Double Back on the Double Back

Diego Najera with the first trick in last week’s #1 QS Top 10 line. 125th Street. Photo by Mike Heikkila.

Diego and Tyshawn are leading everyone else in 2018 for tricks that leave phone screens and comment sections, and actually enter conversation between IRL humans.

Check the full Humble Laboratories commercial from Conor and Genny (2x as long as the Instagram one) + then go support the boys.

“Midtown to us was really just like 5 blocks though. Like 50th Street to 54th Street on 6th Avenue.” Village Psychic catches up with R.B. Umali for some stories about skating Astor, Pyramid Ledges, Union, Courthouse Drop, Flushing, etc.

Tufty showed up and surprised us in Paris on our first day, then we didn’t see him for the rest of our trip because he was doing grown man shit, like waking up before 1 P.M. to go skate spots before they get too crowded.

Here are seven minutes of recent-ish Sean Pablo footage loosies.

Antosh uploaded a quick montage of all our friends out in Vancouver, aptly titled “Hiatus.” You can also pick up his zine from a summer 2017 tenure in New York at the Stussy store on Spring Street.

Like everyone else, our first thought was, “Whoa, they still do X-Games Real Street?” Bobby’s entry is all Pulaski footage.

Posting “2017 in Review” content the day before May 1 is pretty dumb, but TWS has a quick recap of Cyrus’ past year over on their site, so why not? ♥

TWS also uploaded 411 issue #2, which features a Tom Penny “Wheels of Fortune” section filmed exclusively at the skatepark that Palace’s winter pop-up park, Mwadlands, was based on. Fwiw, 411 creator, Josh Friedberg, said that the Penny section was one of his favorites ever from the video mag’s run.

Staletape is a 28-minute long Philly scene video by Joe Ostrowski.

“Whereas Torey Pudwill’s arm motions often hit the red while balancing on history’s most drawn-out backside smith grinds and backside tailslides, Magnus Bordewick’s flapping generally coincides with rocketing pop and crater-making impacts.” Boil the Ocean re: the state of arm movements in skateboarding and Magnus’ new part.

7-minute iPhone clip of Tyler Pacheco and the Crailtap dudes skating New York.

Popwave” made me want to go skate not-so-good skate spots with all my friends.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Donovan Mitchell should be fun to watch for like, the next decade-and-a-half? Who does everyone have for Sixers-Celtics?

Quote of the Week
11-Year-Old Scooter Kid at Le Dome: “What’s the best trick you can do?”
Adult Skateboarder at Le Dome: “Pop shove it.”
11-Year-Old Scooter Kid at Le Dome: “…you’re kidding me, right?”

This is the first semi-late Monday Links post since we vowed to swear off them in honor of the queen’s 30th birthday. BUT — in our defense, the entire office is a bit lagged from traveling back to New York yesterday. We don’t deserve a Gucci polo, but at least it’s not going up at like 4 P.M. ♥

VOTE FOR FREDDY

It’s that time of year when people who don’t pay attention to skateboard competitions start discussing the X-Games, or at least their “core”-targeting “Real Street” segments. Everyone from D.C. is going to tell you to vote for Bobby Worrest. Everyone from New England is going to tell you to vote for Joey Pepper. Every person who only owns brown pants is going tell you to vote for Silas Baxter-Neal. Everyone under the age of 13 is going to vote for Nyjah Huston, who’s going to win anyway, since little kid favorites tend to win these things.

Naturally, we’re going to tell you to vote for the Governor of New Jersey, Fred Gall. He’s bracketed (isn’t it funny how skateboarders used to be all “Sports are lame! Screw the rules, bro! No rules!” and now they’re filling out brackets for “Battle of the Berrics” and “Real Street?”) against Jaws, who essentially jumps off of buildings for a straight minute. Fred Gall jumps onto moving buses, so vote and help him win some money for newly-sober-related pursuits.

Click here to vote. Vote by June 11th.

2011 ‘Real Street’ Parts AKA The New Zoo York Promo

During last Thursday’s NBA Draft, Quartersnacks, along with those who follow our Twitter account, took upon the task of drawing parallels between skateboarding and professional basketball, mostly by way of pointing out which skaters would be #1 overall picks in their respective draft years. We settled on a variety of conclusions: Guy Mariano in 1991, Eric Koston in 1992, Arto Saari in 1998, Paul Rodriguez in 2000, Mike Mo in 2007, Torey Pudwill in 2008, how skaters would be drafted out of skate shops, how Coliseum would’ve won the NCAA title in 2002, and finally realizing that most of the #1 overall picks somehow go to Girl (Cory Kennedy in 2010) and Chocolate (Raven Tershy in 2011) due to their highly astute front offices. Rick Howard wouldn’t be a bad GM for the Lakers. (That team can go to hell, though.)

If you don’t follow basketball, keep in mind that #1 overall pick does not necessarily equate to the “best” skater, as Larry Bird (#6), Michael Jordan (#3), and Kobe Bryant (#13) were not #1 picks. Manu Ginóbli was #57, and he went on to lead the Spurs to three championships. Then there are obvious draft busts, like Jereme Rogers going #1 in 2003, or Jovante Turner going #1 in 1989, only to have a short lived prime, a la Bernard King.

Someone insisted that Zoo York was overdue for a #1 pick, but sometimes, three top five picks in seven or eight years helps you build a better franchise than one #1 overall, and a bunch of picks above #15 in proceeding years. Look no further than this year’s batch of X-Games “Real Street” videos for evidence of that.

Zered Bassett: Apparently, the kink at the Courthouse Drop is just a regular ledge now. And it’s good to see that the rail they put up at that Washington Heights bump isn’t stopping some people. Zered should’ve won the whole thing last year.

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