San Juan | Quartersnacks

Weekend Viewing — Gang International’s ‘MOEFONGO’ Video

Daily News May 10th, 2024 · 1:48 pm

The first skateboarders who crystalized the concept of a “skate trip” must have known they stumbled onto gold. The hack of all hacks. Imagine a crew of friends bound together by playing basketball telling their girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses and bosses that they’re hopping on a plane to play basketball on this different court they reallllly wanna play on. How’s that gonna go?

But a crew of skateboarders?!

“Baby, it’s a SKATE TRIP!”

Imagine that same hypothetical crew of ballin’ ass friends coming back with highlights from their games filmed on a camera released in 1995 and edited to Gloria Estefan as justification for their time off?

But skaters? It seems that society has given us infinite leeway in that regard, provided that we come back with proof in the form on an edit.

Celebration Station

Daily News March 9th, 2020 · 12:00 am · 5

“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.”

In Continued Puerto Rican Excursions…

Daily News March 13th, 2014 · 5:07 am · 9

Photo via John1Wilson on Tumblr

If you need further evidence of Puerto Rico having become the northeast’s preferred winter getaway, here it is. New York’s most productive skate crew just got back from there with a four-minute clip, and you can probably assume they set aside a handful of clips for whatever the sequel to Beef Patty is going to be. “Empanada” is via Johnny Wilson and co., and the third “New York dudes in Puerto Rico” clip from the past month-and-a-half. (Previously: Iron Claw in P.R., Quartersnacks in P.R.)

Puerto Rico trips are not particularly new, they’re just very #now. For older evidence, here’s the P.R. section from the 2003 Zoo York tour video, City of Killers. Zered does a snowboard trick but on a skateboard in it, and there’s a Robert Lopez-Mont intro part from his brief stint on Zoo. Even though dude may be firmly planted in skate industry exile a la C-Fro, there wasn’t an hour that passed during our trip where one of the locals didn’t say “Oh, Robert did so-and-so insane trick here.” Just look at the hubba at the end of this clip…

Follow Johnny on Vimeo. ~~Why hasn’t the YG album leaked yet?~~ Who has a car?

72 Hours in San Juan

Features & Interviews · Video & Remixes January 24th, 2014 · 5:00 am · 2

“There are three lanes for driving in Puerto Rico: Slow, stoned and drunk.”

Going to San Juan for skateboard-related reasons isn’t exactly new. Mainland skateboard companies have been going there for years. However, it does seem that Puerto Rico trips have been occurring with greater frequency for northeasterners recently. Miami, the go-to northeastern getaway for someone uninterested in a L.A. trip, has been getting more blown out and tougher to skate. Unless you’re packing ten dudes in a van and driving 1,200 miles, travel to P.R. is not much different: an extra 45 minutes on a plane and roughly the same ticket price. As a result, you get to be on an island with warmer water, newer spots, fewer distractions, and best of all, you’re not in Florida.

Alexander Mosley & friends. Guest tricks from Billy Rohan, Ferni & Alberto. Alternate YouTube link.

San Juan is not very foreign. Everyone speaks English, your phone is going to work without any add-ons, there are Wal-Marts everywhere, and they use American currency. “Miami but tighter” became a common description throughout the trip. (That’s only pertinent to the skateboard-concerning side of things. Miami is far better for a variety of other extracurricular endeavors.)