Kareem Campbell: Phantom Menace?

The highly anticipated first episode of the Epicly Later'd Menace series aired today and I have to say right off the bat I was a little dissapointed. That's not to say that the episode wasn't good however, my frustration stems entirely from the fact that there will be absolutely no Reemo appearance in these episodes. O'dell is no idiot and he obviously realized that the fans would be bummed about the absence of Kareem, thus he offers a disclaimer at the very beginning of the episode, wise choice or everyone would be anxiously awaiting the next episode hoping that Campbell would eventually arrive. There is still lots of Kareem footage in the episode though which is relatively redeeming (tre flip 50 the top of the picnic table was fucking crazy). In my opinion dude seriously had one of the best bs 180s in the history of skating. The illustrious absence aside however, the episode does not dissapoint. There is lots of previously unreleased footage of the Menace crew during their heyday when they were running shit in LA. The opening clip showing Fabian Alomar almost kicking the shit out of some random dude is classic and reinforces the fact that Alomar is and always has been a fucking beast. I love O'dell's analogy between NWA and Menace and how Menace was sort of the NWA of skating in the sense that they were the crew you didn't want your parents seeing. I was super young when Menace was actually in operation, but as a youthful hiphop head residing on the concrete streets of Toronto, Menace was very appealing. The popularity of Menace has never been based on the actual skill level or technical progression of the skaters skating, but rather it is rooted in the whole vibe of the Menace operation. They were obviously a super tight crew of dudes who had a ton of fun everyday skating and hanging out. At a time when skating was dominated by suburban white kids, Menace was a breath of fresh air into skateboarding's diversity. Consisting of a mixed bag of ethnicities, Menace was the embodiment of the the undeniable fact that skateboarding brings people from all walks of life, together in one place. Another influential selling point behind Menace was the insane level of thuggery possesed by each of the skater's, none of which was faked as the epicly later'd episode reveals. And although perhaps it was not the main focal point, the skating fucking ripped. The destruction of the gap to ledge at the First Interstate Bank were always my fav tricks in the video and that part has always stood out. The gap to sw back krooks was awesome. It was cool to hear the filmer Socrates talking about the spontaneity of the Menace clips and how nothing was ever really planned. A lot of the things mentioned in the episode were gone over on the Fabian Alomar episode of skatetalk, but it was extra cool to have the video footage playing over all the stories. Being the little guy in my own crew back home at the time, I was always a huge fan of Javier Nunez, especially after seeing him with the gun in the movie "KIDS" I thought it was so badass, and there was some cool footage of him in this episode.
The wait between Thursdays from now on is going to be a tough one. Good work O'dell!