Look Alive

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Photo via Matt Weber

Love Park is still skateable!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, somebody unearthed this good bit of footage from a 1994 Love Park contest featuring Huf, Ricky Oyola, Matt Reason, Fred Gall, Andy Stone, etc. Remember when contests just involved jump ramps?! “Yeeaahhhh.”

An interview with Dick Rizzo and Josh Wilson, two prominent figures keeping the rich tradition of New Jersey skateboarding strong in 2016.

Dave Carnie was always everyone’s favorite Big Brother writer, and has probably written more enjoyable words about skateboarding than anyone else out there. Kingpin published the most detailed interview anyone involved with the publicity blitz surrounding Shit has given, with none other than…Dave Carnie. “You know how when you go to an abandoned house and you just start breaking shit and throwing rocks at windows because you can? That’s pretty much what we were doing.”

Better Skate Than Never put all the Lucas Puig #deepcuts in one place.

Genesis Evans & Jason Byoun skating around Tribeca. DANY video soon.

Someone combined all the outtake clips from Bill Strobeck’s IG for a single vid.

Quick minute-long clip from Cooper Park via Johnny Wilson and co.

“Fifteen years since Rob Welsh nearly single-handedly rescued the noseslide from that doomed scrap pile of tricks too basic for blocks and too ‘Muska’ for handrails, a new era beckons in which legs weary from four presidential terms’ worth of pop-outs are offered respite…” — Boil the Ocean on noseslide shove-its and the rise of “dad tricks.”

An interview (+ new clip) with the crew behind Canal Wheels.

Yo Darkstar x Harley Davidson is fire.

Just in time for summer: Sremmlife 2 available June 24.

Spot Updates: 1) You likely stopped caring four years ago, but the Banks won’t re-open until November at the earliest. 2) You likely never cared unless you’re Austyn Gillette, but that bump to wall on Lafayette and Howard is a wrap.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Something still feels off with the east being more exciting than the west for the first time since the “Lebron has no rings”-era, except everyone knows that Spurs-GSW are the real “Finals” in as much as Lakers-Kings in 2002 were the real Finals. Hopefully no poisoned room service. Wasn’t an eventful first weekend though, but Jamal Crawford still ripping is kinda like J.B. Gillett still ripping. Understated, underrated and classic.

Quote of the Week: “Ever since I moved to New York I got worse at skating and better at drinking.” — Jesse Alba

Get well soon Weiss.

Book Review: ‘Shit’ — The Big Brother Book

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Skateboarders are nostalgic, and it’s hard to think of something as endlessly mourned since its demise as Big Brother. There have been tribute Instagram accounts, promises of the entire archive’s digitization, four-figure eBay listings of the full collection, and Dave Carnie even published a 700-page book of his writing from it.

Shit, released by DC Shoes, is a 224-page hardcover book that chronicles the 1992-2004 run of Big Brother magazine, and costs about $950 less than buying every issue at online auction. Sparing intros and an epilogue where eight principal editorial members reflect on their time at the magazine, the book consists of two-page spreads for every one of Big Brother‘s 106 issues. Each spread has the cover, the issue’s quotes section, and a scrapbook collage with highlights. Alongside the covers are behind-the-scenes stories from Sean Cliver and Dave Carnie, who split the blurb duties 53 / 53. It is remarkable how much information they retain from every issue’s creation. The full history of the publication plays out over the course of the book, and in many ways, coincides with the grander story of skateboarding’s resurgence into popularity throughout the nineties.

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#TBT: Big Brother Mag Is Back…on Instagram

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Print lives on! …via Instagram.

If you need a new follow on the Gram, someone not affiliated with the magazine started a Big Brother fan account: @bigbrotherskateboardmagazine.

Though this is the sort of thing that is probably better-suited for Tumblr, as Instagram sizing issues will render most type unreadable, it’s a nice 612 x 612 reminder of that magazine’s brilliance. There was talk of the entire archive being made available on the Jackass site some years back, but that never happened. (What’s up with troves of nineties skateboarding nostalgia having so many false starts in the digital era? Skateboarder even went under before their plans of making the whole 411 collection available on their site gained any momentum.) The Jackass site became Dickhouse.tv, and while there isn’t anything remotely close to a full archive on there, you can find plenty of good bits relating back to the mag under the “Big Brother” tag on their blog.

People will compare stuff to Big Brother today, but should probably stop. It’s a product specific to another time, and that’s why it’s special. That mag or anything like it could never exist today — even on the internet — without alienating pretty much all potential advertisers and skateboarders they could cover i.e. we got shit for the blatantly tongue-in-cheek Mind Field remix…could you imagine the backlash at some of the insanity that those dudes pulled if it took place in today’s #skateboard #industry?

Stuff We’ve Scanned Before: The Black Issue, The Yellow Issue, Billy Rohan interview from the “Hated & Misunderstood” issue, Danny Supa interview

Scanner File: Big Brother’s ‘Black Issue’ (1995)

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We may have missed Black History Month, but we finally tracked down a copy of the famous Big Brother “Black Issue” from 1995. Big thanks to Sweet Waste and his closet full of skate memorabilia hoardings (dude has multiple pairs of Mike Carroll Vans still in the original box, not even in his size, among a great many other things.)

Big Brother prefaced this issue by reassuring readers that they were in fact, not racist in any way, and that the production of the issue was “basically just to show how many black skaters there are out there ripping.” From a regional standpoint, the issue is significant because of the “Black Skaters of NYC” section by Dimitry Elyashkevich at the end, which features our good friend Andre Page’s first photograph in a skate magazine. A lot of the dudes in the article don’t skate anymore, but he sure as hell still rips. Beyond that, there is a main section full of nineties cult heroes, reviews for blaxploitation films, and um, interviews with Ras Kass.

P.S. The Skatepark of Tampa site is streaming Tampa Pro all weekend, so you can tune in live, where ever you are. Check the schedule. Have a good weekend.

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*Beyonce Blackout Joke* Links

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(We have already made it obvious that we are fair weather football fans.)

Power surges aside, it has been a slow news week.

A devout skate archivist needs to scan the entire Big Brother “Black Issue” and put it online for Black History Month. Bob Shirt has a few scans, though not the comprehensive issue: Kareem Campbell interview, Kareem interviewing Keenan Milton, and a Jahmal Williams interview.

After exhausting Lil’ Wayne coverage in 2012, we promised to move past his skate-related pursuits in the new year. Then, he stalled on a quarterpipe, and made it rain on five strippers. So there’s that. (Screenshot here if you don’t want to sit through eight minutes of Lil’ Wayne footage. Shout out to the person on Facebook who reported that photo as inappropriate due to a heavily pixelated tit.) Even so

The One Up Skateshop crew in Pittsburg always puts out quality videos, so here’s a new Nick Panza part and the first half of their 2012 promo.

Do you think this kid could boardslide around the entire rail at Marcus Garvey?

Listen to Roctakon rant about DJing, Chief Keef and sorority girls in Megadeth shirts.

Our good friend Jason Lecras has an interview up with Staf magazine. The words are in Spanish, but the photos are still great.

There’s a new, kinda boring commercial of Kyrie Irving skating at the Berrics. But expecting an NBA player to do anything on a skateboard besides stand on it might be unreasonable. (How about putting Uncle Drew on a skateboard?)

Git Buck is a new Providence, RI-based video with what looks like a good bit of New York footage. They uploaded a select part here and you can watch the teaser here.

Spot Updates: In case anybody cares (nobody cares), the scaffolding is off those seven-stair rails on 95th Street. Slowwwwww news week, man.

Astute Observation of the Week:This is pretty much the absolute limit of how ‘good’ a video part is allowed to be before it becomes unwatchable.” — Canadian Connor regarding Ishod Wair’s Sabotage 3 part

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week — Throwback Edition: In light of the Raptors trading for Rudy Gay, here is perhaps the greatest NBA video ever…”Raptor Fan goes nuts after Rudy Gay shoots Game Winner.”

Quote of the Week:

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The Most Insane Response to “How Was Your Birthday?” Ever

Another cold-ass week ahead. Stay warm.