Snack Language

Congratulations to John Gardner on the pro board ♥ There are few skaters as contagiously fun to watch as John, and if getting people hyped to skate is the principal purpose of why we have pro skateboarders to begin with, John should’ve been pro ages ago :) Creature dropped a remix of his footy from the past few years to illustrate that exact point. Photo by Nik Stain.

Can’t think of a recent skate commercial that was this good. Philly Santosuosso and a friend pay homage to Spike and Mike’s “Is it the shoes?” Jordan ad on the occasion of Philly’s new Venture truck. The execution is just so, so good, right down to every little detail. Give everyone involved a raise.

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The Shape of Tompkins

This is so cute. Shout out to any pro that’s ever sent a handwritten letter.

Rockstar pull up no guitar.

Contagiously good-vibed human and skater, Jawn Gardner, has a new part over on Thrasher, in addition to a part in the newly uploaded Creature video at the 18:10 mark.

Gino Iannucci asks “Who’s going around skating in a $400 sweater?” in his Monster Children feature about restarting Poets as a brand. I gotta introduce him to Troy, though I think his shit is a good bit over $400 ;)

Real re-issued some old Huf boards and has a bit of a feature on him over on their site + clean versions of all his parts. Slam City Skates also interviewed him about Ari Marcopolis’ iconic Metropolitan ad photography. (We talked to Huf about some of his favorite snaps back in 2015 in the event you need even more Huf content hehe.)

“I kind of wonder how I had so much nerve to do some of those graphics.” This is nine months old, but shout to Palomino for just linking it — an hour-long interview with Mark McKee that gives insight into the wild west era of skateboard graphics.

Genny hits Club Liv and a bunch of triangle manny pads in his latest iPhone edit.

Only like 10 people are gonna know what this means, but this feels like a 2018 SuchAGood clip.

Solo interviewed perennial #QSTOP10 fave and Milano Centrale MVP, Ruben Spelta on the occasion of their “THREEE” videos. Thanks for the shout out bro ♥

Huck has posted some iffy articles about skateboarding in the past, but this one about a Bristol D.I.Y. spot and the general rise of skater-made spaces is an a-ok quick read.

Interesting time capsule: a “lost” Alex Olson interview from 2012.

Boil the Ocean on “a mile-long backside tailslide and, perhaps in tribute to Dan Pageau’s freshly funded legacy, a switchstance trip down the fearsome El Toro.”

A lot of smiles in this jazzy nu-age Miami edit from the Andrew Skateshop crew.

Spot Updates1) The Banks are *officially* a no-go again. 2) Not sure how recent this is, but to nobody’s surprise, BAM 3 got knobbed.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Lebron James what the fuck omg.

Quote of the Week: “Remember when you showed up to Johnny Wilson’s house and forced him to watch a Pat Laflamme part?” — Zach Baker to ET

Rest in peace Bankroll Fresh, get well soon Ricky Ross, everybody else please take good care of yourselves, and skateboard and laugh with your friends as much as you possibly can yaknow ♥

“I remember when dinner depended on my fishing rod” is one of the greatest things a rapper has ever said.

An Interview With John Gardner

Photo by Andy Enos

Intro & Interview by Zach Baker

A dope thing about skateboarding is that it attracts an endless variety of people, who are each drawn to it for their own specific reasons. We all have our unique relationships within skateboarding as far as what we want to do, who we want to be around, and where we want to go on, with, or because of them.

John Gardner’s motivations on a skateboard are not so easily pigeon-holed, though it can be said that he’s not adhering to any sort of trends in attire, trick selection, or really, well anything. It makes one wonder whether he even needs a skateboard. Like, if the skateboard were never invented, I feel like John Gardner would figure out some other vehicle to sate his physical and creative urges. This points to part of what makes him such a delight to watch. For some people, skateboarding is what creates their identity. But for John, the skateboard is just an accessory, one of many mediums lending themselves to his way of life and creative pursuits. Without the board, he’d be no less extraordinary, but as skateboarders, we couldn’t be more fortunate to have him as a member of the club.

+++++++

To start…the video part. It was just a pleasure to watch. Give me a little overview.

I had a bunch of VX footage that was just kind of sitting around, and I had always wanted to make music for a video part but never really had an opportunity to do so, so I immediately connected the dots and thought that this would be a great opportunity to make that happen. It’s over the course of two-and-a-half years, whenever a VX came out. Some of those clips might even be three of four years old. A lot of it is in California with some Jersey sprinkled in between.

Tell me about the soundtrack.

My friend Max Hersteiner, who I used to live with, is in an amazing band called Dirty Fences — he’s in a couple bands actually, Dirty Fences and Metal Leg. He and the bassist of Dirty Fences and Metal Leg, Max Komaski, all created music together for various video projects that I’ve made, so I hit those dudes up immediately to just jam and see what we came up with. Max’s friend Danny Cooper played guitar for the soundtrack. We just set up a camera, experimented and that’s what we came up with.

What’s up with your uncle?

My uncle is a wild man. He is my uncle Semo, my dad’s brother. He has a lot of upper body strength and is really good at doing handstands. He would walk up and down stairs on his hands when he was younger, so he naturally gravitated to riding a skateboard on his hands. I had a camera and wanted him to be in this little video that I was making, so we drove around looking for a little hill and filmed him doing his thing and that’s what I got. He loves skateboarding and he really tries but he skates better on his hands than I would say he skates on his feet.

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Spots From the Internet

philly

Via Philly

Creature dropped an official “Welcome to the Team” part for Jon Gardner, which features a whole bunch of his best moments from Bruns 2 — or at least a handful of the most shout-at-the-screen inducing ones. You should still buy Bruns 2 though. Shout out to that phase Marquez went through in 2008 when he tried to film a Creature sponsor-me tape and would drive out to Sayerville 4x a week :)

Hopps put their “Saturday” commercial from the Polar premiere online. Features footage from Keith “Loudest Cheer at Any Premiere” Denley, and Brian Clarke skating the always cool-looking Museum of Natural History benches.

QS crowd fave Derm takes a step back from the crust and does some lines at L.E.S.

New iPhone video via Genesis featuring the N.Y. Ramp Co. quarterpipe, double-curb rainbow concoction at 12th & A, Keith Denley’s first clip of 2016, and other notable developments to occur in lower Manhattan skateboarding this past month.

An interview with Tony Choy-Sutton, the guy behind the lens of Heaven’s Gate, 2016’s frontrunner for spot selection and best avoidance of noted #traps.

Green Zine interviewed Nick V. from LurkNYC. Shout out to Non Fiction.

Boil the Ocean sorta reviews the Polar video, sorta ties it back to Henry Sanchez’s recent “I’m still skating” revelations, and dwells on the big-ification of small companies.

Filed under: “Skaters who seem strangely even more relevant to what’s going on today than when they were actually putting out parts.” Whatever happened to Jake Rupp?

New one from Canadian #skatevideohouse thinktank, CLUBGEAR.

Photojournalistic piece on the skate scene in Iran via Vice.

An artsy and subdued remix video of 2013 Q.S.S.O.T.Y. Leo Gutman’s last part.

The GX1000 video premieres in New York on next Tuesday, April 19th. No info on venue yet, but *assuming* it will be where every skate video premiere in New York is :) Teaser here, and GX photo feature here.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Seventy two, and bumped Kobe Bryant’s final NBA game to ESPN2 in favor of a prospective seventy three.

Quote of the Week: “I heard having heavy ankle weights is actually really bad for you. You’re supposed to work your way up.” — Daniel Kim

#TBT when street skaters had vert sections in the middle of their parts.