Scott Starr has the most amazing collection of skateboarding films, commercials and other media from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I’ve been watching his stuff online for a few years now. I’ve got a collection of media footage from the late 90’s on, but it’s all crap compared to what he has, the Smithsonian of skateboard history in moving pictures. I’m more like a giant ball of twine at a road side attraction. I grab my material off the TV. He finds or buys old films and has them restored. I’m going to start featuring one of his videos on Saturdays. His library is amazing, although with some of it I can’t believe he hasn’t gotten booted from YouTube yet. He used to have a web site but it doesn’t seem to be up lately. Skateboarding is just a part of it, he collects surf and snow footage as well. It’s got to be harder and harder to find nowadays with all the film stock that is probably deteriorating. So cheers to you Scott, I’m glad someone has preserved this stuff. Your are truly doing (the Concrete) God’s work.

This first installment is actually one that is a little atypical of his collection. It appears to be a short film made in 1977. There are no credits or any other information, but you should enjoy Valley Punks VS the Surfer.

This was going to be another Friday T&A on S&A, but I didn’t want to risk being labeled a misogynist, so we’ll just call this “You know this is going to end well…” This girl is so hot, you might even say she’s slammin!

I think this was an entry in some sort of video contest being held by the LA Times back in 06. It’s a collection of pool skating by the “Squarebuckets Crew” out of Plasterville, California that I know nothing about. I enjoyed the video, but neglected to post it until now.

Yeah, yeah, old guys still skate. We get it already. Here’s a quite lengthy article from the Columbia News Service about old guys that are still skating in different parts of the country. Somehow or other they missed out on interviewing Mark Conahan, who must have been booked on one of his many media appearances that day. They did interview full-faced helmeted Northwest icon Dan Hughes. The picture on the (top) right is from his web site. Who’s that funny looking old guy on the left? It’s Tommy Guerrero from a short interview in the San Francisco Chronicle, published earlier this year. UPDATE: Here’s another link to a story called “Chairmen of the Boards” (Guffaw! Never heard that one before!) from an Australian publication called The Age. It’s three more pages about old (Australian) guys skating, specifically a crew of guys at Frankston skatepark who routinely bring their own lights to make time to skate in their busy schedules. They have a base of about 60 people who regularly fill out these sessions with 20-30 skaters. Sounds kind of annoying, actually. I hope that’s a big park. That’s a lot of people and the guys in the picture (bottom right) look oversized to begin with.

Another one from the collection of John Drummond, this is Go For It! – the Swindle Issue. It’s a pretty good one. Lots of decent photos and a nice glossy printed cover. The Swindle refers to the fact that the outside is glossy but the inside is photocopied. It’s printed on an odd size of paper, not any derivative of A4 or anything, The insides are all a bit smaller than the cover. It must have been custom trimmed. It’s 90% UK vert scene. A lot of names that are vaguely familiar to the colonists. Phill Burgoyne’s interview is amusing, as is the one with Gregor Rankine. I didn’t remember that he was from New Zealand. This is Steve Douglas’s zine. Some of you might remember him as a pro rider for Schmitt Stix. He was one of the founders of New Deal and Giant Distribution. Right now I believe he’s a big wig at Dwindle.

UPDATE: Comments closed, but you can comment directly in this gallery now.

They postponed the show until the 22nd. KPTVs Mark Ross tells me It turned out great. Sorry about jumping the gun I know how hard it is to program that Tivo. First my Juice interview, now this.

First off, GABRIEL PARK IS CLOSED. Stephanie from Airspeed wanted to make sure everyone knows that. It won’t open until sometime in July, and the first citation for trespassing has already been issued. That being said, she did give me the go ahead to post the rest of the pictures from the test session last weekend. Afterwards a certain Dr. Brad made a the excellent comment “That was awesome. Wait… This is the place that everyone was bitching about?”

The Seattle Post Intelligencer used this photo to illustrate an article about evidence storage by the Seattle Police. They hold on to evidence for 80 years, so get your grandchildren to schedule the police auction on their calendars if they want to make a killing on eBay.

Not exactly. The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience is being designed by the by the firm that developed Disneyland. Err.. wouldn’t that be Walt Disney? Sort of. Exporting American style amusement parks like Euro Disney have been about as successful as the Iraq War, and these are in countries we didn’t invade.

From the Times Online:

A $1 million skateboard park, the first phase of the development, will open in July. Parts for 200,000 skateboards and materials to build ramps will be shipped from America to Iraq for assembly at state-owned factories and distributed free to Iraqi children along with helmets and knee pads.

Shipping materials to build ramps? Is this going to be a $1 million prefab park? Do they want to make Iraq’s youth hate the U.S. even more? Does Haliburton own a piece of SkateWave? We don’t want to actually help the people of Iraq, we just want to make them love America. (Warning: Crackpot alert on that previous link.) This is not going to be a state owned Iraqi public park. The company developing the park is leasing the land for 50 years, so they’ll need to charge money. Are they going to give away skateboards and then charge kids ride the park? This amusement park will provide much needed jobs for anyone qualified to pick up trash on roller skates. And more good news, the suicide bomb bus ride will be an E ticket.

Photos: Background – AP photo by Hadi Mizban – A 4-year-old Iraqi child cries as older boys stage a mock execution Monday in Baghdad, Iraq. Children’s games are under a heavy influence of ongoing violence in the country. [Source: News-Record] Does that bum you out? How can you be bummed out when Mickey Mouse wants to skate vert with you? Happy soma skating with Mickey Mouse!

– Thanks to Doug Williams for the tip.