I finished reading Tar Baby by Toni Morrison as I finished writing Dylan Clark’s Genesis 3 review. I’m now reading Alice Walker’s short story collection A Good Woman Is Hard To Find, so I’ll review this standalone part for Ace Trucks that hits like reading a short story on the train ride into the city, Jérôme Sossou’s “GROM”:
Morning birdsong beckons beyond bedroom window, an elevated vantage from an apartment block overlooking similar structures across a provincial hometown. The capital and its delights beckon over the horizon line as skaters grow home turf friendships with those who share dreams projected toward bright lights, big city. Transit rhythms become second nature with Paris as a magnet continuously attracting through formative years toward adulthood. Meet you at the statue in an hour.
Out the door in a hooded jacket, Jérôme carries a green plastic Pellegrino bottle during quick skate along artery siding highway to rendezvous with mate and amble through a verdant park surrounding the metro station. Inbound passage affords dozy soundcloud windowgazing from secluded seating that nurtures a focus roused to exit at Gare du Nord, where Super-8 pastoral dreams immediately sharpen to overbleeding age of mechanical reproduction city center Paris.
Lo-fi Surf Gang sonics waft like haunted afterthoughts through Walter Benjamin’s arcades, projecting Jérôme, now finished waiting for a pedestrian wave to crest, down the block regular-stance. Urethane echoing through corridors of power turns eyes over shoulders to watch Jérôme push five times passing brutalist banking structure backside toward what we will see. A thick-cuffed black beanie pulled low has Jérôme looking pretty like Trevor Colden, with chest-forward power like Joel Meinholz aiding parabolic pop, much higher than need be, though certainly helpful and visually impactful to leave no doubt of prowess, propelling himself well over the already ample street gap threading between poles toward candlelit bistro in twilight. While skate companions twirls with excitement, further wave of oncoming pedestrians react shellshocked by sidestream impact incoming against the grain of their commute.
“Let the money fall … let the money fall we can’t be broke again.” I see Jérôme tag Comme des Garçons in an instagram post.
Bare branches scratch marble grey sky over a regal arrondissement waiting for a winter that may never again arrive. Jérôme wears orange Chuck Taylor hightops and baggy black pants to front 180 with a trace of Bobby DeKeyser onto a bench ledge, narrowly switch riding before popping fakie front crooks upon the next higher level, pushing pinch past the end of his departure surface plus over a black market tag reading “am:)” to pop out switch before ornate building in fisheye.
A white butterfly spreads its wings across the chest of Jérôme’s navy tee throughout his backside bankride up and over a petit gap to wallride into slappy back smith grind down a waxed marble ledge descending to ground alongside escalator base. Private visions from home study share Jérôme’s blond cat peering through a magnifying lamp before hands caress a human skull’s wide-eyed empty gaze, then Jérôme wearing black and white buffalo flannel pops up an urban curb and sidewalk surfs toward a board-propped grate to suck up a lofty gap ollie that hits like a separate trick on its own, down onto backside 50-50 grind along and off the lowest and longest of three front steps before wrought iron art deco doorframes. “Sitting in the dark … sitting it in the dark with my Bernadette.”
Another Bye Jeremy butterfly covers the front of Jérôme’s hoodie this time, fluttering beneath a beanie with untied chin strings bouncing along his backside bluntslide across a flat ledge over blind bumps and three long stairs, popped down to fakie toward crouching fisheye on tiled ground where a flatground fakie heelflip stamps approval. An elevated angle on the same spot zoomed from behind shows his friend from the train ride who resembles a French Jimm.Guy appearing with his beanie off for front noseslide body varial to fakie panned back to show widescreen lengths of these slides.
Dampness darkens the corners of a dreary day until Jérôme decides to approach a double-set and pops past the first six stairs to land in a backside wheelride across the horizontal spine of a concrete bannister rounded just too flat for his Ace trucks to grind. He maintains urethane to concrete contact over the broad kink above the second stair set on through the final indention and a brief flat section before drop to groundroll between the sidewalk posts off curb into street. His older, bearded mate wrapped in purple scarf strides over to hug the returning champion and we see Jérôme’s teeth smiling, chin over his friend’s shoulder in embrace.
A spacious plaza has emptied through evening’s arrival, save for the skaters congregated around steps and pillars near the back wall. Camera perched at parkfront catches Jérôme’s backside 180 down three stairs from across the pitch, as his flipbook-style fakie backside carve past numerous columns builds anticipation for fakie ollie over the perpendicular graded access pathway to split-second switch landing on a brief block of barrier ledge as two wheels at a time take the next drop down into the deserted courtyard alongside a shuttered Destock Market as applause carries through a downhill switch heelflip that prompts further cheering from offscreen viewers.
These appreciative sounds carry into beginning of the next clip, as Jérôme scales multiple graffitied roofs to press drop in from top level, turns into front tailslide across parallel spine of the perpindicular lower roof then navigates his ride down a chute formed by aluminum shingles raindropping to snapdragon landing that can’t stop his rollaway clad in a tan field cap like Tosh Townend dubstepping in This is Skateboarding, while money falling mantra repeats as motivation to escape less affluent past.
Elliot’s camera lens receives Jérôme’s errant board knock on a trick we can’t quite see, then a fast back tail attempt on a curb over stairs leads to Jérôme hanging up and toppling backwards heels over head. He re-approaches with a controlled ollie from street to sidewalk, white longsleeve under his black tee, black pants, and back tails the curb-high ledge that descends more horizontally than eight long stairs well past them to fakie dropped dismount downhill, wrists pinching precise half-cab off the curb between gates and quickly popping up the next curb to backside powerslide push-up into a café-adjacent planter while a diner places head in hands reckoning with barbarian at the gate. “I punch the ground when I walk” reinforces mission statement in British accent as first track fades. Back by videocamera at takeoff, Jerome’s long-haired affiliate in camouflage American flag hat shows his stoke with squeal.
“Sunrise bang your head against the wall!” Nia Archives soundtrack jars like alarm clock as Jérôme rides along a neck-high ledge and smashes wallie over a sign set at the end that propels him further airborne via deep object communion that sources each pounce of terrain projection for maximum ascension to such great heights as filmer wheels on ground recovering the satellites. Quick crew clips flash on exuberant beat and precede double angles of springy seven-stair back smith grind emerging from a pavilion cocooned in a butterfly tee again and shorts.
First go at front tailslide on a gap to ledge over grassy cobblestones with further dismount gap, Sossou’s tail locks rather than slides so he skips unaccompanied past the overgrown cobblestones. Next try shows successful front tailslide swung with momentum o’er gap to fakie.
Approaching three tunnel-bound streets in turn, wearing stopsign red jacket with red Converse hightops, Jérôme ollies the first street gap, ride-on 50-50s a streetpole laid across the second indented roadway, then ollies the third and longest street gap filmed zooming from point of departure.
Another flat gap gets backside bigspun into switch 50-50 along island curb. A large hump patched into pavement prompts frontside bigspin over with a pivot twisting fingertip brushing rollaway switch.
At this point we see Jérôme has utilized a spare skateboard set on its wheels, rather than leaned sideways, to lend mellower prop to a tile before a steep nine-stair beside a tall white handrail. Here and now at 1:41 Jerome activates lift and backside ollies over this railing with exceptionally highly suctioned pop to drop. The second of breathless silence that precedes applause emphasizes this stunt almost as much as the eyes of the old man standing in the landing zone who appears to have just seen god in Jérôme’s ollie as he blocks our view of Jérôme’s back 360 off the curb.
In heart of the Port Canto, overlooking the Bay of Cannes, Bâoli is an emblematic venue on the French Riviera. Under palm trees past club signage, Jérôme descends to ollie a low double-set and land on curb in front 50-50 back 180 out. A holiday companion manning the landing may propose immediate further celebration at Cloud Nine, but even, or especially, on vacation, skate rat rules dictate stacking continues through the last drop of daylight as Jérôme front blunts the entirety of a wax-caked marble bench and street light flickers on to illuminate the last stretch popped to fakie.
Jérôme wears a red crew neck sweatshirt as he gaps over two stairs and angle switches closer for frontside lipslide to regular across the metal net of a colorful ping-pong table, then two young girls pause hopscotch to show who really runs these playgrounds. One pulls the edges of her mouth apart and sticks her tongue out while the other sucks a lollipop as credits hit for Bonnabel’s work and clips keeps flowing with front lip to fakie across the same table.
Horns and piano concert Jérôme’s ride along elevated terrain past gathered pedestrians onto back 5-0 across a police barrier. In shorts on black wheels in slo-mo he backside flips the street gap shown in the screen grab. He holds switch rollaway until reaching a shipping container with air vents cut into the sides, where his hands instinctively grasp through these cut metal openings on bodily impact, then he quickly bounces off and dusts hands clean after danger dodged. He throws down indoors wearing colorful wooly beanie to front 50-50 a tall golden rail’s downward arch while minding the ceiling overhead and shooting through open doorframe across sidewalk. He grabs a pole to assist sharp backside turn in line with a large black vehicle passing through the same crosswalk unaware of this bat out of hell.
Minimalist beat bounces in a barren underground to foreground Fahim The God’s voice and compliment the singular flow of Jérôme’s board-riding body through otherwise deserted tunnel. “I’m seeing it through the fog now. I thought about it; I want it all now. Will you rise above when it all falls down?” Jérôme’s shifty backside ollie filmed long lens into a metal bank laid down three stairs again displays the unique spark of magnetic control in his ollies, then he slightly over-rotates and retrieves flatground pop-shove like Kenny Reed in traveller’s cap before a long, light backside powerslide shows balletic control before he places kickflip like Sean Pablo onto the edge of the metal ramp descending the side of ten stairs. He dodges brick wall and trash container down concrete corridor ride then lassoes one last backside bigspin out of frame into further labyrinthine vast Europa. “Who can you call when times ain’t so convenient? So don’t tell me you love me unless you mean it. I really mean it.” As assembled lads lamp on a roof with a view of the Eiffel Tower watching the train go by, additional filmers, animator and Super-8er receive handwritten credits. An hand drawn cat struts atop Ace trucking logo as 3:13 part finishes with “Your boy name ringing bells all through Metropolis / Unstoppable force, no need to think about stopping us.”
Pepper Grip, Pop Trading Co, Spitfire Wheels, and Nozbone may also to contribute to Jérôme’s productivity. He’s appeared well-distinguished in a number of Cinquième Terrasse productions over the past five years before this first personal part with Elliot. Three obscure songs featured in one short production show the curatorial capabilities and contemporary influences of these daring French boys with grand dreams. Thanks to Ace Trucks for sponsoring this production and I trust that “GROM” titling indicates a lifelong commitment to the focused striving that has led to this here show of Jérôme sprinbgoarding into adulthood.