Review of Street Smart Cool Cat

Regularly producing at least one episode a month since September 2005, Djon Chozkel began his show on Parisian street life as an awkward, low-budget clip in French shot in one take. After a long maturation, its website is still as simplistic as possible, but now the show caters to an English-speaking audience with sophisticated editing and great conversations about “the globalization of culture.”

Covering a wide breadth of material, host Djon Chozkel takes us to the streets of Paris, which are, so he says, not that different from the streets of New York, South Central L.A., and Rio.

From filming recreations of legendary San Francisco skate spots to interviewing famous Americans like graffiti artist Dave Kinsey and skater Tony Hawk, Chozkel’s show traces the globalization of street culture in four to five minute spots. Throughout the years, the episodes have gotten more frequent and progressively better in terms of both production quality and Chozkel’s hosting abilities. Each one is available in a motley assortment of video formats and are never larger than 40 MB, making the shows easy to download and easy to enjoy.

The multi-part Tricks & Treats episodes are a blast of energy and fun times. Djon and friends play a game of skater Horse, where the skater who misses a trick on his board has to down champagne and skate under the influence. It all ends with a smoke-fueled limo trip to the Champs Elysees with tipsy skating and some bombastic proclamations of the grandeur of living the street life.