To be honest, I am not a big fan of Christmas songs, but this one is different. THE CROSSFIRES recorded this novelty kinda tune in late 1964. It´s a story about a shopping-mall Santa and a little boy with a huge list of things he wants for Christmas, but listen for yourself.

Cool grip tape art poached from the Roundhouse Agency via Facebook.

I’m not one to encourage pushishing corporate sugar water on anyone but this video has some good footage. The best part is they had to hire extras to pretend to be mostly convincing office workers, at least until you get to the 2:00 minute mark. Photos here, and here, video after the jump. Hello Chicago!

Friend of the site Jerome over at Sa ka roulé set up a contest to submit reader designed adverts for the return of Kryptonics Wheels. He’s giving away prizes but it’s all in French and I think I missed the deadline. The ads, curiously, are all in English, but the contest rules and description are in French. If I did miss the deadline to vote (I didn’t), it’s only by a day and not 2 and half decades. The image above is actually one of those submissions. I never really saw any of the Kryptonics in their heyday, the first skateboard magazine I ever saw in my entire life was the September 1984 issue of Thrasher. I did however, meet a skate buddy who gave me his very dog-eared copies of Skateboarder and Action Now magazines. I devoured those magazines like they were scriptures. I haas been skating since the mid 70’s on plastic boards and after finally meeting/seeing real skateboards in the 80’s, I felt it was almost as if I was trying to reconnect to the era in which I started skating, napkin up for the equipment I mostly never had or saw as a kid. The Kryptonics ads always stood out too. They had a polished, high powered approach that presented skateboarding as a legitimate endeavor and not a child’s toy. Of course the reality is that it was not driven by pure reverence for the sport, but smart business sense from a corporation applied to marketing a hugely popular activity. (UPDATE: Turns out the ads were developed in house by the independent group that ran the department. They just happened to be… really good at it! ) If you have any doubt of this you only need note that they did indeed disappear from the market, and when the brand “returned” it was first (and still) in the form of toy store skateboards. (See update) Still, they seem to really be pushing this, although you’ve got to wonder why they didn’t do it 5 years ago. Maybe it was a matter of waiting for licensing agreements on the brand name to become available. It’s unclear what continuity there is between the current Kryptonics and the original incarnation. They do have a very interesting series of videos online dealing with the early days of the wheels. I forgot they were a roller skating wheel company first and foremost. I had me some Krypto red though, they really would roll over anything. Check out the reader designed ads on Sa ka roulé and the videos from Kryptonics. I was skeptical of the relaunch at first, but these videos really help recapture some of the original stoke. If you are at all interested in skateboard history they are a must-see.

UPDATE: I followed a few links from the Kryptonics site, It’s Steve Douglas and Dwindle behind the the relaunch, and he does in fact bring up the matter of the crappy toy store boards marketed by Bravo Sports, the same company making the Tony Hawk “old school board“. Apparently he has no control or affiliation with that product, so it must be a licensing deal. Read more on Transworld Business and Boardsport Source.

If I didn’t know better I’d think this was a gag from GVK. The ad copy is absurd. “The ol’ Mersedes Bends Skatboard Factory?” Seriously? Even if “skateboard” wasn’t misspelled, that would still be a bit much. Twenty dollars will buy you the hottest skateboard you’ve ever seen. Star wheels designed by freestyle champ Ed Nadalin normally sell for $79.95 each (yes, each) but through this ad you can get a complete set for only $12. That’s an amazing 97% discount! Pre-designed configural CAMBER-FLEX? They make a big deal about including sealed bearings, so you know it must be 1976, and it is. Volume 3, Number 1, which is the October 1976 issue of Skateboarder Magazine. My best friend in grade school nada plastic board with a Mercedes logo relief on top, but no name visible anywhere. It always impressed me as a kid. We all called it the Mercedes Benz board. I’m surprised Skateboarder agreed to print this advertisement, it would be the same thing as Thrasher running an ad for Nash…. Oh wait, they actually did that all the time.

A Gift Of Mud: Episode 1, featuring Mark Scott, Tavita Scanlan, Dave Tobin, Jessica Starkweather and Mark Conahan. From Elias Parise

It just takes a little getting used to, and for the next day you can’t skate in a regular sized spot without a little residual hunch, but it’s a lot of fun. MC’s basement ramp video after the jump. It’s a little out of focus, which is either because of the low light, or the fact that I didn’t have my glasses. Nothing to do with ineptitude. Nothing. It’s all “eptitude.”

It may actually take decades to respond to reader mail, a Jim Gray can attest. I recently found an envelope from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, mailed to Skate and Annoy sometime in 1988, only to be fully examined in an entirely different millennium. Do I regret not reading this letter from Darko Kolesar, AKA “Gricko” from Zehun, Yogoslavia? Do I lament the lost opportunity to create a cross-cultured, transcontinental friendship, let alone the chance to establish an outpost behind the Iron Curtain? Would I have loved to have a copy of the Yugoslavian skate zine Body & Soul in my collection? Do I wonder what Yugoslavian skate rock sounded like in the 80’s? Do fell like a dick? Yes.

UPDATE: A response from Gricko! Thanks to everyone who helped track him down. Read the Darko chronicle appended to the post!