One of the best WTF marketing crossovers, Zenetti, a company that makes tacky fancy rims for shallow people obsessed with automobiles and the bling lifestyle, now has a skateboarding team.

Zenetti the automotive leader in wheel design has teamed up with Dominic DeLuca of the world famous skate shop & streetwear boutique; Brooklyn Projects; to form the wheel industries first ever official skate team. This is not your typical sponsorship scenario, where a company just giving a skateboarder a set of wheels, poses for a picture and you never hear about them again. This is an official skate team with a complete partnership, including magazine features, show appearances and advertising campaign. We have some of the top skate professionals in the world representing our brand and feel that our partnership will help elevate the industry and spark a new trend. These athletes were hand picked by Dominic and Zenetti for their trendsetting style as well as the fact that they embody what Zenetti stands for as a brand; superior performance, cutting edge style, and class.

They hope the team will “help elevate the industry and spark a new trend.” Which industry? Who knows? Is the new trend to use demographic specific “celebrities” to advertise things that most people in the demographic (kids) can’t afford or possibly can’t even legally use? Check out the team. Braydon Szafranski looks like he escaped from and old SNL skit with two wild and crazy guys and Terry Kennedy is too cool to even look at the camera. His sponsor must be so stoked to pay him a bunch of money to be embarrassed to promote their products. I hope these guys get a lot of money from Zenetti, who deserves the financial sucker punch.

[Source: Skate Life]

Earth Patrol Media shows us what happens when second (and third) string skateboard company moguls get in to the Dew Tour. Unfortunately, they were unable to abscond with the effigy of Ryan Sheckler, or burn it. Can you believe they want to sell you Dew Tour skateboards for $80? These are not completes mind you, just the deck. It’s ironic that the graphic on the deck is a bunch of robots. Maybe they’ll make one with lemmings next time. Check it out.

This skateboarding cow is from a series of advertisements for McDonald’s in China that features exercising cows. A few advertising blogs have spotlighted it, but they don’t appear to know anything about it (other than who made it) and never seem to point back to the source of the image. It took me a few days to find someone who reproduced it larger. Check it out after the jump.

If you are going to have a crappy job, it might as well be at a skateboard magazine. Actually, I’m just assuming it will be a crappy job, but historically, photogs in second string magazines are not the best paid. No ding on Slap, I actually haven’t seen an issue in years, but it’s obvious that Thrasher is the flagship of that publisher. Submit your photos and you could win a six month paid position with real photo assignments. It will likely be low paying, but it’s temporary and it would be invaluable experience if you actually wanted to take a crack at doing it for a living. For some reason they are also accepting video submissions for a photo job, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They are looking for young photographers with technical knowhow, so I’m out on both counts. Hey kids! Now’s your chance.

This website says she’s a self-proclaimed skatepunk. This is from a fashion supplement to Wired Magazine. Does she really have an empty pool in her backyard? I take all the scorn back, can I come over April?

I just got home from the Dew Tour and I turn on the TV to this, I want to send out my deepest sympathy to the family of Joseph Madison.

By KATU Web Staff
VANCOUVER, Wash. – A 16-year-old Vancouver boy was killed Sunday after falling from his skateboard while hanging onto a moving vehicle, police said.

The Clark County Sheriff’s Office identified the teen as Joseph Stefano Madison of Vancouver, Wash.

According to the sheriff’s office, Madison was being pulled by a vehicle driven by another 16-year-old when the incident happened about 4 p.m. at the intersection of Northeast 29th Avenue and Northeast 139th Street – just down the street from Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital.

The sheriff’s office said Madison was holding the rear driver’s side window and was being pulled down a road when the vehicle suddenly hit a dip in the street and Madison lost his grip on the window. The teen then fell to the ground and hit his head on the pavement.

Madison was declared dead at the scene.

Authorities did not say how fast they believe the car was traveling when the teen fell.

No one else was injured. There were two other 16-year-old passengers in the vehicle at the time.

The sheriff’s office said neither alcohol nor drugs appear to be a factor in the crash.

Source

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? Sort of. It turns out they all aren’t wife-beating child-haters. Portland has had at least one Police officer firmly entrenched in helping skateboarders move forward with the now completed plan to revamp Pier Park. (Name MC?) There’s also an officer in the Cayman Islands who lets kids skate on his backyard mini ramp, and there is also an outreach program in Lee-On-The-Solent or Hampshire ( I know! It’s a UK town or district, I can’t tell with all the wacky names they have) where Bobbies attend skate clinics with kids at local skateparks to reinforce positive interaction with police and kids. [Photo: Left and bottom – Solent News Photo. Top – Brent Fuller for the Cayman Compass ]

…and the Skate and Annoy servers are being braced for an onslaught of teenage girls posting “why all the hating? UR just jealous!” comments. Ryan Sheckler has a show on MTV called Life of Ryan. And now, my life is complete. The programming geniuses nay, wizards at MTV are really on a roll here, recycling yet another another skateboarder reality show, this time even managing to rip off Monty Python in the process. Head on over to the web site for lots of Tiger Beat style pinup photos of Ryan and his cast of friends and family, which apparently involve 55 gallon drums of hair product. How can we say he has an out of control ego?

[Source: Skate Daily via Skateboarding Sucks]

When Mark Conahan isn’t busy getting heckled for wearing pads or drawing comics, he’s appearing in magazines like Portland Monthly, where the richsters pretend to be hipsters. It’s not clear how Steve Grover got in past security, but he makes an appearance as well in the August Best of 07 issue that chose Pier Park as the city’s best skatepark. They try to imply that Pier Park is “gnarlier” than Burnside because it’s bowl is deeper, but that’s a pretty uninformed comparison. Who writes these articles? I mean seriously, your average Portland Monthly reader isn’t about to hop in the BMW and drive to the local skatepark, unless they are bringing their little kid. I’m sure a lot of them are going to drop in on the best place to get a tattoo as well. Yeah, I’m just jealous because we didn’t get chosen for Best Local and International Skate Coverage, even though that wasn’t one of the categories.

EA‘s upcoming skateboarding video game called Skate (Duh!) is being heralded as a Tony Hawk killer. Not the actual Tony Hawk, but his video game franchise… The idea that it will kill the franchise is slim to none. It could easily be better than the latest version of the Hawk-named game, but they’ll still milk make a few more because It’s firmly entrenched by now. This seems like a good a time as any to bring up Thrasher’s Skate and Destroy game, that unexpectedly fizzled. I mean, what a perfect product tie-in. The game was a good one too. It took a different approach from an art direction standpoint, going for a more stylized look than trying to emulate realism. They had a decent development studio behind it too. Maybe they were a little bit too early. Oh well, I guess everything Fausto touched couldn’t turn to gold.

I had kind of stopped collecting and chronicling current skateboarding video game commercials. They are just too prevalent now. This new one for Skate is pretty good though. It’s funny and features some name skaters acting on camera, and doing a good job of it too. The gist of it is that Danny Way’s thumb is becoming more famous for playing video games than Danny is for actually skating. The tagline is “Let your little skater out,” which is exactly the same euphemism Grover uses when he wants his wife to give him some action. “Come on baby, let my little skater out to have some fun!” Check it out. – Thanks to Eric Cherry for the tip.