Good news for all you breeders and friends of breeders out there. Now your little tykes can learn to skate on miniature re-issues of Jason Jesse and Rob Roskopp Santa Cruz decks from the 80’s. These two boards come in at just 26 inches long and are designed for kids 7 and younger. Not scaled down, however, is the purchase price of $135 for a complete, which seems is steep. With the way re-issues (Jason Jesse, too) have been selling on eBay, I guess you could always look at it as an investment. Not shown on Little Rulers but rumored to be available, the Slasher model. Keith Meek’s slasher? I dunno. – Thanks to Judi Oyama for the tip.

Wow, that was fast. No sooner do I post about not finding any new skateboard-themed Christmas ornaments this year, then Paige sends me three links. There are nine ornaments after the jump, plus a ton from last year as well.

In the U.S. we don’t seem to get our fair share of skateable art installations like they do in the U.K. with The Side Effects of Urethane or with Drum and Basin. Well we got another one finally, but it’s still European at it’s roots. Team Pain sent in this shot of the installation they built for an event called Art Basel Miami. Art Basel Miami is the U.S. leg of what amounts to a massive art fair of sorts for the serious art buying world, and not the arts & crafts you might normally associate with U.S. outdoor arts festivals. The main event originated and still takes place in in Basel Switzerland. Miami’s satellite this year includes the “Concrete Waves: Homage to Skate Culture” installation. According to the Miami Sun Post:

There was a time in the late ’70s and early ’80s with all the skaters and artists doing graffiti, and we wanted to do this again in Miami Beach,” Art Basel spokesman Peter Vetsch said. “At the beginning, graffiti and skate culture weren’t art, but the art scene adopted them.

Sure, it’s a bit odd that an installation titled Concrete Waves (No relation) is made out of wood, but it looks nice anyway. You have to assume the benches on the flat are just there to keep the local skaters off when the demo isn’t going. Of course the event ended on December 7th, so don’t bother trying to sneak in a session. I wonder what lucky party will get to keep the ramp.

UPDATE: Added video of the event after the jump.

You might recall seeing Mive V inked on TV for the reality show LA Ink. Well, for some reason, reality dictated setting up a mini ramp inside the tattoo parlor so that Vallely, Bam, and Muska could perform a demo. Element has still photos from the event which was filmed for next season’s LA ink.

[Source: Skate Daily]

…great for collectors, or sports bars don’t miss this one

NOS or not, $75 (shipping included) is too much for a plastic skateboard. Especially if you are just going to bolt to the wall of the local TGI Fridays knockoff. Still, it looks an awful lot like the first skateboard I ever set foot on. The listing says it’s a Marco Polo brand. That’s a new (old) one to me. I swear there must have been one mold for these yellow boards that a hundred different companies copied outright and made a slight modification for a different brand name.

OK, top picture first. Garage Manufacturing, the makers of Soft Trucks, also makes a wire rack that hangs over a door and holds several boards horizontally, plus one “go-to” board vertically. Not noteworthy except I liked the picture they used in the “natural environment” setting. With those Kiss and Farrah Fawcett posters there ought to be fiberglass GT boards in that quiver intead of modern popsicles. Look closely and you can see Farrah on a skateboard.

Lastly, aside from serving as a location to shoot Bratz commercials, Skatepark franchise Skatelab has teamed up with an artist called ZAZ (never heard of him/her/it) to sell skateboard bookshelves, pictureframes and the like at Target. under the name Skatelab Furniture. I’m not sure how they talked Target into it, considering they used to sell unbranded skateboard curios. Even Pottery Barn Kids used to do it. It’s not like Skatelab has huge brand recognition outside of their two locations and Concrete Disciples. There was a “news item” about it on Kids Today, turns out Skatelab has a few other licensing deals too.

Psst! Hey kid. Wanna see a titillating picture of Farrah Fawcett?

Police in Bournemouth England raided a garage and confiscated an illegal motorized skateboard offshoot. From the Timesonline (UK) article titled The skateboard that can top 45mph – and is illegal

The G-Wheel is widely advertised on the internet for about £499, but its sale is illegal in the UK. Tests on the seized machine revealed 15 serious faults, including an ineffective rear brake. Trading Standards officers say that the exhaust pipe can become dangerously hot and the plastic petrol tank leaks fuel over the pavement.

As the sour looking Sheila in middle can attest, the Wheelboard first appeared in Australia a few years back, and now can be found in Brazil and a host of other places importing them from China. I’ve even seen one on the outskirts of our local skatepark a few times, but the guy never had the stones to take onto the tranny, like his Brazilian brother at the top did.

Apparently, the Discovery Channel did a short feature on the downhill longboard scene in Canada, more specifically, the Rayne Longboards team and operation. I tried to find out some information on the context of the piece (what show was it on?) but the web site was mum. But they do sell a pintail longboard for some reason. That and those twisty boards. They would also like to recommend a jumping skateboard, or a Flowboard alternative skateboard. Turns out they’ll sell you anything but an actual, regulation length skateboard. Sorry, I got distracted. Watch the video for Discovery Channel’s take on downhill, including some extended Coleman slide action in the rain. Cliff needs to work on that web site. – Oh yeah, thanks to Skategeezer for the tip.

I didn’t have an appropriate cultural time machine sound bite reference for these boards like I did for the Max Headroom deck. I dunno, maybe I should have used “You can touch this.” A lot of 80’s and and even 70’s era boards have been reissued, but you don’t see too many from the dark ages. Or maybe you do, but I don’t. Here’s two circa 1991 from Foundation with the skinny from Swank himself:

Not a huge deal. Just some fun stuff. Eighteen years in business. That in itself is crazy. I like the mid modern shape to ride. It has a nose and tail and a melow concave. The OG seem to be popular to people from that era just to have one. I have been signing a handful. Very close to OG mold. The OG mold was a Prime wood and had a bump on the top for the arch of the foot. Brainchild of Rocco. Watson still has mold from back in the day. That place is a fricking museum. These are made here at WL in San Diego, USA. We have made some wide decks over the years but they mostly sat and my sales staff would not be siked on trying to sell. Whatever. We just keep them around for those few that wanted them.

I miss wheel wells sometimes. If you get yours, Tod can go back to concentrating on more important things like trying to top this.

Laurens Groenveld 566 consecutive kickflips beats the old world record of 563 held by someone who has already been long forgotten. He did the last 26 on a borrowed board after breaking a kingpin. All this while just trying to qualify for the Dutch leg of the Krux Kickflip Challenge. So says the guys in charge of the Norwegian skate site Tackyworld. I guess Laurens will be the heavy favorite at the Dutch Championships on the 9th of December in Amsterdam. Do you care? We would care more if NHS would send us some product. Right now it just looks like we’re on the Press Release Flow Team. Hey, that’s a great name for a skateboarding industry news site. I guess I meant to say Press Release Flow Team™.com