Max Hull’s Hell Yeahh (Too Nice To Skate) is a masterpiece of unc skateboard cinema. It includes Gabe Tennen[‘s Wonderful Horrible Life], Conor Prunty’s salute to ten years since “422,” a Joe Scordo “My War,” Sadie BGPs, a full Luke Koch part, and so much more. If you are in your unc years or even on the cusp of unc-ness and in the midst of finding excuses to not skate on a weekend or just hit the skatepark for an hour, seeing Gabe shred should be inspo enough to commit to relearning some of your lost tricks this spring.
When choosing a headline image / thumbnail / still from this crew, it’s so easy to go with some shit they’re about to skate into because it mimics the experience of first watching the video. Like, “is this dude actually about to do this?” When the answer is “no” — at least to run up a couple slams before cutting to the make — it’s always a full body battle with ten types of sandpaper ground until the glory of the rollaway.
Photographer Norma Ibarra left her hometown of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico in 2009 and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia — a few blocks away from Antisocial Skateshop in 2015. She started skating and became obsessed. Norma transferred her lifelong photography passion into contributions to the burgeoning The Skate Witches collective-turned-zine and volunteering for nonprofits like Skate Like a Girl. Self-funded skate trips turned into official invites from brands to document the worldwide sessions. Few have captured so many unique skate scenes around the world in so little time as Norma, who has a keen eye for showcasing skateboarding as a conversation with the cities and communities that house every trick.
Norma’s energy and passion for her work was palpable during our recent phone call, where we talked about photographer etiquette, hoarding clothes, and why growing your own food can help your skating.
“[Keith] saw that we had skateboards and asked if we wanted to skate his ‘run.’ This ‘run’ was a planned-out continuous route of spots he’d hit on a daily basis. You had to skate it fast and without stopping because there was traffic, open businesses, pedestrians and security guards — who knew Keith would be pushing through at some point after 3 P.M. when school was out.” Thrasher has an incredible retrospective feature that recounts stories from many of Huf’s closest friends.
The good news is we finally switched over to a circa 2018 design that’s mobile compatible, etc. Hopefully it’s not a Crailtap-getting-rid-of-the-iframes shock to the system, because let’s be honest: it basically looks the same, just moderne. We purged a couple spots that have been gone long enough for people to forget about, cleaned up some shit around the pages, etc. If anything seems to not be working properly, feel free to drop us a line.
The bad news is we are still amidst the same general skate internet content slump we have been experiencing all month. Nearly nothing happened last week…
On the off chance that you didn’t catch it, Jawn Gardner continues his streak of being one of the most contagiously good vibed skaters to watch in 2018, via his DC Streetsweeper raw files. That A/C contraption he made is nuts…
Gunes’ new FTC part is up there with John’s raw files as what got ran back the most at the office last week. Shout out to everyone who looks like they’re having fun while being really good at skateboarding.
Don’t know much about this one, but “Long Shots & Low Odds” is a ~moody~ seven-minute New York video from Canon Hastings featuring all your New York 2018 dietary staples (wallies, .T.F., a pit stop at the Grand Street courts) + a stubborn commitment to skating those red double cellar doors next to Motorino.
“I feel good because I can make money, because I can help my family, but I don’t give a fuck about the Olympics. I don’t care and I don’t want to be there.” Grey has an interview with Olympian and European life enthusiast, Tiago Lemos.
“The big underground music in America is like house and dance stuff, based on what I see in the shop, and that’s what skaters are buying. When I was getting into deep underground hip-hop growing up, the only other kids listening to it were skaters. Like, you guys know Hieroglyphics? Why? ‘Oh, it was on the blah blah blah VHS.'” This link actually has nothing to do with skating, but is an insightful conversation on how people consume music (particularly rap) in 2018, and a reminder that it’s ok to not have an opinion on some stuff!
Quote of the Week: “If you’re having fun, chances are, you’re breaking at least one law.” — Conor
It’s eerie how well this clip has aged. If you sent this to us sans titles as a “hey my friends went to Paris and here’s our clip!” in 2018, it’d probably get a pass…
