Five Favorite Parts With Dick Rizzo

📷 Portrait by Jersey Dave

With this installment, Dick Rizzo is the first person to achieve what can be described as the E.G.O.T. of Quartersnacks content: a Five Favorite Parts, a formal interview, a Favorite Spot episode, a Deep Dive episode, oh and a #1 on a Top 10 🤝

Check out the obstacle he helped concept and Jerry Mraz built if you’re in Jersey City, too.

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Quim Cardona — Quimtime (2001)

My favorite Quim part is probably Non-Fiction, but I’m going with a cuttier one. There’s this YouTube account called “KnowTheLedgends” that his buddy runs, who is really good at keeping track of a lot of Quim and Tom Penny’s footage. It seems like a long-lost Organika or Sushi Wheels promo, almost a greatest hits from the early 2000s.

Since this got uploaded [in 2021], I rewatch it frequently. The QuimTime beats are a definite vibe that set the tone, too. It is an era that I’m envious of. It is the few years pre- and post-9/11. There’s a good bit of footage of the session on the sidewalk median outside of Union Square that would be seen in Mixtape 2, which I always think about when I pass by it.

There is a lot of long-lens night footage; it gives you the feeling that you’re actually there. There are no extra [camera] lights. It feels like these tricks were going to be happening no matter what. He was just out there skating with the homies. He 5050s this tall-ass cage box, and there are not one — but two — longboards stacked up against it for size reference. That was pretty nice.

Quim’s skating is so pure. It feels so random, and it is such insight into that time period. All skaters are envious of the generations before them. Obviously everyone is jealous of New York in the ’90s and the early 2000s. Everything “20 years ago” is always looked back on as if “those were the best times.” It just looks so much more mellow and real back then; so many fewer bodies on the streets.

Anthony Pappalardo — Habitat: Mosaic (2003)

Pops had the blueprint for everything. When I got into skating, this video had been out for a few years, and I had probably been skating for a few years before I got put onto it. I wasn’t around for this Pappalardo glow-up in real time, or the era when everyone was copying him and Wenning. But the part is still something that I throw on and go back to because it’s perfect.

This is a subject I’d bring up with friends, but I like to think of an alternate reality where he actually does land the switch flip down Love. And because of the switch flip, they go: “Anthony is going to have the last part in the video, not Danny Garcia.” Habitat was supposed to be the Northeast brand; I believe that’s what it was pitched as upon its inception. If he landed it, I think it’s safe to assume they would’ve had to give him the last part. The part is perfect as-is, but if that had happened, and they pushed the deadline out a month so he could maybe get another line or two, or just 30 seconds more, maybe then he would’ve finished it out.

The timeline would be completely different. We’d be living in a different world. When Ishod did it [around 2010], he won S.O.T.Y. soon after. Look what the switch flip did for him. I feel like that’s how most people heard about Ishod: “This kid from Jersey who rides for Real did the switch flip down Love.”

The part doesn’t need it. But it is funny to think about the cultural significance that it has had. And the switch fifty down Clipper with the hoodie up, the generator, and the up-top rolling fisheye angle is one of my favorite clips ever.

Andy Bautista & German Nieves — New Thirsty by Justin White (2008)

This video is probably the skate video that molded my views from that point forward. I didn’t know Justin [White] personally when this came out. I knew Jersey Dave; he taught me how to rock-to-fakie. I saw a lot of talented skaters just going to Drop-In Skatepark, and German and Andy would roll through pretty frequently. They carried themselves cool as hell. They both had really good trick selections and their styles are so good. Both play so well against each other.

In that scene, this video was hyped up and talked about for a while leading up to its release. I went to the premiere they had at the skatepark; I didn’t go to the official New York premiere because I was 12. It shaped what I thought skating could and should be like, especially in the scene that we had in North Jersey and New York City. The part feels so personal to the routes that I’ve frequented throughout my life. That Andy bump-gap ollie on Route 46 in Fairfield always tripped me out, being that it’s literally in the highway. And I love German’s nosemanny line on the blue ledge that basically greets you into Newark, and that tre flip he spanks around the corner.

Funny enough, the last trick is in a recognizable-but-old Bushwick near where I live now, and it’s pretty funny that I go past those spots all the time. It is almost like nothing has changed, but the neighborhood has changed so much. There is so much stuff like that: the crispy Mambo Bar clips, Polish Park before the prime real estate gas station and Bolla Market combo was there. It is funny how those things still exist as spots, but they’re fresh in this video.

This vid was a lot different than everything else I had been exposed to at that point. I think my first skate video was Almost’s Round 3, and this was the exact opposite. It was the first real local project that I saw, and it made me really want to be a part of something like it. Parts shared between the best of friends are always nice, too.

Devon Connell & Steve Durante – This Time Tomorrow by Chris Mulhern (2010)

This is another great best-friends part. They’re from South Jersey, which is more the Philly–Atlantic City zone, and way different than North Jersey. They shared a couple parts together, but this one specifically is my favorite.

I turn this one on to get hyped all the time still. This video came out when I was a freshman in high school. I played the shit out of it. I was so hyped for it to come out, and it was an hour-long full-length video filmed all over the place — it definitely didn’t disappoint.

The way their skating contrasts off one another at this point is really cool. They both started out as fresh, tech ledge beasts, but Devon kinda went this other route with his spots, trick selection, and the way he dresses.

They’re also the ABC [Ledges] goats, too; they both have great lines there where they hit each ledge. Even the guest trick in it: Walt Wolfe’s backside 180 into the City Hall station bank is a historic banger, and it goes by so quick. Maybe the best audio on a clip — it sounds like gunshots.

Bobby Puleo — “V5” (2013)

This was his last video-part-style offering, but it’s timeless — even watching it now.

I had been a Bob fan leading up to this, for sure. I feel like there were murmurs about it, but it dropped out of the blue one day, which is one of the coolest parts about it. He was ahead of the curve in lots of ways with skating, but to upload this from a random burner account on YouTube one day, and post it to his website, which was basically his blog — that’s sick. People had the link, they’d send it around, and it was something that people talked about. Instagram was probably pretty new at the time, and people weren’t really dropping independent, solo things like this. To host something yourself as a well-known skateboarder was bold.

His whole body of work is so good, and any of his parts would be a valid favorite, but the reason I picked this one is that it’s easy to come back to. There are no frills, no B-roll. Quick cuts, good footage, good track. Not to say that he couldn’t drop another part, but the fact that he did it like this makes it feel like he went out on his own terms.

I feel like it wasn’t even well received at the time. If someone were to watch it for the first time now, it is obvious how influential it was to the generation after him. The general public didn’t see the vision. At the time, I feel like people were ripping on him for the cellar doors, like it was a pretentious joke. Now, I don’t think anybody would question it because there is more of an understanding to the attention to detail that goes into making something like this, skating and getting away with spots like this.

It truly feels like he did it for himself. Almost maybe too much? I don’t even think there’s a filmer credit to [Joe] Bressler, who I believe filmed most of it. No description, nothing else. Bob doesn’t even have his name on it. It just says “V5.” That’s a cool way to go out.

Previously: Karim Callender, Salomon Cardenas, Diego Todd, Ish Cepeda, Will Marshall, Grant Yansura, Ryan Lay, Nikolai Piombo, Hayley Wilson, Frank Gerwer, Gus Gordon, Max Palmer, Etienne Gagne, Jacopo Carozzi, Nicole Hause, Matt Militano, Evan Wasser, Ryuhei Kitazumi, Sarah Meurle, Vitória Mendonça, Andrew Wilson, Ben Kadow, Chandler Burton, Pedro Delfino, Johnny Wilson, Nick Michel, Wes Kremer, Jordan Trahan, Ariana Spencer, Elijah Odom, Greg Hunt, Zered Bassett, Neil Herrick, Trung Nguyen, Nick Boserio, Elissa Steamer, Casper Brooker, John Gardner, Bobshirt, Brandon Turner, Shari White, Nick Jensen, Tony Hawk, Naquan Rollings, Jack O’Grady, Josh Wilson, Maité Steenhoudt, Jahmir Brown, Una Farrar, Chris Jones, Mason Silva, Beatrice Domond, Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, Breana Geering, Sage Elsesser, Bobby Worrest, Nik Stain, Anthony Van Engelen, Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbert Crockett, Ben Chadourne, Tom Knox, Louie Lopez, The Chrome Ball Incident, The Bunt, Lacey Baker, Andrew Allen, GX1000, Brian Anderson, Gino Iannucci, Josh Kalis, Sean Pablo, Wade Desarmo, Chris Milic, Chad Muska, Hjalte Halberg, Danny Brady, Bill Strobeck, Aaron Herrington, Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams