Above Coping art show benefit at Commonwealth Skateboarding in Portland, OR on August 30th.

Vice magazine has an interview with sculptor C.J. Rench who was chosen by the Red Bull panel (including Torey Pudwill) to construct a skateable sculpture for permanent installation in Seattle. Sounds like a good plan, the city gets art, the skaters are allowed to skate on it, and a corporation gets to pay for it. Red Bull has a short video on the “skate space” that shows the other artist who made it to the finalist position, as well as examples of both of works. From the sculptures shown, I’d say the chose the wrong guy. Granted, I wasn’t on the board, but the other guy’s portfolio ( W. Scott Trimble ) had some pieces in it that already leaned towards an impression of being skateable. On the other hand, CJ’s work to date appears to be they type of stationary sculpture that is isolated in a presentation space and not part of a larger environment. In fact, looking at the scale model and rendering, the sculpture appears to be marginally skateable at best. There’s a telling clue in the Red Bull video, a big part of the decision appeared to be based on who could get it done on…

It’s been a while since we checked in on Gene’s My DIY backyard project. Looks like it’s done except for the decks. Additional coverage available at Confusion. Looks super fun.

Danny way dropped in off that helicopter in a different decade, so it’s not the first time, but Bob has taken the helicopter thing a step further, also using it as his personal tow-in rope. It’s pretty amazing as far as mega ramp action goes, but there are a couple times when I’m actually more impressed by the pilot in the helicopter. The helicopter doesn’t make an appearance until the last quarter of the video, and the rest is filled with typically high skilled skating that you’d expect from Bob Burnquist. It’s part of a series he’s making called “The Dreamland Series.” – Thanks to Simon Woodstock for the tip.

I can’t remember why I had this bookmarked, or how I found it, but it must have been for a good reason. Must have been because it looked fun. Lots of cool banks.

Check out Volume2 issue one of Spunk Skate Zine online. It’s got a good mix of content including street, park and vert photos, interviews with Tim Kerr, Kira Roessler, Sam Hitz and Nora Vasconcellos, plus Keith Meek talking about his iconic slasher graphic. Lots of recognizable names in the masthead too. There’s a bit of a bug in the html code, you might have to wiggle your browser in order for the page navigation links (top right and left) to show up.

Thanks to the Facebook-Site “Skateboarding Hall o Fame” for finding that rare video from 1965, featuring italian-born Piccola Pupa on the microphone and Wendy Bull on the skateboard.

Gvk Trip to east coast. Stop. Produces sotw at Northside skatepark in the heart of Norfolk, VA. Stop. The kid had it 4 out of 7 trys. Stop. Old man Gvk Couldn’t make it straight. Stop. Cease Transmission.

The bootleg graphics (on the top picture) look exactly like the ones on the original Variflex decks. Variflex shifted production to Taiwan somewhere in the 80’s, so maybe they made both branded and unbranded decks at some point. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bootleg such wildly successful graphics. Variflex had a great pro team and produced very decent skateboards in the end of the 70’s and the beginning of the 80’s, but then started to produce rather shoddy completes. You can marvel in the mediocrity in the Living Variflex Museum (of Crap), or read about their history on Skateboard Of The Day. Thanks to Walter Meus, J.P. Begel and Pat Cash for the pics. Thanks to kilwag for the edits.