A website called Office Politics had a recent query by someone who might lose his job because he isn’t into skateboarding. Oh and because he/she’s 40-years-old. Your supervisor isn’t named Shawn Fendick by any chance?

I wonder what would happen if it was a 40-year-old vert skater or the guy pushed mongo?

old guy photo by Rich Burton

I won’t be making any updates this week. Here’s my 7 pound 10 ounce excuse named Simon, who was born Saturday evening at 8:14pm, Goofy foot.

(Cue the Devo Corporate Anthem) Hey all you Rad Daddy Warbucks, TheStreet.com has some pros and cons on investing in Zumiez stock.

I confess to getting a kick out of analyst reports describing Zumiez customers as “antimainstream kids” and referring to the company’s focus on the “action sports teen lifestyle.” Before going over all the positives, let’s get one thing straight — Zumiez is very much in the mainstream. It’s not some bastion of coolness or a hush-hush hangout where the skaters go. Rather, it’s a chain of stores in the mall where kids go to spend their allowances…

…The fact that Zumiez is pulling customers in while the competition loses them is a pretty obvious indicator of who has the right stuff in their stores. There are a number of forces at work here. First, Zumiez has identified what’s cool and, more important, captured the attitude necessary to convince customers that even though they’re shopping in a corporate chain located in a mall, it’s still cool. Yes, teenage tastes are fickle, but Zumiez has staked out an attractive niche between the more vulnerable one-brand clothiers (such as American Eagle and Abercrombie (ANF – Cramer’s Take – Stockpickr)) and “old school” skateboard shops that cater to a cultural group (this is where the Street likes to use the term “lifestyle”).

So go put your parent’s money where your mouth is.

The BBC has an article a Brit who has set an as yet unverified world record for speed (112mph) on a jet powered street luge. I don’t know if there is a separate category for non jet powered luge or what. They have video as well, but for good pictures you have to go to Gizmodo’s exclusive interview with Joel King. I don’t know how a gadget site scooped us on this, aside from the fact that we don’t pay any attention to street luge. At least we scooped them on the World’s Biggest Skateboard. Joel King bills himself as the Gravity King, which makes me the Duke of Sketch. [Photos: Top and Bottom Right – Richard Eaton. Bottom left and center from the BBC video]

Cooky Cucumber is no kook. She’s on a skateboard, but her friend Katie Carrot on the balance board… well, we can’t vouch for her. Actually, these gals may not even know each other, I think Mr Potato Head is playing the field a little bit. “Hey baby, nobody said we were exclusive!” 2025 Update: At the time of the original post there weren’t many images of this anywhere. Today there are all kinds of images available, so I’ve updated some of the low res pics. It’s funny because if you do an image search a lot of them are from this original post.

One of the best WTF marketing crossovers, Zenetti, a company that makes tacky fancy rims for shallow people obsessed with automobiles and the bling lifestyle, now has a skateboarding team.

Zenetti the automotive leader in wheel design has teamed up with Dominic DeLuca of the world famous skate shop & streetwear boutique; Brooklyn Projects; to form the wheel industries first ever official skate team. This is not your typical sponsorship scenario, where a company just giving a skateboarder a set of wheels, poses for a picture and you never hear about them again. This is an official skate team with a complete partnership, including magazine features, show appearances and advertising campaign. We have some of the top skate professionals in the world representing our brand and feel that our partnership will help elevate the industry and spark a new trend. These athletes were hand picked by Dominic and Zenetti for their trendsetting style as well as the fact that they embody what Zenetti stands for as a brand; superior performance, cutting edge style, and class.

They hope the team will “help elevate the industry and spark a new trend.” Which industry? Who knows? Is the new trend to use demographic specific “celebrities” to advertise things that most people in the demographic (kids) can’t afford or possibly can’t even legally use? Check out the team. Braydon Szafranski looks like he escaped from and old SNL skit with two wild and crazy guys and Terry Kennedy is too cool to even look at the camera. His sponsor must be so stoked to pay him a bunch of money to be embarrassed to promote their products. I hope these guys get a lot of money from Zenetti, who deserves the financial sucker punch.

[Source: Skate Life]

I don’t know who or what Don Don the dog is, except that he shows up on a bunch of crap that you can buy, kind of like Paul Frank’s Julius. In this case, Don Don’s stomach has been replaced with a surgically grafted alarm clock, and he’s standing on a skateboard. 24$ at Karma Kiss.

Earth Patrol Media shows us what happens when second (and third) string skateboard company moguls get in to the Dew Tour. Unfortunately, they were unable to abscond with the effigy of Ryan Sheckler, or burn it. Can you believe they want to sell you Dew Tour skateboards for $80? These are not completes mind you, just the deck. It’s ironic that the graphic on the deck is a bunch of robots. Maybe they’ll make one with lemmings next time. Check it out.

This skateboarding cow is from a series of advertisements for McDonald’s in China that features exercising cows. A few advertising blogs have spotlighted it, but they don’t appear to know anything about it (other than who made it) and never seem to point back to the source of the image. It took me a few days to find someone who reproduced it larger. Check it out after the jump.

People who run skateboard web sites get some weird mail. There’s a guy out there that wants to warn Portland skateboarders… of what, I’m not sure. Something to do with a nuclear blast drill being held in Portland. Curiously, this image from a Harvard University’s 2007 Day After Report shows the outlying St Johns bridge near Pier Park as ground zero, and not the Burnside Bridge, which is typically thought of as ground zero for skateboarding and Portland at large.

Subject: potential crisis at Burnside

I’m a former skater and I have seen info on the militaries operation Nobel Resolve scheduled for Portland, OR Aug 20-24. The public is nervous because they are doing a drill to respond to a nuclear device in downtown Portland. The target area includes the river and bridge area and after Minneapolis I’d shut Burnside down tomorrow morning, since it’s under a bridge and it can be destroy by the city of Portland at any time it wishes. Here’s a link to what’s flying around the Internet. Better to be safe than sorry.

I hope you can contact people who can warn the skaters in Portland quickly. Call skate shops please and skate magazines.

Know this your media or government have said nothing about this Noble Resolve Operation. Here’s a link to the Day After report that is part of this operation.

The military has looked at this document.

Better to be safe than sorry.

So consider yourself warned. Anarchy Burger! [Source: Skate Oregon]