There are art boards galore, but these hand carved whimsical creatures are meant to be ridden. Ridden carefully, of course, but ridden. Doug McKee AKA Naty Shred rides his, and repairs them too. They aren’t cheap, but they are one of a kind. The bird actually flaps it’s wings when it rolls. Impractical? Sure, but it takes a joyless soul not to smile at these.

[Source: Make] – Thanks to Eric Cherry and Janis Salnajs for the tip.

Jack Smith has self-published “The Skateboarder’s Journal – Lives on Board 1949-2009.” It sounds a little bit like an extended version of Jocko Weyland’s The Answer is Never.

I decided to open up the book up to anyone who wanted to contribute a story about his or her skateboarding life. Not just the pros or the skaters you have seen in the magazines and videos over the last fifty years, I wanted to share the “everyman/everywoman” stories of skateboarding. Everyone from the “40 something” pad dad, to the 15 year old grom who’s so stoked that he wants to skate every waking hour, to the women skaters who stories have been ignored or lost over the years.

The forward is written by Stacy Peralta, a guy who’s definitely had an interesting life in skateboarding. Head on over to the The Skateboarder’s Journal to check it out. It’s more than just press for the book, it’s a larger social network type site.

Skateboarding is a big deal in Japan and like most skateboarders in the world, Japanese artist Haroshi had a pile of broken decks lying around. Too attached to the boards to toss them in the trash, he collected his boards and unless he breaks a few boards a week the ones of his community and turned them into sculptures and accessories such as necklaces and key chains.

Holy cow, last Wednesday’s Family Circus was actually funny! Much better than the last time. Eat your heart out MC! I didn’t catch this in the paper, if anyone still has it, please send in a scan, or drop the original in an envelope.

– Thanks to Smitty for the tip.

This random Hood River shot comes from Carl Warren, who invites you to enlarge-o-rama.

Man, for a cat so heavily into jazz, you’d think he’d be hip to the lingo and not trip over such a simple thing like “skateboard park” instead of laying a clam like “Skate Board Park.” This album dates back to 1979. I don’t know jazz, but Joe Farrell must have been somewhat respected, because I do recognize the name of his keyboard and piano player, Chick Corea. I do know one thing, this album cover is outstanding, even if it wasn’t the record exec’s bag. The CD re-issue has a completely different cover. Dig some fly album artwork and hear Farrell blow on this hot plate after the jump, unless you’re out to lunch, like that crumb behind Joe on the cover.

– Thanks to Matt for the tip, and AllAboutJazz for the translation.

Another Tony Hawk refernce in a comic, this time in a strip called xkcd, which I wrote off based on this one strip, but is actually a pretty good comic with pretty bad art.

– Thanks to Stephen B for the tip.

Number two in what I hope is a series of other people doing my “job” here at Skate and Annoy. Local favorite among commentators, JakeandAnnoy interviews Rusell Foisey, a dangerous guy. Let’s see… Russ has been featured here in a Shot of the Week and he rides for Old Man Army. Also, this interview is a bit out of date. Jake gave it to me a little bit before Black September, AKA the Great Skate and Annoy Server Meltdown of 2009. It was probably late before that happened, and then like so many other things from that couple of months, it fell through the cracks. Honestly, I think Jake’s glowing review of another recent interview was his way of saying WTF? Where’s the piece I did for you? Well here it is Jake… Now let’s talk about all the out of focus pictures you gave me and lack of photo credits. But not this photo from Dan Hughes. Anyone heard from that guy since he got married?

It’s funny how this column comes together. It’s different every month. Last month for example it took me about 3 weeks to put it all together. I’d do one section, wait to get motivated for a week, force myself to do a few decks, then come back a few days later and do some more. But some months like this one everything just flows and I crank out the whole thing in a couple of days. It feels much better this way; you get in a flow and just ride it out. Hours go by without noticing it. It’s good. Hopefully you guys enjoy them all, but this one feels extra special somehow. Of course the decks that get featured have a lot to do with that too. It’s tough to find new stuff to say when you’re featuring a Hawk birdclaw for the 50th time. So you might notice that there are no Hawks, no Natas and no McGill decks featured this month. That was half by chance and half by choice. I hope you don’t miss them!

Check Out eBay Watch: January 2010.

In Tony Hawk’s book Occupation: Skateboarder he mentions that when his very first pro model was released in 1982 it wasn’t exactly a top seller. Hell, if anything, it was a bottom dweller. To add insult to injury the market for skateboards back then was nonexistent at best, so to not have a remotely popular model translated to mere pennies on the royalty dollar—more precisely, 85 cents, the whopping sum total of which Tony claimed to represent one of his earliest royalty check payments as a paid professional skateboarder.