This has been making the rounds in the past few days. The city of Sarasota Springs, New York filled in the bowl at their local skatepark, essentially because the coping was damaged and the bowl was covered in graffiti, and they couldn’t afford the upkeep, what with having to pay people to make sure the helmets were strapped. It’s just one big long list of lame excuses. Must not be much of a big scene there, if the locals let that happen. Read all about it in the Saratogian. Kevin Cann pointed me to some video of the bowl, he regularly made the journey there from the Great White North. Looks like it would have been fun.

First off, it’s better off that a skateboard competition circuit be owned and operated by skateboarders. However, this whole business of signing contracts to compete exclusively in one circuit and not another, although it may make sense from a business standpoint, reeks of, of something, well, something very stinky, like say, GVK’s knee pads. Which is appropriate because it is a “street league” to the exclusion of any sort of vert or bowl riding. (You know Grover never washes his pads. he says that would dilute the trick juice.) I’m not a big fan of the logo either. Aside from scrimping on the graphic designer’s fee, It looks vaguely like something NBA or MLB related. If skaters are going to claim skateboarding from the media for themselves, it would be smarter not to emulate the worst aspects of organized sports. Still, I wish Rob Dyrdek luck with Street League Skateboarding, despite the bad name choice. The million dollar purse would seemingly best the Maloof Money Cup (even worse name), but then again Maloof isn’t spread over three events. Why not wrestle all the skaters away from the X-Games and the like? Was it lack of interest in vert/bowl by Dyrdek, or fear of abandoning the golden goose on behalf of the the current crop of X-games competitors. I suspect the former. Check out the press release after the jump. There is essentially nothing up at the web site except the press release. Meanwhile, the Maloof Money Cup still prominently features Ryan Sheckler, who has supposedly signed a multi-year exclusive contract with Street League. Look for some fresh HTML soon!

– Thanks to Mike Ballard for the tip.

How to Make it in America is an HBO series much like a grittier version of Entourage. Though no surprise as Mark Wahlberg is also an executive producer. The show is pretty decent. Two guys trying to “make it” in America. There is a an undercurrent of skateboarding in the series. Skaters are often seen as extras, including in the opening. The main characters have a room full of skateboard models for a local hero who has gone awol from public life. Right. There’s a lengthy video extra about skating in New York. Hey NYC readers, according to this month’s Thrasher, there are some billboards with skateboarding in town for an investment bank or something. I need a photo or two.

It’s skateboard polo in the Laff-A-Lympics,There’s a caveman, but no caveman slides, and everyone pushes mongo. That’s 1977 for you.

– Thanks to Kevin Cann for the vidcap.

I caught this commercial last night. I was making a note to look for it back at home, but it turned out to be a Florida-only thing. The cause is Tobacco Free Florida. Hey, I’m on your side, but this sad sack staring at me almost makes me want to take up smoking. Florida locals, where is this park? I guess that’s naive of me, this probably wasn’t even shot in Florida. Or maybe it was, you know they have a Universal Studios theme park in Orlando…

Re: Board is an exhibit of Brazilian skate art that will be opening in L.A. at the Exhibit A gallery on March 27th. Strange thing is, there’s nothing about it on the gallery web site. Friend of the site Mr Coulter is headed down fro the event due to his affiliation with Uncommon, the iPhone case company with a skateboarding fetish. I dunno. Take some pictures or something, would ya?

There’s a thing called the Pepsi Refresh Project that is advertising disguised as public service, still, a great idea nonetheless. At least this form of advertisement does someone else some good too. Ideas are presented, and people vote on the project that deserves to get the cash, in this case, 250k.
Homebase skate shop is spearheading an effort to get the rest of the Bethlehem skate plaza funded. Right now they are in about 11th place. All you have to do is go to this Pepsi Refresh page and cast a vote tied to your Facebook login or an optional Pepsi login, which to me suggests you can both, as long as you have two email accounts. So Skate and Annoy readers, let’s add another drop in to the bucket of support already given. We may not have the draw of the Berrics, but we can still help out. It won’t cost you anything but 20 seconds of you time. Do it now, or at least befre the end of the month.

A recent study published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science reports that the presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone and physical risk taking in young men. According to Sage Journals Online:

The authors report a field experiment with skateboarders that demonstrates that physical risk taking by young men increases in the presence of an attractive female. This increased risk taking leads to more successes but also more crash landings in front of a female observer. Mediational analyses suggest that this increase in risk taking is caused in part by elevated testosterone levels of men who performed in front of the attractive female. In addition, skateboarders’ risk taking was predicted by their performance on a reversal-learning task, reversal-learning performance was disrupted by the presence of the attractive female, and the female’s presence moderated the observed relationship between risk taking and reversal learning. These results suggest that men use physical risk taking as a sexual display strategy, and they provide suggestive evidence regarding possible hormonal and neural mechanisms.

I used to have a graphic reserved for this. Where is it? Oh yeah, right here. The pinup girl above right was a sticker design found on eBay somewhere, I lost my spotlight comments. is that your sexy look or are you pissed off? I kind of prefer Charlotte Diesel.

– Thanks to Steve B for the tip. [Source: Ars Technica]

A Sofia Maldonado has a mural up in Times Square, NYC that has made some locals hopping mad, although you wouldn’t be able to guess why if you only saw the part we’re featuring here. Sonia is of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. She was also involved in a project called Skate My Patria that brought skateboard equipment donations to Cuba in 2009.

– Thanks to David Illingworth for the tip

I only fly a couple times a year. I used to bring my skateboard with me as a carry on, but with laptops, camera bags and especially kids, it became more of a hassle than it was worth, so I began to look for skate bag options. I had one of those old Thrasher bags that were essentially oversized duffle bags from back in the day, but the zipper crapped out. It wasn’t very heavy duty and didn’t inspire great confidence as far as aiport travel. Enter the Body Bag from Old Man Army. It’s oversized enough to fit multiple skateboards and gear. In fact, mine is packed right now with my board, my kid’s board, my helmet and pads, and his helmet, plus my clothes. OMA really researched this before they had them made. They aren’t just some random bag rebranded as a skate bag. It’s got a million pockets, tie downs and straps, including a removable shoulder strap. There two spots on the bottom where you can unzip and poke your trucks through the bottom of the bag if you want. The inside looks like a space suit. They researched the maximum dimensions for luggage and made this thing as big as possible without falling into the oversized category. The zipper is heavy duty. and it opens super wide while still retaining it’s shape. I’ve had mine for a while now, made a bunch of cross country flights with connections, and it still looks as brand new as the day I got it. I can’t recommend this thing enough. Get yours from Old Man Army. Oh yeah, I’m headed to Florida. Spring Break! Whoo hoo!