#CPHFW Update

cybstail-comp

Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

It brings us great shame — both as devout front row #fashionweek attendants but also unpaid Copenhagen tourist board employees — to discover that apparently there’s a Copenhagen fashion week? Who would’ve thought designers need an entire [half] week dedicated to wearing all black, avoiding eye contact and appearing indifferent? Maybe that’s every fashion week though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Word is that they timed #CPHFW along with the CPH Open contest, which is like the perfect storm for potential bad decisions (turning a watermelon into a pipe, etc.) Anyway, back to Sremmlife 2

Some extras embedded below, including a day-trip excursion to Malmö, the proverbial Newark to Copenhagen’s New York. (It’s a lot nicer than Newark.)

Features Andrew Wilson, Bobby Worrest, Hugo, Cyrus Bennett, Ishod Wair, Alex Olson, Oski, and my third favorite skateboarder (1- Max Palmer, 2 – Louie Lopez), Zach Malfa-Kowalski A.K.A. Feeble god.

ishodwallride-comp

Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

Previously: Copen-N-Hagen: The Nørreport

Copen-N-Hagen: The Nørreport

bobbyswbsnoseblunt

#TF. Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

It is tough to come up with an unjustified hyperbole about Copenhagen. I watched a board shoot out into an old lady’s bike the other day, and she smiled it off, waved goodbye and went about her business. We were skating a playground in a place that by some Scandinavian stretch, had Bushwick playground vibes, and accidentally almost crashed into a five-year-old. The response was “try and watch out for the kids” — not “fam I’m deadass about to get all my cousins to pull up and shoot you.” The place is a perfect concoction of people not giving a shit about what you’re doing, and people caring so much about what you do because they’ll line every modern public space with some sort of perfectly skateable object.

The T.F. here doesn’t have its boxes taken away in 48 hour cycles. In the summer, you spend zero time inside a car or train. Places will serve you sexy cocktails to go. You can enjoy a beer or six, and some guy will not be far off waiting to collect your empty can moments after you finish. Every spot is parallel to some of the earth’s luckiest bike seats ♥. Even drunk street meat decisions don’t seem to be as much of a gastrointestinal threat as they do stateside. Sure, it’s expensive and cold in the winter, but we live in New York. Don’t sit here and tell me about expensive and cold when your boy just found the deal of a lifetime for a $1300 10 x 10 off the Myrtle-Broadway stop that he needs to still buy a spaceheater for, but still sleeps in his socks.

More »

Ishod & MPC™ in Puerto Rico Montage

ishodnosegrind

Just in time for the coldest weekend of the winter, here’s the full video from last month’s Puerto Rico trip with Ishod and the Most Productive Crew™ in New York City skateboarding. Many of us are in our third year of embracing Puerto Rico as the east coast’s winter retreat, so we stepped a bit outside of our San Juanese comfort zone to cruise around New York’s sixth borough.

Outtakes and field notes from the trip can be found here and here.

Features Ishod Wair, Cyrus Bennett, Cory Kennedy (first-ever line holding a #boom? The high-tech S.A.D. towel of 2016?!), Eric Koston, Bobby Worrest, Justin Brock (who unfortunately got hurt two days into the trip), Andrew Wilson and Max Palmer. Filmed, edited and #skatevideohouse music supervised by Johnny Wilson from Space Heater.

If you’re into the photo of worlds colliding below, our friend Zach-Malfa Kowalski made a full ‘zine from the trip. You can download the PDF here. It’s sick.

maxfrost

More »

Puerto Rico Update — Part 2

bobby back tail

Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

Puerto Rico — like every other skate destination in the world — has its fail safes. Just as you can’t get through a “Summer Trip to New York” clip without someone skating the Rector Street Bench or doing a trick over the wall at Columbus Park, Puerto Rico has its unavoidable trappings that appear in every last bit of getaway coverage. You end up having to roll the dice: either make the half-hour/45 minute drive to the smaller cities outside San Juan and hope you find spots, or go where you know there’s going to be shit to skate, even if Robert Lopez Mont fakie flipped it back in some obscure video from 1974.

These safe spots are places you’ve seen throughout Puerto Rico’s current tenure as skateboarding’s de facto winter getaway — the black marble low-to-high, the ledge plaza in Rio Piedras, or the photogenic-but-apparently-really-tough-to-skate bowl in La Perla, which we avoided due to a #nomoreskateparks rule set in place.

And as tired as you may be of seeing the lil’ black marble low-to-high and bank combo spot that Conor Prunty shut down this time last year, you’d be hard pressed to find a more relaxing spot. Comes with a guy who climbs up in the tree to get coconuts for you, a nearby beach, and the world famous El Hamburger just a block skate away. Last round of extras above, #tbt below, and full clip dropping this February.

P.S. Walgreen’s out here has the fire gift sets for date night with bae.

Puerto Rican Update

andrewbsollie

Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

This is our third January in a row of spending some considerable time in America’s never-ending prospective 51st state, and what Billy Rohan once coined as the sixth borough of New York City. Past journeys — short of a day trip to the eastern island of Vieques — have kept us conveniently in San Juan, where the majority of the #trending Puerto Rican winter phenomenon keeps its home base. The island is big, but not that big: driving from San Juan to the west side is like driving from New York to Philly, except you stare out the window and see rolling hills rather than…the Linden refinery.

Mayaguez is one of the main cities on the west side of the island, and with one night in San Juan, we trekked the hundred miles there. After a pit-stop for the trip’s official sustenance (Medallas and arroz con pollo), a mini concrete racetrack-type spot with a Flushing-width gap in the middle, and a spot check at an abandoned waterpark visible from the highway (we got kicked out by stoned security guars in under ten minutes), we made it to Mayaguez with about an hour of daylight left to skate one of the funnest parks any of us had ever been to.

Filmed by Johnny Wilson

One of Mayaguez’s standouts skate-wise is a gigantic University of Puerto Rico campus. Like most college campuses, you could theoretically skate it for a week and not get bored — provided you never got kicked out. We skated for two hours later than we were expecting to, and then headed towards the well-lit park in Aguadilla.

Next day was a trip to more-or-less the most scenic park imaginable in Quebradillas, where we bumped into the squad from Shorty’s. Off the parks for the rest of the trip, and in these streets talking about shit Robert Lopez Mont did. (“Yeah man, Robert fakie flipped that three story drop when he was 14, man.”)

Happy belated birthday to Cyrus 1Oak.