We’re Chilling Until We’re Not

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Pete Thompson / @peetigga is the best skate photography Instagram going right now. Tons of unseen late nineties and early 2000s shots with many familiar faces. Stevie @ SF’s Third and Townsend bump from that archive ;)

An hour-long skate nerdery-laden conversation with Michael Carroll.

Life is goodie.

Diamond Days #80. That curb next to the Williamsburg Bridge is the new hot spot, huh? I dunno man, I’ve been away :(

“Resurgent bowls, abrupt transitions and even the vert ramp seem to have splintered handrail skating into restless and nomadic tribes, including displaced wallriders, wall-rejecting against-the-grainers, deep-crouching over-the-toppers, body varialing rewinders and a Mariano-bred stripe of small-bar uber-tech.” Boil the Ocean on handrail skating’s midlife crisis.

An interview with @Koolmoeleo, the guy who-more-or-less took the reigns from Chromeball as the leading skateboard magazine scanner on the internet.

Quadruples down the Stuyvesant Town rail.

Bronx-heavy clip with a Watermelons cameo and avant garde pants supervision.

Bobshirt interviewed Jahmal. (Chill shot of Jahmal in the Thompson archive, btw.)

New mini video from Cooper Winterson with a lot of still snowy streets, Welcome boards, and cutty New York spots that pretty much nobody else skates.

An unexpectedly high volume of Londoners are good at kicklip backside noseblunts.

Westgate ollies over a car and wants you to buy trees.

Congratulations to the city and skateboarders of Montreal on the full legalization of skating at Peace Park. “You have to be mentally strong to skate Peace Park.”

Meanwhile, in New York. Whatever, see you this summer, Europe.

So the diamond-plate bank on Grand and Centre Streets that everyone gets stuck at for way too long at least once every half year is a wrap.

Derrick Rose Pulls Off Perfect 720 At Local Skate Park.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: This post-playoff elimination Russell Westbrook YouTube mix with 60 views. It’s just not fair man :(

Quote of the Week: “I missed my flight one time, so I made myself take the A train back home from JFK as punishment.” — Sweet Waste

Though The Barter 6 has dominated the majority of rap-related conversation this past weekend, allow us to remind you that the QS Rap Desk’s favorite happy rap group has a new one over on Live Mixtapes. Travie’s had a quiet past twelve months, and it’s sad they weren’t allotted a Rae Sremmurd-esque super producer co-sign in like ~2010, but they’re still the go-to when you get sick of rappers telling you they’re gonna shoot you in their Alexander Wang gear. Praise be to happy rap music :)

Five Favorite Parts With Brandon Westgate

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Hollister S/S 2015. Photo by Sean Cronan.

After taking into account the ages of past participants in our favorites series, we realized they typically hover above thirty, hence recurring Sheffey Life Story and Gonz Video Days recollections. We reached out to Brandon Westgate, who recently made headlines after a rather wild Thrasher cover, for some perspective on what those under 30 are into. Unsurprisingly, every skater’s favorite parts always end up more-or-less tied to their formative years. This one strikes a nice balance between nostalgia, and “my friends are my favorite skaters”-isms of the Jake piece.

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Never Drop That Alcohol

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Happy internet list season! Best Instagram Post by a Pro Skateboarder — 2014. #coachellacrew

15 seconds of unseen Jake Johnson footage from a 2007-ish Adidas footage tape.

Ishod Wair’s Paych part in Paych. While you’re at it, give Paych a vote for “Best Indie Video of the Year” over on the Transworld site. Purchase here.

Volume #10 of the cell phone footage from the Paych dudes. Based on the increasing ratio of skateboarding : night club footage in these, the “Most Productive Crew” title will no longer be relevant by February fashion week. Maybe they make it to September.

Boil the Ocean on the most controversial backside flip to never happen. Who has a nice TV and wants to host a Plan B premiere tomorrow? Preferably below 14th Street.

Not in the habit of referring people towards L.E.S. Park footage, but the shit Brandon Westgate does in his Ricta commercial (Ricta!) is pretty wild.

“Nah, I never had [360 flips] like that. Never over something or down anything. Never consistently. There would maybe be a day here or there where I would have them lovely on flatground but then they’d be gone. I could never hold on to a good tre flip.” All of us “I learned how to 360 flip 100 times, but forgot how to 360 flip 101 times”-people have something in common with Gino Iannucci! Similarities end there :(

Far from comprehensive, but Kingpin has a brief R.I.P. Para-lel edit. (Also: Relevant.)

500 Degreez-centric #musicsupervision is cool. The end of that clip isn’t.

TWS has a detailed interview with Danny Renaud about coming back from the dead. Dude would probably make a good Epicly Later’d.

Skate Witches 2k14: Brujas, the all-girl Latina skate crew from The Bronx.

Get me back to Paris.

The new Lurk NYC video, Strangers, will be premiering at Sunshine Cinemas on Wednesday, December 10 at 8 P.M. Flyer here.

Spot Updates: This might be a few weeks late — like, who really even skates downtown anymore? — but the slanted ledges at Battery are back. The ground is a little worse, and the runways a bit narrower due to some new pre-knobbed benches in the way. They even threw in a four-stair and two new manual pads. No telling if it’s a bigger bust now, but the “No Skateboarding” signs are all still up.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Russell Westbrook for M.V.P

Quote of the Week: “I hate the woods, have you ever seen The Blair Witch Project?” — Matthew Perez

In the event that you need a Monday morning dose of idiocy

The Brandon Westgate New York Remix

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Photo by Sean Cronan

The added bonus of watching Westgate barge through the second most populated city in North America versus, say, some desolate residential San Francisco street, is that you can literally see people rushing to get out of his way. Hard to think of a dude (besides Z obvs) who has ripped New York spots as much as Westgate has for the past half-decade, so here is a remix of all his semi-recent New York-set footage. Footage pulled from State of Mind (you video nerds should already know we couldn’t care less about stretching VX footage), his Real Street part, True East, and King of New York. Filmed by R.B. Umali.

We already went the full nonsensical #musicsupervision route by editing his Stay Gold part to 2011’s Song of the Year, so this edition opted for more conservative rap roots. But yeah, it was tough to not just scrap everything and start editing to “Peek A Boo” or something…They investigating like the Blues Clues, btw.

Alternate YouTube Link

Also, every person who ever visits New York for skateboard-related reasons should be required to stop by this spot and observe how utterly insane this is:

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Have a good weekend. It’ll be rainy, but at least it’s warm. R.I.P. Pichilin.

Now That’s What You Call A Good Morning

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It may be back to 25 degrees on Thursday, but at least it gets dark at 7!

When was the last time there was something as unanimously loved by skateboarders from all walks of life as Bobby Worrest’s all-Pulaski part? Has there even been a part predominantly (only?) filmed at a single plaza spot since Stevie in The Reason? Also, here’s Boil the Ocean theorizing on the correlation between the economic downturn and the ability for these sorts of parts to exist. Or something?

Probably listened to DJ Khaled’s McDonald’s commercials 40 times last week. Looks like these guys are equally big fans. (Are they better than Flex’s Western Beef commercials though?) “It’s a recession out there and I love food that’s only for $1!”

Brandon Westgate remixed via #Tumblr-as-an-aesthetic.

A VHS cam throwaway reel from the LurkNYC dudes. There are some cool photos of that crew over here as well.

Mudo Zine interviewed Neil Macdonald of Science Versus Life (which, for those who don’t know, could be considered the Chromeball of exclusively British skateboard magazines) about how skate coverage has changed, but also sorta stayed the same, i.e. energy drink ads have been around since before you started skating.

The perils of posting about Osiris D3s on your website: People Earth’s last remaining population of Gravers will hit you up offering $200 for a pair after a cursory Google search leads them your way.

Skateboarders are a confused bunch, so Kingpin took notice and compiled a #listicle of its most outrageous style switch-ups. Should we do a New York edition?

Transworld interviewed Joeface about working in the skate industry, and posted a bunch of his photos. (ICYMI: Joeface’s Tony Durao “Best of” remix.)

Really enjoyed this Lyon bro cam / party cam clip by French guys who love rap, ledges and beer. (J.B. Gillet cameos included.) Also really wish that Travis Scott beat got given to a better rapper.

R.I.P. Delancey Popeye’s :'(

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Russell Westbrook had a triple double in twenty minutes of play last week, but then the Thunder lost to the Lakers on national television due to a career game from…Jodie Meeks.

Quote of the Week:
Inquisitive Supreme Employee: “Matt, why aren’t you in school right now?”
19-Year-Old High School Sophomore: “It’s a half day.”
Inquisitive Supreme Employee: “It’s 10:30.”

Can this shit pls end? Thx. (BTW new gear available this week.)