Scharpp

Heres a link to a short skate video I made. Enjoy. The Language for the music is kinda vulgar, so cover your ears or something, if that kinda stuff bothers you.

Luis Tolentino

This is my good friend Luis Tolentino murdering it in Queens, his stomping grounds. I've always been a fan of the way Luis skates, fast and stylish. In this video he ollies a trash can then a set of stairs. It is pretty amazing.

I first met Luis ten years ago at the the old seaport spot downtown. Here is a video where the first trick Anthony Pappalardo does is at the spot, I couldn't find and image of the spot. I remember he always friendly to me which was uncommon for New York skaters in the late 90's when everyone thought they were so tough. Luis and I went to skate the benches at the World trade center one summer day. He tried to 5050 the ledge over the stairs and fell on his face. We went to Burger King after that and I bought him a slushy for his new shiner. Every time I see him he still doesn't forget that slushy. That is why Luis Tolentino will always be the man.

Shoe Review

When Converse announced two years ago that it would be doing another line of skate shoes, I was excited. For starters, Chuck Taylors are one of my favorite sneakers to wear when I'm not skating. Simple and clean, these are a shoe that will remain classics forever. I was also excited when I heard that Anthony Pappalardo would be on the team. He has been a favorite of mine ever since the Photosynthesis days, and no matter how little coverage he gets, I will always respect his accomplishments in skateboarding.

The shoes Converse make for skating tend to just be improvements upon shoes, like the Chuck Taylors, which became the CTS OX. Anthony Pappalardo's pro shoe, is just a padded version of the Converse One Stars, that Guy Mariano brought to fame in his part in Girl's classic video, Mouse. The Converse style can be described as simple and timeless. There is never anything unnecessary and the colors are always simple.

The shoes I am reviewing are the Converse CTS OX. I was lucky enough to get a free pair from a friend who gets packages from a Converse sales rep. I got these shoes three weeks ago on that first beautiful weekend, and have been using them every time I skate. I normally wear a size 11 but in the Converse skate shoe line I have to wear a size 10.5. The reason for this being, once they begin to wear in, they become extremely loose, and a size 11 starts to feel very uncomfortable. The padding in these shoes make it possible to skate off stairs and gaps, but at the same time allow you to feel your board. My only complaint with these shoes, would be that they take a few days of breaking in. In other skate shoes like the Nike Dunks, I find myself at ease as soon as I put them on. I would give the CTS OX an 8 out of 10 and would recommend them to anybody looking for a comfortable and stylish skate shoe.

Josh Kalis Epicly Later'd

I'm a week late on posting this but nonetheless, I need to post this. The Josh Kalis epicly laterd episodes on vbs.tv, vice magazine's television channel are some of the best pieces of media that I've had the pleasure of watching in 2011. Patrick Odell's cult skaeboard show called epicly laterd is as he calls it "a modest attempt at documenting all of skateboarding's history." He has covered high profile skateboarders like Dylan Reider, Guy Mariano, and Andrew Reynolds to name a few. The episodes follow skaters in their progression from children to adult professionals and everything that happened in their in life in between.

The Josh Kalis episodes are my favorite of the bunch so far. They start at his humble beginnings in Michigan and follow him from all the skate meccas he has lived in like; Barcelona, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, and currently Los Angeles. These episodes are highly influential to me because they're about a skater who has been a complete workaholic his entire career. Rob Dyrdek put it best in one of the last episodes about Kalis when he says; "He's your favorite skater's favorite skater."

Palace Comes to New York

This past fall Palace Skateboards came to New York City. Palace skateboards began as a crew of skateboarders  from London who lived with each other in dirty skate houses and skated with each other. The original name of the crew is Palace Wayward Boys Choir. The crew began to garner a cult following with the clips they put on dontwatchthat.tv . The clips would contain footage, some new, some old, of skate clips and other comical things. The clips are an homage to simpler times in skateboarding when people like Stevie Williams and Josh Kalis filmed epic parts at Love Park in the late nineties and early two thousands. The clips often feature older hip hop found on classic radios shows like Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito's on WKCR radio from the early nineties. Eventually the following for PWBC became so immense that one of the members Lev Tanju turned an inside joke among friends into an international skateboard company.

The clip Palace Skateboards made from their fall trip to NYC is one of the best web clips I've seen in a long time. It's filmed on VHS and looks as if it were made in the early nineties. The music also sounds as if it were from the early nineties. They edited it to a classic freestyle by Fat Joe and Keith Nut that was used in Zoo York's Mixtape video from the early nineties. The skating is amazing and features Chewy Cannon, Olly Todd, Rory Milanes, and Lucien Clarke. I highly recommend this video.

Spring is on it's way

This is a short video I made containing footage from summer to fall of last year. It sums up my lifestyle pretty well and was fun to make. I hope you enjoy it.

An interview with the Snackman

Quartersnacks.com has been the first site I check of the day for the past five years. The content is quite regular and never lacks in creativity. I've been skateboarding with the creator of Quartersnacks Kosta since I was fourteen years old. When Kosta first started Quartersnacks my friends and I used it as a way to have someone film our skating. We would go out every weekend and on breaks from school, filming skate clips that Kosta would cleverly edit to commercial rap and occasional soul songs. Kosta's way of approaching editing and distributing content was far different than anything else at the time. There were other NYC skate websites at the time that around anymore like Bigapplenyc.com and Flipmodenyc.com, but the way they edited their footage wasn't as stylized as a Quartersnacks clip. Fast forward five years and Kosta has done projects for esteemed clients like Nike and the Queens Museum of Art, and has advertising banners bringing in revenue. All of us who grew up skating with Kosta are very proud of how far he has come. Hopefully this interview can shed some light on what Quartersnacks is about. It has changed from a locally made organic skate website to a highly respected website in the skate world.

When did you start Quartersnacks and how long have you been doing it for?

September of 2005. Been doing it for a little over five years.

What made you start a skateboarding website?

Strictly to have a hobby, I never considered making any money or connections with people off of it when I started it.

Were there many other skateboard related websites at the time you started Quartersnacks?

Yes, but there weren't many New York or Northeast based ones. And the few that were more locally based around those areas were not updated regularly.

If you had to describe your website to someone who knew nothing about it and the culture of the it content revolves around how would you describe it to them?

It's a New York website that is bound together by a common interest/love for skateboarding. Not that it isn't a skateboard website, but the location plays a large role in the direction of the content. There are tons of inside jokes and weird little references that resonate a lot more to people around here than people on the outside looking in.

How has the website changed over the course of the years?

I used to update it whenever I was in the mood to do so, which sometimes wouldn't be for whole weeks at a time. Over the past year, I have began to actually work updates into a schedule. Having a reputation for updating regularly is the way you build your visitors, so I kind of figured if I kept my old routine of only updating 5 or 6 times a month, the amount of visitors would remain stagnant. I've also tried to make the content a bit broader to attract a wider range of visitors, not just people able to understand the content within a hundred mile radius.

How do you go about getting content for the site aside from the skate clips you make and articles you write?

Just general ideas floating around the internet, conversations with friends, etc. Skateboarding is so big now that there is always something going on. It's just a matter of navigating through everything and finding things you can actually write an insightful 300-500 words about.

How many hits do you average per day?

4000-5000.

Have you been approached to do any projects because of Quartersnacks? If so who where they for and what did they involve?

I did a project with Nike that basically involved skating around New York with their sponsored riders to spots that frequently appear in the videos on the website, and then writing daily wrap-up entries with photos and a video of the day to accompany them. That eventually turned into having a colorway of a Nike shoe inspired by the website. I did a project with the Queens Museum of Art that involved consulting a curator on major skate spots throughout New York so she could map them out on Robert Moses' 1964 World's Fair scale model of New York City for a special exhibit. Several smaller magazines have also approached me to do New York centric writing for certain articles as well. Plus, being able to make a website is a good skill in 2011, and a lot of friends have referred me to their friends to make a website since they are impressed with the work I have done with mine.

How do you approach advertising?

I mostly haven't had to do any of the approaching myself. When I first started running banner ads, I talked to a few friends with smaller companies and offered them free ad space since I liked what their companies were doing and knew they could use some help in spreading the word. Once larger companies saw that I had began running ads, they approached me themselves.

Where do you see the website in five years?

I have no clue. I haven't been working full-time or going to school for eight months, so I've had the time to work on the website. If I begin working 40 hours a week, it's going to be tough to keep the same sort of consistency I had, so I'll have to use my time as it pertains to the website more wisely. I also want to expand the content so it appeals to a wider range of people, without really letting it lose it's local feel, so that's the main thing I wish to accomplish in the next year or so.