Ronald McDonald shredding a miniramp on this glass coffee mug from a McDonalds in the United Arab Emirates. I didn’t even know that they had McDonalds in the UAE. This is exactly the kind of thing I usually buy, though not when it costs $20.

I become sick whenever I hear the words “war” and “desert” nowadays, so I almost decided not to post this very crappy board. The drawing has absolutely nothing to do with skateboarding,  besides that it takes us back to the early 90’s when this never-ending war started and skateboarding was about to die. Can somebody please explain to me how you could buy this for your kids? It’s still on sale for an explosive price on eBay.

At first glance you might assume this was a poorly illustrated millennium era skateboarding frog wearing sandals no less. It looks like there are hub caps, which could either be a half-assed reference material used for the illustration, or actual wheel covers which existed on some clay wheel era Nash boards and were also sold as separate accessories in the 70’s. (Ad link coming later). Then I looked at the (long expired) auction info for this poster and it was in the 1950-1979 subcategory of shoes, so there you have it. My guess is early 70’s. Gali was/is a chain of stores in Israel that also manufactures it’s own shoes. According to Hadassah Magazine, besides making skate sandals for frogs, they are also the sole (har, har) supplier of boots to the Israeli military.

This is not a computer rendering, nor is it the Streetdome dressed up for Halloween. It is in fact an actual skatepark in Terahn, Iran. You can find some construction pictures of the precast concrete park at this website, which I can’t even begin to tell you the name of. I can’t imagine who else would have made this besides Spohn Ranch, but it’s not listed on their site. Maybe they are ARC fabrications. In the interest of better relations between our two fine countries, I’m including the song “Ayatollah” by Steve Dahl & Teenage Radiation. It’s Weird Al style song parody dating back to the thick of the Iran Hostage crisis way back in 1979. Just look at how far we’ve come… [Photo: Streetboarder]

Funded and built by volunteers at SkatePal. The first one is in Zababdeh, and there are plans for two more. Get the details from Vice.com. – Thanks to Orezona for the tip.

Sometimes no matter how grave or inappropriate the context may be, a skateboarder can’t help but see things through a certain lens. Israeli citizens seek shelter from Hamas rocket attacks. Let’s see you try and do that in a street plaza! [Source: The Guardian] – Thanks to Jack Hadley for the tip.

Appearing in various social media outlets of the Israeli Defense Forces. From the looks of that kid’s skateboard, it’s either Hamas or a sinister network of vintage skateboard collectors trying to drive up Ebay auction prices. – Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.

The Evergreen Skateparks crew is cruising on a good looking project in Modiin, Israel that will be the country’s largest skatepark. While researching this post I got totally distracted by their unusual promo footage featuring a rad little dog. The promo footage was already pretty damned cool, and logo montage at the very end is the icing on the concrete cake. Some of those guys on the crew look familiar…

The magic of the Interwebs™ allows us to reach out to people all over the world and not be able to understand what they want. I got an email with a flyer and text in a character set that I couldn’t read. It looks vaguely like Hebrew to me. There’s a skate art exhibit, but who know where or when? It did come with a web link to Thrash Addiction.

Near as I can tell, Tashkeel is like a health club for artists living the United Arab Emirates. I don’t mean an actual health club, but like a health club. You know, pay your dues and and you get to go the art club and use the facilities to make art. Pay some extra money and you get to take some fancy classes. What’s up for workshops now? Skateboarding. We’re all artists, every time we step on a board. What’s the skate terrain equivalent of one a Tippy the Turtle art test? Whatever the rationale, the end result looks fun. Check it out after the jump. – Thanks to Boy Ipoh for the tip. ( Note, Boy is going to arm wrestle Matthijs for the King of Tips belt.)