Outsider trade magazine articles on skateboarding and skateparks can usually be summed up by one or more of the following generalizations: uninformed, boring, misleading, or a steaming pile of excrement. When they aren’t it’s always because they were written by someone in the know, in this case, Portland skateboarding fixture Ben Wixon, who aside from being a teacher is also involved with Skaters for Public Skateparks and something called Drop Into Skateboarding, an organization formed by a few other names you might recognize. Aside from having a stimulating title, Recreation Management published an article titled The Evolution of Public Skateparks, written by Ben. You can read it online, or look for the cover at a very boring and/or thorough newsstand near you. What’s the takeaway? Two things. The push for more integrated spaces as opposed to an isolated facility in the middle of nowhere, and: The experts surveyed unanimously agreed that concrete surfaces have overwhelmingly become the material of choice for skateboarding performance and durability. It’s not a fascinating read, but you have to think of the target audience. The only beef I have is that it looks like they used a picture of a Skatepark in Indiana and label…

Riizoli New York is publishing a book containing every cover from the first 30 years of Thrasher Magazine called Maximum Rad: The Iconic Covers of Thrasher Magazine, with an introduction written by Craig Stecyk. There are 250 pages of covers, some full page, some are quarter page. It’s being released on February 21st, and Skate and Annoy has a copy for one lucky S&A reader. Just leave a comment in the post, deadline is February 21st at midnight. Don’t bother trying to butter up the editor, it’s random.

I first I thought this was a gag, but now I’m betting it’s a carefully crafted fishing attempt to pad the email lists of Viagra spammers. And no, it’s not because I joined the site and got all kinds of spam. I didn’t get any after I joined… wait, I mean I didn’t join, I swear! Funny how if you reload the page, only women (ages 19 – 61!) are featured among the random “Real Member Profiles” featured. They also start repeating fairly quickly. I hate to link to this, because I’m sure it’s going to hurt our Google rankings, but here’s your chance to Date Skaters. I’m pretty sure some of them are posers. – Thanks to Quartersnacks for the tip.

Thanks to the good folks (Jack Smith) at the Skateboarder’s Journal, we have 3 subscriptions (Published quarterly, normally $25 a year) to give away. Same rules as last time, leave a comment in this post and 3 winners will be chosen at random. Contest ends on February 9th at midnight. In the mean time, check out the Skateboarder’s Journal online community and Facebook page. WINNERS: Jeff (Me! Me! Me!), Talentless Quitter, and Idahosk8gringo. Thanks again to the Skateboarder’s Journal.

I love watching old footage of skateboarding on TV, and it has nothing to do with the abundance of mustaches. This is almost 20 minutes of an ABC broadcast of the Catalina Classic from 1977, uploaded by someone at NHS who has resurrected the Roadrider brand. The cast of characters in these events is no more cartoonish than you’d find at today’s events, but man the 70’s were corny. Downhill, slalom and freestyle are shown, with a bunch of names you’ll recognize if you follow skateboard history, or even had a subscription to Thrasher in the first few years. The slalom guys had it dialed in, but the downhill guys (I’m going to catch flack for this) look like they would get smoked by today’s downhill crew with all the speed wobbles in evidence. Those guys need sails. Check it out after the jump. – Thanks to Matthijs for the tip

Apple’s announced a new format and authoring software for it’s textbook platform on the iPad. Ever since the Switch campaign they’ve been using skateboarding in advertising and marketing pieces for iPods, iPhones and now the iPad via iBooks textbooks. The still is from a video piece on their education web site. The skate footage is only a few seconds buried in a lengthy video, so it’s not really worth watching unless of course you want to learn more about the tablet computer that will one day rule your life. I am not trolling for a free iPad from Apple, because what I really need is a new Mac Mini. Come guys, you’re worth more than Exxon now, how about a product giveaway/review on Skate and Annoy? We are crushing the middle age Extreme!™ demographic here.

Daniel Evans johnny’s trick tip for the frontside ollie has been blowing up hard in the last few days Daniel Evans I couldn’t figure out why Daniel Evans until I found this Daniel Evans <video link> Colin Sharp fontside ollie=en Colin Sharp that’s rad Colin Sharp if you do a search can you find his or something Daniel Evans yeah

I’ve been waiting for an official trailer to post on this, but so far the only clip out there is this excerpt. It looks pretty good from this bit, although Stacy comes off a little maniacal. I thought I read that he had resisted making this film. It will be interesting to see if he does more than just the Bones Brigade love fest the fans will eat up considering there was no real drama akin to the trials and tribulations of the Z-boys. Who knows, maybe there’s a bombshell in there somewhere. It did show at Sundance, and the bitterness in Tony’s commentary about the peak of his (first) popularity is a little unexpected. So maybe there’s more than meets the eye. Nostalgia is fine and well, but here’s hoping that we get to see where and what these guys were up to during the crash of the 90’s. [Source: Poweredge] UPDATE: Reviewed at Hitfix. Additional Stacy Peralta Sundance interview added.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco was busted trying out a skateboard in his own driveway. I’d never been on a skateboard in my life, so I was literally riding it about 10 feet down my driveway just to see if I could stand on it and stay upright,” Flacco said Wednesday on “NFL Total Access.” “One of my neighbors must have called in looking for (Ravens general manager) Ozzie Newsome and left a voicemail on his secretary’s phone saying, ‘Hey, man, you got to let Joe Flacco know we’re trying to win the Super Bowl around here! He’s at home riding a skateboard. Somebody’s got to let him know what the deal is.’ Geez man, get your head in the game. True story: On the way to a skatepark assorted S&A authors once got into an argument with Grover about whether organized sports build character in young kids. Grover was massively in favor, in a boot camp sort of way. As in all kids should have a mandatory team sports tour of duty. Cut to five years later and he doesn’t want Jack to sign up for basketball because it would distract him from skateboarding. He has loosened up though,…

There’s more Dee Dee merch now than there ever was when he was alive. I don’t know who benefits from that, but some of it is pretty cool. On the left, Dee Dee as he appeared in Tank Girl: Skidmarks, shown as he might have appeared on a custom Bulldog board. On the right, Dee Dee as the Powell ripper. Ripper clones are a dime a dozen, but Dee Dee being actually dead, well that makes this one special. Source: DeeDeeRamone.com – Tank-Girl.com