Not much to say about this 1981 clip of Tony Hawk on the old children’s show Captain Kangaroo. I didn’t know the Captain was still on the air in 1981. It’s a little disappointing actually, since Tony’s appearance isn’t live on set with the Captain. Instead, it’s just video footage of tony skating Del Mar on a Steve Caballero board no less. The Captain’s crew even managed to record an old sea chanty titled Skateboard Johnny, not to be confused with the song Skateboard Johnny featured in this collection of 70’s skateboard tunes, or this UK child molester named Skateboard Johnny. Watch the video after the jump. [Source: Wall of Gray]

This week Willamette Week recommends Pier Park as a good outdoor destination. They include a photo of Ben Wixon by Daniel Root. Strange to see skateparks in the listings of things to do in the newspaper.

Skate Daily has posted some disturbing news, on 6/21 6 skaters crossed the path of Officer Joey Williams, a mistake. Joey took it upon himself to choke out a 16 year old skateboarder and in doing so, was filmed. Thanks to Youtube, the entire world can now see what happened on the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. After you watch this disturbing video – please email a civil statement to the Cheif of Police Bobby Southard (bsouthard@cityhs.net) demanding the firing of officer Joey Williams. MORE UPDATES: EMAILS FOR CITY COUNCIL NOW POSTED ‘pege1947@aol.com’; ‘direlainejon1@sbcglobal.net’; ‘srsmith12003@yahoo.com’; ‘sable@hsnp.com’; ‘td7965@aol.com’ UPDATE: emails no longer work, please use this contact information to get your message accross: Phone: (501) 321-6789 Fax: (501) 321-6708 This is unacceptable behavior by anyone wearing a badge. UPDATE: Officer on leave after tussle with Hot Springs skateboarders! [Photo: Skylar Nalls]

Back in January, Local IQ: Albuquerque’s Intelligent Alternative included an article about their new skatepark. The article Skate City is available on their website and includes a feature about and photos by Mörizen Föche formerly of Thrasher Magazine. Looks like a cool setting if the pictures are to be believed, they did a good job referencing the local architectural and skate heritage. Too bad they obscured the photos with their fancy graphic designs.

I get bombarded with press releases about the Dew Tour that I usually ignore. Thanks to Edison Carter of the now defunct (?) Flakezine for wrapping this up succinctly. Now if I could just get more people to do all my writing I’d be set. In the Mike Judge film Idiocracy an army librarian is accidently frozen for 500 years. When he finally makes it out of his pod he is in America in the year 2505. Everything has devolved. Stupid people have reproduced, while smart people haven’t. Everything is jacked up and dumbed down. People wear clothing covered in corporate logos, and mention their sponsors in everyday conversation like they’re on the podium at a Supercross race. While watching this film and cruising the web I noticed that Ryan Sheckler had just won the first stop of AST Dew Tour, the Panasonic Open. And look at that logo’d out shirt. It’s exactly like the one retarded lawyer Frito wears in Idiocracy. Skateboarding: living in an idiotic action future now.

The Examiner reports: “Skating a worldwide phenomenon.” Please click through for a thoughtful analysis of this late breaking news item.

So this post contains a YouTube video made from television broadcasts showing YouTube videos. Now if we could just get a video of this post broadcast on TV and re-recorded and posted on YouTube… The first bit is an Apple iPhone commercial and the second is Steven Colbert on The Colbert Report, both showcasing the skateboarding bulldog. Watch the vid after the jump.

More viral advertising featuring skateboarding. This one in a commercial from Nokia, masquerading as a company called Great Pockets. The joke being that you could buy custom tailored clothing with huge pockets to carry all your electronic gear, or of course you could just ditch all that gear for the Nokia N95 phone. Watch this kid try to skateboard while leaving a trail of battered consumer electronics after the jump.

Old people skateboarding certainly has been done before. (See Granny Skates for CarMax) This is a pretty good commercial from the UK, although I was disappointed that the old guy was a stunt man. For some reason I thought he was actually going to get on a board. Maybe the happy music made think it was going to be one of those touchy-feely “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” public service type of commercials. Instead it’s an ad for something called 118 118 which, near as I can tell has something to do with a phone directory or phone service. The park is Something called BaySixty6, which is apparently sponsored by XBox, whatever that means. I guess Playstation has a park too, why not. What do these sponsorships mean? Are they permanent? We know who sponsors the park, but what about the stunt rider? Whoever he is, he rides for Vans and Quicksilver. Check out the old school varial in the action sequence. Nowadays it seems like all the pros forego the the varial for the shove-it instead.

Blackanthem Military News has a short piece on Marines who skateboard called “Lords of Devil Dogtown.” They don’t really make a connection with “devil” and “Dogtown” in the article, so I’m assuming “Devil Dog” has some special significance to Marines or military persons in general. Blackanthem.com seems to be geared for and staffed by U.S. servicemen and women, but the disclaimer at the bottom of the page says they are “not affiliated, endorsed, authorized, or associated in any way with any government, military or country.” OK, sure. Skateboarding in the U.S. military is nothing new. In the eighties I used to skate with a lot of guys from a nearby Air Force base in Rantoul Illinois. A couple of them became good friends for a while. heck, I’ just had the good fortune to get back in touch with one of them. I imagine there were lots of skaters serving during the 70’s as well. Some military bases even have skateboarding facilities on site, although ostensibly they were for the families of servicemen. I remember a few of those 80’s servicemen told me that skateboarding was frowned upon at the base, and they could find themselves in hot water if…