It’s a wrap. Thanks everyone. See you in 2019 ♥
Past Editions: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
Tag: #tfreport
All Good Things Must…
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 ;)
Legends of the Spa
Four years after the Parks Department sabotaged the best obstacle at New York’s most famous still-standing skate spot, it has returned with a vengeance. Photo via Kyota.
It seems like we traded our annual office tradition of late posts on the Monday during Fashion Week for late posts on the Monday after Glory Challenge. No seasoned QS reader expected an on-time update today though, let’s be honest ;)
Before we get started, let’s talk about perseverance in the face of adversity. No matter what skate trick got away from you, what job interview didn’t call you back, what crush blocked your number…there is always hope. Even if it’s four years, and four broken boards later — maybe you too, one day, will be the recipient of a celebratory “oooohhhhh yeaaaaaahhh” from Alexis Lacroix. It is all a matter of patience and dedication.
FYI: Most remaining stuff in our webstore is on sale.
I know Vice articles about skateboarding tend to get a bad rap on the comments here, but this one is actually pretty good! Zach Harris on the “trend” of skateboarders not treating their bodies like garbage cans anymore. (Save everyone who spent the last three days in Montreal, I imagine.)
And on that note: “Will skateboarding’s notoriously rapid generational churn soon spur a backlash against sober, thoughtful life choices, and bring about a new era of ‘hammer’ tricks, illegitimate children and unpaid debt?” …probably?
Zered has an interview with Juxtapoz mag about his Paper Skaters project.
Village Psychic interrogates Nick Boserio about whether or not skating street on 60mm wheels is “cheating.” Try and read it in his voice.
Noted sweatpants engineer and our good friend Jimmy Gorecki has a nearly two-hour interview on The Nine Club.
Crazy Ass Paterson Skaters uploaded a 12-minute-long raw footy log.
It is wild how much the spot selection in even a skate heaven like Barcelona managed to change over the course of a decade. Tombo uploaded some old footage from a trip out there in 2005 with Puleo, a young Brandon Westgate, and others.
The Traffic team talks about riding a bus from Washington to New York with a pantless man who thought he was the Road Runner, and other stories from when they were filming for their last video.
New York resident Mark Suciu has a longform interview with North.
Here’s a new iPhone edit from Kyota.
Quote of the Week: “Speaking French is 10% pronunciation and 90% attitude.” — Young Lady Giving Impromptu French Lessons at Glory Challenge
Back To School Fashion Heatwave Week
The 2018 Brooklyn Banks. Photo via Bill.
Loved this addition to the recent trend of one-spot montages: “Mecca: A Everson Museum of Art Video” by Lukas Reed, which documents the life of the still-standing Syracuse, NY spot A.K.A. “Love Park if you squint.” Everything from the nostalgic landings in the shoveled out snow piles, to the circa-2002 internet titles/music supervision, to the unexpected Austyn Gillette cameo — the entire video is a fun watch. “Goodwine” is a sick last name.
Jesse Alba put together a montage with some footage he had leftover.
Max Palmer continues to be an honorary Atlantic Drifter via Jacob Harris’ Taipei one-off, “Stuck Inside a Film.”
“Crop Circles” is an amazing post-Love Philly/Pennsylvania/Delaware video that barely even has any Muni footage! Tons of seldom-seen spots, and some great skating from newer names.
Lispenard Street is #trending. Here’s “Mean Streets Volume 12” via LurkNYC. (See also that Cons Brazil clip from a few weeks ago.)
Nik Stain, Kyon Davis, and Casper Brooker skate Southbank together.
Shout out to everyone being themselves. The Bunt’s latest is with Sinner.
Here’s Nate Grzechowiak’s part from the Buffalo-based Jeb video (still a good bit of city footage.)
#TFreport: Kyota made an all-Tompkins montage thanks to all the N.Y. Ramp Co. obstacles + another non-T.F. montage last week.
Canal Wheels put together a quick clip from the long steps portion of Borough Hall to last year’s Sahbabii even though we got new Sahbabii last week :)
Watching Paris footage and not being in Paris is kinda how I imagine people going through relationship shit feel when they listen to Drake. Here’s montage #35 from the POP Trading boys, filmed during the last #PFW.
Boil the Ocean on the future of the whole “skateboarders are the original gentrifiers” thing.
Aquemini turns 20 this month, so here is a spottieottiedopaliscious 4-Star tradeshow promo from 1998.
We’re going to start issuing an annual “Non-Skate Journalism” award on QS each December, and this is the frontrunner: Toronto spent $31 million dollars effectively skate-stopping trash cans, but for raccoons looking to eat garbage — only for the raccoons to conquer the trashcan lock mechanism that was said to be “impossible” for them to open (poor guys don’t have thumbs!) If you — as a skateboarder — can’t relate to this tale of raccoon prosperity in the face of drudging humans trying to keep them from having fun, then you are a heartless coward.
Quote of the Week: “I wouldn’t wish a week in North Hollywood on anyone.” — Jesse Alba
Good luck with the school year ♥
Banned From Malmö
Photo via The Shady One
Not quite sure why the willy grind has been making a comeback as of late, but there’s a lot of good stuff in Brandon Gironda’s part via the Westchester County-based PFP5 video (ender is wild) + an accompanying Q & A with Mike Sassano about the long-running video series.
Austyn Gillette with four minutes of L.E.S. Park footage you’ll actually want to watch the whole way through. Had to throw that tune on mute tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“When people are in public spaces or people are walking through public space…They conceive it as a kind of as a private property. Do you understand what I mean? So it’s like, ‘this is for this…Look there’s a bench here and it’s clearly meant for people who have shopped in that store to come here and eat this kind of fucking sandwich…’ They have a certain kind of possessive sense of everything.” — The always insightful Ocean Howell, with your #longread for the week via an interview about *shock* how skateboarders interact with public space in 2018.
We’re holding an editor’s meeting first thing this morning to see if it is possible to do a skateboard version of this New York mag article: “The Oral History of Four Loko in New York. A lot of cancelled following day sessions, and a lot of unnecessary nights in bookings coincided with this era writ large.
Gang Corp has a four-minute montage from their trip out to L.A. and S.F. + a new teaser for their upcoming video, Black Business.
Kyota made another video filmed exclusively on a Nintendo DS, aptly entitled DS2000. Includes a full Chris Milic part, who also has a bunch of fried tricks in this Frog Las Vegas trip montage.
ICYMI: Cyrus, Bobby Worrest, Challex Olson + others ripped through that Texas/Oklahoma/Mississippi part of country with Nike SB.
Two Brazilians came through and filmed his five minute shared New York part during that one magical week when the planters were moved away from the CBS Ledge. I know GX got all you psyched, but everyone please be careful filming in traffic, for the love of God.
Hopps rider Dustin Eggeling has a handful of New York clips in his new quick part for Live.
“I didn’t really receive shit out of it other than 11-16 year-olds hating me. Now that they’re 23 and they finally meet me, they tell me I’m a nice guy.” Love Skate Mag has an interview with Lurker Lou.
…anndd Skate Jawn has a new interview with Josh Kalis.
……aaaaaannnnnddddd Jim Thiebaud — someone who has received death threats over board graphics — has some thoughts for the “leave politics out of skateboarding” crowd.
Interviewing skaters alongside their moms could actually be a good interview series idea.
Quote Tweet of the Week:
(On that note, you might want to check out Stefan Janoski’s stop motion short film, “God I Need A Girlfriend.”)
Always loved how this clip came out, and remember lots of good times filming while for it. Rest in peace Miss Aretha ♥