Thankful For Barnes

November 21st, 2018 · 3:06 pm · 2 Comments

Put all your dreams in skateboarding’s basket, and sometimes, they end up crushed. Years of blood spilled over video parts, knees hurting after being squished into tour vans, rent paid to share a three bedroom with five people — and all you have to show for it is a stack of warped boards that you never got a chance to skate.

Long story short: it is always wise to diversify your dream portfolio in case [for some strange reason] the whole “pro skater” thing doesn’t work out.

To be honest, I don’t know if Barnes ever wanted to be a pro skater. Maybe when he was 14 or something, I never really asked. But I do remember him being a staple in 5Boro videos for as long as I have known what 5Boro was. He was also a longstanding resident of the aughts’ most notorious brand-name skate house, Dobbin Block. Today, he is the closest thing we know to a deranged rich guy (see #16.) I’m not sure if he’s on the path to becoming a philanthropic sort of deranged rich guy who leaves the world a vastly better place than it was, or James Bond villain sort of deranged rich guy. And frankly, there’s a 50/50 shot for either outcome, and I’m cool with waiting in suspense until he arrives at one.

When he does, we — the skateboard family who watched Spike Jonze accept his Oscar with proud affirmation that he was one of “us” — can watch Barnes either save the world or destroy it, while telling our loved ones, “Oh yeah, that’s the guy who used to do all the crazy drop-ins in old 5Boro videos.”

This Thanksgiving, after honoring John Choi in 2017, and our dear beloved Keith™ in 2016, we would like to extend our thankfulness for Barnes.

Mostly filmed by Tombo. We ripped the rest from old Krudco videos.

Previously: Thankful For John, Thankful For Keith

Alltimers ‘No Idea’ B-Sides — Boston, Canada, Barcelona

October 23rd, 2018 · 5:55 am · 2 Comments

And so, the prolonged afterlife of a full-length video released in 2018 comes to its close: the final “B-sides” clip.

No Idea was the video that earned Etienne a Gucci polo. These are the bits that didn’t — in fact, they didn’t even earn anyone a Ralph Lauren polo. B-sides are the U.S. Polo Assassins polo of the golf shirt hierarchy, and these are the ones that took place on various filming trips to Boston, that time E.T. got stuck in Spain for ten months, and Canada. Alltimers for Adidas available in skate shops now.

Filmed by Rob Harris and Corey McNeill.

Previous No Idea B-Sides: New York, Miami, Los Angeles

Web Premiere: Marcello Campanello’s Part in Canal’s “Mode” Video

October 3rd, 2018 · 10:10 am · 5 Comments

Photo by Esteban Jefferson

You might recognize Marcello as being the only person doing literal 540s over the trash can at Tompkins, or for being an early purveyor of the cab flip craze that took over flatground skating earlier in the #TRENDWATCH cycle. Mode is the new / first full-length video from Canal New York, and features his first part since the quick ender in Diego Garcia’s Goodily video from last year. Save a quick interlude at Eggs, it is entirely filmed in New York, and one of those rare parts that makes such good use out of every oft-traversed corner of the city that you feel stupid for complaining about there being nowhere to skate yesterday. (Though not stupid enough to forget that those Citi Field benches are nowhere near as fun IRL as videos make them look to be hehehe.)

Video by Esteban Jefferson, who says Mode will probably make its way online in full over the weekend.

We Ain’t Dropped A Clip In A Long Time — End of Summer 2018 Montage!

August 29th, 2018 · 1:12 am · 7 Comments

Once upon a time, we went years without breaking the annual tradition of End of Summer clips posted right before each Labor Day Weekend.

Then, we were lead astray. To give you some context, the last time we posted one, it was to a Rich Homie Quan song in 2015, and not long after, he devastatingly walked out of our lives never to be heard from again.

Some might say we were too busy indulging in the finer things life has to offer at the expense of time spent on a skateboard. Others blame Instagram for cannibalizing the footage economy, i.e. how often do you see a run of the mill city montage getting uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo these days that isn’t a longform project promoting something or a trip clip? Like, who makes clips over sixty seconds just for the sake of it anymore?

…we do! At least we’re trying to again! Because montages are fun! You get to use more than sixty seconds of a song you like! You don’t have to hoard footage for twelve months waiting for everyone to get their parts together! It’s way more fun than uploading shit to an IG story and getting a bunch of praying hands emojis in your DMs! Montages have vibes! Montages are memories! Montages are beautiful!

Following the start of this year’s summer solstice — amidst the build-out of this snazzy new redesign — we made a resolution to start bringing the #RealCamera™ out all the time. Also, we were still reeling for the devastating loss of Final Cut 7; we had to get with the times and figure out how the hell to use Premiere. August was hindered by a bit of a nagging health issue, but as a bonus, we mixed in the footage from the two-and-a-half days we spent in Prague because there were never any concrete plans for it. (So, it’s basically a July 2018 montage.)

We’d like to extend a special individual thank you to Antonio Durao for keeping everyone hyped this summer, because without him, there’s no way this clip would exist. (You’ll see.) Contributing filmers: Jesse Alba & Emilio Cuilan.

Features Antonio Durao, Daniel Kim, John Francomacaro, Conor Prunty, Connor Kammerer, Chris Milic, Brian Brown, Myles Gable, Hjalte Halberg, Ruben Spelta, Anton Juul.

Who knows, maybe we get real wild and drop a Christmas clip this year too ♥

Web Premiere — Tino Del Zotto’s ‘PFP5’ Part

August 22nd, 2018 · 11:20 am · 2 Comments

Photo by Bryan Weis

Mike Sass has been making Westchester videos with his PFP / Picture Fucking Perfect series for pretty much this entire decade. The series offers a view of a scene that’s very much a satellite of the city, yet full of skaters and spots not trapped in the “let’s meet at L.E.S. or Blubba and see what happens” pattern that is synonymous with so many 2010s New York videos. (And anyone living in Brooklyn can replace the Blubba in this meme with Blue Park.) City life will have you so wrapped up in routine and safety nets that a place only ten miles north of The Bronx can come off feeling like its from a different skate scene entirely.

We are proud to present our friend Tino Del Zotto’s section from the video — also his first-ever part altogether ♥

PFP5 is Sass’ fifth full-length video since 2010, and can be purchased for $12 here. TWS has Andrew Singh’s part up for viewing, and Jenkem has Brandon Gironda’s section + a mini interview with Sass about the series.

Also forgot to mention it on Monday, but apparently, when we joked about this thing getting knobbed in like…2015, it was because someone actually fully really did roll in on it. Check the 1:12 mark of Girodana’s part if you already haven’t. Crazy.