Not Just For Breakfast Anymore!

Lon Smith, Modest Mouse, Footbag - Boo Yah!

What the hell does that mean?!

I don’t often report on the exploits of footbag freestyle but there is sometimes a happening so BIG that it’s more than just freestyle, it’s footbag in general and we’re part of that for sure.  This is one of those times.

First the video and then, if you care, I contribute some babble below.  This Modest Mouse video stars Lon Smith.

It’s so big that I’m not entirely sure it’s real.  Perhaps this is some editing trick.  I doubt it though and I guess the video will have its official premier in the next few days on Modest Mouse’s myspace page. 

So, perhaps this isn’t footbag’s break-out moment.  Maybe footbag is and always will be an alternative sport and this isn’t where we go mainstream and start pulling all the big sponsors.  Does footbag even want that?  I don’t think it’s possible anyway.  Besides, I love footbag the way it is.  Not that I don’t want to promote the sport and see it grow.

I think of footbag like this…

Footbag is a theatre show to the stadium concert.  Perhaps even a smoky night club.  Okay, a garage band… in the garage… a one car garage.  But the band is bad ass!

Footbag is a little big city.  Well, still just a little city.  Okay, a town… in the middle of nowhere… a little town.  But it’s a bad ass little town!

That’s footbag to me.

Don’t give us any bull@#&* hype!  We don’t want it and we don’t need it!

So @#%$ that 3rd place in the ratings, out of three late night talk shows, late night talk show!  Not the one hosted by Letterman.  Nor the one hosted by Jay.  The other one.  The one that had the great Vasek Klouda as a guest a couple months back and showed him little respect.  Vasek, by the way, kicked ass on that show while also displaying tremendous poise and a sense of humor in the face of so called professionals being @#*holes.  Anyway, I digress…

This video starring Lon Smith is a very nice piece, to say the least, and will grant our sport some honest exposure on a large scale.  I could hardly believe what I was seeing as I watched it the first time!  Barely a couple months after I witnessed yet another example of how legacy media tends to trash the sport of footbag I come across this Modest Mouse Video via the blog search at fw and youtube (As Always And Can Never Be Said Enough - Thank You FW!).  It’s a video that completely and totally features footbag without any fluff.

Lon Smith is THE star of this video and they got the right guy.  He is one of the greatest and styliest freestyle footbag performers of all time, perhaps one of the most humble too.

From the title of the song, to the history and culture of the band who wrote the song, and how the song and video relate to the footbag and its place in mass media and pop-culture - I just don’t think there could be a better fit for footbag in big media.  Check it out(above - not below, click the image).

Footbag Rocks!  Modest Mouse is Awesome - yes Jukka I said Awesome !  The song is killer!  And Lon Smith Kicks Some Serious Ass!

modest mouse: http://www.modestmousemusic.com/
modest mouse myspace: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.showvids&friendID=4341225&n=4341225&MyToken=58733ea4-ad52-4197-aef0-8c74ff326657