Through my youth in Indiana I considered Cincinnati, with its waterfront, hills and Strength Magazine-affiliated skate scene, to be the San Francisco of the Midwest. Anonymous Skateshop was outfitting the city and Dave Caddo hadn’t yet moved to New York as I watched Legends [Self-Proclaimed] rewind repeat in my bedroom 100 miles away.
275 is the interstate loop that surrounds Cincinnati, with Lawrenceburg, Indiana’s exit on the ring’s west side. Lawrenceburg is tucked in my home state’s obtuse southeastern corner, a sleepy river town (population 5000) of the tri-state area where Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky meet. Blacklist Skateshop opened in Lawrenceburg in 2004, the same year I left Indiana for New York. Here we are, nearly two decades later, and Blacklist continues to serve the Lawrenceburg scene while also operating a Walnut Hills Cincinnati location to fill the void left by Anonymous’s permanent closure. When Thrasher posts Blacklist’s “EAST FIFTY Vol. 2",” I click on in to see what these Indiana boys bring to the table:
Hoosier hospitality includes holding the door, as Logan Hamm shows at production commencement. We don’t know what happened before this chain restaurant manager comes to opened door’s threshold in white polo and khakis with swinging bluster of self-importance: “Get your asses off the fucking property right now!”
“Chill … the fuck out, man,” says the filmer while Logan continues holding the door southpaw, with his right hand behind his back and matted blonde dreadlocks brushed behind shoulders. “All you need to do is ask. You don’t need to come like that, man.” Logan releases handle as crew moves to exit.
“Yeah? Well I’m gonna come like that, because I fucking hate your kind.”
“Our kind?!”
Blacklist logo overlays Cincinnati skyline shots switching in time with piped horns over smoke stacks and church steeple, past row houses down alleys. Logan appears in passage clip with something smoking between his lips, Wu-Tang tee under camo jacket in a Lewis Marnell white rasta style. First clip Logan pops up curb backside into manual over half a block’s crusty sidewalk, where off the end rollaway turns downhill as he bombs a block’s steep descending length. Namesake shot shows Logan made in the shade, joint in hand, with wispy blonde mustache filling natural course to more of a goatee than a beard as LOGAN HAMM in yellow caps overlays his smile at filmer’s attention.
Blue skies pan down to Logan in Tiago sneakers and red shirt riverfront riding toward a silver metal bench on a Magenta deck. He fakie back nosegrinds here, then in no-push quick succession hits the following silver metal bench with fakie crooks.
Yellow curb edging brick sidewalk gets frontside 50-50 in high tops and shorts pushing toward the brick downhill pad also surrounded by yellow curbs that gets a manual so ride continues round-earth past a number of modern row houses channeling San Francisco by way of Frank Lloyd Wright, hence a bit more Midwestern breathing room, as Logan grasshops over a planter between driveways and continues downhill line outta town.
“I got you stuck off the realness,” samples Mobb Deep on Nick Burke’s custom, otherwise instrumental soundtrack in the Mr. Dibbs for Habitat model as Logan appears in New York at Columbus Circle. He enters plaza from 8th Avenue with front 180 over a pole that shows his Cash Only dollar sign deck under his black/white New Balances, navy cargo shorts and blue head wrap holding together those dreads not braided into ponytail hanging over his shoulder as a couple switch mongo pushes situate him toward the statuary ledge for frontside half-Cab into back 5-0. After rollaway cuts, further flatground front shove appears as single on beat, then Logan pushes toward same ledge from returning direction and twists front 5-0 grind at halfway point into switch crooks across the rest of the side. Sunset train ride to Brooklyn leads to Chris Cardenas in unbuttoned sleeveless vest backside flipping over a hefty gate at night, cue the crew going wild over worthwhile stacking states away from home.
606 is the area code for Eastern Kentucky that appears in white beside the outline of a stripper on the front of Logan’s red t-shirt as he rides along Queen City waterfront plaza where many of these clips happen and pop shove its into nose manual across the higher, longer part of the pad under a shade-providing structure that gives this outdoor space a resemblance to Barcelona’s Sants station.
A hardworking friend pushes his full wheelbarrow up a thin wooden ramp into the bed of a pickup truck with Logan hot on his heels for fakie flip up the bank, downplank regular-stance. Back for more in a backpack and candy cane Dunk highs, Logan pops and folds half-cab flip on this thin bowing performance space. He’s wearing the same outfit sans backpack on next city center nollie tailslide along a straight then quarter-curving red marble ledge, rolling away toward people peering down the block for a bus that hasn’t arrived.
When snowstorms blanket most terrain, skate rats know to check the interstate underpasses that provide dry ground where, fresh off a painting job, Logan wallies up a Jersey barrier to manual across its top before dropping to dry next roadway.
In summertime at a small park, the meniscus of running water overpools the top of a barrel-shaped black fountain for perpetual waterfall downside. Logan splashes back nosegrind across the top, then follows through with a drippy back nosegrind revert. His 360 shove-it over an air vent grate gap in cutoff tee with tail drag reminds me of P-Tricky’s rollaway after he hardflipped the Flushing grate. “Yoooo,” says someone happy he saw.
Three consecutive single clips of well-elevated ledge techniques begin when Logan fakie front crooks a ledge over a stair, sidewalk section and tall stalk of maiden cane before fakie pop to drop. He then front noseslides a flat ledge up three stairs with back right foot tweaked for side support over the dirt-covered depression at top landing too.
Logan lets lower ledges that are six stacked bricks tall remain skatestopped because he wants to skate the twelve-brick-tall section, so he pops off that skatestopper, lays down an icy white wax rub and switch front noseslides upper deck to switch in shorts and purple tee on a humid, sweaty afternoon with deep green grass surrounding brick courtyard.
Anthony Price pops up for cellar door-incorporating clip before a ride-on grind single, then Jacob Hum stacks a couple on this downward pad like Roselyn, which is where Logan re-appears, rolling upstream shirtless for nollie back 180 to ascendent switch nose manual to half-Cab into top lot regular. Next clip follows same progression through nollie back 180 switch nose manny up to fakie front shove exit. His third clip here shows switch front 180 to upward manual into backside 360 out. For fourth approach Logan deigns to skate the pad downward with slo-mo fakie hardflip into switch manual on the Cash Only dollar deck with celebratory switch flip popped in the empty lot afterward.
Right food forward toward an empty fountain bowl, Logan switch noseslides around its lip then pops over and in to switch spoon ride. At the same spot, regular-stance Rick Fein pops into the fountain and frontside carves its curve to pop nollie backside flip out on his second attempt. Logan’s turn comes again as he pops nose manual into the fountain, down around and up into nollie flip out like he’s a figurehead on the front of a ship’s prow. The crew’s been posted with a cooler at the spot for most of the day and is well lubricated for hearty cheers at success as one member pumps his tattooed arm in a cha-chinging motion.
Two stairs surround the low stage in a brick plaza where Logan, clad in black Nike gloves and New Balance shoes, switch manual switch front shoves. The filmer is wearing gloves too as they bump fists.
A wooden deck platforms Logan’s backside 180 to fakie manual to fakie back bigspin out to flamingo landing. Same spot, same direction, he catches back bigspin squeaky clean into fakie manual popped out to switch like Wu-Welsh on Pier 7.
Between Cincinnati’s Art Museum and Krohn Conservatory is a large empty pool with banks around its edges. I’ve only seen it on a non-skating trip with my parents and have longed to return. Here, Logan ascends the bank and fakie 270s into front boardslide along the waxed lip. When he pops his tail down to fakie in two-toned green beanie uncuffed to accommodate piled hair, the wood knocks in a sweet spot that makes a friend watching say “Damn” as Logan rolls away switch and the clip replays so we can re-appreciate this particular wooden bounce again. Someone says “Oh my god” as more mates gives hearty claps and Logan pops a fakie flip on flat.
A yellow-shirted skater ollies one flat gap then, over the second, hangs on his hopes to roll away from a clip-clopped nollie inward heelflip. Over the same two gaps, while the background flag stands at half-mast, next line brings another ollie then a frontside flip. Following filmer pans down to TRAV written on his own grip then up again to this skater in yellow FTC shirt who announces that Travis’s spirit is guiding his tricks for the city. Travis Jacob Freas, who was a founding member of Naptown Collective and had tricks in “East 50 Vol. 1,” died at age 30 in a car crash on September 19, 2022. Logan’s Instagram shows he also keeps Travis’s memory alive.
More of the Blacklist contributes through the next five minutes of this 13:13 length presentation. Opportunity to see the variety of locals who compose a scene is always a treat and one notices how, between rippers with longer sections, some fellows figured out a particular trick or two of a caliber befitting this video that’s going to be posted on Thrasher and really challenged themselves to attain their successes. When Travis pops up to give a high five, one can imagine how the presence of a dead friend appearing in this videolight is special invocation of ties that bind all involved. I find out Kobi Grismore is dating my friend’s girlfriend’s best friend, Cody Heil works on community relations and Anthony Edwards, a tattooed technician like Conner Champion, wears Cradle to the Grave t-shirt for lengthy back tail bigspin over their favorite grass gap and crooked grinds the stem to leaf transfer from covershot. A purple and orange sunset line along Indianapolis’s canal precedes multiples clips at Indianapolis’s Saint Claire library in “Trav Forever” t-shirt.
Redheaded Chris Zschunke, who is probably the best skater from my hometown of Franklin, Indiana, contributes four clips with big pop and a three row studded belt.
With two minutes to go in feature, Logan returns with his blonde hair black-wrapped and a black longsleeve under his white tee. Near a public landing under Taylor Southgate Bridge, the southern fantail end of Serpentine Walls makes multiple levels of concrete slope terrace down toward the Ohio River. I walked past this spot with my parents and brother one summer afternoon on our way to a Cincinnati Reds vs. St. Louis Cardinals matinee game. My mother’s father had arranged our tickets above third baseline dugout through his connections in the liquor distribution business. My parents encouraged us to wear shorts on this hot day, but we, being skaters, wore pants even without boards. This particular game had also been selected as Senior Citizens’ Day at Great American Ballpark, and our seats in the sun were surrounded by the elderly visiting in groups from homes, who were soon overheating and evacuated elsewhere. My parents received sunburns on tops of their knees, but my brother and I in our pants fared fine as the Cardinals notched a victory. Logan looks like Tyson Peterson here ascending this riverfront slope to pop manual up first level, pop up next level to more manual, balance up to a cusp point twist where he backside reverts into fakie manual and pops down to switch landing then switch front 180 off the first level curb on downstream course beside this water in tribute toward the mighty Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois.
Gary Ramp tailslide kickflips to fakie in a parking garage, then Logan hops another manual upon quarter-hour ledge before midway popping front shove into nose manual around the curving remainder, a shirt-wearing member of the Iron Maiden fan club with jubilant friends chasing after his wake. Gary front blunt 270s the empty conservatory pool as the sequencing of heavy hitters trading bangers for finale becomes apparent. Logan’s next run comes in yellow shoes, khaki cargo pants and a grey Cincinnati reds tee with fakie ollie onto the sidewalk in fakie manual across a few sections to carve up a curbcut bank and fakie flip off into switch manual across the rest of the sidewalk to street. You’ll have to see the rest of the squad’s heavy enders to believe them, including this bump to grind on the side of a roof. Credits run then Logan appears for one more clip in a grey Boston hoodie. His friend is sitting crosslegged bent forward as Logan ollies over him from back to front with the hint of a mischievous smile on his face as he pops 270 shove into front blunt upon substantial block ledge to regular. He pops a front shove before he steps off the board looking back to the camera. Someone says “Yoooo” as friends are laughing at marvel of complete performance then blacklistskateshop.com lists as curtains close.
Loose part structuring parameters ensure the sum of the whole scene receives highest billing and compels close attention through modest runtime. Logan shared a part with Scott Zellner in last fall’s Skyline, now this three seasons later shows his commitment to well maintaining the mantle of neighborhood-centric skating that has Cincinnati waters have continuously nourished since at least Doug Korfhagen’s days. As summertime’s arrival carries scent of charcoal through backyards, I rest assured that Logan and the Beef Trucks crew are cooking up something tasty for the next Blacklist barbecue.