Live From the Exito

This place is a good time.

♥ A heartwarming story about a New York skate shop owner, a New York surf shop owner, Paris, and Mike Carroll doing a backside 5050 ♥

We rant about seeing the same spots in Big Skate City™ trip edits like anyone else, but just the right mix of people skating them, and all of a sudden, none of the nitpicky skate criticism matters anymore. Really wish this Insta edit of Max Palmer, Remy Tav and Sylvain Tognelli skating go-to spots in Paris was 4x as long. (Also funny how 2/3 of the people in it don’t even have Instagrams.)

And on that note, Victor Campillo’s ender for his Quota part is the first bit of recent République footage to really stick to the memory. (Starting to notice a trend when New York news is slow…we just post a bunch of Paris stuff. Can’t wait to get this satellite office popping.)

It had a brief run on the TWS site, but “Crop Circles Volume 1” is now online in full, and is one of the best post-Love Park / Philly survivalist videos yet.

“A typical day was waking up at 6:30 A.M., breakfast, heading to the construction site, working till 10-11 P.M., and having a late night crew that stayed up to 3 A.M. on some days.” Monster Children has the story about how a small crew with minimal resources built the first-ever skatepark in Angola in just 28 days.

“Did skateboarder’s hopes for a professional minimum salary level die along with Rob Dyrdek’s dreams for a skaters’ union? Does there exist a ‘rough cut’ of Nike’s commercial in which Kyrie Irving clowns Eric Koston for not having a video game character in the last 10 years’ worth of THPS titles? Is this commercial ripe for parody by the remaining aggressive inline rollerbladers, except where they’re barging Lance Mountain’s backyard pool?”

Theories has the results from their Underground S.O.T.Y. poll.

Antonio x his famous L.J. via this past December.

TWS put up Antonio’s tricks from Duets, which includes maybe the first-ever clip shot from the inside of a trash can? We’d add it to our ever-growing thread of trash-themed skate memes, but it almost becomes low-hanging fruit at that point…

BETTY FORD” is a phone edit from Giovany Reyes featuring some boys traveling the world and skating everything from the best spot on the planet to the worst spot on the planet.

Pretty pointless to link a video with 100k+ YouTube views on here, but it’s been slow and it’s winter. Franky Villani has some New York clips in the middle of his Dickies part.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: We don’t often showcase dramatic dunks on here (or 2019 Warriors highlights, for that matter), but that Demarcus Cousins dunk was straight out of the 1990s NBA. And we’ve honestly been far too exhausted with any and all developments pertaining to the basketball team who plays on 33rd and 7th this past half-decade to have any solid opinion about the Porzingis trade. It’s just all too tiring. We have shit to do.

Quote of the Week: “The vegan girl at the vegan restaurant was having a vegan crisis about her vegan Super Bowl party.” — Alex Mosley

Whatever You Do, You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Cyrus, Antonio, Bobby Worrest, and others on a Nike SB trip skating around somewhere in the middle of the country.

The only regret from 2018 that came into the QS office on the first day of 2019 operations was not editing the second half of last year’s “Best of” clip to “Thank U, Next.” Kyota has us covered in his winter iPhone montage though. Borough Hall, L.E.S., the new 11th Street manny pad, etc.

Had no idea what this was upon click, but it’s pretty sick: “Massapequa Keith Garbarino Mixtape” via Matt Schleyer. Switch back tail shove at Riverbank was fire.

“The city could have blindly purchased a half-pipe but have instead commissioned a sweeping concrete amphitheatre and painted tarmac hill. The expressive architectural gestures exist without the need for an explicit purpose, allowing children, families, cyclists and skateboarders to develop their own relationship with the space.” You already know most of what it has to say, but this is a nice article about cities embracing skateable public space.

Lucas Puig has an iPhone part for …Andale Bearings.

Paul Grund has a quick photo feature over on Skate Jawn about him, Bobby D, Hjalte, and Nik Stain’s voyage through Eastern Europe with Ben Chadourne. And yeah, there doesn’t seem to be much use skating anywhere else in Prague.

Even almost two years after its demolition, there’s no lack of “last days of Shorty’s” content, but this mini doc on Tommy Cuba, one of the original Shorty’s crew members, is probably shot way better than the rest of them.

Raw Deals #008 via Tombo from roughly around ~2003 A.K.A. the era of rough fits. The “fashion” from this time period is really something else. Half the people are dressed like they’re getting a greasy hungover bagel in Murray Hill on a Saturday morning wearing their girlfriend’s Ugg slippers.

There’s some condo over on 61st and Riverside that has its own private mini ramp the same way it’d have like, a swimming pool or a gym. That thing will definitely get a ton of use. (There’s a rail and a few ledges in front of the Soulcycle that you get some time at, though.)

These edits from Swedish slappy lords Poetic Collective are — along with the POP Clips — some of the funnest Euro edits going right now. Never not hyped to skate (and book Euro tickets) after watching one.

The Bunt is back with a new season. Their first episode is with Pedro Delfino.

Rest in Peace to the Lower East Side Guy in All White.

While everyone has a reinvigorated interest in Soulja Boy given his recent, um, media blitz, we feel obligated to point everyone in the direction of this Endless Shrimp mix that Shrimp C did back in 2017 (it was the last episode of the show he ever did.) He listened to literally every Soulja Boy song in existence, and narrowed the best ones down to an hour-long playlist. There are a couple omissions, but to each their own.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The game itself was ok, but the end of Sixers v.s. Thunder was the most fun all last week.

Quote of the Week
Inquisitive Gentleman: “How the hell do you even know that guy?”
Sean Kinney: “I went to his wedding. He has nipple rings.”

We post this every MLK Day, yes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stingwater Presents — Antonio Durao’s GRoEr of the Year Part

Daniel Kim, our 2016 Q.S.S.O.T.Y., is honoring exemplary bouts of evolution since January 1, 2018 with his own, Stingwater-endorsed award, G.R.O.E.T.Y. (GRoE, of course, stands for Getting Ready tO Evolve.) Your 2018 GRoEr of the Year is Antonio Durao: medicine man, beach bully deterrent, gardener, and humanitarian. Daniel gave an eye-watering honorary speech for the occasion.

One of the most remarkable things about Antonio is that he treats skateboarding like the giant fun joke that it is, whether he’s switch back heeling some massive high-bust set on a whim, or skating off the foot-wide lip of a truck bed. The key difference between you or I treating it like a joke, and him, is that his talent on collides with this “joke” head on at every corner wherever he skates, never missing a chance to do something equal parts insane, fried and brilliant. (We’ve kept a small Twitter thread going of his third-eye vision since the middle of the summer.)

Congrats to Antonio. Keep evolving.

December is a Sketchy Month™

A. Vega by M. Heikkila at B. Nine

“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.

New York magazine’s food site, Grub Street, did a feature on Tyshawn’s restaurant in the Bronx. #TJSOTY.

Watermelonism has a fun edit up from an old QS trip to Medellin, an immensely underrated skate destination. Alex is also offering 25% off all the stuff in the Watermelonism webstore for QS readers if you use the promo code “Quartersnacks” in the next 24 hours ♥

“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…

Filed under “videos you wish were longer than the minute-long Instagram limit” — Bronze posted some extras from It’s Time, and 917 posted a quick edit of assorted loosies on IG as well.

“Some seen, some unseen.” Five minutes from NJ Scum’s DV tape archive.

Boil the Ocean offers up a review of “BLESSED” + some thoughts on “a new gilded age for skate videos.”

Yonnie Cruz and Vincent Alvarez share a cruisey half New York / half L.A. part for Theories’ collaboration with Lakai.

Marc Suciu, Franky Spears + Silas Baxter Neal have a new road trip edit, which starts in New York at the maybe now haunted Citi Field Benches

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.

Here is Philly and New York-heavy friends section from the Clusterfuck video.

Skate Jawn built a short-lived box over the stones at Blue Park back at the start of the summer, and just now got around to posting some of the footage from the contest they threw on it.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: James Harden, Defensive Player of the Year. Who woulda thought ;)

Quote of the Week: “Mark Suciu shouldn’t be in S.O.T.Y. contention until he reads more women authors.” — Shrimp C

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.)

Run That Back Turbo

Listen up, fuckers: Voter registration periods in most states end this week. In New York, the voter registration deadline is Friday, and lucky for you, New York offers online registration. (New Jersey’s deadline is October 16, but you’ll need to mail in your registration.) Just under 50% of eligible 18-29 year-olds voted in 2016, whereas nearly 75% of 65+ year-olds did. Literal senior citizens are steering the course of your future. And that whole “my vote doesn’t matter!” / “it’s all corrupt!” / “both candidates suck!” shit is exactly the sort of cowardly laziness that anybody working against your self interests is dependent on. So, if you are eligible A) take the time out of the day you’d otherwise waste filming shitty skate tricks and register if you are not already, and B) if you do not vote on November 6, I hope to every possible higher power there is that you roll the fuck out of your ankle first thing in the morning on November 7 — like I hope it’s an excruciating cantaloupe size roll that takes five hellish months to heal where you don’t get laid once, and I hope that on your first day back skating after those frustrating five months, you roll the life out of the other ankle and it takes even longer to heal.

+++++++

Psssst…shops have began getting fall QS merch in. Arriving in Europe & Japan this week. Check our stockists page to see which shops will have it in both in the States and globally. Our webstore will relaunch on Monday, October 15 at midnight E.S.T. (basically still Sunday night) with all of the new items.

The Canal video, Mode, is now online in full. Really fun video pretty much entirely filmed in New York, with the highest volume of midtown clips of any local vid in recent memory (always nostalgic for that.) It’s always heartwarming to see crews who grew up together keep skating and making full-lengths into adulthood ♥

Tied with midtown footage, our favorite sub-genre of New York skateboarding is watching Tyshawn skate over trashcans. Plenty of that and more in Thrasher’s recap video from the Hardies Can Jam at Blue Park last week.

Pat Hoblin has a rad new part over on TWS. The curvy boardslide over at the old Red Benches + the ender at Seward Park are both wild.

“Anything that combats the idea that skateboarding should be relegated to the skatepark is cool, and to me a worthwhile cause.” Alexis Sablone, who has a masters degree in architecture, created a sick-looking skateable sculpture park in downtown New York (just kidding, you know that shit is obviously in Malmö), and told Medium mag the story.

Antonio got sick of your switch tre jokes and decided to do some switch heels.

Theories posted a new episode of Elkin’s raw files, and Tombo uploaded another “Raw Deals” video from a 2009 trip to Peru and Colombia, which features a good batch of gold Brian Brown footage.

This is what the skatepark in Red Hook is supposed to look like. Aannddd it looks… cramped. To nobody’s surprise, the “Straight Fucking Ledges” crowd will be disappointed.

Russia’s Absurd Skateboards leads the skate world in companies whose trip destinations I most frequently have to search on Google Maps. Their latest one was to the Sea of Azov.

Here’s an eight-minute Jake Johnson mega mix of like, all his footage.

Lee Smith interviewed R.B. Umali for a new podcast he started.

Just after talking shit about those Citi Field benches on here last week, the city found a body wrapped in chains in the adjacent water on Wednesday. Told you that place has a weird energy…

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Basketball is back! Honestly started laughing upon remembering Lance Stephenson and Lebron are on the same team now. Lance Stephenson Finals MVP book it!!!

Quote of the Week: “Damn, Frank Gerwer looks like me in ’06.” — Emilio Cuilan