If you have notsigned 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 may have heard that the city approved plans to cover Tompkins with synthetic turf after a hearing this past May. There is very sparse information about this, outside of the Tompkins courts being outlined with a rectangle in a PDF. Several friends with, um, knowledge of how to navigate these things have begun to reach out for more info, as groundbreaking looks like it is set to begin this winter. Anyone with insight into how this could be debated and compromised with Parks, even after it has been approved, please feel free to share what you know. We’ll try our best to keep you updated as well.
“My project in Malmö felt unreal. Imagine that happening in New York. I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Hmm, on that note… MIT Masters degree holder, Alexis Sablone, has been heavy on the interview circuit lately, and everyone is happy about it. Alexis for president of skateboarding :)
Josh Kalis re-did the ender that capped a video part he filmed at age 23… at 43 ♥
Go Skate Day videos aren’t exactly the first things that get clicked on around here — unless they’re from the Sabotage dudes, who, rather than running the whole “this is the one day I refuse to skate” thing that contrarian “core” guys do, went out and got nine minutes worth of Philly footage in 24 hours. (Yo, where is that mini windowsill ledge? Figure it’s Center City somewhere and sucks IRL, but that thing looks super fun.)
Pretty much any group of skaters that has passed this spot these past ~20 years has stopped and debated whether it was possible or not. I remember somebody pointing out that if Brandon Westgate hadn’t done it yet (he definitely would’ve known about it), then maybe it was impossible. We even posed the rhetorical “how long until” on Twitter two years ago (that photo does the size of it zero justice, btw.) Really glad T.J. was the one to get it. The fact that an ollie is on the cover should tell you all you need to know about how crazy this is. (Well, that and the fact that it’s broad daylight in midtown Manhattan should color the narrative a bit, too.) Assuming everyone will be onboard the #TJSOTY train when that Supreme video drops, so yeah. Photo by Jared Sherbert.
Remember that Weed Maps clip we admitted to being a bit of a guilty pleasure on here last winter? Well, here’s the less jittery version of the same clip that features Jaws skating New York.
After getting shamed for not putting the new OG.2000 video (the dudes who made the “Mariah” video last year and um, ollied onto a Ferrari) in #QSTOP10 contention a week ago, we finally got around to watching it, and yeah, it got way less shine than it deserved on the skate internet. Tons of incredible Euro skating from names that will likely be unknown to you — though I’m sure some #trend-weary curmudgeons will find issue with something. These two tricks in Paris are fucked.
Brian Anderson is the latest guest on Lee Smith’s podcast. The interview is damn near two hours long. Maybe these could benefit from Soundcloud or Podcast links? Or did we miss that?
Looks like SML Talk is updating their site again. Here’s a listicle of 17 “beautiful” moments in skate video history. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and quite frankly, Jason Byoun’s Astor Place line from Life is Goodiegot robbed.
It’s no video blog, but Johnny went to Argentina to film the SB team a year ago, and made his own clip of the trip just now. Can’t wait for Beef Patty 2.
Back when Crailtap was a daily visit and the skateboard internet was a smaller place, they used to post these random digi cam tidbits (pre-iPhone obvs) on their site. Someone compiled all of them, 2003-2005.
The building got tired of replacing the rail in front of the out ledge at FedEx and just… knobbed the ledge instead.
Shout to Cosme Studio for coming through on a slightly higher quality digital copy of Continuum. These are maybe only 10-15% better quality than the ones that have been on YouTube for ages, but hey, slow motion is better than… Also we’ve certainly pontificated about it in the past, but wow was Jerry Fowler’s skateboarding ahead of its time. Jahmal’s is obvs timeless, but you knew that :)
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
All those years of covering high fashion on QS have finally paid off! We did a small run of #colorful items that would match Young Dro’s automobile paint jobs for Dover Street Market. Available instore and online via the New York location now. Available via Ginza and London later this week. Regular webstore leftovers are now on sale btw.
Drew Connors’ Bailar vid is the first great local project of the year. Street-heavy Shredmaster Keith part, tons of seldom-chartered spots all around the city, and a good deal of WTFs in the ender section. Fuel for the upcoming week of fifty-degree days.
Since the premiere of this past All City Showdown, some of the crews have been putting extended edits online: 1 – “Last Place” where nobody leaves #TheLower via Matthew Velez (the mind behind last year’s thoroughly awesome and underrated Sable video.) 2 — “Director’s Cut” via Westchester’s PFP squad.
