If you visit Quarter Snacks often, you have probably caught subtle references to my disconcertment with the majority of what is going on in skateboarding videos these days. Unnecessary slow motion, skits, intros, seagulls, foliage, the filmer evidently more concerned with an ample balance between his blues and greens than he is with the actual trick at hand, fancy titles — I hate it all. There are maybe two videos to come out each year that I have a compulsion to watch more than twice, so when a memorable one actually does come out, it is pretty significant.
There are three “filmmakers” in skateboarding that don’t suck: Jay Strickland, myself, and Beagle. (Justin White is kinda cool too.) The last one is responsible for what will most likely wind up as my favorite video of the year not made by Alien Workshop. Baker Has a Deathwish is dubbed as a throwaway video, but it comes off as a pretty fleshed-out product, where the skating is by no means of a lesser quality than what you would expect from a more well-promoted and hyped-up company video. Beagle makes a conscious effort to ensure the fact that his videos are actually fun to watch, and they make you want to go skate. The soundtrack is mostly retarded rap, which is always a plus in my book. The skating is evidently not the result of a tedious process in which the same bench line was re-filmed five times to filter out anything that may begin to resemble a tick-tack. (P.S. The Habitat video came out five months ago and has already aged horribly.) The basic rundown is: Lizard King is the epitome of drug-skating and actually did a trick on Hollywood High that I cared about, Ellington is back on drugs (resulting in a better part), Jim Grecco is still off drugs (resulting in a forgettable part), Spanky still skates and is still kind of good at it, Bryan Herman is the new title-holder for the best line of all time, Beagle switch firecrackered twenty stairs, Sammy Baca is very good at shortening his life-span, and Antwuan Dixon is the only person in history to pull off a good-looking nollie varial heelflip.
If you haven’t found a link for it already, here you go. Worth the purchase whenever it surfaces to DVD though. I’ll be sure to have it on my shelf with the other eight skate videos I own.
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Other nonsense:
A few of the better skateboarding sites out there have had some rather New York-centric updates as of recent times…
Police Informer posted this Quim Cardona Interview from 1996, which is a little bit umm… “out there,” to say the least. But if you’ve ever wondered about the merging of skateboarding, hemp clothes, yoga, and the spirituality of dreads, then it may be a worthwhile read. Matt Field did the interview, so you should kinda know what to expect.
Bonus: Quim’s section from Real’s Non-Fiction video. This is actually the second clip from this video that I’m posting this week, and I’ve actually yet to get around to mentioning the best part in the video altogether. You should already know that, though.
48 Blocks posted an out-of-left-field Peter Bici interview. In case you were born in the 90s, Peter Bici is most famous for being the only person to ever film a line on the outside of the fountain at the Flushing Globe, and also for having the random white kid in the red fitted bopping his head behind Busta Rhymes in his Mixtape part.
The éS Game of Skate date has been announced, and it is on June 23rd. Unlike past years where it was held by Autumn and done at Tompkins Square Park, this year, KCDC is hosting it, and it is randomly going to be in the abandoned pool-turned-outdoor-concert-space at McCaren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They also spruced up their registration process, and it seems like you can no longer randomly show up five minutes before it starts and still participate. Click here for registration info and forms. I’m sure there will probably be a reminder post once it gets closer because it is still almost two months away. I have a good feeling that all the new requirements and inflexibility of the contest are going to have devastating effects on the drunken antics that have been the highlights of past years’ games.
Quote of the Week: “What’s up Taji? I seen you kickin’ ill game on Youtube.” – Luis Tolentino
Also, I would like to formally apologize to all of those who I offended with the previous post, which evidently had nothing to do with skateboarding. I am only apologizing to be a good sport, but the reality of the matter is that the last post had more to do with skateboarding than the majority of the content posted on Quarter Snacks, you are just not deeply immersed into the dark underbelly of New York skateboarding, which is still blinding you with its facade of wallies and lipslides.
