Frontside rock-n-roll Picture: Bernie McGinn
1967-2024
Skateboarding died right this moment…because it does each every so often.
And although all of us have these unseen strings connecting us, pulling us a bit of bit this manner and that, they’re bumpy alliances at worst and tailwind kinships at greatest, and so all of us cruise on and regulate our trajectory a bit of bit, smoothing ahead and shifting down the road.
However that is an eruption. A bomb.
Immediately we misplaced Invoice Miller.
In my world, Invoice was a skateboarding pressure. Studying tips, embracing tradition, main by way of motivated instance, and carrying the heavy torch by way of one in all skateboarding’s smallest and most Lord-of-the-Flies eras: the early 80s.
We have been fortunate. There have been loads of yard ramps and there have been loads of punkers to indicate us the way in which. And Invoice understood the project like few did. He confirmed up at each session with a couple of new tips. He knew skateboarding’s most obscure particulars. He tuned in alongside the road connecting punk and skateboarding and willingly shared what grew to become our soundtrack, our values, our ethos.
However principally, 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 organizer of the Midwest Beginner Ramp Collection (M.A.R.S), selling and working his yard vert contest sequence in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and his residence state: good ol’ Nebraska.
Take heed to the person himself on Invoice Miller Dwell, 2023
Earlier than Lincoln, Nebraska, even had an actual skate store, Invoice petitioned the most important skateboard corporations to help his efforts, after which he transmitted these summertime contest rituals to the remainder of the disconnected. Via Thrasher Journal’s month-to-month communiques and skateboarding’s best and most underground community of zines, Invoice invited like-minded weirdos from everywhere in the nation to ply their maneuvers within the pleasant confines of the ever present Center West yard vert ramp—typically putting within the prime 5 of the very contests he organized.
Invoice Miller was peerless, he was unequalled, and he was the fucking greatest.
Frontside lapper Picture: Matt Bramlette
There will probably be extra eruptions, there will probably be extra bombs, skateboarding will expertise a zillion deaths, and there’ll all the time be bumpy connections that skateboarding unapologetically gives for all of us. It does not appear proper, however it occurs, and it’s totally unhealthy and really silly and it’ll occur once more.
I do not assume I am going to write his title 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 feel now he is not 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 properly my stressed buddy.
Relaxation properly to the Birdman.
––Kevin Wilkins
