S&A in Sidewalk

Skate and Annoy was mentioned in last month’s issue of Sidewalk Mag via Jim Thompson’s Scene Zine column. Thanks for the love from the UK. Some older Scene Zine are archived online if you are looking for more ways to avoid work or school. If Mark and Neil ever find out they don’t need me, I’m sunk.

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Dr SkateRock presents Vintage Skaterock

When I first heard of this book (before it was published) I was skeptical. I couldn’t believe there would be enough material to fill a book of any size. Then I was excited. It seemed like someone was writing a book (or playing a practical joke) just for me. Then I was pissed. Why didn’t I think of this idea? I quietly watched this, because I was not expecting it to actually come to fruition. When I saw that Dr Skaterock’s Vintage Skaterock had been published, I bought a copy without trying to hit the author up for a review copy. I figured the audience was going to be really small, so I wanted to support it. Upon receiving the (reasonably priced) book, I geeked out. It was a lot more scholarly than I had thought. I had assumed it was going to be a small coffee table styler book focusing on album covers, but equal (if not more) attention has been paid to release dates, record labels, alternate pressings and the sort of minutia that made me think, “Man, this guy is a geek!” – fully aware that I am the same caliber of geek. Then I thought, this is exactly the kind of geek I want contributing to Skate and Annoy. I have dabbled in skatesploitation music here on SNA. I’ve considered it a pet project of mine, even though some friends can’t understand why I even bother. However much of an “authority” I fancied myself as, Dr Skaterock has completely outclassed me in this area. That’s why stoked to welcome the (other) Doctor to the list of authors at Skate and Annoy. Look for him soon!

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5000 Posts

That last post was the 5000th post. Hooray. Sure the quality may have gone down since I actually have to work while I’m at “work” now, but hey, who loves ya baby? I do! I’ve seen some Tumblr sites with way more, but those are just photos and no text, I could do that all day long. So Hooray! Here’s a link to the first post I made after switching to WordPress in 2006. Please ignore that first post. I should have deleted it. Maybe start with the second.

My thanks to those who have helped over the years, namely Neil, MC, and Grover, as well as the rest of the contributors and frequent tipsters.

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Colin on S&A

You might have noticed something missing lately. After lengthy contract negotiations we are pleased to announce that Callin’ on Colin will be coming directly to Skate and Annoy. What does this mean to you the listener? The biggest change is that it’s not going to be broadcast live. Ultimately, this was the main reason he jumped ship in the first place. Getting people into the studio at the same time every week was a pain in the ass. This way he gets to record it whenever and wherever he wants. The second big change is that he’s thinking about making it a video production, but It’s going to be low tech, no post production to speak of. Thus begins phase two of Skate and Annoy’s media expansion empire, gunning for the Berrics. One miniscule step at a time.

First episode of Callin’ on Colin 2.0 is a week from tomorrow and the guest is… undecided.

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My dog ate my post

I don’t have anything else for you today. Yesterday the sewer pipe backed up into my basement. Fun!!!!!!! So I spent last night cleaning up fecal matter instead of writing posts. I just happened to have the Factory Made in can and ready to go. I’m pretty sure that the people who sent these items in to Skate and Annoy didn’t envision poop in their viral marketing plans. I got the special edition of the Bones Brigade Video Show, complete with a bitching magic motion lenticular print on the cover and some swag in the form of a nice Cab shirt and some stickers. My first real board was a red Cabellero of the 1984 vintage. Thanks to Skate One. Also in the mailbox, some funky looking PiiQ headphones from Sony. They’ve got another pair of Qlasp headphones for one of our readers. Leave a comment on this post and I’ll pick one at random to win them, shipped directly from the marketing agency, which means you won’t have to wait an obscene amount of time to get them.

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Gratuitous Eye Candy

Check out this fancy 3D tag cloud. Equal parts impressive and annoying, huh? If you are struck with the desire to view this after it’s been bumped from the front page, you can find the link labeled Fancy Tag Cloud in the sidebar. Oh yeah, without Flash installed it just looks like the regular 2D tag cloud.

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Out with the old.

You might have noticed I haven’t been updating as frequently as usual for a the past couple of weeks. It’s because I’ve been swamped with things in the real world, and I’ve been spending a lot of my S&A time tinkering with a redesign. I got sick of looking at the old site. It had hadn’t changed considerably since 2006 when I launched the blog part of the site. The old look was cobbled together as I went along. It wasn’t really meant to be long term, but things got away from me and it was “good enough.” I almost went with a prepackaged theme, but that would have been too easy. This new one is a work in progress, you’ll notice a lot of missing items that will start to reappear in the next week or so. Some details may change from day to day for a while too. Eventually all the static pages will be brought into the new look as well, but for now it’s still legacy. I’ve got a few little gimmicks I’m considering, like I might make some adjustments under the hood to allow you to chose from a couple different theme variations, including “Skate and Annoy Classic” as it will be named from now on. Hopefully this isn’t the “New Coke” version of S&A. I look forward to your feedback, positive or negative, as long as it’s constructive. I’m interested in finding out if it looks like crap in your broswer. If it looks buggered, please send in a screen shot and let me know what browser version you are using, and whether you are on a Mac like all good hearted people or a PC. If you are still using Internet Explorer you’ll miss out on some minor eye candy. For the love of Thor, try Firefox or Safari like the rest of us. Please, it’s the civilized thing to do. I hope you enjoy!

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Because I love you

I have made these improvements to the site. I added long overdue threaded comments. So now you can reply directly to a bonehead instead of having to quote them in hopes that people know who you are responding to. I love how MC’s comic about the inevitability of slamming has turned to an argument about wearing pads. He didn’t even mention helmets. You’ll also notice little square boxes next to your comment. If you don’t have an avatar you’ll see a tiny blue razor scooting kook. If you want to change it, head on over to gravatar.com and you can upload one for free. It will show up on any site that uses gravatars, which stands for Globally Recognized Avatars. I added tags to the posts as well, just another way of linking posts with similar subject matters. I’ve been using them for a while but the whole back catalog isn’t tagged yet. Some day. Let’s see, I also went back and re-uploaded all the old commercials and TV spots that were deleted when I got the boot from YouTube. I spread them out a little and got wise (vague) about the descriptions, so they should be up there for a while. There are over 50 now. Enjoy.

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Skate and Annoy welcomes Sean Cliver

I’m excited to announce that I have tricked talked Sean Cliver into joining the fake staff at Skate and Annoy. Basically, we’ll just be syndicating his posts over at the Disposable blog, so you’ll always be able to read the same thing a little earlier over there, just don’t do it, OK? I asked Sean to write up a little intro for those of you are unfamiliar with his work as an artist and an author:

Hello. My name is Sean Cliver and I’ve been very fortunate to have had two books published in the past related to skateboards and the related artwork. Well, I guess I’m even more fortunate to be able to do some of this art upon them, but for as much as I’ve been called a skateboard artist I’m actually much more a fan of the art form in general … although that did just sound rather gay there, didn’t it? Hmmm. Anyway, since I’ve pretty much exhausted my ability or means to do any further books about skateboards, I’ve since turned to the Interweb to openly muse about them in a way that would’ve been far too trivial and page-consuming in print. Luckily this whole “information superhighway” has proved to be nothing more than a limitless trash heap upon which more and more stuff gets tossed every day, so I can now satisfy these random urges without having to worry about the bigger picture, e.g. page counts, budgets, and editing. Although if the Interweb has taught the world anything it really is the value of having a good editor. You know, someone to tell a writer when they’ve gone too far and that’s fucking enough with the superfluous wordage already. Like now.

There you have it. Expect to see some Cliver posts very soon. I’ll be mining his back catalog since it’s recently new. Say hello to Sean, but don’t, I repeat DO NOT ask him how much you can get for the board that you found in your parent’s basement from when you used to skate.

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Follow DaddyYo at his new home

My inbox has been flooded with protests and requests that I ban the entity known as Daddy Yo. It’s not worth all the drama and distraction, and so I am taking the easy way out and reinstating the Daddy Yo ban. You can follow Daddy Yo at his own blog which I assume is going to dedicated to the patent on his mountainboard hybrid. The innovation here is supposed to be that the trucks are mounted on the upturned nose and tail, although I swear I’ve already seen this before, recently, and at the very least, on the Wheelee Board. I couldn’t find the actual patent online, but Michael was kind enough to send me the text from the application.

There’s more…

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