I checked out the Team Pain park in Engelwood Florida over the weekend. It’s a lot smaller than it seemed from the construction shots we posted. I’m staying in Sarasota, which has a much larger park, but I actually prefer Englewood. Sarasota is separated into two main areas, bowl and street. The whole of the Englewood park probably fits inside the bowl footprint of Sarasota. Part one of the coverage is just some overviews of the park. Part two (coming tomorrow) will be pictures of the locals.

A Milton Florida park monitor called the police because a guy dropped in on one of the park obstacles. It was essentially a quarterpipe with some vert. The monitor took issue because the guy climbed up and dropped in. It’s ok to ride it, but not to climb up on it in order to do so. Samuel Atchison was suspended for 30 days for skating in a skatepark. It sounds ridiculous, but he did absolutely nothing wrong. You have to see it to believe it.

– Thanks to Concretins for the tip.

I’m here in Sarasota, FLorida for a little while. SRQ is the airport ID, just as PDX = Portland. Last time I was here at this skatepark there was supposed to be an old man night on Fridays. Well those guys either all died or they moved it to a different night. They’ve added a big fancy building to the park since I’ve last visited. As near as I can tell, it’s only purpose besides giving you a place to pee, is to come up with a reason to justify paying $8 to skate. The park closes at 8:00pm and isn’t open during school hours. It’s weird having to plan out when I can go skate. It’s basically a five hour window every day until summer time, when it’s an eight hour window. I don’t now how the heck Oregon manages to keep it’s 80+ skateparks open and free for every hour of sunlight. We must be freakin’ geniuses or wizards. There wasn’t much happening there this particular Friday night, although to be fair, I was only there for the last hour. That’s the lifeguard or safety monitor or whatever that job is called in the shot at the top right. There were a couple kids I skated with and took a few pics. My son enjoyed the park too. Man, rollerblades everywhere. I don’t know how that scene is staying alive in 2009. The kids are trying to look cool and/or tuff and everything. It’s quite comical.

This park rules. The locals and City Hall gave it a bad name for a while, and while the powers that be may still be predatory, it’s been a good session every time I’ve been there in the past year or two. Also, it’s never been crowded. Pics after the jump.

Dave Swift, the other king of The Skateboard Mag has a video interview in four parts (One – Two – Three – Four) over on Plan B TV. One thing not in the interview, Art and Steve Godoy once told me they were blacklisted from Transworld back in the day because one of them hooked up with Dave’s girlfriend in the parking lot of the old Del Mar skatepark. Sometimes I like to pretend Skate and Annoy is a legitimate skateboard news source. On other days I like to be the National Enquirer.

[Source: Bordistan]

We got a page of trick tips from Versus Magazine. It’s all very NSFW, as you can see from the example above. Who knew a skate zine could have Playmates? Skate and Mate did, actually. I’m sure you can guess what the Stale Fish grab looks like. If you can’t, head on over to the Versus archives and find issue #28.

True story. I heard SnA got a mention in “On Board Trash” so I went to pick one up at a local “board shop” here in Sarasota Fl, where I’m staying for a few days. I walk in to this huge store full of skateboards, surfboards, skimboards and god knows what else. I glance around at the counter and see nothing. I ask the guy behind the counter

“Do you have Thrasher?”
“No, I don’t”
“Whaaaa????”
“I know…”

So I turned around and walked out. the whole thing took less than a minute. I don’t subscribe to Thrasher, but I fully expect any self respecting skateboard shop to carry it. Who is that kook in the picture? It’s Eddie Albert playing Oliver on Green Acres but dressed up as Jethro Clampett. Seriously. I know there’s a couple of real skate shops here. I’m going to search one out.

And here he is less than a week before his birthday. 48? that can’t be right. Don’t wish him happy birthday, we don’t want him to fall victim to the curse. Click here to enlarge his prostate.

So the joke goes, (my joke, by the way) that zoning ordinances and building codes in Portland require that any mini ramp built on private property must have at least one extension that goes to within one foot of the ceiling, an over-vert section, or a three foot or smaller transition. Apparently those rules apply to Beaverton as well. My friend Marek built himself a miniramp in his garage with really tight transitions, and of course, pool coping. MC and I went to check it out the other night.

Continuing the trend where I raid the archives of Dezeen Magazine, this is the Port of Tel Aviv public space by the architecture firm Mayslits Kassif. Their hope is that the rolling surface will act as “a reflection of the mythological dunes on which the port was built and as an open invitation to free interpretations and unstructured activities.” Sounds like a session to me.