I kept hearing that Dave Chapelle skated, but I never saw it. Now I have, sort of. Looks like he’s more of a street skater, but someone at RYE Airfield got him on the vert ramp.

– Thanks to Chip Jones for the tip.

Last Friday Evel Knievel passed away at the age of 69. He had been battling lung disease for the last three years. Any skateboarder that can remember the first time they got on a board as a child or even teenager should be able to relive to the thrill that you felt the first time you felt that glide over the concrete or asphalt. Many of us were called “daredevils” by our chuckling neighbors, parents or relatives. Many of us felt like outlaws skating in times when it was unpopular. All of us should be able to relate to Evel a little. Nowadays there are about hundred Extreme Motocross riders (who probably have a different name for their discipline) who perform technical jumps of higher magnitudes of difficulty on a regular basis in arenas everywhere, but Evel was the first of his kind, and he was a real showman as well. As I kid I sat glued to the TV when he jumped double decker busses in a stadium. Of course he ate it pretty bad. I also watched the less than spectacular Snake River canyon jump too. Even though it seemed like he was always eating it, you had to love the guy. The Photos above are all from the official Evel Knievel web site. On the bottom right that’s Tony Hawk with Evel as part of a Vanity Fair photos shoot featuring sports icons and their hereos. Tony chose Evel Kneivel for his session.

I love those shots (of myself… ha ha) where someone is grinding pool coping or a ledge and you see little chunks of concrete flying off. Rich Burton from Earth Patrol Media caught this shot of some kook sending the paint chips flying, riding an oversized board on an oversized curb. I can stare at the detail for hours. Check it out.

Korea.net has an article titled “Financial crisis knocked Koreans down, lifted them.” One of the featured success stories is Kang Sin-ki, who is now the CEO of Slovie, Inc, and the guy who actually invented those wacky toy skateboards:

Homeless, he slept near Seoul Station and picked up day labor when he could get it, sending any extra money back to his family. In his free time, Kang thought about a way to escape his lot and came up with a great idea — a wholly new skateboard. Mastering the design was less difficult than securing the means to produce, promote and sell the product. He pitched his idea everywhere looking for venture capital. Finally, through a whopping 1.5 billion won government-backed KIBO Technology Fund loan, Kang was back in business.

1.5 billion won loan? Talk about a government bail-out. But how much is a won worth and how much money could he be making on such a piece of crap? The article says he’s sold 10 billion won worth of Essboards in the US and Europe, which as of this writing, translates to $10.8 million.

Florence, Alabama via TimesDaily.com: Council may kill obscure ‘scooter’ law

The city council will consider repealing a little-known and hardly enforced ordinance that bans sports, games and wheeled toys from city streets when it meets today. The issue gained attention two weeks ago after Mayor Bobby Irons shelved an amendment that would have banned skateboards from city streets and sidewalks. He is working with the city attorney on an alternative ordinance. Although still in progress, his alternative resolution would define geographically where skateboarding would be restricted.

Now if they’d just just kill off those obscure scooter riders. Ba-dum-bump! Ha! Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of work for a one liner. Here’s a link about an up an coming hot young talent on the inline skating circuit (There still is one?) who originally stared of on a skateboard. While I’m at it, Rocketboy on the right is from Rocketman Enterprises, not to be confused with Handstand Man.

Clearing off the hard drive here. Tony Hawk was on MTV’s TRL (OMG Totally AWESOME!) where they interviewed him afterwards. Apparently “The Birdman bigged it up to Ryan Sheckler…” Err… yeah. Then he Gave Ryan some advice (stop crying when you don’t win?) on the Life of Ryan. Fat BMX reports that Rick Thorne interviews Tony Hawk for another social networking great white hype TRIG.com, except they don’t provide a link. However, Mr Thorne assures the readers that you should sign up for Trig.com because “it’s smokin’ My Space and I think It’s good 2 keep U wit tha times.” I’m sure he’s not getting anything from them. Let’s see… Some kids interviewed Tony Hawk at a Toys R Us store but Courant.com wants you to pay to read it now that it’s more than 30 days old. I wonder if those download fees are offsetting the loss in ad revenue? A couple weeks ago the gaming sites were a buzz about the possibility that Tony might be considering a balance board type controller for use in a skateboarding game on the Wii platform. I guess you need to keep the “I”‘s lowercase when typing in Wii or else it looks like World War 2. Maybe not. In really old news, Toy Directory Monthly has a 2004 interview

Jesus Mousepads! Get your Jesus mousepads here! Holeyware is a Café Press store, so it’s not like these are actual mass produced items for sale. Still, it’s nice to know you can buy a mouse pad with Jesus on a bad 80’s skateboard. I mean if he’s really old school, shouldn’t he be on a 70’s deck or even a 60’s plank with steel wheels. Actually, your Lord and Saviour is from the New Testament, so he’s really more New School, like this Jesus on a hand rail action figure. I think my source for this post is actually upset about this.

In a moment of weakness I must have blacked out and sleep walked over to a computer where I bought this 1965 magazine advertisement for Mademoiselle Shoes. I don’t know what magazine it came from because the jackals that dissect these old magazines and sell individual pages online don’t bother to catalog this information. In fact, I think the page size may have been trimmed at the very edges to remove any identifying marks. After all, there are no staple marks visible, although it could have been perfect bound. I can’t tell for certain because the purveyor is curiously absent minded to any of my questions that aren’t “What else do you have for sale?” I paid $13 plus shipping. My wife is annoyed and insists I’d better frame it or else it will be a waste of money. Of course framing it will cost more than the advert. Click to enlarge. Bonus points if you can reference the title of this post in it’s original context and the song it was sampled in. No cheating.

Jason Corley sent in a couple shots of Santa Ana California spots circa 1984:

I was just cruising around the site and thought you might appreciate a photo of what was probably the best natural ditch in Orange County back in the day. This is/was Flower Street. Located at the end of Flower Street in Santa Ana, CA. I took this one morning back in 1985. This is what the main section of this amazing ditch looked like. Thing was that it split into a “Y” at one end and further down the ditch maybe 60 yards was a smaller height transition with a long roll in, about 8 feet of flat ground that when coming down the roll in you could carve the smaller bank and then have access to a natural extension that just reached vert. I feel so lucky to have been able to slate this gem from 1983 to around 1987. Santa Ana also was home to the killer Lloyd’s Bank about 1/2 mile away. I also attached a shot of Lloyd’s Bank, the front portion. Not my best trick but I was 13 years old…

I was reading a story in the San Jose Mercury News about a girl who died after falling off the tenth floor of a parking garage that said her crew skated. She wasn’t skating at the time. Anyway, on the side of the page there was an advert for an email marketing company called Constant Contact that caught my eye because there was a skateboard flipping around in the box. It ended up with a still of the new millennium Business Skater Dude. Somewhere, if he was dead, Judge Reinhold would be spinning in his grave, seeing as how he was the 80’s archetype in the movie poster for Vice Versa. Vice Versa is one of those body exchanging movies like Freaky Friday. And while we are on the subject, it wasn’t the only body switching movie to come out 1988. 18 Again! came out the same year but is more notable (for us at least) for having a simulated live performance and soundtrack appearance by legendary funny punks The Dickies, who also have a skateboard model out now, albeit about 20 years too late to do them any good. George Burns was in that movie. I think he may even appear on screen with the Dickies.