Unfortunately, that is not cake
Dylan Jaeb goes PRO AF, Pulaski is capped and Muni is resurrected, Plan B initiates plan G(arbage), Jamie Foy gets a private TF, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
Let him eat cake
Rank: 1:1
Mood: 🍰
At first glance of a photo posted to Instagram from the premiere of Dylan Jaeb’s new video part and subsequent PRO AF christening over the weekend, the new Quasi Skateboards professional looks to be holding a custom and intricately baked and frosted cake in the shape of Rincon, the iconic skatespot he scored the June 2026 cover of Thrasher Magazine by doing a fakie-kickflip over its top bar.
Given the advanced level of today's Cake Technology, where entire television programs are dedicated to cakes engaged in military-grade stealth (is this Lay-Z-Boy recliner a cake? What about this spent car battery? Tyrannosaurus Rex femur? That urn on the mantle with your grandmother's ashes?), it would not be surprising if a Decepetive Cake Specialist whipped up one of skateboarding's most famous four-blocks to celebrate one of the sport's brightest stars.
The image required closer inspection.
Unfortunately, that is not cake. A remedial investigation concluded that it is, in fact, a Tech Deck Street Tour Rincon Playset.
While Jaeb won't be getting a slice, let's not discount the Tech Deck Street Tour Rincon Playset, which is a treat in itself. As YouTube reviewer Actionfigureexpert demonstrates in the video above, this plastic replica has a lot to offer.
First off, look at the attention to detail. From the wear on the handrails to the power outlets; it's like your fingers are really in a middle school in Escondido, California. Plus, the set is modular, so you can mix and match sections of the spot if you have multiple Tech Deck Street Tour Rincon Playsets, creating your own Rincon Big Four universe. When it comes to functionality, fingerboarders can go over the top bar like Jaeb, hit its tall-short rail like TJ Rogers, or fling their fingers down its to-scale bleachers like any professional skateboarder active from 2002-2015.
It's also a perfect staging ground for solo Metal Gear Solid-style insurgent campaigns.
Or full-scale assaults with you and all of your heavily armed friends.
Anyhow, there's no real way to end this segment, except with the pressing ontological question: do the ABDs on the real Rincon also count on the Tech Deck Street Tour Rincon Playset? (Also, did you know Rincon has its own Wikipedia page?)
Re-Muni-ration.
Rank: 〰️
Mood: 🔨✒️
In February, fencing went up around Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. Renovations were underway on the sprawling public space known to skateboarders as Pulaski, which has served as a destination skate spot for decades. DC skater and resident Jimmy Pelletier provided an update from the scene: the pink marble ledges around the plaza’s perimeter were being capped. An Instagram post on Monday from DC legend Darren Harper confirmed that they still are.
As of writing this, one of the only parts of Pulaski that appears to have escaped hostile architecture’s wrath is the waist-high white Georgian marble ledge. In an episode of Thrasher Magazine’s “This Old Ledge,” 'sletter friend and contributor Ted Barrow quipped that, for most people, that is not a skateable obstacle, but an obstruction.
“It’s almost a joke calling this thing a ledge. This is a wall.”
That’s likely why it hasn’t been skatestopped yet. Harper, Bobby Worrest, Tiago Lemos, Jason Dill, and very few others have been able to reach the ledge's full height. Which is what makes Antonio Durao’s onslaught on it in last Friday’s online debut of Johnny Wilson’s Creased — a promo video for Nike SB's revamp of the AF-1 — all the more impressive. Switch-frontside-5-0? C’mon, Antonio.
What else could a person not named Durao even do on it?
Speaking of seemingly insurmountable things, if you happened to open up LinkedIn sometime over the last few weeks, maybe you were also shovelled an endless feed of posts from various marketing specialists attempting to diagnose, fix, and generally opine about Nike's continued and precipitous financial decline. A recent Business Insider article by Emily Stewart gets into the company's descent.
A company's stock price doesn't tell the whole story, but it does tell a lot of it, and the story it tells for Nike is bleak. Shares of the sportswear juggernaut have plunged 70% from their November 2021 peak, and are down 30% this year alone.
Emily Stewart
Can the sportswear juggernaut reach such heights anymore? The LinkedIn thought leaders have their ideas, but I'd like to offer one of my own: give Antonio Durao a signature model shoe. What are you waiting for? Hopefully, the AF-1 SB-edition works out, but how about leveraging some of the relevant promotional talent you have?
Obviously, Nike's business is in a much more dire turnaround mode than one shoe from a small corner of their business can fix — the company is currently "restructuring," which means layoffs and the rumoured sale of Converse — but if you have a representative of your brand who people love and who is at the top of their game, take advantage. Speak to audiences where they are with things that, at the risk of tumbling too far into marketing pablum, do what Durao's skating does: surprise and delight.
Anything is a better alternative than what they've been making news for lately.
Phil Wahba
I digress. Hostile architecture has become a dominant strain in the design (or redesign) of North America’s urban public spaces in recent decades. While it may take a moment for the layperson to recognize it, this reality is readily apparent to the skateboarder.
From Pulaski to the physical and spiritual flattening of Love Park, to the skatestoppers that cover every hard-edged surface in Vancouver, public spaces have a growing, throbbing resentment for skateboarders, yes, but also the public at large. Look around, where have all the benches gone?
There are ways to push back. A global movement toward "skateurbanism" shows that a skate spot can be liberated by crowbar and angle grinder, and also by collective action and advocacy. It may take years, but it can work. The relentless efforts of Steve Rodriguez and company are why the Brooklyn Banks are back. London's Save Southbank campaign was outrageously successful in doing just that. When Muni, one of the last great plaza spots in the United States (otherwise known as Thomas Paine Plaza), was redeveloped, another entire history of Philadelphia skateboarding was set to be erased — until the advocacy of Pat Heid, his non-profit SkatePhilly, and a generous donation from Vans.
That success may not be replicable everywhere, but it's evidence of the ultimate payoff that comes from making the effort, of showing the powers that be you care, and that these places matter.
QSTNBL decision making
Rank: -2005
Mood: 🤢
Video via Plan B on Instagram
There are very real and limiting budget constraints in the business of skateboarding. Not every brand has coffers deep enough to produce high-level pieces of advertising. It's probably fair to say that most don't, especially for a seasonal drop of product, when most resources are better spent sending the team on a filming mission, or just keeping the lights on.
Still, resorting to generative AI, like Plan B Skateboards did this week, betrays a certain level of carelessness and a lack of respect for their audience. It's not unreasonable for consumers to expect thought and effort put into the promotion of something you expect them to buy. If Creature Skateboards can produce a video with real puppets, so can Plan B.
It's also important to note that people increasingly hate this stuff. When the UFC debuted the godawful trailer for its "Freedom 250" event taking place at the White House on June 14 (Donald Trump's birthday, lol), even UFC fans were upset by the production's obvious and sloppy use of generative AI (the comments on the YouTube upload are scathing). UFC CEO Dana White's only defence when asked about it at a recent press conference was "who gives a shit."
And really, that's the only defence available. It's also the most honest. You might as well admit that you don't give a shit about your fans, that you think they're rubes, happy to lap up whatever watery stool you manage to eject from your lazy ass. It also makes sense that Plan B would stoop to this level. In its modern revival, all the brand has shown is an embarrassing void of creative direction.
Also, a bit of an aside, but the "lil buddies" board series features prominent placement for the logos of Joslin, Gustavo, and Giraud's energy drink sponsors. The Red Bull logo is bigger than Plan B's in Gustavo's graphic. What is going on there? Do they get a graphic incentive or something? Questionable indeed.
Signature model TF
Rank: 20,000 ft2
Mood: 🏟️
At the highest level of professional sports, athletes generally have a team of trainers and specialized healthcare professionals, wellness resources, and entire facilities dedicated to the training, recovery, nutrition, and whatever else is required to help them perform to the best of their highly valued abilities.
In the space of professional skateboarding, it's really only in the last decade that skateboarding's elite have considered themselves to be athletes. The same goes for their sponsors. If a skateboarder is fortunate enough to have the backing of a Nike or Red Bull, or they represent their country in Olympic skateboarding, they may have access to high-level training and recovery.
Otherwise, the closest skateboarding has come to "training facilities" is the private skateparks of pro skaters, colloquially known as the TF. These have been numerous over the years. That's what The Berrics was before it became a dedicated content mill (though it remained a private facility). Brandon Biebel had one. Same with Jim Greco. Sean Malto. There's one in Manny Santiago's backyard. Nyjah Huston's had a private TF for years. Shane O'Neill has one at his house and in a warehouse. His April Skateboards charge Rayssa Leal has her own. Vincent Milou built one, building and all, in France in 2023. Tyshawn Jones is nearly finished with the construction of his. We're all very familiar with Paul Rodriguez's.
Now, two-time Thrasher Magazine Skater of the Year Jamie Foy has entered the Private TF Club. These facilities, just as much as a signature model shoe — if not moreso — have come to represent the apex of achievement in professional skateboarding. Proof positive, paid to a landlord every month, that a skater's sponsors believe in them enough to shell out that kind of money. It's why the logos for adidas, Element, and VISA are stuck to the walls of Milou's compound, and the Monster Energy logo sits green and glowing on the back wall of Leal's — these investments are also brand promotion. Skills will be honed, sure, but content will also be created.
Curiously, I'm not sure who was paying for Jim Greco's TF, but if we're being honest, obstacle-wise, his "House of Hammers" looks like it was the most fun out of all of these.
Something to consider: Great.
Jason Koebler
Good thing: New Shabason & Krgovich.
may23rd2007
Another good thing: Dustin Henry made a documentary about Tin Mun-Mun Daycare in Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation).
Ryan and Oria, back at it again:
That's right, another good thing:
Village Psychic
A thing from earlier this week:
Cole Nowicki
Until next week… when you think about it, we all have our own Private TFs (Tender Feelings).
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
--------------------------------
A collection of essays that I think you might like. The Edmonton Journal called it a "local book set to make a mark in 2024," The CBC said it's "quirky yet insightful" (lol), and it won Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2025 Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
--------------------------------
I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Photo via The Palomino.
