Off Camera has quite a lengthy interview with Stacy Peralta that you can read, watch or listen to. Best quote: “A professional, unprofessional activity.” You might think there’s no need to hear the story of Stacy Peralta, as told by Stacy himself again, but the interview extends beyond most of what you may already know. Stacy talks about his personal life outside the realm of being known as a skateboarder as well as some interesting insight into the distribution of independent media. After reading a little bit it becomes apparent that photographer/director Sam Jones is/was a skateboarder, so the interview starts from an informed place, even though the introduction is a little bit of a stiff retread.

UPDATE: Back in issue 6 there’s an interview with Tony Hawk too.

I love the packaging from 70’s era skateboard parts. These parts are shrink-wrapped on a display card for hanging up on pegboard hooks, as if you could go to your local grocery or toy store and pick up a few items for your skateboard. Check out some goods from GT, aka Grentec Leisure Products.

Brooklyn Street Skate Spot has known since inception that it’s days were numbered. Even when it went from a renegade pour to an officially permitted project (in a very short time) The Portland to Milwaukee (Oregon) Light rail project was always looming in the murky, but not too distant future. To make room for the expanded rail commuter service connecting Portland to the suburbs, the property on either side of the rails  is expanding, and the pedestrian bridge has to come down. You might be able to fight a road, but you can’t fight the railroad. This means BSSS will be destroyed in the process. In talks with the city and construction company, tentative plans allowed for only partial destruction of BSSS during the removal of the pedestrian bridge. Unfortunately, circumstances have changed.

[Photo: Pete Lewis]

I found Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons at a school book fair. It’s published by HarperCollins. Pete was created by Kimberly & James Dean, but this book was written by Eric Litwin. It turns out Pete has been skating since his appearance on the cover of Pete the Cat: Valentine’s Day Is Cool.

The first half of the 1960s were the hey-days for Surf Music with a high percentage of bands being from California. Many of those bands also wrote songs about Skateboarding or what then was known as “Sidewalk Surfing” (I counted about 30 releases so far from that era, including bands from other genres). But there were also bands from such “exotic” places like Texas.

Dan Dengler makes skateboards from cross sections of trees, among other things. We’ve seen it before, but not at this scale. They are gigantic, and immense, hence Gimmense.

Sometimes I get PR for industry events, and sometimes I take them up on their offer to attend the event under the guise of “covering it,” which usually means I get in free with my kids, and we all enjoy it for the most part. It’s fun, but I’m not paying for it, and I can take it or leave it each time. Sometimes I feel guilty, not for the big corporation, but for the freelance PR agent that gave me the press credentials and got essentially nothing from it. I hope that doesn’t affect your job performance review. To make up for it, here are some photos from the San Francisco stop of the Dew Tour. Thanks to Lorrie Palmos for sending these in. You might remember her from her long standing “Shot of the Week” that’s been up since June. It might be time to retire that part of the web site. (The SOTW curator spot is open!)