The Events That Defined New York City Skateboarding in 2010: 5-1

December 31st, 2010 | 5:52 pm | Features & Interviews | 16 Comments

Billy Rohan and Saddam Hussien

With about six hours left in 2010, here is the final set of five. Happy New Year, and thanks again to everyone who helped out spreading the word and contributing to Quartersnacks this past year. See you in 2011. #25-21, #20-16, #15-11, #10-6. So, like, what are you guys doing tonight?

5. Billy Rohan goes to Iraq

In a career that has been defined by insanity, Billy’s most absurd feat came not at a time when he was actually “crazy,” but when offered the chance to go to Iraq for the purpose of skateboarding. While there aren’t too many places that white people like Kenny Reed haven’t gone to with the intention of skateboarding, Billy one-upped the entire travel game this past summer by looking for spots in Saddam’s Palace. Leading travel consultants have since began booking tickets to Mogadishu (do planes go there?) in hopes of reviving the seemingly dead “white dude who likes to travel to places that you wouldn’t expect to find spots in but you find two or three and spend the rest of the time experimenting with exotic prostitutes” gimmick.

A Flipmode video to end the year off…

December 28th, 2010 | 3:27 pm | Daily News | 89 Comments

Photo by Brian Kelley

By some strange stroke of fate, Peter has concocted a video project to aid us through the first half of winter, and tallied up 2010 as the third straight year in a row of making some of the finest local multimedia available. Longer than Sognar, but shorter than Trife, Caviar has parts from Bill Piece, Pedro Garboza, and others that were largely missed from the preceding project, in addition to keeping the crew’s traditional roster (McFeely, Shawn Powers, Kevin, etc.) This may be the second time this year that Flipmode has fallen victim to video pirates, as this video seems to have been ripped from a video cassette that was originally a collage of taped evangelical daytime TV shows, Larry Johnson’s four-point play, and scenes from New Jack City. The locations in the video only fuel the fact that there are still tons of spots left in New York, all you have to do is look harder, or employ San Franciscan approaches to hillside spot discovery before you start complaining about how everything is gone. It has been a really good year for local videos.

(The video offers some ominous hints at the Billy Lynch disappearance mystery, but no clear solutions. What is it with Long Island and the perpetual vanishing of its skateboard-riding residents?)

Features Rob Gonyon, Shawn Powers, Pedro Garboza, Kevin Tierney, Bill Pierce, Luis Tolentino, Patrick Murray, Joseph Delgado, Danny Falla, Jamel Marshall, Dylan James, Mike Burch, Amadeus Estrada, Xavier Veal, Derick Ziemkiewicz, Phil Rodriguez, and Billy McFeely.

Part 2 embedded below.

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The Events That Defined New York City Skateboarding in 2010: 10-6

December 28th, 2010 | 1:16 pm | Features & Interviews | 7 Comments

Slightly behind schedule, but down to the final ten… #25-21, #20-16, #15-11.

10. The rise in popularity and subsequent banning of Four Loko

The lifeblood of New York skateboarding has always been diluted with alcohol. When sizing up the abilities of skateboarders in this city, is it important to not merely assess tricks, but the social environment within which these tricks are accomplished. It is not what tricks you can do, but what tricks you can do after waking up at 5 P.M. with half of a six pack you purchased at 4:48 in the morning still in your fridge, a pounding headache, and your friend-who-used-to-skate’s unread mass text about his acquisition of a bottle in six hours. Film a part amongst this madness (or avoid it altogether), and you will be ranked among the greats. If you falter, well, you’re just like the rest of them.

This dependence on alcohol is not comical, or tangential by any means, and it all begins with one simple exposure. For the pre-internet nineties, it was the frequent sight of the 40 ounce bottle in Kids that told youngsters what to drink. In the early-2000s, half of the under-eighteen contingent that would skate flat in the back of Union Square past 10 P.M. was introduced to alcohol through Sparks. And even further down the line, the 2008 opening of Trader Joe’s on 14th Street brought forth the availability of $2 wine for a whole slew of younger degenerates, bringing new relevance to the otherwise outdated term, “wine-o.” But 2010 was hit hard with the youth-marketed Four Loko beverages, which fueled this past summer with relentless forays into bad decisions, and can now be found on Craigslist for $10 a can.

All White Everything

December 27th, 2010 | 10:15 am | Daily News | 5 Comments

Thunder, lighting and snow, that’s a first for this lifetime. There’s even snow inside the train stations right now. If you happen to be blessed enough to not have work today, don’t go outside. Sit home and listen to the Can’t Ban the Snowman tape or something. Here are some links to pass the time for this Monday morning.

With board graphics getting all of the retrospectives, and printed-word love these days, wheel graphics are pretty much universally neglected. Here’s a quick guide as to when skate wheel art began, and ceased to, matter.

The Quartersnacks Varsity Jacket via Bowery Stadium.

Someone asked Ian Reid if he could name “25 skateboarders who are actually from New York” on his Tumblr some time back. He returned with a very comprehensive answer.

Anthony Claravall offers some anecdotal nostalgia about the Cardona brothers, and what it was like filming their 411 “Wheels of Fortune” segment sixteen years ago.

You know things are slow down in Yahoo News International Headquarters when they can write five hundred words about the city installing fences and “No Skateboarding” signs at the Chinatown Banks. They quote Two Hawks Young though, which is sick. For those who don’t know, he was a crucial part to the greatest conceptual skateboard video of all time.

Anthony Beckner threw together the first batch of footage from the Below the Bridge Skatepark with the Classic Skate Shop crew. Conveniently enough, the park opens today, but even driving to Bayonne might be a bit too ambitious of an endeavor right now. The park looks slightly smaller than expected, and unfortunately doesn’t have the two different sections of street courses like Drop-In does (real estate, I know), but it would still be a good call for an off-hours winter session. Just maybe wait for the kids to get back to school.

While you complain on the internet, Roctakon is a humanitarian who supports Dominican skateboarders.

Rob Harris’ “Aussie Pressure” clip. The ending is brilliant.

Blueprint Skateboards’ “Summer in New York” digi-cam clip. Aside from the ground, this spot is the worst.

Thanks to everyone who linked up the Christmas clip: 48 Blocks, NY Skateboarding, Mound City, Paulgar, Second Nature, Blogge Materiale, Senes 23, Olson Stuff, Ian Coughlan, Krook Life, Skate the Streets, Tim Nolan, High Five Skateshop, Strictly Skateboarding, Max White, Delta Co. You guys are the best.

Quote of the Week: “I’m going to buy a bottle of Jack and drink it until I no longer care that I suck at skating.” — Miles Marquez

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Merry Christmas

December 25th, 2010 | 3:12 am | Footage | 21 Comments

Here’s the annual jazzy mood piece. Filmed throughout the past three months. Twenty-percent of the total eleven minutes was filmed on one miraculous twenty-five degree night in Midtown, something that is otherwise unprecedented in all of our over-eighteen-years-of-age existences. Complete Christmas miracle if there ever was one. Thanks to everyone who supported, visited, and spread the word about Quartersnacks this past year. First person who points out the grape soda BGPs gets a free Quartersnacks tee shirt (when the second batch comes in, which should be relatively soon.) Somebody please buy Josh a set of white wheels for Christmas, the lime is really starting to offend everyone. He’s “dreaming of a white-wheeled Christmas.”

Features: Jason Lecras, Tyler Tufty, Connor Champion, Max Palmer, Dennis Feliciano, Josh Wilson, Jersey Dave, Shawn Powers, Matthew Mooney, Billy McFeely, Torey Goodall, Vladamir Kirilenko, Thando Beschta, DJ Roctakon, Ted Barrow, Ty Lyons, Emilio Cuilan, Gabe Tennen, Pad Dowd, Galen Dekemper, Miles Marquez, Alexander Mosley, Josh Velez, Andre Page, Kevin Tierney, Geo Moya, Isak Buan, some lil’ kids, Pryce Holmes.

Big thank you to the contributing filmers: Andre Page, Dennis Feliciano, Paul Young, Joe Bressler, Martin Wilson, Larry Bao, Paulgar.

“What’s the song for the Christmas clip?”
“John Coltrane. Nothing too crazy.”
“That’s corny.”
“The last clip I made was to ‘Fly Like a G6,’ give me a break.”

Here’s an external link to download the clip as an .M4V for iPhones and iPods. 147.8MB. YouTube version here.

 
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