Just like the title says; it’s Old School Skateboarding Slams from the northern Indianapolis area, circa ’87-90. Nothing in it stands out as spectacular, but taken as a whole it’s got a big warm, fuzzy vibe. My favorite slam starts at the 1:35 mark. It’s way off in the background and doesn’t make a good screen capture, so I went with my second favorite slam that happens immediately after. GVK said he felt like he could have been at any one of these sessions. Watch the whole thing after the jump.

Stikboards are a plasticy skateboard deck that can be ridden like a skateboard on slippery substances like grass, snow or even sand. Big deal, right? Somehow the “inventor” came up with the idea of riding these things on garden mesh, a plastic mesh used in landscaping. Whether he engineered it that way or it was a happy accident, these things seem to slide really well on the stuff. My first take on this was that it was just about the lamest skateboard related thing I’d ever seen (in the past week or two at least.) I mean, they actually advocate spreading the mesh out at a skatepark. I ‘d love to be there when someone tried that at Burnside… Then I started poking around and watching the videos and my mind changed a little. They show a backyard skate spot setup with rails and such, launch ramps… set up on grass, but with the approach and landing covered in mesh, which is supposed to be inexpensive. I’ll be damned if it doesn’t appear to work pretty good, although the video is postage stamp sized, circa 1995. It occurred to me that any institutional arguments against “street stikboarding” would be nullified. It’s all soft plastic that wouldn’t harm the architecture. Of course the liability and insurance issues would still be there. Let me make myself clear. Stikboarding is both incredibly lame and very clever. I’m not ever going to trade in my skateboard for a stikboard, I’m just impressed that they actually appear to work so well. If you’ve got the equivalent of $75 Amreican and live in New Zealand, you can pick up a stikboard direct from the source. Watch the “ramps” video in the gallery section. Don’t forget your garden mesh if you want to sesh…

Carl Warren hipped me to this dude… Sorry, channelling Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure. I needed a shot of the week, and I wanted to show something with the new roof once it went up. They didn’t tell me and I didn’t think to ask. Sorry, channelling True Romance. Hood River has an awesome gap to jump, and an awesome roof to skate under. Thanks once again, to man on the scene Carl Warren. Check out the full frame shot of the week and then some bonus shots after the jump.

Rolling out some love for new SnA sponsors. If you are paying attention, Weirdo Skateboards, a Norcal based independent skateboard company will be joining the ranks of our banner advertisers soon. Here’s a shot of the company owner Tom Augusta at the San Jose skatepark. I believe BK is the photog? (UPDATE: Yes, he is.) Bonus shot that was just “too weird” for me, after the jump.

Joesf Heffner sent in a screen grab from the 1991 Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor film Another You. I watched the trailer and I can’t figure out how the road warrior on skateboard fits in. Looks like they chopped off the front of the board and attached a cow catcher, possibly even painted some 215’s blue. That board’s been actually used for more than just a prop.

I met a guy from Minnesota who looked about the right age, so I asked him he skated P.I.S.S. back in the day, and he had. P.I.S.S. for those that don’t know, was an indoor ramp in a building. To skate it you had to pay rent, hence, Private Indoor Skate Spot. A few of us got somewhat serious about setting up a situation like that in Portland. We got as far as checking out spaces, but it all came to naught. Slap Magazine has a feature that, uh, features someone who noses around here on occasion, it’s called DIY East Coast Indoor Parks. Doc Murdock is interviewed as one of the principals in four indoor private spots on the east coast. Pics and video from each spot. Check it out.

It’s open, that’s for sure, but what remains uncertain (unless you’ve been there) is what the layout is. Every design render I’ve seen doesn’t jive with the photos I’ve seen. Fuel TV has photos of the opening, but not really much of an overview of the spot. Somebody help us out here. UPDATE: I guess that picture on the bottom is pretty much it. So the headline should read “Skate Spot Opens.”

Yeah! Bark like a dog! I’m going to post way to many pictures of this roof because it’s such a novel concept out here. Sure, we have the world’s greatest skateparks, but only a few of them are lighted, and almost none of them are covered! Hood River Oregon has really stepped up to the plate. Thanks again to Carl Warren, here are some photos of the roof going up over a portion of the new additions to the Hood River skate complex.

I don’t know what the title of The Chrome Ball Incident refers to. Calls to mind pinball for me. This site picks up exactly where I stopped paying attention to the major skate mags. Even as someone who doesn’t really feel a connection with the popular culture of skateboarding during that time period, I still find these old archives interesting, sometimes even fascinating. It’s all about the hindsight and knowing how it all shook down in the end. Through all the cat fights and temper tantrums in the industry, there was still some great skating going down. One post I enjoyed reading was an interview with Matt Hensley as he was fading out from the public eye of skateboarding. HE was working at the Chicago Sessions shop, who was actually a client of the silkscreen company I was a partner in. He came in with the Sessions dude (Scott?) and we worked up the art for a Sessions T-shirt that looked like a “tribute” to the first Specials album. I remember I vaguely knew who he was, but totally didn’t recognize him. I only mention it (becauee I want you to love me) because in the interview Matt briefly talks about kids coming into Sessions and giving him attitude, sometimes poorly feigning not to know who he was to get a reaction. Matt, if you are reading this, I really didn’t know who you were. Check out The Chrome Ball Incident for a full dose of 90’s era skateboarding. The cool thing is, the pages are uploaded a higher resolution, so you can actually read the whole thing. Thrasher should take a cue from this.

Before he started appearing in commercials, hosting lame TV shows and playing even lamer “stand up comedy” gigs, Henry Rollins was cool. He appeared on a skateboard in Thrasher for two months back to back in 1982.