Word is that the lease is up on the tenant that currently resides in the building that houses Milwaukee’s famed Turf Skatepark. I erroneously reported that the concrete had been demoed, but I guess the truth lies closer to some missing coping and a lot of landfill. I here to report on the rumor that there people in Wisconsin working on trying to get a third lease on life for the Turf Skatepark. If there’s no truth to that rumor, then I’m here to start it, in hopes that someone who still lives in the area will get stoked. The Turf still lives in more than memories and photos, a crew of BMXers has the old miniramp from the Turf. At the risk of becoming very unpopular, I was watching some video of that park and it made me think that perhaps the fond memories have more to do with nostalgia than the quality of the terrain, especially compared to the modern crop of skateparks. Still, I’d be all for digging it up and slapping some new coping on. I hope it happens. Photos – Clockwise: Old exterior shot from Thrasher Magazine, as found on the Facebook page for Pete…

This shot came from the Royal Hawaiian Pool Service web site. The official title is Wallos – pre “Animal Chin” hype. This shot of Stacey Gibo dates back to 1985. Stacey was a local “skate punk legend, he later went on to work at Thrasher and Dogtown… …Probably the most fearless and feared skater from Hawaii. He was our Duane Peters. This pic was from one the first Wallos contests – Stacey won first place hands down. The Bones Brigade got nothin’ on him.” Check out the Shot of the Week, and while you are at it, .The R.H.P.S. store has been relaunched, they’ve got some cool stuff in there like stickers that will fit your (Indy) truck hangers and the Aaron “Fingers” Murray – Guest Model, complete with the sidecuts his name has become synonymous with.

I had never seen, nor heard of this TV show called Sledge Hammer! that ran for two seasons from 1986-88. I watched a clip of it online and it was pretty good, certainly calling to mind the short lived TV show Police Squad from 1982 that ended up turning into the Naked Gun series of movies that ironically came out in the last year of Sledge Hammer. What I really want to talk about is the very excellent Star Trek spoof series from 1979 called Quark. At least I remember it being excellent, but on the other hand I recently tried to go back and re-watch some episodes of another show I recalled as being brilliant, The Young Ones, and found it hard to sit through. Enough about Quark. An episode of Sledge Hammer! features the time-tested comedy archetype of someone jumping on a skateboard without having complete technical mastery, in this case, an nice looking Alva Street Fire. – Thanks to Mike D for the tip.

This is another great find from WeirdoToys.com. The The Ertl brand released a series of toys called Socket Poppers in 1991. Socket Poppers are little action figures with completely interchangeable body parts. They were packaged with multiple figures in one pack, already partially mixed up. In our case, The Skateboarder came with Pterodactyl, as shown above.

A few skateboarding stills from the 1976 movie Car Wash, starring Richard Pryor and George Carlin, thanks to Josef Heffner. Man, that is one narrow board…

Here’s a detail from a shot I took circa 1989 in Rockford, Illinois at a roller skating rink turned skatepark called Rotation Station. I guess at this late of a date it might have been an Alva demo and not Zorlac. Full frame shot after the jump.

March 2009. OK ok, I know I’m weeks late with this. Shit, I could be doing the April one! But hey stuff happens; sometimes you just don’t feel like sitting down in front of a computer for 6 hours on a weekend. I had contemplated not doing this anymore, but I do enjoy it, and it seems from some of the comments I’ve gotten, you guys like it too. Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement, by the way. I’m always open to complements and to bribes too if need be, so send your old decks along! And I know that you all want me to make these longer, but realistically I have to shorten them. They started off with about 15 decks, but every month they get longer and longer. This month is the longest yet, clocking in at 62 items and over 5,600 words. These are starting to feel like college term papers! So I might settle on about 40 items in the future. That should allow them to come out in a more timely fashion too.

This week’s Shot of the Week is from Jim Gray, pictured at Skate City in Whittier, CA. This shot was used for his first advert ever, which was in Action Now magazine, circa 1980 or so. He can’t remember who took it, and I can’t seem to find it in the couple of Action Now’s that I have access to. So maybe our readers can help. I’m working on putting together an interview with Jim, so if anyone has any questions they’d like me to consider, go ahead and email them to me. Check out the Shot of the Week.

The official web site for the Burnside Project is kind of a mess, hosted on two separate Blogspot accounts, and hard to read and find your way around. If anyone needs/wants help rebuilding the site, consider this my formal offer to do it, pro bono of course. On the plus side, there is a bit of written history that is a work in progress, going back and getting things right is a daunting task. The best part is an old section with a wealth of tiny pictures of various stages of Burnside, mostly from Kent Dahlgren, going way….. back. It looks like it was made back in the modem days, cause the images are pretty small, but still they are an amazing resource. Check out Burnside Photoview.

Original Makaha and Hobie team rider and the first National and International Champion Skateboarder, Danny Bearer has been lurking on S&A for a while. Becasue he doesn’t seem to be able to keep his PR comments on topic, I decided to give him his own post. Danny, this is it. This is where you can let everyone know about your book, movie, media appearances, all of it. ….have finished the new film “Defence Above All” Contact 310-452-1030 or dannybearer@yahoo.com and dannybearerenterprises.com, Thank you,the book is in the works. The story of the first Professional Skateboard Club Makaha and the 10 year World Championship Team reign of the Hobie Alter Golden Diamond Surf Team still in competition in California in the early 1960’s , Thank you, Larry Stevenson,the Father of the Skateboard and Hobie Alter! Very truly yours, Danny Bearer Speaking of movies, the Makaha web site says filming has almost wrapped on a project called “Makaha, The Story of the Originator.” Meanwhile, catch some vintage video of Danny and his teammates in action after the jump. Juice Magazine has an online excerpt of an interview with Danny in issue #57, conducted by Steve Olson. Lastly, let’s not forget DannyBearerEnterprises.com. [Photo:…