Throughout 2019, Alexis Lacroix‘s drawn out “Oh yeah!” elevated itself into a mantra of spiritual skateboard proportions. We oh yeah’d during our successes to amplify the good feelings. We oh yeah’d during troubled times, to remind ourselves that no misstep was large enough to derail our greater journey. And sometimes, we oh yeah’d when there was nothing else to say — it was a placeholder for any and all emotion. At the same time, Alexis’ skateboarding, most notably via Dime’s Knowing Mixtape Volume 2, was everything and nothing you had seen before. It made you cheer, it made you confused, it frightened you, it made you think, and it made you laugh — sometimes in the span of the same six seconds. With Rita on his shoulder, it also reminded us that our furry, four-legged friends are skaters too. Thank you for the inspiration Alexis Lacroix, the 2019 Q.S.S.O.T.Y.
We will be out of the office until January 6, making this the last QS update of the decade!Webstore purchases will ship as ordered. Everyone enjoy the rest of your break, take care of yourself, and thanks for all the support this year, decade, etc. ♥
If you can’t make it out on Saturday, don’t forget to help circulate the petition to keep turf off the asphalt at Tompkins Square Park. If you’re sharing any reflections or memories of what this park means to you on social media, please be sure to tag any posts with #savetompkins.
“One thing Jones has that a lot of pro skaters don’t is a bunch of hardheaded friends who are willing to bring city life to a halt for him.” Can’t imagine there’s a single person who reads QS that hasn’t already read Willy Staley’s incredible profile of Tyshawn Jones for The New York Times, but also don’t think anything else could justifiably be the first link this week.
“The further uptown you went, the quieter and more desolate it was. And the more you could get away with.” While on the topic of #MSM #skate #coverage — never knew about this 2005 New York Mag article about Andy Kessler and the original Zoo York crew of the 1970s-80s. (So nice that we have evolved and endured enough to avoid calling things “Dogtown East” now hehe.)
“tis the season…for skating Seagram because the security window’s view of the ledges is obstructed by giant Christmas trees :)
Someone ollied that Vespa bump-to-bar that T.J. did in “BLESSED”…the other way.
“People always ask me about that day, but honestly, it was truly terrifying…Like, what better thing to do than go skate around? Sure, it’s kind of a frivolous thing to do under those circumstances, but at the same time, that’s the point.” Chromeball talks Mike O’Meally about skating in New York on September 12, 2001 + gets the stories on a bunch of his photos, many of which were shot while living in the city.
“As designer and architect, everyone always asked if I wanted to design skateparks, but I was always kinda annoyed by that question. I love skating skateparks, they’re fun, but I never thought about that.” Solo has a sick interview with ant colony aficionado, Alexis Sablone. Fully wanna try the walnut thing next time I see some ants…
Maybe the best part uploaded from the Buffalo-based Jeb video so far: Justin Grzechowiak’s section is a nice reminder that upstate New York should probably be on par with Boston, D.C., et al. as a get-out-of-the-city destination for us all, but I’m sure upstaters would prefer it staying the way it is hehe.
I’m sure there’s like a twenty-page Slap thread about it, but Matt Rodriguez was really on one in preceding a lot of the shit that would become popular practice in 2014-2018, especially for a lot of office favorites. (Maybe the same could be said about that entire 2005 I-Path video in general.)
Happy birthday Ben Blundell! Photo via that social media platform that people stopped using in favor of Instagram being worse at doing the same exact things. No idea who took the photo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Either you’re down or you’re not. New Orleans is insanely small, and not only am I the shop owner, but I skate, so at the end of the day at 7, I’m like on the corner with all boys drinking beer. I don’t want to be like, “uh no you’re not on, you are on.” It’s just dumb, so with me it’s just like man the whole city’s on.” Skate Jawnhas a new interview with QS office favorite, Philly Santosuosso. (Related.)
Boil the Ocean’s Quasi Mother review is here to remind you that Josh Wilson is all-too-often forgotten in the Skateboarding’s Greatest Hair™ conversation. That reminds me to go pop a biotin right now…
You’ve no doubt caught it, but Adidas has a new video of the 50-year-old Mark Gonzales and the twenty-year-old Tyshawn Jones skating around lower Manhattan together. The “this is a state trooper building” bit made me laugh hehe.
Now that that’s out of the way, this is maybe the first Monday Links post ever where there are more links to articles (i.e. written words) than videos…
“After drilling his truck bolts back for a bigger nose and noselsliding ledges in the ’80s, Mark had one of the first noseslide photos on a rail (one where he’s actually sitting on it rather than just dinging it) as a sequence in his June 1990 Poweredge.” As per an indirect solicitation, Mackenzie Eisenhour enlisted Guy Mariano to chronicle how the modern noseslide was invented. As suspected, Mark Gonzales is responsible.
“As he flies through the air, he is caught between life and death, suspended in the void of nonexistence — the ultimate Kleinean motif.” Jamie Thomas’ “leap of faith” as a work of avant garde art juxtaposed against the art of Yves Klein. Yeah, fuck it, why not.
Vice has an interview with Jonathan Rentschler about documenting the final years of Love Park for his book, Love. QS review for it here. And you can should buy it here ;)
This is oddly…not bad? Deadspin (of all places) has a #longform article about the full history of Rodney Mullen V.S. Daewon Song — though idk about it “changing skateboarding forever.”
Boil the Ocean offers some thoughts on J. Scott Handsdown and Dan Pageau taking crowdsourcing via the skateboarding community to newfound heights. To be fair, they ain’t special — Meatball pioneered this concept when he tried to GoFundMe a ticket to Australia so he could tag along on a Hardies trip.
