I’ve seen a lot of crappy skateboard renderings tacked on to products as an afterthought, but this one looks like the artist actually had an affinity for our favorite pastime. I can’t figure out what animal this is. I thought it was a monkey, but there’s no tail. There’s also no other skateboard related pictures inside. It’s kind of amusing that they call out the fact that it’s a shaped coloring book. They basically just punched out a regular coloring book. You can tell because a lot of the images are cut off. How’s that for investigative reporting?

From the Reasonably Clever blog’s Toybox of Fail, it’s the Jing Zhiwei brand’s lego bootleg titled “Death’s Head vs Astronaut.” They don’t make the distinction between alien and astronaut, which is very forward thinking of them. It’s his profession we are interested in, not what shade of green red his skin is. He looks like more of a devil or an ant man than an astronaut anyway. If there was going to be an epic battle between the grim reaper and a life form from another planet, it’s only natural that it should take place on skateboards, no?

I think it’s been at least a year since I changed the Annoying Kid of the Month. In this case it’s more of an Annoying Old Man of the Month. This “Young at Heart” gentleman was spotted at a Ross (Dress for Less!) store in Northern Washington. If you’re not familiar with them, Ross is the place where all the overstocked goods from various suppliers and/or liquidations go to be blown out for cheap. Don’t rip on this guy too hard, he may be a reader.

– Thanks to John Aguilar for the photo.

Posh Spice spotted on the beach wearing sunglasses and an Indy hat. And you thought she was too cool to shop at the mall.

Update: Here she is sporting a Girl Skateboards hat too.

It went bang. I said shut up. You must enlarge-o-rama to see all the drama.

Street skating. Get Some.

In my never ending quest to acquire vintage skateboard exploitation music that nobody wants to hear but me and maybe one other guy, I found this 1988 cassette only release by the Christian rap group called Megamouth. This ons is listed on eBay for $80, and that’s no typo. I asked the seller about it:

This cassette’s rarity and value are due to the fact that it is among the more obscure releases from Terry Taylor, a wunderkind in the Christian alternative music field (both as a producer and as an artist himself, with his bands Daniel Amos, Swirling Eddies, and Lost Dogs). Since this was a cassette-only release aimed at the Christian children’s market, a very small niche market, this title is pretty rare.

I thought I’d shop around and look for a more reasonably priced way to hear Getting Vertical (By Trustin’ The Lord), but the only other option is spending $100 at Amazon. Knowledgeable sources like the Holy Hip Hop DataBASE say the two Megamouth releases didn’t find much of an audience. Maybe it was ahead of it’s time, predating Colby’s Place by a year.

Bootz and Glitz has a roundup of some skateboard exploitation songs from the 70’s. Some of the tracks appear on This is Skateboard Music, and a bunch of them have been featured here already, but there are a couple new ones. These guys up top are the Swedish band called the Boppers. They may look like a late 50’s early 60’s act, but they were in fact a 70’s revival act. I’m still not sure that the first track from the Downhill Racers belongs in that post. Check out Bootz and Glitz.

– Thanks to Eric Shea for the tip.

Skateboard as fashion accessory. This time from Vogue Pelle, which I thought was Italian Vogue, were it not for the existence of Vogue Italia. And there you have it. I guess this is a step above Teen Vogue.

This spread is from the 1977 Theodor Seuss Geisel book titled Please Try to Remember the First of Octember, written under the pen name of Theo LeSeig, as in the case of all the children’s books he wrote but others illustrated. It seems he saved the Dr Seuss name for books that he both wrote and illustrated. Notice that LeSieg spelled backwards is… Geisel. What a clever man, if I do say so, er, uhmmm, myself. Enlarge-o-rama.