Monday, Call the Girls, Get ‘Em Linked Up

Photo by Jason Lecras

We have a capsule with Nike SB releasing this Saturday, April 14. It’s definitely our best one! More info soon ♥

Gonna throw in an early left field link, but the Pass~Port in Greece edit is the best (i.e. watched it more than once) trip edit that’s dropped during 2018’s Winter Getaway Footage Dump Season (yes, I know Australia is in the southern hemisphere.) It’s always nice to learn of some nice new songs in a skate edit too :)

“That’s what I keep telling myself, ‘maybe in ten more years.’ Those ten years go by and I’m still not ready. Actually, I’ve come to terms with it, this is it.” Skate Jawn interviews productivity legend, Dave Caddo.

“In a Warhol-esque version of a future skate industry where 1% of pros earn lavish salaries and the rest ball for position, will everyone have their own brand, with price-points scaling higher in accordance with gnarliness and footage releases?” Boil the Ocean on pros’ t-shirt ventures, and the cult of Jerry Hsu’s Sci-Fi Fantasy brand.

Even if it is in the Times + includes the phrases “daredevils” and “neoliberal training grounds,” Jeff Ihaza’s feature on how skateparks came to be understood, accepted, and built passes the litmus test of linkable traditional news outlet skate coverage.

Noah Johnson’s GQ profile of the GX1000 crew does as well. (Yes, Noah skates.) “It’s frustrating shit when you almost die.” Yeah, dying seems pretty wack.

While the Times may think we “won,” we also lost one of the best ledges in lower Manhattan this past week. The deknobbed ledge at Seaport that was more-or-less a go over the past year-plus is now knobbed not only for grinds, but for manuals too!

Weckingball is the latest guest on The Bunt.

Normally don’t care about “oh, so-and-so already skated to that song”-isms — especially in this fickle footage economy — but “Blowing Up Fast” holds a special place in many hearts. This guy does a line at Three Up Three Down, hypes up P-Rod, and has never seen Baker Has a Deathwish, which is totally fine because it’s almost ten-years-old now goddamn.

And on that note! Village Psychic interviewed Josh Stewart about the unwritten rules of #musicsupervision and editing gimmicks in skate videos.

Our friends from 2nd Nature did the “winter trip to Barcelona” thing.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Everyone else is on the Sixers playoff bandwagon orrrr?

Quote of the Week
Rob Harris: “Yeah, Baker is having tricks in everyone’s part in the Alltimers video.”
Adam Zhu: “Oh, so he’s like the Gonz?”

Monday Links Are In Retrograde

If you need affirmation of how incredibly difficult it has been to do these posts over the past two weeks, look no further than the fact that Thrasher is posting astrology content, this girl is still looking for which one of you who spilled coffee on yourself at Herald Square, and apparently, EVERYTHING is “going right” in skateboarding right now…Spring can’t come soon enough.

“I used to be more of a character back in the day and just dive into the river, swimming for the board and making people laugh. I remember Jaime Reyes gagging because I was in there doing backstrokes. They say swimming in that shit helps your immune system.” Village Psychic spoke to Brian Wenning about some of the spots that were instrumental to his skating.

Caddo and Lou gave up on skateparks in 2016. It looks like it has been working out.

…aanndd John Valenti uploaded five minutes worth of B-sides featuring Lou, Caddo and Taylor Nawrocki from his N.Y. Archive video.

TWS uploaded all the raw footage from the Villains dudes’ trip to New York.

Theories resumed Elkin Raw files, which are always heavy on Leo and Aaron footy.

(Three raw clip links in a row, see what I mean? Springtime hellooo where r u…)

PFP5, the latest installment of Michael Sassano’s now long-running Westchester skate video series, will be premiering up in Peekskill on Saturday the 14th. Teaser here.

The crooked rail at Columbus Park is maybe the last place anyone expected to see a slappy front nose 270 A.K.A. the Explore Page, but there it was in Matthew Martin’s Hombre Hardware part.

“Cyclist stabs skateboarder during street spat.” Ok, the “It’s a fucking bike lane, asshole!”-guys are getting a bit out of hand.

Though Hurricane Maria obviously derailed the recent tradition of every skate crew spending January and February in Puerto Rico, the Scumco guys still made it down there for a fun trip video. Tons of Philly Santosuosso footage ♥

The Bunt’s newest episode is with Austyn Gillette.

Oh and, we have a new project with Nike SB coming out. April 14. More info soon :)

Since skate content is running low, here’s a link to a new Peewee Longway video that is four minutes of him reenacting the quaalude scene from Wolf of Wall Street.

And with militant veganism being so fashionable with New York skateboarders right now, here’s an informative article about eating right that isn’t Alex Olson yelling at you for eating a cheeseburger. Jk hi Alex ♥

QS Sports Fuck the NCAA, Respect to the Players-Desk Play of the Week: Gonna be so sick when J.R. Smith is the 2018 Finals MVP this year.

Quote of the Week: “Lowkey if I ever get rich, I’m gonna buy Brick 9.” — John Choi

This clip got posted on April 8, 2007 (Marcus Garvey rails were a new spot then…), and dubbed “The Neverending Winter.” Same mood eleven years later (a lot of these spots are still around), though I wish the quality of the upload wasn’t full trash.

Happy Rihanna’s Birthday Eve!

Today is Washington’s birthday, but the queen’s 30th is tomorrow! We are going to stick to a Rihanna’s 30th resolution of no more late Monday Links posts! Ain’t none of us perfect, I hope it was worth it.

Zered Bassett’s seafood tower cruiser will be available on Alltimers.com tomorrow. They shot a quick Insta commercial for it, which you can watch here.

Jesse Alba has a chill new iPhone edit up with footage from the past couple months.

30 seconds new Gino footage from the Astoria Park and Roslyn Banks.

QS-office fave, Dave Caddo, has been been posting some outer borough gems on IG.

Somehow missed this one when it went live just over a week ago: Nick Michel, the dude who boardslid the double-rail across from the mini double-sets at Battery Park (#QSTOP10, a few weeks back) has an amazing new part up on Thrasher, which features the VX angle of trick in question plus a trick at the ride-on rail spot that’s not on the ride-on rail! Battery Park MVP 2k18.

Didn’t even know this was in the works — TWS made a documentary about Skateboarder magazine, which was the first ever skate mag. The “trailer” basically plays like the first seven minutes of the doc itself.

Muska tells the story of when him at Stevie Williams hung out with Michael Jackson at Neverland. (“C’mon man, this kid is ten years old — he don’t remember Thriller. ‘the fuck you wanna meet Michael Jackson for?”)

Mark Gonzales skates Owl’s Head Park with R.B. Umali for a Pro-Tec commercial.

Ten Person Crew Unanimously Disagrees on Meet-Up Spot.” Forever #mood.

Two more Stop Fakin’ 3 parts: D.C. Streets montage + Kevin Augustine’s part.

Old clip, new upload…Orchard’s day trip around New York for 2014’s All City Showdown to a Steely Dan classic.

Boil the Ocean has a weird one about skaters investing in things and animal enslavement. 2018 is odd.

The Bunt is back with a new Chima episode.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: J.R. Smith with a beautiful full-court…pass?

Quote of the Week: “Do you think we’d be more into Takeshi 69 if we still skated the back of Union Square?” — Pryce Holmes

Grind Like That To Shine Like This

Diagram via Charles Rivard, PhD

It was this damnass rock.”

Vert God’s Stop Fakin’ 3 part drops on QS tomorrow

Birdgang 3 is now online *airhorn*

The Bloby videos are still the QS office’s favorite thing going. “Zdroopy,” their new one, is magic. Vince’s front nose 270 out is pure beauty, Karl Salah’s lines are always poetry, and DREWWWWWWW, Franco + Daniel Kim have cameos. No Hjalte tho :(

And the Pop boys also came through with a rad Paris edit that a) avoids a lot of the city’s most oft-skated spots, and b) oddly features a ton of underground footy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jenkem has a great interview with Tyshawn Jones.

…and Skateboard Story has an interview with Calzone maker, Matt Velez.

This is a mega Boil the Ocean post: reflecting on 28 years of Thrasher S.O.T.Y winners…in the bizarro world, where Penny won in ’95, and Tiago won in ’17, etc.

Good bit of new Caddo footage in the friends section of Valenti’s N.Y. Archive project.

So this is the spot Rick Howard would’ve found if he kept skating around the forest after he bumped his head in Mouse.

Our dear friends at Seasons dropped new video over the weekend. That Empire State Plaza spot is lowkey one of the best spots on the east coast now that it’s a go.

I saw a video labeled “Patrik Wallner” and “The Lost Continent,” and my first thought was “damn, these dudes deadass went to Antarctica on a skate trip didn’t they.” They didn’t, but I did have to Google where on the planet they actually went was.

King puts something we’ve all done into writing: Musing on Gino’s Yeah Right! part.

One day Rihanna is throwing you hearteyes across the aisle at #NYFW, the next you’re a crumpled Thrasher tee under a pile of new soccer jerseys. It’s a filthy, fickle business, guys. I don’t believe in nothing no more, I’m going to law school!

Franco???

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Hold up wait a minute

Quote of the Week
Inquisitive Gentleman: “Did anyone pull last night?”
Zach Baker: “No, there were too many beautiful boy friends in there.” #LMB

A Short History of New York’s Longest Lines

Ricky Oyola, godfather of the east coast “filming a line via just skating random shit on the street”-practice, once expounded on his peak skateboard dream: doing a line through Philadelphia’s then-standing City Hall, into the street, up into the Municipal Services building, back down the stairs, across the street, into Love Park, through Love Park, and end at Wawa.

The closest he got on record was a line from the end of City Hall, through the intersection, and into Love Park in Eastern Exposure 2, but it did establish a lingering precedent for connecting spots. Apart from Ricky and that Joey O’Brien Sabotage 4 line where he starts at Love and ends up in the garage beneath it, spot connecting does not have a rich history in Philadelphia.

Or anywhere, really — because doing a line from one spot, through the street, and to another, is fucking hard. There are variables (people, traffic, pebbles, maybe two sets of security, acts of God), and a pressing anxiety of missing the final trick in an already-long line, which gets amplified by the fact that fifteen other things went right up until that point. As you will soon learn, spot connecting is something most people do for the sake of doing it. In the majority of cases, they stick to their safe tricks.

Like Philadelphia, New York is a dense and layered city. Many of its streets are narrow, and depending on where you are, three or four spots could be across from one another. New York never had a “Big Three,” but it does have three different types of benches on four different street corners, and over the years, skateboarders here have kept their third eyes open and far-sighted.

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