I’m just getting over the sequel to my recent bout with strep throat, which came back with a vengeance a few days after my meds ran out. I’m on different meds now, but still feel a little wrecked. Posts will be light for a few days. Speaking of wrecked, some genius drove a van into Robb Field skatepark in San Diego last week. At least the last Burnside drive through was on purpose.

Dynamite Magazine Volume 2, Number 9 has some a slight skateboard running through it. The cover story is on Kristy McNichols’s and Leif Garrett’s onscreen breakup in the TV show “Family.” It mentions Leif’s appearance in Skateboard: the Movie. There’s a groovy 3D pull out poster inside and a small cartoon with a skateboard in the “Bummers” section. Dynamite Magazine #58 was published in 1979.

Long time (decades!) fixture on the Chicago skate scene, Stevie Dread made a skateboard out of Lake Michigan driftwood. He originally started making little fingerboards out of driftwood until I pointed him to MC’s life-sized creation. Stevie set out to make one of his own, but large driftwood doesn’t wash up every day on the beaches of Chicago, so it took a while for him to find a worthy specimen.

One of the joys of bootleg skateboards occurs when the perpetrator can’t quite decide which board to rip off, so they combine two or more into one. In this case we’ve got a Natas / Grosso hybrid that was literally printed on paper and then laminated on both sides of the so-called deck. So sloppily in fact that the panther looks like it’s about to slide off the side of the board. Available on Ebay, where the seller calls it a Natas Caupas. – Thanks to David Maes for the tip.

It’s (going to be) called the Garage, and it just got funded by Kickstarter. They’ve got 16k for building materials, now I guess it’s time to build.

About a million years ago (10 or so, actually) I did a write up of concrete skateparks in the greater Chicagoland area for a pre-blog print issue of S&A. It was pretty dismal, especially coming from a Northwest perspective. In most cases the design or finish were flawed, often times both. Most spots weren’t built by actual skatepark builders. Some have expansion joints where the transition meets the flat, filled with whatever soft goo they use on sidewalks. Some even have brushed cement. That’s not to say you couldn’t have fun in those parks, because you are skateboarding after all. Since that time, Chicago got an adequate, professional, but not especially exciting park on Wilson, plus a prefab junker on Logan, and think some other satellite parks in the burbs, but again, nothing to write home about. Who knows, (I don’t) maybe there are a other new parks in the area that I don’t know about. Admittedly, I’m going on old information, although I did hit some more suburban spots in 2009. This new skatepark in Villa Park by Portland’s Evergreen Skateparks has a small-ish footprint, so it’s kind of hard to dazzle, but still it’s got to be a…

It’s highly unlikely that this Swell brand gum is either, soft, fruity, or “swell,” given that it dates back to early 80’s. Unbelievably, the starting bid on a box of antique gum is $125. You can get an unopened box of skateboarding trading cards from roughly the same era for about quarter of that. I can’t tell exactly what is going on here, this kid is possibly puking fruit into big glass of soda. Big box after the jump.

I just saw this Red Bull commercial on TV sunday night, and couldn’t help but noticed they covered everything except the glring omission of skateboarding. I mean, they had down hill ice skating races for the love of Hosoi. I don’t know whether to laugh with joy or weep. Oh yeah, on second look, there doesn’t appear to be any snowboarding either. But again, they’ve got “Ice Cross” and parkour.

Neal Hendrix is Babes dig Balls Sports Babe of the Day. Babes Dig Balls is “The sports spot by babes who dig balls…and pucks.” If the interwebs has taught me anything, it’s that this site probably run by a 30-something dude. What is sexier than a babe on a skateboard with five X Games medals and a trip to the Olympic Games? Not much. Today’s SBOTD is sexy Lewisville, North Caroline native, Neal Hendrix. Click the link for his interview.