If you approach (or leave) Daubenspeck Skatepark in Bingen, WA. from the right direction you’ll pass up this lovely ditch. This (Grindline) park is a good one in case you’re wondering, but you’ll get no pictures from me for now. Just one shot of the nearby ditch. I didn’t even see it until we were leaving. Unfortunately, we had an injured party so I didn’t stop to session. Looks steep and rough, but potentially lots of fun, right?

Lowcard has footage of the Junk Jam put on in by Jivaro and others a couple weeks ago. Don’t let the edit make you think this was sparsely attended,because it was packed full of people, and a lot of fun, even for old-timers. I have to take issue with Lowcard’s description of the venue as an “underutilized schoolyard,” because if you actually live in the neighborhood you’d see it packed with kids on occasion, even when school isn’t in session. Of course, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t use some permanent skate fixtures. Junk Jam was rad. All kinds of things to skate for all skill levels.

Street League will be including a Women’s division for the first time ever in Chicago on October 14th. First place prize is $30,000, which beats the mens X-Games purse. Competing in this first group a Lacey Baker Samaria Brevard, Leticia Bufoni, Marisa Dal Santo, Pamela Rose, Alexis Sablone, Alana Smith, and Vanessa Torres. The event will be streamed live online at StreetLeague.com with a condensed version airing on the 18th on FS1 as well as streaming FOXSportsGO. The regular inclusion of a women’s division in Street League should do well to promote both women’s professional and amateur skateboarding. Congratulations ladies!

I’ve got two magazines worth of vintage skatemag ads scanned and posted in the gallery, one from the 70’s and another from the 80’s. I’ve got loads of scans from the 70’s ready to add and some interesting UK-based ads to scan from the 80’s but I figured I’d better do at least one mag from the 90’s or I’d likely never get to it since that’s the decade I find inherently less interesting. Shoe adverts are in abundance. Companies and pros sprung up overnight like mushrooms and disappeared just as quickly after you come down from the bad trip. There are companies I can’t ever remember seeing and due to esoteric ad copy I can’t even tell what the product is that is being advertised. For instance, this ad for Silverstar has me scratching my head. While I actually like the aesthetic and the nonsensical message has a certain poetry, I can’t tell you what Silverstar is without a historical reference. One thing I do enjoy about the ads from this era is seeing the once mighty gasp for new life in the changed industry landscape, with companies like Vision stooping as low as to republish pictures of Mark…

Check it.

Check out eBay Watch: June 2015.

Two skatepark stickers from roughly the same era. I’m not exactly sure when the “Surf and Turf” became “The Turf” but it wasn’t until it re-openend in the 80’s after being a strip club for a while. (There was a false floor covering the bowls. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sticker for a contest before, other than this Del Mar Skate Ranch sticker from 1981, which as to be somewhat rare.

On the left we have Jeep Renegade skateboard themed advertising on the SB Nation network of sports related blogs, this time seen on Stumptown Footy, the one dedicated to the Portland Timbers. On the bus ride home from the Timbers match in Seattle yesterday I noticed these giant, highly skateable curbs at the Toutle River Rest Area on I-5 South.

We Are Blood is a film by Ty Evans that celebrates “the universal bond created by the simple act of skateboarding.” In case you’re thinking you’ve heard and seen that before, this is the first skate feature shot in 4K ultra HD. The “massive sound and amazing visuals” were meant to be experienced in a theater. This is not your usual low rent screening of a skate video you might be accustomed to watching in aging arthouses an dingy brew and view theaters. Even Thrasher is impressed. If you can believe it, We are Blood is being screened at the Empirical Theater in the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. We are Blood screens on September 1st in the Empirical Theatre at OMSI (1945 SE Water Ave, Portland) Watch the trailer here.

Independent coverage from Dan Bourqui of the 2015 Van Doren Invitational in Huntington Beach. That’s (so) Raven Tershay on the screen grab.