2011 ‘Real Street’ Parts AKA The New Zoo York Promo

June 29th, 2011 | 1:47 pm | Daily News | 11 Comments

During last Thursday’s NBA Draft, Quartersnacks, along with those who follow our Twitter account, took upon the task of drawing parallels between skateboarding and professional basketball, mostly by way of pointing out which skaters would be #1 overall picks in their respective draft years. We settled on a variety of conclusions: Guy Mariano in 1991, Eric Koston in 1992, Arto Saari in 1998, Paul Rodriguez in 2000, Mike Mo in 2007, Torey Pudwill in 2008, how skaters would be drafted out of skate shops, how Coliseum would’ve won the NCAA title in 2002, and finally realizing that most of the #1 overall picks somehow go to Girl (Cory Kennedy in 2010) and Chocolate (Raven Tershy in 2011) due to their highly astute front offices. Rick Howard wouldn’t be a bad GM for the Lakers. (That team can go to hell, though.)

If you don’t follow basketball, keep in mind that #1 overall pick does not necessarily equate to the “best” skater, as Larry Bird (#6), Michael Jordan (#3), and Kobe Bryant (#13) were not #1 picks. Manu Ginóbli was #57, and he went on to lead the Spurs to three championships. Then there are obvious draft busts, like Jereme Rogers going #1 in 2003, or Jovante Turner going #1 in 1989, only to have a short lived prime, a la Bernard King.

Someone insisted that Zoo York was overdue for a #1 pick, but sometimes, three top five picks in seven or eight years helps you build a better franchise than one #1 overall, and a bunch of picks above #15 in proceeding years. Look no further than this year’s batch of X-Games “Real Street” videos for evidence of that.

Zered Bassett: Apparently, the kink at the Courthouse Drop is just a regular ledge now. And it’s good to see that the rail they put up at that Washington Heights bump isn’t stopping some people. Zered should’ve won the whole thing last year.

K.T. & B.D. in The Skateboard Mag #88

June 1st, 2011 | 11:20 am | Daily News | 5 Comments

[Click photo to Enlarge]

As revealed in the latest issue of The Skateboard Mag, Dave Willis and Kevin Tierney are officially ams for Zoo York.

Both of them have sick photos (and hopefully new video parts to accompany them in the near future), but the supporting text fails to capture their finer moments beyond Kevin’s tardiness, and Dave’s ability to skate without rest for hours upon end. A sensible alternative would have been a discussion of how traumatized Kevin is from the time Bradley threw the crutch at him and Taji, or his expertise in low-cost wineries. B.D. is also also a man with no shortage of great stories, and memorable, yet infrequent, Twitter activity. The Skateboard Mag also neglected to provide him with the proper space for a Waka Flocka shout out, which is unfortunate. (DuFlockaRant out now.)

Below is Kevin ripping around Midtown, doing New York stuff (long 5050s, switch front shoves, etc.) in the past Quartersnacks Christmas clip. We don’t have an extensive B.D. archive, but you can watch him in last year’s Zoo York promo. In 2011, they’re both much better at skateboarding than either of these two videos tend to indicate.

Zoo York’s Heads Video: Now on YouTube

December 6th, 2010 | 3:58 pm | Time Capsule | 17 Comments

Spotted Zoo York’s 1999 Heads video cut up into three parts on YouTube earlier today. The quality is above-average, and it’s odd that all three parts have been online for over a month and each have less than 200 views. Anyway, it is probably the rarest of the three nineties Zoo videos as far as internet versions are concerned, and a reason to avoid digging through boxes of old VHS tapes if you happen to have the physical copy tucked away somewhere.

The actual video itself is maybe twelve-minutes long, and more of a homies promo leading up to “a new video” (which eventually wound up being Mixtape 2, two years later) than a full-length company video. Ninety-percent of the footage is from New York, including a ton of Midtown stuff, all predictably at spots that are not around anymore. (Someone still needs to dig the dirt out of that CBS planter and move that thing. But the entire city might collapse on itself if that spot becomes easily skateable again.) The highlight of the entire production is the small Alien Workshop affiliate segment of Josh Kalis, Jason Dill, Anthony Pappalardo, and Brian Wenning (Eatontown skate night!), from the era when a lot of the Photosynthesis footage seems to have been filmed. If web clips / promos were around in 1999, they would look something like this video.

Any video that gives Scott Schwartz the ender is more than worth your attention. A classic moment, and a classic quote. All of the parts are embedded below. Thanks to the guy who got it up there.

Filed Under: Time Capsule | Tags: , , ,

Danny Supa Big Brother Interview from May 2000

November 23rd, 2010 | 12:53 pm | Time Capsule | 2 Comments

If you pay attention to conventional skateboard media, you may be aware that Danny Supa recently signed on with BLVD Skateboards. He’s got a new commercial over there, a new interview on 48 Blocks, and hopefully an ensemble of other new things surfacing in the future. The skate media world has been sparse in Supa coverage since his Nothing but the Truth part, which featured him grinding a ledge maybe two times. When you have flip tricks like those, that’s not exactly a bad thing.

Historically speaking, like many who spent the last golden days of VHS (somewhere around 1999-2001) constantly replaying the Mixtape cassette, and treating it as an outdated tour guide to what skate spots New York City had to offer (and calling Paine Webber “the Mixtape benches” for many formidable years of skateboarding), his part from that particular video has always been a favorite. If not for the top-tier backside flips, and successful only-5050 incorporating ledge lines (switch front 5050 180 out, nollie backside 5050 bench lines, and the like), than for the part’s status as probably the only skate part to be filmed mostly in basketball shorts, some of the most comfortable skateboard attire short of Polo sweats. Until your shins get hit.

The interview below is from the August 2000 issue of Big Brother, taken after a brief hiatus from skating for Zoo York. It discusses Guess watches, Ryan Hickey, and Mike Hernandez, so it’s worth five minutes of your time. All of the photos are enlargeable, and a text-only version of the images is at the second half of the page so it is easier to read.

A Look Back at EST Video Magazine

October 22nd, 2010 | 1:18 pm | Time Capsule | 22 Comments

Zoo York's E.S.T. Video Magazine - Issues 1 thru 4"

As hard as it is to believe, nine or ten years ago, an endless stream of New York skate footage available for public consumption did not exist. There was Metrospective, which for all its merits, was updated irregularly. But you’d still sit there on your 56k modem and wait for a minute-long clip to slowly load, because you weren’t likely to catch much footage of any local spots in the latest 411 or Digital video. There were also the four Zoo videos (we’re talking up to around 2001, 2002 here), the INFMS video, Static, 5Boro’s 511, that Blackout video with the New York montage, but definitely nothing like the overload that comes with the autofill results when you type “nyc skateb…” on YouTube’s search bar.

But seeing “pros” (translation: dudes in skate videos) skate your local spots (outside of the Banks and Newport) matters a lot when you’re a kid. And was probably a lot more of an event back then than it is now. Everyone in my little circa-2000 skate crew was psyched when Pappalardo did a nollie heelflip into a sheet of plywood set down the six at Hoboken Ledges in his Photosynthesis part. Not because it was an amazing trick, after all, it was a 16mm artsy cut-in, but a small piece of history of the spot to hold onto, and especially relevant if your local spots weren’t any of the trademarks of the era (again, the Banks and Newport.)

That’s probably the reason why issues of EST were something to look forward to every year when a lot of us were growing up. For the time, it was a great idea. A video magazine in the vein of 411, Logic, or Digital, but with montages segregated by regions on the east coast, and supplementary feature materials. Basically, an eastern vehicle to give career boosts to up-and-comers in the same way a “Wheels of Fortune” segment would for some under-the-radar schoolyard kid out in the Valley. (Not that east coasters never received 411 segments, but they were more of an exception to the rule than the overall norm.)

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