I was on the fence about a short post on this reality show on TLC called L.A. Ink where a hot gal runs her own tattoo parlor. She’s got a (nonfunctional) skateboard ramp in her shop and a boyfriend that skates, or something like that. Now that Mike Vallely has shown up on an episode the skateboarding link is less tenuous. There’s a split second of skate footage and band footage. Mike looks like a crazy old biker. Highlights include Mive V’s quote: There’s all these people who talk about ‘keeping it real.’ Keeping it real is joke! Keeping it real is keeping it real mediocre. Also interesting to nobody but me is the the fact that I went to high school with one of the tattoo artists on the show, Hannah Aitchison, who, if she remembers me at all, will likely think of me as the annoying kid who thought he was punk rock. She dropped out a year early to go be an adult, something I’ve only just gotten around to doing. There are other tattoo parlors with skateboard ramps. Portland’s own Urban Soul had a ramp and a skateshop, but soon found that all the annoying groms…

The saga of Caz’s ramp continues. When assembled, The ramp is 75 feet long and ten and a half feet deep in the deep end. It’s half shallow, half deep with a connecting hip section. You can see pictures and video of the ramp in it’s various states on Antigravity Press, and supposedly on the Plywood Benders site. I never skated this thing but heard about it every now and again. It was a private operation in a barn somewhere, then it was supposed to be some sort of a skate camp type operation that never got off the ground, and lastly it was being assembled in an indoor skatepark in Troutdale Oregon that never opened due to permitting problems. Now it can be yours if you have an extra $10,000 and a really, really large garage. The pictures form the Craig’s List post makes it look like a Noah’s Ark episode of In Search Of. In fact, isn’t that Bigfoot in the upper right hand shot? Let’s hope that thing get’s sold before the rain hits. Thanks to Joe Martin for the tip.

Yeah that’s the legendary Natas Kaupas hawking those incredibly crappy looking plastic sunglasses. Head on over to the Skateboard Archives and check out the, uh, print media archives. It’s a very loose collection of old skateboard magazine covers and assorted pages within those magazines. The real treasure is the funky old advertisements for long defunct or soon to be huge companies. There are lots of shots of pro skaters in questionable poses, a ton of vert riding with pads and helmets, obscure hard goods manufacturers (Rannalli Trucks anyone?) and all kinds of good stuff mostly centered on the 80’s and early 90’s. Also interesting are all the mail order shops with completes going for $99 and up. On the downside, the archives are not well organized or very consistent. The detail pages are not quite big enough to read everything, but it’s still a fascinating trip in the Way Back machine. Right, Sherman? Check out The Skateboard Archives.

We need more shots for Shot of the Week – that little picture that appears on the front page on the right side. Check out other shots to get an idea of the info we need. I’ve got one more shot lined up (by J. Grant Brittain, no less!) and my wife is about to have a baby so I won’t have time to track more down. Even though you’ll be side by side with Brittain, the shots don’t have to be AWESOME (at least not yet!), just pretty good, or unsusual, or interesting, or not by me! Although Grover is more embarassed of the shirt he is wearing than his maneuver, Benihana flyouts will not be accepted. This job pays absolutely nothing, but a web link to the site of your choice. Don’t nominate someone else’s shot either, I need direct permission from the photographer. Send small thumbnails of potential S.O.T.W.s to editor@ this fine web site.

I have no big statements to make this month. Just an apology for being late with this. Weekends are always super busy, especially now that the weather is decent in Chicago. Saturday is skating, and Sunday is doing stuff with my daughter. So this gets pushed back. And back. And back. Oh well. This month is brought to you by “Secondhand Daylight” by Magazine. iTunes has the entire Magazine collection, a lot of it remastered. I’d forgotten how good their early stuff was. Check out: eBay Watch: July 2007

Sure, you could buy some riser pads that light up for $17 a piece (!) , or you could go to Instructables for the details on how to bust open some bicycle safety lights and wire them up so it looks like your wheels are glowing. This way you won’t be violating any patents.

Glen Friedmans has a bunch of videos of punk rock and Z-Boys era skateboarding on Burning Flags. Black Flag TV appearances, Dogtown skaters, there’s even video of Ian McKaye and Jeff Nelson skateboarding at the Kenter Canyon banks. Mostly crappy quality video but some cool old footage.

I put in a brief appearance at the Vancouver leg of the Drop-In with Airspeed’s Geth Noble yesterday. A handful of people showed up, and it was a good time. I don’t know if he learned anything useful, but he listened and skated well. I hate to disappoint Danimal, but I only took a few pictures. You can see them all after the jump.

The Franksters! This set of Extreme!™ 1992 fast food toys from Nathan’s Famous is on eBay. Insert hot dogging joke here. What are those, size 16 shoes or something? Looks like he stole those shoes from Krusty the Klown and is about to go all gorilla-grip in your face. [Update: One bid and ten bucks bought the set.]

PP&R has finalized the public design meeting schedule for the Ed Benedict Skate Plaza project. Ed Benedict Park Public Open House/Workshop Meetings to review design ideas and provide input into Portland’s first skate plaza. Early Boyles Elementary School Cafeteria (10822 SE Bush St.; 1 block south of SE Powell Blvd.) First Meeting is September 13th; Second Meeting is November 15th. Both meetings are from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm image from animation archive