Category Archive: Media Watch
Prepare yourself for an Evinrude
If you like skateboarding, then you just might be ready for an Evinrude boat motor, later on in life, when you grow up. You know Evinrude owners are born, not made. Right? It’s not like a choice. When you get to college, it’s OK if you experiment a little. Nobody is going to judge you if you try riding a Razor scooter. If you’re worried, just keep it on the DL. 1989 advertisement for Evinrude motors, complete with Gonz skateboard after the jump.
Jeff Kendall interviewed on Off the Lip Radio
Off the Lip Radio interviews surfers and skaters in a studio in Santa Cruz, California. You can listen to them on the radio (KSCO 1080AM in the Bay Area, Tuesdays at 7PM) or listen to them online at OffTheLipRadio.com. TheSurfChannel.com also compiles and streams in studio videos of the broadcasts. I decided to check out Jeff Kendall being interviews in his capacity of VP over at NHS, although it mainly had to do with his skating days at Santa Cruz. The bit about being interviewed for a job/let go from the team at the same instance is pretty interesting. This show format is bit slow, and they switch guests in the middle, coming back to Jeff later. I’m not sure why they do that, because it’s distracting. Maybe they feel it’s better for the radio format. (Skip to the 6:55 to get to the start of Jeff’s interview.) And if you’ve got a half a day to kill, you can check out other interviews with Steve Olson with Rich Novak, Rob Roskopp with and without Rich Novak, Keith Meek, Keith Meek and Scott Foss, Don Bostick (World Cup Skateboarding), Jimbo Phillips, Steve Caballero, Jane Mckenzie and Judi Oyama, and of…
Hobby King Helicopter
Hobby King wants to sell you a Quanum Nova RC helicopter so you can shoot skate videos and other Extreme™! footage. They’ve got a demo video, but curiously, the skate footage appears to be mostly stable shots with little tracking. – Thanks to Rich for the tip.
I Was a Teenage Brain!
This is the cover of Education Update – Volume 56, Number 9, published in September, 2014: With practical optimism and guidance, teachers can turn teens’ risk-taking behaviors into cognitive assets. I was really into the band Cognitive Assets when I was in my straight edge phase. the cover illustration really does an excellent job of capturing the true essence of skateboarding, which is to be simultaneously alarmed, inspired, and confused. – Thanks to Burly Caps for the tip.
A Secret History of the Ollie
Craig Snyder has been working on this book for 7 years, and it seems to be growing. As of now it clocks in at around 850 pages and more than 1000 images. If funded successfully (by Kickstarter) it should be published in November of 2014. Incredibly, this is only volume one, focussing on the 70’s. If successful, volume 20 will cover the 80’s and beyond. In case you’re wondering about the authenticity, there are some big names behind the incentives, including face to face time with Paul Schmitt, Mike McGill, and some guy named Alan “Ollie” Gelfand that you might have heard of… Check out olliebook.com for more info, or you can watch the Kickstarter video (features skateboarding but ironically no ollies) after the jump.
Extreme Brain Freeze
For fun it’s a wonderful toy It walks downnstairs Alone or in pairs And makes a Slinkaty sound A Spring A Spring A marvelous thing Everyone knows it’s…. Everyone knows it’s “Slinky” and not “Slurpee.” Spotted at a local 7-11, Mountain Dew and Slurpee X-treme cross marketing.
Moms Demand Action
Moms Demand Action is not really upset that you can;t bring a skateboard into Krogers, they’re upset that Krogers has a pro open carry stance. This is just one of several ads featuring a gun toting shopper standing next to someone doing something that Krogers won’t allow. You can sign the petition here. – Via John Grigley on Facebook
Eli Reed skates the Playboy Mansion
Eli Reed dealing with the age old problem that every street skater encounters at least once a session: Random girls in bikinis laying in the middle of your run up. [Source: High Snobiety]
Stylin’ Skateboards
I had more than a handful of these “Stylin’ Skateboards” from Topps. The first time I saw them was in ’91 or ’92. I think it was B-Rad who showed it to me first, and it blew my mind. I asked where he found it, expecting it to be something a friend brought back from a trip to Japan or some kitschy novelty shop in New York. Instead, he nodded his head over his shoulder towards the Wall Mart at his back in a semi rural (at the time) Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This sales sheets shows them packaged in little boxes, but the ones I saw came in sealed plastic bags with heat-pressed seams. Each bag came with some crappy candy sugar wads pressed into the vague shape of a skateboard wheel, though more likely just generic pellet molds. Also in the package, a really crappy plastic fingerboard made out of soft plastic. I believe you had to snap the wheels in place yourself. The second generation fingerboards (more on that later) were fun for a few minutes, but the real reason to keep buying these things was for the paper stickers that came with them, each a slightly mutated…
Punks and Posers
MTV’s Punks and Posers from a time (1985) when they actually played music videos, blah blah blah. I think this aired at 11:00 at night originally, I taped it to VHS when I should have been finishing my computer science homework. I watched the hell out of this. It’s Got the Dickies and GBH (yawn) but also a rare appearance by the band Plain Wrap, which I had completely forgotten about. I bought their album when I saw it at Record Swap, based on seeing this video. That vinyl still resides in my basement, need to dig it up. If you are at all familiar with 80’s LA Punk there should be a few other faces you recognize as well. Interviews talking about “punk”… so lame, yet so entertaining. There is some incidental skateboarding in the video as well, so it’s actually topical to this web site, and yes.. It’s a stretch. I was stoked to see this again after so many years.











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