I try to refrain from commenting on shoe stuff as a rule, which is why we didn’t mention Lance Mountain jumping ship to Nike SB (oops, too late). Here’s an article in the OC Register showcasing the opulent wealth of Sole Technologies owner Pierre André Senizergues. It’s a feature that is kind of like MTV’s Cribs for a-holes. Eat the rich. Pierre André Senizergues lived in a van when he arrived in California from France as a young man of 21. He spent his days in the sunshine, skateboarding at the beach. At night, he’d move from parking lot to parking lot until he found a safe spot to sleep. Now, 22 years later, he owns four homes, including two waterfront locations in Newport Beach. Along the way, he built a $200 million skateboard-shoe company in Lake Forest, Sole Technology Inc.

Old people and computers mix about as well as old people and skateboards. Utah’s KLS 5 TV news did a story on the nationwide trend of car surfing, or being pulled behind a car on a skateboard. They call it a nationwide phenomenon because they found four (yes, 4!!!) videos of car surfing on YouTube. Better call out the National Guard! Actually, the term “car surfing” refers to climbing out of your car and standing on top while it coasts, but the fact that there are some 700 plus videos of that on Youtube didn’t deter the aged staff of KLS 5 in Salt Lake City Utah from making up their own terminology and declaring it a trend. (Car Surfing Becoming a Dangerous Trend in Utah!) The guy in the top shot is actually wearing a lei while riding to the soundtrack of the Beach Boys Surfin USA. Of course, there is the obligatory Back to the Future reference. The main point of the news piece is to point out how dangerous car surfing is. They even bring in an “injury prevention specialists” to corroborate the obvious. Lei boy wipes out after his so-called friends start pelting him with sports…

That’s right, Lib Tech is giving away a free skate trip to Sweden to everyone… or at least everyone who wins this contest, which is of the skateboarding talent variety. This ought to be interesting for Mason Huggins, now that he’s no longer on Lib Tech.

Contort was pretty much the king of East coast zines. Everyone who traded zines or went to Boston knew about Contort and Dan Estabrook. He and Contort were constantly being mentioned in Thrasher or Transworld. This is issue #2, when Dan was still doing it with a partner. It’s a pretty straight forward zine with just of hint of the more artsy Swank Zine-like approach it would later morph into. I got this as a “back issue” after meeting Dan when he came to visit his parents, who had moved from Boston to Champaign-Urbana Illinois so his father could take a position at the University of Illinois. Blah blah blah. Dan was rad, we had a lot of fun when he’d visit. Later I would go to Boston to check out his scene. Talk about plate of shrimp coincidences, there are a couple of pictures of our own Mark Conahan in this issue. I wouldn’t meet Mark until after the year 2000. Cue Disney theme song.. It’s a small world after all…

Skate Cool #1 is one of those zines that probably never got circulated outside the group of kids that made it. The only reason I got a copy was because one of those kids was the kid brother of my best friend in high school, Jay Niedzwicki who was the guy I rode my first real skateboard and vert ramp with, discovered punk rock, etc… I had completely forgotten that when it came time to scan this. At first glance I thought was completely stupid, and it is, but I started flipping through it, and as stupid as it is, it’s still amusing. Then I read the credits and found my friend’s brother, Scott Niedzwicki on the, errr.. masthead.

The Ray Underhill benefit auction we mentioned earlier is about to start. The list of items is impressive. Visit the official Ray Underhill site to get the background story and more information, or make a flat out donation. On May 13th (tomorrow) you can start bidding. Grab those hammers – it’s time to break those piggy banks! What may be the largest auction for collectable skateboard items is upon us. Pros and industry notables from the past and present have donated a grip of one-of-a-kind gear to help raise money for Ray Underhill and his battle against a chordoma brain tumor. This auction offers one absolute guarantee that no other auction can offer: zero buyer’s remorse! This sounds cliché, but it’s true–Ray Underhill is one of the nicest guys in skateboarding, and his friends have come out en force to help him and his family in this difficult time. He may be the only pro skater who ever substituted “fudge” for the other naughty word that starts with F. Ray was always willing to step up and help others, and this auction is our opportunity to do the same for him.

Check out construction pics from the Vancouver Washington skatepark. I was origianlly just going to link to Dan Hughes’ shots but then I figured it was worth the trek since I only live 12 miles from the spot. This park has been in the works so long without progress, it was starting to seem like Bigfoot – Have you heard about the mythical skatepark that Vancouver is building? No, it really exists! I think those Washington locals were trying to keep it a secret. (Curse you, Thor!) The skatepark is part of the Pacific Community Park Extreme Sports Complex. The larger park is not set to open until 2008 (!!) but I got the word from a Parks and Rec representative (Thanks Jilayne!) that they are investigating the possibility of opening the skatepark in July or August of this year. The skatepark looks like it could be done sooner. Perhaps they need the trespassing citation fines to fund the rest of the park. The plans look kind of generic, but the tour I received made it obvious that there were lines everywhere. I think it will be a very fun park, and yes, the street area hasn’t been started yet.…

When I got a copy of Skate and Mate, I was dumfounded. It seemed so obviously perfect because it combined everything I was interested in as a young male of college age. The photos (mostly pros) were good, there was punk rock, and of course the whole sex with girls thing. They even had an amateur topless pic that someone had donated, which seemed incredible at the time. This was before the days of the internet and Girls Gone Wild, and that kind of exhibitionism wasn’t as culturally pervasive. The humor in Skate and Mate was adolescent and sexist, to be sure, but so was I at the time. Ahh, the folly of youth. Now that I am older and more mature… I still wish I had put that zine out! Ha! The Skate and Mate crew talked a lot of shit, but if anyone could self-proclaim themselves “The King of Zines,” they could pull it off. Pokezine… Brilliant.

Not every zine was a winner. Then again, not every zine was as bad as it seemed on first impression. This is Concrete Crusaders #2, an eight page affair with no date and no mention of who put it together with the exception of someone who did some transcribing. Despite the raised expectations that the Electric Ocean logo provides, on the surface this zine is sucky, However, it was probably the work of one guy, a lone outpost in his community. That’s right, whoever made this was the Dances with Wolves of Ohio skate zines. He went to Ann Arbor Michigan and got some decent pics of Brian Mank, a Midwest staple of the time. Whoever made this zine may not have had a lot of artistic talent, but he was probably stoked by Thrasher to do his own thing, and he did it. This is issue number two, and the editor seems despondent by lack of reader feedback. Of course with a title like “Boring Summer Issue,” what can you expect? Summer should be the best part of the year for skate coverage!

Chi-Town Shred was the king of all Chicago skate zines in the late 80’s. I don’t know how long they published, but I’ve got 7 issues, the latest being #9. Their wacky web site (yes, they are online!) shows a cover for “the Last Issue” which looks like #11 from 1990. These guys had a short but prolific output. I think the key was photo-heavy issues without much blabbering on. That’s a good way to go. Our problem at Skate and Annoy which we still have, was we wanted to pretend we were a real skate mag with stories and coverage of events, interviews, etc… As a result we would unbearably delay getting things out, which explains our 12 year gap in printing. We got distracted, but we always intended on putting out another issue. I was still printing photos from negatives for the next issue in the late 90’s.