We rarely run video reviews here at Quarter Snacks, so when one does get put up (a year after the video came out), it’s always one worth recommending. If you like Revisited, this is essentially San Francisco’s equivalent of that video. SF’s Greatest Misses: ‘94-’97

Copyright Mr. Predictor

In an attempt to expand QS beyond international borders, we recently made a trip to an underwhelming city known as Montreal, some 350 miles north of Quarter Snacks Headquarters. It made me really proud of America, and made me never want to leave this country ever again, aside from maybe a trip back to the motherland, since they did in fact sustain the longest war with America in its history, making it undoubtedly the only other country I’ll tolerate. Here’s a blogtastic photo update, that should inform you of the horrible food, the really unforgivably sordid hotel rooms, and the country’s habit of serving shots smaller than a child’s dose of robotussin. Best of all, they’re taken on the best forty-dollar camera ever. Your Leica sucks.

I found this text file on my old computer containing this article that I had saved from the original Zoo York website. It’s a fairly detailed and interesting chronicle of the early days of skateboarding in New York City, and definitely worth a read. Especially since it doesn’t claim that Bobby Puleo pioneered skateboarding in New York.

Some dude ARTIST named Tom Sachs made just about the most perfect quarterpipes ever in Midtown. The problem (there always has to be one, right?) is that they are located within a gallery space of a bougey Park Avenue office building. Furthermore, they are ART and made out of bronze. Best of all, “If it’s made in bronze, it’s no longer this menacing object of noise and liability but now something that has to be protected.” People who talk out of their ass in the name of “art” are great.

The people responsible for Deathbowl to Downtown told me that the documentary should be available on DVD as late as the Fall, so that would probably be your first chance to see it, if you missed the premiere.

Late, but Police Informer posted this good vintage Thrasher article.

If you visit Quarter Snacks often, you have probably caught subtle references to my disconcertment with the majority of what is going on in skateboarding videos these days. Unnecessary slow motion, skits, intros, seagulls, foliage, the filmer evidently more concerned with an ample balance between his blues and greens than he is with the actual trick at hand, fancy titles — I hate it all. There are maybe two videos to come out each year that I have a compulsion to watch more than twice, so when a memorable one actually does come out, it is pretty significant.

There are three “filmmakers” in skateboarding that don’t suck: Jay Strickland, myself, and Beagle. (Justin White is kinda cool too.) The last one is responsible for what will most likely wind up as my favorite video of the year not made by Alien Workshop. Baker Has a Deathwish is dubbed as a throwaway video, but it comes off as a pretty fleshed-out product, where the skating is by no means of a lesser quality than what you would expect from a more well-promoted and hyped-up company video. Beagle makes a conscious effort to ensure the fact that his videos are actually fun to watch, and they make you want to go skate. The soundtrack is mostly retarded rap, which is always a plus in my book. The skating is evidently not the result of a tedious process in which the same bench line was re-filmed five times to filter out anything that may begin to resemble a tick-tack. (P.S. The Habitat video came out five months ago and has already aged horribly.) The basic rundown is: Lizard King is the epitome of drug-skating and actually did a trick on Hollywood High that I cared about, Ellington is back on drugs (resulting in a better part), Jim Grecco is still off drugs (resulting in a forgettable part), Spanky still skates and is still kind of good at it, Bryan Herman is the new title-holder for the best line of all time, Beagle switch firecrackered twenty stairs, Sammy Baca is very good at shortening his life-span, and Antwuan Dixon is the only person in history to pull off a good-looking nollie varial heelflip.

If you haven’t found a link for it already, here you go. Worth the purchase whenever it surfaces to DVD though. I’ll be sure to have it on my shelf with the other eight skate videos I own.
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Other nonsense:

A few of the better skateboarding sites out there have had some rather New York-centric updates as of recent times…

Police Informer posted this Quim Cardona Interview from 1996, which is a little bit umm… “out there,” to say the least. But if you’ve ever wondered about the merging of skateboarding, hemp clothes, yoga, and the spirituality of dreads, then it may be a worthwhile read. Matt Field did the interview, so you should kinda know what to expect.

Bonus: Quim’s section from Real’s Non-Fiction video. This is actually the second clip from this video that I’m posting this week, and I’ve actually yet to get around to mentioning the best part in the video altogether. You should already know that, though.

48 Blocks posted an out-of-left-field Peter Bici interview. In case you were born in the 90s, Peter Bici is most famous for being the only person to ever film a line on the outside of the fountain at the Flushing Globe, and also for having the random white kid in the red fitted bopping his head behind Busta Rhymes in his Mixtape part.

The éS Game of Skate date has been announced, and it is on June 23rd. Unlike past years where it was held by Autumn and done at Tompkins Square Park, this year, KCDC is hosting it, and it is randomly going to be in the abandoned pool-turned-outdoor-concert-space at McCaren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They also spruced up their registration process, and it seems like you can no longer randomly show up five minutes before it starts and still participate. Click here for registration info and forms. I’m sure there will probably be a reminder post once it gets closer because it is still almost two months away. I have a good feeling that all the new requirements and inflexibility of the contest are going to have devastating effects on the drunken antics that have been the highlights of past years’ games.

Quote of the Week: “What’s up Taji? I seen you kickin’ ill game on Youtube.” - Luis Tolentino

Also, I would like to formally apologize to all of those who I offended with the previous post, which evidently had nothing to do with skateboarding. I am only apologizing to be a good sport, but the reality of the matter is that the last post had more to do with skateboarding than the majority of the content posted on Quarter Snacks, you are just not deeply immersed into the dark underbelly of New York skateboarding, which is still blinding you with its facade of wallies and lipslides.

Since things like Police Informer continue to grow in popularity for those of us accustomed to a time when skateboarding was much simpler, devoid of sixteen year olds doing fakie front crook 360 flip outs, I figured I would join in on the party. So here is Huf’s Pro Spotlight from Transworld back in 1998, when east coast skateboarding still kind of mattered to people.

You can find kickflips, 180s, and ollies in..

Real’s Non-Fiction (1995)

Real’s Real to Reel (2002)

FTC’s Penal Code 100A (1996)

P.S. If you had not already noticed.. I added this “Recent Comments” thing underneath Iron Mike’s head to the right of the posts, where you can stay up to date with all the very intelligent discussions that go on here at Quarter Snacks regarding french literature, foreign films, classical music, politics, existentialism, and Black Dave.

Thrasher released a book that runs down the 200+ places you need to skate at before you die, or before your knees give out. Or before you have kids and move to Long Island. In honor of proving that we have actually stepped inside of a bookstore in the past fifty years, I wrote up a brief review of it, explaining how Thrasher’s publishing department broke my heart with their laziness.

Handycam Snacks in the making.. New clip in the making..

*I use the word “read” lightly here. I am aware that the majority of skateboarders have not made it past the fourth grade and are generally incapable of reading, so I would never dream of writing about a book that had a whole bunch of small squiggly lines and words and shit in it.