Stay in the Zone, Turn H20 to Cognac

Village Psychic put together all of Zered’s footage from the objectively bad skatepark next to the B.Q.E. They call it “Bad Park.” Zered calls it “Shit Park.” Queue up Z’s quote from when the park first opened: “Yeah, it’s terrible…but I’ll still skate it all the time.”

Ok, let’s get all the remaining 2020 Year-in-Review content out of the way now, lest we ever need to discuss it again. (More as a courtesy to all the people #creating #content, not for nostalgia’s sake.)

“Just cuz it’s obvious don’t make it wrong.” Boil the Ocean wrapped its annual countdown of the year’s ten best parts (+ a bonus track of ten more.)

Our friends at the Milan-based Skate Muzik podcast have a new NTS Radio episode that runs down some skate video #musicsupervision highlights from last year. That “Joy Road” song from Will Miles’ “Lambrusco” edit goes. Surprised the song Alicia Keys made about Max Palmer didn’t make it on there tbh.

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‘Rat Ratz 5’ — Milano Centrale 2020

One of the great pleasures of skate travel is immersing oneself into the workings of a scene via its central spot. Every plaza has its own skate government, some loose form of a hierarchy, and sets of implied to not-so-implied rules that visitors can sometimes get a pass on. You can tell who the local legends are, even if they’re seated for 95% of the time, or who the lurker everyone diplomatically avoids is.

But the funnest part is watching the kids who are on the come up. (It’s also the part that you can observe vicariously via videos.)

The Rat Ratz dudes feel like that right now for Milan, and thus for Italy’s most storied skate spot. Already a step ahead of their last video from March, these edits still feel fun, playful, open-ended, and the scratches on the fisheye only add to the charm. It is almost like you’re watching someone’s drafts leading up to when they make the proverbial Leap™ — to the video that makes everyone who had been paying attention up until that point go “whoa.”

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Ain’t No Sunshine

Scan stolen from Chromeball, obvs.

“In a sense, Jeff Grosso’s contributions to the world aren’t singular but part of an entire point of view — one that could reflect how ridiculous life is while also hugging what he viewed as important tightly in secret. That’s an art. The ability to make things like skateboarding that feel so disposable yet life-changing — tricks that last seconds, yet feel immortal.” — A Loveletter to Jeff Grosso.

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Ruben Spelta’s ‘Astratto’ Part + Milano Centrale Bonus Cuts

Ever since he all but deactivated his Instagram and grew his hair out, Ruben put out two parts in the span of a half year (“Astratto” originally premiered in December), plus had a good bit of stuff in that “Storia Italiana” Magenta edit. (Actually, between him and Shogo Zama, Magenta now has two of the best flowy skaters out there, look at that.)

This latest one went live on Free yesterday, and is by Hadrien Buhannic, the guy who has been quietly at the helm of the Bloby edits that shaped up to be some of the most influential skateboarding of the past half decade. It’s about a third Milano Centrale stuff, with the rest in Paris, and like the last part, it is music-supervised by someone who did fire movie scores in the seventies.

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Stuff These Snacks In These Amiris

Photo by Ryan Giese

The most important news first: the city approved a new trash can design and it is substantially taller than the current ones. Thoughts? Concerns? Commissioned ideas for Tyshawn?

Skate shops are special places that should be protected and supported, but Humidity down in New Orleans is something else for giving out completes to kids for getting straight As.

“Also that same year, you had your ‘Bobby Worrest for Quartersnacks‘ part.” “I did? Okay. Cool.” Transworld caught up with Bobby to talk about the fact that he’s had ten (!) video parts since Right Foot Forward came out.

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