December is a Sketchy Month™

A. Vega by M. Heikkila at B. Nine

“tis the season…for skating Seagram because the security window’s view of the ledges is obstructed by giant Christmas trees :)

Someone ollied that Vespa bump-to-bar that T.J. did in “BLESSED”the other way.

“People always ask me about that day, but honestly, it was truly terrifying…Like, what better thing to do than go skate around? Sure, it’s kind of a frivolous thing to do under those circumstances, but at the same time, that’s the point.” Chromeball talks Mike O’Meally about skating in New York on September 12, 2001 + gets the stories on a bunch of his photos, many of which were shot while living in the city.

New York magazine’s food site, Grub Street, did a feature on Tyshawn’s restaurant in the Bronx. #TJSOTY.

Watermelonism has a fun edit up from an old QS trip to Medellin, an immensely underrated skate destination. Alex is also offering 25% off all the stuff in the Watermelonism webstore for QS readers if you use the promo code “Quartersnacks” in the next 24 hours ♥

“As designer and architect, everyone always asked if I wanted to design skateparks, but I was always kinda annoyed by that question. I love skating skateparks, they’re fun, but I never thought about that.” Solo has a sick interview with ant colony aficionado, Alexis Sablone. Fully wanna try the walnut thing next time I see some ants…

Filed under “videos you wish were longer than the minute-long Instagram limit” — Bronze posted some extras from It’s Time, and 917 posted a quick edit of assorted loosies on IG as well.

“Some seen, some unseen.” Five minutes from NJ Scum’s DV tape archive.

Boil the Ocean offers up a review of “BLESSED” + some thoughts on “a new gilded age for skate videos.”

Yonnie Cruz and Vincent Alvarez share a cruisey half New York / half L.A. part for Theories’ collaboration with Lakai.

Marc Suciu, Franky Spears + Silas Baxter Neal have a new road trip edit, which starts in New York at the maybe now haunted Citi Field Benches

Maybe the best part uploaded from the Buffalo-based Jeb video so far: Justin Grzechowiak’s section is a nice reminder that upstate New York should probably be on par with Boston, D.C., et al. as a get-out-of-the-city destination for us all, but I’m sure upstaters would prefer it staying the way it is hehe.

Here is Philly and New York-heavy friends section from the Clusterfuck video.

Skate Jawn built a short-lived box over the stones at Blue Park back at the start of the summer, and just now got around to posting some of the footage from the contest they threw on it.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: James Harden, Defensive Player of the Year. Who woulda thought ;)

Quote of the Week: “Mark Suciu shouldn’t be in S.O.T.Y. contention until he reads more women authors.” — Shrimp C

I’m sure there’s like a twenty-page Slap thread about it, but Matt Rodriguez was really on one in preceding a lot of the shit that would become popular practice in 2014-2018, especially for a lot of office favorites. (Maybe the same could be said about that entire 2005 I-Path video in general.)

All Good Things Must…

All the stuff from the longest T.F. obstacle run in the spot’s history is gone, as of last week. Sometimes you need to cleanse your palette so new flavors can flourish, and we’re excited to see what sort of debris tumbles into Tompkins for 2019. (Still kind of curious about how they let us rock for AN. ENTIRE. SUMMER. — softball leagues and all — then finally decided to get rid of it in…November? Not complaining though.)

“Nevertheless, the same 2018 skateboarding memes exist in each city. Wherever you go there will be the body varial guy. Someone, eyes closed, will spin their board one handed above a precipice. It is now universally accepted that baggy pants give you the illusion of having more grace on a skateboard, you simply have to be very good to throw the right shapes in skinny jeans. There will always be a bottle tosser.” — LOVED this. Daryl Mersom offers up some observations on skateboarding via his travels in post-Soviet Eastern Europeans counties. We out to Estonia, and shout out to apple trees.

Watermelonism has a new clip up from a wallie jam at Parque Las Chimeneas A.K.A. Colombian J-Kwon, and Alex has a bunch of new gear up on his site, Watermelonism.com.

Good vibes, some wild tricks (that Battery Park City pop-over into the rock wall…), and a profound dedication to Three Up Three Down that even exceeds our own in Stephen Ostrowski’s wonderful “Ether” video.

“Someone told me you got into a fight with Wu-Tang a while back?” To follow-up the jump ramp story, Mackenzie uploaded the full audio of his ~15-year-old interview with Macaulay Culkin’s friend, Harold Hunter.

Skate Jawn interviewed Josh Stewart (yeah, I wish Keith skated more too…), and Josh Stewart interviewed Steve Brandi.

Mobster Children paid a visit to Jahmal Williams’ art studio.

Vice has a profile on Supreme on the eve of the “BLESSED” release. The video is due out this Friday btw.

Wasn’t expecting Theories to post a video that had 6ix9ine songs and crooked grind nollie front foot flips in it, but 2018 has been all about expanding your horizons, yaknow. “Legana” is a 20-minute video from a Peruvian skate crew that’s 50% filmed in New York.

Grey interviewed J.B. Gillet about his favorite plazas, and he made me want to get a coffee bean chain.

Boil the Ocean takes issue with Palace picking on Alien and Habitat circa 2018.

And on that note, The Atlantic has a wild article about why we’re all not hooking up enough. (There’s a SoundCloud embed on there that you can listen to in the event you don’t want to read a 10,000 word article about not having sex.)

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Looks like the whole Philly thing worked out for Jimmy Butler. Sheesh.

Quote of the Week:

— Slicky Boy

Recently went out for dinner in a place that had no real traces of being a skater-run establishment, but for whatever reason, they were playing Pretty Sweet. None of us had watched it in full since roughly around the time it came out. Two things became obvious: that we’re okay with not seeing it in full for another five years (…sorry), and that Kenny Anderson had fire footage in that video, which seemed to float under the radar during its initial release. The whole “it’s a *normal* Marc Johnson part!”- narrative kind of took the reigns when Pretty Sweet dropped, but Kenny really did have the best bits of the video as far as Girl’s 30-years+ riders at the time were concerned.

We were gassing up this Tennyson remix hard back when it first dropped, but you should give it a whirl if you haven’t in a while. It’s the best part from Pretty Sweet ;)

Remember

Photo by Matt Weber

Still a surreal day on the calendar every year. Over the years, we have done several posts regarding how that day shaped our tiny corner of New York — An Interview With Zered Bassett About the Vicious Cycle House (several blocks from Ground Zero circa 2002-2003), February 2002 Transworld Article re: 9/11, Twin Towers skate photos, Twin Towers skate clips 1996-2001.

You’re in for an onslaught of recap content throughout the internet, but the Dime Glory Challenge was absolutely brilliant. Forever grateful to be skateboarding on the earth at the same time in history as these brilliant Canadian minds.

Watermelonism has some new embroidered tees and hats.

“What was harder to do: switch big flip Chinatown Double-Set or switch backside flip D7?” NY Skateboarding has a solid interview with Tyshawn Jones, reigning “Did you hear what _____ did?!” king of New York City.

Transworld interviewed Josh Kalis about the greatest kickflip ever done™.

We’re the last ones to continue beating the dead horse of varial flip pontification, but the one (you’ll know which one…) in Sami El Hassani’s all-around brilliant new clip for Pop Trading Company deserves some extra attention.

People began skating the new Harlem skatepark on 114th Street and First Avenue (conveniently located between Haiji’s and Patsy’s) this past week. Looks kinda like Cooper Park tbh. Troy posted a clip from it, but there are a few more floating around.

Yaje Popson warms up with avocados and nollie half cab switch backside 5-0s. No wonder he’s the only native T.F. local with his name on a skateboard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People are still pissed about you skating the plaza on 110th and 8th, and hopes for a new Byrdgang video are high in the QS office. Here’s a teaser for Byrdgang 3.

(When is Hijinx 2 dropping though?)

Here’s the raw footage from Dane Baker’s part for Lottie’s Skate Shop.

Jenkem has a Prodigy tribute mix by skateboarding’s official Mobb Deep ambassador.

Four minutes of nollie backside 180 heelflips throughout history.

Vice posted up a deleted scene from Bam’s Epicly Later’d of Kerry and Bam skating Kerry’s backyard ramp in Pennsylvania. Party at my house for the Muska one.

Quote of the Week: “I can’t wear blue, it’s a color.” — Girl Wearing All Black in the Dime Store

Happy belated birthday, Roy Ayers.

Keep Biting — New Watermelonism

watermelonism

Alexander Mosley — the most worldly traveler of all QS affiliates — just released the forth installment of his Watermelonism series, entitled “Keep Biting.” Filmed throughout a winter stint in Colombia and a summer in New York (plus a few Puerto Rico tricks), and featuring Alex Figueroa, Alex himself, Olu Stanley and Phil Rodriguez, the former Q.S.S.O.T.Y. who had quite a bit of a 2016 comeback between this, a couple Iron Claw clips, and Bronze’s Plug video from this past spring.

Other reasons aside, we don’t even have a J-Kwon on this continent anymore, but South America does. All the more reason to bail on this tense, angry place for a nice Colombian winter, or year, or four ;)

New boards + tees available over on Watermelonism.com.

Music by Alex and G.C. Colaianni, scratches by DJ Impereal, who has a fire vegan restaurant in Medellin.

Previously: Stripe Melon, Travel Melon, Sea Scenes

img_7257

It’s 3 in the Morning, Take Your Old Ass to Sleep

lehos

Zaytoven deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Watched this guy Ruben Spelta skate at Milano Centrale this past summer and it was insane. Dude is a good follow on Instagram, but this compilation video should bring you up to speed for now. Who’s everyone got for best steez 2k16 award?

“I wish Brandon Turner was wearing a Bronze tee when he switch Hardfliped Carlsbad in the Guilty video.” Skateboard Story interviewed Peter Sidlauskas from Flipmode Stick Up Kids Bronze. Link to the “How I’m Living” video please :)

“And I guess I’m also saying that Tiago, if you care bud (which hopefully you don’t) you should maybe consider changing your name to Trevor, switching from Mountain Dew to beer, and getting on Anti-Hero or something.”

Taylor Nawrocki’s Spirit Quest part is now playing over on the TWS site, and Free Skate Mag has an extensive interview with Colin Read about the project itself, in addition to a minute of extras that got left out from the video.

Place interviewed Alex Olson, the guy whose office is a floor below Alltimers.

“There is no reason that a campaign born out of the streets cannot be intelligent and incisive.” Something that is probably going to come in handy in Tr*mp’s litigious America: Love Live Southbank’s Guide to Saving a Skate Spot. (The city of Barcelona is restoring Sants, by the way *side-eye Emoji*)

Hey did you know that there was a moment when Dill and A.V.E. might’ve got on Aesthetics at its inception? Sal Barbier got Chromeballed.

“Don’t put this in one of your stupid edits, dude.” “NY Times Vol. 20” via LurkNYC.

“Tood” is the new one from Rios Crew, Hungarian skating-with-backpacks devotees.

R.B. just uploaded some raw footage of Zered, Eli, Westgate, Tierney, Dela, et al. skating around the city from a summer or two ago.

Part two of the Right Coast Tour with Freddy and Quim is now live.

Zach Moore’s Transplants video is now online in full.

Did you know there was a time when John Cardiel had a pro snowboard, and Burton advertised in Thrasher? Our bud Alex Dymond just released a book entitled Snow Beach, which chronicles an era when snowboarding was very much an offseason activity for skaters, with tons of crossover via fashion, style, etc. from skateboarding.

The new Watermelonism video, “Keep Biting,” is premiering at 2nd Nature on Thursday. Flyer here. Music by the world famous DJ Thando of “Needed Me” remix fame.

“Dipset: The Movie” — a big topic around here some ~ten years ago — is back and is actually still great. “You’re so ugly I could hear it through the phone.”

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Sooooooooo, ANYWAYYYYYY

Quote of the Week: “I just found out through Google that I have chlamydia, I should bounce.” — Name Withheld

Today marks ten years since the release of The Inspiration, which was 95% of the way as incredible of an album as TM101, this website’s founding piece of scripture. (Even did a tribute post to it the day it leaked online, and distinctly remember listening to nothing else that winter.) There really is no greater three-peat of motivational speaking than the first three Jeezy albums. The guy has nothing left to prove #jeezysaves.