OK, this is kind of a backhanded compliment, but you should go download issue number six of Bailgun becasue it’s got this awesome photo in an advertisement for a German company called Rebel Rockers. That’s one of those English names in foreign countries that sounds a lot cooler to the locals than it does to us Americans. Getting back to Bailgun #6, it’s 61 nicely laid out spreads (!) of skateboarding, art, civil disobedience, and more skateboarding. Check it out.

While some braniacs write about skateboarding, others are using it to trick poor defenseless little kids into learning about math. Math and skateboarding just don’t mix. Ok, that’s not true. But since I can’t read this German public service advert about math, I have to make up something. Closer to home, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industryjust got a $2.9 million grant for a traveling exhibit called Access Algebra to stoke middle-school kids to “promote creativity and innovation and build math literacy… …focusing on math as a tool to create and invent everything from rap music to race cars to a skate park.” – Thanks to Dave Tobin for the tip. $2.9 million seems like a lot of dough. Maybe someone at the National Science Foundation needs to work on their math a little. The Germans are ahead of the game already. They’ve got a web site and a video trailer for what I guess is their math museum. I’ve heard they aren’t too good at math, all their answers come up Nien! (Sorry.) [Source: Red Box via Skateboardgeruechte.de ]

This Week’s Shot of the Week is Marc Haziza at the newly opened Skatepark of Paris, taken by Frederic Lannois. Check out the full size version. Look at those seams and you’ll see it’s a prefab concrete park. But, hey! Check out that roof! Sure could use one of those around here.

Skater and Annoy got mentioned in an issue of the German action sports magazine Slack. My German vocabulary is limited to what I picked up from playing the original 2D version of Castle Wolfenstein on my Apple II back in 1982. See post title for demonstration. Dieses News-Portal ist aus einem Skate-Zine aus den 80er-Jahren hervorgegangen, was an manchen Stellen deutlich zu spüren ist. Die exklusiv gestalteten Comics und zum Teil bissigen Kommentare über die Darstellung von Skateboarding in den US-amerikanischen Medien lässt den schnoddrigen DIY-Charakter durchscheinen. „Skate and Annoy“ hat seine Wurzeln in Portland/Oregon und fühlt sich in erster Linie dem Transition Skating verpflichtet. Ihr denkt, ihr seid old school? Dann zieht euch erst mal rein, wie die Jungs aus dem Betonpark-Mekka die weichgespülte Skate-Welt sehen… Let’s see… we’ve got the 80’s, comics, some DIY stuff and Portland Oregon. It also mentions “old school” so that means they think we are a bunch of Barneys. How did they find us? Must be all the Claus Grabke coverage.

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]

Laurens Groenveld 566 consecutive kickflips beats the old world record of 563 held by someone who has already been long forgotten. He did the last 26 on a borrowed board after breaking a kingpin. All this while just trying to qualify for the Dutch leg of the Krux Kickflip Challenge. So says the guys in charge of the Norwegian skate site Tackyworld. I guess Laurens will be the heavy favorite at the Dutch Championships on the 9th of December in Amsterdam. Do you care? We would care more if NHS would send us some product. Right now it just looks like we’re on the Press Release Flow Team. Hey, that’s a great name for a skateboarding industry news site. I guess I meant to say Press Release Flow Team™.com

Appearing as Corey Webster: Sebastian Stigar. As Chrissy: Ida Elise Broch. As Hook: Espen Klouman Høiner Yeah, I looked up that “ø” code, although he looks more like a James Spader in Pretty in Pink than he does like Hook in Thrashin. What’s the point? Oh yeah, some Swedes Norwegians have remade Thrashin into a snowboarding movie. The hero of the movie is a hotshot skater who moves to the mountains where nobody skates, so he has to take up snowboarding to fit in. Then he falls in love with the village badass’ girlfriend, who beats him up. Wait, the village tough guy beats him up, not the girl. Actually, this is sounding more and more like Better Off Dead. I don’t know what kind of crazy aspect ratio this film was shot in, but the trailer seems really wide. It helps with the skate stunt double since they never show him from kneecaps up. Hey, want to fit in at your school? A good way to blend in with crowd and not draw any undue attention to yourself is to skate through the hallways at school busting kickflips. This may be just another one of those sports genre Romeo…

One of the things on my long list of “eventuallys” for this site is a gallery of dead skateboard magazines. I have a milk crate in my basement with some old skate rags, and I thought I had a few gems that would surprise people. Well I don’t have anything compared to Vintage Skateboard Magazines. It’s a work in progress without a lot of bells and whistles. What it does have are covers of skateboarding magazines from the 60’s to the 80’s from the US, UK, France, Australia and Japan. Some of the UK issues have scans of inside pages as well. There’s a lot of interesting documentation there, my only beef is that the scans aren’t larger. If it were up to me, every page would be available, but then again maybe it’s a good thing it isn’t up to me since our gallery isn’t even up yet. Check out the varied and often wacky past of skateboard magazine publishing at Vintage Skateboard Magazines.

Eastpack and Red Bull footed the bill for 6 DIY concrete spots in Austria. These aren’t full sized spots, but rather single modifications to existing spots or sometimes creating a new spot by providing an approach to a previously unskateable spot. Nothing earth shaking, but cool nonetheless. There’s a short video clip by Niki Waltl that covers 2 days, 6 spots and more than 1000 kilometres by car. A few of those spots look like left over anti-tank barriers from the war. It is Austria, you know. Download it here. It looks like these guys made it happen.

€179 ($258 as of publication) will buy you a 4size magnet skateboard setup with shoes, the French Equivalent of the ex-Magnatron. It’s a bit more sophisticated than the Magnet Skateboard, the magnets are designed to be removable in case you have to walk across a field of hard drives and floppy disks at work or don’t want to get your feet sheared off in an escalator. They’ve even designed a special box that is supposed to make sure you never touch two of the magnets together. Apparently they are strong enough to be a pinching hazard. Hey man, did you break your finger landing that ten set? Nah, I did it putting on my skate shoes.