It’s time for the annual Grind for Life awards benefit/contest/demo/party. If you are anywhere near the neighborhood of Cocoa Beach Florida you should consider making a day of it. Dan Hatcher writes:

Hey everyone, if you missed this one last year, you must have heard about it by now. Nearly 1500 attended last year so you don’t want to miss out this year. Saturday Nov 17 —

Along with the pro demos, free stuff, food and music from local rock band “Arkaydia” we will also be hosting an all ages flow course contest. Gates and registration open at 10am and contest will start around 11sm. Hope to see all of you there. This is a great event for a great cause and tons of fun!

The mission of the Grind For Life organization is to provide financial assistance to cancer patients and their families when traveling long distances to doctors and hospitals. They also educate and inspire cancer patients and their families about cancer survival and recovery. You can view the whole flyer after the jump or get more info from Grind for Life and the Cocoa Beach Skatepark.

This weeks SOTW comes from Kings Park in Bristols UK, courtesy of Bob Scumtash.

So we went to Kings Park t’other weekend and some tweaker turned up with a loada posh camera gear. “I used to skate, can I take your pic?” Errrm…Wayne had a quiet word bout “reprezentin tings” correctly and we did some stunts. Got a bit lame after a while and the dude started to take shots of us carving a corner, never one to miss an opportunity I hitched me kegs down a little a did a sweet carve over his head for the close up Harris shot. This one’s a keeper mate…

I had a hard time deciding on whether or not this was a candidate for Annoying Kid of the Month. I figured Shot of the Week was a better fit. Besides, I don’t want to have to start updating that section too! Check it out in all it’s, uh, full glory.

Sure some of us struggle to put out one print issue every couple of years, and we make excuses. Meanwhile, others don’t seem to have a problem. A couple years ago I read about Lowcard in Thrasher and sent away for an issue. They sent me issue #8 from April of 2005. It’s 40 pages of photos and handwritten text and manual paste ups that looks like it was printed on a copier with a photo screening feature. Good stuff, nothing amazing, but ther was a lot of it. About a month ago I happened upon a copy of Lowcard #19 from September of this year. It still has the same page size, but it’s 92 pages offset print on glossy paper with a heavy stock cover, and the paste up has been replaced with computer type. There area ton of ads (someone one has to pay for that glossy paper) and lots more photography. That’s quite a difference for two years and 11 issues. It kind of reminds me of Concussion cut in half, right down to the feature on bad tattoos. I think Lowcard came through Portland this summer because one weekend all of the sudden everybody and their brother (sorry, I mean “bro”) was wearing Lowcard paraphernalia. I felt like I did in high school when everyone was wearing their Van Halen concert t’s on Monday morning except for the dorks that didn’t go. Print is rough. I wonder how they made it happen? Hard work and sacrifice, I’m sure. Check out Lowcard.

I reviewed Original skateboards deck and trucks a while back. They have a video that went up on YouTube a couple of days ago. Nothing in the way of radical skateboarding but a relaxed soulful feel. Makes me want to go ride some hills. The footage is from the coast of Maine.

Hood River Oregon’s small and dedicated group of young builders has accomplished allot of work in a short time. The team was headed by Mark Goddard of Benchmark Designs, but he recently departed and left in apparent puff over the design. I applaud the remaining crew for standing up for this communities local scene, hell, they skate it everyday and have serious pride in the outcome of this project.

UPDATE: I got a call (!) from Mark who informed me this was never a Benchmark project, he was never the boss, and he was just hired on as an employee. He didn’t leave on bad terms with anyone. It was one of those “agree to disagree” situations. Our apologies to Mark Goddard. – K.ed

Several of our jokes were thwarted at the opening of the Jim Griffith Memorial Skatepark in Tigard yesterday.

These articles about old guys who are still skating are still being generated. The latest one from the San Francisco Chronicle it titled “Shredding Again: In which we chronicle midlife skateboarders and their return, to be schooled by 6-year-olds.” It’s a fairly lengthy article, and includes the now obligatory video piece and photo gallery, except this time they managed to get a decent action shot. See above – “Joey Vela, 38, pulls a giant backside air out of one of the giant bowls at Pacifica Skatepark. Chronicle photo by Mike Kepka.” OK, they call it a backside air instead of a frontside, but it’s still an above average photo for one of these pieces, and not bad in it’s own right. Highlights of the article/video include a 45 year old relating the story of being taught how to drop in by a 9 year old kid. Also amusing are the quotes from the young kids whose turf has been invaded by the old dudes:

From the kids’ perspective, the old-schoolers are a welcomed addition to the parks. “They rock!” said Colin Dallara, 11, from Lagunitas. “They remind me of the Z-Boys; they’re really good at axle stalls.”

Yes, axle stalls. People say Tony Alva invented them, but someone in Florida did one 1968. Ha ha. At the end of the article they point to an affiliated blog that has Tommy Guerrero’s part from Future Primitives embedded from YouTube:

San Francisco was also home to one of the country’s largest skateboarding subcultures, and this subculture would produce some of the decade’s finest skaters. The beginning of a 1985 skateboarding documentary, “Future Primitive,” shows San Francisco’s Tommy Guerrero carving, ollying and sliding his way down an avenue in the Sunset District to the chords of a bluesy skateboarding ode: “Well I’m a Future Primitive, and I skate to live.”

Ah yes, the respected documentary Future Priitives… Didn’t that win an Oscar? Right. That’s also the first time I think I’ve seen “ollieing” spelled ollying. “Ollying” may follow some sort of spelling rule, but it still looks wrong. Who makes that call? Check out Shredding Again at the San Francisco Chronicle, and if you want to recap some other efforts, try these.

Wes Humpston and Kat Von D got together to design a skateboard on Kat’s tv show LA Ink. Supposedly they are going to have a whole line of boards, although it seems more like something that was cooked up just for TV. The first hand drawn original board is being auctioned on eBay to benefit the Tony Hawk Foundation. My DVR didn’t pick up that episode, but someone else’s did. In the beginning of the design process there’s a funny bit where Kat says, “What should we put in the inside?” and Wes responds with “I like to do skulls and stuff.” Didn’t see that one coming. You can see the board in detail and watch the episode after the jump. It hasn’t been edited to show only Wes’ bits (get your mind out of the gutter), but hey, I didn’t have to do anything. The auction ends Friday, November 16 at 6 PM (PST). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Kat is slightly more photogenic than Wes.

This is the new skate video directed by Wes Anderson, starring Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson. A day of skateboarding around the city of Bangalore, India. Video by Maxwell Scott and Paul Mathews. As far as skate videos go, it’s not spectacular, but it is a very well executed piece of editing. Highly pleasing, in fact. Of course they skate in India, they’re doing in Armenia for the love of Hosoi. Now name the band, song, and album: “India….. I’m American. Ha ha ha.” Or watch the video after the jump.

Wow. What a totally shit month on eBay October was. I can’t remember covering a more generic month in the 5 years that I’ve been doing this. Guys that bought and sold in October, don’t take that as an insult, and admittedly there are a couple of beauties, but on the whole it was a blah month. If anything totally cool went off, then I missed it. Please, fill me in. Or am I totally wrong, and just getting burned out? Let me know. Any and all feedback is always welcome.

Check out: eBay Watch: October 2007