Success Magazine did a short piece on Tony Hawk. Chairman of the Board Maybe the print version includes skate photos. I could drop by a dentist’s office and check the waiting room.
The Tony Hawk Foundation is auctioning off a custom Jeep to raise money for… skateparks! this is for big spenders only. - Thanks to Sarib Singh Khalsa for the tip.
We mentioned Tom Fain in a piece about the defunct Skatepark Magazine since he was on the cover posing with his eight wheeled skateboard under the caption “Why every community could use a Tom Fain.” and I made the joke “Really? Every community could use a guy who is seemingly completely out of touch with skateboarding culture?” because he was on an 8 wheeler, and most kids can’t relate to a board that is wider than 8 inches, let alone an eight wheeler from the 70’s. Well Tom eventually saw the post and wrote to me. He’s got a good sense of humor and wasn’t annoyed by the post at all. He sent in a bunch of pictures of him not being out of touch with skateboarding culture, as well as some scans of the article about him in Skatepark magazine. Tom has a web site devoted to his ministry and skateboarding called SAP Skateboards if you are interested.
CNN has a video piece on helmet safety and skateboarding. It’s the usual not very-in-depth filler complete with a couple who lost their son to a head injury to pull on your heartstrings. What’s not clear is what the kid was doing, from the limited amount of information they give. I think he was possibly just traveling from point A to B as his family walked behind him, but speculation is pointless and the tragedy is not diminished. However, the couple and CNN’s tone seem to be implying that video game characters and magazine pictures should all be wearing helmets too. I mean really? Is that how much baby sitting we need now as a society? Are seatbelts going to be mandatory in driving video games as well? What about games where you battle the undead or perform similar unrealistic maneuvers? It’s the same kind of asinine mentality that places those disclaimers on the bottom of TV commercials that say “Professional drivers on a closed circuit, do not attempt” or “Exaggerated driving conditions. Not a performance claim.” Really? I can’t drive up the side of building in my Geo Metro? I shouldn’t base jump off the Sears Tower in search of a radical tasting snack? I shouldn’t attempt to crooked grind down a 50 step stair set without a helmet? Yes, kids should wear helmets. Yes, people should take responsibility for their own actions. NO, they don’t need to be shielded from any stimulus where people are doing anything other than sitting in a padded room, safe from all risk. They even drag Tony Hawk into the fray. Is this a U.S. only phenomenon? Do other countries want to hold their citizen’s hands through life as well? Watch the video on CNN.
- Thanks to Brian Baade for the tip.
A VH1 blog for the show Best Week Ever has a list of the top 10 professions that are one death away from extinction. Meaning if the most famous guy dies, nobody will take his place. Coming in at number one, Skateboarding and Tony Hawk. They are actually aware of other pro skaters, but their rationale is that… who cares. But, maybe they are on to something. Perhaps the almost dead profession should have been Vert Skater since I keep getting tips relating to vert skating and BMX being dropped from the X games. Also being dropped? the VH1 show Best Week Ever, unless they get picked up by ESPN.
The rumors are flying, and the official word is that “changes are coming.” I doubt the loss of vert in the X-Games mean much of anything to skateboarders, besides the ones competing. It might have more of an impact on Madison Avenue than anywhere else. Commercials and cartoons will have lost their point of reference for portraying skateboarding.
- Thanks to Concretins for the first tip.
He’s not included on this poll of favorite heartthrob skaters from madmoiselle at Team Sugar. Who is this (platinum) user Madmoiselle? She’s got almost 8,000 sugar points, so she must be able to buy a lot of virtual gifts. (This one is for landpiratemafia! Meme! Meme! Meme! Meme! Meme! Hawt!) Oh yeah, I need to mention Tony Hawk so I can add this post to the category.
No that’s not a still from the first Bones brigade video, it’s 20 years later and Lance is hitting that spot for Elwood clothing’s 1st and Hope video, which came out some time last year I believe. Has anyone seen this? It looked like a good concept for a video, instead of the usual scattergun barrage of tricks planned and practiced and over and over to make it for the video (shot on 16mm film), it features a group of friends skating together in various spots, meeting people along the way. There are a few old distinguished names in there like Eric Dressen, Lance Mountain, Matt Hensley, Ray Barbee and Salman Agah. EXPN has a nice write up with more background and some production stills. So yeah, this is old news by a year.
The second hope is Athletes for Hope, which is an organization of some of the more famous names in sports whose purpose is to “educate, encourage and assist athletes in their efforts to contribute to community and charitable causes, to increase public awareness of those efforts, and to inspire others to do the same.” Basically, it’s a bunch of famous athletes trying to get other professional athletes to pull their heads out of their self-centered asses and help out the less fortunate. That’s an admirable goal. Skateboarding’s most famous philanthropist Tony Hawk is one of the founding members, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in Oprah’s Big Give charity/reality show. The trailer shows a brief glimpse of someone spinning a McTwist on a vert ramp. Actually, that’s just a guess since you don’t get to see the full rotation.
Tony Hawk is so famous he even made it on Celebrity Baby Blog, where they point out that he’s expecting his fourth child with his third wife. That means another appearance on MTV’s Cribs must be in the works since the first two wives got theirs. Do you want to watch video of tony Hawk rubbing his wife’s belly? (No.) He’s surprisingly jovial considering the freelance TMZ cameraman/celebrity stalker is a complete moron. “Are you happy with how the elections turned out?” Seriously? There’s more, but it’s for fanboys only. I believe this is exactly kind of crap that Paying in Pain is warning you about. - Thanks to… my wife(!) for the tip.
Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent.
I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it.
Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and plexiglass covered ramps laying back and propped up a little. Two part video after the jump. Please excuse the lame post title, but you should listen to the Vapors anyway.
Tony Hawk’s Big Spin has been open for a while now. It’s got to be surreal having your own amusement park ride. There’s no Michael Jordan’s Big Dunk ride out there, but you would think he would have been able to sign the contract if he wanted. Here’s two YouTube videos with two different takes on the ride. One is a guy who obsesses on amusement park rides and the other is a couple of snotty kids who just like to hear themselves say “I hate Tony Hawk.” Check ‘em both out after the jump.
- Thanks to Tito for the tip.
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Help! I’m creatively bankrupt! (AKA Skate and Annoy is looking for contributors.) Skate and Annoy is looking for a few more good contributors. Sure, the benefits are mostly limited to the respect/scorn of your peers, but think of the glory…
