What more needs to be said? “band [sic] from X games for being to ‘X'”

I dropped the ball on this one, but this weekend the Smithsonian has got a lot going on in conjunction with Go Skate day. It’s called Innoskate, a public festival hosted by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center and IASC, celebrates skate culture’s widespread innovative spirit. June 21 and 22 at the National Museum of American History on the National Mall. Lots of incredible stuff will be donated into the permanent collection of the National Museum of American History. Tony Hawk’s first deck is grabbing the headlines, but other stuff from OG skater gals Laura Thornhill, Patti McGee, Robin Logan and Cindy Whitehead will be given as well as some pretty high-level skatedecks from the collection of Nick Halkias. Chris Pastras and Ryan Clements will be on the mike and demo skaters include DC and Baltimore locals as well as Chris Haslam, Kyle Berard, Brian Andersen. The session conversations will be really interesting (the one between Tony and Rodney should be one for the history books) and the skating demos will be strong—all in all I think this is a great debut for the Smithsonian If you can’t make the event, they will be broadcasting Innoskate live on Saturday from 10:30 a.m.…

Lays Deep Ridge potato chips has a commercial running in the Netherlands featuring an ant dropping into some spud vert, attempting some sort of body varial (it’s hard to see exactly what’s going on) and then bailing with a parachute à la Bob Burnquist in the Grand Canyon. (Should that be “à le” for a masculine Bob Burnquist?) – Thanks to Matthijs for the tip. (He says he still can’t get S&A to come up where he lives… Anyone in the Netherlands reading this?)

Avril Lavigne skateboards in a Chinese advertisement for Nong Fu Spring iced tea. [Source: Slate.com] – Thanks to Eric Pitt for the tip.

From the comic strip Biss, by Harry Bliss. See it in color here. Tommy looks like a middle aged man. – Thanks to Mrs Kilwag’s mom for the tip.

Fashion spread with Chanel skateboard for a magazine called Grazia, Spain, with help from La General Surfera. Source: Visual Optimism

Be sure to have some extra Euros with you when skating in the wrong places in Barcelona, Spain.

When Burger restaurants try to teach you how to skateboard … seen in France

Dreamland founder Mark Scott has a new model on Lifeblood and a short feature in 1859 Oregon Magazine. As far as the editorial goes, it’s a bit of a throwback to the pre-enlightened era of skatepark journalism, notable only for (still) getting the slang wrong. I don’t know what “looking to go ham” is, do you? Still, it’s nice to see Dreamland getting some press again. Seems like they’ve been making a push to get back in the public eye lately. My wife found this at a spa she was visiting in Newberg, Oregon of all places, site of one of the first major Dreamland triumphs. Second, I guess, if you count Lincoln City phase 1 as their first.) The pages are a bit wrinkled because she packed it in her suitcase. If you’re at a spa in Newberg and your magazine is missing pages, you know who to blame.

Ron Cameron and co-author Christian Kline of Poweredge Magazine are working on a book for 3 years now and this is the rough, unfinished cover. Ron has designed for Blockhead, H-Street, Vision, Acme, Strike, Grape Netwerk, 510 Wood, World Industries, Blind, Toy Machine, Foundation, Scarecrow, Riviera … and  is looking for photographs of his decks in all colourways, especially the Blockhead ones. You can contact him here. All names of the contributors will get their names printed in the Contributors section. Also, Ron and Dave Berthold are working on a new Blockhead project, so that’s cool!