All Good Things Must…

All the stuff from the longest T.F. obstacle run in the spot’s history is gone, as of last week. Sometimes you need to cleanse your palette so new flavors can flourish, and we’re excited to see what sort of debris tumbles into Tompkins for 2019. (Still kind of curious about how they let us rock for AN. ENTIRE. SUMMER. — softball leagues and all — then finally decided to get rid of it in…November? Not complaining though.)

“Nevertheless, the same 2018 skateboarding memes exist in each city. Wherever you go there will be the body varial guy. Someone, eyes closed, will spin their board one handed above a precipice. It is now universally accepted that baggy pants give you the illusion of having more grace on a skateboard, you simply have to be very good to throw the right shapes in skinny jeans. There will always be a bottle tosser.” — LOVED this. Daryl Mersom offers up some observations on skateboarding via his travels in post-Soviet Eastern Europeans counties. We out to Estonia, and shout out to apple trees.

Watermelonism has a new clip up from a wallie jam at Parque Las Chimeneas A.K.A. Colombian J-Kwon, and Alex has a bunch of new gear up on his site, Watermelonism.com.

Good vibes, some wild tricks (that Battery Park City pop-over into the rock wall…), and a profound dedication to Three Up Three Down that even exceeds our own in Stephen Ostrowski’s wonderful “Ether” video.

“Someone told me you got into a fight with Wu-Tang a while back?” To follow-up the jump ramp story, Mackenzie uploaded the full audio of his ~15-year-old interview with Macaulay Culkin’s friend, Harold Hunter.

Skate Jawn interviewed Josh Stewart (yeah, I wish Keith skated more too…), and Josh Stewart interviewed Steve Brandi.

Mobster Children paid a visit to Jahmal Williams’ art studio.

Vice has a profile on Supreme on the eve of the “BLESSED” release. The video is due out this Friday btw.

Wasn’t expecting Theories to post a video that had 6ix9ine songs and crooked grind nollie front foot flips in it, but 2018 has been all about expanding your horizons, yaknow. “Legana” is a 20-minute video from a Peruvian skate crew that’s 50% filmed in New York.

Grey interviewed J.B. Gillet about his favorite plazas, and he made me want to get a coffee bean chain.

Boil the Ocean takes issue with Palace picking on Alien and Habitat circa 2018.

And on that note, The Atlantic has a wild article about why we’re all not hooking up enough. (There’s a SoundCloud embed on there that you can listen to in the event you don’t want to read a 10,000 word article about not having sex.)

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Looks like the whole Philly thing worked out for Jimmy Butler. Sheesh.

Quote of the Week:

— Slicky Boy

Recently went out for dinner in a place that had no real traces of being a skater-run establishment, but for whatever reason, they were playing Pretty Sweet. None of us had watched it in full since roughly around the time it came out. Two things became obvious: that we’re okay with not seeing it in full for another five years (…sorry), and that Kenny Anderson had fire footage in that video, which seemed to float under the radar during its initial release. The whole “it’s a *normal* Marc Johnson part!”- narrative kind of took the reigns when Pretty Sweet dropped, but Kenny really did have the best bits of the video as far as Girl’s 30-years+ riders at the time were concerned.

We were gassing up this Tennyson remix hard back when it first dropped, but you should give it a whirl if you haven’t in a while. It’s the best part from Pretty Sweet ;)

Vote or Roll Your Ankle

Young Chop[s] on the beat scan

New Jahmal Williams footage is an honor and a privilege. Him and Steve Brandi share a jazzy seven-minute section on the occasion of Hopps’ collaboration with Converse, composed by Static auteur, Josh Stewart. It’s one of those rare videos that you just watch with a smile on your face the whole time. And shout-out to Steve Brandi for his commitment to the iconic Paine Webber benches.

Also re: fountain of youth, the 39-year-old Dave Caddo has a sick New York part on Thrasher, which scours all the unturned crust the city has to offer.

“The rest of the boroughs, excluding Staten Island, have had so many regular Americans move into the neighborhoods, spreading the disease of uptight suburbanites. The average mainland American is just more concerned about the use of private and public property. Maybe I’m wrong, but I like my theory…The Bronx has Bronx hospitality, and I think the average person in the Bronx is more socially advanced.” Caddo also has an awesome follow-up interview on Thrasher that discusses the complacency of finding spots in New York, his favorite borough (guess), and more insight into his ability to film a part here full of fresh backdrops.

Canal has a full clip from the new spot out by Owl’s Head, which I guess is being called “The Salmon Spot.”

The New Yorker did a feature about this year’s trio of skateboard movies, and how they advance the current draw in Hollywood towards casting non-actors.

“But when I dropped in I was like, ‘Damn, why that ramp is moving?’ I thought I was on acid or something.” Harold Hunter retells the story behind his most famous slam.

Tombo and Richard Quintero run down the history of every Californian’s favorite place in New York to huck, D7. Fwiw I think Kerel was the first to ollie it, and btw, Antonio switch tre’d it (lol.)

The latest episode of the “Skate Muzik” podcast chronicles the #musicsupervision of the Static series with Josh Stewart.

Real celebrates 25 years of having Huf on the team with a remix of all his past parts + an interview with some new footage of him cruising around Lower Manhattan.

This is one of those videos where you think the editing is going to mellow out after the intro, but then it just stays that way for the whole time. “Lentiicular” is a montage from Carhatt-WIP, and features Roman Gonzales, Andrew Wilson, Chris Milic, et al.

“As the human attention span shrinks to rival the goldfish’s, ’tis it better, in pursuit of longevity and countercultural heft, to regularly shed teamriders every few years or hold to the original foundation of dudes as long as can be?” Boil the Ocean takes a ponder over Element and Girl’s new videos.

This is like when Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors, except Tiago Lemos might actually be better at skateboarding than Durant is at basketball, if that’s imaginable.

Critter” is a nine-minute video of an American road trip featuring a bunch of Pass~Port guys, and has an ender section in New York.

Can’t tell where this “Mud Monsters” mini vid is based out of, and can only pick out a few Chicago and New York spots, but going to guess Texas (?) because it’s maybe the first time I heard Z-Ro in a skate clip, but also have no idea what any Texas skate spots look like, but also also also it’s a fun watch regardless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: D. Rose, D. Rose, D. Rose, D. Rose.

Quote of the Week: “Oh shit! I gotta watch Corey Duffel’s new part.” — Adam Zhu, morning after Halloween

Calling all nerds / hoarders: Does anyone know if there’s an existing copy of the DNA Continuum DVD left on earth? Sources say that the video as a whole is whatever, but it would be nice to update the internet’s only existing copy of Jahmal’s part from the 240p upload on YouTube that is probably older than Kader.

Elm Street

Lou stuffed a VX1000 mold with a bunch of quarter snacks. Respect.

“A group of trigger-happy skate punks shot two men outside a Latin restaurant in Queens early Saturday morning, police said.” Ummmm.

Phil Rodriguez’s Caviar part will forever hold a special place in all of our hearts, and seeing his minute-long Insta part last week made everyone really happy.

With cab flips #trending hard in the first half of 2018, we’ll throw T.J’s one from his T.F. West Insta clip as an early frontrunner for one of the year’s best.

“Skateboarding is such a beautiful thing that gathers people from different backgrounds, and is a radical practice that reimagine cities, ways of life and transcends borders. But I think skateboarding has been resting on its ‘norm breaking’ status.” Free has a piece by Marie Dabbadie from the Pushing Boarders conference that invites us to think deeper about gender identity within skateboarding, rather than giving ourselves hollow pats on the back simply for not being the lacrosse team.

Theories has a new montage up featuring what I imagine will be the last footage ever released from Ziegfeld :(

E.J. made a short video with Powers skating the Queens triangle spot (recognizable from every Bronze video ever) for his collaboration with Fila.

Taylor Nawrocki filmed an entire part at the Williamsburg Monument.

Jamie Thomas talks to Manhattanite Keith Hufnagel for thirty minutes.

Not much by way of New York footage, but Brass and Jawn Gardner have some clips in the new OJ video.

“I find a lot of that talk…Like Thrasher gear and what not, ‘Ey yo, you don’t skate, you’re not supposed to wear it bro!’ You have a baseball hat on and I haven’t seen you throw a curveball motherfucker.” Germany’s Solo mag caught up with Jason Dill.

They’re knobbing spots that, like, three people have skated before now.

QS Sports Desk: J.R’s Game 1 “I thought we were ahead” jersey sold for $23,500. Imagine the biggest mistake of your career still being worth a new Volkswagen Passat.

Quote Tweet of the Week:

Rest in Peace Jimmy Wopo.

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?”

Ghosts of Christmas Clips Past

Collage by Requiem For A Screen

This past year, nobody else incited as many smiles and reminders of the glorious escapism 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 :)

Iron Claw’s new 11-min video, Not Not a Video, is now online. Shout out Colombia.

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.

Rolling Stone has a great mini-doc with Josh Stewart about making independent skate videos in 2017, via the lens of Traffic’s Look Left.

Jenkem has a “Day in the Life”-ish feature with The BX’s Public Housing Skate Team.

Style god Jimmy Chung is featured in the new teaser for Chris Mulhern’s upcoming Love Park documentary, 15th & JFK. Anyone know a release date?

“Mean Streets” volume 10 from LurkNYC with more weirdness at Chase.

Boil the Ocean is on entry #6 of its annual “Top 10 Parts of the Year” wrap-up, and Slam City’s blog has some words on the year’s best videos.

…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.

“Platano” is the new montage from our friends down at Andrew Skate Shop in Miami.

Jason Lee’s Video Days part was a starting point for a $3.6 billion crossroad.

Vol. 4 of Elkin raw files. You think Thrasher is gonna give us a Louie “West End” one?

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

Official 2017 end credits song ♥