Unknobbing Rails on the Run

Lebron is battling Carmelo in the NBA Playoffs …in August, and Nas made a new song with Foxy Brown, AZ and Cormega. Who really knows what fucking year it actually is, what’s going on — or anything, really.

Incredible manuals, great spots, and chic skate noises in Japhey Dow’s Heirloom part, which traverses all around New York state.

“If skateboarding is the quilt and all of these other interests that make up so much of skateboarding, if those things are the patches, just keep adding patches.” Sage Elsesser interviewed Ray Barbee for Thrasher.

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2 G’s On Salads

“‘You had all these planners and architects in the 1950s and 60s saying cities need these grand, celebratory spaces — and they really didn’t.’ But apparently skaters did.” Curbed has an awesome feature about how some odious, post-WWII federal legislation ultimately lead to the creation of the sorts of public plazas that would prove to be the breeding ground of modern skateboarding.

“That might be a trick that’s been done, but it’s done differently…and with different pants on.” Vice has a video profile of Breezy and Una about growing up being two of the few girls skating in Vancouver.

The new Bluecouch edit starts in CT and ends in the city. Some rad stuff in there.

The Finnish guys who made the Hard Water video that went live on the Free site last week actually also put together a trip to New York edit that we only now caught onto. Love a vacation edit when the trees are bare + everyone is still in hoodies, though I’m sure it’s warmer than Helsinki. Also impressed by their cobblestone deterrent that keeps your board from rattling down into Sutton Place traffic.

Maybe it goes through a vigorous off-screen sanitizing process — but one’s bed seems like a bad place to sort through street debris. Anyway, here is an eight-minute glimpse into the life of Bobby Puleo.

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Dear Winter

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 ♥

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

Fall Thru Like It’s August

It’s simple.

“When I spoke with one of my friends about writing this piece, she cautioned against it, stating that women in skateboarding have come so far in the past few years and I should wait to see what happens in the next few. But this isn’t an article about female skateboarders. This is a piece about my experience as a woman in skate culture.”

Cyrus made an eight-minute iPhone video with tons of 917 crew extras + clips from his travels.

The Canal Wheels full-length video, Mode, premieres at 198 Allen Street (between Houston & Stanton) at 8 P.M. on Thursday. Quick teaser here. Flyer here.

Gang Corp uploaded a bunch of B-sides and outtakes from their last California-based video, “Grabba.”

Kickflip god Brandon Westgate is the latest guest on The Bunt.

Village Psychic offers up some thoughts on the Polar video, which rather than being viewed collectively as a culture via a bunch of humans gathered in a room, was experienced on…PornHub. (Ed. Note: The video has been left off #QSTOP10 consideration until it is offered up on a more “official” viewing channel, because if we start counting things uploaded there, we probably have to start considering all of achievements uploaded to the ol’ Hub in a given week.)

“It’s dancing. And dancing’s fucking subjective. That’s why it’s a really weird thing when you can make a living doing it. And I was lucky that some people liked the way I danced. And I don’t ever take that for granted.” Rob Welsh reflects on his first-ever TWS Check Out.

Vice has a piece on the history of the frontside flip — both the Reynolds kind, and the Muska variation.

“As nostalgia deepens to the point that people tune in to watch retired and beloved pros flipping through old CCS catalogues, each new print ‘Thrasher’ and ‘TWS’ issue begins to look like a collector’s item, every board on the shop wall a potential hanger, every pro with a couple video parts under his belt a legend.” Boil the Ocean ponders on just when does the nostalgia go too far.

Ricardo Napoli’s Making It Happen video from last year is now online in full.

Juultage” is a montage filmed around New York that’s presumably Juul’s first not-so-covert foray into piercing through a skater market otherwise dominated by Cheap Cigs™ purchased in Chinatown with a state of Virginia stamp.

On the occasion of us getting into a tangent about European skaters aging more gracefully over on the small #skatetwitter community, here is a new Jesus Fernandez part composed out of footage that was leftover from The Flare.

Quote of the Week
Sweet Waste: “It’s crazy you’re 30 and never had a video part.”
Keith Denley: “I’m just gonna go down in history as one of those O.G. legends who never had that much footage.”

For whatever reason, this has been the go-to morning soundtrack in the QS office for the latter half of August.