Find The Texture — An Interview With Eze Martinez & Emilio Dufour

📝 Intro + Interview by Zach Baker
📷 Photography by Hardbody

Skateboarding, socially, is like weed. If you come across anyone in the world who …uses it, that should be intersection-enough to amenably hang out, at least for an hour or two. I’d wager a buck that, as the two [idiotic] activities have become more accepted into the mainstream, the chances of happening onto a deeper connection than that, i.e. beyond rolling around/rolling up, have slimmed.

Meeting and getting to know Eze Martinez and Emilio Dufour has been refreshing. It’s satisfying to know that this thing still has the power to forge real friendships between disparate strangers. While yes, our initial get-to-know-you banter involved such topics as ABDs and the psychosis of rolling up switch to The Sombrero, I think we’ve found other mutual interests to latch onto, and have found that we three share similar worldviews, whatever the hell that even means at this point.

It was exciting to see them do some of the stuff from “Never Enuff III” in person, and all the more thrilling to see what I hadn’t in the final product. Skating in New York is awesome, but let’s face it: it has never been harder to do something memorable on a skateboard in this town, let alone on a trip, in a couple of months, in one summer. I think these guys and E.J. made something lasting; a thing worth remark. Now I’m glad that a few more people get a chance to get to know my sick ass Rio de la Plata homies.

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The QS Anonymous Skateshop Survey Asks: What’s the ‘Matter’ With Skateboarding?

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Art by Francesco Pini

Do you remember that demo?

Ben Jones, co-owner of Kinetic Skateboarding, in Wilmington, Delaware, does. It was the early-90s, Toy Machine. Jahmal Williams and Jerry Fowler were still on the team. It was at a metal skatepark in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “It’s seared into my brain how hard Ed Templeton ripped,” Jones says.

Many readers of this article do remember that demo — a flashbulb moment early in on in a love affair with skateboarding that really sealed the deal — but such memories are becoming increasingly harder to make. That’s one of the takeaways from the Quartersnacks Anonymous Skateshop Survey. We reached out to 20 shops all over the United States that we have close ties with. We asked five questions, but ultimately, tried to get to the bottom of one. It began as a joke, but maybe it isn’t one? There’s a widespread refrain right now that skateboarding is “fucked.” So, is skateboarding “fucked?” …again?

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