Unfortunately, for every morally uplifting tale, there are about five or more human beings who are still just living in the gutter. There was an 80’s English skate rock/hardcore band called the Coolest Retards, these guys after the jump definitely fit half of that bill.

Time was, when there was a big contest coming up you’d learn about it in advance from Thrasher, then have to wait one or two months after the event to read the coverage in the magazines, then another 3-8 months before you could rent the video from from your local skate shop. Remember when skate shops would rent videos? Does anyone do that anymore? The price of skate videos has gone down, for the most part. In 1989 you would have paid $29.99 for Public Domain. . You can get the Thrasher videos for a really reasonable price. Don’t you agree that all skate videos should be $15 or less? Getting back to the point, in my day we had to skate uphill both ways in the rain, on clay wheels that were missing 35% of the open bearings… Nowadays you can just get on the Interwebs™ and watch the contest live, through a series of tubes, as is the case with the Tampa Pro contest at SPOT. Tune in to Fuel TV on Sunday, March 22nd from 12-6pm EST.

Well now, that’s not a joke, it’s a legitimate caption. This week’s Shot of the Week is from a photographer who goes by the name of TimoT on Flickr. Old Pierre is hitting a blunt to fakie on a DIY spot somewhere in France. Check out this week’s Shot of the Week.

It’s no big secret how skateboards are made anymore. Everybody knows that Chinese fairies magic them out from the woodland lairs of ancient dragons, but some people are still making them locally. Here’s a video from a French company called Rekiem. The basics are the same, but everyone does it slightly different. For instance, the guys (garcons?) at Rekiem are setting up some of their decks with the graphics already screened, as well as using the pad printing process (basically a big stamp) for the top layer. Check it out. [Source: Condense]

When I heard that Portland’s worst kept secret spot was already partially demolished, I assumed it was because there was a general failure to keep it on the down low, but it turns out the larger site is planned for demolition as part of the acquisition and planned expansion by the University of Portland, according to ESPN. The shot above is from The Skateboard Archives. Here’s an amusing U.P. anecdote. I used to live near there about five years ago. While driving by one day I noticed that someone stole all the letter “R”‘s from the signs at all the entrances to the main campus, effectively renaming it hte “University of Pot-land.” Those wacky Christian college kids! – Thanks to Donny for the tip.

Just like House of Neil, I have a major issue with people who cut up old skate magazines (or Life, or anything else, really) and try to sell the individual ads out of context. Plundering history for a modest monetary gain is needlessly destructive. Frankly, it pisses me off. Then again, I have been known to get bent out of shape about stupid things. You might expect me to be similarly upset with Solitary Arts and their Traveler Deadstock boards, but instead I am green with envy. The folks at Solitary arts managed to get their hands on a limited quantity of NOS 70’s era wooden plank style skateboard decks. They’ve gone ahead and hand routered the bottoms so they could mount their own inlay in place, then fitted them with new trucks and their own retro styled wheel to make a board that is half reproduction, half NOS, and all genius. It doesn’t violate my anti-desecration of history policy because these unnamed plank boards are a dime a dozen, from a time when the technology of skateboard decks was easily accessible to anyone with a jigsaw and some sandpaper. Nobody wants to buy them on eBay, I know because…

I should have guessed these guys were involved. The wave ramp at the Kiasma museum was another distinctive project from the collective known as The Side Effects of Urethane. This particular exhibit is called Aalto. TSEOU has images ranging from the concept phase right on through construction (time lapse video) and finally skating. One interesting thing about the design, it looks more like a boat under construction than a traditional skate ramp. Check out Aalto on TSEOU. – Thanks to Ian for the tip.

Before you get your panties in a bunch, this is an art piece, and not something that is in production, unlike this, and let’s not forget about this or this. This one comes from UK artist Chris Jackson.

This might be your last chance to get a Nash skateboard with graphics that aren’t an absolute pile of shite. This 80’s era Nash Nightmare auction ends at 8:47pm, Baltimore time. They must have hired someone from outside their usual talent pool for this graphic. To be fair, they had some really cool graphics in the steel wheel era, followed by a 15 year drought. I swear the Nightmare is on par with some of the Creature stuff…

You would think that being a reporter for the Wall Street Journal would preclude you from writing about skateboarding, but one man found a way to make it happen. Conor Dougherty contacted me in reference to the New York Times piece of failed mortgages and pool skating. Over the phone he mentioned that he’d been trying to figure out an angle to get the WSJ on board with a skateboard story for a long time, and it looks like he finally swung the deal with a piece called Skateboarding Tourney Stirs Its Own Midnight Madness and another called The Economics of Skateboard videos. The first piece is about the recently hyped game of SKATE put on by the Berrics, and the second one is essentially a recap with some information about professionally produced online video, including the fact that you can usually find recently released skate videos on YouTube. I wondering how he pitched the first story, as far as usefulness from a business standpoint. I’m not pointing this out to be critical, but rather to say “way to make it happen.” Both articles use the same video, which you can watch courtesy of the Wall Street Journal after the…