Two groups of dinosaurs in two Pacific Northwest cities are trying to scrape up enough DNA to clone respective skate facilities back from the dead. In Portland, our own GVK is trying to spearhead a grass roots movement to get a vert ramp built in Portland. Meanwhile, there’s a freestyle/flatground enthusiast in Seattle who is trying to get a wide, smooth, flat surface for practicing some sort of discipline known as “freestyle slalom.” So here is the petri dish, leave your lab results in the comments. The image for this post? It’s a Mark Teague illustration from a Jane Yolen children’s book titled How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends?

Lots of interest in the new concrete at WIndells. You can hear about in a recent interview with Billy Coulon over on Callin on Colin. Hre’s some video footage of the park shot by KC. It looks like a heckuva lot of lines and possibilities. I need to drag my lazy ass out there. Oh yeah, also included, official Windells contest video from earlier this summer.

Two B-zines on the A-list. Born Ugly hits issue 7. Iove this zine/scene. too much metal for my personal tastes but the fun is so pervasive that I’m ready to roll with it, if not Rawk and Roll with it. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the globe, Bailgun hits issue #11, and it’s a phucking phat 114 pages. Definitely not your average slapped together affair, although you’ll need to get your German on to read some of it. If you can’t score a print issue, both of these are available for reading online.

From the City Administrator:

Grindline Skateparks designed and is constructing the park. We are currently doing Phase 1 and will hopefully complete Phase 2 next summer. We are in the process of fundraising for the second phase. This park was designed by our local kids working with Micah Shapiro of Grindline. We are very excited and can’t wait to see Phase 1 completed in approximately 60 days.

Phase one is the street terrain, Phase two is the snake run-ish bowl. All in all a small but useful facility that is sure to be enjoyed by the community as well as a host of drive-through visitors.

He also got 4th place overall in the Trifecta. I was going to say Rion is a good kid, but I guess he really hasn’t been a kid for a while. Congrats Rion! Why do I care about Rion? He is/was a good kid. we used to sponsor him, and he rips. Sorry about the McTwist picture man. it’s the easy go to pic. You could have been a king in the 80’s. He does more than McTwists. He also remains the youngest skater to complete the loop at Reedsport, Oregon. He was 15 at the time. Here’s a recent video from his sponsor Addikt Skateboards. This is for the Roseburg homies.

1975 Gallery, in conjunction with BookSmart Studio’s Gallery Kunstler, presents THE WORST IS YET TO COME, collaborations between Don Pendleton and Mark Penxa, two artists/designers highly regarded for their work in the skateboard industry with companies including Alien Workshop, Element, DC Shoe Co., and Girl skateboards.

THE WORST IS YET TO COME explores the modern decay of interpersonal communication and a culture in overall decline. Both artists will be in attendance. Mark and Don each have two full walls of works, and there’s a middle Island Wall that has 17 total collaboration pieces. There are 43 total in the show.

THE WORST IS YET TO COME
September 3 – 25, 2010

Opening reception
Friday, September 3, 2010
6-9PM

1975 at Gallery Kunstler
(inside Booksmart Studio)

250 North Goodman St.
Rochester, NY 14607

For more information:
www.1975ish.com
www.theworstisyettocome.net
facebook.com

It can be a bit jarring when you leave the friendly confines of the Pacific Northwest and you want to visit a skatepark in another state. All of the sudden you have to worry about whether or not it’s going to be open during school hours and how much it might cost you. The city (village?) of Northport, New York has a new skatepark waiting in the wings and skaters in and around the area are trying to get the city to change their minds about charging a fee to skate. To be fair, you don’t have to pay to skate in public skateparks in most states these days. The East coast may have pioneered the skatepark, but they seem to be having a hard time letting go of the pay-to-play public skatepark. There’s a list of city emails to (respectfully) beseech for a free skatepark experience in Northport over on Sleestak.

[Photo: Can’t seem to find the original. Anyone?]

Bingen, Washington is a sleepy little town of 672 people (back in 2000) across the river from Hood River, Oregon. Carl Warren reported that Grindline broke ground on a skatepark there. I can’t find any design drawings for it anywhere. Maybe if you squint real hard you can see it in their hands.

…of video from last weekend’s Alley Jam 2010 in Bend, Oregon. Proceeds raised from the event went to the American Cancer Society and the (Bend, Oregon) Division Street Skatepark Project. Check out the video on Crust Productions.

Two videos, one with a lot of skateboarding, one with about a half a second. The first one is for an Underworld song called Always loved a film. It expands on a concept where old guys act like teenagers. You may remember in 2007 we posted a commercial for something called 118 118 that was pretty much the same deal. It looks like one of the old guys still skates though, he’s not quite as old looking as the rest of them though, but maybe it’s the long hair. I feel like I should know who this guy is. The second is for a defunct outfit called These Animal Men. The song The Sound of the Youth has a great bombastic intro and about 14 frames of a plastic skateboard, in 1994 even. Watch them both, then imagine the first video track playing with the audio soundtrack of the second video. Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine it because I swapped it out myself and uploaded the mashup.