A film section of a skate website wouldn't be complete without a piece on Jason Lee, or as many of you know him, "Earl." Lee played the lead role on the NBC hit comedy series My Name Is Earl, as well as characters in several of Kevin Smith's movies including: Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma. Just like with Spike Jonze, most of the world knows of him and his mustache because of his mainstream film presence, but not the skate world. We've known of Lee since he was that teenage ripper hailing from Huntington Beach, CA. Another skateboarder who went on to stardom from a town that knocks down it's only skatepark to a build a ticket booth for the High School football team. Hey, Huntington conservatives, how many pro football players have been produced by the H.B. football program. Then look at how many pro skateboarders come from the area. Maybe you guys should play to your strengths, just a little food for thought.

Don't get me started on that, back to Jason Lee. He's one of the forefather's of the "street" movement of skateboarding. He along with the crew he skated with, names like: Mark Gonzales, Guy Mariano and Tim Gavin, changed skateboarding forever. They helped move its focus from the vert ramp, which not everyone has access to growing up, to the streets, which most of us inhabit. Hell, they brought skateboarding to your habitat. How rad is that? It'd be like living in a vert ramp (if you're a vert guy), or on a baseball field (if you're a baseball player). Because of skateboarders like Jason Lee kids all over the world saw you didn't have to have a skatepark in your town to skate.

Lee and Tony Hawk were the first two people to get signature shoes on the skate footwear giant (at the time), Airwalk. These were the days before everyone and their brother had a signature shoe. He's appeared in several of street skateboarding's most influential videos including Rucbbish Heap and Video Days. It was in the Blind film, Video Days, that he probably made his biggest contribution to skateboarding. His part was just perfect, some of the best style ever seen, combined some of the best tricks ever seen, at the best spots ever seen. Video Days was the first street video that wasn't filmed in just a few days. The video's producer, Spike Jonze, and crew, really put some time into it, making sure it featured the best street skateboarding of the day. Not to mention, the classic scene when Lee, Gonzalez, Rudy Johnson and Guy Mariano drive a car down to Mexico and wreck it off a cliff.

Lee made his acting debut in a small role as a teenage drug consumer in Mi Vida Loco, acting alongside Jonze. These two making their first acting appearance in a motion picture together has more than a hint of foreshadowing. Those two small roles have transformed into mega roles for both of them.

Fast-forward a decade and Lee has been in some classic movies and on a hit T.V. series. How funny was he as Brodie in Mallrats, with that whole stink palm pretzel thing, or as Azrael in Dogma. And almost anyone who watches network television has seen his redneck, mustached character "Earl," from the My Name Is Earl. He took his killer personality that shined in those early skate videos and transplanted it onto the big screen and network T.V.

Beside having stints as a professional skateboarder and Hollywood actor, Lee is a co-founder of Stero skateboards with friend and fellow pro skater, Chris Pastras. The brand was formed in 1992, got some momentum, then disappeared for a few years, but the two brought it back in 2003. Stero is currently in business churning out skateboards as we speak, which isn't a given in these economic times.

So, there you go, another member of the "street" skateboarding revolution of the early 90s who was able to use skateboarding as a launchpad for a persuite of another passion. Skateboarders are naturally creative beings, who get involved in it as another outlet for creative activity, and healthy competition that doesn't involve coaches, laps or pep rallies. And that my friends is the perfect type of personality for an actor, producer, artist, etc.

Here's a clip from Jason Lee's first role, a professional skateboarder: