A wider net for skate interviews this past week than the typical guys talking about their first sponsor type of thing — 1)The Wall Street Journalinterviewed Beatrice Domond. There’s a pay-wall involved, but it seems like they let you rock on one free article. 2) “I just really like New York.” Elissa Steamer interviewed Alexis Sablone for Thrasher. 3)Skateisminterviewed Forrest Kirby, in what I believe is his first interview since he publicly came out last year.
“Are we already in the Matrix?” Skate Jawninterviewed Jawn Gardner about astrology, the afterlife and time travel + they also have a quick one with Kyota that includes some rad photos.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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 Loveclosureanniversarycoverage), 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.
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.
Kingpininterviewed 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.
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 twoparts. 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.
