I caught Ryan Sheckler’s episode of Firsthand on Fuel TV the other night. If you haven’t seen the series, it’s basically an hour long ride along with one Extreme!™ sports personality per episode. I’ve seen a few of the skateboarding episodes and they are generally worth checking out, even if you aren’t familiar with the skater in question. They offer a little more insight into personality without all the hype of a typical skateboard video setting, and of course they actually talk. Take Sheckler’s episode, it was shot when he was 15 and originally aired in 2005. His backyard skatepark is kind of ghetto compared to his new digs, and the hype hasn’t reached the level it is at today. In particular, one good scene catches him having a dork session at a local skatepark with one of his friends. There’s no front of attitude or image. He’s a surprisingly level headed and generally likable kid who doesn’t cry when he places lower than first. Sure, he’s got a meathead father, but at this point in his young life, he comes off like just a hard-skating successful teenager without an overblown ego. If you already like Sheckler it’s a no…

Gentlemen, here is the link that I believe we spoke of earlier. Mostly interesting for the clay and steel wheel era pictures.

The August 7th 2007 issue of Time magazine had an article about the design of modern skateparks titled “It’s All in the Swoop.” Seriously? August of 2007 and I’m just now finding out about it? Come on people! Anyway, by “modern” they mean tranny, so if you’re looking for street plaza coverage you can save your breath and write a letter to the editor – theirs, not me. I didn’t write it, I’m just reporting on what’s out there. I suspect that delving into that as well would have taken up more editorial space then they had alloted. Quoted in the interview are Wally Hollyday, Mark Hubbard and Tim Payne. Mentioned in article are the firms of SITE Design Group, Dreamland, Team Pain and Grindline. An interesting point is raised by suggesting current skatepark design is also affecting playground and landscape architecture, even for non-skating spaces. There are a few pictures in the print layout that are not duplicated in the online version of the article, so they are preserved and presented after the jump. Both pieces mention a photo essay on the history and evolution of skateboarding but fail to provide a link to it beyond Time.com, and plugging…

This commercial for Babybel Cheese has a lot of incidental skating in the background, designed to make you think the location is a skatepark. In the enlarged stills it’s very apparent that it’s just a public plaza with a few ramps thrown in to enhance the illusion. The dead giveaway is the full loop track at the top of the steps.

Thrasher Magazine was hacked this weekend by a group or individual called Indonesian Hacker, who first apologized and then really gave those right wing imperialistic fascist heathens at Thrasher a piece of his mind. Yeah, makes no sense to me either. Anyway, the site is back up. Antigravity Press got hacked last week. I’m going to back up Skate and Annoy tonight. – Thanks to Rayn Hass for the tip.

Really, this still image of Mr Orange (?) is about all you need to see from the M&M’s commercial that is still airing, unless you are wondering what Paul Weller would look like if he was a candy coated chocolate that came to life. And it’s vintage The The in the soundtrack. Speaking of the Jam, did you know Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are touring without Weller as the appropriately titled From the Jam? Now that’s brutal honesty for you! I don’t know where/what/when Weller replacement Russell Hastings is from, but he looks the part and the reviews are good. Coming to North America and Japan in 2008.

I found this magazine online a year or so ago and tried to get them to send me a copy but never heard back from them. The whole thing had a sort of fishy, half baked feeling to it, as if they maybe made one issue as a test and were trying to see if it was a viable money making concept. The Pastor Tom cover made me chuckle because of the 8-wheeler on the cover and the tag line “Why every community could use a Tom Fain.” Really? Every community could use a guy who is seemingly completely out of touch with skateboarding culture?

We’re not into X Games coverage, but I though this was interesting. You know a sport is really saturating the mainstream when female coverage picks up. Remember the WNBA? Ok nobody else does either, but About.com has a gallery of X Games 13 images, and almost a full third of them are of women. Well, at least 20 out of, er… 69 total. You can sift through all six pages complete with annoying interstitial ads from the begining, or if you are just interested in the ladies, check out pages four, five and six. Hey, is that a McTwist attempt by Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins on the bottom left? Are there any ladies out there landing this? Lyn-Z better shorten her name if she wants to have a shot at marketing herself like Tony Hawk. Hmmmm. Lyn-Z Hawkins, the female Tony Hawk You read it here first! Get used to hearing it on TV. Update: Added video of women’s street after the jump. ESPN Images photos, clockwise from the top right: Women’s vert winners by Matt Morning, Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins , Marisa Dal Santo, Vanessa Torres and Lyn-Z again by Eric Lars Bakke.

I was cleaning out the hard drive and I found this picture of a Maxwell House billboard taken in July of 2000. I guess they are implying that adults could lead a more fulfilling life if they did a little downhill on a longboard. Dress respectfully, of course, then click to enlarge.

Jake Brown was on the Today Show (yesterday) and the unholy corporate alliance of NBC and Microsoft has a transcript and a video excerpt on the official Today web site. Why was he on mainstream TV again? Because he recently returned to competition (at the X Games in Dubai – No, really!) again after taking the world’s most famous slam, which of course gave them a good excuse to show it again. In the video clip you can hear Meredith Vieira’s uncomfortable noises as she watches the slam, and afterwards, for a brief few sentences Matt Lauer asks Jake if he’s OK, but the tone of his voice is like mine after my two year old takes a particularly hard spill. It’s kind of creepy. Jake returned to competition on the vert ramp, but decided to avoid the mega ramp for his maiden voyage. Wise man. Check it out. Got a Mac? The video still works even though they redirect you to a page that says your browser is unsupported. You have to click through a few extra times. I wonder why Microsoft would do that?