Nomadic hustl12/14/2023 ![]() If you can’t do your Madonna reinvention real quick, you’re going to end up in a tailspin.”īut Monihan already had his second act planned: a career in DIY filmmaking. Guys got heavily into drugs, committed suicide. “‘You’re not doing the modern tricks and you’ll never be as good at vert as Rune Glifberg, so we’re pulling the plug on your career.’ It’s pretty rough, having that shit taken away from you at 23. “I remember that moment perfectly,” he says of being dropped by H-Street. He became best friends with Monihan, whose own skate career ended when vert became passé. Although he failed to leave a mark on skateboarding history, nobody who passed through the European scene in the late ’80s could forget his gift for clowning. “Skating was so tight-knit back then that you could find any skater and they’d let you crash, show you all the spots.”Īt a halfpipe contest in West Germany, Monihan met Boerleider, who was also sponsored – despite being an uncoordinated jokester who finished last in almost every contest. “We were treated like royalty because we were Americans in the newest videos,” he remembers with a self-deprecating chuckle. Then he was shipped off to conquer Europe. After moving to Santa Cruz for university in 1988, he got sponsored by the legendary H-Street and appeared in landmark videos Shackle Me Not and Hokus Pokus. Now 48, Monihan grew up in inner-city Seattle, where the only respite from near-permanent rain was playing in punk bands or skating in empty garages. Blending documentary and fiction, it’s the second ultra-low-budget feature from Monihan’s ‘subterranean filmmaking collective’ Bricolagista! – the perfect embodiment of his decades-long journey as a shit-talking nomad. It’s a road movie about two washed-up, middle-aged skaters – one white, one black – navigating a confused and conflicted America in a beat-up Subaru. ![]() This is how Sea to Shining Sea gets going. Maximón Monihan and Robert Boerleider in Sea to Shining Sea. But that’s what you get when your guide is Maximón Monihan, Thrasher magazine’s ‘Most Hated Skater of All Time’ (a joke title), who’s eagerly rubbing “the American nightmare” in his face. You can practically see his image of the country begin to crumble. “So this is the other side of the coin? The ones who didn’t make the cut for the American dream?” Now he’s about to embark on a three-week road trip across the country – a dream he’s held ever since his short-lived career as a skater in the late ’80s.įast forward three days and Boerleider is staring dumbfounded out of a car passing L.A.’s notorious Skid Row, watching police harass homeless people in makeshift shacks. For decades, the Dutchman has romanticised America as a cultural mecca and the birthplace of skateboarding. Robert Boerleider steps off the plane at San Francisco International Airport looking ecstatic. ![]() Now, having taken a road-trip across the US with his best friend, he’s realised that true success is doing what you love, regardless of reward. After his career as a pro-skater fell apart, Maximón Monihan had to reinvent himself as a DIY director who thinks outside the box.
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