Retailers are sending out Christmas mailings already. Target has a few skateboard related images in their catalog; A giant skateboard prop for Shaun White’s clothing line, and a posed photo of a little kid who looks like he just released a tail grab. he’s getting some awesome footage of his knees. I want that giant skateboard. I do not want the chest harness. I a also not looking forward to a GoProbe, with or without harness.

The Disney book Learn to Draw With Phineas and Ferb comes packaged with a random eraser in the shape of a character from the show. This particular pressing features Perry the platypus, who has appeared on a skateboard in the series. Someone must have “thought of the children” and decided to make sure he had a helmet on this time.

Adam Shomsky has a Youtube channel filled with high frame rate slow motion videos of skateboarding and “other random stuff that looks cool in slow mo, like fire.” A writer over at Wired used an open source physics video analysis tool called Tracker (Insert Tracker vs. Indy joke here.) to break down the forces at work in an ollie. The resulting animated gifs are vaguely interesting and sort of hypnotic, especially if you like looking at lots of vectors and symbols overlaid on skateboard videos. Check out The Physics of Doing an Ollie on a Skateboard, or, the Science of Why I Can’t Skate.

Learn to skate with Sportskool, just don’t try to learn how to spell. Instructional books and videos for learning how to skate are nothing new. The only reason I paid attention to this one is because I happened to catch a video shot with Omar Hassan at Pier Park, here in Portland. (There’s another one with Omar skating in West Linn Oregon too.) Sportskool has videos and DVD’s for the whole gamut, including Extreme!™ sports and even fishing, but sadly, no curling that I could see. Some of the videos are available for free via Youtube channel, but others require a subscription fee. Choose your discipline, street, bowls or vert. Who are your instructors? Omar Hassan, Mike Vallely, and Andy McDonald. Did you know Mike V. wrote a book? Would it surprise you to learn that it appears to be about a fight he was in? (FISTFIGHT VOLUME 1: THE CKY3 FIGHT EXPLAINED) It’s important to note, as every Sportskool video will remind you, Sportskool is not liable for any injury or accident “befalling” any viewers of their programs. The large image above is from “How to Skateboard a Small Bowl with Omar Hassan.” Unfortunately, it’s all general skateboarding instruction, and it doesn’t actually teach you how to get ahold of Omar and skate a small bowl with him.

[Source: EPM]

I was riding my bike home from work the other day and sped by the usual detritus in the street, but my brain recognized a brief glimpse of something archetypal, so I doubled back to check on it. It was a children’s book titled Albert’s Gift for Grandma, and there was a skateboard on the back. On the pages inside, Homer does some scary tricks.

“Look at me!” Shouted Homer. “I’m doing scary tricks!”
“Oh my!” wailed Grandma.
“Your tricks are too scary!” shouted Albert.

Selected page from the 2006 publication of Albert’s Gift for Grandma, by Barbara Williams, illustrated by Doug Cushman, after the jump.

Thrasher t-shirt spotted in the stands during yesterday’s broadcast of the Portland Timbers at the San Jose Earthquakes. Soccer! Rodney Wallace!

When my kids were of a certain age, I watched a metric tonne of Yo Gabba Gabba, but somehow we missed this 2009 Story Time episode of Seymour the Skateboard, a little skateboard who didn’t know any tricks and had to go to skate school to learn them from an old school teacher. Seymour had a good posse, all encouragement an no heckling. Animation by Jake Armstrong.

– Thanks to David Leclerc for the tip.

The Atlantic asks “What Happens When We All Live to 100?” in the cover story of the September, 2014 issue dedicated to the science of aging.

– Thanks to Old Man Burly Caps for the tip.

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.

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 course, Rich Novak. Want more? there are other assorted skate related episodes as well.

Way back in the 80’s Kendall came through our small town in Illinois for a demo, and he wasn’t available for a Skate and Annoy interview, or had to leave in a hurry, or some other drama that we made up, so we got mad at him and slagged him off in the next print issue of Skate and Annoy. ( I’m pretty sure this is the umpteenth time I’ve told that story here.) We were real mature. Once again, we’re sorry Jeff. Watch a real Jeff Kendall interview after the jump.