It’s not that these places wouldn’t have been producing great videos if not for the pandemic, just that through some combination of unemployment, no travel diluting the local color of the footage, and the time to take second and third looks at spots that have been passed on before gave the last year’s crop of hometown videos a sharper vision than ever before.
Jon Colyer‘s Sanitizer was one of those projects. Portland is a place with no shortage of skateboard mythology — and while there are influences from Dane Brady, Matt Beach, and the D.I.Y. culture that the city is know for, the video felt out of left field, stacked with skaters you likely never heard of, and spots you have never seen.
We had Adam track down its creator to talk about how Sanitizer came to be.
It has been ages since our last “Weekend Viewing” recommendation! And it’s more because we let up on a good habit, rather than there not being anything to send your way these past…four years.
QS is far from a transition-based media enterprise — the “Sup w those two skatepark clips in the top 10?” comment from last week’s #QSTOP10 is evidence of the fact that at least some of our readership mirrors the office’s focus on flatground backside flips and 40-year-old Spaniards doing fakie crooked grinds.
A lot of transition heroes’ greatest feats go over our heads, but there are obviously exceptions to the rule, e.g. we’ll run back any of Oski’s Instagram posts a half dozen times, and Jawn Gardner is currently the funnest to watch skater on earth. We’re not trying to be dickheads, it’s just something we didn’t come of age around. (Though we will confess there is a tiny bit of truth to Roctakon’s three-year-old observation that “nobody looks unhappier than people who are really good at skating transition.”)
Another welcome exception was Mike Chin’s part in Tucker Glasow and Tristan Brillanceau-Lewis‘ amazing new video, Portland Public Skating 2. Given our remedial grasp of transition skating, if granted a wish to inherit anybody’s skatepark abilities, we’d be partial to being able to skate Burnside like Mike Chin. The entire part could easily translate outside of a skatepark, but Chin’s fun versatility has long been a source of admiration among fellow Oregonians.
You can catch Portland Public Skating 2 in full here (features a fire Brent Atchley section, too.) Most people don’t know much about skating in the city apart from Burnside and those few Bledsoe ledge spots, so it is a nice survey of a place with a rich skate history that often gets overshadowed by the single most famous D.I.Y. park.
Been slow around here, as recent injuries have taken their toll on office morale, but December is always busy. QS holiday 2017 tees are now available at Supreme Soho and Brooklyn. Arriving at other shops this week and next. Online soonish?
Probably one of the most fried concepts for a recent skate video, but in the best way possible — Kyota Umeki filmed an entire skate video on a Nintendo 3DS with a fisheye taped to it. 90% of it is filmed within like, five blocks of the L.E.S. Park. I also have “Groove Is In The Heart” stuck in my head now, great.
The crew behind Newark’s Shorty’s spot (R.I.P.) was allotted a piece of land by the city, in which they have begun to build a bowl. They’re looking to raise money for supplies, concrete trucks, etc. to speed up the project. If you’ve been to Shorty’s even once, please donate whatever you can so they can continue forward with the Shorty’s spirit ♥
Bobby Worrest has a comprehesive interview with “The Nine Club,” with a detailed discussion re: the lost art of skate spot politics and east coast aversion to wax. (His favorite Bobby Worrest part is also “Looks Ok To Me.”)
QS Sports Desk: Imagine if the Knicks did a subtler trust the process-esque strategy instead of doubling-down on iso-Melo and then trying to force the triangle onto the modern NBA for the past decade? Eh.
Below is a quick video of our weekend trip to the land of Lunarlon, “Matt Beach did this here”-anecdotes (never forget), insanely good food, gorgeous mountain views, bad [face] tattoos, and strippers dancing to MF Doom.
Naturally, DS2 A.K.A. “That Dirty Spirit 2,” as it is known through Matt Perez’s Snapchat, did not leave the CD changer throughout the duration of the journey.
Features Finn, John Gardner, Cyrus Bennett, Dom Travis, Ty Lyons, Rob Sissi, Tyler Tufty. Video by Johnny Wilson, of Space Heater fame.
