Winter. A time for contemplation. Way back at the season’s inception, The Hélas Cap Company dropped the most essential EuroTech document since Lordz’ They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us: the double-DVD skate video, Fellas. I, for one, welcome the current Instagram era if it results in fucking immaculate physical media packaging like the aforementioned. The film comes in a double-CD case like a musically bloated late nineties double album, the track listing printed on each gold disc (the same kind on which your grandfather listened to classical music.) If you no longer own a digital video disc player, it’s also available as a USB keychain fabricated like a lil’ soccer uniform. Truth be told, I’d probably pay triple to avoid watching this or the Pass~Port video part-by-part, on a bunch of different web sites, or both.
Chrystie NYC’s first full-length video, Chapter One in now live on Thrasher. Features an ender part from Aaron Herrington, a bunch of footage of that dude Kuae Cosa who’s been popping up in Cons edits, the up-close angle of the other way ollie at the Crosby Street Vespa Bump… and that ride-on grind at LaGuardia High School is insane.
“The guys in the video don’t give a fuck about the American industry anymore. We were also all listening to a lot of Tupac at the time and getting kicked out of spots in Cali, then jumping into the van and blasting that Tupac song kind of cemented it.” Ok then. Free has a full retrospective on one of the seminal skate video imports of the 2000s, Lordz’ They Don’t Give A Fuck About Us (and answers the question we were asking a lot back in 2013: what happened to William Phan?
Steve Mastorelli made a rad Silvester Eduardo remix. Actually missed a bunch of this footage before. Syracuse nollie flip was sick.
These Bunt episodes are getting pretty long. Kerry Getz is the latest guest. Love a level-headed, smart former pro. Shame that the angry, “everyone screwed me over” curmudgeon types tend to get all the attention though.
Copenhagen and Malmö still got Paris beat on the whole “skateable obstacles integrated in public spaces but not exactly skateparks”-thing, but yeah! What they said! But for New York! Would trade like 3-4 New York skateparks for just that little red plaza on the side street in Berlin.
Quote of the Week Charles Rivard: “He skates like he’s on coke, and parties like he’s on weed.” Rob Harris: “More like he skates like he wishes he had friends.”
Slow news week last time around. Will try to pick up for this one ;)
“A skateboard is the most basic ambulatory machine. It has no gears, offers no assistance. It will protect you from nothing. It is a tool for falling. For failure. But also for freedom. For living. On a skateboard you must stay balanced in a tempest of forces beyond your control. The key is to be brave, get low, stay up and keep rolling.”
“‘In Syria, I couldn’t go out and play because of the war, but in Amman I can enjoy my time, stay out late and make new friends at the skate park,’ nine-year-old Ahmed Rayen, who has been in Jordan for two years, told Al Jazeera.” There are kids out there who cannot go skate because there is a fucking war going outside of their homes. It’s cold, but you don’t have it that bad dude.
QS Sports Desk:This looked like it was going over the top of the backboard, until…yeah, Steph for MVP. Harden is boring. Also, the Amare Stoudemire “era” is officially over in New York. It panned out like every other Knicks decision of the past 15 years, but Nov-Dec 2010, when the Amare-Felton-Gallinari-Chandler-Landry team really started to gel, is literally the fondest Knicks-related memory — save maybe Chris Childs punching Kobe or the occasional J.R. Smith hero game — of these grim fifteen years. Hopefully Marc Gasol knows better than to take Dolan’s money in July.
Quote of the Week: “Quartersnacks? What’s up with that? Is that like the same thing as the Dunk?” — Queens Mall Zumiez Employee
Happy skate industry P.R. initiative day. The new Lower East Side / Manhattan Bridge / Coleman skatepark is opening today (a bunch of photos of the completed park here), we’re having record-high temperatures in the northeast, and may be twelve hours away from living in a world where Eddy Curry is a NBA champion (F that, OKC in 7) — but those aren’t the biggest stories of summer 2012’s first full day. Skateboarding’s Library of Congress equivalent, Skate.ly/library, uploaded the 2003 Lordz video, They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us A.K.A. the video that stole the switch backside 5-0 copyright from Brian Wenning A.K.A. maybe the best Euro video ever, in full. (This relates back to the best Euro sweatpants skater post from three weeks ago…)
So if you’re staying in today, and cranking up your ConEd bill while enjoying the invention of air conditioning, watch it in all its Euro-ized-versions-of-classic-rap-instrumentals and perfect-spot-having glory.
When I watch TDGAFAU now, Daft Punk and them have added a new dimension to the already-intense Euro Theater of the mind–an aural counterpart to the pristine football field-sized marble plazas, Louis XIV-era office buildings, and textbook switch back 5/0’s, hinting at what lays in wait post-sesh in the city of lights. Marfaing–up there on the short list of dudes who should be millionaires from skating–tattooed his name on the metaphorical ass [nullus] of a spot like few others have. Has there ever been an iller dismount than his catch on the f/s tail flip out? — Frozen in Carbonite on TDGAFAU and other Euro-related topics.
