Old school analog stop action animation and old school 90’s Riot Grrrl music going way back to… oh, 2014. Skateboarding! She’s no Maria McKee. ( Looks for crosslink on Skate and Annoy with Lone Justice video of Ways to be Wicked with Maria McKee on a skateboard, doesn’t find it, rectifies situation in this post. )

Travel Portland commissioned and published a series of “zines” for use in their campaign to entice people to travel to Portland and spend money. Included in the series is FSBS (For Skaters By Skaters) which is a guide to Portland skate spots, shops, parks, etc… We all know skate-tourism attracts scrounges who tend keep their wallets closed as much as possible, excepting trips to the beer aisle. Still packaging it as a “zine” (in quotes again for a reason) does make Portland seem hip. I’m starting my own zine to discourage people moving here from California to buy newly built houses on lots where cool, old buildings with character recently stood.

Activity Pyramid sounds like something a playground equipment manufacturer would try to sell you in a prefab skatepark, but It’s part of University of Missouri Extension health and exercise teaching aid. In cleaning out my hard drive I found a craptacular cellphone snap of this banner that I took in 2010, but I found better versions online. There are adult and kids versions of the Activity Pyramid. Sadly, the skateboard is not present on the adult version, so stop riding your skateboard if you’re not a kid anymore.

Kevin found this in the wilderness of Canada’s home improvement centers. It looks like ancient stock unearthed in a garage sale, but it’s actually a product you can still buy in a few different sizes. I contacted the one company I thought manufactured this (Perma Products) for bigger photos but they claim it’s a coincidence of names. Strange considering both PermaStik products are available in Australia and New Zealand. Nice nose bone on that death trap. – Thanks to Kevin Live for the pic.

What do you call a kid who can skate like that? You call that kid a Cracker Jack. I totally forgot about this jingle until I watched the commercial, and it all came back to me. I never saw this particular Cracker Jack commercial, but I remember others with the same song. This series of commercials aired around 1978. Assuming the kid skating is the same one they use in the closeup, someone ought to be able to identify him. – Thanks to Wes for the tip.

Adam Crofts sent me a beat up copy of the Keane Brothers debut album from 1977 because it had skateboard on the cover. I listened to it, hoping that the song Keep On Rollin’ was skateboard related, but it wasn’t. The album is a truly awful mix of 70’s disco, soul, rock, country and bubblegum. It’s a freaking awesome train wreck. I noticed the producer also had the last name Keane, so I figured this was a showbiz father trying to get rich off his kids, and that this was probably the last time anyone ever heard of the Keane Brothers, if anyone ever heard of them at all. Of course I was wrong. The Keane Brothers had one of those variety shows that were all over the 70’s like flies on shitty music, and they appeared on the Tonight Show and the Mike Douglas Show. On top of that, the opening sequence of their variety show prominently features the Keane brothers on skateboards.

California Sunday Magazine has an interesting piece on Jake Phelps that seems to have en done with some degree of cooperation from the Phelper. Some of the best parts are the sort of snide, deconstructive observations on the spectacle of skateboarding, such as observations that Thrasher is more like Vogue for degenerates than the skateboarder’s bible, and skateboarding has more in common with pornography than professional sports. “Skateboarding probably has more in common with pornography: Talented people are paid to be filmed doing something they’re good at, or at least insane enough to try.” There’s even a brief mention of Schwing! magazine as if their readers would know what that was. It’s long, and a bit nihilistic, and you’ll earn more about SOTY than you’ll care too, but even if you hate Phelps, it’s a good read. Check it out in California Sunday Magazine.

This is advert for Vibe, an iOS app that Adobe can’t seem to decide whether or not to promote it as theirs or not. What does it do? It makes short videos with semi-automated cuts between selected stills and videos from your library, and adds a soundtrack to it. Then you can share it. Super. It’s a free app, and the sharing is meant to happen on the usual social media platforms, so you have to wonder what Adobe gets out of this.

Restless Years is pale ale from Evanston Illinois’ Temperance brewery. Aside from skateboards on a beer can, they have bragging rights as Evanston’s first and oldest brewery, dating “way back” to 2013. – Thanks to Neil “I’d obviously rather be drinking than writing Ebay Watch” for the pics.

Soloshot is a great piece of technology for those who can make use of it. It’s a camera mount that will track a radio tag for up to 2000 meters. Basically you wear it and your camera mount will pan and swivel to follow you. You can get one that is just a base that you add your own camera to, or they sell one integrated that also allows for automatic zooming. You can program camera moves into it. This sounds like a paid product placement, but it isn’t. Cool technology for sure, but not so useful for skate footage. If it works well and you need this kind of thing, excellent. As far as using it for skateboarding? I suppose if your friends are tired of shooting you… but as you know, good skate footage usually requires more intimate angles. That might be why the skateboarding part of the promo video only lasts about a second. I still want this, but have no idea what I would use it for.