‘Let’s Talk After the Summer’

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Tyshawn. Switch ollie. Metal traffic barricade. Wow.

Pushing Against Racism is an initiative launched by the Good Push Alliance along with a dozen other social skateboard organizations to promote a commitment against racism within the skate community and beyond. Skateism also has a full feature about it if you’d like to learn more ♥

DREWWWWWW was on the “Angel & Z” podcast chatting about skating n’ things for an hour.

Ok, this might legitimately be the largest slate of locally-filmed videos to make it on one of these link round-ups in a long time, so let’s get to it…

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Celebration Station

“I went from being a kid skating on my block to hanging out with all the best skaters in New York City because I learned how to do a frontside 360 boneless.” A friend once had a story about how their book club took a razor to The Powerbroker and sliced it up into three books to make it more reasonable of a read. This isn’t that dramatic, but a blog interview that takes over two hours to read is a lot for most people in the era of byte-sized #content — but we’re *SO* happy that people are putting detailed, rich content on the internet that requires a commitment! Isn’t that what it’s for?! The Slam City Skates blog’s interview with Eli Gesner about skateboarding + graffiti in New York in the 80s, night clubs in the early 90s, the beginnings of Shut + Zoo York, etc. is like a little history book :)

This skatepark was founded in 1906 by the Black Panther party.”

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Crazy But It’s True

Photo via Giese

“Jake Phelps surely embodied worlds in decline: Old San Francisco, famously non-PC, MJ1s on his feet until whatever deadstock tap ran dry, proofing a decades-old print publication with a snarling discontent any seasoned editor would recognize and respect. An artifact arguing and cussing every day for a place in a world moving some other way.” Unfortunate to link their way two weeks in a row for obituary purposes, but Boil Ocean has a way with them words.

“Though I would sometimes cross the street to avoid him, I can remember so much of what he said to me.” Patrick O’Dell also wrote a thing about Phelps over on Vice.

And here is a re-link to Willy Staley’s California Sunday profile of Phelps that originally ran in 2016, A.K.A. what BTO labeled as “secular-press skate piece top five.” Would be *so* open to a conversation about what the other four are ;)

The new Gang Corp video, Black Business, is premiering this Friday, March 22, at 198 Allen Street at 7 P.M.

Someone mashed together five minutes of Hjalte Insta clips a nice remix

Mike from Lottie’s takes five minutes to tell you what he’s pissed off about.

Munchies has a mini doc on the institution that has sustained New York skateboarding like none other throughout the 2010s — of course, we’re talking about 2 Bros. They also bring up a terrifying reality re: the ten-year leases that got signed at the start of the decade ending (e.g. when everyone was still reeling from the recession), and the dollar slice soon becoming a thing of the past.

“I think the mainstream American skateboarding culture is kidding itself. They’re really dismissive of emotions in a way that is hurting itself. It’s becoming more and more inline with traditional athleticism, but also what is acceptable as a skateboarder is so narrow – you have to be cool, not talk about your feelings.” If you’re one of those idiots like me who put off watching Minding the Gap for months, here’s another motivator: Skateism put their interview with director Bing Liu online. Yeah, you need to enter your card details, but a Hulu trial to watch it is free, and you can cancel the second you finish the movie — provided you’re not destroyed for the rest of the day.

Solo has a video profile of steez lord and Polar rider, Shin Sanbongi + Nick from Palomino took his legacy media expertise and wrote an introductory guide on Japanese indie zines and videos for the mag’s all-Japan issue. No Meatball interview?

TWS interviewed John Shanahan, though we all know A.V.E. had the best part in The DC Video.

Let’s just throw the interview loosies in one place… Frank 151 interviewed R.B. Umali (text), Enrique Lorenzo interviewed Dani Lebron (this one is audio, and yes, they have heavy accents, but their english is pretty perfect) + the Slam City Skates blog interviewed Colin Read (text.)

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Going to suspend our micro coverage of the NBA this week to acknowledge that the best feat of teamwork and athleticism of the past seven days was this guy getting a ~15-foot I-beam onto a New York City subway.

Quote of the Week: “Who the fuck is Andrew Wilson?” — Jake Phelps, flipping through a Skate Jawn

Film Review: Dumb — The Story of Big Brother Magazine

BIG-BROTHER

It is not easy to write about Patrick O’Dell’s film, Dumb: The Story Of Big Brother Magazine, and Shit: The Big Brother Book within one year of each other without sounding redundant. Even though it hasn’t published an issue in thirteen years, Big Brother holds a unshakeable stake in skateboarding’s collective heart. Thrasher bears perhaps the most recognizable skate brand on the planet, Skateboarder was the first-ever skateboard magazine, but no, more Big Brother, we need more.

Having covered everything from the cult of Cardiel to Menace throughout Epicly Later’d, O’Dell is the best person to sit across from anyone throwing heart eyes at a mammoth of skateboard lore. The linear story of the magazine is told through a series of new interviews, shoddy unseen footage that otherwise only had its audio transcribed, archived clips from newscasts (i.e. interviews with angry parents), and clips from Big Brother‘s video series.

An abridged history of Big Brother was told in the 2007 Steve Rocco documentary, The Man Who Souled the World. Rocco’s few appearances in Dumb cover the same ground as before, where he recounts the infamous story of why he started the mag in the first place. Unlike the Big Brother book, which apart from the epilogue, was narrated by Sean Cliver and Dave Carnie’s recollections, Dumb‘s interviews cover a wider spectrum of contributors to any and all Big Brother projects.

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Everybody Linking

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Some cool rain would be cool right now.

Although it’s a lime green carbonated beverage puff piece a lot of the time, this 15-minute mini doc on Enrique Lorenzo on high grade steroids A.K.A. Tiago Lemos is a chill feel-good story to start your week off. If you don’t want to deal with the carbonated propaganda, Village Psychic just dropped a Tiago Lemos remix yesterday, using footage from We Are Blood and his past few parts.

HD video blog #22 from Johnny Wilson and Conor Prunty.

These videos are the best. Antosh and other Canadian boys in Europe.

A minute of #lowimpact Andrew Reynolds footage.

The Skateboarder’s Journal did an awesome interview with Mike Blabac about some of his most iconic Love Park photographs. Shout out to the era when shoeboxes had pro model specific designs. Definitely wish I kept some of those :( and also good God the frame on the Kalis Tre Flip™ before the one they actually ended up running

Seeing someone do a line where they walk up the five after the two-up-four-down at the Jersey City Post Office still gives me a fuzzy feeling on the inside. Shout out to one of the greatest little kid spots on the east coast.

Late on this but apparently somebody switch front blunted the Flushing grate?

There’s a good bit of vintage New York footage in this video for the upcoming Huf and Chocolate Keenan Forever collab + Ride interviews Huf, Gino and Steven Cales about some of their fondest Keenan memories. “He opened my eyes to [the fact] that there’s different types of people in the world, just respect everybody.”

Theories released a teaser for the Traffic video, due out later this year.

An extended interview with Patrick O’Dell about the evolution of Epicly Later’d.

Straight no comply into the Courthouse Drop, among other things in Shane Farber’s Gentleman’s Club part.

It’s a Boston video, but there’s a lot of New York footage. Jordan Rodrigues’ Gem part.

You can skate the backside for regular out ledge at Ziegfeld for now.

Well, this makes perfect sense re: the Fat Kid skatepark.

The last factory on earth that produces VCRs will cease production at the end of July.

Quote of the Week: “What happens at 4 P.M. in Calabasas, people go to the Cheesecake Factory?” — Roctakon