Somehow only catching this one now, but Embassy Skate Shop (Columbus, Ohio) put together one of the best videos of the year thus far. It is tightly-edited, each skater is distinct from the other, and it maintains a tight-knit hometown vibe even though ~half of it is filmed in S.F. Add this and Adam Bos’ “Steel” to your morning rotation.
“With this risk spectrum in mind, when I see a skateboarder do a trick while smoking a cigarette, I can’t help but feel inspired by the sheer audacity involved.” Here is a brief reflection of cigarettes’ role in skateboarding, though it inexcusably writes Mr. Butts out of history. “To young kids, don’t smoke. It’s a horrible habit.”
“Among the improbably growing ranks of skateboard filmers, the thrill of the hunt tends to scale alongside duration.” Since everyone is pissed about our Artforum MasterCard coverage of the Converse video, perhaps you will find Boil the Ocean’s take on Purple less triggering — and maybe laugh at the phrase “something of a freethinking homicidal” as much as I did ;)
Connor Champion ♥ has a new edit for Grand Collection *airhorn*:
Even though Shorty’s has been demolished for nearly a year, the “last days” clips are still coming out. It’s with Freddy and Tommy Cuba, so nobody’s complaining :)
Life before cell phones = keeping a foldable card of every skater you’ve ever skated with’s handwritten number in your wallet.
Can’t say Helly Hansen was at the top of the imaginary list of brands to collab with a skateboard company, but they chose a pretty perfect crew to do the “wear test” video for it. QS Budapest 2019…we out?
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: This week, the Rap Desk is filling in for the Sports Desk, and giving the P.O.T.W. to to Young Dolph. (Do you think people will ever stop overreacting to Lebron losing a game in a playoff series? This shit happens every year and it is so annoying. Still hating Lebron in 2018 is like not being at terms with Drake in fucking 2018 — like, who has the time to hold onto some stupid 2011 grudge? Just let go and move on in peace ♥)
Quote of the Week: “She’s like the Jamie Foy of lying.” — Charles Rivard
In Alex Olson’s “Five Favorite Parts,” he mentions how Video Days was a “myth” growing up. It was the video all the older dudes would rave about, but it’s not like you could go to the skate shop and buy a copy eight years after it came out.
Questionable was the other “myth” video from that time. Like any kid who loved Rodney Mullen because of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and the Rodney V.S. Daewon videos — judging skateboarding based on how many times the board flips — you’d hear about all the crazy shit he did in Questionable. Rodney’s 540 flip was one of the first three-second skateboard clips you could find on the internet in the nineties. But again, it’s not like you could easily find the full video. You had to get creative.
My first eBay purchase ever was a $19.99 Buy-It-Now listing for “ALL 4 PLAN B VIDEOS VHS L@@K.” The item arrived three weeks late, and “All 4 Plan B videos” meant that they were dubbed onto one tape in chronological order. Rodney’s triple kickflips and the real version of the San Francisco level from THPS2 were cool when you’re a tween, but in the YouTube-ized society of today, the only part from any of those four videos that gets routinely revisited is Ronnie Bertino’s. (Yeah yeah, Jeremy Wray obvs has the best part in the video.)
