A comment in yesterday’s post about the Skate-Ball ramps got me thinking about an eBay auction I saw a few years back. The parts for a complete fiberglass skatepark were listed with a $30,000 opening bid, and as I recall, nobody bid the minimum. I saved the images because I thought they were interesting. These were relics of the 70’s rotting away in a desert somewhere, and for some reason I find that stuff fascinating. Someone spent the time and money necessary to make the molds for these giant prefab pieces, and maybe sold a few and then lost a bunch of money. Fiberglass seems like it would be not quite the best surface for a skate park. A little web investigation reveals the park in these pictures was likely Thrasher Land park in Glendale Arizona. At some point in time they tried to incorporate modern street skating elements into the park, and the end result makes Frankenstein look suave. The domain name (thrasherland.com) is parked at a hosting company and the phone number has been reassigned. A web forum reports that the whole facility has recently been razed. It’s amazing that they weren’t demolished in previous decades. So what do you do for the sake of history? Sk8parklist.com appears to be the only skatepark directory with actual pictures of the park, but even then, they barely show the telltale blue ramps. Concrete Disciples has a listing with no pictures. How can you not take pictures of giant prefab blue fiberglass ramps? It’s not like you run across them all the time, or even, ever.

This Tigard Times article on the skatepark from July had some background on the park. Also check out some of the old info including a plan drawing at the Tigard City website skatepark page.

A story has been circulating about how the changes to the original design came about. The Tigard City government folks have been pleased with the professionalism of the Dreamland crew and the progress of the skatepark. When Dreamland said they could save a couple of the big trees on the site by altering the design, they were pretty much given the go ahead to make what changes they saw fit.

This is how it has been done in the smaller towns and has been a great boon to skaters. Design/Build just makes sense. Those guys get on site and discover lines as they build. If they can improve flow by altering the design, they should.

Nothing like taking a hard slam while a fashion model laughs at you. For some reason, the New York Times went all the way to Paris for a fashion shoot with skateboarders. Don’t they have models and a few skateboarders in New York? They’ve got a behind-the-scenes video and a preview of some of the still photos that will be featured in a Sunday Times Magazine spread. Brace yourselves for “High-Flying Fashion” and “Haute Wheels.” and keep your eyes peeled at the last slide for a bonus Beastie Boys fashion shoot. New York readers, someone please grab us a copy when it comes out and we’ll send you a little soemthin-somethin. I like Morgan’s attitude, even though his name doesn’t sound very French. I don’t know about you, but our Skate and Annoy sessions are never surrounded by a bunch of models. Maybe they were for Stuf, a zine out of Michigan that did the whole fashion and skateboarding thing first, back in the 80’s.

[Source: The Skateboard Mag]

I saw a nicely put together video highlight of the Pier Park leg of the Oregon Trifecta on YouTube. I thought it had a fresh approach so I decided to check out the “director’s” link only to be surprised that it was one of those action sports conglomeration sites called Banquet or Banqt.com. Aside from skating, surfing, and snowboarding, they also cover BMX, FMX (Freestyle Motocross?), mountain biking, wakeboarding, skiing (!!) and something they refer to as lifestyle. Yuck. The Trifecta video is still fun to watch. Hey, that’s even MC up there on the top right. You can watch two Banquet Trifecta videos after the jump. If it’s still pictures that are more to your taste, check out Earth Patrol Media’s recent Lincoln City coverage. Thanks to JF for the video tip

MC Shot of the Week is the name he uses when he moonlights as a techno-trance DJ. Our own Mark Conahan is in the Shot of the Week on Skate Daily, the week being this week. MC says there’s not a lot of overlap between Skate Daily and Skate and Annoy which means I can start reading it more regularly. I had stopped because I didn’t want there to be a situation where we were just regurgitating the same stories, even though it’s likely we both subscribe to the same Google alerts. I don’t know, seeing Conahan in a SD shot of the week sure seems like overlap to me! And here I was just about to hit up BK for a SOTW on Skate and Annoy. The Portland Skate Media Mafia is ruthless. Thanks to Orezona for the tip.

Carhartt is a work wear company that for some reason has a large presence sponsoring skateboard events in Europe, but is invisible here in the USA. Invisible except for the fact that you’ll see a lot of Carhartt being worn by some of the crews actually building skateparks over here. Mongolian Tyres is a skate video of a Carhartt sponsored skate trip to Mongolia. It’s about 38 minutes of mostly street skating totally ghetto spots in China without a lot of attitude. Very refreshing. I don’t know any other details like release date etc, except that it’s worth the watch. Chompy, why aren’t you all over this? Watch the vid after the jump.

[Source: Welsh Pete via Sleestak]

The OC Register among others is reporting that one Huntington Beach skatepark will likely be shut down due to foul language, vandalism, and sexually degrading comments made to female athletes practicing at the nearby high school field. Way to keep it real guys. Ed Templeton is a local and he says he rarely sees bad behavior. Officials at the school want it gone and the parks district seems bent on relocation. The police station across the street says there are very few if any problems with the park. It’s looking more and more like a case of the people in power just wanting it gone. They claim keeping it open will cost $300,000 for maintenance. 300k? get out of town! It’s only a 6,200 square foot park that is essentially flat! You could almost build two of those parks for that amount of money in Portland. To be fair, part of that 300k would go to a bathroom facility. It’s hard to find decent pictures of this skatepark. After checking out a few on Socal Skateparks it looks like relocation (as long as it’s nearby) might be the best thing to happen to locals. The current park (albeit via the Interweb™) looks totally unremarkable and uninspired, but Templeton says it’s a landmark in skater’s circles. Really? I feel sorry for HB.

Tony Alva had a birthday last week. Photos cropped from Glen E. Friedman (left) and Eric Staniford from the Alva Skates website Still ripping at 50!

Skate Daily has info about a birthday party event.

The city of Corpus Christi Texas banned the practice of “grinding” along their precious sea wall eight months ago, but so far have only handed out a few citations and the grinding continues. They’ve got themselves worked up in a lather to spend $50,000 on Skate Stoppers and consider an investment well spent to rid the sea walk of the evidence of grinding that is an “eyesore.” I’m sure the Skate Stoppers will eliminate all grinding. That’s money well spent, guys.
Now imagine if instead they could spend half that much money on building skateable ledges nearby for kids. Problem solved.

[Source: KRISTV.com]

I came across this web site (get your mind out of the gutter) while doing some, errrr, research. Gaybar Zine is a German web site that handles all your skate, BMX, graffiti and even struller needs. Kind of like a modern Action Now I guess. I’m not sure what the connection is with the Gaybar title. Maybe it’s one of those things where it means something different in German, Kind of like the time I was in Polland and saw an amusement park ride called the “Super Fahrt.” Anyway, I can’t hear the words “gay bar” without thinking of the Electric Six.