Yes folks, it’s the same people that bring you modern day cannibals, a woman who had 69 babies and the 200 pound tumor. The 9th wonder of the world appears to be something known as the “Urban Jib Park.” Witness the wonder and the horror of The Ripley’s Urban Rail Park – an urban rider’s dream, according to the folks at Polson Pier in Toronto, where it is located. Although open since December 21st, pictures of the actual park appear to be as rare as ostrich-footed Africans. Apparently, they built some rails at the bottom of a pile of snow for the snowboarders and put up a big heated tent with some ramps for the skaters. Things must be bleak in Toronto, because you can even buy a season pass for all this awesomeness: 20ft wide 4 foot mini-ramp 4 stair with hand rail 60 ft wide bank with grind box at the top 5 ft ¼ pipe 6 ft ¼ pipe Fun box with rail They will have unspecified rock concerts, pro demos and contests. I predict that this park sucks – BELIEVE IT OR NOT!! [Source: PR-Inside]

Yes, this is old news, thank you. Because the media portrayal of skateboarding it’s not enough of a zoo already, pro (?) skateboarder Chad Knight is supposed to be appearing on the January 6th premier of the revamped version American Gladiators on NBC. I have that question mark in there because I don’t know anything about Chad. His official web site is blocked by the content filter where I work (?! – Hey, I’m on my break!) but according to this outdated (and not dated) interview with Chad in Skateboarder, Chad turned pro in 1997 an had a model on the now defunct INC. skateboards brand by Syndrome. Currently he’s on 1031, which is ether a shop or a clothing line or who knows what since the mailing address is in California but you have to buy everything from Beer City in Milwaukee. Kristian Svitak seems to be the main perpetrator. Hell, I don’t know. Wow, it’s hosted by Laila Ali and Hulk Hogan. Why isn’t Mike V. on this? [Source: BuddyTV]

Warren Ray is 42 year old musician and songwriter who decided to give up smoking after his father was diagnosed with lung cancer. Instead of the patch, he decided to try to replace his addiction to cigarettes by rekindling his addiction to skateboarding, which he gave up in his 20’s due to poor health, and a general lameness. A friend of his made a short film about it which has it’s moments, but needs help in the audio mixing department. It’s in a few indy film festivals. Another episode of Old guys who started skating again, but with a twist. And hey, it completes the hat trick of Skate or Die posts. Check it out. [Source: The Courier Journal – Louisville KY]

There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance of Burnside in the trailer for an upcoming movie called Untraceable. It happens slightly over half way through the trailer, and looks like a short spot for cell phone service. The movie looks like it is supposed to take place in Portland, so the shot a bunch of location shots, including Burnside. Hey does Gus Van Sant know this is going on? When is Paranoid Park coming out over here anyway? It’s just like Ash said when she contributed this bit of news, “Why not put Burnside in a movie??? Haha, PDX is blown out!” Portland is hot for murders on the big screen right now. So will Untraceable be unwatchable? The last one they did here (The Hunter) with Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones was a major dud, but the local weeklies sure loved to talk up the Benicio sightings. Diane Lane wasn’t as interesting apparently, or maybe they shot all her outdoor stuff in Vancouver BC. So who was there when they filmed this, and did Burnside get it’s customary appearance fee in the form of a donation made for park maintenance?

What about all the skateboarding Jews? We just don’t see Hanukka skateboarding marketing tie ins like we do with Christmas. Jew, Gentile, regular, goofy… it’s all the same. I don’t even know when Hanukkah is, it’s probably over already. Here’s an Israeli TV commercial for what looks like an exploding energy bar that blatantly rips off the Girl Yeah Right! video. Who knows, Maybe Spike Jonze directed this one too.

There once was a TV series called Brainchild on the Science Channel that seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. There are a few mentions on discussion boards dating back to 2003, but that’s about it. Each hour long episode had three or four different inventions and their history highlighted. This particular episode dealt with Extreme!™ sports and featured skateboards, snowboards, and jet boats. There’s about five minutes of footage in the skateboard section, so as you can imagine, it’s pretty vague. The thing that is most interesting is that it features interviews with Kevin Thatcher (I can’t beleive that I kind of have to explain that he was the first and most beloved editor of Thrasher…) as well as Frank Nasworthy, the “inventor” of the urethane skateboard wheel. I always scratch my head when he gets credited with inventing the urethane skateboard wheel, since they were actually invented and used on rollerskating wheels first, and in the 70’s there were still rollerskating companies involved in skateboarding, so it seems pretty much like an obvious thing to do, he just did it first I guess. As for the original date of the program, I didn’t catch the…

This was going to be a thread about the trend of municipalities closing down skateparks when they get tagged as an incentive program to stop vandalism. I was going to highlight that a new nearby park in Vancouver Washington is going to experience such closures: our park maintenance office has decided to handle graffiti removal at the park the same way Battle Ground does at their skate park – by closing the entire park to all users until all the graffiti is removed. Depending on the severity of the graffiti, this could require several days of closure. I was then going to ramble on about how it was obviously not the real skateboarders doing the vandalism, most likely kids that were on the periphery that might own a skateboard in the same way they would own a bike or a pogo stick if all their friends had one. Look at the picture above. It seems like a fun place to skate right? It’s sheltered from the elements, and it’s not even illegal. If that was my local spot I’d want to take care of it, but the Creekside Underground locals are pissing it all away.

To placate our massive Dunedin Florida reader base, here’s a link to an amusing video of Tampa Bay’s 10 News coverage of the Stirling skatepark. It’s the complete package. There’s a before and after advertising spot for senior citizens choosing medicare coverage (It is Florida), and an over earnest reporter who makes Bob Burbank sound understated. He also gets on the old stunt wood for the first time (Liar!) since 1989. My personal favorite, when they quote the town council as saying the half a million dollars was money well spent as the camera pans to reveals a skatepark devoid of life except for the reporter and one skater. Good stuff. – Thanks to Tito for the tip.

Welsh Pete wrote “while some skate kids are smashing store owners in the face, others are rescuing babies from dumpsters…” So in the interest of fair and balanced reporting: Four skateboarders found a crying infant girl – the umbilical cord still attached – wrapped in a blanket and left atop a trash bin Monday night in Queens, authorities said. So check out the skateboarding guardian angels (not to be confused with the skateboarding Charlie’s Angel) in the New York Daily News. AP Video available as well. Lest any of our regular readers think we are going all soft, that’s one of the teenagers, Christopher Moncada in the shot above, and he looks little bit like a pudgy 10 year old girl. Guardian Angel art, sans skateboard, from Sykel Enterprises.

Jason Jesse has a few choice things to say about the “documentary” on his life (Pray for Me) and David from Shitbird who made it. First off, I don’t get the cult of Jason Jesse, but I don’t begrudge anyone of their right to identify with him. Jesse comes off as a bit unstable at times in this video appearances (come to think of it, maybe I’m just thinking about a trailer I saw for Pray for me…) Also, I’ve only had very minimal interaction with Dave, but I’ve heard some questionable stories and read a lot of unsubstantiated crap about him on the Interwebs™ – all hearsay, mind you. The video is made by some Japanese cats, and it’s basically Jason Jesse on camera stirring up a shit(bird) storm about Pray for Me and Dave Shitbird, who he accuses of admitting to being an informant for the FBI and in general just being a lying scumbag. Take this video with a grain of salt, and watch it for some pretty amusing quotes from Jesse as the interview gets going. He maintains that Shitbird has gotten some sort of revenge on Jesse just by infecting his life. Jesse has resigned…