These Days Premiere

Words: Tom Monterosso

Thursday, September 4th was a big night down south as the week-long industry assembly ASR kicked off with Transworld Snowboarding’s These Days and Rome Snowboards’ new release No Correct Way premiered in the sunny city of San Diego.

The Wavehouse in Mission Beach was the first stop of the night as TWS videographer Joe Carlino debuted his virgin video These Days. The crowd was treated to an aerial display of acrobatic pseudo-wakeboarding on the Flowrider, an artificial wave that played host to a “big air” contest which awarded the winner a whopping $200. Needless to say, highlights included jocks with frosted tips and boardshorts worn outside their wetsuits flailing and failing their way to no-grab, style-less spins that got less than a murmur from the crowd. Reagrdless, some kid won the $200, but I doubt that the majority of the assembly would’ve offered up their dignity for such a small sum.

However, when the intro for These Days lit up the projector, all in attendance went wild. It seems like just yesteryear that Carlino was making mini-movie edits for various shred sites across the land, and his freshman forsy is a testament to his true natural knack for the awesome. Nick Dirks started things off and did not—I repeat, did NOT---disappoint. I’ve been hearing a lot about this Portland prodigy for years now, and he lived up to all the hype. The kid’s part is an eyebrow-raiser to say the least. Watch it.

Other standout parts included the young Baker shred Lucas Debari who sends some hairball lines and caps off his section with a heaving switch backside seven over the Baker Road Gap. Louif Paradis lit up the metropolitan features he came in contact with, Chad Otterstrom, well, he’s Otterstrom. You know his part was insane. Canadian misfit Dustin Craven had an insane part, as well as Jonas Michelot and Jonas Carlson. Needless to say, the ender was occupied by none other than Aussie standout Robbie J. Walker. I can’t divulge too much, other than to say you really need to see Robbie’s part. The kid is officially on the scene and his segment in These Days will prove any and all haters completely wrong.

These Days reminded me of why I started snowboarding to begin with. Aside from the tricks that I unfortunately cannot do, I saw in the film, a fun, refreshing representation of our sport. These Days is an A-plus in my book, and my hat’s off to Carlino and filmers Gary Milton and Corey Koniniec. The dudes proved that you don’t need a lifetime of experience to portray snowboarding in a light that most can relate to. You just need to be a snowboarder, true and true.