This week’s late post on the Shot of the Week is Zane Tobin as photographed by his father Dave. When this was taken at the new Vancouver skatepark, Zane was a few weeks shy of his fifth birthday. Amazing! Zane was at Tigard last weekend and I was watching him. He’s so comfortable on his board it’s like second nature to him already. He’s as solid on a board as any other little kid his age is just walking around. It’s going to be fun watching that little ripper’s progress. I’m not one to preach (yeah right!) but seriously Dave, let’s get a lid on that kid. Now there’s no need for anyone else to beat it to death in the comments. How big is that capsule? Check out Zane Tobin!

If you call “art” gluing a bunch of junk on a skateboard, then you’d love to be in my shoes. I got an incomprehensible email in French from Leo Scalpel with about a hundred pictures of art. I think he wants me to buy them, I’m not sure. Also available on Flickr, twice.

OK, it’s a bit of a stretch, but from India comes the movie Kranti that features an action scene with very Back-to-the-Future-esque stunt skateboarding. You can watch a clip of a policeman using a skateboard to capture a criminal on the run over at Nanarland. Best pause it and let it all download before playing.

[Source: Boyington on Flickr]

Time was when a jock wouldn’t be caught dead on a skateboard. What are you, 10 years old? Skateboards are kid’s toys, you fag! Nowadays it’s a different story. Star athletes in high schools and colleges are getting injured on skateboards and it’s making the papers. By the way, it’s impossible to find a decent still photo from the Breakfast Club on the web anywhere. I had to resort to spending way too much time on picking a good screen capture from a DVD. The things I do for skateboarding… Molly Ringwald peaked in this movie.

As useful as a website is, there’s no real substitute for a well planned out book. The Public Skatepark Development Guide is a collection of everything on Skaters for Public Skateparks site (minus the bitching in the forums) that if you are serious, will help you on your quest to get a public skatepark built in your town. The nicely illustrated 128 page guide is published by three organizations; The Tony Hawk Foundation, the International Association of Skateboard Manufacturers – IASC, and SPS, although you’d be hard pressed to find it on their web site. I just got mine and it seems to be well worth the price, which is “free” but you pay the shipping. I think I paid about $6 for mine. It was a while ago when I ordered it. Why did I order it? For the kids, of course! Get yours.

I finally made it to Tigard Oregon’s new park. It’s rad. Quirky, but fun. It was a total zoo there because the weather was nice, but it was still a blast. A few BMX guys were getting bent out of shape by some perceived snaking, but it was really just a case of too many people and too much going on to keep tabs on everyone. If you bring a bag into the park, a city ordinance says the cops can search it. I’m not sure how the ACLU feels about that. So that weird double level coping setup that looks like it’s a big mistake is actually a lot of fun. You’re free to ignore the top layer if you want, but you also have the option of figuring out multiple lines that incorporate it. Lip tricks on the top layer look rad in combination with a roll in or lip trick on the lower layer. It’s set up in such a way that you don’t have to be Joe-pro skater to use that top layer, but if you are then more power to you. I didn’t get a lot (OK, any) shots in the wide open area. I was more interested in skating there my first day, so I made my photo opps as quick as possible. More after the jump.

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. Who knows how long it would have taken for her to find out otherwise. Aaron had his helmet but was without ID, and was not coherent when he left. Because of Chris’s quick thinking, Aaron’s wife Virginia was able to arrive the hospital as he was being checked in.

[Photo: Unrelated shot of Chris Stevens from Eastside Longboards]