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Link or Drown 2

Daily News February 25th, 2019 · 11:28 am · 3

The week’s best piece of skate content: The New York Times with an illustrated story about Chico Brenes’ journey from asylum seeker fleeing Nicaragua, to pro skater, to the present day in his home country.

“I kind of consider 2000 to 2009-10 the dark ages of skating. It was just like, the filmer and photographer decided what a skater would skate. If you were good, you got shipped out to California and you would skate with people that would be like ‘You need to do this.’ Almost like there were requirements. ‘Do this handrail.'” Spot-finder extraordinaire, Dave Caddo, has an interview with Village Psychic about the rules of skating new spots, blown out spots, and unlocking spots.

Spent a month or three mulling about whether to write something about the three skate movies that came out in 2018 on here. Quite obviously, nothing on that end came to fruition, and this Paris Review piece on Minding the Gap is nine zillion times better than anything I could have written on what is, far and away, the best “skateboard movie” ever made. Get that free Hulu trial if you haven’t seen it yet.

i-D has a long feature commemorating Palace’s ten-year journey from a brand conceived in a dilapidated skate house by Southbank to what it is today: employer of Torey Goodall, Jamal Smith and Tico ♥

Slam City Skates has a long interview about the current status of the Long Live Southbank project, and it being on the cusp of reaching its massive fundraising goal to open up + reconstruct the closed-off portion of the spot.

“LANDLINE” is a rad, mostly NJ-based mini video by Matt Hilzenrath.

Brad Cromer has an all New York part (with a couple Jersey clips) commemorating the release of his new Huf pro model.

Unclear if he’s been reading more women authors or not, but Mark Suciu has a bunch of New York clips in his new Thunder part. Pretty sure he’s the first one to get a clip at those year-old, two-second bust ledges by IBM, and that rock ollie in front of Corner Bistro is fucked.

Ciao is the latest all-New York video by Ricardo Napoli. Teaser here.

Here’s the preview for Virgin Blacktop, a documentary about a 1970s skate team based out of Nyack, New York.

Jahmal Williams is the latest guest on the Mission Statement podcast, and Joe Castrucci is the latest on The Bunt.

More post-“BLESSED” content: New Order Mag has a quick “Five Things” interview with Bill.

Stuff You’ve Probably Caught Already: Frog has a team montage over on Thrasher, Eli Reed has a part that is 70% filmed in New York and made this guy’s girlfriend think he died + Franky Villani and Jakes Hayes skate two or three city spots in their Duets section.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Trae Young with the magic trick.

Quote of the Week: “When two skaters have babies, a VX dies.” — Shawn Powers.

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Weekend Viewing — Yardsale’s East Coast Video

Daily News January 4th, 2019 · 2:45 pm · 9

The more accurate translation of “there are no spots in New York anymore” is “we’re just sick of the spots we have.” I remember having a conversation with someone — I forget who — from a plaza-abundant city, and expressing jealousy over their ability to skate a Straight Fucking Ledge™ in an unconfined city space. The response? “Yeah, but at least there are slappy curbs everywhere you go…I wish we had that.” The grass is always greener on the other side, but one or two bust-free ledge spots for miles of metal curbs seems like a pretty no-brainer trade on our end.

For us, this devolution into “crust” happened in the early 2000s because all the “normal” spots became busts (part due to post-9/11 security, part due to more skaters skating them.) And now, with reinvigorated Midtown Manhattan coverage and footage of people charging in security’s faces, the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way. Rather than navigating sixteen cracks and a seven-foot sandpaper roll-up, people are going back to the same front desk facing office building spots three times in one hour, just hoping to crack the code. And it’s understandable: most of us over trying to figure out how to skate Mambo Bar in its third generation of skatestopping attempts.

The greener grass convo came to mind watching Yardsale‘s new east coast tour video. Now, London is by all means a crusty skate city, but being based there, these guys are an hour or two-hour flight to any marble European plaza you can name. Instead, they’re electing to fly across an ocean to skate the stoops of abandoned rowhouses, and courtyards of Jersey City project buildings. Their video is the antithesis of a “six-state east coast trip” in that they could not be less interested in skating Muni, that spot in Princeton, or Pulaski. (I saw the shot of the Capitol Building and thought, here it comes. But nah.)

Wifi Lit

Daily News July 9th, 2018 · 5:12 am

Photo via Max Hull

What in tarnation…

With it being high season for trips out to Rockaway (back up to 92 degrees tomorrow…) that include a pitstop at the charmingly bad beach 90th skatepark, it is worth pointing out that the park just got a bunch of new ramps. Unclear as to whether it is better now or before. Hopefully, before the world ends, both the bowl and mini ramp there will get replaced with cement versions of the exact same thing.

Last week, Louis Vuitton became the second company in 2018 to reveal that it um, was “inspired by” the Osiris D3. The people need a documentary about Osiris.

Gangcorp threw a BBQ and best trick contest at L.E.S. Park on July 4th. Here’s the recap video.

“Best of all, skateboarding’s independent streak means it fosters a healthily rebellious worldview — no small accomplishment as our society drifts toward bland authoritarianism. To be sure, there is money to be made in ignoring this drift, in remaining beholden to libertarian corporatism.” Hanson O’Haver’s “A Crime and a Pastime” piece looks at the underbelly of the skateboard business and its eerie house-of-cards-isms.

…anndd Boil the Ocean has some red pill / blue pill thing about Steely Dan songs, alternate realities, Scott Johnston’s Let the Horns Blow part, and idk man.

New London clip from the POP boys. That nosegrind revert / 3x flat tricks / switch nosegrind revert line reminds me of something that would’ve been in an old 411.

Another volume of Elkin raw tapes, this time with Dre and Josh cameos ♥

Frankie Spears is the first person to get a clip on that new-ish Battery Park double-set.

Some Canadians offer up one of the first entries to what will no doubt be an eventful “Summer Trip to New York” clip season. What % of people appearing in S.T.T.N.Y. clips do you think end up moving here? Thirty five? Eighty?

The rail is back in front of the ledge over the six at FedEx.

Quote of the Week: “Party footage only counts in nightvision.” — Pryce Holmes

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Would embed something from Beast Mode 2, but this about covered it.

For Those About To Be On A Hype, We Salute You

Daily News December 18th, 2017 · 4:57 am

Photo via Colin Sussingham

Perfect video to begin your day — three-minute Jamal Smith IG compilation.

One of my life partners, Josh Velez, has an interview over on Skateboard Story. “It makes it even better to get a couple pats on the back from the fellas.”

You already know that new “Busshead” video from Gang Corp is essential viewing.

TWS posted the transcript and photos from Cyrus’ interview on their site.

Copies of Matt Velez’s new video, Calzone, are on sale. Another teaser here.

“This urgent, shouty Mannie Fresh anthem, a sort of primal materialistic scream from within a sumptuously appointed mansion, stands as the best song in any Ty Evans-helmed Film to date; paired off Lucas Puig’s luxury-brand tech, it makes a strong argument for the greatest song in any video ever.” Boil the Ocean offers up eight of Ty Evans’ best #musicsupervision victories, the man who introduced skaters to electro.

Nik Stain London footage. Everyone in it rips though.

A most unexpected “Welcome to the Team” video for an expected acquisition.

The Bunt’s new one is with that dude who shared the part with Vince in the 917 vid.

^^^2017 Best of Dustin Henry, reigning titleholder for QS’ “Skater You’d Be Most O.K. With Your Daughter Dating” Award. Edited by Tyler Warren.

This one was pretty heartwarming: Monster Children has a mini doc on Josh Kalis’ relationship and history with the city of Chicago. I’ve seen that street gap kickflip a hundred times before and still said “oh my God” on this go-around. (Maybe Ride will finally stop asking us why Chicago isn’t a bigger deal in skateboarding with this one?)

~ Quick fun one from Frog Skateboards baby ~

Yeah, I know, l*ngb**rds… but this is a fucking amazing program.

Jahmal Williams reflects on getting back into filming in the Static III years.

Some more Elkin raw files from the days when you first started seeing Aaron Herrington out and about, and Kevin Tierney was still drippy ♥

A joint remix video for Tom Penny and Bryan Herman, two icons of “G” style.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: 76ers-OKC was game of the year so far, yes? Gonna give it to Embiid’s block on Russy in OT1, but only because Russy ended up winning anyway :)

Quote of the Week: “I fucking hate getting phone calls.” — Andrew Wilson

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Late on this one, but it’s cool the boys got a shout out ;)

An Interview With Lucien Clarke

Features & Interviews December 14th, 2017 · 5:00 am · 8

Interview & Intro by Zach Baker
Original Photos by Mike O’Meally
Collages by Requiem For A Screen

Despite our many Ludditical tendencies — like an asinine reverence for a MiniDV camera that was born the same year as Meatball — skaters can all agree that the internet has been a great thing for us. You can argue about megapixels, what to call a nollie cab (the correct answer being “nollie cab”), and which tricks do and don’t deserve Renaissance; the globalized culture of skateboarding has benefitted as a result of our generation’s interconnectedness. From the ease of recording it, to the ease of uploading, sharing, and seeing it, makes it feasible to peek into any scene to see how people skate, dress, talk, and talk shit.

For a person from the eastern United States, one thing that I’ve come to terms with is how little my peers and I actually know about the scenes and histories throughout Europe and really, much of the world outside of the U.S. I thought I knew a little something about the U.K. from watching Blueprint videos, liking Tom Penny, and retaining a handful of shit that’s gone down at Southbank, but in recent years of following dudes like Science Versus Life, I’ve been shown myriad photos from mags, photographers, skaters, and spots I had never heard of.

This sense of cluelessness is heightened when sitting down to watch Palace’s first video. Palasonic, a seemingly authoritative report on what’s going on in London, was logged camcorders of the cavemen, captured digitally on a tripod from a VCR, then edited on a twenty-year-old Macintosh. Convoluted as this may be, it gives the vid a sense of timelessness and intertextuality with a regional past that, frankly, I know very little about. So, I talked to Lucien Clarke, the man with the video’s seven-minute ender, whose rumored to be able to singlehandedly sell out even the most flamboyant Triangle-stamped kits just by filming an Insta line in them.