I was cleaning out the hard drive and I found this picture of a Maxwell House billboard taken in July of 2000. I guess they are implying that adults could lead a more fulfilling life if they did a little downhill on a longboard. Dress respectfully, of course, then click to enlarge.

In 1981 Duane Peters, Steve and Micke Alba appeared on a local TV program called Eye on L.A.. The segment was excerpted on one of those pool skating DVD’s (Chlorine?) a few years ago, but Scot Starr dumped it to Youtube. Starr’s got a national treasure trove of old skate footage from the straight media. I don’t know how he got it all. The segment has hip music for the time, Duran Duran and the Stray Cats, plus where else can you hear Toni Basil’s Hey Mickey followed by Frank Sinatra? Duane is going through his New Romantic phase or something. It’s amusing to hear him talk about getting his act together and not being a bad element at the ripe age of 21. Relapse must have been right around the corner. Both he and Salba try to distance themselves from Punk Rock, which is ironic in these days, but it was L.A. in the early 80’s and classic punk had pretty much fizzled out. I’m not talking about hardcore either. Yeah, it’s easy in hind sight to make fun of the fashion choices and words from someone’s youth. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

Jake Brown was on the Today Show (yesterday) and the unholy corporate alliance of NBC and Microsoft has a transcript and a video excerpt on the official Today web site. Why was he on mainstream TV again? Because he recently returned to competition (at the X Games in Dubai – No, really!) again after taking the world’s most famous slam, which of course gave them a good excuse to show it again. In the video clip you can hear Meredith Vieira’s uncomfortable noises as she watches the slam, and afterwards, for a brief few sentences Matt Lauer asks Jake if he’s OK, but the tone of his voice is like mine after my two year old takes a particularly hard spill. It’s kind of creepy. Jake returned to competition on the vert ramp, but decided to avoid the mega ramp for his maiden voyage. Wise man. Check it out. Got a Mac? The video still works even though they redirect you to a page that says your browser is unsupported. You have to click through a few extra times. I wonder why Microsoft would do that?

According to Info Link, some sportos in Australia were bugged by the apparent loudness emanating from an adjacent skating facility in a sports complex. The noise problem tackled by Pyrotek was caused not only by 100A durometer hard wheels dropping from a great height onto toughened floor and ramps but also by the loud music enjoyed by the young patrons using the 1000 square metre street course and several vertical ramps of international competition standard… So what type of traditionally quiet sports were they impeding? Golf, tennis or maybe even billiards? Nope. Turns out they were annoying the soccer and volley ball players. Really? Too loud for soccer and volleyball? King Missle has a great song that applies to this situation.

This poor kid may never be able to get wood again. Watch a skateboarding version of the Holiday classic, The Nutcracker after the jump. While you’re at it you can watch another kid narrowly and repeatedly avoid cracking his skull while attempting to skateboard on ice covered ramps and asphalt.

So here is a little game I like to call Skate Race. I am the best. Here are the three reasons. 1) Because I thought of it. 2) I am undefeated. 3) You are afraid to challenge me. “So go sell your ice cream on the other side of the street”. Out Grover.

Now this, this was a month. Lots of really cool decks came and went on eBay in November. Oh sure there was the usual array of Hawks and McGills etc, but I found some really good tack, some stuff that hardly ever comes up. Some months can feel like a real chore, but I’m excited to do it this month! This month the column is brought to you by the sounds of the Hollywood Blondes and the refreshing taste of Bombardier ale. Good stuff. If you are ever in Chicago, stop by the Globe pub on Irving Park. Lots of great English beers and the food isn’t bad either. Check out: eBay Watch for November 2007.

Ryan Hass hipped us to these shots, dude. They were taken in Rio at a pedestrian underpass south of the Flamingo Park. You can see full frame enalarged versions at Ramp Locals Only. Brasil – Brazil… Next thing you know we’ll have to start calling it Myanmar instead of Burma. I mean, George W doesn’t bother, why should we? (Warning! You have just experienced sarcasm.)

Our friend Tom Miller writes: Just back from a work trip to Curitiba, Brasil. Conahan asked to shoot photos of anything interesting skate-related. Just when I was thinking I wasn’t going to see anything of note, we arrived at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. The museum structure is novel, but skaters are going to be more interested in the walkway. I couldn’t help but think if you call it “art” the dollars come running at you. If you call it “50 feet of mini ramp at Ed Benedict Park” suddenly the budget doesn’t allow for it until the mythological “phase 2.” We don’t need any more skateparks. We need public art that coincidentally accommodates skateboarding. Nuff said.

I hope Biker got his royalty money advanced up front from Tech Deck when he signed off on Biker Sherlock’s Extreme Challenge. Do you remember back in 1999 when luge was all the rage on the Extreme!™ sports circuit? I think the “extreme challenge” in this toy was trying to justify the $35 purchase price. I don’t think they had many production runs of these.