As the amount of skateboard content has grown to uncontainable levels, it has been interesting to watch the reassessment of what people value in a skater, part or video. Everyone has sat stone-faced through a part with incredible skating before, and left without being able to remember a single trick twenty minutes later. Jamal’s Palasonic part was the exact opposite of that. It was impossible to watch without smiling, and carried that “he’s having so much fun that I want to go have fun!”-feeling from childhood in a way that few things do once you clock your 10,000 hours of watching skate videos.
We did an end of the year inventory over at the warehouse, and turned up some loosies of things we had marked as sold out. Check the webstore in case you missed out on something from the last release. It’s not a restock, e.g. maybe we found quite literally two larges of a tee and threw them back online. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Thank you everyone for all the support throughout the year.
“I think me doing all these other things outside of skating makes me like skating more.” Thrasher posted up Tyshawn’s interview from the last issue, and the full “BLESSED” article online. Still processing how Kadow’s Chinatown Banks lipslide ever worked out.
Need a playlist with a sizable chunk of the Young Thug leaks from 2018? Yeah, you do. It’s insane some of these are sitting in purgatory compared to what gets released by the label. This playlist > the sum of his “official” 2018 output, and his “Let It All Work Out” is better than his dad’s ♥
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Theotis Beasley WITH THE BLOCK!!!
Throughout most of our lifetimes, the four-peat has been elusive in professional sports. (The last one was the New York Islanders’ dynastic run of Stanley Cup wins from 1980 until 1983.) This weekend, however, we approach the real possibility of the first four-peat of the new millennium: Wade Desarmo could become the World Champion of Skateboarding for the fourth time in a row.
Only one obstacle stands in his way: winner of Thrasher’s 2013 “Skater of the Year” Award and recurring recipient of Quartersnacks’ more encompassing “Best Skater” award, Ishod Wair.
Your local shop, bar, and T.F. bench has no doubt been abuzz with predictions about this weekend’s game, but predictions seem split down the middle. Sure, Ishod is the Best Skater™ — except who really wants to play devil’s advocate by doubting a three-time repeating champion? Since none of us have ever played a World Champion in S.K.A.T.E. before, our opinions are reduced to amateur guesswork. To get some real insight, we contacted Wade’s past three Glory Challenge opponents and Dennis Busenitz, who once famously swept him in an obscure exhibition series called “Battle at the Berrics,” for their predictions.
“The Process” refers to the Philadelphia 76ers’ management philosophy under former General Manager and President of Basketball Operations, Sam Hinkie. In a nutshell, The Process contains three guiding principles:
A. Minimize competitiveness in order to obtain high draft picks. B. Stockpile those draft picks in order to maximize trade values. C. Delay “trying to win” until the team drafts a transformational, once-in-a-generation player. Based on the history of the NBA, this is mainly how teams have set themselves up to win championships.
This strategy requires a shit-ton of patience. Nevertheless, over the years “Trust the Process” has become a mantra, a philosophy, and a rallying cry for 76ers fans.
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Back in the essay on the Philadelphia sports mythos, I focused on #toughness as Philadelphia sports’ guiding principle. Nothing exemplified this in 2017 more than Sabotage 5, in which Brian Panebianco and his usual suspects — plus some new additions — skated Love Park until every last slab of marble had been extracted and nothing remained but a few dirt banks into which to ollie.
On the other side of town, perhaps as a form of karmic balancing of the universe or some shit, something happened to the 76ers basketball club: They became sick-ass fun to watch.
So here we are, at a crossroad in which the Sixers are displaying flashes of basketball genius, Process believers looked ahead to a promising future, and the Sabotage crew released their final video chapter. As an homage to both #theprocess and the extensive Sabotage legacy, let’s take a deep dive into how the two crews match up.
This past year, nobody else incited as many smilesand remindersof the gloriousescapism that skateboarding provides. Thank you Jamal Smith, 2017’s Q.S.S.O.T.Y., for inspiring us to enjoy the world on a skateboard. Sadly, we can’t fly you to Canary Islands like Thrasher can (…not yet), but just wanted to say thanks :)
Even as an institution that often gets chastised for Rihanna songs in skate clips and bad filming, we gotta chime in here: wtf is with the choppy frame-rate, wtf is up with the darkass clips, and wtf is up with that Morrissey song in Antonio’s new Berrics part? The skating though…is absolutely F U C K E D.
Oddly enjoyed this way more than expected, probably because they skate a bunch of weird shit that nobody bothers with, e.g. they got two clips at the Gristedes on 96th Street — a Weed Maps “Summer Trip to New York” clip with Jaws, Tommy Sandoval and Boo Johnson. I think we ran into Jaws at a rave when he was filming this.
…aaannndddd Village Psychic made a “Best of 2017” mix of the year’s ACTUAL S.O.T.Y., regardless of what the yellow t-shirts may have told you.
“Belgrade is the best city I’ve ever been to in my life.” The Rios Crew continues to inspire skateboard travel dreams far outside the conventional Euro destinations with each new clip. “Dunja,” their latest, hits Serbia’s capital, Montenegro and Croatia.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: It’ll never not be funny that Kyrie was just like “nah, I don’t wanna play with this dude anymore.” He lost yesterday, but this was sick.
Quote of the Week: “You should just make Q.S.S.O.T.Y. ‘The Max Palmer Award.'” — John Choi
