Short Trip To Space

Cardiel, 1993. Bryce Kanights on the photo. Science v.s. Life on the scan.

Big Parts Unknown vibes in this: Pocket‘s latest installment of its “Followed” / day-in-the-life-esque series trails the samosa vendor from MACBA for a day. This entire piece is so so good, and really shines a light on how essential these peripheral figures at spots are to skate culture. Can’t wait for more. Shout out the the Flushing empanada lady. Shout out to the Brooklyn Banks Burger King, the Love Park Wawa, at al.

Week late, but on the slim chance that you haven’t seen Tristan Mershon’s Fool’s Gold video, filmed in predominantly non-obvious corners of New York, please do. The last two parts are especially incredible, and the curtain-call filming is brilliant. “What’s your spot-finding method?” “Lurking, really.”

A day in Yonkers with the 2nd Nature boys via Mike Sass.

Hot Potato” is the new edit from Stephan Singh with a lot of gems it (that backside flip!)

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About MACBA But Were Afraid To Ask — An Interview with @macbalife

Intro & Interview by Frozen in Carbonite
Illustrations by Charles Rivard

Way back when in the #90s, pay phones functioned as communication hubs for the Great American Skate Plaza. At my old local, Shafer Court, you could call the pay phone and, nine times out of ten, a gentleman would answer “Shafer Court” — as if it were a place of business! — and tell you if anyone was skating, who was skating, and such. The pay phone across the street from Pulaski and the one (if I recall correctly) by the Embarcadero Carl’s Jr. — same shit. These phones, working in conjunction with pagers, served as communication nodes for the culture.

Of course, as cellular phone technology evolved, this quaint element of skateboarding fell by the wayside. That is, until the advent of Instagram. Specifically, skaters started using this mad futuristic technology to A) document their scene, and B) provide skate nerds the world over with access to a culture that they would have otherwise envisioned solely in the Theatre of the Mind.

@Macbalife is one of the leaders in this field (at press time: 292k followers). We sat down with its creator to gain some insight into one of the most notorious spots on Planet Earth.

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Pedro Attenborough’s ‘Fellas’ Part

Hélas’ multi-“disc” Fellas video has revealed itself to be something of the Wu Tang Forever of European skateboarding in 2019. Yet out of all the places they could’ve put Jesus and Javier’s guest tricks, they rightfully picked Pedro’s part.

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The Shape of Tompkins

This is so cute. Shout out to any pro that’s ever sent a handwritten letter.

Rockstar pull up no guitar.

Contagiously good-vibed human and skater, Jawn Gardner, has a new part over on Thrasher, in addition to a part in the newly uploaded Creature video at the 18:10 mark.

Gino Iannucci asks “Who’s going around skating in a $400 sweater?” in his Monster Children feature about restarting Poets as a brand. I gotta introduce him to Troy, though I think his shit is a good bit over $400 ;)

Real re-issued some old Huf boards and has a bit of a feature on him over on their site + clean versions of all his parts. Slam City Skates also interviewed him about Ari Marcopolis’ iconic Metropolitan ad photography. (We talked to Huf about some of his favorite snaps back in 2015 in the event you need even more Huf content hehe.)

“I kind of wonder how I had so much nerve to do some of those graphics.” This is nine months old, but shout to Palomino for just linking it — an hour-long interview with Mark McKee that gives insight into the wild west era of skateboard graphics.

Genny hits Club Liv and a bunch of triangle manny pads in his latest iPhone edit.

Only like 10 people are gonna know what this means, but this feels like a 2018 SuchAGood clip.

Solo interviewed perennial #QSTOP10 fave and Milano Centrale MVP, Ruben Spelta on the occasion of their “THREEE” videos. Thanks for the shout out bro ♥

Huck has posted some iffy articles about skateboarding in the past, but this one about a Bristol D.I.Y. spot and the general rise of skater-made spaces is an a-ok quick read.

Interesting time capsule: a “lost” Alex Olson interview from 2012.

Boil the Ocean on “a mile-long backside tailslide and, perhaps in tribute to Dan Pageau’s freshly funded legacy, a switchstance trip down the fearsome El Toro.”

A lot of smiles in this jazzy nu-age Miami edit from the Andrew Skateshop crew.

Spot Updates1) The Banks are *officially* a no-go again. 2) Not sure how recent this is, but to nobody’s surprise, BAM 3 got knobbed.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Lebron James what the fuck omg.

Quote of the Week: “Remember when you showed up to Johnny Wilson’s house and forced him to watch a Pat Laflamme part?” — Zach Baker to ET

Rest in peace Bankroll Fresh, get well soon Ricky Ross, everybody else please take good care of yourselves, and skateboard and laugh with your friends as much as you possibly can yaknow ♥

“I remember when dinner depended on my fishing rod” is one of the greatest things a rapper has ever said.

What Happened to William Phan?

william phan

We posed the question above on Facebook, and got a response within three minutes: “Still skating in Barcelona every day. Doesn’t give a shit.”

You know that hypothetical “If you could skate like one person, who would it be?” scenario? Most usually answer with Cardiel or Gino, but a consideration people often forget when formulating their response is how nice it would be to have the flip tricks of someone who skated MACBA every day for over a decade. William Phan is one of those dudes who would do insane lines but still have the flat tricks stand out as the most impressive part. The kickflip up the ledge in the first line of his They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us part is legitimately one of the most memorable moments of the entire video. He even makes 360 frontside flips — a trick otherwise reserved for Battle of the Berrics and Greg Lutzka — look good. Observe below.

Unfortunately for anyone who doesn’t skate MACBA every day, he’s seldom been seen since a part in one of the best Euro videos of all-time, and yes, this is our second TDGAFAU-inspired post in twelve months. He’s on some European sect of Nike SB, last seen in the bonus section of Nothing but the Truth and the French SB team’s trip to China montage. BUT, thanks to the magic of Facebook (it’s not completely irrelevant yet!), some lesser-seen footage of Phan was brought to light via what looks like the filmer from the TDGAFAU era’s Vimeo page. This includes a clean quality version of his shared part from No Place Like Home (the YouTube upload for it sucks), which might be his only full part outside of the Lordz video. It doesn’t benefit from TDGAFAU‘s level of music supervision and has graphics that look like they come from shirts sold at Burkina, but it’s great either way. In the same Vimeo account, you’ll also find two “Firing Line”-style uploads that are incredible.

Add William Phan to the “He’d make a great Manolo Mixtape…” list.

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