Kickbacks? That’s the only thing I can think of that would convince a physical education program to buy Waveboards for PE classes. Let me try a different approach:

In my day we had to push uphill five miles on a dirt road to get to the waveboard track and the U-shaped slide. Kids these days are spoiled in their PE classes with alternative sports. Not working for you?

OK. Seen above, Angela’s friends stage an intervention and try to divert her from her quest to run off and join a very low paying circus for social outcasts. I’m not sure if these are better than the flat boards with caster wheels that they use for crab races on rainy days.

Where did I get these pictures? Why, from the Ledger’s article titled Physical Education Rides the Wave Of New Recreational Technologies. Jealous? You can even buy print copies for yourself!

This was going to be a thread about the trend of municipalities closing down skateparks when they get tagged as an incentive program to stop vandalism. I was going to highlight that a new nearby park in Vancouver Washington is going to experience such closures:

our park maintenance office has decided to handle graffiti removal at the park the same way Battle Ground does at their skate park - by closing the entire park to all users until all the graffiti is removed. Depending on the severity of the graffiti, this could require several days of closure.

I was then going to ramble on about how it was obviously not the real skateboarders doing the vandalism, most likely kids that were on the periphery that might own a skateboard in the same way they would own a bike or a pogo stick if all their friends had one.

Look at the picture above. It seems like a fun place to skate right? It’s sheltered from the elements, and it’s not even illegal. If that was my local spot I’d want to take care of it, but the Creekside Underground locals are pissing it all away.

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Welsh Pete wrote “while some skate kids are smashing store owners in the face, others are rescuing babies from dumpsters…” So in the interest of fair and balanced reporting:

Four skateboarders found a crying infant girl - the umbilical cord still attached - wrapped in a blanket and left atop a trash bin Monday night in Queens, authorities said.

So check out the skateboarding guardian angels (not to be confused with the skateboarding Charlie’s Angel) in the New York Daily News. AP Video available as well. Lest any of our regular readers think we are going all soft, that’s one of the teenagers, Christopher Moncada in the shot above, and he looks little bit like a pudgy 10 year old girl. Guardian Angel art, sans skateboard, from Sykel Enterprises.

From the San Jose Mercury News

The five suspects, who are ages 18 to 22, burst into the store on their skateboards and began to ride around in the aisles, according to police… …”They did it for the thrill of it,” Pleasanton police Sgt. Jim Knox said. “They were trying to videotape themselves.”

OK, so you’re trying to make your own Jackass tapes. That’s fine, just don’t beat up the store manager when he asks you to leave.

That’s when one of the suspects, who police believe is a juvenile, walked up to the manager, picked up his skateboard and struck the manager in the face with it. The manager suffered minor injuries that included cuts and bruises to his face, wrist and hand.

Now you are officially a dick, and not a very bright one, since they managed to get your buddy’s license plate as you drove away. More skateboarding dicks after the jump. Photos (Unrelated and with no editorial comment intended) are from Rebel Skates, although seems like I’ve seen the slogan on the left shirt somewhere, sometime… Oh yeah, Cow Skates in the 80’s.

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It’s that time of the week again, making up for lost time and pushing the envelope of freshness dating. The Los Angeles Times has a nice historical piece on the Signal Hill Speed Run that has a lot of interesting tidbits of information. For instance, I had read that one year a previously non-skating longshoreman showed up to enter, but I wasn’t aware that he blew off his daughter’s baptism to compete. This article also goes into more detail on some of the hair raising crashes that took place. The amount of mayhem that took place is pretty amazing. In today’s litigation heavy insurance risk climate, that race wouldn’t have made it past the second run of the first year. Yes, this is skateboarding. The picture on the left is John Hutson from Thrasher Magazine of January 1981. The shot of Hutson was actually taken at a different race on the Laguna Seca road racing course in 1980, (Signal Hill officially ended in ‘79) Hutson was a first place finisher at both. The shot on the right was poached from Vetter design. Check out the L.A. Times article Board out of their minds. Free registration may be required.

[Source: SkateDaily]

Florence, Alabama via TimesDaily.com: Council may kill obscure ’scooter’ law

The city council will consider repealing a little-known and hardly enforced ordinance that bans sports, games and wheeled toys from city streets when it meets today. The issue gained attention two weeks ago after Mayor Bobby Irons shelved an amendment that would have banned skateboards from city streets and sidewalks. He is working with the city attorney on an alternative ordinance. Although still in progress, his alternative resolution would define geographically where skateboarding would be restricted.

Now if they’d just just kill off those obscure scooter riders. Ba-dum-bump! Ha! Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of work for a one liner. Here’s a link about an up an coming hot young talent on the inline skating circuit (There still is one?) who originally stared of on a skateboard. While I’m at it, Rocketboy on the right is from Rocketman Enterprises, not to be confused with Handstand Man.

Clearing off the hard drive here. Tony Hawk was on MTV’s TRL (OMG Totally AWESOME!) where they interviewed him afterwards. Apparently “The Birdman bigged it up to Ryan Sheckler…” Err… yeah. Then he Gave Ryan some advice (stop crying when you don’t win?) on the Life of Ryan. Fat BMX reports that Rick Thorne interviews Tony Hawk for another social networking great white hype TRIG.com, except they don’t provide a link. However, Mr Thorne assures the readers that you should sign up for Trig.com because “it’s smokin’ My Space and I think It’s good 2 keep U wit tha times.” I’m sure he’s not getting anything from them. Let’s see… Some kids interviewed Tony Hawk at a Toys R Us store but Courant.com wants you to pay to read it now that it’s more than 30 days old. I wonder if those download fees are offsetting the loss in ad revenue? A couple weeks ago the gaming sites were a buzz about the possibility that Tony might be considering a balance board type controller for use in a skateboarding game on the Wii platform. I guess you need to keep the “I”’s lowercase when typing in Wii or else it looks like World War 2. Maybe not. In really old news, Toy Directory Monthly has a 2004 interview

Odd timing that I came across this news item immediately after posting the the Cool Girls story. It’s 10 days old but I’d still like to mention it. When you think 70’s skateboards, you’ll most likely envision a plastic banana board and some sort of fiberglass deck. The Logan Earth Ski has got to be near the top of iconic 70’s skateboards that weren’t merely toys. Never being more than casually aware of 70’s skateboarding history, I always assumed that the brand and company was completely the handiwork of 70’s skater Bruce Logan. It turns out his whole family was involved, and mother Barbara and brother Brian were the ones that mostly ran the company. Barbara recently passed away after battling breast cancer at the age of 79. She was apparently well liked in the industry. You can read the death notice that includes a little bit of history in the North County Times. Gravity also makes a board that is more of a tribute to the original Logan Earth Ski as opposed to a straight re-issue.

The Los Angeles Times has an article on the company Cool Girls Skateboards titled No coasting for this skateboard firm. I’ve seen Cool Girls advertised in some magazines and it’s come up on other web sites. I was willing to cut them some slack on their somewhat cheesy and unoriginal graphics that look like they were designed by somebody trying to figure out how to sell stuff to little girls at Target. Why was I cutting them slack? because I assumed they were owned by women who were trying cut out a niche for themselves in a male dominated industry. The web site sure makes it seem that way. Turns out I was pretty much dead wrong. The owner, Frank Davern got into the business by accident from a side venture where he had women reporting on music and trends. I find it kind of creepy, pretending to be a bunch of women in order to sell skateboards to girls, but it’s just business right? It’s not so much unlike when other skateboard companies launch a brand that pretends to be a separate entity. Davern is selling a lot of boards online, but can’t figure out why his boards aren’t flying off the shelves in skate shops nationwide. My guess is that most skate shops don’t see a brisk trade in 8 year old girls. Still, a reported $60,000 in mostly online sales last year means some one is buying them, and more importantly, that I’m doing something wrong here. Also going unsaid, it looks like there is a business opportunity out there for women who might have a better grasp on what girls actually think is cool. Check out the article.

The News Herald reports that Bay County Parks and Recreation Department in Panama City, Florida has an extra $1.5 million or so and is trying to figure out what to do with it. One of their very bright and apparently unsolicited ideas is to build a skatepark. It’s not too often that a skatepark falls from the sky. The locals didn’t have to rally the troops or even get Matthew Lesko involved.