Is it conceivable that a politician would ever use a skateboard as a prop to help get himself elected? Beto O’Rourke does. Make sure you’re registered to vote.

Dennis Dragon died unexpectedly yesterday. It hasn’t been reported officially, but rather through friends and relatives of his on Facebook. Skateboarders know and love him as a founding member of the Surf Punks, and musical director for those famous Bones Brigade movies. He also appeared uncredited in the movie Skateboard Madness as the character Dick Damage. I can tell you, as a high school age kid who grew up in the Midwest, the Surf Punks had an abnormally large impact on me. I knew that he lived in Southern Oregon and had often thought about trying to locate him and meet him. I’m sure he would have been annoyed, but maybe not. A sad day on Skate and Annoy, enough to get me out of retirement and make a post again.

Once again, courtesy of Dan Bourqui.

Simple Footwear presents a brief history of skate shoes. Yes, the timeline goes past 1997. It’s a pretty lightweight history, certainly no Made for Skate, but is interesting in that a Simple shoe does not appear on that timeline, and they paid a guy to make vector illustrations of 44 shoes from other companies.

Just a run of the mill 60’s era steel wheeled skateboard that probably wouldn’t be shown here were it not for the fact that it’s still in the original packaging. Moen & Patton was a toy company primarily known for it’s roller-skates, but they made other toys as well. I’ve seen mention of their toy golf clubs as early as 1948. It looks like the used the Road Surfer as a descriptor in place of the word skateboard. Road Surfer appears on other Moen & Patton boards as well, and they eventually got around to screen printing a logo on top. – Thanks to David Maes for the tip.

Branding it as a DIY Kit is a genius way to cut costs by making the consumer put everything together, but the display packaging on this is is why you’re seeing it here. This isn’t just any fiberglass skateboard kit, it’s “Top Line.” It even comes with an instruction book, which most kids probably needed in order to figure out how to put together those open bearing wheels. UPDATE: Found an ad for this product in a 1975 issue of Skateboarder. – Thanks to David Maes for the tip. [Source: Ebay]

Enjoy this Girls’ Combi Classic (aka as Vans Girls Pool Party) footage courtesy of Dan Bourque.

Google Maps captured some kids in San Francisco going skating. That’s a good idea. – Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.

Ebay watch is dead. Long live Ebay Watch! Issue #5 of Spunk, is something that probably would have made the miscellaneous section. It’s a bit of a shocker to me to see that this went for $44. The postmark on the back cover shows that it was mailed from Delaware in October of 1984. This particular issue was sent to the folks at Transworld, which had been in publication for about a year and a half at the time. The seller took some fuzzy pics of the entire issue of Spunk, so they aren’t really up to the quality that I like to post in the Zine Archives. You can check them out here after the jump. He might have worked at Transworld for a while, as some of his other auctions seem like production artifacts forms the magazine. lots of cartoons in this issue. The rockabilly hairdo is a good one.

Here’s a short video compilation of highlights from the 2016 Exposure contest. Over a hundred girls competed in this year’s Exposure all girl contest. It’s amazing how stylish and confident girl skaters are looking today. Congratulations to all contestants and to contest director and founder Amelia Brodka, for a job well done. Video by Dan Bourqui. That’s Lizzie Armanto in the vid grab.