This clip of Tony Hawk skating in the desert somewhere is pretty amazing. I’m guessing (and pulling it out of my ass, really) that this is from the new Birdhouse video The Beginning maybe? As for the skating spectacle and cinematography, it’s great regardless of your personal feelings on Tony. And really, let’s talk about our feelings. Are you ashamed that you have personal feelings about Tony Hawk? Do you wear a hat made out of tin foil to keep him from discovering them via telepathy? I’m going to be really bummed out if I find out those dust storms are computer generated. Also of interest is Jeep product placement, which I’m sure he got paid for. Who knows, maybe it’s for an upcoming Jeep commercial. As for the web site it resides on, Shred or Die, don’t get Mark started on the name. As far as the site goes, it looks like another crossover action sports social networking attempt, and Hawk is all over that place. I’ll say one thing for them, they did a good job on the video controller compared to the rest of them, YouTube included. They have an instant replay feature and the holy grail…

I snapped this picture after a late night skate session with Dr. Brad, some time around 1988. I don’t think this air freshener had any special powers to combat pad rot. The copyright says 1958! Maybe that’s when the illustration was was first printed, but it seems a little early if you ask me.

OK, it’s a bit of a stretch, but from India comes the movie Kranti that features an action scene with very Back-to-the-Future-esque stunt skateboarding. You can watch a clip of a policeman using a skateboard to capture a criminal on the run over at Nanarland. Best pause it and let it all download before playing. [Source: Boyington on Flickr]

Time was when a jock wouldn’t be caught dead on a skateboard. What are you, 10 years old? Skateboards are kid’s toys, you fag! Nowadays it’s a different story. Star athletes in high schools and colleges are getting injured on skateboards and it’s making the papers. By the way, it’s impossible to find a decent still photo from the Breakfast Club on the web anywhere. I had to resort to spending way too much time on picking a good screen capture from a DVD. The things I do for skateboarding… Molly Ringwald peaked in this movie.

Speaking of long awaited reissues, Van Halen is on tour with David Lee Roth. I love Van Halen. OK, I’m out of the closet now, in terms of rock and roll. Van Halen requires David Lee Roth to be considered the real Van Halen. Others need not apply. Are we on the same page here? Good. Now someone please tell me where this old picture of David Lee Roth on a skateboard came from. This is the largest size I have, and everyone knows Diamond Dave is larger than life. Actually, any larger and you might be able to see some brains peeking out. Nice sack, man! This is as good as an excuse as any to call for celebrity skateboarding photos. Send them in. [Photo: Right – Official Van Halen]

When I first got a copy of Wire’s Pink Flag album I was hypnotized. The music was unlike any of their punk contemporaries, but it still made perfect sense to a kid in the suburbs of Chicago in the mid-80’s. It was kind of like the missing link for me. Minimal, but incredibly rich at the same time. Catchy but abrupt and confrontational. Discovering music used to be a much more sensual experience. It required considerably more effort than it does today. After buying a record I would usually pour over every minute detail of the artwork while listening to the turntable. It was an experience that deserved my full attention. When you were in a cultural desert like the suburban Midwest was, you savored every morsel you got. The back cover of Pink Flag has fake biological data about the band, and one of the things I couldn’t get past was the drummer’s name, Robert Gotobed. Everyone else had regular enough sounding names, so was Gotobed a goof or what? Anyway, it fascinated me. I desperately wanted to meet him – remember, cultural desert… Others have waxed on about Wire much more articulately than I am apparently capable of,…

I hesitated to post this because I didn’t want it to come off like we were pushing something off that was paid advertising in reality. (Hey check out Active’s dope new ad, it’s effing insert latest slang here!) Of course, if you are listening Acitve Mail Order, there’s room for you in our banner ad rotation if you you want to buy it. OK, so Active had an open call to show up for an ad shoot for Erik Ellington. His fans showed up, they shot the ad and documented the process as well. I don’t know jack about Erik Ellington, but he comes off well in the short video, even taking the time to shake every extra’s hand and thank them personally. I imagine if you were a fan of his and got to meet him informally and be in one of his adverts you’d be age appropriately stoked. The ad is slick, but the reality is mundane. If you’ve ever wondered how these things go, spend a few minutes behind the scenes. Note to Active: You have a dead link to the casting call. All those social networking links are nice, but it would have been a lot…

And I thought Seattle was the only city that liked to tear down perfectly good skateparks without making er, concrete plans to replace them. You can add Huntington Beach California to that short list of cities. The OC Register reports that the plans for a new stadium will definitely eliminate the existing park without including a replacement. Ironically, California has just started running a second tourism commercial that features skateboarding as a draw. What are you going to do about that Governor Schwarzenegger? Your state’s skateparks are being terminated! [Photo Right: Mark Martinez, The Register]

Concrete Wave has released their third volume of the Evolutions DVD that they give out free to subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, they’d like to entice you by letting you watch the whole thing online via Google video. They also have an arrangement with Silverfish Longboarding to make the whole thing avialable for download in compressed AVI files. Concrete Wave is famous for their extensive, some might say over-extensive coverage of longboarding, downhill and slalom. There’s plenty of that kind of footage to be sure, but there are other styles to balance it out. You can watch the videos and get my 2 cents after the jump.

The folks over at Old School Skateboarding are having their second annual private skate bash at Windells on October 14th. They’ve rented the whole place out for five hours. You can check out the facilities, but make sure you contact OSS for details. Kids get in at a discount, and it’s a better alternative to this.