Griffin’s Skate Video is a 34-minute New York video from the same young crew that brought you the “Return of the Genius” edit from the spring, beautifully filmed on a potato. [And/or maybe a Y2K-era digi cam?] It is a blend of the lovingly absurd (e.g. drop-in’s off U-Haul trucks, whatever 1:35 is) and some incredible skating (that 5050 then wallride line at 135th and Riverside!) And if you’re the old-man-yells-at-cloud type (“I don’t get it! Is it …ironic?!”), please do remember that DLX was doing the same exact goddamn thing twenty years ago ;)
Tristan Rowean dropped a new part for Free by Neema Joorabchi. Heavy on the New York clips, and your legs will feel tired just watching the second-to-last Fort Greene trick. Paine Webber no-push ollie was insane, too.
“Fever Dream” is a new 12-minute Massachusetts scene video by Shawn MacMillan filmed mainly on chunks of crust and featuring Connor Noll, Cooper Qua, Eddie Vargas, and others.
Alexis Sablone self-filmed, scored and edited her new part, which includes a switch varial heelflip that should be played on loop in the flip trick museum.
Not only is Skate Jawnone of the best longstanding American skate ‘zines, but they are also the principal torch-holders for the “video magazine” format that people of a certain age grew up with. Their 10yerr video feels like a spiritual sequel to Fiddy, though more specified in its episodes, with sections in Japan, Prague, extras from the Rust Belt Trap squad, etc.
To everyone still @ing us on social media to let us know that The Triangle™ is back: no the fuck it’s not. The cement is shit, the pink bumps are shit, and nobody on the Frog team has responded to a “are you skating?”-text in a month :(
But we’re no less still hooked on triangles, desperate to restore the joy of E. 9th Street’s onetime premier destination for a 50% chance of getting hit by a car. Philly skaters forced Love Park into resurrection once City Hall was destroyed, and Muni became a natural alternative once Love met the same fate. However riddled with champagne problems New York skateboarding may be — we never had the luxury of being able to replace something as special as Love by walking across the street to a nearly-as-good spot.
Like an opioid epidemic, once the good designer shit runs scarce, the demand for shittier alternatives rises. And lately, people have been skating some shitty triangles.
“He does pretty hard tricks.” — Javier Sarmiento re: Jesus Fernandez. Part early Epicly Later’d, part “Day in the Life,” and all people just fanning out on what a great human — let alone skater — he is, Free Skate Mag‘s threepartJesus documentary is the positive force we need in all of our lives right now.
Somehow missed this one when it first came out, but Heavenly is a sixteen-minute video of mostly Texas (?) dudes skating mostly New York spots. They lowkey went in on that Water Street rail-to-rock that Connor lipslid, and switch backside flip manual at the Brooklyn Tompkins park is insane.
“You didn’t want to do outdated tricks, you wanted to stay up because the tide was moving. As much as skateboarders, critics, journalists, or whoever is recording the timeline of skateboarding want to say that there are no rules, there always has been a wave. And you’re either in the front of the wave or behind the wave.” Bobby Puleo on a simple question for Village Psychic: “How do you feel about wallies?”
