Illustration by Charles Rivard
It is a scientifically proven fact that you come back from a skate trip 38% stupider than when you left. And out of all the stupid things that we have brought home from a skate trip, a year-late / ironic / moronic (…I truly don’t know anymore) infatuation with “Sicko Mode” has to be among the stupidest souvenirs that we have ever given our loved ones upon return.
We really blew it on missing this one in the 2017 color coordination piece. Iconic tho.
Here’s an eight-minute recap of the Hardies event at Blue Park this past Friday, which includes the best angle of Tyshawn’s kickflip over the table longways thus far.
The Man Who Films spent a lot of time in Rockaway this past summer and made a fifteen-minute video entitled “Beach Genius.” Everyone knows that Rockaway isn’t the most abundant part of the city for spots, so shout out to those guys for managing to avoid all the skateparks in all but one clip. Includes a mini Phil Rodriguez section where he somehow turns one of those blue bus shelters into an actual bank. And it’s also perhaps the first time in human history that there’s been a transition from Nicki Minaj to …MF Doom. Good vibe the whole way through, and the right amount of ~different~ ♥
2014. Photo by Emilio Cuilan.
Truly elated that we can begin a Monday Links round-up as we close out the summer without a link to a petition ♥ There’ll definitely be some formal news coverage of the day — which turned into a T.F. reunion rather than a rally — but caught this slideshow from Eric Cruz on IG earlier if you’re looking for pics. We should do a T.F. reunion the Saturday after every Labor Day every year, no? Like Bastille Day, but for Tompkins.
Tyshawn Jones is on i-D magazine’s cover this month, and they put their feature with him online.
The governor of New Jersey has been making the media rounds as of late. Fred Gall is the guest on honor on The Bunt‘s season finale.
An old gem from Charles Rivard, PhD.
If you have not signed the petition to keep synthetic turf off of the Tompkins Square Parks court, but have the (*begin Stephen A. Smith voice*) AUDACITY to log onto QS — we are going to come to your house, break your refrigerator, and then fucking bring it to Tompkins.
It’s one of those rare weeks when the links gravitate towards the written word and not videos. Good time to load up Instapaper if you have a flight or long bus-ride ;)
No idea how this is floating under the radar… Muckmouth basically has an oral history of New Deal skateboards, in which they caught up with all (?) of the original riders as a specified addendum to the “where are they now” things that they were doing a few years back.
The New York Times has a story about the awful situation with the security guard and the GX crew at Black Rock, and how it has opened the conversation about about how we all interact with security. (Everyone just leave. Come back or don’t, but just leave.)
“The Dogtown phenomenon, billed in the doc as ‘the birth of the now,’ has since become a cottage industry.” This is a cool longform profile of Craig Stecyk that traces back on a lot of the “ethos” that skateboarding adopted from California surfers and quickly found itself commodified.
“‘You had all these planners and architects in the 1950s and 60s saying cities need these grand, celebratory spaces — and they really didn’t.’ But apparently skaters did.” Curbed has an awesome feature about how some odious, post-WWII federal legislation ultimately lead to the creation of the sorts of public plazas that would prove to be the breeding ground of modern skateboarding.
“That might be a trick that’s been done, but it’s done differently…and with different pants on.” Vice has a video profile of Breezy and Una about growing up being two of the few girls skating in Vancouver.
The new Bluecouch edit starts in CT and ends in the city. Some rad stuff in there.
The Finnish guys who made the Hard Water video that went live on the Free site last week actually also put together a trip to New York edit that we only now caught onto. Love a vacation edit when the trees are bare + everyone is still in hoodies, though I’m sure it’s warmer than Helsinki. Also impressed by their cobblestone deterrent that keeps your board from rattling down into Sutton Place traffic.
Maybe it goes through a vigorous off-screen sanitizing process — but one’s bed seems like a bad place to sort through street debris. Anyway, here is an eight-minute glimpse into the life of Bobby Puleo.
