Earlier there was some discussion about whether or not anything good ever comes from the X Games. I brought up the fact that they sometimes leave their ramps behind, and John Aguilar pointed out that such is the case in Mexico City. Mexican skate rag ReSkate reports that last year’s X Games vert and street ramps are being set up as a public skatepark in a few weeks. I can’t read Spanish, so I’ll have to take his word for that. And speaking of countries battling US skateboard manufacturers and extreme sports, the AST Dew Tour is opening in China this month as well. I guess there’s already a lot of skateboards there, so why not? Along with the usual contenders, Chinese athletes will be allowed to compete as well. How Extreme!™ is China? This 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor (!?) talks about how Chinese officials promote certain cultural imports from Western countries, but most fade from popularity after the propaganda stops. That was three years ago, so maybe it’s not a fad in China. It probably helps that so many American companies are having skateboards made in China. I wonder if the top Chinese skaters ride skateboards…

The City of Vancouver, Washington/Clark County Parks (Yeah, I’m confused too) has set up a web page for finding all their (sanctioned) skate spots and parks. It’s got links to pages with specific information about each spot, such as operating hours, directions and individual contact information for concerns an information. A lot of park districts have web sites with information about skateparks, but usually they aren’t centrally collected and you have to know the name of the park to find it. So, hats off to Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation, even if the supervisor didn’t want to use one of my photos in a newsletter with a credit to Skate and Annoy because he thought we promoted cursing and drinking alcohol. True story. In a moment of weakness I agreed to let them use it and credit it to me personally, all for free of course. What was I thinking? They ought to thank Parks Communications Specialist Jilayne Jordan for presenting a more human and less robot-with-stick-in-orifice face to the public. Just so we’re straight here, Jordan lobbied for using the picture, and she’s been helpful to the Pacific Community Skatepark (obviously) and to Skate and Annoy as well in providing…

Well, March was maybe the best month I’ve seen since I’ve started doing this column. I feature 43 items, of which 13 went for over $1,000. That’s got to be a record, but I’m not going back and looking through all of the old columns to validate. And two decks went for over $3,000. By the way, thanks to everybody who writes in with kind words about the column. I appreciate all of your kind words. The fact that we get so many hits and so much feedback from all over the world is amazing, and it’s what keeps me doing it month after month. Just for Randy, this month’s Baywatch is fueled by Hornsby cider and the rocking punk rock sound of The Carbonas. Have you been missing the Briefs recently? Then give the Carbonas a try. They’ll fix you right up. Their new album is available on iTunes, if you are interested. So let’s get to the meat..

Apparently the anguished cries of old men everywhere resonated in the halls of ESPN. EXPN.com reports: ESPN has decided to continue its 13-year tradition of vert competitions at this year’s X Games. Over the past month ESPN has engaged in many conversations with the X Games BMX and Skateboard vert athletes in an attempt to transition the Vert discipline into one featuring a skatepark course design. While many athletes were initially receptive to the idea, the majority of them have indicated to ESPN that they would prefer to compete on a halfpipe. So vert skating is back from the dead. Who could have predicted it? I think it’s funny that the athletes were the ones the brought it back. More telling is the fact that they plan to go forward with the Superpark concept in addition. I have a feeling that the vert riders who don’t decide to enter Superpark are going to lose ultimately. I see this as a temporary appeasement of the talent so they don’t have a mass boycott of riders. Sure, they’ll bring back vert for one or two more seasons while they quietly build up Superpark until ratings prove they don’t need vert anymore, because…

Here it is the adult skate boarders spring break. Booze, chicks and skateboarding minus the booze and chicks. Peace Off. Grover

I brought all my stuff, but in-laws, illness and weather conspired against me. I had five days of vacation. I packed all my stuff. All the public parks in Florida seem to require a helmet and pads. I think elbow pads were required at the last one I hit. Enterprising locals had cut off tube socks over their elbows. Point is, I was meeting my kids out there, and if I skated, my oldest would want to go to. So I had boards and a full set of helmets and pads for two packed. I was staying near Sarasota, which has a Team Pain park that is nice, but I’ve ridden it a bunch before and I wanted to hit soemthing new like the Bro Bowl or Dunedin, which is about an hour and a half away. Warning: Boring story for adults ahead.

This week’s Shot of the Week is another old one, dating back to 2001. Chris “Bone Man” Swan at the old Pier Park skatepark. I like the way everything is out of focus except for the wheel and shoe, and it’s shot with film. How nice. Bone man doesn’t skate very much these days, but when he does he

So yeah, doing the family vacation thing. Mother in-law brought us to an “incredible new restaurant” that turned out to be a newer chain of sports bars. I counted at least 33 flat screen TV’s with assorted sports programs on, one of them was playing Fuel, so that means I got to watch skateboarding in a sports bar. It was an episode of Driven, and there was hardly any skateboarding in it. For some reason there was a big production about a kid giving Vallely a bracelet of sorts. Not very manly behavior for a sports bar. I swear I heard some snickering. Maybe the kid had a terminal disease, it’s hard to tell because there was no sound. Looks like they gave him a Jeep, though. So yeah, manly sports bars and skateboarding. Alright.

Nobody wants to go to jail! Skate Daily brought our attention to three Vert Death Knell stories today. The XGames is abandoning the vert ramp competition and the latest Vans park remodel will not include a vert ramp. Haw haw! That must be why I’ve been hearing so many “we should build a vert ramp” comments lately here in Oregon. Since big vert is no longer considered commercially viable, maybe it’s edgy now?

A lot of our readers won’t get a chance to go to Lincoln City and see what the new snake run looks like. Fortunately for them, I’ve gone ahead and put together a short video tour that looks like it was shot by a meth addict in withdrawl who covered the lens with vaseline, stuck it down his pants and then dropped it in the dirt. This is the first time I’ve looked at any of the footage I’ve shot on a large screen in a long time. I can’t wait to see those family videos…