I love iStockphoto. I’ve even purchased a couple of pictures for use on Skate and Annoy, non skateboarding pictures, mind you. The big picture on the left came up on a Google alert today, and all it said was “Extreme Skateboarding,” so I had to check. A cursory search for other “Extreme Skateboarding” images brought up 44 inages total, a couple of which were also funny. Funny in that they aren’t very, well, you know, Extreme!™ There’s standing guy on the top right, and my favorite, a kid doing a slide of sorts with his hands planted. In thumbnail view it just looks like an eviscerated torso.. Hold on, that’s not right. The torso is missing, so it’s just a couple of legs and an ass on a skateboard. Wait, the photog has labeled it Headless Skateboarder. Gawd, what a great post I just made.

I kept hearing that Dave Chapelle skated, but I never saw it. Now I have, sort of. Looks like he’s more of a street skater, but someone at RYE Airfield got him on the vert ramp.

– Thanks to Chip Jones for the tip.

New issue of This is Fly is out. Another skateboarding connection-coincidence? Issue five includes the video Fish Tales inspired by a Jeremy Fish fish shaped board from Element. Crazy urban fishing highjinks and a little skateboarding.

Korea.net has an article titled “Financial crisis knocked Koreans down, lifted them.” One of the featured success stories is Kang Sin-ki, who is now the CEO of Slovie, Inc, and the guy who actually invented those wacky toy skateboards:

Homeless, he slept near Seoul Station and picked up day labor when he could get it, sending any extra money back to his family. In his free time, Kang thought about a way to escape his lot and came up with a great idea — a wholly new skateboard. Mastering the design was less difficult than securing the means to produce, promote and sell the product. He pitched his idea everywhere looking for venture capital. Finally, through a whopping 1.5 billion won government-backed KIBO Technology Fund loan, Kang was back in business.

1.5 billion won loan? Talk about a government bail-out. But how much is a won worth and how much money could he be making on such a piece of crap? The article says he’s sold 10 billion won worth of Essboards in the US and Europe, which as of this writing, translates to $10.8 million.

Florence, Alabama via TimesDaily.com: Council may kill obscure ‘scooter’ law

The city council will consider repealing a little-known and hardly enforced ordinance that bans sports, games and wheeled toys from city streets when it meets today. The issue gained attention two weeks ago after Mayor Bobby Irons shelved an amendment that would have banned skateboards from city streets and sidewalks. He is working with the city attorney on an alternative ordinance. Although still in progress, his alternative resolution would define geographically where skateboarding would be restricted.

Now if they’d just just kill off those obscure scooter riders. Ba-dum-bump! Ha! Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of work for a one liner. Here’s a link about an up an coming hot young talent on the inline skating circuit (There still is one?) who originally stared of on a skateboard. While I’m at it, Rocketboy on the right is from Rocketman Enterprises, not to be confused with Handstand Man.

Clearing off the hard drive here. Tony Hawk was on MTV’s TRL (OMG Totally AWESOME!) where they interviewed him afterwards. Apparently “The Birdman bigged it up to Ryan Sheckler…” Err… yeah. Then he Gave Ryan some advice (stop crying when you don’t win?) on the Life of Ryan. Fat BMX reports that Rick Thorne interviews Tony Hawk for another social networking great white hype TRIG.com, except they don’t provide a link. However, Mr Thorne assures the readers that you should sign up for Trig.com because “it’s smokin’ My Space and I think It’s good 2 keep U wit tha times.” I’m sure he’s not getting anything from them. Let’s see… Some kids interviewed Tony Hawk at a Toys R Us store but Courant.com wants you to pay to read it now that it’s more than 30 days old. I wonder if those download fees are offsetting the loss in ad revenue? A couple weeks ago the gaming sites were a buzz about the possibility that Tony might be considering a balance board type controller for use in a skateboarding game on the Wii platform. I guess you need to keep the “I”‘s lowercase when typing in Wii or else it looks like World War 2. Maybe not. In really old news, Toy Directory Monthly has a 2004 interview

Jesus Mousepads! Get your Jesus mousepads here! Holeyware is a Café Press store, so it’s not like these are actual mass produced items for sale. Still, it’s nice to know you can buy a mouse pad with Jesus on a bad 80’s skateboard. I mean if he’s really old school, shouldn’t he be on a 70’s deck or even a 60’s plank with steel wheels. Actually, your Lord and Saviour is from the New Testament, so he’s really more New School, like this Jesus on a hand rail action figure. I think my source for this post is actually upset about this.

In a moment of weakness I must have blacked out and sleep walked over to a computer where I bought this 1965 magazine advertisement for Mademoiselle Shoes. I don’t know what magazine it came from because the jackals that dissect these old magazines and sell individual pages online don’t bother to catalog this information. In fact, I think the page size may have been trimmed at the very edges to remove any identifying marks. After all, there are no staple marks visible, although it could have been perfect bound. I can’t tell for certain because the purveyor is curiously absent minded to any of my questions that aren’t “What else do you have for sale?” I paid $13 plus shipping. My wife is annoyed and insists I’d better frame it or else it will be a waste of money. Of course framing it will cost more than the advert. Click to enlarge. Bonus points if you can reference the title of this post in it’s original context and the song it was sampled in. No cheating.

I was reading a story in the San Jose Mercury News about a girl who died after falling off the tenth floor of a parking garage that said her crew skated. She wasn’t skating at the time. Anyway, on the side of the page there was an advert for an email marketing company called Constant Contact that caught my eye because there was a skateboard flipping around in the box. It ended up with a still of the new millennium Business Skater Dude. Somewhere, if he was dead, Judge Reinhold would be spinning in his grave, seeing as how he was the 80’s archetype in the movie poster for Vice Versa. Vice Versa is one of those body exchanging movies like Freaky Friday. And while we are on the subject, it wasn’t the only body switching movie to come out 1988. 18 Again! came out the same year but is more notable (for us at least) for having a simulated live performance and soundtrack appearance by legendary funny punks The Dickies, who also have a skateboard model out now, albeit about 20 years too late to do them any good. George Burns was in that movie. I think he may even appear on screen with the Dickies.

Odd timing that I came across this news item immediately after posting the the Cool Girls story. It’s 10 days old but I’d still like to mention it. When you think 70’s skateboards, you’ll most likely envision a plastic banana board and some sort of fiberglass deck. The Logan Earth Ski has got to be near the top of iconic 70’s skateboards that weren’t merely toys. Never being more than casually aware of 70’s skateboarding history, I always assumed that the brand and company was completely the handiwork of 70’s skater Bruce Logan. It turns out his whole family was involved, and mother Barbara and brother Brian were the ones that mostly ran the company. Barbara recently passed away after battling breast cancer at the age of 79. She was apparently well liked in the industry. You can read the death notice that includes a little bit of history in the North County Times. Gravity also makes a board that is more of a tribute to the original Logan Earth Ski as opposed to a straight re-issue.