Apparently the anguished cries of old men everywhere resonated in the halls of ESPN. EXPN.com reports: ESPN has decided to continue its 13-year tradition of vert competitions at this year’s X Games. Over the past month ESPN has engaged in many conversations with the X Games BMX and Skateboard vert athletes in an attempt to transition the Vert discipline into one featuring a skatepark course design. While many athletes were initially receptive to the idea, the majority of them have indicated to ESPN that they would prefer to compete on a halfpipe. So vert skating is back from the dead. Who could have predicted it? I think it’s funny that the athletes were the ones the brought it back. More telling is the fact that they plan to go forward with the Superpark concept in addition. I have a feeling that the vert riders who don’t decide to enter Superpark are going to lose ultimately. I see this as a temporary appeasement of the talent so they don’t have a mass boycott of riders. Sure, they’ll bring back vert for one or two more seasons while they quietly build up Superpark until ratings prove they don’t need vert anymore, because…

So yeah, doing the family vacation thing. Mother in-law brought us to an “incredible new restaurant” that turned out to be a newer chain of sports bars. I counted at least 33 flat screen TV’s with assorted sports programs on, one of them was playing Fuel, so that means I got to watch skateboarding in a sports bar. It was an episode of Driven, and there was hardly any skateboarding in it. For some reason there was a big production about a kid giving Vallely a bracelet of sorts. Not very manly behavior for a sports bar. I swear I heard some snickering. Maybe the kid had a terminal disease, it’s hard to tell because there was no sound. Looks like they gave him a Jeep, though. So yeah, manly sports bars and skateboarding. Alright.

A friend mentioned a Chance Meeting personal ad in the Portland newspaper the Willamette Week Someone was trying to hook up with a Handsome Skater Dad. Since the new issue had already come out, I missed my chance but the website had a couple of similar items. So it’s not all Shecky , the mature skater-man is also in demand.

Some amusing covers from skateboard-themed books at Amazon. I notice one of them in the upsell section below the thing I was looking at and followed the breadcrumbs to a veritable cornucopia of young adult print-based communications.

Skate Daily noticed that although Rick McCrank is active in Peta print ads and product giveaways, he’s still got a suede shoe model, unlike another Peta collaborator, Ed Templeton. Also in this month’s Print Magazine is a half a page on design variations in Nick Hornby’s book Slam, the one that features a protagonist that regularly converses with Tony Hawk in head, the same way Clarence Worley talks to Elvis, I mean “Mentor.”

A VH1 blog for the show Best Week Ever has a list of the top 10 professions that are one death away from extinction. Meaning if the most famous guy dies, nobody will take his place. Coming in at number one, Skateboarding and Tony Hawk. They are actually aware of other pro skaters, but their rationale is that… who cares. But, maybe they are on to something. Perhaps the almost dead profession should have been Vert Skater since I keep getting tips relating to vert skating and BMX being dropped from the X games. Also being dropped? the VH1 show Best Week Ever, unless they get picked up by ESPN. The rumors are flying, and the official word is that “changes are coming.” I doubt the loss of vert in the X-Games mean much of anything to skateboarders, besides the ones competing. It might have more of an impact on Madison Avenue than anywhere else. Commercials and cartoons will have lost their point of reference for portraying skateboarding. – Thanks to Concretins for the first tip.

Among this weeks iStockPhoto’s “Hot Shots” is a photo imaginatively titled “Skateboarder flying through the air,” available here.

He’s not included on this poll of favorite heartthrob skaters from madmoiselle at Team Sugar. Who is this (platinum) user Madmoiselle? She’s got almost 8,000 sugar points, so she must be able to buy a lot of virtual gifts. (This one is for landpiratemafia! Meme! Meme! Meme! Meme! Meme! Hawt!) Oh yeah, I need to mention Tony Hawk so I can add this post to the category.

Speaking of the resurrection of our Lord Jebus, and finishing up the Easter Roundup is this shot of Stephen Baldwin at the LA airport carrying a religious-themed skateboard with wheels that are large enough to be some sort of miracle. Verily, His wheels were just big enough for street skating, but when he got to the top of the mount, he worried not, for a miracle had turned the 40mm to 100mm, and there was enough urethane to feed everyone’s hunger for asphalt. This isn’t the first time Stephen has pulled out the skateboard at an airport, and he’s starting to look like an old woman. [Source: Gawker]

Paranoid Park opens in Portland tonight. Gus Van Sant will introduce Friday’s 7PM show at Cinema 21. Gabe Nevins, who plays the lead part, will be hanging out for Q&A after the Saturday 7PM show. If you don’t get in to see the show, you can always watch the GVK of the casting session down at Burnside. (I don’t care what Grover says, I liked Elephant.) Oddly enough, the film is also showing on pay-per-view on the DirecTV in Portland and other markets as well. Burnside Paranoid Park Directed by Gus Van Sant Showing: One Week: March 21 – 27 Showtimes: Nightly 7:00, 8:55/late Fri-Sat 10:30 plus Sat-Sun (1:00), 3:00, 5:00 If I had a nickel for every time I saw a kid skating in the rain with an umbrella… I heard that Gus’ production was going to/did donate money to Burnside. Can anyone confirm this? – Thanks to Page for the tip.