I been to the edge, and there I stood and looked down. You know I lost a lot of friends there baby, I got no time to mess around. So if you want it got to bleed for it baby.

John Aguilar sent in this Jeremy Brown photo of his buddy John Veitch grabbing a frontside edger in the bowl at Bellingham Washington. That’s an edger, not an air. I like to toss the old backside edger into a session on a regular basis, but fronstide edgers are courting disaster and not disasters. This is the largest size file he had, so I can’t show you a close up of the wheel on the coping. Love the edger.

Some time in 2003 Steve Grover was skating by himself at the West Linn skatepark in the middle of the day. Steve Olson showed up out of the blue and took a few runs. Then he got out an old Polaroid camera and asked Steve Grover if he would snap a few shots. Grover said sure, but also suggested that he get to keep a couple. It was a win-win situation. Check out the Shot of the Week, plus a bonus alternate shot after the jump.

Sure, we had construction pictures of San Jose’s Lake Cunningham skatepark out the wazoo and then some, but nobody cares about that once the park is open. Especially when you have a photo session with Lance Mountain, Steve Cabellero, Salba, and Rick “Ask the Doctor” Blackhart. Head on over to Concrete Disciples for the always adept MRZ photos. The server has been hit or miss since for a while now, just try back later if it doesn’t load. – Thanks to JF for the tip.

Long time Portland community activist, skateshop owner and skateboarding supporter (duh!) Howard Weiner has dropped out of the race for Portland City Council. He is endorsing candidate Jim Middaugh who happens to be Chief of Staff for City Commissioner Erik Sten. This is disappointing for Portland’s public skatepark skate scene, and it raises two obvious questions. First, can I get my $5 back? And second, will this set a precedent of City Commissioner Chief of Staffs running for office – meaning when can we expect SPS board member and Sam Adams‘ Chief of Staff, Tom Miller to make a run for it?

[Source: Seattleskateparks.org – Really? We had to find out from Seattle?]

This really short kid goes to private school, has a girl-sh sounding name (Ailene, pronounced Ilene.) practices freestyle and pushes mongo. That’s enough to make him a punching bag at many schools, or at least quarantined for some sort of sociology experiment, but Ailene seems to be doing OK. I had this video as an aside for a link to an article titled “Teach Your Child How to Skateboard,” but it’s boring and Ailene’s “How to skateboard for beginners” is much more entertaining. He made it for a class project. He goes over some basics and then gets his non-skating friend
Bruce to bust his ass trying the moves. I was about to scrap the whole post until the video got past the standing on a board part and Ailene started busting out with the freestyle moves. One of the the trick tips is the casper. The casper? Where did this kid even see a casper? After a litany of freestyle how-to’s (which I’m sure is the order of how most kids learn to skate) Ailene finally shows a kickflip as an afterthought in the “extras” section. You know that move where you half step off the board and it ends up wrapped around your legs? Apparently, it’s called the flamingo. Who knew? Ailene did, I guess.

You’re not turning me on, your embarassing yourself! or That ski hat makes you look stupid in your bikini! – maybe something like that.

I’m sure you can do better. Best caption wins a noprize!

Hawt skater gurl Available from iStock Photo.

The plot thickens. Jacksonville’s skatepark, although designed by Pillar Designs, will use Spohn Ranch prefab concrete, as seen in the images above. Why would you want to do that? Price is my guess. It’s probably cheaper than hiring a crew of experts to work on site. You make these things in a factory using unskilled labor for the most part, and haul them out on site, play a little connect the dots and seal up the joints. Probably takes less time too. Is it worth it? If you look at the limited designs available on the site, you’ll notice that like wooden prefab parks, all you get is one transition and one height with the exception of an extension here and there. So basically, one corner or pocket is going to be the same as every other one in that park or any other park made by Spohn. A definite improvement over prefab wood, but no substitute or draw like something made by a craftsmen. Pure utilitarianism. I suppose if budget were the main concern it would be better than nothing. Also, prefab concrete is probably the cheapest and easiest way for a city to make a small one hitter skate spot. I suppose that’s an acceptable use, although sometimes you can still get a reasonably priced tiny skatespot built by concrete artists.

Has anyone skated one of these prefab concrete skateparks? Of course people have, but I’m talking about our readers. Taking a look at Spohn Ranch, I have a feeling I may may have without knowing it. Of course you can’t really look at much of what they have to offer without filling out a request form, as if their park designs layout are somehow valuable. I think you can get that experience for free by playing a demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Ok first off, this is not the best illustration. There is a lot of stock photography with business guys shouting, but not so much of skater dudes shouting. Imagine the megaphone in the skater’s hand instead. Jacksonville Florida city officials held one of those “feedback” public skatepark meetings where they unveiled plans for the city’s new skatepark. The crowd of 50 or so skaters became angered when they realized the city was going to railroad through precast concrete obstacles from a company called Pillar Design Studios out of Tempe Arizona. Pillar looks like it is one of those landscape architecture firms dabbling in skateparks. They appear to have quite a few skateparks under their belts, just don’t look for any actual pictures of them on their web site. I’d find that disconcerting if I was a skateboarder living in a town that was about to hire that firm. They have a few links to external sites with sparing amount of pictures. I followed one at random and it showed a bunch of prefab Woodward metal ramps. Pillar also does motocross and bike only parks(?) as well as “Action Sports Facilities” with go cart tracks!

Kevin Connolly was born without legs. While you’re staring at Kevin Connolly, rolling down the street on his skateboard, he may be staring back at you through the lens of his camera. He’s got a body of photos called The Rolling Exhibition that consist of the photos he’s taken in 15 countries while rolling around on a skateboard, all shot from his low point of vantage. He’s been at it for a while, obviously. I’m late with this post because I couldn’t decide whether or not it was skateboard-related enough. Now I’m feeling negligent because the story is popping up all over, so here it is. Kevin’s photos are mostly about people staring at him, a legless man on a skateboard:

Everyone tries to create a story in their heads to explain the things that baffle them. For the same reason we want to know how a magic trick works, or how mystery novel ends, we want to know how someone different, strange, or disfigured came to be as they are. Everyone does it. It’s natural. It’s curiosity…

…But before any of us can ponder or speculate – we react. We stare. Whether it is a glance or a neck twisting ogle, we look at that which does not seem to fit in our day to day lives. It is that one instant of unabashed curiosity – more reflex than conscious action – that makes us who we are and has been one of my goals to capture over the past year.

Check out Kevin’s captured stares at The Rolling Exhibition. There’s a 2007 feature on Kevin in both the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and the Billings Gazette.

Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent.

I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it.

Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and plexiglass covered ramps laying back and propped up a little. Two part video after the jump. Please excuse the lame post title, but you should listen to the Vapors anyway.