 80's street skating became more and more prominent, and he would participate in the streetstyle events combining his renowned skill with satirical moves and skits- seemingly riding the line of participating and making a joke out of it. For many that were on top of the vert dominated skate industry, the impending change to street was something many could not or did not want to adapt to. Neil was clearly one that could have, and it would have been interesting if he had chosen to, but by the end of the 80s, he still had high selling pro models, and had continued moving his skateboarding in his own unique direction. I shot with Neil in 1987 at the end of the movie film era for my Skate Film Goin' Off. I don't think I stopped laughing the entire time as his infectious humor was woven into every trick he did and we had a lot of fun. A couple years later when I showed up to film his part for Santa Cruz Speed Freaks in 1989, one of the sessions was at one of his favorite local Orange County spots: Sadlands. Video by @tonyrobertsphoto addl' sources: Transworld Skateboarding Thrasher Skateboarder Poweredge Slam #realskatestories #skatehistory #shootwithTR