In January we mentioned Grant Britain on some obscure educational network TV program. He’s back on the air again with “A lecture by renowned skateboarding photographer Grant Brittain about his life and work.” I’m not sure if this is the same thing as the last one, but I sure would like to see this. After all, he is our current SOTW.

1958 RCA Deluxe picture from Eric’s Vintage Television Sets

When Oregon Scientific decided they needed some on location shots of their helmet mounted waterproof action cam, the ATC2K, they chose Portland’s Pier Park instead of some other less family friendly locations. Not surprising since the company is based in Tualitin Oregon. Actually, it is surprising since Newberg would have been a heck of a lot closer. California parks show up in tv commercials and print ads all the time, so it’s interesting when a local Portland park is featured. Or not. This poor, unfortunate youth appears be using his helmet cam to avoid seeing footage of himself looking very stiff or possibly posing himself on a skateboard. The waterproof ATC2K is being hawked on Costco, and shows video footage of from a trip down a waterslide which makes me think they are missing out on a potentially more lucrative niche market, adult watersports. (Cue track six from the Surf Punks’ album Local’s Only.) Now to hit up these guys for a review model. Thanks to Roger Harrell of Skateboarder Magazine for the tip.

Great thread on Concrete Disciples about a guy who took his kids to Burnside and got vibed by the locals. His threats to start a petition to try to get Burnside closed ruffled a few feathers. Abuse is heaped, the terrorists win. Pretty funny that he ends up getting vibed on the website too! I’m going to go out on a limb and call the TimK SnA’s Douchebag of the Week. I’m guessing his next petition will try to close down the Indy500 because they wouldn’t let his kids ride their pedal cars on the track.

A tutorial on removing your bearings can be found at About.com which is a New York Times venture.

About’s treatment of Skateboarding is squeaky clean. Marketers to youth and school teachers should find the site useful, making it easier for them to rap with the young people. Amazing that this Steve Cave character gets paid to rewrite the book of skateboarding making sure everything is spelled correctly. I’m waiting for the Time Life how-to series.

Are there skateboarders out there who haven’t figured out how to use an axle to remove a bearing? I wonder if About.com can help?

Which brings to mind an amazing skate repair tip I watched at Pier Park one day. A kid was looking for spare bearings because his were totally seized. Mike Swim took one of the kid’s non-rolling bearings and applied a little PBR. No shit, it freed up the previously frozen bearing. You can’t learn nothin’ in school they don’t teach you on the streets.

Some cool shots in Dave Hupp’s latest photo samples, like this one of Sage in the Pier Park pipe.

Boy, 14 injured at skate park – Coventry,UK Emergency medical technician Steve Mason said: “We were told that the lad had been trying an audacious stunt but unfortunately came off his skateboard. …

Lads, if you must try those audacious stunts, you would do well to employ protective devices.

A website called Office Politics had a recent query by someone who might lose his job because he isn’t into skateboarding. Oh and because he/she’s 40-years-old. Your supervisor isn’t named Shawn Fendick by any chance?

I wonder what would happen if it was a 40-year-old vert skater or the guy pushed mongo?

old guy photo by Rich Burton

Cool German pdf ‘zine Bailgun has a photo only web presence that has a lot of cool and arty shots. All of the shots above are by Gerd Rieger.

Ready for another online zine? Tweaker appears to be a UK based skate zine and not a Midwest USA zine for meth heads. Tweaker is one big Flash application that mimics a real magazine, but with a few multimedia tweaks, if you will. The traditional folded over letter-sized paper aspect ratio is preserved, and corners peel up when you mouse over them. Some of the photos can bring up an overlaying sequence, some pages have video embedded and some pages can scroll. I’m not a fan of Flash-based simualtions of printed magazines, but in this case I think it might work. It’s more immersive because it not only looks like a printed zine, but it has the ability to do things print can’t do, or at least not until they get digital paper perfected and available cheaply. One example is embedded video out takes from Winstan Whitter’s “Rollin’ Through The Decades” documentary in an article about a famous street spot. Tweaker is in beta right now so it’s a little buggy and slow. For instance, you can flip a page with the video playing and it will continue to play even after the page turning effect is over. It looks cool, but the sound can interfere with next page. There’s a mixture of street and park skating, old and new, plus a little bit of the now mandatory artsy-fartsy content. The fact that they bothered to make the beta version live confirms my opinion that this thing is going to be very labor intensive to publish. I hope they figure out a way to make it work. Check out Tweaker.

[Source: The Goat]

(Cue the Devo Corporate Anthem) Hey all you Rad Daddy Warbucks, TheStreet.com has some pros and cons on investing in Zumiez stock.

I confess to getting a kick out of analyst reports describing Zumiez customers as “antimainstream kids” and referring to the company’s focus on the “action sports teen lifestyle.” Before going over all the positives, let’s get one thing straight — Zumiez is very much in the mainstream. It’s not some bastion of coolness or a hush-hush hangout where the skaters go. Rather, it’s a chain of stores in the mall where kids go to spend their allowances…

…The fact that Zumiez is pulling customers in while the competition loses them is a pretty obvious indicator of who has the right stuff in their stores. There are a number of forces at work here. First, Zumiez has identified what’s cool and, more important, captured the attitude necessary to convince customers that even though they’re shopping in a corporate chain located in a mall, it’s still cool. Yes, teenage tastes are fickle, but Zumiez has staked out an attractive niche between the more vulnerable one-brand clothiers (such as American Eagle and Abercrombie (ANF – Cramer’s Take – Stockpickr)) and “old school” skateboard shops that cater to a cultural group (this is where the Street likes to use the term “lifestyle”).

So go put your parent’s money where your mouth is.