The Unted States isn’t the only xenophobic country. France has been trying to figure out how keep it real, French, that is, sometimes getting very angry about the dilution of French culture. Certainly not helping his countrymen in this respect, pro (?) skateboarder Jean Postec just signed a deal to endorse the Right Guard® Xtreme line of antiperspirant and deodorant products. Adding insult to injury, the French aren’t exactly known for their use of deodorant in the first place. Why don’t you know who Jean Postec is? Because he’s French and a vert skater!

The Tony Hawk Foundation just announced it’s Spring 2007 Grant Awards. Find out if your town is one of the 23 listed that will be dipping into the pool of $200,000. The foundation has given out over $1.7-million since it was established in 2002. In 2005 they had an operating budget of 6% and actually spent 80% of their revenue on program services, which should earn them a high rating according to organizations that rate charities. The other 14% of their budget went to fundraising events like the Stand Up For Skateparks benefit. (Hey Andy MacDonald, keep your eyes up!) Find out if your town is on the list after the jump.

This was a Canadian zine out of Ontario. I’ve got four issues, the latest I have is #17. That’s Freezine as in “freezing,” not “free.” This is a good one, not a lot of reading or actual skate photographs if you analyze it, but put together well enough to make it seem like you were getting a lot.

And so begins my project to scan all my old zines and make them available for older skaters to relive their past, and for the younger generation to make an archeological dig into skateboarding culture before it was so easily accessible. These were the days of press type, scissors and rubber cement. Typewriters and hand lettering, or at most computer printed text xeroxed and shrunk and cut up and pasted into the layout to make it fit. Yes, I am aware that Xerox is a proper noun, and not a verb. It makes me want to cry in my Kleenex. First up, Harsh Vibes #2 (revised edition, actually) from Milwaukee. Exact date unknown.

Through following a link on one of your comments, I came across these two photos of Alan Gelfand doing his signature “ollie” in both 1979 and 2004. I’ve seen a few “Then and Now” photo comparisons before, but these shots one-up the usual because he’s riding the same model board in both shots. What’s he doing riding a 25+ year old Powell board? Who knows how much it’s worth on eBay? (We do. $559 – $2,933) I say, keep riding it! Gelfand was involved with a lawsuit against Disney and Sega over skateboard toys and games using the word “Ollie.” I wonder how that turned out. Check out Alan’s web site, ollieair.com. [Photos: Left – CR Stecyk. Right – Charles Lillo]

Wormhoudt has broken ground on a new monster park in San Jose California. Our man on the street, but not necessarily the street course, Larry Pescatore sent us a few shots of the construction. The renders are courtesy of Wormhoudt, or would be if I had asked. If you like the trend of adding distinctive landmark features to an individual park, you’ll be happy to learn there are at least two in this 45,000 square foot park located at Lake Cunningham. Find out what $4,761,800 buys in San Jose after the jump.

Over the years I’ve met and spoken with some interesting people that I otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to, were it not for Skate and Annoy. Sometimes I search them out, sometimes they find me. We’ve got a gallery of 70’s skateboard bubblegum trading card stickers, and what better excuse to bring it up than some correspondence with the Jesse Crumb, son of legendary 70’s underground art icon R. Crumb. Jesse runs the official R. Crumb web site, as well as being an artist in his own right. Here’s part of what he had to say: MAN! I have been looking for those cards/decals for 30 years, at least. I grew up in Northern Cal., near Ukiah. There were a few of us into injuring ourselves. A piece of gravel could throw you 10 feet, as you know anyway. So at the local corner store these cards arrived, but in very short supply, and they were COVETED. One guy who got a pack was a really feral kid, parents were complete hippies. My folks were back to the landers, but some of them.. MAN..the kids were just..ON THEIR OWN at, you know 7 years old?? Jeezis.. ANYWAY..So..he climbs the rope…

Remember Andy Wissman? Well so far he has resisted our offer for a spotlight photo gallery, but he did let us know about the release of Soytruk issue one. I like the zine, it’s got good photography and a sense of humor. Reminds me of the the old Swank Zine days, although a little more coherent. And in color. And presented digitally. Speaking of the presentation, I’m not too crazy about the delivery. The pages are easy to navigate, but the default image size on Flickr hosting (in this case, the pages) are too small. I also want to see the edges of the page. Give me a PDF file that I can download. It may be the lazy way of presenting a zine, but I guess you can’t beat the free hosting. At least he put it out. I’m still sitting on an print issue of Skate and Annoy that has barely seen the light of day. gee, maybe if I spent less time writing about other people’s work… I took a few liberties with his page layouts for the graphic above, so check out Soytruk.

Microsoft has some brand new interactive technology called Silverlight. The good news is that they are developing a Mac plugin, and since it’s Microsoft, all those TV station and other promotional web sites that have various semi-functioning Windows Media or AVI video clips up might finally have a cross platform solution. Heck, I can’t watch half the embedded WMV files on my Windows machine. Of course a popular technology solution to these problems already exists, and it’s called Flash. So how do you generate buzz for a competitor? With trendy skateboarding visuals. Ahh, but what sinister motivation lies behind the innocent act of skateboarding? Find out the answer to that question as well as where you might be able to win a Microsoft Silverlight skateboard after the jump.

So Josh has been skating since 2000, and has had Skatelife up for almost 3 weeks now. I started skating plastic toys in (Er… cough, cough) 1976 or so. Skate and Annoy has been online since 1996, and first printed in 1985… so yeah, that’s seems right. Go check out Josh’s site. Leave him some comments (Be nice!) and help him get started. I will be doing my part by poaching his story (with credit!) about an unrelated project called The Skate Life, in the very near future.