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]

I’ve recently gotten two emails promoting different skate spot maps on the web. The idea is that you sign up and add spots in your area, and if you are traveling you can find spots on the way. I suppose the idea is useful for the casual skate tourist. Say you’re in a town on business or with family. If you got a break you could use these services to see if there is anything nearby. Of course you’re limited to what are probably the most blown out spots in the area, but it’s better than nothing if your are without a guide and don’t have a lot of time to explore. One service is a very slick one called New Breeders that’s pretty fancy, but has a some interface problems once you dig down. Also, it’s not limited to skate spots. The promo vid show surfing and bmx, so who knows what else is in there. Oh wait, I do. It’s got everything extreme!™. The second is from a web site called SubPublic, and it’s got much less eye candy, but it’s strictly skateboard related. SupPublic doesn’t require a login, but New Breeders does. What do you get for logging in? A lot more spots than SubPublic, even if you filter out the Parkour discipline. New Breeders has listings for hotels and nightlife as well. I’m not sure how they are funding this site, but they have “partnerships,” API’s and what not, so they must be trying to make money at some point. On the other hand, SubPublic lets you embed the map on your own web site with only the tiniest bit of branding. Of course it’s Google’s technology, so anyone could do it, but these guys have a head start. Check out SubPublic and New Breeders.

Mandy and Dandy Dude are the official mascots of the Duda foods Dandy brand of oranges. One one side of this bag of clementine oranges, Dandy Dude is taking green skateboard technologies to another level. Unfortunately, Mandy isn’t skating on the other side. When are we finally going to see parity (not pear-ity?) for female mascots in world of extreme food marketing? A tip of the hat to my wife for picking these up at the grocery store.

The ASPCA blog has a video of a skateboard being mobbed by a bunch of puppies. Kind of reminds me of the street section at the skatepark. Awwww ♥♥♥!!!

Trish McMillan, ASPCA Director of Animal Behavior, took this footage while conducting a training session with the pups. She says she uses it with every new litter of pups they get in. “It gets them used to novelty, skateboard sounds and moving surfaces.”

View the clip after the turn.

And good luck on your new job. I’m sure some hysterical nut is already falsely reporting that our new President is flashing gang signs, but he’s just showing some love to his Alma Mater’s high school marching band from Hawaii during the inauguration parade, just minutes ago.

UPDATE: I’m a self confessed kook. Should have labeled the post Shaka.

Time Warp is a whole show on the Discovery Network based on the premise that a couple of guys have a really expensive ultra high speed video camera, and they shoot processes and show them as you’ve never seen them. So basically, it’s all kind of silly that they make such big deal out of it now that you can basically buy a point and shoot camera for under a grand that does the same thing. The camera man even makes a big deal about it being “ready for high speed” as if it’s some giant apparatus out of a Frankenstein movie that has to be charged by lightning. There’s the obligatory “host wipes out trying to skateboard” scene, as well as some very flowery descriptions of the act of skateboarding:

The urban art of skateboarding is just that: An art. It combines the athleticism of gymnastics with the choreography of ice skating, with all of the in-your-face aggression of a street fight.

Err… right. Greg Lutzka’ is the pro that skates for them. He seems like a likable guy on camera. They spend way too much time dissecting an ollie, and not enough time showing more complicated derivatives that would really benefit from a super slow motion presentation. The skateboarding part starts around the eight minute mark, just after the scantily clad fire breathing girls. There are a few commercial breaks in there as well. Check it out.

– Thanks to Mac for the tip.

Congrats to Juice, the magazine you love to wait (and wait) for, on celebrating their 15th year of publication with issue #65. That averages out to over 5 issues a year. They must have really cranked some out at one point, because I swear there were a few years in there where you were lucky to see one issue. I kid, only because I love… Hey, what’s on the cover? Mark Scott at Burnside! Steve Olson handled the interview honors and Portlander Dave Hupp handled the photos. Hey, who’s that on page 70? Why that’s our own (and his own) Mark Conahan! Jim Murphy manned the tape recorder and Portlander Bryce Kanights manned the camera. I think Bryce actually spends more time traveling then he does hanging out in Portland, but his couch is here, so he’s a local. It’s great to see the Northwest finally getting some coverage… Get your copy wherever Juice is sold. If you can’t find it, I happen to know the imaginary Portland rep for Juice.

The OC Weekly has six (count ’em) pages on Skitch Hitchcock, past and present, which includes highlights of other members of the Salt Creek Beach crew which includes a lot of surprising names. In the shot above left are Dale Smith, Skitch, and his brother Garrison. Aside from the now customary gripes about the Dogtown film, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there, assuming you are interested in the roots of skateboarding or surfing. Remember the recent Skitch Hitchcock model we profiled? Turns out Skitch is battling liver cancer, and proceeds from the sale go to help him out with his medical bills. Skitch did a lot more than invent the gorilla grip. He was the first guy to land a full loop, and he dealt acid straight from the labs of Timothy Leary. Interesting guy for sure, and a nice tip of the iceberg view of OC skateboarding history. Hey, I guess we are one of the top three carriers of the old school flame. I feel compelled to note that the article is lacking in the usual stereotypical bungling that most newspapers exhibit when covering skateboarding. So yes, check out the OC Weekly feature.

[Source: Boardistan]