It’s Our Holiday, and They Wanna Take It Away

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Some fucking balls, badmouthing America. Especially now.”

You should re-watch Nik Stain’s Bruns part just because.

There are some Photosynthesis-era outtakes plus one-pants-leg-pulled-up extras from Andy Bautista’s INFMS part in the latest installment of In Absentia C-roll.

New part from Lurker Lou for Prizefighter, which features a ton of chill avant-garde noseslide maneuvers. Slappy Flushing is up there for N.S.O.T.Y. honors.

For anyone keeping track of WATTBA #musicsupervision… Free’s Lucien Clarke + “I’m The Plug” compilation part is great, and the new Cell Jawn video features a sslloowweedd rendition of “Plastic Bag” + an emphasized Conor Prunty flick. FYI your “Summer Trip To N.Y.” clip prob isn’t good enough to waste “Scholarships” on ;)

Was wondering when footage on that abandoned BMW at Lenox Ledges would begin to surface. Surprised that thing wasn’t the most popular spot in New York this summer.

Green Zine has a detailed and rather biographical interview with James from Labor.

Interviewing young skaters without ~a decade’s worth of coverage is a tough assignment, especially if you’re trying to avoid asking the same shit you asked the last young skater (“Soooo, like Instagram and Street League? So crazy right?”). The source shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but Chromeball pretty much did an under-25 skater interview as best as you could possibly do it with Ishod Wair.

The guy behind Fakie Hill Bomb, one of my favorite skate sites with words on it, wrote a piece about knobs and other prohibitive architecture for The Guardian.

Boil the Ocean re: Love Park, Sabotage 4, and the discontinuation of Actavis. Here you were thinking it was a drought

The body varial has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years, and there’s still a raging battle in ballcourts throughout the city for someone to do it over a vertical can (sans bump.) SMLTalk stops to contend that the best has already happened for said trick.

Ever want to glo up at the skatepark before? (You gotta.)

Village Psychic interviewed Mehring about his new book, Skate the World.

The Theories guys give an #authenticportrait of what skating in [north] Brooklyn is like.

When I was a little girl in Poland, we all had ponies.

QS Sports Desk: Can’t wait for the season to start man.

Quote of the Week: “Do you think Johnny’s complete disregard for anyone’s feelings is the real source of MPC’s productivity?” — Nick Boserio

Three weeks late on “Thotline Bling” :(

R.I.P. Rihanna’s Instagram Account

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Two J-John the Don Monday Links headliner images in four weeks? Sure. Photo by Jason Lecras.

Okay, let’s get all the Workshop-related links out of the way first…

Manolo’s Mixtapes put together a seven-minute tribute edit from all the Alien videos.

Jake Johnson sits down with Thrasher radio to talk about the Alien situation, the slappy 5050 down the Clipper ledge, and why Brandon Turner broke up with his shorty, all while playing some Elton John and Billy Joel songs.

Boil the Ocean has a good ramble about the end of Alien Workshop / “the biggest board company to go out since Plan B.” (No Blueprint 2.0-esque reboots pls thx.)

Joe Castrucci released a statement regarding the future of Habitat.

[ end of Alien Workshop-related links ]

Rodrigo TX skates Three Up Three Down and Lil’ Lui ollies over the entire Rector Street Bench in the Adidas Skate Copa NYC street edit. (Back smith down the Battery Park wall rail = the new backside flip over the Wall Street Gap?)

Between that Adidas clip, and the new Gavin Nolan “Five Trick Fix,” there’s really no reason to skate the median ledge on 111th and 7th ever again.

Frozen in Carbonite reviews the latest batch of Washington D.C-based skate videos, while comparing each to Scandal, House of Cards, Veep, etc. We are also admirably reminded to revisit Bobby Worrest’s switch 360 flip up / fakie hardflip / switch 360 flip down White Steps line from Right Foot Forward.

Also also also, this rather vague “Underdog Skate Part” #listicle from Kingpin reminds us to revisit Jack Sabback’s part from the 2005 I-Path promo. The revert out of the switch nosegrind at Universitat is cute.

Another black and white one from Pop Trading Company out in The Netherlands.

Apparently, when you comply to last year’s #TRENDWATCH by skating on televisions, there’s a chance you end up in a real-life version of that Simpsons episode where Homer found the Tron wall inside of his closet.

We often joke about the “Skaters see the world differently” cliché around here, but Jonathan Mehring’s “Frame of Reference” feature for Bitchslap magazine is awesome.

A two-minute fan remix of Alex Olson appearances in web clips throughout the years.

BTW, Yaje is a movie star now

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The end of the first half of WCF Game 3 was pretty intense. How about that Ibaka comeback?

Quote of the Week: “That spot was like a Philly step into poverty.” — Josh Velez

In order to commemorate four years since our relaunch and the end of @badgalriri on Instagram, you have an additional half day to use the MEMORIALDAY code at checkout for 25% off anything left in the webstore ♥♥♥

An Interview With Alex Olson (From the March 2014 Issue of Thrasher)

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Thrasher put the QS-conducted interview with Alex Olson from their March 2014 issue online. In the event that you don’t want to read the small type on the layout pages, here it is in beautiful, enlargeable text. This was conducted right after New Years, so there are a lot of Supreme video questions (this one informed the Bill interview a bit), and vague questions about his company, which were made less vague in Mackenzie Eisenhour’s interview. It’s clearly a bit out of date (neither the Supreme video nor his company had an official name at the time…), but here it is for the print-averse.

All photos by Jonathan Mehring.

Unrelated but important: The Ultimate #Nineties Skater Bracket is down to the Final Four…Kareem v.s. Henry Sanchez and Jovontae v.s. Matt Reason. Vote here.

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Try and find a young skater that stirs up opinions more than Alex Olson. Abruptly quitting one of the most respected companies ever, bailing on a new one before it even got started, and being cryptic regarding the details of his own venture have a way of doing that. Alex wants to be something more than just happy to be here, which sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, that sometimes gets contorted by people who want to believe he’s either ungrateful or disinterested in skating altogether. After taking a six-month hiatus in New York last year, we had a chance to talk to him about what he’s been up to in light of all the changes.

Why have you been spending so much time in New York? What draws you to the city?

When I was 18, Dill flew me out. It was the first trip I ever took by myself. I met all the people at Supreme, Max Fish, The Hole…I always wanted to move out there but either sponsors wouldn’t let me, I had a girlfriend, or the weather was a concern.

Bill started filming for the Supreme video, and I had just gotten done filming for Pretty Sweet. My girl had also just broken up with me, so I was pretty over everything. I flew out to New York for Go Skate Day this past summer. I was only supposed to stay for two weeks, but I got a place out there and ended up staying six months filming for the video.

Supreme has been around for twenty years, but this is their first skate video. Why’d they finally decide to make one?

Well, they had “A Love Supreme,” which was the artsy 16mm video Thomas Campbell made in 1995. It used to be really hard to find but now it’s on YouTube. For this one, I think they realized there had such an eclectic group of people around Bill [Strobeck] and it would be a good thing for them to do. Once Dill and Mark Gonzales both said they’d film for it, Bill had a green light.

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We Be All Night

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Tino Razo — Hurricane at the Bronx bank-to-ledge, via Jonathan Mehring‘s “Making of ‘cherry’” feature that appeared on the Thrasher site, and then got taken down an hour later for mysterious reasons. Mountain Dew lifted a bunch of the photos and reposted them on their site with some shots that don’t even belong there, and no credit back to Mehring. Normally wouldn’t link something like that blatantly slapdashed together, but it’s all Thrasher’s fault in the end.

Gonna stop claiming #surfboard Vines are over. They just keep getting better.

Chris Nieratko interviews Bobby Worrest about his all-Pulaski part. (Contrary to what Nieratko’s intro says, though obviously not speaking from experience on this side or anything…isn’t the story that Pulaski was relatively low-bust back when things like this were getting filmed? Also, what is the DC montage that was edited to Eric B. & Rakim “Relax With Pep?” It’s the DC section from Eastern Exposure 2.)

In honor of the aforementioned all-Pulaski part, Kingpin put together a #listicle of ten great mostly one-spot parts. Lucas Puig’s line in the new Adidas clip makes one wonder when the first all-Republique part is gonna be…(P.S. Adidas, you don’t need to send out four press release e-mails a week. Thx.)

Another quick clip to get you more hyped for Zered’s upcoming Transworld part.

New mini video from the Sex Hippies crew in western Massachusetts and the Albany area. The title is #NSFW but the content is quite #SFW.

“It’s getting harder to come up with new ways to fix something that isn’t broken, but they managed to do it.” Really? Is there even any reason for anything besides Independent, Thunder and Venture to exist?

Lurker Lou x Young Jeezy Faux One One “One Year Later” remix.

The homie Uncle Steve put together a New York Super-8 clip for Krooked with Brad Cromer and Mark Gonzales, a la A Love Supreme but in 2014 though…

A new, moody promo from Grace Skate Co. out in Long Island.

The new Skateboard Mag cover is an instant classic New York photo.

“Can we get a Supreme video review?”
When Dill is talking to Gonz his abs look so sick.”

Remember to vote in the 2nd round of the #Nineties Skater Power Ranking Bracket.

Gunplay runs an escort service.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Another Steph Curry circus shot. Any Warriors match-up in the first round is going to be must-see TV. Actually, pretty much any western conference match-up in the first round is going to be must-see TV, provided you can deal with watching Houston shoot 1,000 free throws. They should cancel the eastern conference playoffs and make Pacers-Heat first to twelve wins.

Quote of the Week: “I’m sick of rich girls. I’m into poor girls.” — Ben Bartle

R.I.P. to the Hat. R.I.P. to any sight of spring. It’s snowing tomorrow. R.I.P. QS.

Street Lottery

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Is Daniel Day Lewis the first non-skater to earn “He’s good, but who cares” status? OMG OMG OMG How did everyone like the new episode of Girls?

Europeans! Frisco, out in Arnhem, The Netherlands, now has QS tees online and in-store. (We’re about to sell out of white larges on our web store, by the way.)

The Shape of Things to Come podcast has a new episode up with the governor of New Jersey, Fred Gall. It’s an hour-long chat about his skate career, travels, taxes, lighting twenty-dollar bills on fire, saving monks from a burning building, sneaking into bars, putting money on hot dog eating contests, flannels, beards, etc.

Here’s a sad photographic study of the latest T.F. box’s (“The Labor Box”) final days.

Jonathan Mehring posted up some scenic photos on the Skateboarder website from a 2006 article about spots on the New York waterfront. That Joey Pepper 5050 is nuts.

Check out this documentary about Todd Fishman, the truest of OG New York skaters. “Put your work in” and watch out for those pigeons.

This kid Derm has a sick part full of crusty New Jersey spots and an early, pre-Illmatic Nas song (things get scary in the last thirty seconds though.) The comments are bound to be full of “Where’s that spot at?” questions.

Did you guys see the Palace x Fruit of the Loom collaboration? The tees are already going for $200 on the Bay.

Juicy J made skateboards “for his hipsters.” Meek Mill, as a fellow member in the current crop of relevant rappers to make skateboards, was a year ahead of the curve.

Taji has a new web series about up and coming skaters over on the Vice site.

The new Green Diamond / Yaje Popson video will premiere at Enid’s (Manhattan & Driggs) this Saturday (the 19th) at midnight. It will also be Rob’s birthday, so buy him a beer. Flyer here. Check the new teaser here. Video goes online the next day.

The crew behind Hahafuntime.com relaunched their website.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The Wizards beat The Thunder

Quote of the Week: “Yo, I just went to Zumiez…Zumiez is the truth!” — Overheard at Tompkins

Oh, in case you forgot — Free Band Gang: The Movie comes out tomorrow.