Former-local boy done good

It was difficult not to get just a little bit giddy watching Dane Vaughn's pro part because it's just so, to put it simply, cool that it happened for the dude. Around here, many folks' first memories of the then kid called Lil' Dane were of him ollieing the Science Museum triple set in the rain prior to the Real to Reel premiere--15 years ago. It was never that you wanted to bet against the kid--Dane ripped from day one as countless clips profess--it was just that from an outside perspective it seemed like life was pretty raw for the guy and that if skateboarding didn't work out, it was, more than anything, the universe's fault.

Jumping ahead to more recent times, and things seemed to shift when the likes of both Jamie Thomas and Josh Kalis (guest trick!) seemed to have his backing, hard. This website and at least a fraction of Village Psychic tend to think Dane is a social media genius as well as one of the hardest working skaters out there. His Instagram account is a case study in skateboard marketing, often the topic of an ongoing multi-platform discussion centered around different ways of saying "Wow."

"Wow" works for the legit full part above, beginning with the fact that a dude who seems to have a daily Insta-line also had three-plus minutes of footage at the ready. I suppose turning pro is a great motivator. Standouts include the line on the big naval fastener thingies that ended with the frontside nollie heel to switch crook; nearly all the outfits; the song, completing the circle of dope white guys skating to the same Rakim song (see Caine Gayle in the XYZ video); only one of but a damn good one of those patented nollie inward heels; that tornado nollie heelflip to frontblunt at the end; all the kickflips, you gotta love those.

Congrats, Dane.