Here’s a couple instances of skateboarding on the news. ABC’s Nightline picked up on the mortgage crisis story again. I hope mr Peacock is making some money off these news appearances. Nightline even manages to include the horrendous Jake Brown super slam footage in the segment. I hope Mr Brown is making money off that footage. Also up after the jump. Old Man Army got some coverage on a local Fox News affiliate. Watch it and you’ll briefly get to meet the site’s founders and catch some footage of someone in an (excellent) get up. They don’t say who he is, but he must be the OMA equivalent of GVK.

– Thanks to Sarib and Orezona for the tip.

Since we’re talking about Jake Phelps, I thought I’d put up this photo I found in the June 1980 issue of Skateboarder, just a few short months before it became Action Now. I’ve got a September 1980 issue of Action Now, but I don’t know if it was the first. The June issue of Skateboarder has an ad saying a new type of action magazine was coming soon. In any case, this is none other than Kevin Thatcher, the original editor of Thrasher Magazine, appearing in one of the last issues of a magazine whose demise would soon find him employed making a replacement. Kevin once gave me an invaluable photography tip scribbled on note with a batch of negatives he sent back to me: “Use a faster shutter speed and your shots won’t be so blurry. – K.T.” I think of him every time my shutter speed dial slips below 1/400. I’ve looked through a few 1980 issues of Skateboarder, and they all have BMX coverage in them at that point already. While I was searching for an image of the June 1980 cover, I stumbled on the web site of the original photographer, Ted Terrebonne. Ted has 144 pages of recent and vintage skate photos including the Kevin Thatcher shot from Yuvis Dam in San Jose, as well as 38 shots of assorted bands. One thing odd about the site is there are random sprinkles of text links for online casinos. I can’t tell if he was hacked or he’s trying to make a little money from click-throughs.

Just a word of warning, I’m going to be mining back issues of these old skate mags regularly for a while.

This week, Thrasher Magazine’s editor in chief, Jake Phelps, is clearing the air on his famous list of five skaters that he permanently banned from the magazine. This week-long feature entitled “Five Days of Hate” details why Benji Galloway, Tony Farmer, Frank Hirata, Choppy Omega, and Billy Pepper were excluded from coverage.

Love him or hate him, Phelps is maintaining his reputation as an outspoken and brutally honest figure in the skateboarding community.  Will his words expose injustices in skateboarding?  Or will he simply go on a  slanderous rampage?  This week will showcase Phelps in his true form.

Above picture taken from thrashermagazine.com

The diffusion of skateboarding into the popular culture as a fashion trend always tweaked me but blue jeans and t-shirts were popularized by poseurs trying to look proletarian. Any thoughtless aping of an idea is to be despised. That said, I will admit to fascination with all aspects of the history of skateboarding. This looks like a well designed book about skate shoes. Great photographs of the shoes are juxtaposed with magazine layouts and ads. Based on the collection of the Museum of Skateboard History in Stuttgart, Germany which we posted about before. I found the book here but you can also find it at Amazon

I always thought Xeni Jardin seemed cool with that spiky while hair. Turns out she’s actually a punk rock survivor. She does an interview with Glen Friedman on Boing Boing TV. Looks like Glen Friedman had a show at Shepard Fairey’s gallery in LA. Fairey’s interview last week was pretty great too. I was wondering about the skate photos in the background.

You tube version embedded after the jump.

Mike V has a supporting role as one of the bad guys in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and he’s pimping it hard on his web site. He’s go the trailer, a couple previews, three TV appearances and and some production stills on his web site. Mike did more than just stunts, he’s a real character in the movie. One TV commercial for Mall Cop shows a split second of skateboarding. I figured it was not a big part of the movie. But apparently, the “bad guys” are all terrorists who happen to be good at extreme sports… Good thing is a comedy and not xXx. Sounds corny? According to Vallely in an Buzzine interview:

More importantly, Vallely said James and the entire production crew went out of their way to understand the perspective of skateboarders and BMX riders. “The most important thing for us is that everyone wanted to this right,” the skateboarding veteran said. “Usually people don’t get skateboarding. The stunt team and production team learned a lot from me, but I also learned a lot from them in terms of how to work on a Hollywood movie.”

Who esle is in it? Jason Ellis, Rick Thorne, and Mike Escamilla. So, rather than embed the whole slew of videos here, head on over to Mikevallely.com to check it out. Not since Police Academy 4 have we seen such convergence of almost-law enforcement and skateboarding. If you’d rather actually see skateboarding in Police Academy 4, keep clicking. There’s even a Spanish subtitled version of behind the scenes stunt skateboarding narrated by stuntman and old Pepsi team skateboarder Wink Roberts.

Here’s a short webvert with a skateboard theme for an unlikely business. I don’t wan to spoil the surprise, so check it out after the jump.

Here’s the first of three panels in a cartoon drawn by Keith Knight, which is known as the K Chronicles. He’s got a couple that are skateboard -centric, Return of Ye Olde Skateboard and Skateboarding Is…. That second one looks familiar. MC might have covered it already. The drawing style is half Wizard of Id and half Bloom County.

The magazine Fast Company is all up in Shaun White’s business. Sure, Tony Hawk was in Success magazine, but leave it to Shaun to appear in a “hipper” business publication like Fast Company. I happend to catch an episode of MTV’s Run’s House where they were trying to figure out in a very contrived way how to make one of Run’s kid’s feel better about being heckled for skating. Run had a contrived inspiration to have Tony Hawk come and visit, but one of his sons had a contrived idea that it had to be someone cooler, like Ryan Sheckler. He might have said fresher or even younger, I can’t remember. Anyway, what a coincidence, Sheckler just happened to have a show on MTV at the time. Poor Tony. First he suffers form age discrimination on MTV, then his Mad Dog pajamas catch on fire. With a name like “Mad Dog,” you’d figure they would be Tony Alva pjs. I think my nephew might actually have a pair of these.

[Source: Boardistan]

With numbers like that, industry insiders say some brands will disappear and the economic undertow will pull down a number of mom-and-pop shops, considered the backbone of the business because of their connection to the core action sports customer.

Extreme!™ Bankruptcy! The San Diego Tribune takes a sobering look at the state of the industry in the article titled Economy wiping out some action sports firms. ASR attendance is down about 50% from what it was last year this time, and “industry insiders” are predicting about a third of action sports businesses will shut down by the end of this year. Bad news for skateboarders? I’m going to say no. Your favorite shop may close, which will suck, but there are shops out there that have weathered the storm on multiple occasions. Most of the core shops are probably going to stick it out. Some big names might decide drop a product line or two, or even pull out entirely, but that wouldn’t be any great loss. They’ve done it before, no need to point them out. Ultimately, the kids (and old men) are still going to ride their skateboards.Skateparks and DIY spots will still be made. Some little guys are going to bite the bullet, but then things will get lean and mean for while, and that’s always when the interesting things in the industry happen anyway.

[Source: Boardistan]