Wes Humpston and Kat Von D got together to design a skateboard on Kat’s tv show LA Ink. Supposedly they are going to have a whole line of boards, although it seems more like something that was cooked up just for TV. The first hand drawn original board is being auctioned on eBay to benefit the Tony Hawk Foundation. My DVR didn’t pick up that episode, but someone else’s did. In the beginning of the design process there’s a funny bit where Kat says, “What should we put in the inside?” and Wes responds with “I like to do skulls and stuff.” Didn’t see that one coming. You can see the board in detail and watch the episode after the jump. It hasn’t been edited to show only Wes’ bits (get your mind out of the gutter), but hey, I didn’t have to do anything. The auction ends Friday, November 16 at 6 PM (PST). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Kat is slightly more photogenic than Wes.

Tony Hawk appears on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” tonight at 8pm (7 central). You can watch a few clips on the official Fox web site. Must be a celebrity edition for charity. Tony might be fond of game shows with question marks, as he was also on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Is he smarter than a 5th grader? Who knows, but one thing is for certain, chances are he’s richer than your dad. Headlines like “Tony Hawk: The “Bird Man” with Hawk-like Vision” have got to make him cringe whether or not the web sites is “dedicated to redefining success.”

The Back Athlete Sports Network (Yeah, I’m a subscriber) has an article titled Extreme Sportsman Carving His Own Way Through Life. I love the title “Extreme Sportsman.” It makes him sound so gentlemanly and brings to mind some old English guy dressed up for a safari with a pith helmet, pipe and Elephant gun. Blacula, I mean Blaxtreme sportsman Christopher “Crib” Butler’s interview is not very extreme. We do learn that in the 80’s his black friends accused him of trying to be white by skateboarding. Flying in the faces of stereotypes, he actually had to go to the ghetto to buy his first real skateboard! What was it? A Vision Kele Rosecrans. That makes him even more of a minority! Oh stop it, you’re killing me! Crib still skates, surfs and snowboards. Since 2007 he’s been shaping some nicely crafted longboards reminiscent of old surfboards under the name Malu Longoboards. For a brief time in the early nineties some of my friends and I thought we were “______.” I leave that term blank because “Extreme Sports” hadn’t been coined in 1992. We were skateboarding, bungie jumping, mountain biking, skydiving and motorcycle riding, etc. We called it “Live by the sword.” Thank god I got over that identity crisis. Then I found out what we were… a Demographic!

Intercooler is either a heat exchange device used on turbocharged internal combustion engines to improve their volumetric efficiency, or an Australian band. Take your pick. This music video (or is it a commercial for Element?) for Intercooler’s You’re Not Gonna Hurt Us Again features two people I’ve never heard of: Australian pro skateboarder Corbin Harris and director Michael Ebner. That’s OK, I don’t live in Australia, but I’m making up for it with Australia day on SnA. The production company that made this video is also shooting “Bondi 3000: The Making Of.” which covers “the schizoid, snail-paced production of a futuristic English epic, about how in the year 3000 the British will reclaim Bondi from Australia.” It must be skatepark envy. And yes, Lorem Ipsum is my favorite perfume. What am I talking about? Watch the video, a heartbreaking story of a hot chick who dumps her boyfriend because he won’t stop skating a miniature mashed potato half pipe with his sausage. I kid you not. (Insert fingerboard joke here.)

Does that background graphic look familiar? The article is an interview with a well-known fly-fishing personality. I wonder if he has a dark history – he does suggest he might have to kill the interviewer if forced to reveal his fishing plans. thisisfly.com is a web ‘zine targeted at dudes who like to get radical with a flyrod. I am told that the east coast saltwater scene is a more thrill oriented than the freshwater scene. I wonder if these guys are into the PBR rather than the single-malt scotch and briar pipes.

No, not Mike Tyson the ear-biting tattoo-faced psychopath, but Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog. He’s going to be on Oprah on November 6th, and Harpo has posted a schlocky preview of it on YouTube. Oprah’s got a tight lockdown on the way her image is portrayed, right down to denying others the ability to embed the videos, so you’ll have to leave the friendly confines of Skate and Annoy to watch it directly on YouTube. She does have her finger on pulse of popular culture though. After this very timely TV appearance of the popular phenomenon known as Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog, I hear she’s going to have exclusive animation of that dancing baby from 1997.

Yes, we’ve mentioned Google Maps Street View before, but it’s still good to make a note when various skate spots come online. Here’s a peek at perhaps the world’s most famous skatepark. Burnside never looked so clean. Thanks to Grumpy Joe for the tip.

ESPN (or EXPN, make up your mind guys) has a short article called Skate Rock Refined that talks about the musical projects of some pro skaters. It leads off with Danny Way and Bob Burnquist’s band Escalera, and eventually gets around to Tommy Guerrero, Ray Barbee, Matt Rodriguez and Chuck Treece. Did you know that Barbee got his first guitar from Stacy Peralta? Check it out.

Speaking of rock and roll, Linda Stein was found murdered in her apartment. Who was she? Among other things, a former Ramones manager and ex wife of Seymour Stein, the founder of Sire Records, the Ramones record label for 11 of their 14 full length studio recordings.

The Portland weekly free paper Willamette Week, or W Week as it’s now called, has picked up on the issue of the City of Tigard’s skatepark rule that would seem to be contrary to the U.S. Constitution. This week’s Rogue of the Week is the City of Tigard. Way down at the bottom of the article they mention yours (ours?) truly…

At skateandannoy.com, bloggers have posted rants and cartoons mocking the rule, and a plea for $5 donations to make stickers opposing it. Our check’s in the mail.

I hate being referred to as a blogger, but if it helps get more donations then that’s OK. Currently we collected $35, which is about a third of what we’d like to be at. And actually, most of the donations are from distant geographical areas, so let’s step it up Oregonians! We’ll let you know if the WWeek follows through on their promise to donate. Thanks to D.T. for the plant and many others for the tip off.

We love to tease About.com’s skateboarding section. Usually it’s good natured, but this time I have to resort to outright heckling. Steve Cave has published Indy Grab – Learn how to Indy Grab – skateboarding trick tips. OK not a bad idea, except for the fact that at no single point does he mention that an Indy air MUST BE BACKSIDE or else it’s just a regular frontside or stinkbug. If you are going to help kids learn about skateboarding, stop propagating inaccuracies. As defined in About.com’s skateboard dictionary:

Definition: Indy describes a specific type of grab, where the skater or snowboarder reaches his or her back hand down and grabs the toe side of the skateboard or snowboard between the rider’s feet. The Indy is the most common type of grab in skateboarding and snowboarding. When describing grabs, the word Grab is often dropped from the name. For example, performing an Indy grab while spinning 360 degrees frontside is called an Frontside Indy 360.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! There is no such thing as a frontside indy. Oh wait, I have a box of them next to the left handed smoke benders from my snipe hunting days.