Winter in America

mason

Rest in Peace, #14

Aaron Herrington’s Eastern Exposure part is cool.

The Cafe Creme blog interviewed Cyrus.

America, please copy everything Denmark does re: skateboarding. (Relevant.)

“Our culture has produced an amazing array of photographers and filmmakers and even sculptors, so it’s not a lack of work ethic or creative energy that’s stopping us from producing poets. But I don’t see it as dumbed down as much as hesitant and cautious. Look around: it’s not just that we’re unsure what skateboarding means, but we’re unsure whether it’s even a good idea to consider its meaning. Skateboarding is supposed to be fun, after all, it’s the most fun thing. Taking it too seriously can dampen or even kill this fun, so, you know, fuck it. Let’s look at the pictures.” The Deaf Lens interviewed Kyle Beachy, a guy who is really good at writing about skateboarding.

All This Mayhem, the cocaine-addled Pappas brothers documentary, is now streaming on Netflix. Quartersnacks review from the fall can be found here. “Fuck off Hawk, you fucking wanker. You can’t even flip your board you old prick.”

Solid Iron Claw Skates Dallas and Austin trip montage is now up.

Always love these guys’ videos: Another one from Budapest’s Rios crew.

Jake is on a new company and JNCOs are coming back.

Mike Sass’ Duzzed video is now online in full.

Ripped Laces looks back at the early 2000s tech of Savier shoes.

“I still think the beauty of skating, in its truest form, is this solitary activity. It has to do with self-reliance and dealing with loneliness in a productive way.”

SMLTalk’s Boston winter spot directory is pretty universal for the northeast.

53 seconds of unseen Gino Iannucci footage.

“We’re out there breaking our ass trying to find this kid, and you’re up there fucking around in Nyack.” A teaser for Bleach, Paul Young’s new video featuring Dick Rizzo, Erik Martinez, Josh Wilson, Mark Humienik and others.

Found this rather interesting: the world famous Sants spot in Barcelona is unmodifiable, on account of it receiving an architecture award in 1983. The city is, however, starting to build designated places to skate in each district of the city, which could stir things up a bit in what’s basically the skate spot capital of Europe.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Three-minute Anthony Mason YouTube mix. As far as last week, these 27 seconds just about sum up the 2014-15 Knicks season.

Quote of the Week: “I’m rich in unpaid invoices.” — Pad

A month late on this, but Uncle Murda’s “2014 Rap Up” is incredible. It’s like the ones Skillz used to do, but actually funny. Must embed situation.

CRAZY.

Noooooooooo Juice

juice

No, not the Juiceman.

Soooo, we made a run of those Tompkins Square sweatshirts from earlier this fall as hoodys for Japan. There were a few leftovers that didn’t get promoed out, and you can scoop what remains in the webstore now. Hurry!

Unequivocally the worst rap song ever recorded.

The new Alltimers boards are chill.

SMLTalk came through with an abbreviated history of the plus-size skateboarder, though oddly left out second-and-third career arc Fred Gall. His Inhabitants section is sorta the epitome of heavy-set skateboarding, isn’t it?

We noticed earlier this year that Hungary might be the European-equivalent of New Jersey, at least from a skateboarding standpoint. Well, if you were into Toló, you’ll get a kick out of Fakopó, a new 27-minute video of Budapest-based crust.

Corey Rubin sighting in Johnny Wilson’s latest video blog!

Kalis is the best. Not only is he indifferent to the today’s prefered practice of ambidextrous pushing, he rejects the term “switch mongo” altogether. If Kalis and Gino aren’t learning to push with their opposite foot, why should you?

Halloween-themed skate clips all tend to blend together at this point, but this Muska-themed one via the Black Ninja is cool if you grew up on Fulfill the Dream.

New quick 4-5-6 clip from Bolts Hardware and Curt Daley #eggs.

Some old fashioned “Who is Jake Johnson going to ride for?”-speculation + thoughts on the modern skater’s newfound ability to sustain relevance without a board sponsor.

“I was told in 1996 by Frank Messman, the then CEO of World Industries, that the industry standard rate for a graphic topped out at 500 bucks. Nearly 20 years later it’s still that amount or less—even by half from what I’ve recently been heard from one manufacturer—which may make this the worst profession in which to try and earn a living.” Chris Nieratko interviews Sean Cliver about the unfortunate plight of making a living off skateboard graphics. (Ginko reissued Disposable, btw. When are we gonna see a reissue of the Evan Hecox book? $694 for a used copy is a bit out of budget.)

Ride has a cool history lesson on short-lived “cult” companies from the nineties e.g. American Dream, FIT, 60/40, Illumanti and a handful of others.

Josh Stewart uploaded a good quality version of the New York, Boston and Philly section from the original Static video on the occasion of the video’s fifteen-year anniversary. Tony Montgomery was really sick, huh?

Some ten-plus-year-old footage of Kalis, Sabback, Puleo, etc.

Something for the English majors: “There is something untranslatable about skating’s vocabulary, something not-quite-repeatable about a particular trick landed a certain way, like a poetic line clicking into place in that ineffable way lines sometimes do on first reading.”

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Steph.

Quote of the Week: “I’m not good anymore.” — Keith Denley

Not sure how long ago this happened, but recently found out that the Bridgeport ledges got knobbed. R.I.P. to the best ledge spot within a 70-mile radius of New York City that you actually had a chance of skating :(

Hungary is Apparently A Lot Like New Jersey

tolo

Without even having visited many of them, it’s easy to pinpoint most European countries’ contributions to the fabric of skateboarding: Spain and France are thinktanks of EuroTech™, England somehow produces incredible skateboarders despite miraculous climate and spot-related odds, Scandinavians are tall, love wet cement and routinely rewatch Eastern Exposure, as do Belgians and the Dutch (+ Youness…Weiger…), Italians are the byproducts of the best marble on earth, Germans are a hodgepodge of all the above, and everything east of Austria, whose skaters are benefactors of modern architecture’s greatest unintentional skatepark, is pretty much just Russia. Who knows what goes on there…

If there was some hypothetical secret level of New Jersey crust that gets unlocked when you do a trick on the biggest piece of shit that even Fred Gall backed down from, it probably looks like the spots in Toló, a new video out of Budapest. 1) These Hungarians definitely watch the same Quim Cardona parts before skating as the In Crust We Trust dudes. 2) Their entire video is built around 5050 / cool ollie / 180 / wallride-heavy trick repertoires, because these spots look way too harsh to attempt anything close to technical on. 3) They even embrace the “scum” title, much like a prominent Garden State media institution. Hungary = New Jersey of Europe, at least as far as skateboarding is concerned?

The word “raw” gets overused these days, but it’s hard to think of something as awesomely unrefined as this video.

The only real criticism is that they should have better timed the release of Toló alongside that two-week period when “normcore” was the internet’s buzzword, as this vid has the most fashion indifferent wardrobe supervision ever.