Possessed To Skate

After the one episode of the power hour that was dedicated to thrash and hardcore, it seemed the show was now starting to feature two or three bands per episode out of the many videos played within the hour. Once again I had the VCR on standby and was lucky I did, as I captured a second video from Venice Beach bad boys Suicidal Tendencies. The song was called "Possessed to skate" and the video started off with some dude (singer Mike Muir) seeing his parents off to their Winnebago looking van. I recognized the mother, she was the same actress who played Mike's mom in the Institutionalized video and I also knew her from a low budget horror movie titled "Movie house massacre" that I had bought from Bargain Harold's one day for two bucks. The actor who played Mike's father was a different man, he was not the same guy from the first video. Years later I recognized him to be none other than LSD guru Timothy Leary. 

The folks tell Mike to behave while they are out and his father insists "no skateboarding until you've done your homework" Now we find Mike in the house sitting at a desk doing what appears to be algebra or fractions or something along those lines, he is using an oversized 80s gimmick pen. Mikey's skateboard is perched up on his desk as well, so he takes a moment to admire it, then spins one of the wheels with his index finger. As the wheel spins the opening riff to the song starts up, his homework becomes emblazed with a pentagram, then the door breaks down and a gang of rampant skaters run into the house, so Mike grabs his board and joins in. 

All the skaters proceed to trash the house, spray paint the walls, and skateboard off of tables and furniture. The band is also amongst the chaos which provides the visual stimulation of "Homework Mike" and "Suicidal Mike" moving a couch together to make room for skateboarding. A covered pool in the backyard opens itself up via stop motion animation to reveal an empty pool. Next thing you know the thrashers are ripping the pool up while Suicidal performs the song live on the deck of the pool. The video comes to a conclusion with Mike skating through a couch, ripping around his house, and finally bailing at the feet of his angered parents who have returned from their outing. Mike looks up in surprise and nervously says "Hi mom.....hi dad....." to which his mother screams in horror and falls over. 

This video was a classic masterpiece and I loved it. The video opened my eyes and inspired me to bring my street skating to the next level, much like the Death Angel video which featured lots of boneless tricks and acid drops. I was ready to take my new inspiration to the streets, I even went as far as to record the song onto cassette by putting my radio up to the tv, just so I could skateboard to the song. I went out to the garage, popped the tape in my ghetto blaster, and began tearing up the pavement on my driveway and street. I was already into skating but now I was possessed to skate!