If you can’t make it out on Saturday, don’t forget to help circulate the petition to keep turf off the asphalt at Tompkins Square Park. If you’re sharing any reflections or memories of what this park means to you on social media, please be sure to tag any posts with #savetompkins.
“One thing Jones has that a lot of pro skaters don’t is a bunch of hardheaded friends who are willing to bring city life to a halt for him.” Can’t imagine there’s a single person who reads QS that hasn’t already read Willy Staley’s incredible profile of Tyshawn Jones for The New York Times, but also don’t think anything else could justifiably be the first link this week.
“The further uptown you went, the quieter and more desolate it was. And the more you could get away with.” While on the topic of #MSM #skate #coverage — never knew about this 2005 New York Mag article about Andy Kessler and the original Zoo York crew of the 1970s-80s. (So nice that we have evolved and endured enough to avoid calling things “Dogtown East” now hehe.)
“There’s so much bullshit in that fuckin’ thing.” Bobshirt interviews Aaron Meza for an hour and twenty minutes to find out what parts of FTC videos are lifted from Scorsese and Godard. (Also kinda crazy how pretty much anybody in the “content business” has been inspired by the Ego Trip Rap Lists book.)
“Born of those spastic curb cauldrons in the early 1990s, the crooked grind to backside lipslide lay low for a certain number of Earth years until Bastien Salabanzi donked one down a semi-legit handrail in Sorry, drawing immediate reprisals in the shallow backwaters of the early message-board days and inspiring several other related atrocities over the years to come. It was a time of war, girth and widespread musical pirating.” Can’t say I was too worried about the crooked grind to back lip feeling it its been neglected these past ~15 years, but Boil the Ocean felt otherwise.
The perpetually making-clips-that-look-like-no-one-else’s collective of Russia’s Absurd Skateboards went to the seaside city of Sochi in the offseason to search for spots.
Posed another hypothetical “how long until” over on the ol’ Twitter now that T.J. got the 33rd Street subway station ollie out of the way: how long until / is it actually possible for someone to ollie the eight-flat-eight at the Met?
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: About due time we got Luca on here.
Quote of the Week Observant Gentleman: “I think you’re not supposed to order seafood on Sundays or something.” Jesse Alba: “Yeah, you’re not supposed to skate on private property either, and here we are.”
Stumbled on this two-hour mix of New York jams that appeared on DJ Screw mixtapes, which made me never want to listen to some of these songs at regular speed ever again. The Rakim one is insane, and never would have thought that Tribe screwed would sound so good.
Not quite sure why the willy grind has been making a comeback as of late, but there’s a lot of good stuff in Brandon Gironda’s part via the Westchester County-based PFP5 video (ender is wild) + an accompanying Q & A with Mike Sassano about the long-running video series.
“When people are in public spaces or people are walking through public space…They conceive it as a kind of as a private property. Do you understand what I mean? So it’s like, ‘this is for this…Look there’s a bench here and it’s clearly meant for people who have shopped in that store to come here and eat this kind of fucking sandwich…’ They have a certain kind of possessive sense of everything.” — The always insightful Ocean Howell, with your #longread for the week via an interview about *shock* how skateboarders interact with public space in 2018.
We’re holding an editor’s meeting first thing this morning to see if it is possible to do a skateboard version of this New York mag article: “The Oral History of Four Loko in New York. A lot of cancelled following day sessions, and a lot of unnecessary nights in bookings coincided with this era writ large.
Two Brazilians came through and filmed his five minute shared New York part during that one magical week when the planters were moved away from the CBS Ledge. I know GX got all you psyched, but everyone please be careful filming in traffic, for the love of God.
“I didn’t really receive shit out of it other than 11-16 year-olds hating me. Now that they’re 23 and they finally meet me, they tell me I’m a nice guy.” Love Skate Mag has an interview with Lurker Lou.
……aaaaaannnnnddddd Jim Thiebaud — someone who has received death threats over board graphics — has some thoughts for the “leave politics out of skateboarding” crowd.
Interviewing skaters alongside their moms could actually be a good interview series idea.
Quote Tweet of the Week:
(On that note, you might want to check out Stefan Janoski’s stop motion short film, “God I Need A Girlfriend.”)
Took last week off for some administrative duties. Previously:Part one, part two.
15. Le Basket Discontinues Outdoor Seating
It has been observed that skateboarders are the original gentrifiers. The undesirable corners of society are familiar territories to us, especially if they have something we want. And what do we, Skateboarders: The Original Gentrifiers™, want more than a place to get drunk? A place to get drunk in public, naturally.
Of course we’ll sit in plain view on Broadway, looking completely unemployable with our boards stacked along the wall, and the aluminum remnants of six six-packs teetering off the table. It wasn’t long until others took notice of the cheap real estate, and started closing in. By 2010, we were sharing ~fifteen seats with ~fifty bike messengers. By 2012, NYU students with a thirst for Magic Hats priced us out. In 2015, the party was shut down, but we barely noticed.
