Teen Vogue has a short bio on Navajo Nation skateboarder Naiomi Glasses, who skates in traditional dress, sometimes on not-so-traditional terrain. She’s blowing up on what the kids call Tik-Tok, which has nothing to do with Vine….

When a plain old skateboard isn’t enough and you need to add a motorized sound to get the kids excited, the Irwin corporation has you covered. The advert is most likely from a 1965-66 Playthings Magazine, an industry publication for toy retailers. A suggested retail of $1.98 ( Under $17 according to the US Inflation Calculator) would have gotten you a noisy plastic sled that didn’t really turn. Fun! Time to “cash in on this surfboarding business.” Order your Whoom-m Jr. Sidewalk Surfer now! Thanks to Darren Haugen for the pics.

While we were out, Playmobil launched an action set featuring Chad Muska as the skateboard bandit and George Michael as the cop… Or maybe that’s not really true. However they currently have 2 sets featuring skateboarded typecast as the bad guys. There not just run of the mill skateboarding-where-they-aren’t-suposed-to-be bad guys either, they are involved in high stakes robbery and… it’s hard to say what that stick is for… illegal water divining? – Thanks to Josef for the tip.

Apparently in the world of skateboarding there are these things called magazines, and in particular, the longest running skateboard magazine called “Thrasher” is still a thing. Why on earth would Skate and Annoy link to Thrasher? We like to help out the little guys. Yuk, yuk, yuk… You should definitely check out the Kevin Thatcher interview from the January print issue that just went online. Hey kids, Kevin was a name once synonymous with Thrasher. It seemed inconceivable that there would ever be a Thrasher magazine without him, but to hear him tell it, it was definitely a group effort. Learn about the gory, glory days of mechanical paste ups before everything became Wild Riders of Keyboards… Photo: Self described Pro-for-5-minutes Kevin Thatcher in the Winchester halfpipe in 1978, by Gary Medeiros as seen at Tunnel Skateboards.

Girl is Not. 4 Letter Word has a good read on Stephanie Person, a female black professional skateboard from the 80s. I could not recall her specifically appearing in mags in the 80’s but she did, and I do remember the featured “Sugar and Spice” article in Thrasher. Her experiences as a black female skater in the 80’s are unique even to other female skaters in the 80’s and not all for the reasons you’d expect. It’s notable that her career and sponsorships were result of her smart thinking and persistence. I only wish this had been a little more in-depth. One amusing side note: The editors’s note has to explain what a Swatch is for younger readers. – Thanks to Jason Lilly for the tip.

We started as a print zine in 1986, moved online around 1996 and moved into “new media” (late 90’s buzzword alert!) around the turn of the millennium when we started recording and archiving skateboarding whenever it appeared in movies, TV shows or commercials that we were able to see. You may have seen some of our donated archival footage in the 2008 documentary Deathbowl to Downtown. At the time we started the biggest hassle was the actual recording. Now that the technology is simple, the biggest hassle is keeping track of it all.

Variety Magazine reports that a Lords of Dogtown TV series is in the works at IMDb TV. “In the works” probably means very early stages, pre-pre production. This could mean 0 episodes get produced, or a pilot , or a pilot and a handful of first episodes… who knows. At one point in my life as a young skateboarder this would have gotten me really excited. Now that I’m just an old man yelling at clouds, something like this just makes me sigh, even if it won’t cost me a penny to watch a TV adaptation of a movie dram adaptation of a documentary film. You have to wonder if any of the original parties involved will see a dime from this. – Tip via Heidi Lemon

“Vlees doet ‘t ‘m” translates to “Meat Does it.” This the skateboarding version of a series of stickers produced for the Meat Information Office (?) of the Netherlands. This sticker is about 3″ large and part of a large series featuring all manners of other sports. I couldn’t find a date anywhere, but it looks to be late 70’s or early 80’s. Nice astronaut helmet! – Thanks to David Maes for the tip, even if you did send it back in 2018!

I’m stubborn and I refuse to rent music.. I still buy CD’s and MP3s. I have giant tubs filled with CD’s and my iTunes library has 35,805 songs in it. I usually set it on shuffle and quite often something will play and I won’t remember where I got it from. That’s what happened to me today when the Prongles jingle came up. It’s sassy hip-hop skewering of youth-target advertising from earlier times. It seems retro and new at the same time. Well, way back in 2017, when we had some idea of how bad it was going to get in the USA but were only seeing the tip of the orange iceberg, Cards Against Humanity had already had enough, so they launched a prank product that you could actually buy called Prongles, with the tag line Make America Crunch Again. That’s Brayden, the Prongles hog skateboarding on the can. Prongles and the pig mascot were allegedly influenced by Mr. Trump. Did you register to vote? If so, you should vote as early as possible!

A public service announcement by the state of New York and certified young person Paul Rudd. Stick around til the end, and wear a damned mask so we don’t have to keep talking about Covid 19. I wonder if Paul knows Lenny Wozniak.