A lot public buildings or parks projects contain some small portion the overall budget to be used for art on the site. I was looking at a picture of the cheesy sculpture outside of the Tigard skatepark when I realized in my travels I’ve seen a lot of bad skatepark art projects and a few good ones, including one you can actually skate. So I’m going to put together a gallery of skatepark art, which will, unfortunately contain mostly crap. Send in your pics (large versions please) and I’ll include them. Top left, kent Washington invert sculpture with MC in the foreground. Photo by Dan Hughes. Top right, the lovely squiggle art at Tigard Oregon. Larger after the jump.

The granddaddy of NW skateboarding sites, Skate Oregon, has pictures of some interesting Dreamland concrete in Bay City Oregon. The grand opening was earlier today and sadly, those Scotsmen weren’t at the event, and neither were we. We didn’t even know it was going down, actually. Dang I need to look it up on the map, too. Check out the Skate Oregon pics. Thanks for the tip Sam.

Earlier in the week when we were having technical difficulties, Grover put together a clip he felt was not worthy of full GVK status, although I’m not sure why. We couldn’t post it because our web host sucks so EPM scooped us on our own content. Hopefully it will dry up by the time this post goes live and I won’t be relegated to making goofy videos instead of actually skating he new Tigard Oregon skatepark.

Late tuesday night I got a call from Chris Stevens, whom I never hang out with and have never given my phone number. Turns out he was bombing a parking garage with some of the Eastside Longboards crew. Our (Eastide) paths almost never cross, except when I’m covering the odd slalom event, which as happened exactly once. Anyway, back at the parking garage, Chris basically met Aaron in the elevator on the way up to bomb the parking garage. Somehow my name got mentioned. On the way down there was a tussle that lead to Aaron colliding with a parked car at speed and blacking out for something like 20 minutes. Maybe there were convulsions? I can’t remember. Chris Stevens’ almost immediate 911 call got the ambulance there quickly and the paramedics left with him. Aaron was only on a first name basis with the guys he was skating with, and nobody had his phone number or knew where he lived. Chris somehow remembered my last name and called 411 to get my number so I could notify his wife, who was very, very grateful to Chris for calling the ambulance and calling me so I could let her know.…

You can buy fake fire hydrants for your dog to pee on, why not for a skatepark as well? Skatewave, the modular skatepark company you love to hate, has a line of skate obstacles called the Urban Series for simulating objects that you can, well, already buy. I’m sure they’ll argue that their knockoffs are more durable, although that fire hydrant looks weak compared to some of the heavy duty ones in the dog link above. At first I only noticed the tables. I thought it was funny that they made real fake (or fake real) tables for skateboarding, especially the one that is closed off to protect beginners. The simulated construction barrier with a metal top may actually be an improvement on those orange plastic ones. If only they sold a simulated Natas to do that fire hydrant ollie spin move. Watch it after the jump.

Through a random act of Google, while searching the web for pictures of David Lee Roth on a skateboard (no joke!) a stumbled on Mohammad Burney’s travel pictures. Man this guy travels a lot. Japan, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Morocco, Malaysia, New York, Kuwait, Egypt, England and India, which is where the bowl above resides. One of the three pictures (1, 2, 3) Shows that it is some sort of astronomical observational tool. Check out that coping. If you decide to ride this bowl and are take a chance on getting stoned to death by an angry mob, at least use copers. I’m not sure how Google pulled up this page in my search for “David Lee Roth” and “skateboard,” but it did. There’s a way to view it with comments enabled, and he’s essentially got reams and reams of comment spam. Maybe that’s where it came from.

Barcode Art has this sign language primer for skateboard trick names. The videos on the page are all set to auto start and repeat, so it’s a little distracting to look at. If you are deaf, I imagine that page would kind of be the equivalent of standing in a room with a bunch of people yelling. On that note here’s a link to Deaf Skateboards, a team made up entirely of deaf skateboarders. They have a cool logo of a monkey skeleton on a skateboard covering his ears. It looks better than it, uh, sounds. I couldn’t find a decent Monty Nolder link. I know he’s still skating. [Source: Skate Daily]

Speaking of long awaited reissues, Van Halen is on tour with David Lee Roth. I love Van Halen. OK, I’m out of the closet now, in terms of rock and roll. Van Halen requires David Lee Roth to be considered the real Van Halen. Others need not apply. Are we on the same page here? Good. Now someone please tell me where this old picture of David Lee Roth on a skateboard came from. This is the largest size I have, and everyone knows Diamond Dave is larger than life. Actually, any larger and you might be able to see some brains peeking out. Nice sack, man! This is as good as an excuse as any to call for celebrity skateboarding photos. Send them in. [Photo: Right – Official Van Halen]

KATU News reports (Via Associated Press) that the father of a boy who fractured his skull at a skatepark is being charged with child neglect and criminal mistreatment. It seems dad left the six year old boy at the skatepark for a couple of hours. That’s the actual Medford skatepark in the background. We are going to milk this police officer stock photo for all it’s worth. [Medford photo: Troy Sliter]

Black and Blue Vol. 1 from Vox Footwear. Vox was formed by Ed Dominick, Dr. Chen (Osiris Shoes) and Nathan Peacher in 2005. This is what it says in their “About Me” on their Myspace page: Im either made out of canvas or suede, ive got a lace that ties me together and keeps me on your feet, weigh a few oz. I come in various colors and styles. Can be found ONLY in skateshops. I like to go and hang out in skateparks, rails, pools, legdes, ditches, parking curbs, gaps, hills, concrete, wood,…Basically anything skateable, im there.