Someone went through the trouble to bring back the Gull Wing Trucks brand, but neglected to include the design that made them famous. Regardless of whether you are a fan of the original Gull Wings or not, it seems like a no-brainer to make them at least somewhat resemble the old trucks, even though you’re not going to fool anybody into thinking that Gullwings have been available without a break since the 70’s. They have one model that looks like everyday trucks, plus they’ve jumped on the longboard market boom with several reverse kingpin designs. And then there is the sidewinder truck, pictured above. I’m not sure what the purpose is since the web site doesn’t provide any information whatsoever, but it’s undoubtedly to provide more of carving feel to simulate surfing of snowboarding. Maybe the purpose it to eliminate wheel bite forever. Gullwing was advertising in Concrete Wave for what seemed like a year before they even had a web site going. It looks like once they got it going they pretty much abandoned it circa 2007.

Yes, they did make trucks (baseplates) for rollerskates too. There’s a vintage set up on eBay right now, currently up to $400, with a buy it now of $500. Hell, you can still buy Powell Roller Bones wheels at your local rollerskating rink.

– Thanks to Colin for the tip.

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 D’s 30 year anniversary Turf photo show. Next – Tod Swank from one of Pete D’s photos from his Turf photostream on Flickr. Bottom Row – Video stills from some old videos shot at the Turf, circa 1989, found at MNTRS.com.

UPDATE: FALSE! The lease is not up. Check it.

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.