“That could have been me.” The Guardian spoke to several Black skateboarders — including our dear friend Aaron Wiggs, along with Harold Hunter Foundation chair + architect of The Black List, Patrick Kigongo — about their experiences in the shadow of Tyre Nichols’ murder at the hands of police.
Columbus Circle continues to enjoy its reign as the spot of the winter: Christian Kerr just dropped an edit with a days’ worth of Columbus footage, and yes, you get to see Gabe Tennen shred in it! It’s a foregone conclusion someone is going to drop a one-spot part from there by May, right?
From New Jersey to Hong Kong and back again: Simple Magic got their Patrick Radden Keefe on and tried to track down the origins of the mysterious bootleg Bobby Puleo boards that have been popping up all over the world for two decades.
Great skate cities alert 🚨 — “CAN’T HAVE SHIT” is an 11-minute Detroit edit from Cooper Vosburg, and Baltimore Pleasure is a 20-minute Baltimore scene video by Ryan Schroeder with a fire Spencer Brown part at the end. Always great seeing footage from both of these places.
Chauncey Ledges is an entirely different spot once the ground gets cold. Headgear’s “I’m Just Livin’ It” edit is pretty much an all-Chauncey video features James Sayres and friends.
Feels like this one should have some more eyes on it: “kindasorta” by Nate Hanson. The needle-thread ollie to completely perpendicular boardslide in Murray Hill (?) is wild.
Surprised that the one surviving Up Rail outside the impound in midtown isn’t more of a modern skate video fixture given the uptick of ride-on grinds. All that and more in volume six of Brad Cromer’s still predominantly New York-based “Storytime” video series.
Loved every minute of it! Kevin Taylor and the Scumco dudes toured through the backwoods and office plazas of Upstate New York for a fun new edit.
“He does pretty hard tricks.” — Javier Sarmiento re: Jesus Fernandez. Part early Epicly Later’d, part “Day in the Life,” and all people just fanning out on what a great human — let alone skater — he is, Free Skate Mag‘s threepartJesus documentary is the positive force we need in all of our lives right now.
Somehow missed this one when it first came out, but Heavenly is a sixteen-minute video of mostly Texas (?) dudes skating mostly New York spots. They lowkey went in on that Water Street rail-to-rock that Connor lipslid, and switch backside flip manual at the Brooklyn Tompkins park is insane.
“You didn’t want to do outdated tricks, you wanted to stay up because the tide was moving. As much as skateboarders, critics, journalists, or whoever is recording the timeline of skateboarding want to say that there are no rules, there always has been a wave. And you’re either in the front of the wave or behind the wave.” Bobby Puleo on a simple question for Village Psychic: “How do you feel about wallies?”
