No matter how much has gone down on the world’s most famous white marble, there’s no way to overstate the hidden power of simply… skating it (or any well-worn spot, for that matter.) If that “Trick History” clip from Milano Centrale proved anything, it’s that after a while, gunning for some N.B.D. over the grate just starts to blend together with the last guy’s trick.
Bad (obvious?) news out of the way first: Sadly continuing our recent bad habit of no Christmas clip for the year. Blame it on the weather, blame it on life, blame it on Instagram. Rest of the Year in Review countdown up shortly today, and still got a “Best of 2018” montage to upload ♥
Monster Children has a photo feature by Ben Colen with a bunch of shots from Supreme’s “BLESSED” video. Looking at those two Sage photos side-by-side is a nice visual cue.
Boil the Ocean began its annual countdown of the year’s ten best video parts, which is always a good source for some under the radar choices.
Figured we’d get one more “what the actual fuck” trick before the year was out.
I know what you’re thinking! “Oh no, not another podcast!” But but but, the difference here is that it is refreshing to hear a) a woman interview a pro skater, and b) a skateboarder have to dig a bit deeper than “how I came up” and tour stories to relay what they do to a non-skater. Listen to Jerry Hsu on the first episode of the “Dig” podcast.
Pretty much everyone who uses the #skatetwitter hashtag got together, wrote individual things about their favorite skater to watch in 2018, and nobody mentioned Tiago Lemos. Ok, guys.
Speaking of the best skaters, here’s an Ishod Wair x Michael Jordan remix.
Not local, but wow is this part great: Shogo Zama for VHS Mag. Japanese skaters have this particular ability to flow in lines that is unlike anything else out there.
“Anomaly” via Skate Jawn is another entry in an already stacked roster of upstate New York vids to come out this year.
Every time I see footage of the Empire State Plaza spot, I feel a lil’ bit dumber for not taking the trip up there at least once this past summer. See it in “Frank & Ted’s 2018,” filmed pretty much all over the northeast and in Barcelona.
New York Related Stuff on Thrasher ICYMI: Frankie Spears’ part obvs has a bunch of clips from the city, and this “No Hotels” video does too. Hope Bob was ok with drop-in on the spot he found ;)
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: It’s so wild that Ron Baker gets cut from the Knicks, signed to another team despite sending all his shit from New York back to his hometown, and is now a Vegas favorite for 2019 NBA Finals MVP.
Quote of the Week
Zhu: “It’s hard for me to get in the habit of stretching.”
Conor: “Yeah, it’s hard for me to do anything…besides like, smoke weed.”
We don’t normally post gospel music on here, but felt it was appropriate for the holidays ♥
All the stuff from the longest T.F. obstacle run in the spot’s history is gone, as of last week. Sometimes you need to cleanse your palette so new flavors can flourish, and we’re excited to see what sort of debris tumbles into Tompkins for 2019. (Still kind of curious about how they let us rock for AN. ENTIRE. SUMMER. — softball leagues and all — then finally decided to get rid of it in…November? Not complaining though.)
“Nevertheless, the same 2018 skateboarding memes exist in each city. Wherever you go there will be the body varial guy. Someone, eyes closed, will spin their board one handed above a precipice. It is now universally accepted that baggy pants give you the illusion of having more grace on a skateboard, you simply have to be very good to throw the right shapes in skinny jeans. There will always be a bottle tosser.” — LOVED this. Daryl Mersom offers up some observations on skateboarding via his travels in post-Soviet Eastern Europeans counties. We out to Estonia, and shout out to apple trees.
Watermelonism has a new clip up from a wallie jam at Parque Las Chimeneas A.K.A. Colombian J-Kwon, and Alex has a bunch of new gear up on his site, Watermelonism.com.
Good vibes, some wild tricks (that Battery Park City pop-over into the rock wall…), and a profound dedication to Three Up Three Down that even exceeds our own in Stephen Ostrowski’s wonderful “Ether” video.
“Someone told me you got into a fight with Wu-Tang a while back?” To follow-up the jump ramp story, Mackenzie uploaded the full audio of his ~15-year-old interview with Macaulay Culkin’s friend, Harold Hunter.
Skate Jawn interviewed Josh Stewart (yeah, I wish Keith skated more too…), and Josh Stewart interviewed Steve Brandi.
Mobster Children paid a visit to Jahmal Williams’ art studio.
Vice has a profile on Supreme on the eve of the “BLESSED” release. The video is due out this Friday btw.
Wasn’t expecting Theories to post a video that had 6ix9ine songs and crooked grind nollie front foot flips in it, but 2018 has been all about expanding your horizons, yaknow. “Legana” is a 20-minute video from a Peruvian skate crew that’s 50% filmed in New York.
Grey interviewed J.B. Gillet about his favorite plazas, and he made me want to get a coffee bean chain.
Boil the Ocean takes issue with Palace picking on Alien and Habitat circa 2018.
And on that note, The Atlantic has a wild article about why we’re all not hooking up enough. (There’s a SoundCloud embed on there that you can listen to in the event you don’t want to read a 10,000 word article about not having sex.)
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Looks like the whole Philly thing worked out for Jimmy Butler. Sheesh.
Quote of the Week:
— Slicky Boy
Recently went out for dinner in a place that had no real traces of being a skater-run establishment, but for whatever reason, they were playing Pretty Sweet. None of us had watched it in full since roughly around the time it came out. Two things became obvious: that we’re okay with not seeing it in full for another five years (…sorry), and that Kenny Anderson had fire footage in that video, which seemed to float under the radar during its initial release. The whole “it’s a *normal* Marc Johnson part!”- narrative kind of took the reigns when Pretty Sweet dropped, but Kenny really did have the best bits of the video as far as Girl’s 30-years+ riders at the time were concerned.
We were gassing up this Tennyson remix hard back when it first dropped, but you should give it a whirl if you haven’t in a while. It’s the best part from Pretty Sweet ;)
Photo by Jared Sherbert
Keeping an almost three-year-long video under wraps — especially in the social media age — is next to impossible. Except all things considered, nobody really knows what to expect from Supreme’s upcoming “BLESSED” video, which comes at the tail end of a year already stacked with incredible full-lengths. We tried to extract as much as we could from Bill about the process behind the video, the legacy of the last one, and where they had to go from there.
Skateboarding seems like it moves faster each year. Between “cherry” and today, has any change in skating really surprised you?
I don’t know if much has changed in skating. All the social media stuff was going off when we were doing “cherry” already. It’s so crazy to make a video like this for two-and-a-half years, watching all these other videos come out while you’re filming it. You’ve got so much more to think about. Before, you weren’t worried about if somebody is gonna do tons of psycho shit at the spot that you just filmed something at before you have a chance to put it out.
Would you be watching new videos with that in mind?
Yeah, before the next trick comes up, I’ll be thinking, “This dude looks like he would skate the same kind of shit we were at.” Now, even if somebody posts of a photo of a spot, people might see it and think, “Oh, I forgot about that spot, let’s go there tomorrow.” We were skating this one spot for a while, and all of a sudden, somebody hit me up, like, “Dude, no one’s skated that shit for six years, and since you guys are skating it, people are trying to film there.”
Why do you think that happens? I’ll see it, too. A spot will have been sitting there forever, one guy tries, and it’s like, “Oh, you get 20 minutes,” then it’s in every video. It’s like a collective consciousness thing.
I don’t know, and I’m more into going to classic shit, you know? Like, if I’m going to L.A., I want to hit the school yards. In 15 or 20 years, people will still recognize those spots: “Courthouse, that’s New York, schoolyards are L.A.” They are going to rip out the little things that people hit, but in 30 years, those are going to still be here. I want what I make to last a long time. I’ve seen gnarly parts come out, but I just don’t like the spots.
This is probably the first-ever single post on here dedicated to a minute-long teaser with one skate trick in it, but if analytics are any guide, “BLESSED” is the most searched-for skate video Google referral we have gotten on here maybe ever. The teaser features all the familiar faces you’d expect + Rowan Zorilla and some French additions that weren’t in “cherry” since they had yet to make a Parisian expansion back in 2014. Seems like it’s all feel good vibes now that everyone grew out of the teen angst from four years ago ;) Only grievance is there wasn’t a Who Kid cameo.
Video due out via everyone’s least-favorite cryptic release date: “soon.”
