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David in Seattle left an IG comment suggesting I review Dylan Clark’s part in Genesis 3. I had watched the first half of Ian Ostrowski’s latest 60-minute feature when it released eight weeks ago, enjoying Cass Lopez and Elise Hedge’s parts before pausing to do something, so the second half lingered unwatched in my tabs until I closed it whenever ago. Now, I’m researching Genesis 3 again as viewer 143k.
Some before Covid, more now since, I’ve noticed the presence of this Seattle-originated crew that seems half-planted into Star Team mingling at Tompkins. Cass was at the Cooper Union bank when Daniel Kim filmed me switch flip body varial in pleated Bianca Chandon shorts and a tiny American Apparel tee. I first saw Ian on Jenkem’s Date a Skater, a tall, lanky filmer in Patrick O’Dell style whose date booked a car to extend their night from Bushwick to the LES. Genesis 2 lists 183k views on Ian’s frequently updated YouTube, which now includes a post regarding Troy Gipson turning pro. Troy had last part in the first Genesis video, released five years ago as their crew’s world introduction. With Vans, Noah and MaxAllure sponsorship, Genesis 2 debuted on December 31, 2020 to a Covid-weary populace happy to see this chosen pod’s fresh air exploits. Since then, the crew has continued ascension to further heights of international renown, with Troy turning pro for Violet draped in Supreme stacking between and beyond coasts before Bill’s lens. Though Troy appears throughout, he doesn’t have a part in Genesis 3, presumably because his footage went toward Violet and Supreme output.
The timeline’s listed sections show Dylan Clark has an eight-minute last part, so I pick up re-watching Elise’s section. When she worked at Labor during Covid, Elise took my Dollar Stories handoffs to maintain stock. Now she’s at Supreme, appearing in the videos on board, Bill’s woman muse in a lineage of Jen Reynolds and Alex Niemetz, while still stacking clips here with her day ones. I consider reviewing Bao Nguyen channeling Virgin Suicides skating to Carole King’s “Far Away” as second half of this feature moves along pleasurably.
The circled Genesis crew looking down at the camera in the middle, as always, heralds next part. Dylan Clark didn’t have a part in the first Genesis video, releasing three parts with Jacob Ball as a 16-year-old fresh from childhood as ramp skating prodigy with Mitchie Brusco. Genesis 2 opened with Dylan’s three song section showing focused flowing that seems to have a parabolic awareness akin to gazing into a crystal ball or down a vert wall. He appears in Genesis 3 at 47:09 as I’m reclining in my beautiful girlfriend’s backyard surrounded by five azalea bushes showing shades of lavender, burgundy, pink, red and white, while birds chirp as she plays Zelda on Switch in her pup tent and I on the chaise lounge pack piff in the elephant bowl, refresh my Arnold Palmer and begin Dylan’s part:
Curtain opens showing Dylan in denim cut between pants and shorts length rolling regular-stance toward a vast, curved 9-kinked handrail in the Kyle Walker model. “Go, baby, go.” His yellow Opel trucker cap faces forward for frontside 50-50 through five rail sections before jump off as the rail curves frontside further down. Groundsworkers acknowledge the spectacle and encourage potential for success, but triumph will arrive on a later date, when Dylan wears a focused fit of blue short-sleeve buttoned all the way up, black trousers and two-tone blue Half Cabs to grind this four-flat-three-flat-three-flat-three-flat-three noctokink off the end of the crescent moon to lunar landing carve to avoid the trash can.
First then last name in white capitalized sans serif, Dylan Clark appears overlaid as herbal essence ghost exhales beneath his wispy mustache while Alanis Morissette reminds her perfect boy, “Don’t forget to win first place,” in this case, last part finale billing. Yet even now, when Dylan’s name is the one in lights, camera focuses and lingers on Bao wearing a Genesis tee and a charm necklace reading “Cunt” while Dylan has ducked his tan and brown skull-covered beanie clad head out of frame and seems somewhat shy in face of star turn.
Overlooking Hawaiian bay from primo vantage point with traveling squad on an evening where the sunsetting sky shows as many shades of violet as these azalea bushes surrounding me, with whirlygigs falling onto my keyboard but thankfully not into my Arnold Palmer glass, Dylan wears his custom red and black airbrushed Fortnite hat with a fat doobie primed to spark.
Nighttime footage with red flashing emergency lights shows Dylan wearing a neck brace and Hummer tee as ambulance responders situate him onto a stretcher. Fear not, for soon next we see his vitals safely stabilized in hospital bed in hospital gown with trace of gash over left eyebrow and Hummer tee tucked at armrest. Post recovery, Dylan walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land wearing a flannel with bong in hand. He’s in the van scrolling through photographs of nugs to purchase Hoodrich weed strain over his phone, then sleeping on tiles in a sunny courtyard with his shoulder for a pillow, stoner credentials established.
“Be a good boy. Try a little harder.” At twilight Dylan pushes toward the popular bump to stump backgrounded by Mondrain palates of shipping containers and pops over volcano to land in 50-50 down a propped rail. Instead of succeeding, he lands on his feet twisting his knees and arms to avoid roadside water channel. “You’ve got to measure up. Make me prouder.”
Vue proclaims itself “Seattle’s most innovative nightlife concept.” You will not be admitted wearing athletic gear, tank tops or jerseys (except on home game nights.) Outside in daylight, Dylan wearing white tee, light cutoffs, black beanie and black Blazers prop-pops past the venue’s signage to split his front 50-50 between the two top levels of bevels on white brick fencing wall atop a red curb on red wheels with an ollie hole scraped through his left leading front foot with white swoosh.
Wide angle shows the Space Needle scraping blue skies under which Dylan wallie blasts a cobble stone chunked up just before an eleven-stair, a BMX style charge on same red hot wheels as two homies tucked into a doorway twist their wrists to catch their angles in his wake.
“How long before you screw it all up?” Clark’s wearing his trusty black Genesis hoodie with Playboy G back graphic that he wore in Genesis 2 as he crooks a low, slightly ascending yellow flatbar bridging a loading dock corner, lands in manual across the rest of the loading dock into backside wallie off siding wall to drop. Eye contact with his filmer during carve back conveys the struggle that may have preceded this clean sweep.
Front-facing footage shows a thirteen-stair with concrete wall siding formed by a balustrade beginning up top at curb height chuting alongside stairs to head-high drop past their end. Camera angle switches to a perched frontside shot of hoodie-up Dylan manualing down the hubba with swift acceleration and swoop off.
Rustic flannel worn afront red-stoned Kenzo Nakamura Courthouse building in downtown Seattle lends Dylan a look of Joey Pepper on Elwood as he backside ollies onto a platform ride to pop further backside ollie over uncharted terrain and land in back 50-50 across horizontal red marble ledge spanning the switchback of an access ramp, popping off over an end cap for drop to street on red wheels at the red spot in red and violet Dunks with denim pants, deep inhale to appreciate the innovative stunting as those in the background do too.
The background homie blows a cloud then Dylan in a crisp white Fortnite tee front five-ohs a round fifteen rail and continues off sidewalk grabbing down salad days grassy ramble until eventual spinout in rusty brown trousers and olive green/gum sole hightop Vans.
“Be a good girl,” used in this setting acknowledges universality of human experience while appreciating gender play. Yellow Opel hat reappears along a mixed used stroadway down toward Tacoma. Rock Auto Sales displays its logo in the Hard Rock Cafe font as Dylan pops back boardslide across a thick round black flatbar then drops onto more boardslide along a second tilted black pole twisting back to regular riding around yellow blind bumps into crosswalk. There’s Max Palmer offering Dylan a pound, which surely feels good.
Even then… “You gotta try a little harder.” You can hear her voice in your head and know she is right to believe in you. Her nagging for is for his benefit. Dylan takes a cue from Max’s spot treatment book and revisits same spot in reverse: front 50-50 up the banked black bar popped up to back 50-50 on the horizontal bar, pop down to the black asphalt on the opposite side from his original sidewalk approach as friends chilling on the bumper of the popped hatchback slap smiling applause, crossfaded to Dylan in purple hoodie, olive pants and brushworked Half Cabs throwing down to pop frontside past two stairs onto overcrooks along a slightly descending, mostly horizontal red handrail that spans a 20-foot pieced glass mosaic serpentining down a lush emerald pathway standing swooped shown twice from takeoff and landing angles as drums crash.
Olympic Sculpture Park hosts Dylan wearing auburn pants with a black hoodie, black beanie, and black shoes. Evening approaches on a day when the sun never appeared as he 360 flips on flat, then focuses his attention past the glowing infrared interior double-sets to a concrete six-stair exiting the park corner. He ollies frontside over the stairs and handrail to land on a short, thin concrete flat block past the far side base of the stairs, precise as a hammer vaulting a rubber frog onto a lily pad at a county fair booth, before dropping down to sidewalk and street where, having successfully shielded traffic, one friend wearing silver puffer and turquoise/purple star skully dances to a song playing over his phone in hand while Troy presses his hands into his hair as Dylan pops a little ollie over the curb-corner hip down the next block as a small black bug with white spots crawls across my keyoboard and up the screen, perched now on the top looking at me from the same angle as my video chat camera.
In sight of the Statue of Liberty on State Street, Dylan rolls high atop the thick glass South Ferry subway entrance toward the black backside-channel ledge for a noseslide landing in manual down the glass backbone looking like Ben Blundell with Hummer tee blown pressing against his chest and tight horizontal lips focused balanced down the drop to landing. “What’s the problem? Why are you crying?” “Let’s Go!”
Shiny blue speed shades perch atop the brim of Dylan’s forward facing ball cap. Green Day’s Dookie graphic fronts his slate t-shirt and blue jeans cut around mid-calf reveal black socks under black with white stripe Rowley Classics as Dylan pushes past the whole crew made in the shade to back smith down a brick fourteen-stair handrail, heeltip dipped and lifted dismount fully controlled from building-front to parking lot shown from above and below.
“Be a good boy. Push a little farther now.” In slow motion, Clark pops from back bluntslide to back 5050 over the gap between two benches on a brushed white concrete path connecting different color buildings constructed at the same time. “That wasn’t fast enough to make us happy,” but the trees are young, green, and Caden Smith, the fifteen-year-old Girl-sponsored blond who had first part and perfect view of this clip here shoots a photograph on silver still camera.
Ivy grows on the shady side, back at the bump-to-stump on a bright sunny day in highwaters, Half Cabs and his yellow hat, Dylan catches kickflip in time to flick ollie North, slo-mo first so it sinks in, real speed second time showing a longer rollaway past unhitched tractor trailers driving the opposite direction. Consider the yin and yang shape of a handslap held. “We’ll love you just the way you are, if you’re perfect.”
What would your last meal be? “Lowkey like some toast,” Dylan decides. Ian’s zoomed camera shakes with laughter and pans over to Elise laughing too. Later, over the ends of an In-and-Out meal, after a sip of vanilla shake, Dylan muses, “Ice cream with toast,” and nods along to encourage his audience’s appetite.
We’re on session in the viewing area as Dylan descends a multi-kinked multi-set holding his board waist-high through the grind he isn’t actually performing. As Dylan walks down, defeated, Ian turns camera to a mustachioed mate sitting on his board on the curb. An alternatively dressed black man with camouflage speed shades resting on cuff of his Genesis team beanie, he seems a bit older than most of the crew. “Say it again,” Ian whispers as bit begins:
“It’s like fucking going to a concert and [the musician] not wanting to play. Like this is what you do, right?” Dylan reaches the bottom of the stairs and steps on board to roll toward camera and crew. Once he’s within earshot, this spectator shouts, “You’re not about to do it, huh? Why not?”
“Bro, that shit is so scary,” Dylan explains.
“A lot of shit be scary,” this expectant comrade notes in AAVE.
“Like maybe for the Cookies eighth, but…” Dylan muses.
“The Cookies eighth,” this straight confirms to Dylan and audience with a knowing laugh. Now we’re talking. This man who came on the session wants a show and figures he may be able to pay top-shelf prices for high-grade entertainment.
Potential for a treat lingers in the air as soundtrack switches to piano keys under wide blue skies so bright they reveal scrapes on the camera lens. Dylan switch heelflips onto a park garden’s first wooden level, quickly re-situates for switch pop into switch nose manual across the next level of wooden platform, fakie balance maintained like Nik Stain into fakie flip folded out, off and down on beat of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.”
Liquid Blue skull piles t-shirt in blue on black is a suitable top for exhaling vapors as TikTok matinee idol, cut to the spot where six blue and white painted pipes wrap around, along and down the white and blue streetcorner buildingside. “It could all be so simple” concedes proper backside 50-50 across and down showing the Genesis hoodie front and back. “But you’d rather make it hard.” Later day casts longer shadows as Dylan explains his extended absence with a crooked grind across lifted to knock back 5-0 down to the pot of gold at the end of the rail’s rainbow crisp as a brisk breeze in box-fresh black and white Half Cabs. Troy’s in the background laughing while the young ripper Caden has his hands on his head screaming with delights. Two acorns fall on my knee and my beautiful girlfriend calls my attention to a cardinal on a branch in the neighbor’s pine behind me, “Dad” rings out from a higher level a few buildings over and the air smells of hamburgers wafts as a sweatbee circles my beverage.
“Loving you is like a battle and we both end up with scars” is a tough love sentiment familiar to any skater, while Dylan’s in FiDi at the Water Street ledges pushing uphill to ollie backside onto the long ledge propped up at the end to boost his noseblunt slide across the conjoined solar-powered recycling and trash compactors. He pushes across Water Street traffic past steam bellowing from orange tubes for 360 flip before earned smile up at camera with the buildings towering overhead like the Genesis crew in their squad shot motif.
A ledge spanning a long, low double set that is truly more like two separate sets of stairs provides ample showcase space for Dylan’s Thunder trucks on front 5-0 turned into switch crooks turned back to regular dismount, double angles like the two Tommy Hilfiger patches on both the belt and carpenter’s loop of his denim pants. Dylan resembles Brandon Bonner with his Stephen Malkmus hair and thin mustache wearing purple and rust for back overcrooks down a red ten-stair alongside sportsfield seating in white Half Cabs popping from shady success off the curb into sunshine.
Painted Converse longnecks flick a speedy heelflip through empty parking lot in zipped up hoodie and blue jeans with front pocket lines worn through thigh pushing past the sign on the side of the liquor store advertising deals on fresh new boots as Dylan ollies over this beaten yellow pole bruised like a banana peel to crouch front 5-0 across the ledge that arms the empty dumpster’s nest.
A blue patterned long-sleeve cloaks a white logo tee for slappy front 180 to switch crooks through a quarter-turn curb cut along painted brown fencing, pop back to regular and downhill dap the homie hidden by a tree trunk in passing.
Dylan utilizes sidewalk prop again to back tailslide over two twin hose hook-ups until shove out “forces you to scream my name” in an orange patterned button-up over a different white teeshirt in downtown Los Angeles.
He ollies over a rail frontside to land on the dark concrete bannister descending alongside then crouches to pop kickflip off drop to brushed green racquet court landing in high-tops like hiking boots while the tennis players on the other side of the fence hydrate as Dylan looks back at his filmer to whoosh and friends run down to congratulate and dance.
Slappy crooks on a double-sided curb alongside a drop wearing red long-sleeve under camo tee shifts into switch front 5-0 before and through the curb’s spinal descent as Dylan reverts to regular down the bank through the chute they swept between fallen leaves to powerslide into the wall.
Along a shady alleyway off Inglewood, Dylan stands upon a white wall facing a slightly ascending horizontal railing. Camera zooms in as he throws down black blank with a Spitfire sticker in the middle, black Spitfire tee to ollie over into front feeble/back smith transfer drop to sidewalk in black shoes with white laces.
Dylan appears bursting from a second-story building corridor to front lipslide a blue fourteen-stair rail with a drop to garage entrance on far side while a filmer on bicycle in zipped up Adidas jacket, chain link beanie and AirPods confirms he got an angle.
Highlighter yellow beanie brightens the corners of a cloudy day as nook-seeking Dylan backside wallies over the ivy and up a tree trunk to transfer from sidewalk to street with raindrops on the lens shown twice boosted to the max with black shoes painted white like Jerry Hsu.
Frigid temperatures make a black puffer appropriate attire to gap from one grey lot to land in 50-50 on a silver pole, once vertical, now bent down over its still-stationing sandbags, to enable Dylan’s transfer down to lower, fresher lot with snow in the scrub grass beyond the parked cars.
Parched Dylan pauses for refreshment on a bank with a curb growing to ledge alongside. He runs up and throws down for rock to fakie where the sidewalk ends, then tilts back down to hold switch slappy noseslide as the ledge grows in height while sidewalk slopes down to test the limits of pretzel logic through a frontside 270 twist out to regular with Champion logo on the Genesis hoodie’s sleeve cuff and bluejeans with the cuffs cut off à la Ethan Fowler in black low-top Chucks.
On the grass-spanning double-sided L-shaped planter ledge that is currently the Seattle technical benchmark of choice, Dylan nollie noseblunts in the Big G Beanie, then out East at Max Palmer’s Canal Street Waterfall, we see a hand blessing Dylan with the custom airbrushed Fortnite hat he was wearing earlier. Clip cuts to Police Plaza six-stair railing where Dylan kickflip front crooks. In light of this spot’s current treatments from Shanahanz and Tiago and building upon this spots’s decades-deep history, Dylan certainly elevated here to attain such an NBD level of his own. Now he’s back in Max’s dry waterfall pit, where he already stacked three clips in Genesis 2, for fakie bigflip firecracker down.
At home in Seattle, Dylan back 50-50s a red thirteen and continues grinding onto the ledge at the bottom for more backside 50-50 before pop off.
He’s wearing orange, yellow and black camo t-shirt throwing down in a Hawaiian ditch with steep, deep graffiti, frontside carving first wall then crossing bed to backside pump up and scoop 360 flip over the circle gap round as Elise’s mouth in the background as Dylan descends onboard and carves the frontside wall again to backside wall into the arms of his friends.
A full-speed throw down leads to a shoulder check and skull crack wearing khaki and lilac curled into fetal position; better situated the second time as headwind parts Dylan’s hair during his ascension of a thin concrete bank onto evergreen railing between the vehiclular and pedestrian traffic paths on a bridge with pine trees trimming the skyline for slappy-dipped back smith up the crest held past two sidewalk sections popped down from neck-high past a big crack.
Hands in mittens buttoned backed to reveal fingerless gloves and wearing the neon yellow beanie again, Dylan switch hardflips down a waterfront wooden three block.
Again at the bump-to-stump, we see him dropping his board in exhausted frustration, then mounting to ascend and pop over to land on the pole that has been unstumped and placed here for this 50-50 trickery that tripped him up earlier but not this time. We see handshake in the camera light past purple twilight, then for his ender he’s passing a red bush then some green ones as the filmer at the top of the triple-set documents the successful frontside 50-50 that stage frightened Dylan earlier and Rafi does his accumulative hand motions amid general jubilation of mates in the lot. Back in the van Dylan gets to sit shotgun, sweatshirt wrapped around chest. The driver’s side door opens and in flies a bag from the Cookies store. Genesis 3 ending logo hits with the exotic mission accomplished.
For first clip after credits, “Right here, Dylan.” In a Los Angelean back alley under palm fronds green and brown, Dylan approaches an overgrown over-vert whitewall. He pumps up and slashes one footed Madonna 5-0 down to catch a slap from applauding homie in Less Than Local hoodie. Up at the overlook, Dylan offers Elise the end of a joint, but she doesn’t seem inclined. Next clip in the red light of a private party shows Dylan with another woman lighting his big smoke. Now you’re grown up so fly it’s like a blessing. Video ends with Dylan waiting for his Monarch check to deposit so he can buy more Cookies.
Dylan’s largely thrifted stylings only sparsely acknowledge his Monarch Project, 35th Ave, Thunder and Spitfire sponsorships. He seems happy with his main affiliation being the Genesis crew, though a “Lunatic Fringe” feature and 35th Ave advert in Thrasher’s May issue well-herald further fandangling. Thanks to Dylan for the heady ripping and to Ian for continuing to document his rising crew staying together and enjoying the fruits of blossoming into adulthood with their skill sets strengthened by their bonds.