Separated at birth: This photo of my old friend Jay taken circa ’85 in suburban Illinois, and this photo of Mike Blake at the North Vancouver Canadian Nationals in 1980. No, not the skaters or the action by any means, but the graffiti for sure. It even takes the hatred a little longer to filter out to the Midwest. Or at least it did before the Interwebs™! [Photo: Right – Calstreets]

Granted, the site is named Hypebeast, but they are reporting that the Disney corporation has Christian Hosoi to design some limited edition skate decks and apparel. No actual confirmations yet, so maybe it was just an excuse to make that cool graphic. Old Walt must be (rock and) rolling in his grave, except for his cryogenically frozen head. – Thanks to JF for the tip.

Some time in 2003 Steve Grover was skating by himself at the West Linn skatepark in the middle of the day. Steve Olson showed up out of the blue and took a few runs. Then he got out an old Polaroid camera and asked Steve Grover if he would snap a few shots. Grover said sure, but also suggested that he get to keep a couple. It was a win-win situation. Check out the Shot of the Week, plus a bonus alternate shot after the jump.

Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent. I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it. Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and…

Here’s a still from the music video for the 2003 track Heartbeats from the Swedish band The Knife. It’s got some vintage skateboarding footage, about 15 seconds or so looped repeatedly. Those kids in the striped shirts look kind of cool going downhill together. I thought they might be up to some editing trickery at first. [Source: Drawer B]

A generic sports and healthy lifestyle website called Realbuzz.com has their Top 5 greatest (defining) moments in skateboarding listed as 1. Rodney Mullen flat-ground ‘ollie’ – 1982 2. Bob Burnquist’s 98.0 ‘perfect run’ – 2001 3. Danny Way jumps the Great Wall of China – 2005 4. Tony Hawk’s 900 -1999 5. Shaun White enters summer X Games – 2005 Really? Shaun White? He’s a talented mofo for sure but creating one of the defining moments of the sport just by deciding to compete? Absurd! You can head on over to Realbuzz.com for their long winded justifications if you want. The only one I can kind of agree on in the list is number one. However, if you put in number one, you have to trace it back to the obvious precursor, which was Alan Gelfand inventing the damn “Ollie” in the first place. Did the Mutt actually do it on flat ground first? I guess it wouldn’t surprise me. As for Bob Burnquist’s 98.0 perfect run, nothing against Bob, but who cares? Tony Hawk’s 900? Ok, I can cut them some slack there, but I think the more accurate description would have been more encompassing. Check out my top…

Censorship is Weak as F##k: A Skateboard Art Retrospective: Censorship is Weak as F##k is a collaborative retrospective featuring over 40 skateboard graphics designed by Marc McKee and Sean Cliver. The show features work the two have done for World Industries and its subsidiary brands from the formation of the company in the late 1980s to its mid-90s rise to industry dominance. The collection of original skateboards demonstrates, literally in graphic detail, how World Industries set itself apart from its competitors by using a totally uncensored approach in its graphic program, relentlessly featuring one controversial subject after another, covering issues such as religion, pornography, gun control, sex, profanity, racism, drug use and violation of copyright law, all on the bottoms of its skateboards. Trying to pass off that entire period of World Industries as a battle against censorship is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly were infamous, and they certainly did shake up the industry. Besides, with the way these things sell on eBay, this may be your only chance to see some of these decks in person. I’ll tell you what’s weak as F##k… There’s nothing like having to register and log into a bullshit corporate site…

Whatever your stance on Nike’s presence in the skateboarding industry, you’ve got to hand it to them for the commercials they made and actually aired on broadcast TV the first time around. They are great from a skating and an advertising perspective. I’ve been trying to get ahold of these and post them, but someone else has already done all the work, so why reinvent the wheel? My personal favorite is the running one because it brings back the times when people literally thought you were a freak if you were over 12 and still skateboarding on a public sidewalk. Of course now you’re a freak if you are over 30 and the hassle often comes the skaters instead of the non-skating public. So you can still be a rebel and participate in one of the world’s most popular sports. [Source: Transworld beat me to it.]

Hell, I think this is Art Steve Art. I can tell them apart now but back then… This was from an NSA sanctioned vert and street contest held outdoors in Indianapolis Indiana. It was either 1988 0r 1989, I can’t remember. The Godoys had a reputation for being trouble makers, so I thought it would be funny to pose a shot of Art getting choked by a security guard, who was only too happy to oblige. The effect is kind of ruined by the huge grin on the security guy’s face. Art didn’t seem to be into it, but agreed to play along, I think mostly to thank us for printing a long Godoy interview in a print issue. We were one of the few zines that wanted anything to do with them. Now I’m thinking this might have been Steve actually. Only one of the brothers was there. You know who was there though? Rich from EPM, although I didn’t find this out until last year some time. Anyway, any comedic/editorial brilliance on my part was wasted as I never used this shot for anything until now. Check it out.

I saw this video a few years ago on the web and completely forgot about it until it showed up again embedded in Kristian Svitak’s profile on the 1031 skates site. I don’t know who or when, but it’s good for a chuckle. The stunts are amazing!