The Dime Live @ Stadium highlight they DON’T want you to see! (Jk, they def want you to see it. Holy shit.) And obvs a late Monday round-up after returning from Montreal is practically a QS office tradition. Sorry for the delay.
Next Video is a full-length from Andrew Kennelly AKA @Dudesarecool5, filmed pretty much entirely in the city (minus the obligatory “Cali section.”) New Kyota part + plus a bunch of people you’ll recognize from skating around downtown…or Borough Hall. Village Psychic has a quick highlight reel of GIFs.
Just before Jake Phelps died, Zered recorded what would be the final interview on Thrasher radio with him as the host. They put the 30-minute conversation online last week.
“Colombia, huh.” Then come the sly smiles. There’s obvs no shortage of shithead Americans going to Colombia to be shitheads, but in all honesty, we weren’t going for shithead-related endeavors. We were trying to get out of the cold. It was three degrees outside the day we left.
Remember that 2012 S.O.T.Y. award? The one after Pretty Sweet? People thought Guy Mariano should’ve had it as the final victory to a tremendous redemption narrative, and for like, laser heelflipping out of a smith grind — for whatever reason he deemed that necessary to perform. A young Colombian man who was Possessed to Skate™ ended up getting it. He was the first Latin American to get it (right?), and the first non-American winner since Arto in 2001.
Why are we talking about S.O.T.Y? Well, when we went to Colombia for the first time in 2016, we went to Gonzalez’ neighborhood park. That guy is a god out there. He passed his possessed-ness off to thousands of Colombian kids, because this time around, it was obvious that skateboarding and its culture had become even bigger in Medellín. That one somewhat random S.O.T.Y. win had a massive impact in spreading skateboarding globally, even if we didn’t feel it in the States.
The plaza gods also blessed Medellín with an incredible plaza a little over a year ago. Parque Chimineas could best be described as if J-Kwon and Sants (had it not been bashed to shit over the years) had a baby, and already fueled its share of progression. That place alone is worth airfare + a five hour flight, and a bit more ~exotic~ than your run-of-the-mill New York winter escape destinations.
Watermelon Alex has been living down there for months, and Dre is seemingly an honorary Colombian. A second visit was much overdue. Can’t think of any other place I’ve traveled to where $200 lasts over a week. Also, that near-equator sun will have you in bed by 11 P.M., asleep deeper than you could’ve ever imagined. Thanks Alejo, Mateo and Alvarez for showing us around ♥
“tis the season…for skating Seagram because the security window’s view of the ledges is obstructed by giant Christmas trees :)
Someone ollied that Vespa bump-to-bar that T.J. did in “BLESSED”…the other way.
“People always ask me about that day, but honestly, it was truly terrifying…Like, what better thing to do than go skate around? Sure, it’s kind of a frivolous thing to do under those circumstances, but at the same time, that’s the point.” Chromeball talks Mike O’Meally about skating in New York on September 12, 2001 + gets the stories on a bunch of his photos, many of which were shot while living in the city.
“As designer and architect, everyone always asked if I wanted to design skateparks, but I was always kinda annoyed by that question. I love skating skateparks, they’re fun, but I never thought about that.” Solo has a sick interview with ant colony aficionado, Alexis Sablone. Fully wanna try the walnut thing next time I see some ants…
Maybe the best part uploaded from the Buffalo-based Jeb video so far: Justin Grzechowiak’s section is a nice reminder that upstate New York should probably be on par with Boston, D.C., et al. as a get-out-of-the-city destination for us all, but I’m sure upstaters would prefer it staying the way it is hehe.
I’m sure there’s like a twenty-page Slap thread about it, but Matt Rodriguez was really on one in preceding a lot of the shit that would become popular practice in 2014-2018, especially for a lot of office favorites. (Maybe the same could be said about that entire 2005 I-Path video in general.)
Merry Christmas to whoever woke up with the stolen Beamer logo off Dre’s car under their tree.
Hate to pile on to 2016’s seemingly infinite supply of bad news, but this is the first year that we’re not coming through with a full Christmas clip. Although the pasttwo have admittedly lost the steam of say 2007’s tour de force, 2010’s G.O.A.T. or 2012’s shockingly productive fall — 2016 is the year when adult life caught up, and skateboarding in November/December outside of Tompkins or a skatepark just didn’t go down like it used to. Below are a few ~moody~ bits from the summer (!!!) to fill the place of a would-be Christmas clip.
Eleven years in a row of by-far the longest running annual web clip series ain’t so bad. Shout out to the O.G. Bryan Chin from who we ripped the idea off in the first place back in the early 2000s. Hope to make it back for the next one.
Features Daniel Kim, Connor Champion, Josh Velez, Andre Page, John Franco, Akira Mowatt, Matthew Perez, Lurker Lou, Keith Denley, Alexander Mosley, Thom Musso, Pryce Holmes. Filmed by Andre Page and Pad Dowd.
BUT, keep in mind that none of that may matter at all, since Dustin Henry’s Antisocial Video part is still around to warm your heart this holiday season. Congrats again to Dustin for winning our first annual Skater You Would Be Most OK With Your Daughter Dating Award! #perfectboy
Merry Christmas everyone. We’ll be back on Tuesday, December 27th.
Alexander Mosley — the most worldly traveler of all QS affiliates — just released the forth installment of his Watermelonism series, entitled “Keep Biting.” Filmed throughout a winter stint in Colombia and a summer in New York (plus a few Puerto Rico tricks), and featuring Alex Figueroa, Alex himself, Olu Stanley and Phil Rodriguez, the former Q.S.S.O.T.Y. who had quite a bit of a 2016 comeback between this, a couple Iron Claw clips, and Bronze’s Plug video from this past spring.
Other reasons aside, we don’t even have a J-Kwon on this continent anymore, but South America does. All the more reason to bail on this tense, angry place for a nice Colombian winter, or year, or four ;)
