The #form in this episode is absolutely incredible on both ends … and if you want to know why he stepped off that, none of us have any idea. You can’t hear the reaction as well in the video, but pretty much everyone there had the same one: “DUDE, WHAT?! WHY?!”
Thank you to everyone for the kind feedback and words of support for this series (also shout out to the homie from Win Son the day after the boys won the title.) It means a lot that everyone is enjoying these because the first two the came out were the only two shut-out games that went down. [Spoiler? …maybe? But like, as someone pointed out with the last one, sometimes the runtimes themselves are spoilers.] All the rest are, to use a word used by one of the skaters in this episode, sword work.
For the past, idk, ten months maybe — Antonio Durao has been referring to everybody as “O.G.” It didn’t matter what your age was, you were O.G. The dude pulling up to Tompkins? “O.G.” The cashier at the store? “O.G!” An actual O.G? “O.G!!!” O.G. Anunoby? OMG.
Things come together in cosmic ways, because the name that he matched up with from the mystic Quartersnacks Knicks hat was the O.G: Dennis Busenitz.
Back in the fall, when a couple of Adidas heads were in town for the Long Ledge Jam, we had an idea to get a few of them and a few local-based friends to do a casual, multi-person game of S.K.A.T.E. over the Flushing grate flat gap. Here was a spot that you could run single clips over in your part maybe ~25 years ago, but in the ensuing quarter-century, pretty much every single flip trick imaginable had been done. It is probably up to par for some talented skaters to get competitive over. Unfortunately, due to a few logistical issues, it didn’t work out in the fall.
Last month, however, we made it happen. We got eight skaters to Flushing by noon! That was a miracle in and of itself.
Way back when, we were reporting on a new skatepark across the Atlantic opening and someone left a now-immortal comment.
“I’ve always wondered what skatepark builders have against STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGES. I live in CO and there’s a skatepark in every town with A 20 foot cradle but not a STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE at any of em. What are the kids gonna do with a 20 FOOT CRADLE?!?! Just build us a STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE and be done with it!”
In the twelve years since, anytime we have reported on a built-for-skateboarding structure, we simply had to commentate on whether or not the park, plaza, et al. included a …Straight Fucking Ledge™.
Today, more New York City skateparks have Straight Fucking Ledges™, though probably not in the abundance that a Straight Fucking Ledge™-enthusiast would want.
