Ruben Spelta’s ‘Mamma Mia’ Part

We first met Ruben on a QS family trip to Italy back in 2016. Milan has a tight-knit and friendly skate scene — it feels like a lot of it revolves around Milano Centrale and the Chef Family crew. He and his friends were kind enough to show us around their city when we summoned the willpower to leave an absolutely perfect plaza spot. When a spot is that good, you willfully forget that the whole “exploring the city”-thing is a big part of skate trips. (Colleagues echo our sentiments.)

We visited Milan again a year later. On the train-ride into Centrale (yes, the train from the airport drops you off at Italy’s best skate spot), I remembered out loud, “Oh, I should probably DM Ruben and let him know we’re coming.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll already be there,” a mutual friend replied.

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We Ain’t Dropped A Clip In A Long Time — End of Summer 2018 Montage!

Once upon a time, we went years without breaking the annual tradition of End of Summer clips posted right before each Labor Day Weekend.

Then, we were lead astray. To give you some context, the last time we posted one, it was to a Rich Homie Quan song in 2015, and not long after, he devastatingly walked out of our lives never to be heard from again.

Some might say we were too busy indulging in the finer things life has to offer at the expense of time spent on a skateboard. Others blame Instagram for cannibalizing the footage economy, i.e. how often do you see a run of the mill city montage getting uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo these days that isn’t a longform project promoting something or a trip clip? Like, who makes clips over sixty seconds just for the sake of it anymore?

…we do! At least we’re trying to again! Because montages are fun! You get to use more than sixty seconds of a song you like! You don’t have to hoard footage for twelve months waiting for everyone to get their parts together! It’s way more fun than uploading shit to an IG story and getting a bunch of praying hands emojis in your DMs! Montages have vibes! Montages are memories! Montages are beautiful!

Following the start of this year’s summer solstice — amidst the build-out of this snazzy new redesign — we made a resolution to start bringing the #RealCamera™ out all the time. Also, we were still reeling for the devastating loss of Final Cut 7; we had to get with the times and figure out how the hell to use Premiere. August was hindered by a bit of a nagging health issue, but as a bonus, we mixed in the footage from the two-and-a-half days we spent in Prague because there were never any concrete plans for it. (So, it’s basically a July 2018 montage.)

We’d like to extend a special individual thank you to Antonio Durao for keeping everyone hyped this summer, because without him, there’s no way this clip would exist. (You’ll see.) Contributing filmers: Jesse Alba & Emilio Cuilan.

Features Antonio Durao, Daniel Kim, John Francomacaro, Conor Prunty, Connor Kammerer, Chris Milic, Brian Brown, Myles Gable, Hjalte Halberg, Ruben Spelta, Anton Juul.

Who knows, maybe we get real wild and drop a Christmas clip this year too ♥

The Shape of Tompkins

This is so cute. Shout out to any pro that’s ever sent a handwritten letter.

Rockstar pull up no guitar.

Contagiously good-vibed human and skater, Jawn Gardner, has a new part over on Thrasher, in addition to a part in the newly uploaded Creature video at the 18:10 mark.

Gino Iannucci asks “Who’s going around skating in a $400 sweater?” in his Monster Children feature about restarting Poets as a brand. I gotta introduce him to Troy, though I think his shit is a good bit over $400 ;)

Real re-issued some old Huf boards and has a bit of a feature on him over on their site + clean versions of all his parts. Slam City Skates also interviewed him about Ari Marcopolis’ iconic Metropolitan ad photography. (We talked to Huf about some of his favorite snaps back in 2015 in the event you need even more Huf content hehe.)

“I kind of wonder how I had so much nerve to do some of those graphics.” This is nine months old, but shout to Palomino for just linking it — an hour-long interview with Mark McKee that gives insight into the wild west era of skateboard graphics.

Genny hits Club Liv and a bunch of triangle manny pads in his latest iPhone edit.

Only like 10 people are gonna know what this means, but this feels like a 2018 SuchAGood clip.

Solo interviewed perennial #QSTOP10 fave and Milano Centrale MVP, Ruben Spelta on the occasion of their “THREEE” videos. Thanks for the shout out bro ♥

Huck has posted some iffy articles about skateboarding in the past, but this one about a Bristol D.I.Y. spot and the general rise of skater-made spaces is an a-ok quick read.

Interesting time capsule: a “lost” Alex Olson interview from 2012.

Boil the Ocean on “a mile-long backside tailslide and, perhaps in tribute to Dan Pageau’s freshly funded legacy, a switchstance trip down the fearsome El Toro.”

A lot of smiles in this jazzy nu-age Miami edit from the Andrew Skateshop crew.

Spot Updates1) The Banks are *officially* a no-go again. 2) Not sure how recent this is, but to nobody’s surprise, BAM 3 got knobbed.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Lebron James what the fuck omg.

Quote of the Week: “Remember when you showed up to Johnny Wilson’s house and forced him to watch a Pat Laflamme part?” — Zach Baker to ET

Rest in peace Bankroll Fresh, get well soon Ricky Ross, everybody else please take good care of yourselves, and skateboard and laugh with your friends as much as you possibly can yaknow ♥

“I remember when dinner depended on my fishing rod” is one of the greatest things a rapper has ever said.

U Bum Links

Photo via Brian Caissie

As long as you walk outside and hear “waaaaaa waaa waaa” coming from car speakers every thirty seconds, the summer is going to keep getting extended. This Insta remix of QS office fave, Ruben Spelta, should help you stay stoked for the rest of the week — though why not use, like, an actual M.J. song. Euros, man.

New York is a big place and it’s always refreshing to watch videos dominantly filmed outside of the L.E.S. Park/Williamsburg/Columbus Park groupthink bubble. Angel Fonseca’s new 17-minute video, “Stay Fufu,” chronicles the extended fam of all the locals at the Bronx Courthouse.

This is the exact opposite of Dime’s “Speed Challenge.”

German fashion and art mag, 032c, profiled Jason Dill and Fucking Awesome.

A question that has gently been whispered among conspiracy theorists for years now: Did the United States government fake Tony Hawk landing the 900?

“As I watched I began to wonder if he had any right to film and share what he did. Then I remembered his tenure in LOVE, his legacy of videos, and what it’s like to be a skateboarder in a space.” Nice to have another skate website with actual words on it in this day and age. Our bud Adam Abada started a site called Stoke of the Week, which is, simply put, a weekly log of what single skate video got him psyched that past week. The first edition is re: Brian Panebianco’s “Love Park Photographer” short.

..aanndd here’s a teaser for Chris Mulhern’s upcoming Love Park doc, “15th & JFK.”

Transworld interviewed the nerd behind Bob Shirt.

Fred Gall and Taji ventured out to an abandoned building in New Jersey that contains a natural full pipe. Avid QS readers might find it familiar ;)

A French New Wave rendition of a “Summer Trip to New York” montage. Or something? And some guys from Spokane did a …Summer Trip to New York™.

A 8mm film test montage in New York with some familiar faces and a song I muted after .3 seconds, but I’m partial to any Skooly and Thug collaboration, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

QS Sports Desk: Shout out Lebron. Sorry for rooting against you so many times. #2011mavs4ever. (Don’t read the replies unless you want your blood to boil.)

Quote of the Week:

So stoked that the Muska Epicly Later’d and the Tom Cruise coke movie drop the same week :)

Summer Moodboard — The QS Office’s Five Most-Watched* Video Parts of Summer 2017

Artist Unknown
The Pledge, 2017
Spraypaint on cement
426.7 cm × 137.16 cm (160 in × 54 in)

Summer requires no extra motivation to go skateboard with your friends (bringing that camera out…that’s another topic.) Short of going to Tribeca Park, we’re all perfectly willing to go anywhere, skate flat, watch someone good try something hard, look at girls, and skate more flat on any day with tolerable humidity. On the eve of September 1st, we felt we’d give a nod to the parts that gave that additional jolt to get out there and maybe do something extra. The *asterisk is for the fact that we are obviously avoiding the summer bangers. (More on that next month.)

Three of these are from the Free site, which is admittedly, our most oft-visited #competitive #skateboard #media #outlet. They won’t let you embed their videos externally, so follow the links above the .gifs to watch the parts yaknow.

Ruben Spelta — Another Meaningless Video

Ruben is an Instagram must-follow — when else in history has a boardslide on a foot-and-a-half high ledge left your iPhone screen and entered human conversation for the next several days? Ruben’s part in our friend Matteo’s video is a bit tuned-back with the #fits that pervade his current reportage from Milano Centrale, but features all the same hallmarks of his improvisational skating. He doesn’t look like he attempts a single trick that won’t flow naturally, and made a 5050 nollie backside 180 look as stylish as its more commonly-seen front truck counterpart. Him and his friends were in New York these past several weeks, and I can’t remember the last time the office has so anxiously awaited a “Summer Trip to New York” edit to make its way online.

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