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Congrats to Jason on the pro board ♥

Chrystie NYC’s first full-length video, Chapter One in now live on Thrasher. Features an ender part from Aaron Herrington, a bunch of footage of that dude Kuae Cosa who’s been popping up in Cons edits, the up-close angle of the other way ollie at the Crosby Street Vespa Bump… and that ride-on grind at LaGuardia High School is insane.

As far as “concept parts” go, filming one entirely on cobblestone spots is a bold undertaking.

On the opposite end of the texture spectrum, Village Psychic made a montage only at playground spots around New York, and reminded us of why we don’t do remix videos without skate audio anymore.

“The guys in the video don’t give a fuck about the American industry anymore. We were also all listening to a lot of Tupac at the time and getting kicked out of spots in Cali, then jumping into the van and blasting that Tupac song kind of cemented it.” Ok then. Free has a full retrospective on one of the seminal skate video imports of the 2000s, Lordz’ They Don’t Give A Fuck About Us (and answers the question we were asking a lot back in 2013: what happened to William Phan?

Steve Mastorelli made a rad Silvester Eduardo remix. Actually missed a bunch of this footage before. Syracuse nollie flip was sick.

Jake Johnson v.s. The Louvre. Still holding out for Chris Pfanner v.s. The Met one day.

These Bunt episodes are getting pretty long. Kerry Getz is the latest guest. Love a level-headed, smart former pro. Shame that the angry, “everyone screwed me over” curmudgeon types tend to get all the attention though.

Theories uploaded what will be the final installment of the Elkin raw tapes series, and Tombo uploaded #9 of his raw deals series in the event that you need some VX footage from a long time ago to go along with your morning coffee ;)

Copenhagen and Malmö still got Paris beat on the whole “skateable obstacles integrated in public spaces but not exactly skateparks”-thing, but yeah! What they said! But for New York! Would trade like 3-4 New York skateparks for just that little red plaza on the side street in Berlin.

Paper has a quick feature on Skate Mamis, a collective of girls doing cool shit in Puerto Rico.

Aaron Herrington and Mark Suciu go on an artsy cruise around Lower Manhattan.

The Sabotage crew is releasing another video in 2020.

Ricardo Napoli’s new video, Ciao is premiering in Williamsburg, next Monday, April 8. Flyer + more info here. Teaser can be found here.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Tyshawn’s T.F. West part on the big screen at Barclays.

Quote of the Week
Charles Rivard: “He skates like he’s on coke, and parties like he’s on weed.”
Rob Harris: “More like he skates like he wishes he had friends.”

Frozen in Carbonite Presents — Song of the Summer x Video Part of the Summer 2017: The Summer of Angst

Words by Frozen in Carbonite

I turned 40 this summer. Eschewing a crazy-ass party, trip or any other type of midlife crisis-type behavior, I kept it mellow and went out to my local™ bar. Street skating over forty is unknown territory, but if you manage to stay fit, there’s what I call the Reggie Miller Effect: one’s physique remains essentially static, but one’s capabilities — whether because of reflexes or vision deteriorating — decline exponentially. It’s all about managing expectations. 360 flips might flip slower than in the past, but maybe one adds backside nosegrind reverts on small ledges to the repertoire. Other summer activities function in a similar manner; one might not be able to make it to OVO Fest, but maybe one could chill at one of those tiny New York hotel pools with a bag of tequila taped to one’s thigh.

This #frame gives one hope heading into the fall A.K.A. skate season. Indeed, while this may be the first S.O.T.S. x V.P.O.T.S. post without a part from an according-to-Hoyle physical release, at press time, we were still digesting the 917 and Traffic vids, plus anticipating the release of Sabotage 5. So with an eye towards hoody season, let’s take a look back at the songs and video parts that fueled summer ’17.

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They Destroyed Love a Year Ago

rip love park

It has been just over a year since Philadelphia destroyed history’s most serendipitous intersection of skateboarding and public space — a place people risked losing appendages to skate one last time. We carried plenty of fresh wounds into 2017, so picking at Love Park’s irreversible end serves no purpose beyond masochism. With there still being a surplus of footage from the Sabotage dudes et al. (who were actually the main masochistic outlet for Love closure anniversary coverage), it’s easy to forget that it has already been a year.

Memory Screen coincidentally uploaded this collection of Kalis clips from Love today (though they left out my favorite five seconds of a skate video maybe ever.) Much like people in our age group only know Embarcadero from THPS and scholarly types pointing us in the direction of old Carroll footage, every generation from hereon-out will know Love through images and stories. There isn’t an abridged version of the spot to go back to and mentally fill in the blanks — like the Banks after the planters and benches were installed, or Southbank after it was cut in half. As the park dawns closer to its new reality as a grassy crack colony, its original form drifts further into clips like these. You’d think all associated images had been committed to firm memory by now, but I actually have no idea where the clip of the switch front blunt / switch backside flip line is from, nor do I think I have ever seen it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Shout out Edmund Bacon. You deserve a bronze statue at a sick spot in a city that’s not as stubborn as Philadelphia.

Related: The Love Park Story, Teaser for Sabotage 5

One Step Above Garbage

curbz

They painted the curbs here yellow, and now it’s the second or third best spot in the city that you don’t get kicked out of. Paint more stuff yellow.

Can’t remember the last time a montage got me as psyched as “Faces,” the new one from Ben Chadourne, featuring the Blobys, Bobby Worrest, Hjalte, etc. These videos have a remarkable way of making Paris look like the funnest place in the world (which it probably is), even in the winter. The Rod Stewart is also perfect.

“As tennis’ stars age, will aping skateboarding provide an elixir of youthful advertising audiences or will tennis’ wealthy overlords catch onto the notion that a sizable bulk of pro shoes and contract dollars are tied up in veteran pros whose salad grinding days of filming feature length video parts may lie years in the past?” — Boil the Ocean re: skateboarding’s current infatuation with tennis. Frozen in Carbonite also tackled this subject four years ago following Gino’s Mcenroe commercial et al.

Kingpin interviewed Nick Von Werssowetz about his new company, Hotel Blue and the evolution of LurkNYC. Part 3 of Lurk’s “Mean Streets” series is also now live.

The Bunt has a tell-all interview with Darren Harper. Daniel Kim is my fave skater too.

Whoa is this the first wear test video to feature the Le Bain hot tub? Is that even the Le Bain hot tub? Ripped Laces x Canal Wheels give the Brad Cromer Huf pro model a try.

Given that 2016 marks the twenty-year anniversary of everything from Welcome to Hell, to E.E. 3 to Mouse, SMLTalk has a retrospective of all the seminal 1996 videos in two parts. Also kinda hard to disagree that Tincan Folklore was a precursor to a lot of the shit going on in videos today, even moreso than its exalted predecessor.

After the demise of Love, the Sabotage boys took a southern trip hitting a string of the few remaining plazas left in the U.S: Pulaski, Raleigh Courthouse, Legislative (safe to say this is probably the best spot in the country at this point?), Blackbox, etc.

The 917 team dropped a midwest tour video in anticipation of their Nike collab.

“Pure Moods” is a new half New York / half S.F. montage from Waylon Bone.

NY Skateboarding posted part three of their Huf interview, which discusses the rebirth of Metropolitan Wheels, the Marc Johnson v.s. Choc beef, etc.

Um, Ghetto Child Wheels is making a comeback, with almost the same team. And the god Peter Smolik already left the rebooted Menace before the reboot even got to booting in order pursue his own skateboard business venture. Godspeed to the god.

Quote of the Week
Pryce Holmes: “I probably spend $30,000 a year on booze.”
Ben Blundell: “I’ve never made over ten.”

An Interview With Jamal Smith

WorldChampion_Jamal

Photo by Nathan Éthier-Myette

Words by Zach Baker

Becoming a professional skateboarder seems pretty tough. You have to get really good at it, but it’s not about who’s the best. Everyone is too good for us to tell the difference at this point. The people who sustain themselves in skateboarding the longest are those with charisma and moxie — “something else.”

Jamal Smith has been exemplary in this regard, pretty much since the invention of YouTube. He finessed himself into the public eye with the Tornado Spin trick tip ten years ago. But, as evidenced by his Sabotage 4 opener, the new Palace clip, his pre-Glory Challenge pseudo-prize fighter Instagram campaign, and most importantly, getting on Stingwater, the dude has been especially feeling it as of the past year or so. I checked in with him outside of the Glory Challenge trying to roll a joint in the wind. He had just suffered a heart-wrenching loss to Wade Desarmo — but he was fine with it. His phone was blowing the fuck up. They both won.

+++++++

You just skated against defending titleholder Wade Desarmo in the the Dime World Championship Game of S.K.A.T.E. What was it like going into that for you?

It’s all about theatrics. At the end of the day, if you can put on a good show, it doesn’t matter who comes in first or last. But I mean, of course I wanted that $150,000 or whatever the fuck these Dime niggas are joking about. I was nervous as fuck though. I know I can’t kickflip and this nigga has all the kickflips.

When you saw the kickflip, what was going through your mind?

It was like everything went in slow motion. I felt every drop of sweat running down my face, I saw all the reactions, all the eyes on me. I had to turn inward, and I knew I was fucked.

You rattled off a couple tricks, right?

Yeah, because I’m that nigga. You spin to win. Unfortunately, I didn’t win.

Do you hope to battle him again next year?

Hell no. I’m just trying to smoke everybody else’s weed and watch motherfuckers huck their bodies down the biggest gaps onto swords and numchucks.

You live in Philadelphia?

Yeah, I’m originally from Ohio. I lived there until I was like 11. Then I lived in Massachusetts, and I lived in Ithaca [New York] after that.

Why’d you move around?

My mom passed when I was 11. I was a ward of the state, which meant I had no legal guardian and I had to stay in Ohio until I found someone who would take care of me. At the time, my sister was living in Massachusetts and took me in. I lived in Northampton, some weird little area in Western Massachusetts.

Did you start skating there?

Yeah, I want to say that I was maybe 14 when I started to really get into it. 11 to 13, I was on my Rocket Power shit, riding rollerblades, bikes, whatever the fuck, I didn’t care.

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