Skateboard Shannon is for sale on the mean streets of Used Calgary. That’s right, she’s used and cheap, but she can still show you some fun. She knows all the tricks and will do whatever you tell her. When your time is up you’d better pay her or else Skateboard Johnny will mess you up, bad.

I came across this web site (get your mind out of the gutter) while doing some, errrr, research. Gaybar Zine is a German web site that handles all your skate, BMX, graffiti and even struller needs. Kind of like a modern Action Now I guess. I’m not sure what the connection is with the Gaybar title. Maybe it’s one of those things where it means something different in German, Kind of like the time I was in Polland and saw an amusement park ride called the “Super Fahrt.” Anyway, I can’t hear the words “gay bar” without thinking of the Electric Six.

I actually named my cat “Rerun” after the character in this show. At the time, 10 years ago, my girlfriend and I thought it was hilarious – the cat’s name, not the TV show. Now I’m married to that girl (Not That Girl) and our cat pees on my pads. The complete season two of What’s Happening is available on Amazon. Does anyone know if there is there any skateboarding these episodes? If you need audio to get in the What’s Happening!! mood, click here and scroll down. [Source: Bobcat via Sleestak.net]

Dave Adams sent in this picture of the newest Team Pain skatepark in Dunedin, Florida, which is celebrating its grand opening Saturday September 15th. I personally have been working on getting this park built for nine years, so it’s a very big deal for me and the skate commuity here in Pinellas County. The Team Pain concrete crew did some amazing work to fit what they built in a relatively small area of 10K sq ft., and they had to build it all above ground by building retaining walls and placing a lot of fill to get it done. There are a lot more pictures on the Team Pain news site. If I’m not mistaken, I think the Englewood park the Team Pain recently finished is in or near Pinellas County as well. (Update: No, it’s not. Englewood is about 100 miles south of Dunedin.) Dunedin looks like it’s a fun spot. Congrats to Dave and the Dunedin locals, as well as Team Pain. Now send us some action photos! Update: The Groms are barging!

A high school in North East Portland had to be closed down due to asbestos or black mold, or so the rumors go. It was too expensive to rehab it and they apparently didn’t need the space so they decided to tear the whole thing down. It was where Gus Van Sant filmed the 2003 movie Elephant that Grover mentions in his GVK episode titled Paranoid Park Tryouts. It was already vacant when they filmed the movie, and for the past few years or two it was home to a DIY street plaza that the locals had built in the semi-secluded parking lot. There were a bunch of grind rails and artificial ledges set up on the island curbs, as well as a couple crazy ramps of various size and design. It was all very sketchy, but admirable. Every once in a while I would spy a few kids dinking around on their boards. Whenever I drove by, which was a couple times a week, I made a mental note that I should photograph it. Well, needless to say, I waited too long. This Spring they finally demolished the school to make way for some real estate development because the…

Americans don’t have the market cornered on wacky skateboard inspired technology. From Germany comes the DIY Struller scooter and skateboard combo and from the UK we have the Magic Wheel, which is like a skateboard if it had one bicycle wheel replacing the front truck. Err.. and a shopping cart wheel on the back truck I guess. I’m reaching here. Will somebody please post some actual skateboarding on this web site? [ Source: Magic Wheel – Gearfuse ]

Is inline skating back from the dead? Yes, according to the Press Enterprise story “Inline Skating Part of Action Sports Tour Lineup.” I’m not sure why that warrants the headline. it seems like only a few years ago that inline skating was dropped from the X-Games. So uh… kudos to the Dew AST for having it’s finger on the pulse of Extreme!™ youth trends so that the skateboarding community can heckle the booters instead of BMX guys or worse, each other. Exclusive video of the official promo video for inline skating after the jump. The crappy watermarked image that I couldn’t be bothered to fix in Photoshop is “courtesy” of All Posters, who claims that it has “pure color and exceptional detail that is suitable for museum or gallery display.”

OK, I’m going to cop to not putting a lot of effort into SnA since the baby was born. The obvious lameness of this post title ought to give you a hint about how sleep deprivation is affecting me. Hopefully it’ll settle down with time. Here’s the first in a long line of quick and dirty posts. At one point in time I was thinking about having a gallery of “No skateboarding” signs from around the world until I realized how boring it would likely be. Now it could contain at least two interesting signs. All those skateboarding bulldogs on YouTube are going to pissed off about this “No Skateboarding Dogs” sign spotted on Chuck Woodbury’s Roadside Journal. Yes, I know, the sign is meant to say “No Skateboarding, No Dogs,” but it’s amusing none the less. Second, we have this “Thou Shalt Not Skateboard” sign in front of the Claremont Presbyterian Church in the city of Ontario California, as reported by the Daily Bulletin. At least they have a sense of humor. Also attached, “No Skating or Grinding,” but Kickflipping is apparently allowed. And what is that middle symbol? No Moonwalking? And now for something completely unrelated, a spider…

The 70’s was a funny time in skateboarding. At times, the industry and the public at large tended to view it almost as a carnival ride or amusement park attraction. Case in point, Skateball. I received a couple old pictures of a Skateball installation at the Olympic Skatepark in Crystal Lake Illinois a few years back when SnA was being updated on a very infrequent basis. Seeing the Radical post reminded me of them, so I dug them up. Fortunately, I was still able to contact Jeff Hottle for some larger scans, and he obliged with a few bonus shots as well. Skateball was basically pinball on a halfpipe, where the skater simulated the ball. It’s one of those things you hear rumors about but don’t quite give them credit unless you actually see it. Five pictures and a little history after the jump.

Maputo city in Mozambique has a little scene going there with their own web site called Maputo Skate. I don’t know diddly about Mozambique, but the Wikipedia primer says Mozambique was a former colony of Portugal that gained independence in 1975 after years of war and a Military coup. A one party state aligned with the Soviet bloc was formed and a long civil war followed. Since 1990 they’ve had democratic elections. I can’t make heads or tails of African politics, it can be one messed up place. The point of this sub-par history lesson is to point out that even with all the economic and political strife, skateboarding somehow found its way to Mozambique. Not only that, but the tricks are the same. Maputo Skate has photos and video, and while the equipment is not all to notch (like that sketchy grind rail in the photo above) the fun looks like any other group of kids you might find in the Midwest somewhere, posting pictures and video to MySpace.