Tom and Kathryn Inouye know how to throw a video premiere. First they put in phone calls to Corey Duffel (who is recovering from a fractured leg) and invited him up for a weekend party. When the “Duff-man” confirms he’s flying up with several Osiris team-mates to do a “meet and greet” autograph signing then its time to get the word out. The word got out ten-fold. PlanZ Skateshop from Kelso WA bussed in 18 amped up youth for the event. Skaters drove in from all directions. Even some conservative parents were overheard saying “what a blast this was” to us as they left to tuck in the little ones for the evening.

Sent in by Morris.

Saturday morning under-14 session at Department of Skateboarding. It was a lot more crowded than it looks in this photo but it seemed pretty safe and sane.

Or as Pete Lewis likes to call it: Old fatties skating terribly small skatepark features. Bigger after the jump. Sorry Egbert, you didn’t make the cut.

Design Within Reach is a catalog and store that sells “modern” furniture and household doodads that look cool and are often kind of expensive, but less so than typical modern furniture that you don’t buy from Ikea. Bottega Montana has produced an edition of 57 boards in collaboration with Design Within Reach. As far as I can tell, the collaboration consists of wood burning the DWR logo on the deck. If the name Bottega Montana sounds familiar, it might be because we covered another collaboration they did last year. These decks will actually be available for purchase in select Design Within Reach stores. What will they cost? Get ready to spend at least $400, judging by their current catalog. Think of them as family heirloom skateboards. They also reportedly have a Shepard Farey short board collaboration in the works. Update: Available online and priced at a whopping $798, down from $1000! See DWR

The New York times has a thing for putting skateboarding in the fashion section lately. I was going to blow of this article titled “Skateboarding Rolls Out of the Suburbs,” but the skateboarding and hip hop blogs are hyping it and you know we follow the trends around here. There’s not much to it besides the fact that black kids can now skate without being harassed by their peers. You get to see a photo of Pharrell Williams doing a street plant as well as read this choice quote from him:

“I was rapping and it was getting me nowhere, so I went back to my roots… …When I’m with rappers in the studio, they say, ‘I used to skate, too,’” Mr. Williams said. “I can only just say I was one of the ones that was willing to speak up about it.”

Wow man, that took a lot of courage to come out as a skateboarder in public in hopes of jump starting a failing rap career. He’s a regular Rosa Parks. On the plus side, they also briefly quote Stevie Williams and Steven Snyder, the former Alva rider and long time Chicago favorite now working at Uprise. Sift through the Chi-Town Shred archives if you want to see some vintage 80’s action. Snyder’s in there too. These type of articles are becoming as popular as the “Olds dudes still shredding” pieces. The article requires a free registration, but it loaded for me when I hit the “forget your password?” link. It’s also up in it’s entirety on the Concrete Wave forum.

BK has a great shot over at SkateDaily this week.
Has Sheckler ever made the cover of Tiger Beat? Man aren’t you glad you weren’t trying to skate whatever that park is that Bryce was at?

Kyle Dion from New Line Skateparks graciously provided the renderings from tonight’s Ed Benedict presentation for us to share. I posted them at Skaters for Portland Skateparks

The dozen or so guys that showed up for the meeting seemed pleased with the design.

You can comment on the plaza design on the Portland Parks website through 11/30/07. They will pass those comments on to NewLine Skateparks.

Dan Garland has been awarded the Percent for Art commission. He showed his ideas. We’ll try to get some images from him.

So we covered the 70’s marketing tie in, now it’s time for something that reeks of the 80’s. This Max Headroom / Coke themed skateboard by Variflex is available as a Buy it Now now for $169.99. It’s got appeal for the skateboard collector crowd as well as another equally zealous group of people who collect Coca-Cola advertising material. Max Headroom pushing New Coke! As an example of the exploitation skateboards of the 80’s, this mint board is excellent, if not totally radical. It’s got the full set of plastics with nicely accented risers and a lapper. Geez, did that sentence actually just come from my brain to fingers? Please shoot me. Max Headroom’s popularity lasted slightly longer than that of “New” Coke. More pictures after the jump.

Oh how I long for the days when you could impress your half shirt and bell bottom wearing girlfriend by high jumping over your MG while wearing a hockey helmet. Check out the full advert after the jump.