Tried To Tell Them It Was Boot Season

Listen to the soothing sounds of Nick Boserio’s voice — like light rain on a windowpane or cascading waves — for over an hour on the latest episode of The Bunt. Bar-none one of the best people you could have on a skate trip ❤️

This is really sick of The LA Times to do: The Oral History of the Hollywood High 16, with stories from many of the names most closely associated with the spot. (#lol at the visible QS sticker on the headline photo.) Can’t wait for The New York Times to do the oral history of the Courthouse Drop.

Our buddy Max Hull uploaded “I’M HERE,” his short submitted to the New York Bicycle Film Festival, onto his YouTube. Not skate-related obvs, but a very simple yet beautiful story :) “We outside, not inside.”

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Switch Bone Tail

Photo via DREWWWWWW

Destroyed skater jeans. Pre-order now. $1,290. And here we were fretting about having raised the price of QS tees by $2 ☺️

“Forced into the wilderness for years first by cords, then by Dickies, Carharts and assorted chinos, jeans now are the stuff of kingdom-making and eternal glory.” And on that very same note, Boil the Oceans offers some analysis on how jeans have climbed to become the north star of the skateboard industry.

Leo Heinert + crew blitzed Black Hubba and threw a big contest on it a week ago. Flipping into a crook on that thing is nuts.

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Mashed Potatoes

Nik Stain by Paul Coots, who has a couple shots from John’s Vid over on his Instagram.

Patrick Kikongo, creator of The Black List, has a public service announcement to keep in mind while you’re doing any skate-related holiday shopping.

“I think you’re the first person to actually own up to drunk claims in one of these interviews.” Joey Pepper talks drunk claims and everything in-between for his new Chromeball interview.

Really know nothing about this edit, but enjoyed it a lot — maybe because editing a pandemic-era skate video to “World Hold On” is funny and perfect. “TFTI” is a fourteen-minute homie edit by Reilly Schlitt that looks like it was largely filmed during lockdown days, as all the Stroud, etc. footy is from when none of the courts had hoops. If you don’t have that whistle stuck in your head after hearing that song…idk, one day you will have to answer to the children of the sky ;)

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The Best Skate Video Parts of the 2010s — QS Reader Survey Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio

Back in October, we asked QS visitors to choose their favorite video parts of the 2010s. If civilization and skateboarding were to end today, which five parts would you bury in a weather-and-nuclear-proof time capsule for post-apocalyptic earth dwellers to reference when they rediscover skate culture of these past ten years?

QS prides itself as being a destination for people who think a lot about skateboarding. Rather than poll a few close colleagues for their favorites, we felt we had a wide enough reverberation in the skate nerd universe to try and crowdsource a canon of the 2010s from anyone willing to sit down and think about it. I can emphatically say that in reviewing the mountain of ballots, everyone took their votes seriously — save maybe the guy who voted for five Micky Papa parts.

As we tallied the results, consistent trends in the count were apparent. Any fears about a recency bias went out the window; there’s only one part from 2019, and the average year of the top 25 is 2014. QS obviously has its own breed of skate nerd audience — this poll would look different if taken by Thrasher or Free — but I would bet that their lists wouldn’t be TOO far off from this one.

Presented without comment for the top 25-11, and then via a lot of favors from writer friends on the internet for the top 10: here are the 25 best video parts of the past ten years.

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~Positivity is Sexy~

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Free beer to whoever disses it with a Tas Pappas tag. Photo via The Shady One

“One thing I realized once I started being in the world of Instagram was that people don’t let go of things. If something has emotionally affected somebody in some powerful way sometime in their life, that doesn’t fade. If anything, social media kind of fans the flame of that and almost reestablishes that emotional connection.” With so much discussion of social media and its pros/cons in any skate interview these days, it’s nice to hear that it actually does have a way of bringing about some greater good from one of the happiest people to ever ride a skateboard, Ray Barbee.

“With a skater like Jamal Williams, Ricky Oyola or even Pat Steiner, people aren’t pulling out the yardstick to measure how high they’re ollieing. It’s more the feelings people get by watching that person on a skateboard.” Also with a good bit of social media talk + skaters having an impact on people’s lives, Get Born Mag has a detailed interview with Josh Stewart. ~feelings~

Hotel Blue is the new board company from the LurkNYC camp, and Nick just dropped a nine-minute promo featuring the entire team over the weekend. Back smith backside flip on the Leonard Street ledge was wild.

Bobshirt has a 25-minute interview with Bill Strobeck detailing pretty much every last anecdote about the prime era of Alien Workshop + Habitat. Includes a special guest appearance from a former orange-beanied colleague halfway in ;)

Huf gave Jenkem a tour of some of the places he grew up skating in Manhattan.

Boil the Ocean on Anti-Hero’s persistence in an increasingly tense landscape of board brand longevity, and a potential Daan Van Der Linden S.O.T.Y. run.

Some warm-ups from Yaje Popson and friends at the L.E.S. Park.

Village Psychic has a content monopoly on anything having to do with the little guys keeping the romance in printed skate media alive. An interview with the minds behind Germany’s Solo mag.

Mushrooms to switch flip into a bowl + other debauchery from CPH Open.

Part two of The Bunt’s interview with Spencer Hamilton is now live.

Well, this is the first instance of someone skating in Polo shoes I can remember, which re-opens the hypothetical discussion of what the Ralph skate team would look like…

Quote of the Week: “Positivity is sexy. Creativity is even sexier.” — Andrew Wilson

Thank you for everything Gene Wilder.