This traffic stopping barrier in an alley in downtown Chicago can be raised and lowered. When raised, it’s almost got more of a wall jam or pole jam angle than than a launch ramp. Still, it’s got potential. It would be funny if they had to put skate stoppers on a car stopper.

Does anyone remember this guy from way back in the beginning of the Oregon Skatepark boom? So far back, in fact, that this is a scan of a photograph taken with actual film. I think we only had Newberg (where this was taken,) Ausmville, Lincoln City, and Waldport when this was taken. Of course, Burnside, and the first version of Pier Park. Maybe Brookings too. Was his name Chris? He took an old airport shuttle van and tried to make a go of operating a skatepark tour shuttle service. I don’t think it worked out.

I was never a fan of these, but you sure did see a lot of them. The Madrid Flypaper version of Vans hi-tops have been re-released. As recently as 2014, an original pair of Madrid Flypaper Vans in a different color way sold for $2200!

Are you in the mood for some 70’s funk and a lot of vert skating? What about a guy in a hotdog costume on a miniramp? Check out Dan Bourqui’s Highland Showdown edit.

Aside from being a living skateboard legend, Tom “Wally” Inouye is one hell of a chef. You don’t have to live in the area to taste his work, you can pick up some Wally’s Pepper Sauce. More hot sauce and a bonus reprint of Tom Inouye’s Who’s Hot! feature from the June 1977 issue of Skateboarder Magazine.

I stumbled upon this skatepark while visiting Chicago recently. These things (new skateparks) happen when you move away from a city for 15 years or so. This street plaza-style park is much more interesting than this panorama photo may lead you to believe. I’m standing on top of a wall that is maybe 10 feet tall. Under my feet and out of view for the most part, are the assorted transitions and banks that butt up against the wall. The panorama makes everything seem more spread out than the reality, but it is a pretty expansive park. There was not much going on there during my accidental visit, but it looks fun.

Remember at the turn of the millennium when there were only a couple skateparks nearby? My buddy Shawn used keep a squeegee and a handle in his trunk for such occasions when we would arrive at the park after a recent rain and it would be covered in puddles, and kids skirting the outline of the puddles, occasionally tracking through the park. We’d spread out the puddles and push what we could into the drain. All the kids would bitch at us for making it wet, and we’d tell them to shut up and wait 5 minutes. Sure enough, the wet spots evaporated and suddenly the whole park was skateable. I’ve literally had kids yell at me for this. Don’t get your bowels in an uproar, youngster. Most of the time, GVK carries a broom in his van for cleaning up those bowls filled with trash or dirt, and whatever nature or unsupervised children decide to throw down there. Check out these interchangeable cleaning tools from Swopt. You buy whatever accessories you need and snap them on and off a single handle, which is great for saving space on a traveling kit. The only thing that would make this system better would be if the pole contracted and telescoped. Of course, it’s overpriced, but it’s still a good idea. It won’t work on a sludge-filled pool, but good enough for others occasions.

Alright, we’ve got special behind the scenes access to Skateboard, the movie, courtesy of this July, 1977 edition of Wild World of Skateboarding magazine.  The article seems hastily written, and does not really offer much behind the scenes action outside of some photos from the set. However, it’s got lots of  poorly written press release action. It also offers an interesting glimpse of the state of skateboarding at the time, such as the lack of “established rules of Downhill in organized competition due to the infancy of skateboarding as a spectator sport.” Apparently, all the competitions in the film were staged. I haven’t seen it in a very long time, but I recall as a kid I thought this was a sort of hybrid of documentary and drama. The tone of the article is amusing in retrospect, as it treats the movie as, well, a film and not the kitsch time capsule it turned out to be.  Pics and full article text after the jump.

John Aguilar sent in some photos of a recently completed (OK, February of 2016) Debra Barto Memorial Skatepark, located on the Tulalip Reservation, near Everett, Washington. It is named in honor of the woman in the tribe who pushed hard for building it. John said this Grindline park is a good time as long as it’s not being overrun by scooter and BMX kids. Yes, that bottom feature is supposed to look like a canoe.

So the technology is interesting. A video camera posted at a reflective dome essentially captures your complete surrounding. When you add image processing software, you can manipulate the image to fix the perspective and crop the visible area. Then click and drag around to get a 360° panorama. This technology has been around for stills for over a decade I think. I’m not sure when they applied to video, but someone did, and now there’s a skate video for you to watch. From a novelty standpoint it’s interesting for a little while. From a skate video standpoint it can be cumbersome. If you change your viewpoint once then you’re going to find yourself missing the action as there’s no way to reset to the default view. I played around with it for awhile and it was fun, but more gimmicky than useful for this type of video. What I really enjoyed was watching the raw video in an unsupported browser. The still on the bottom of the picture above shows you what that looks like. It was snapped more or less at the same time as the VR view in the top. As you can see, during times where there’s no skateboarding action, they like to stagger guys in a circle around the camera so there’s something to look at if you’re looking in another direction. You can allegedly watch this on an iOS device, but for some strange reason it doesn’t work in Safari. Be warned, this video is Xtreme!™