Exotic Magazine can be found in strip clubs in the Portland area (or so I ‘ve been told, if my wife asks.) It’s pretty much an excuse to advertise strip clubs, lingerie and fetish wear, and about two pages of articles. They have a cover girl who is featured in the centerfold calendar of all the adult events for the month. The September 2007 issue appears to have been shot at a very famous skate spot in Portland. I for one, want to protest the way in which the skater in the photograph is objectified and robbed of his identity by not showing his head, as if he is just a piece of meat. It really burns me up inside. [Source: Sleestak]

Are you sick of Oregon Trifecta coverage? You’d think we would be. After I made a flippant comment (Who, me?) about the conglomerated Extreme™! sports nature of the Banquet web site, I heard back from the site’s content manager Cody Whitman: We started banquet as a resource for filmmakers and photographers (we sell downloads of DVD’s and are in the process of helping photogs sell stock photos) and this is why there are a variety of sports on our site. It is true that “conglomerate” sites don’t make sense in a lot of ways within action sports (or whatever the hell you want to call them), but in some respects they do. We are all filmmakers, photographers and writers as well as participants in our respective sports and whether you are shooting skating or skiing there are commonalities. We understand the differences between the cultures, clearly there is no such thing as a shared lifestyle across these sports or even within them for that matter. But the truth of the matter is skating is a three man sport, the skater, the photog and the filmer…. Maybe there aren’t similarities between a skater and someone riding motocross but there are between…

Be careful what you wish for. If you spend the time and money to make something worthwhile online, you want people to read it. If you get too many people reading, it can become quite expensive and time consuming to maintain. I used to spend a lot of time on Concrete Disciples and Sleestak. As I started to develop Skate and Annoy more, I gradually chose to spend more time creating on SNA and less time reading other sites. Maintaining these things can be a bitch, just ask the guys who do it. Adding forums generates a headache of a different level of magnitude. Imagine every jackass commenter you see on this site multiplied by 100 or 500. Flame wars, server overloads, spam posts… I know, cry me river right? I haven’t been following it in detail, but I know Jeff Greenwood over at Concrete Disciples had some health issues for a while, and I think he’s turned over the reigns of CD for the most part. A while ago they made the decision to contract an online advertising agency to help generate ad revenue and pay for the heavy usage the site gets. At first there were a lot…

This Tigard Times article on the skatepark from July had some background on the park. Also check out some of the old info including a plan drawing at the Tigard City website skatepark page. A story has been circulating about how the changes to the original design came about. The Tigard City government folks have been pleased with the professionalism of the Dreamland crew and the progress of the skatepark. When Dreamland said they could save a couple of the big trees on the site by altering the design, they were pretty much given the go ahead to make what changes they saw fit. This is how it has been done in the smaller towns and has been a great boon to skaters. Design/Build just makes sense. Those guys get on site and discover lines as they build. If they can improve flow by altering the design, they should.

I’ve scoured the web for more examples of Skateball (or Skate-Ball – they can’t make up their mind). The only thing that turns up besides our previous post is another actual pinball game. (More on that later.) Jeff Hottle had this old low-res image of a Skate-Ball flyer he got off the web ages ago, but the original source remains shrouded in mystery. A full retail business including skateboarding accessories, roller skating and other youth oriented products. Skateball is made up of 4 different ramps, bowls, runs and moguls each with their own scoreboard and timing device. Can be located in strip stores, shopping centers and free standing buildings. Minimum cash investment $25,000. You can see the whole flyer after the jump. UPDATE 2021: 14 years later… Secured a high-res scan in the Vintage Adverts gallery.

Hello, my name is Mark and I’m a recovering mongo pusher. I read Chris Yandall’s exhortation to Cut the Jive and Jog when it appeared in the June 1976 issue of Skateboarder magazine and it made sense to me. On a long distance push it helps to switch up. I push both ways to this day. Turns out he’s still er, pushing the idea with his Skogging! website. I figured I would add a personal confession to the Skateboarding Sucks parade of ridicule.

MC Shot of the Week is the name he uses when he moonlights as a techno-trance DJ. Our own Mark Conahan is in the Shot of the Week on Skate Daily, the week being this week. MC says there’s not a lot of overlap between Skate Daily and Skate and Annoy which means I can start reading it more regularly. I had stopped because I didn’t want there to be a situation where we were just regurgitating the same stories, even though it’s likely we both subscribe to the same Google alerts. I don’t know, seeing Conahan in a SD shot of the week sure seems like overlap to me! And here I was just about to hit up BK for a SOTW on Skate and Annoy. The Portland Skate Media Mafia is ruthless. Thanks to Orezona for the tip.

The OC Register among others is reporting that one Huntington Beach skatepark will likely be shut down due to foul language, vandalism, and sexually degrading comments made to female athletes practicing at the nearby high school field. Way to keep it real guys. Ed Templeton is a local and he says he rarely sees bad behavior. Officials at the school want it gone and the parks district seems bent on relocation. The police station across the street says there are very few if any problems with the park. It’s looking more and more like a case of the people in power just wanting it gone. They claim keeping it open will cost $300,000 for maintenance. 300k? get out of town! It’s only a 6,200 square foot park that is essentially flat! You could almost build two of those parks for that amount of money in Portland. To be fair, part of that 300k would go to a bathroom facility. It’s hard to find decent pictures of this skatepark. After checking out a few on Socal Skateparks it looks like relocation (as long as it’s nearby) might be the best thing to happen to locals. The current park (albeit via the…

The city of Corpus Christi Texas banned the practice of “grinding” along their precious sea wall eight months ago, but so far have only handed out a few citations and the grinding continues. They’ve got themselves worked up in a lather to spend $50,000 on Skate Stoppers and consider an investment well spent to rid the sea walk of the evidence of grinding that is an “eyesore.” I’m sure the Skate Stoppers will eliminate all grinding. That’s money well spent, guys. Now imagine if instead they could spend half that much money on building skateable ledges nearby for kids. Problem solved. [Source: KRISTV.com]

I came across this web site (get your mind out of the gutter) while doing some, errrr, research. Gaybar Zine is a German web site that handles all your skate, BMX, graffiti and even struller needs. Kind of like a modern Action Now I guess. I’m not sure what the connection is with the Gaybar title. Maybe it’s one of those things where it means something different in German, Kind of like the time I was in Polland and saw an amusement park ride called the “Super Fahrt.” Anyway, I can’t hear the words “gay bar” without thinking of the Electric Six.