Darío Escobar is an artist born and living in Guatemala. He’s made a habit of deconstructing sports equipment, and has a fondness for skateboarding. The top image is a 2000 piece made from silver, tin, and aluminum applied to a skateboard. One of the coolest things on his official site actually happens to be a pair of inline skates.

– Thanks to Boy Ipoh for the tip

Magic Rolling Board dates back to 1976, and includes everything you’d think it would, like 360’s, gorilla grips, high jumps over sports cars, slalom, long jumps, downhill and even Ed Nadalin, star of the Jeans West commercial. I don’t know that this has ever been rereleased on video, much less DVD. Anyone? Make sure you pay attention at the 3:05 mark for some of the fanciest footwork you’ve ever seen. GOLDEN!

– Thanks to Simon Liver for the tip.

This mirrored discoboard is almost a year old. I spotted it over at YoBeat’s coverage of an old art show benefit for the Eugene skatepark. No word on who the artist was. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Eugene. There’s a sobering infographic on the Skaters for Eugene Skateparks web site. There’s about $370,000 in the kitty, but they’re still 400k in the hole. Eugene’s ABC affiliate has a video about the state of the union from last August on their web site. For some reason it takes a few minutes to load after the pre-roll commercial.

Sa Ka Roule has some cool pictures of what must be the French equivalent of a Hobie, Makaha, or G&S. There are some old ads, pictures of a vintage board with a possible crazy looking truck modification, and the inevitable nostalgia revival. Check it out.

Two of the best animated shows ever. What about Family Guy? Meh. It has its moments, but it’s not in the same class as these two. This is actually part of a panel from a Fururama comic book where the Futurama cast is trapped in a Simpson’s comic book by evil floating brains. I found this over at Insane Journal after getting sidetracked while doing an image search for Stella Stevens on a skateboard. It was a fruitless search, but I did find illustrations of Fry and Bart Simpson skateboarding together. There’s even a Back to the Future plug. Let’s analyze that. A real movie reference in a comic book that takes place inside the universe of a different comic book. Now if only there was a skateboard in The Venture Brothers.

Our Canadian readers are slacking. I was trying to find more info on the Jeans West commercial from the 70’s when I stumbled on this commercial for West 49, which near as I can tell is the Canadian equivalent of a Zumiez.

So far my alma mater is famous for two things, the birthplace of the fictional self-aware computer Hal 9000, and the place where internet browsers were invented. And now the University of Illinois is pushing the Corn board, a composite material made from the husks and stalks of corn plants. Think of it as a replacement for particle board. Something you could build houses and miniramps out of, and well, skateboards. Technically, longboards, and just the core. It seems like you could stuff just about anything in the core of longboards, even Bonite! I’ll be impressed when they can make a shortboard out of that stands up to Canadian Maple. Actually, I’m impressed by the recycling bit. It would be great to cut down on wood consumption, although I thought particle board was already made from discarded bits of wood used to make other things. Unless anyone is specifically cutting down trees to make particle board, it’s not really going to save anything. Is it really “green” to take something that would otherwise decompose and turn it into something that won’t? The Daily Illini (The “student” newspaper run by a privately owned media company) has an article with some of the development story and an excellent misrepresentation of Christian Hosoi as a “professional longboarder.” Hosoi has signed on to the company for a forthcoming signature model. I think I would have pooped in my Life’s a Beach Elroy Jetson shorts had Christian Hosoi signed to a skateboard company from the same town as the school I was failing because I was skateboarding too much.

– Thanks to OCD Kyle for the tip.

MC has reached the 900 mark on Hopeless Old Men On Skateboards. Go buy one of his books.

Check out this video sponsored by Converse Skateboarding Mexico (Owned By Nike USA… Get over it!) It’s about skateboarding in Mexico, but it’s not a straight up documentary, more of a loose collection of on camera interviews and archival footage, mixed with modern footage. It’s not jut a trip down memory lane, however. There is a lot footage of those old guys (still) skating today. There’s a nice segue from that segment that ends with a 40 year old rail slider revealing a 22 year old kicking off a street segment. On top of that, friends of the site Art and Steve Godoy and John Aguilar are featured in this video which is titled simply Skater. Nice shirt John! Embedding is disabled, so you have to watch it here.

Red Cement Skateboards is hosting the 10th (!) annual skateboard contest at the Albany, Oregon skatepark on Saturday.