the bot | Quartersnacks

In Good Hands — The Bot Video 2

Daily News June 14th, 2018 · 4:06 pm · 1

You know how there’s that annoying yet massive subgenre of modern punditry that whines about how young people are entitled, lazy, don’t want to work, and all that stuff? Older skaters, often being the annoying bunch that they are, are guilty of similar infractions: “Kids only skate skateparks!” “Their footage all ends up on Instagram, it’s not special!” “Clothes!!!”

Bot Video 2 is Ewan Creed’s latest full-length video that invalidates all those convenient (and false!) tropes about New York skaters still too young to worry about paying back student loans. Filmed on the late 90s’ camcorder of record and peppered with Spirit Quest-lite camera tricks — while skating at actual spots (ok, they go to the Maloof Park once, but that place is so trash it’s not not a street spot) — the video is heartwarming evidence that simple street skating in this city is in good hands, regardless of what the old guys who skate Borough Hall for fifteen minutes once a month might insist while buying a beer at 3 P.M. ;)

And as an exchange for putting me onto the fact that there’s somehow a better version of The Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” out there, here’s a hat tip towards the fact that there’s an even better version of that Jonell and Method Man song in existence ♥

What Is ‘Poetic Collective?’ — An Interview With Tom Botwid

Features & Interviews January 30th, 2020 · 12:00 am

Intro & Interview by Adam Abada
Photos by Tom Botwid

What “is” skateboarding? A seven-ply piece of maple? Thirty-three inches of length and no more? “Not a crime?”

Just as skateboarding often eludes definition — existing in a purgatory between physical expression and existential thought — poetry uses language to access a similar type of feeling and add something new to our shared experience.

Sabotage 5 — #theprocess Continues…

Features & Interviews January 4th, 2018 · 5:00 am · 12

Photo via @brian_panebianco on IG

Words by Frozen in Carbonite

“The Process” refers to the Philadelphia 76ers’ management philosophy under former General Manager and President of Basketball Operations, Sam Hinkie. In a nutshell, The Process contains three guiding principles:

A. Minimize competitiveness in order to obtain high draft picks.
B. Stockpile those draft picks in order to maximize trade values.
C. Delay “trying to win” until the team drafts a transformational, once-in-a-generation player. Based on the history of the NBA, this is mainly how teams have set themselves up to win championships.

This strategy requires a shit-ton of patience. Nevertheless, over the years “Trust the Process” has become a mantra, a philosophy, and a rallying cry for 76ers fans.

+++++++

Back in the essay on the Philadelphia sports mythos, I focused on #toughness as Philadelphia sports’ guiding principle. Nothing exemplified this in 2017 more than Sabotage 5, in which Brian Panebianco and his usual suspects — plus some new additions — skated Love Park until every last slab of marble had been extracted and nothing remained but a few dirt banks into which to ollie.

On the other side of town, perhaps as a form of karmic balancing of the universe or some shit, something happened to the 76ers basketball club: They became sick-ass fun to watch.

So here we are, at a crossroad in which the Sixers are displaying flashes of basketball genius, Process believers looked ahead to a promising future, and the Sabotage crew released their final video chapter. As an homage to both #theprocess and the extensive Sabotage legacy, let’s take a deep dive into how the two crews match up.

Sabotage 4 & The Skate Nerd Scavenger Hunt

Features & Interviews November 6th, 2015 · 4:48 am · 17

sabo 4

Philadelphia, perhaps more than any other major skate city, exists in a bubble. It ignores the superficial signifiers of “cool” that we have created for ourselves. Whatever aesthetic we come to expect of a video made by a bunch of twentysomethings in the 2010s doesn’t reach Philadelphia. People from Philly will claim its four or five years “out of touch.” That number could be doubled or tripled depending where you look.

Philly kids make videos for people in Philly, where the decade-plus since Photosynthesis and The DC Video never happened. People still rock the shoes Kalis wore, do lines the way Tim O. did, and nosegrind how Wenning once nosegrinded. There’s a cult around that era and its videos, in a way that’s incomparable to pretty much any other mythologized skate scene — right now, dudes in S.F. aren’t going out of their way to track down Rob Welsh’s Aesthetics pro model or Scott Johnston Lakais.

Most skate videos reward the viewer in a simple way: you watch them to get hyped, try a trick, or maybe copy someone’s style if that’s your thing. Sabotage 4, after sitting with it for a month or so, unpacks footnotes and homages with each viewing. Just as a sample in a hip-hop song has an invitation to try and put your finger on the original sound, or The Simpsons will wink at classic movies, Sabotage 4 comes from a similar place. The video pokes the viewer in the ribs, testing the geek-levels of anyone well-versed in the folklore of peak Alien Workshop-era Philadelphia skateboarding. It celebrates its inspirations beyond the tricks.

Synths, Irony & Robots: A Chronicle of Daft Punk Music Supervision in Skate Videos

Features & Interviews May 15th, 2013 · 5:21 am · 19

daft punk griptape

Image via Street Piracy

Every skate site was obligated to have a “Dill & AVE Off Alien”-post, and every website on the entire internet is required to mention the new Daft Punk album. Combined with the release of Kendrick Lamar’s debut last fall and next month’s Kanye album, we are in an eight-month rut of opinion onslaught from an unholy trio of annoying fanbases.

…but even skateboarders are talking about Daft Punk! Skaters previously only acknowledged electronic music when posting “wtf iz with dis song?” comments on video parts that dared to use it. And now they’re interested in dance music? Instead of giving an opinion about Random Access Memories like everyone else on the internet, here’s an abridged history of how Daft Punk, and in turn, electronic music as a whole, achieved acceptance in skate videos.

olson daft punk

[Much like how Europeans are more sexually liberated than Americans, they also have a deeper history of accepting electronic music in their skate videos. So, please note that this is a North American timeline. Accounting for European usage of electronic music adds another dimension entirely. Frozen in Carbonite wrote about French house, French Fred, etc. back in 2011, so read that for a more worldly take.]