I’m in the burbs of Chicago for about a week for my grandmother’s 90th birthday. I didn’t get a chance to get anything scheduled before I left, so the updates from yours truly are going to be infrequent and brief. If any of the other contributors want to stage a coup and step up the posts, now’s the time. What’s the picture relevance? Those are vintage Chicago Trucks, harder to find a decent picture of than I thought. Couldn’t score a close up. Left: Current eBay auction. Right: A Bahne setup with Chicago Trucks via Surfa Sam’s 2005 Australian eBay report.

I’m in Naperville, actually. Since I last visited there is supposedly a new concrete skatepark in addition to downtown’s prefab park. I’m going to check them both out, but let’s face it, I’m not going to hold my breath.

Some of the guys on Skull and Bones are taking the grayscale Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust Santa Cruz reissues and adding their own color. Some are truly remarkable. Some people use paint pens or markers, while others sand the decks first, then apply color. Amazing craftsmanship. Click here to see a comparison, but you have to see the full size images to fully appreciate them.

I hate it when I get my skate culture tips from the mainstream media. This is the second one today. Remember the guy who was so into Back to the Future that he fabricated his own movie prop skateboards? Well now he can bid on the real fake hoverboard that was used in Back to the Future II, that is if he’s got at least $30,000! That’s no typo, it’s the actual starting bid. If you don’t have an extra 30k laying around, you can always bid on the more recent and reasonably priced replica from the Good Wood auction. Pics after the jump.

This edition of Saturday Starrs features Skateboarders from Hell which is a spoof of one of those old biker exploitation movies, although stylistically this is half 1950’s and half early 70’s. I can’t actually tell when this was made. The fashion on some the extras could be late 70’s or early 80’s. It looks like it was shot on 8mm film, but the titles look like really clean digital work. Maybe they were added years later, or maybe it was shot on old stock. I feel like I should know who some of the “actors” are. It’s kind of hard to tell via YouTube, and it’s further complicated by the presence of an advert for Tail Devils tacked on the end. Hopefully Scott Starr will shed some light on Skateboarders from Hell.

Collectors are probably bummed, but guys who just want to ride their favorite old boards again will be stoked, as long those old boards are some of these Santa Cruz re-issues slated to ship in August. These images are from SoCal Skateshop. Get in line now, these will likely sell out fast, and then we can all comment on the ridiculous prices the reissues fetch on eBay. Olson is always mentioning how he didn’t get paid by Santa Cruz in interviews. They must have reached an agreement. Also, I think this pushes Duane Peters over the top as the guy with the most simultaneous decks out on different companies, a record that might have been previously held by Hosoi.

This week’s installment of Saturday Starrs is a 1977 Today Show piece on the new and booming skatepark industry. The report was filed by Irving R. Levine, and is about as dry sounding as it gets. It’s funny to hear about the owners of Skatopia expecting to take in twice the cost of building the park ($300k) in the first year. It mentions the first skatepark in the world being built in Florida, but it doesn’t say what the name is. The guy who built it Charles Cromie, says a skatepark operator can expect to recoup a $175K investment and own the land in 18 months. Levine said 50 skateparks were built in the first year, and at the time there were 100 more planned or in construction. What he doesn’t mention is that 125 will be gone in two years. It’s full of excellent terminology like “radical” and “water surfing.”

For now it’s an industry going full speed ahead, and not at all worried that it might be headed (wait for it..) for a financial tumble.

Good stuff.

Skateboardin’ USA was released in 1978 by a “band” called Sneakers & Lace. My guess is that it was just some producer’s project designed to cash in on a fad. Instead of just doing a single, they really ran with it. Where are the skateboard novelty songs of today? Oh yeah, that’s right. You can find three Sneakers & Lace skateboard tracks on the excellent compilation This Is Skateboard Music, or you can listen to Sidewalk Convoy and Skate Talk, (both non compilation tracks) after the jump. look at the cover and think 1978… It’s going to be excellent!

This is exactly the kind of thing that I don’t want diluted by the mere presence of a bunch of skateboard comics. It’s a Beetlejuice Magic Slate with a picture of Beeltejuice on a skateboard. What, no coffin shape? Looks like he’s riding switch. It can be yours for a mere $58 ?!?! You can see the whole thing after the jump, but it’s actually smaller than the shot above.

Somehow I missed this one, so I’m posting these out of order. This is actually the mispelled issue that was the precursor to “The Correctly Spelled Issue.” So maybe I should call it “Preperation S.”

Excerpted from issue 2 “Interview: My DAD”:

AAA – When did you first not skate?
D- I’d say about June of 1977

AAA – Who didn’t get you into it?
D- A friend from work. He didn’t have a board and I didn’t try it.

AAA – What was the first board you didn’t own?
D- I think it was a ProFormer with Trackers and Road Riders

That sums up the sense of humor. Brilliantly juvenile. Also, this is the “Color issue.” The cover has about a quarter inch of blue ball point pen scribbled on it. From the collection of Sonny Robertson, check out Preparation S #2.

There’s a documentary on skateboard graphic in production called SK8FACE. The web site was down for a while, I think they got blown out from a mention on the Skateboard Mag. Sure, everyone’s favorite book on skateboard graphics, Disposable has already tackled the subject, but from the trailer it looks like SK8FACE might have more of a 20,000 foot view as opposed to Disposable’s more obsessive compulsive approach. It’s hard to say actually. After watching the first couple seconds of the trailer I was afraid it was just going to be A Wes Humpston tribute film, but there are plenty of other voices in there such as… well there are too many to mention. Notably absent so far are two of the figures who arguably had the biggest impact on skateboard graphics, Vernon Courtlandt Johnson (VCJ) and Jim Phillips. Let’s hope they can get those guys on board. I can’t find any information about who is actually behind this project, or when it’s scheduled to be released, so after you’ve watched the trailer you’ll know as much as me. Yes, they talk about eBay, and speaking of eBay and Disposable, Sean Cliver was supposedly working on a book about collectors or collections or something, but I haven’t heard anything about it lately.

UPDATE: The high res trailer at the web site is getting hammered with traffic. There’s a faster loading YouTube version after the jump.

– Thanks to Kvon for the tip.