Still Trending: Puerto Rican Winters

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Photos by Zach Baker

With winter coming back around tomorrow, now may be a good time to vicariously live through the week we spent in Puerto Rico at the start of 2015. The island’s status as skateboarding’s premier tropical getaway for ~$300 RT has been well-documented on the internet this winter: Lakai spent some time there, all the dudes from Richmond who are heavy on Vine were just there, and the Most Productive Crew™ in New York skateboarding has still yet to release all documented material from their February trip.

Our time spent two months ago was not very “productive” in the traditional sense, as the purpose of the trip was leisure rather than business and/or skateboarding. Most of the footage came via winter Puerto Rican resident, Alexander Mosley, who just put together a clip for his website, Watermelonism.com.

We covered the San Juanese skateboard getaway phenomenon on the site last year, but we did get to travel a bit around the east side island this time around. That means dipping into towns with a couple beachside skate spots, and higher amounts of chickens and stray dogs running around than in the more Americanized San Juan. One of the highlights was a day trip to Vieques, which can be seen throughout the final minute of the above clip, in addition to the opening Al Davis line / Jake Johnson ollie up the stage, 5050 the hubba in the GX1000 “PM Puerto Rico” clip.

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Merry Christmas

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Tree via The Local Weather

Merry Christmas. This our our tenth Christmas clip. It is also the shortest out of the ten, but that’s due to some stuff for upcoming projects getting put aside :)

We’ve never issued an apology for poor filming before. We alienated anyone who could be offended by bad filming in 2007 at the very latest. However, the worst filmed clip in this entire video is one of Jake Johnson, who is the best, and a long-time benefactor of the steady hands of Ryan Garshell, Bill Strobeck, Brengar et al. Sorry about that. First and last time you’ll see an apology for really bad filming on here.

Enjoy your holiday and the 50+ degree days up ahead.

Features Max Palmer, Dallas Todd, Keith Denley, Jake Johnson, Zach Baker, Pad Dowd, Lurker Lou, Alexander Mosley, Kevin Tierney, Josh Velez, Nick Nunez, Connor Champion, Andre Page, Kadeem Walters, Matt Perez, Alex Olson, Ty Lyons, Sweet Waste, Antonio Durao, Mike Gigliotti, Johnny Wilson, and Cyrus Bennett.

Contributing filmer: Andre Page.

Alternate YouTube Link

Past Christmas clips: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005

Watermelonism Premiere: Dos Sandias (2008)

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^Favorite skater

In 2008, Dos Sandias premiered on a VX2000 LCD screen in front of the Fish to a captivated audience. (For those who may not know, a VX2000 screen is about half the size of an iPhone screen.) It was one of the best premieres ever, trumping the other box office-dominating cinematic event from the same weekend. DVD copies were sold through Autumn, 2nd Nature and this website, but — much like its predecessor, The Watermelon Video — many never got a chance to see it.

Watermelonism.com is selling a special run of Dos Sandias boards and tees to go along with the online premiere of the video, and to commemorate a special time for skateboarding in New York, especially for our group of friends. It was when a lot of the principal people in the first QS clip were still skating regularly, and before a lot of the people who are good at skateboarding moved here ;)

Dos Sandias features appearances from Alexander Mosley (in perhaps the only video part to be filmed entirely in Jordans?), Miles Marquez, Ty Lyons, T-Bird, Mike Gigliotti, Matt Mooney, Brian Brown, Doug Brown, Lurker Lou, Jose Pereyra, Jake Johnson, and Ben Nazario. Online for the first time ever. Enjoy.

Previously: Online Premiere — The Watermelon Video

68 Degrees

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The Watermelon Man. Photo via Merchants of Ill.

Johnny Wilson still trying to pretend like he uses his VX1000.

Also, some guy compiled a bunch of Cyrus Bennett’s footage from the more recent video blogs and put it over a more recent Migos song.

As far as “Summer Trip to New York” clips go, the skating in this is tops by non-pro team clip standards. These dudes somehow skate every spot in New York (e.g. when was the last time someone filmed a line at Breezy Ledges? Jeff Pang in 1997?) Obligatory Wu-Tang song included.

“The new Transworld video, Outliers, as seen through the prism of the Malcolm Gladwell book of the same name.” Frozen in Carbonite looks through some prisms.

Cario Foster on his Reason part and Danny Montoya on his incredibly ahead-of-its-time One Step Beyond part. “For the record, filming is hard.”

Lucas and J.B. in the Cliché U.K. tour clip.

Twenty seconds of “lost” Jake Johnson footage. 360 flip noseblunts, etc.

Jordan Trahan apparently kickflipped into the Washington Square Park fountain.

We can officially verify that the Plan B video exists, and that PJ Ladd does not have a part in it. The joke is dead. Except how is Hoboken going to get a premiere and New York isn’t? Was really looking forward to getting drunk in the theater for that one :(

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This is what your 2015 MTA fare hike is going to look like.

QS Holiday Gift Guide: This pixel print of skate shoes from the nineties is chill and this Hans Moleman x Muska Silhouette deck is amazing. “My name is Hans. Drinking has ruined my life. I’m 31 years old!”

Spot Updates: 1) It happened months ago, but finally just got around to updating the spot page…the ledge-to-flatbar in Battery had its runway knobbed. Some Japanese guy with quick feet will still get a trick on it by next summer. 2) The grate at Union Square that people propped up to skate over the pillar is gone. It’s a gap now. 3) The Blue Banks in Albany are being turned into an official skatepark. Even if it ends up being some pre-fab crap, at least you get to skate the banks worry-free now. Funnest spot north of Tompkins :)

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: 6′ 3 Reggie Jackson v.s. 7′ 2 Brook Lopez.

Quote of the Week: “The first thing I thought when I started watching that catcalling video was, ‘Oh no, I hope I’m not in this.'” — T-Bird

No idea what the point of this will be, but yeah, it’s there for now.

Revisiting the Watermelon Video

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There has never been a Quartersnacks video, and there likely never will be. The closest thing to featuring the entire crew in an all-encompassing project was Alexander Mosley’s Watermelon Video from 2006. Considering most of the people involved with it have misplaced their DVD copies, and if you weren’t around Autumn, Supreme or 2nd Nature in 2006, you probably never saw it, Alex finally let us upload it online. He also made commemorative decks and tees for the video’s web premiere, and is selling them over on his website, Watermelonism.com.

The video was filmed roughly from the fall of 2005 until the end of the summer in 2006. It premiered in August 2006 by being projected on the tennis court wall in back of the L.E.S. Park when it was still a pre-fab wasteland. The video features parts from Ben Nazario, Ty Lyons, Andre Page, Mike Gigliotti, Matthew Mooney, Isak Buan and Alexander Mosley, plus a twenty-minute B-roll after the main video. If you need any further indicators of the time period, look no further than the background of the first few Lenox Ledges lines, or Chris Pierre Jacques‘ A.K.A. then Lil’ Chris’ height in his footage. Filmed and edited by Alexander Mosley.

Go grab a tee and board over on Alex’s website once you’re done with the video.

There’s also the sequel from 2008, Dos Sandias, which I’m sure will make its way online eventually :)