“That could have been me.” The Guardian spoke to several Black skateboarders — including our dear friend Aaron Wiggs, along with Harold Hunter Foundation chair + architect of The Black List, Patrick Kigongo — about their experiences in the shadow of Tyre Nichols’ murder at the hands of police.
Columbus Circle continues to enjoy its reign as the spot of the winter: Christian Kerr just dropped an edit with a days’ worth of Columbus footage, and yes, you get to see Gabe Tennen shred in it! It’s a foregone conclusion someone is going to drop a one-spot part from there by May, right?
HUF uploaded a raw footy diary of a cross-country road trip with Mason Silva, which includes much of the Spitfire part. The New York portion runs from ~6:55 through the end. It’s rad to see him pay tribute to Jake Johnson Mind Field-era spots, and they do a good job of showing why that West Houston Street hubba was an NBD for so long.
Anybody selling hard goods can attest to the “skateboard boom” that began in the lockdown months. People who had not picked up a board in years because life got in the way were buying new completes because, like, wtf else was there to do?
But what about those who never let life entirely get in the way of skating? For them, this past spring was a tidal wave of free time that no gainfully employed adult skateboarder thought they would experience until they were retired with bad knees. It was a pass to be 17 again, at least for a bit.
As outlined in 2019’s outing, Josh has been on a half-decade streak of filming parts mostly on his two days off from work a week. For a sizable chunk of 2020, there was no work, so this year’s is an extended edition — complete with cameos from some extended QS family members who haven’t popped up in an edit for deep.
Edited by Eric Cruz. Appearances from Connor Champion, Kevin Tierney, Troy Stilwell, Zach Baker, Kadeem Walters, Ty Lyons, Meatball, Ryan Santiago, Cyrus Bennett, Haffa, Antonio Durao, Ron Parker.
Frame via Mehring. Sorry that Rob’s a bit blurry. Hate hate HATE that Instagram replaced Tumblr for things that Tumblr was way better at doing, e.g. not compressing skate photos into goddamn 700px size, but then again, I’m sure someone was going on about the same thing when all the mags were going under, so…
The first Blobys edit in over a year! This one got a good deal of burn these past few days. Roman Gonzalez is the all-time leading scorer of making visual poetry out of tricks nobody else is getting away with :)
Lurker Lou premiered his new part — filmed entirely in purple Adidas Campus shoes he kept finding in Cape Cod Marshall’s locations — on a box truck decked out with L.E.D. screens this past weekend. Village Psychic made a video profile with Lou about his footwear-based artwork over on their site.
“Colombia, huh.” Then come the sly smiles. There’s obvs no shortage of shithead Americans going to Colombia to be shitheads, but in all honesty, we weren’t going for shithead-related endeavors. We were trying to get out of the cold. It was three degrees outside the day we left.
Remember that 2012 S.O.T.Y. award? The one after Pretty Sweet? People thought Guy Mariano should’ve had it as the final victory to a tremendous redemption narrative, and for like, laser heelflipping out of a smith grind — for whatever reason he deemed that necessary to perform. A young Colombian man who was Possessed to Skate™ ended up getting it. He was the first Latin American to get it (right?), and the first non-American winner since Arto in 2001.
Why are we talking about S.O.T.Y? Well, when we went to Colombia for the first time in 2016, we went to Gonzalez’ neighborhood park. That guy is a god out there. He passed his possessed-ness off to thousands of Colombian kids, because this time around, it was obvious that skateboarding and its culture had become even bigger in Medellín. That one somewhat random S.O.T.Y. win had a massive impact in spreading skateboarding globally, even if we didn’t feel it in the States.
The plaza gods also blessed Medellín with an incredible plaza a little over a year ago. Parque Chimineas could best be described as if J-Kwon and Sants (had it not been bashed to shit over the years) had a baby, and already fueled its share of progression. That place alone is worth airfare + a five hour flight, and a bit more ~exotic~ than your run-of-the-mill New York winter escape destinations.
Watermelon Alex has been living down there for months, and Dre is seemingly an honorary Colombian. A second visit was much overdue. Can’t think of any other place I’ve traveled to where $200 lasts over a week. Also, that near-equator sun will have you in bed by 11 P.M., asleep deeper than you could’ve ever imagined. Thanks Alejo, Mateo and Alvarez for showing us around ♥
