Were you a good boy or girl? Did you get a skateboard for Christmas? If you didn’t, maybe it was because Santa was too busy skating to stop by your house.

Although non denominational, Skate and Annoy wishes you happy holidays, with more than a little help from Team Pain who has saved me the trouble of having to set up this shot myself. Who is the rider? They didn’t say, but that must be a can of egg nog in his hand. Who knows, maybe I’ll get Grover to dress up like (Big) Baby New Year for a photo session at Pier Park.

I was driving from Florida to Oregon, via Chicago on the last few days of 2003. I detoured through Louisville in hopes of catching a session at the then relatively new mammoth skatepark. Of course, being winter, it was raining. Look closely and you’ll see a creek running through the full pipe. There were a handful of kids goofing around at the park, skating and biking in the rain. I was disappointed of course, and vowed that I’d have to make the return trip in better weather. But then the last four years in the Northwest have seen an amazing number of stellar parks built, so as each year passes I find it less and less of a big deal if I don’t make it back. Still, I’d like to check it out. I enjoy the experience of skating in completely different geographical locations, even if the actual terrain may not warrant the time, money and effort it takes to get there. This was a low light, longer exposure that was hand held. It does an adequate job of capturing the atmosphere. Check it out.

Still need a last minute X-mas gift for the guy that runs your favorite skateboarding web site? How about this amazing Street Smartz Interactive (talking) Skateboard skateboard?

This skateboard talks, teaches, and offers feedback! There’s nothing like it! Our amazing, interactive skateboard will have your child shredding in no time. Its unique technology actually measures foot pressure, turns, speed, and more–then offers personalized tips for improving technique. A separate coaching mode teaches popular stunts step by step, while the free-styling mode features exciting sound effects. Later, turn off the power, and your “shred head” has a cool, cutting-edge 28″ board! For kids 41-160 lbs. Requires 6 “AA” batteries (sold separately). For ages 6 and up.

Forget about hoverboards. This, is the board of the future.

What about all the skateboarding Jews? We just don’t see Hanukka skateboarding marketing tie ins like we do with Christmas. Jew, Gentile, regular, goofy… it’s all the same. I don’t even know when Hanukkah is, it’s probably over already. Here’s an Israeli TV commercial for what looks like an exploding energy bar that blatantly rips off the Girl Yeah Right! video. Who knows, Maybe Spike Jonze directed this one too.

There once was a TV series called Brainchild on the Science Channel that seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. There are a few mentions on discussion boards dating back to 2003, but that’s about it. Each hour long episode had three or four different inventions and their history highlighted. This particular episode dealt with Extreme!™ sports and featured skateboards, snowboards, and jet boats. There’s about five minutes of footage in the skateboard section, so as you can imagine, it’s pretty vague. The thing that is most interesting is that it features interviews with Kevin Thatcher (I can’t beleive that I kind of have to explain that he was the first and most beloved editor of Thrasher…) as well as Frank Nasworthy, the “inventor” of the urethane skateboard wheel. I always scratch my head when he gets credited with inventing the urethane skateboard wheel, since they were actually invented and used on rollerskating wheels first, and in the 70’s there were still rollerskating companies involved in skateboarding, so it seems pretty much like an obvious thing to do, he just did it first I guess. As for the original date of the program, I didn’t catch the credits so there’s no copyright date visible. I think I recorded it some time between 2000 and 2003, but the board graphics shown in the piece suggest sometime around 1996 or 1997. There are Stereo decks from when they were still in business the first time, and the voiceover says that Thatcher owns a skate shop and still runs a skateboard magazine, but that’s got to be an error. He would have been at the helm of Juxtapoz in the late 90’s. Other than that, there’s a little bit of cool footage from the 60’s. Ironically, the snowboarding section of this episode was much more interesting overall, maybe because the snowboard can actually be traced to one guy. Check it out.

All I want for Christmas is a private bowl like this. Well not exactly like this, but you get the idea. These shots are about a month shy of being two years old. Since then this now complete private spot in Oregon has appeared in print and video too, if I recall correctly. Those walls are deep. I think the trannies are something like 12 feet. Don’t ask me where. It wouldn’t help you anyway, and I was only there as a hanger-on. I think MC has actually ridden it.

This was going to be a thread about the trend of municipalities closing down skateparks when they get tagged as an incentive program to stop vandalism. I was going to highlight that a new nearby park in Vancouver Washington is going to experience such closures:

our park maintenance office has decided to handle graffiti removal at the park the same way Battle Ground does at their skate park – by closing the entire park to all users until all the graffiti is removed. Depending on the severity of the graffiti, this could require several days of closure.

I was then going to ramble on about how it was obviously not the real skateboarders doing the vandalism, most likely kids that were on the periphery that might own a skateboard in the same way they would own a bike or a pogo stick if all their friends had one.

Look at the picture above. It seems like a fun place to skate right? It’s sheltered from the elements, and it’s not even illegal. If that was my local spot I’d want to take care of it, but the Creekside Underground locals are pissing it all away.

To placate our massive Dunedin Florida reader base, here’s a link to an amusing video of Tampa Bay’s 10 News coverage of the Stirling skatepark. It’s the complete package. There’s a before and after advertising spot for senior citizens choosing medicare coverage (It is Florida), and an over earnest reporter who makes Bob Burbank sound understated. He also gets on the old stunt wood for the first time (Liar!) since 1989. My personal favorite, when they quote the town council as saying the half a million dollars was money well spent as the camera pans to reveals a skatepark devoid of life except for the reporter and one skater. Good stuff.

– Thanks to Tito for the tip.