More pics from Team Pain showing Colorado Springs concrete work in progress. There’s some pretty cool looking tile in some of them. Come on Tito, make with the close ups!

The LA Times reports that skaters and BMX riders alike are not too happy with ESPN’s Superpark course built by a BMX crew. The main complaints are “too small” and “tight transitions,” although you’d be hard pressed to tell by some of the photos. The Flying Tomato reminds us that this is the first year for the event, and next years will likely be better. Shaun White may be right, or he may just be more interested in making bad miniseries for HP computers. I seem to recall hearing that some of the early vert ramps in the X Games were kind of crappy too, but they eventually go that right. With more money on the line now, they’ll probably get right on that. Although the general public seems to only be interested in the Mega Ramp. [Photo: Los Angeles Times] – Thanks to Mac for the tip.

I can’t get away from my wasteful lust for old-growth maple veneers. I’ve been skating for too many years and am set in my ways. But my ever aging and growing inner-nerd can’t help but be intrigued by the innovations of using alternative materials to make skateboards. Aluminum boards have been around forever, but boards like Corbus Boards are all together something new. Made to be a functional piece of industrial art, these boards are meant to be ridden claims Corbus. A runaway board could make one of these metal monsters an ankle guillotine. Images via Corbus, link thanks to Make

Boardistan is reporting that Bones Brigade understudy Ray Underhill passed away this morning after a long battle with a brain tumor. Sean Mortimor is credited as the source, but so far no official word on the Ray Underhill site, or Eastern Skate Supply, where he worked. For what it’s worth, our condolences to his family and friends. Classic Ray Underhill in the best scene from Animal Chin after the jump. This “Ska-dack” is for you! – Thanks to Enemy Combatant (!!) for the tip. UPDATE: Official word posted on the Ray Underhill site – Leave your condolences on the bulletin board.

There are shin injuries, and then there are shin injuries. That shot in the top right is Danny Way hanging his shins out to dry on the coping of the quarterpipe part of the Megaramp after catching about 20 feet of air. Catch some incredulous highlights after the jump, including Jake Brown’s return to the event. Looking at that huge contraption… I can’t believe it’s actually used in a competition. An exhibition would be crazy enough. I hope those guys are getting paid. How the hell do you practice for this? It’s not like they have them set up everywhere. So yeah, those guys are skateboarding, and it’s amazing to watch, but one of these days someone is going to die or end up crippled. Best case scenario: They’ll be like Hank Hill’s shinless father Cotton Hill.

Watch out Hollywood here comes the”Docudramedy” “THE KID” (The Joe Carson story). I may need some extras so send your credentials/credits and head shots in. This is your chance to show the world what you can do. We’re trying out Vimeo now on The Kid trailer and Howard’s May Day Skate Party. If it works well we’ll go back and upload previous GVK’s. Cut! Grover…

Sure, we watch Nascar and downhill skateboard races for the same reason: The crashes. Here’s a video from a recent outlaw downhill event in Oregon. I guess they didn’t actually make it to the finals bracket because the event got shot down by the Sherif’s department, but they were able to determine the final standings to everyone’s approval. Looks like these guys are hauling ass. There’s some unexplained miniramp complex footage at the very end, and yes, you can watch guys pile into each other on the same turn, over and over again. – Thanks to Casey Morrow and our own Enemy Combatant(!) for the tip.

If you are a regular reader you’ve hopefully noticed a few posts lately with Eric Cherry as the author. I’m actually surprised nobody brought it up. Eric’s been a reader for some time now, he’s submitted some good tips. Independently of MC taking H.O.M.O.S. back to his sandbox, I have been considering trying to add some new voices to Skate and Annoy. It’s hard finding a match, but in the past few weeks I was already appropriating some of the commentary from his tips, so I recruited him with a soft sell. Eric seems to be a reserved in talking about himself (Don’t you wish I was?) so I was struggling for a way to introduce him. Fortunately, his mostly pinup art skateboard collection fits in nicely with Friday T&A. A man’s board collection says a lot about him. Or not. Check it out. Welcome to our little scene.

This is kind of an old item already, but for some reason the New York Times has picked up on the release of Jay Adams from prison. I had wondered whether he was officially done with his time or whether he was on some sort of probation. The Times says he’s at a halfway house serving out the remaining months of his four year sentence. I’ve often wondered how that whole prison release thing works, fortunately I don’t know the details. Looks like he’s working for Hurley maintaining their private skate facility. Check out the pic above right. Apparently Hurley is exploring a marketing image that wants to intimidate the hell out of prospective clothes buyers. You can get the full effect at the NYT article by enlarging it. I wonder if Jay knew that the prison he was serving time in was only about 15 minutes away from the world class Aumsville, Oregon skatepark? I thought I read that he took a cab to a bus station in Portland. With Hurley’s parent company Nike so close in Beaverton, Oregon you’d think someone could have picked him up. I can’t find that bit of info anymore, so I might have…

OH yeah, I forgot to title this “Vert is dead, not dead, dead, not dead, dead….” I’m losing track of where we’re at here. Dave Swift over at the Skateboard Mag has some pictures of the new setup for the Super Park event at the X Games. If you recall, Super Park was supposed to be the replacement for the vertical event until the talent mutinied and said they would prefer to compete on the halfpipe. So now we have Vert and Super Park. Without getting into the politics, the Super Park course certainly looks more interesting than a vert ramp, and is more in step with what people who aren’t training for the X Games are riding, if not in the street. Now, to get into the politics, or at least social responsibility, carting that thing around to different venues seems like it would be a gargantuan task. We all know what happens to these ramps when they got through a season or two, they get donated. It’s one thing to fix up up a vert ramp or some pyramids that have seen some abuse, it’s relatively straight forward. What’s going to happen when they discard these massively complex…