Mumble Online Magazine (Note: Link removed, original site is gone and appears to be malware now.) launched a program to give three people who were/are influential in skateboarding (long terrm) an honorary certificate designating them as “Pro Skateboarders.” The best part is that the certificate comes with a limited edition, wait for it, pro model skateboard, and I mean limited. The first awardee is legendary photographer and photo king of the The Skateboard Mag, you know him as J. Grant Brittain. I don’t know Grant personally, but he was gracious enough to let us use one of his famous photos as a Shot of the Week here on SnA. Grant Brittain is an excellent choice for the first honorary pro skater. Grant’s pro model was made at Powell, and it’s a riff on one of their most famous graphics. It’s kind of funny that Powell is parodying their own graphics after it’s been done by other companies multiple times. It should come as no surprise that it’s already sold out considering that they limited the run to only 99 pieces. Powell wanted to keep things realistic for the time period, so Grant didn’t have a say in what his graphics looked like! Har! Actually, the whole thing was a surprise to Grant. I kid, only because I love. Royalties are being donated to Grind for Life. You can’t buy on e anymore, but Club Mumble has really nice large graphic of the deck on the same page they talk about the program. There’s also a video of the presentation and a good interview with Grant over here. Grant gives up the secret of skate photography!

Getting back to the award, who are the next two going to be? Frank Hawk? Barry Zaritsky? Brad Dorfman???? Johnny Rad? With this honor comes responsibility…

[Source: Boardistan] – Thanks to Tito for the tip.

You might think it’s the ad copy from a marital aids catalog, but no, it’s a 1977 slogan from the makers of Squirt soda. This sticker was poached from Jason Liebig’s Flickr stream collection of pop culture. He’s the same guy responsible for putting all the vintage Christmas catalogs online, featured here on SnA. He must have a busy scanner.

What good is having friends if you can’t post embarrassing photos of them? Check out the full size Shot of the Week. You know who you are man, and more importantly, what you are… Radical!

Mike Smith sent in these pictures of a recently acquired Sears Hot Dog skateboard from 1965. The reason I think is from 1965 is because it doesn’t appear in the 1964 or 1966 Sears catalog, and Scott Starr says 1965 was the big year for full page listings of skateboards in the toy catalogs. So was it the Mike Smith who sent the pictures in? I can’t say, because he didn’t answer. More, after the jump.

Poweredge just added some more back issues to the archives. I guess they are all back issues now. The image above is from an article about the closing and subsequent reopening of the Cedar Crest Ramp, which was a topic of discussion I overheard the other night while everyone was on deck watching Casey KC split his head open in the back bowl at DOS. Damned if that isn’t Portland’s favorite private bowl owner and former east-coaster Dave Tobin in the feature. Go to the Poweredge Magazine site and look for the link that says “MORE 9.88 .”

One of the highlights of ASR had to be Powells art exhibit celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the Ripper. 58 artists interpreted Vernon Courtlandt Johnson’s (VCJ) classic work that is arguably the most iconic skateboard graphic ever created. There are soem names you will know and some that you won’t. Two Northwest artists were among those whose work was commissioned, Jay Meer and Mark Sellman. I was going comment on how the collection seemed kind of weak until I took a look at the complete installation. The individual pieces as presented isolated in popups don’t really do them justice. If you take a look at the installation you’ll get a better appreciation of the works. Check out the Powell Peralta web site for the whole shebang, including pics from the reception and George Powell’s interesting recollections of the design process.

And no, I wasn’t upset that I wasn’t asked to be included in the show. After all, there’s a fine line between tribute and copyright infringement, as you’ll see after the jump.

Pepsi ran a commercial during the Superbowl that featured a littel bit of skating and surfing. The idea was to contrast the old days and modern takes on different phenomenon. I think there’s even some footage of Gumby on skateboard. I know there is old and more recent episodes of Gumby riding a skateboard. It’s hard to tell because it looks like it’s been cropped at his front ankle.

Since we’re talking about Jake Phelps, I thought I’d put up this photo I found in the June 1980 issue of Skateboarder, just a few short months before it became Action Now. I’ve got a September 1980 issue of Action Now, but I don’t know if it was the first. The June issue of Skateboarder has an ad saying a new type of action magazine was coming soon. In any case, this is none other than Kevin Thatcher, the original editor of Thrasher Magazine, appearing in one of the last issues of a magazine whose demise would soon find him employed making a replacement. Kevin once gave me an invaluable photography tip scribbled on note with a batch of negatives he sent back to me: “Use a faster shutter speed and your shots won’t be so blurry. – K.T.” I think of him every time my shutter speed dial slips below 1/400. I’ve looked through a few 1980 issues of Skateboarder, and they all have BMX coverage in them at that point already. While I was searching for an image of the June 1980 cover, I stumbled on the web site of the original photographer, Ted Terrebonne. Ted has 144 pages of recent and vintage skate photos including the Kevin Thatcher shot from Yuvis Dam in San Jose, as well as 38 shots of assorted bands. One thing odd about the site is there are random sprinkles of text links for online casinos. I can’t tell if he was hacked or he’s trying to make a little money from click-throughs.

Just a word of warning, I’m going to be mining back issues of these old skate mags regularly for a while.

I swear there are less than five pictures of the Long Rider skateboard on the internet. Thanks to a tip from House of Neil I found this one tucked away on page 471 of the 1984 Montgomery Wards Christmas Catalog. It wasn’t as easy as doing a search in Google Images. You know how I’m going through the tedious process of scanning old skate zines page by page? Well, someone else over at Wishbookweb.com with a less narrow obsessive compulsive disorder is scanning and posting entire Christmas catalogs. So far there are about 20 catalogs up there, with dates ranging from 1933 to 1988. I’ve gone through a bunch of likely suspects, and there are a few skateboards in there.

I don’t know what you call this kind of riding, half-ditch? Who cares, it’s rad. This is a closeup of a shot of John John Aguilar skating a ditch type situation in Mexico City, circa 1989. See that concrete halfpipe in the background? John said this was an old closed up skatepark called Dogtown. They had to hop a fence and barge it. The caretaker kept a small amount a sheep on the lot and occasionally skaters would have to dodge the males with horns who were intent on ramming intruders. John lives in Bellingham, Washington now, so the only thing he has to dodge is little kids. See the whole thing after the jump.