Surf Expo has a Sean Obrien interview With Reggie Barnes, former Wlaker freestyle pro and the man behind Eastern Skateboard Supply, whose indoor skate facility we covered a while back. The interview focuses on the business and not his skateboarding career.

– Thanks to Michael Brooke for the tip.

See if you can figure out which one of the guys over at Bossco International skates. I can’t imagine how else they were inspired to cash in on the lucrative downhill sliding glove economy, and yes, I say that with tongue in cheek. Apparently these things didn’t sell to well, becasue they are only a year old and seem to have been discontinued. I’m not sure how they failed, seeing as how they were targeting the twin brotherhood of “extreme skaters” and in-line skaters. Do those guys even do downhill? Have to give Bossco credit for innovation though. They could have gone with plastic cutting boards velcroed on a glove, but instead they came up with massive plastic thimbles and rollerballs in the palm. Not bad for a company who’s current product line up consists entirely of LED lights stuck on other things.

I think it’s been over a year since I’ve been to this park. The neighbors have probably chilled out, now that there are more parks in the area to take the heat off. Willis Kimbel at West Linn. Photo by POX at Levil Uniform. I like lens flare, do you?

Check out the Shot of the Week.

More things going on in my own back yard that I know nothing about. Portland’s Eden Powers as seen on VIMBY. Some great moves in there, plus a hard face plant on the side of a wall, not to mention a bunch of places that I don’t skate at. I need to get out more. Well, that and a knee replacement.

If only there was a video about the making of the video of the process of turing a skateboard video game controller into a real skateboard. Ripped from the comments of Skate and Annoy, The Tony Hawk Ride controller set up as a real skateboard. I’ve heard a lot of people have problems with the controller on this game. I saw Tony give a demo on a talk show.They had a random kid come out of the audience and try it, seemed like it worked well. Who knows, maybe there was a Wizard of Oz type character behind the curtains with a hand controller. People grouse about the cost of the controller too, but as the folks at Game-TV.com have shown, if you get tired of playing the game, you can always actually, you know, err, uh, ride it. I wish I had a budget at S&A to do thid sort of thing. Maybe they are saving the good video for something else, but it seems like they didn’t make the most of this opportunity.

– Thanks to Cory for the tip.

Joni’s Kids, I’ve got Wheels, as found on BizarreRecords.com. From the back cover:

If you ride a skateboard or pedal a bike or push a scooter, you already have a lot in common with people in wheelchairs — wheels!

Joni Eareckson Tada (pronounced Johnny) dove into some shallow water without realizing it, and was paralyzed as a result. She had some issue with God, and well, ended up founding a ministry over it. I was going to look into picking up this LP on the off chance she talked about skateboards, but all I could find was a CD reissue for $17 and a cassette tape for $30! Aside from the ministry, she also does wheelchair outreach. JoniAndFriends.org. Oh yeah, there’s a green plastic skateboard on the cover. Whee!

Art Clokey passed away on Friday. His early work was pretty surreal at times. What good hearted person doesn’t love Gumby? There were at least two Gumby episodes that revolved around skateboarding. The first one was a 1967 episode of the Gumby Show, titled Dog Catchers. I believe that is the first skateboarding dog, unless you count this one. The second was a 1988 creation titled Skateboard Rally, in which the Blockheads rip his stick. There’s a dramatic car chase, Skate Rock on a half pipe – performed while skating, no less, a contest with loop action and some heavy eigties guitar riffs. I think David Dink got ripped off by the judges though. Check em out after the jump.

– Thanks to ehdubya for the tip.

Hey you! Hey! Are you taking my picture? MY picture?!!! Well alright!

We’re big fans of the dork session here, obviously, and so are Gabe Stoltz (as seen above) and Kevin Porterfield from Dokument Boardshop or Skatecamp… Err, what’s going on in Salem, Kevin?

Whew. It’s been a while since I updated the Shot of the Week. I got out of the habit when I was dealing with hackers and hosting woes, but it’s back.

Lots of things for sale on eBay. I was looking up some vintage skate shirts and found this guy who is making his girlfriend model all his t-shirts for eBay. “Come on baby, you’ll be star.” Whatever, at least she looks like she’s into it. Left to right: Droors shirt from the 90’s, G&S skateboards from the 80’s, and Globe Australia from… ? He’s got some “punk” items and snowboard related stuff, plus Styx…. Best part is, you can’t really see the the design on the shirts in most of pictures. That’s marketing!