Marek Litinski sent in some pics from his recent trip to his homeland, Czechoslovakia. This spot is located in Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou. They’ve got a web link for the skatepark complete with a history and construction photos. Of course I can’t read it, but it looks like it was built out in the middle of nowhere in an old government building, as evidenced by the official portraits various nefarious Russians above. Here’s what Marek had to say:

About that wooden bowl… Scene sucked, to the extend of non-existence. Placed in very small village in an obscure Czech country side. Posiblly a Czech type Donald situation. So I wouldn’t be surprised if one day somebody ripped it a new one, which isn’t gonna be spectacular in any way because those trannys are like six feet tall. That bank wallride is around twelve, which makes it not so easy to skate so thats where you get your stoke on.

What’s the meaning of the Donald reference? Donald Oregon and Putting hte cart before the horse. The city must have gotten a grant from somewhere and decided to build a park “for the kids” before there was any skateboarding to speak of. Now others will likely travel there to skate, and the town will produce a few rippers where there were no skaters there previously. You can Czech out some more pics after the jump. [Photos: Jakub “Punker” Halfar, except for the middle panel which came from Hrusovany.cz, uncredited.]

Man, when I don’t make a timely post you guys get all over me. I was saving this for a rainy day, but I keep getting tips on it, so here it is. Modern Design Classics remastered with skateboards. This is a collection called Skate Study House now showing at a gallery in France called Colette. They’ve got one of those web sites that is expertly made and fun to look at, but is a pain in the ass to actually use. To get to the pictures you have to click on the jumping News robot and then look for the dancing Gallery robot. It’s all in Flash and there’s no direct link. Skate House Study is supposed to be an homage to the Case Study House project, which was an expirement where major architects were commissioned to design inexpensive modern homes during the 40’s up until 1966. I’m not sure how they are an homage other than the style of furniture (sans skateboards) would have fit well in those houses, except for the inexpensive part.

The collection was made by Pierre-André Senizergues and Gil Le Bon de Lapointe. Who are those guys? You may recognize PAS as the man behind Etnies, and Gil is a longtime skater and designer. Tackyworld has the scoop, and if you are into it (MC’s AGP Design?) I’ve done my best to pair up the inspired with the inspiration, arranged from the excellent to the somewhat crappy.

[Source: Be Sportier]

Ryan Hass writes:

Here is the answer to prefab in New England.  Back in 2000-2003 these parks were springing up all over the place.  Asphalt footers, huge cracks and terrible seams are par for the course.  Not to mention these objects are usually dropped into place with little or no thought about layout.

Suh-weeeet!

As a followup to our earlier coverage of the Jacksonville Beach, Florida skatepark, here’s some more info on Spohn Ranch and their prefab concrete option. Aaron Spohn got his professional start building ramps for the X Games in 1992. According to their official correspondence, Spohn Ranch has some sort of ongoing partnership agreement with Pillar Design Studios as well as an organization called the Action Park Alliance whom they bill as “skatepark operations professionals.” (Uuuugh! That’s a topic for a different post altogether.) Spohn Ranch also builds metal, wood and alternative surface prefab ramps, but I’ve highlighted the concrete offerings. (Updated)

Skater and Annoy got mentioned in an issue of the German action sports magazine Slack. My German vocabulary is limited to what I picked up from playing the original 2D version of Castle Wolfenstein on my Apple II back in 1982. See post title for demonstration.

Dieses News-Portal ist aus einem Skate-Zine aus den 80er-Jahren hervorgegangen, was an manchen Stellen deutlich zu spüren ist. Die exklusiv gestalteten Comics und zum Teil bissigen Kommentare über die Darstellung von Skateboarding in den US-amerikanischen Medien lässt den schnoddrigen DIY-Charakter durchscheinen. „Skate and Annoy“ hat seine Wurzeln in Portland/Oregon und fühlt sich in erster Linie dem Transition Skating verpflichtet. Ihr denkt, ihr seid old school? Dann zieht euch erst mal rein, wie die Jungs aus dem Betonpark-Mekka die weichgespülte Skate-Welt sehen…

Let’s see… we’ve got the 80’s, comics, some DIY stuff and Portland Oregon. It also mentions “old school” so that means they think we are a bunch of Barneys. How did they find us? Must be all the Claus Grabke coverage.

Sorry this has taken so long. I set it out weeks ago, but none of the decks really excited me too much, so it’s been tough building the enthusiasm to actually sit down and do it!!

This month the column is brought to you by the sounds of The Jam. All Mod Cons actually. Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are currently touring with 2 other guys as From The Jam. They play all of The Jam classics, and in Jam style, not the hippy crap style that Weller does these days. From hat I hear they put on a kick ass show. I’ve got a ticket for the Chicago show, so we shall see.

eBay Watch: December 2007

These week’s Shot of the Week is Damien’s aptly titled 2006 picture of a Corvallis Oregon pool about to bite the dust. Check it out.

Cal Streets has an impressive collection of vintage skateboarding ads from the 70’s. This particular 1977 advert for Lan Skateboards is from volume five of eight. (Update: They’ve since changed the organization of the gallery, so that link has been removed.) Those were they days when if you needed an ad concept all you had to do was have a possibly underage and definitely under-enthusiastic girlfriend in a risqué product shot. – “Come on Larry, let’s get this over with. I have to get back to my class at cosmetology school.” There is some funky stuff in there for sure.

The entire archive is full of gems from the past. On the plus side, Cal Streets transcribed some of the ad copy and included the publication and date. I found the site because someone contacted us looking for an obscure piece of skateshop history called the accu-drill. They included a picture link that led me there. now that we are on the subject, we have a column called eBay Watch, but we don’t have a warehouse full of old skateboards. you’d be surprised at how many requests we get.

One bone to pick, Cal Streets has “refurbished” their adverts, some at the sake of the integrity of the printed piece. As a result you occasionally get some super saturated colors and some unnatural looking areas that look retouched. Aside from that, it’s pretty excellent man. Check out Cal Streets vintage ad archives.

UPDATE: Check out the vintage ad gallery on Skate and Annoy.

MC hipped me to this interview but declined to post it for some reason. He said it wasn’t skateboard related, and I had to remind him that we also cover rock and/or roll on occasion. I am here to tell you that you should check out the Mark Mothersbaugh interview on Fecal Face Dot Com conducted by Andreas Trolf. Andreas is an admitted fanboy, but he also tackled the tough questions like WTF is up with all the DEVO songs in TV commercials. As a fanboy myself, I was afraid that the answer and indeed the whole interview would be as unsatisfying as Smooth Noodles, but after reading it I am pleased to pronounce that I remain as devolved as I ever was. We are all Devo. The shot above is Mark is standing front of one of the handmade rugs he is currently exhibiting. It’s good stuff. There was something a bit odd about them, and I didn’t realize they were rugs just by looking at the pictures. You may have seen Mark as a recurring guest doing sketches on the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba. Strangely, that didn’t come up in the interview, or maybe it isn’t so strange as Andreas probably doesn’t have little kids.

Get in the mood for the Mark Mothersbaugh interview by watching Freedom of Choice before those greedy bastards at Viacom have it removed. There’s skateboarding in that video, so there.

Check out the Travis Bickle looking rugrat in these catalog shots for Knuckleheads Clothing. These guys are also sponsoring that weird skate demo at the motorcycle show. Hey, I’ve got rugrats too. They sure would look good in some of that. Hint. Hint.