Laban Pheidias – Human Radioactive Throw Up (1997)

Showmanship.

Laban Pheidias was the original entertainer in skateboarding. His juggling skills, miming craft and magic tricks were of a professional level that he eventually pursued. Most of what I remember about watching Laban as a kid was that he always delivered some sort of trick or stunt with his skate parts.

On a skateboard, Laban had a pretty solid bag of tricks willing to balance out his flip tricks with his leaps of faith. I have no idea, but I like to think he saw his possibilities within the industry as limited and bowed out before anyone could call him lame or milking it. 1997 was a transitional period for skateboarding where big money was about to flood the market and competition was about to get serious. Laban doesn’t seem like the competitive type.