It’s old news, but it’s good news. Tony Hawk was in South Africa skating with the locals, and I mean the Zulu locals, which was coincidentally an early name for the Ramp Locals in a working version of the Thrashin’ script. Tony was there in conjunction with Laureus World Sports Academy in order to attend a launch for an Indigo Youth Movement project, whose goal is to “to help young people in rural communities develop life skills and confidence through skateboarding.” Who started the IYM? Why, our old friend Dallas Oberholzer. This isn’t Tony’s first involvement with youth skateboarding in Africa. Birdhouse and the Tony Hawk Foundation have sent boxes of product to the Uganda Skateboard Union, including skateboards and shoes. It’s true. I’ve seen the pictures on the Interwebs™. I just can’t find them. [Photo: Patrick Royal for Laureus]

It goes inside the skateable architecture, right? This image is from the Formica web site showing examples of what you can do with Formica. Turns out Formica is a brand name , like Kleenex and Xerox. That’s neither here nor there. Nice transition.

L-U-V this picture. Ladies, what’s happening? Well let me tell you. Skate Like A Girl Portland’s next GIRLS ONLY skate skate session is: Sunday August 30th from 11am to 1pm at the Department of Skateboarding. All ages, all abilities. They’ve even got some spare boards and helmets. What else? There’s an organization called the Poseidon Foundation which is sort of like SLAG, but for all action sports. The Poseiden gals will be traveling the coast of California, August 26th? September 2nd with female professional skaters in conjunction with the Girl Riders Organization. It’s not just fun and games, the skaters will be going to “lower socio-economic areas where they will be interacting with the youth and teaching the public that skateboarding can be used as a tool of self-expression and build the confidence in adolescents that are at-risk and come from low?income families.” I’d say check out the web site for details, but I couldn’t find any there. I imagine they will remedy that soon. – Thanks to Nathaa Nobile for the tip. [Photo: SLAG tour 2009]

Yet another news story about people past their 30’s who are still skating. And hey, another private indoor skate spot with a key club. (Remember P.I.S.S.?) All in all, not so noteworthy, except some readers might remember Midwest skater Eric Froland, who is one of the members. Somewhere I’ve got a couple shots of Eric skating the vert ramp at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, circa… I don’t remember exactly, but Freaky Styley was playing over the loudspeakers. I don’t think that’s Eric in the shot above. Check out The Hiawatha: Secret skatepark of local board legends on Citypages. – Thanks to Bob Mechtly for the tip.

I took too many pictures. It’s taking a while to get through them all. Here’s Lance to tide you over.

Coming down to the wire here. Here is the latest installment of the Skateboard Action book, courtesy of Carl Warren. Last week they were ice skaters, this week it’s ballerinas. It’s O.P. Moore. Hey Roving Editor, Enlarge-o-rama works fine on my iPhone. Previous installments: Seven – Six – Five – Four – Three – Two – One

In the Saint Louis area, creatures come out at night, armed with trowels and shovels. What are they building on King’s Highway? Check it out. This picture is f-ed up. I love it. UPDATE: more pics over here. – Thanks to Bob Mechtly for the tip.

So I heard another kid broke an arm at Tigard. His name is Kieth Baldassere, and that’s him above. I missed that whole exchange. Check out page two of Tigard photos. I tried to mix them up some, so there will be new faces on page two.

So I talked Randy into giving me a “column”  in an effort to empty some of my thoughts on skateboarding and the skateboard industry and whatever else i thought would make for good discussion related to skateboarding. It didn’t take me too long to convince him after i brought up the fact that Grover had posting capabilities and basically one rule – no talking about pork products. The most interesting part of posts on Skate and Annoy and any website are the comments and the viewers opinions on the posted subject. So here we go with my first post: Jake over at Thrasher wants everyone to die, this time with a post called “Time to Die” which basically encourages people to try and ollie the stair set in the photo below. I believe he also asks people to “go kill themselves” as they attempt to conquer this feat and will reward them with $1000 for footage to prove that it happened. So, what do you think? Click HERE for the post on Thrasher’s site