OH yeah, I forgot to title this “Vert is dead, not dead, dead, not dead, dead….” I’m losing track of where we’re at here. Dave Swift over at the Skateboard Mag has some pictures of the new setup for the Super Park event at the X Games. If you recall, Super Park was supposed to be the replacement for the vertical event until the talent mutinied and said they would prefer to compete on the halfpipe. So now we have Vert and Super Park. Without getting into the politics, the Super Park course certainly looks more interesting than a vert ramp, and is more in step with what people who aren’t training for the X Games are riding, if not in the street. Now, to get into the politics, or at least social responsibility, carting that thing around to different venues seems like it would be a gargantuan task. We all know what happens to these ramps when they got through a season or two, they get donated. It’s one thing to fix up up a vert ramp or some pyramids that have seen some abuse, it’s relatively straight forward. What’s going to happen when they discard these massively complex bowl constructions? Sure, it’s not as wasteful as something as ludicrous as building a concrete skatepark for one time use. (Don’t get me started on that, it’s something I had planned for a rant already…) I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again, ESPN needs to give back to the sport (besides paying the salaries of the top pros) by advocating for and financially facilitating concrete skateboard facilities across the nation, if not world, in ways similar to other high profile entities that make bank from skateboarding. Right. Don’t forget to check out the Super Park. It looks fun as hell. – Thanks to JF for the tip.

Friend of the site Brad the Handstandman was on The Late Show with David Letterman on July 18th. Can we call him a friend of the site? Sure, why not, after all the heckling, veiled threats and assorted rigmarole. The original Handstandman post is almost in the top five of the most commented posts. Such lively discussion is usually reserved for Airspeed, Benji Galloway and Wormhoudt in San Jose. I can’t help but feel that a true friend of the site would have given us the heads up before he was on national television. You can still watch it on Late Show highlights. Just head on over to Dave’s site and click on the video link for “”Late Show” Rewind: Week of July 14-18, 2008.” Handstandman is about halfway into the clip – after Ricky Gervais and before Rosie Perez. The video player is a little buggy, and you have to sit through a short commercial. SnA comment army, please remember, we’ve been through all the name calling already.

Motion Theory is a motion graphics studio that has done a lot of work you’ve probably seen, like the HP ad for Pharrell (hi res here) that also features skateboarding. They did a short ID piece for ESPN on Evolution, specifically the evolution of skateboarding. Apparently, it aired during the Superbowl, but which one? You can watch it and download it from the Motion Theory site. I wonder if they will notice a bandwith spike? As far as the animation goes, it’s fun to watch. As far as the evolution of skateboarding goes, it stops with what mainstream skaters consider the dodo birds of skateboarding, AKA the vert ramp riders – but I’m sure that’s what the client wanted. – Thanks (again) to Livmo for the tip. yeah, it’s going to be that kind of day.

Skaters love iPods and Pottery Barn. Now they can listen to their iPods by plugging them into a X Games shelf that looks like a skateboard and has built in speakers. The shelf can be used for magazines or copies of CD’s that they probably didn’t buy in the first place. Did you just get kicked off your skateboard team? Wrap yourself up in a nice X Games blanket and stare at your X Games wall mural from the comfort of your X Games bed sheets.

[Source – Gizmodo]

The Gorge Games went off in Hood river last weekend. We didn’t cover it – Estes, this was your time to shine! Looks like it will be broadcast by Fox Sports Networks August 18 – 22. The Gorge Games featured slalom and and bowl-riding skateboarding, plus wind surfing and a bunch of other Extreme!™ sports you’re not interested in. It’s kind of like a localized X-Games for Hood River, Oregon, which if you didn’t already know, is supposed to be one of the premier spots for wind powered water sports. It’s a major event in Oregon tourism. I heard legendary skater Tom “Wally” Inouye was heavily involved in the Gorge Games this year. So far all I have is a little slalom coverage. The photo above is from a Flickr stream belonging to Carvethebowl. There’s also video footage after the jump where you can see one of the Fox cameramen following the action on a skateboard. The announcer is mildy amusing. It’s almost golf-style reserved, polite and quiet, except broadcast over a loudspeaker. – Thanks to Judy Oyama for the tip. That’s her on the left.

I came across this during an image search for a post on the Screaming Hand for my skatecomics site. This guy posted about it and points to
AK37 as the source. I couldn’t find it on their site though. I wonder if they got a C&D from SantaCruz. They have some pretty cool designs which I would totally wear if I was a girl! Hmmm, they might make good presents for girls.

Someone asked how to do an Andrecht invert in the comments a while back and I suggested that Rich Burton might have a sequence we could post. Sure enough he did, so we put together a little tutorial here.

The trick is named for David Andrecht who first popularized the back-rail-grab invert.

The Baltimore Art Examiner reports that city workers “accidentally” destroyed a skate ramp known as the “Pants Ramp” that was part of a year long outdoor art exhibit called “Outdoor Lounge.” The City’s story might be more believable if it weren’t for the fact that the demolition took place at 3 am in the morning, and it was apparently the only part of the exhibit that was harmed. No word on if Baltimore favorite skater hater and golf cart driving police officer was somehow involved. Get the full scoop. If you can put aside the skate harassment angle for a second, it’s intersting that the Pants Ramp was designed as a prototype first hole of a putt-putt golf course where each hole would be skateable. Yes today is mix an match skateboarding with (slightly more) mainstream sports. – Thanks to Stephanie Murdock from S.O.B. for the tip.

Actually, it’s most of the time. I remember hearing about a Major League baseball player who also sang in a punk rock band (not Charlie Sheen), but I didn’t realize he was also one of the owners of Skate Lab, home of a world famous skateboard museum, as well as two skateparks and of course, a line of kids furniture accessories. It doesn’t stop there, he’s got the too-good-to-be-true skateboard comic-type last name of Radinsky. That’s Scott Radinsky. And how did I put that all together? Well the obvious way, the owner of a baseball blog contacted SnA to say they posted a Scott Radinsky interview.

U sho’nuf do be cookin’ in my book
Your face is jammin’
Your body’s heck-a-slammin’