Season 2 of The Life of Ryan launches next week, January 8, and I'm amused to see MTV has a new round of nudist Sheckler shots up to promote it. I mention this solely because my Season 1 parody post, MTV's underage nudist skateboarder soap, remains, bafflingly, my most popular piece of writing on this here Internet. Because I'm crass like that, here's a few of the new crops (above), solely for the sake of generating similar traffic to my blog: Let the screaming masses of underage girls who think Ryan Sheckler is the Beatles come in droves, forward this link to their crazed friends, and otherwise find their way to Banquet's veritable cornocopia of skate goodness as they Google "Ryan Sheckler nude" from their junior high computer labs.


All of the tongue-in-cheek above notwitshtanding, I want to confess: I'm a Ryan Sheckler fan, not a hater. I've been covering the AST Dew Tour in various professional capacities for the last two years and I've got to hand it to him: He is one hell of a skater, a pretty decent guy, and coping with copious amounts of fast fame better than might be expected. I've interviewed both him and his mom in the last year and found them to be pretty level, very generous, and mostly bewildered by the maelstrom they helped create. Frankly, if all of this mayhem brings more attention to skateboarding, gets more kids ripping, more skateparks built, and more good times for all, then I'm with it. Which leads me to this: Please, MTV, show some actual skateboarding on the damned show this season! Shecks ripped on camera all year long. He's best buds with some of the best skaters in the world, travels all over the place to skate in the best spots anywhere, and is crazy good at what he does. Don't you think there's a chance that people are watching this show because he's an awesome skater and not just because he takes his shirt off all the time and has soap opera style girl problems?

Life of Ryan Season 2 trailer here.