Last year’s promo must have been a hit, becasue they upped it from the first 2000 to the first 5000 fans in the park who got a free Portland Timbers skateboard. I have to tell you I thought our mayor was a bit looney pushing for a major league soccer team in our town. I hold soccer in about as much entertainment esteem as the Onion does, and I figured it would flop, but boy was I wrong. Games are regularly sold out and the fans are rabid. I heard last year’s board was not really the same size as an actual skateboard, more like a toy hand board. I’m still a little bit confused by this cross promotion. Makes about as much sense as a skateboarder printed on a frisbee, or Air Grip brand flying disk as it were. But damn it all if I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon and go see a game, cause I do. Update: Well this post is pretty funny in retrospect, as 5 years later I am now a huge Timbers nerd. So much so that I actually travelled to Columbus Ohio to watch them win the MLS Cup. [Photo: Portland…

Saturday Starrs! It’s been a while, becuase Scott Starr keeps getting kicked off of Youtube, and I forget to search him out again. I found this by accident, a TV clip from 1976 with Tom Sims and tow Sims riders named Steve Monohan and Edie Robertson. Edie does a nice gorilla grip, by the way. I don’t recall ever seeing a female gorilla grip practitioner before. No word of what TV show this is from, probably to keep it from getting pulled. Maybe Scott will let us know. Check it out after the jump.

So what we have here is s little bit more than meets the eye. It’s not a Simpsons promotional item, but rather a generic workplace safety poster featuring licensed Simpsons characters. – Thanks to House of Neil for the photo.

Another Mayer Hawthorne video, this one with buttload street skating. Mayer Hawthorne must dig skateboarding.

In 1991 there was an animated series based on a spinoff novel from Ian Flemming’s James Bond series. I just watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the first time in… decades, and I was suprised to learn that it was also based on an Ian Flemming novel and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, the guy who did all the early James Bond movies. Ian didn’t write the James Bond Jr book, so he can’t really be blamed for the atrocity that is the James Bond Jr cartoon. They made over 60 episodes, but apparently the toy line was more popular than the actual series. What you see here is the Gordo Leiter figure, complete with weaponized skateboard. Turns out there were two episodes that featured skateboarding. [Sources: Wikipedia and James Bond Jr Online]

Santa Cruz has to be the king of novelty products, with all the giant foot-shaped boards, screaming hand oven mitts and the like. Now they’re adding some mostly brilliant executions of Simpsons themed skateboards. Bart’s board is great, the Roskop parody and Duff liquor store cruisers are pretty good too, but the Homer Simpson board is weak. To offset that they’ve included a Duff static wrap can cover, which they ought to sell singularly. Overall, though, an awesome idea, if only they had thought of it 15 years ago. Bart Simpson has to be the most popular cartoon character to be featured with a skateboard in it’s original context as well as with merchandising. It’s about time he got a real board.

It’s summertime, summertime. I’m gonna head to the beach and do some beachy things. I spotted this on an ice cream truck while plying my kids with cold sugar on a stick after one of those music in the park deals. Actually the band was pretty interesting. An all female sax quartet called the Quadraphones. More jazz and less funk than I’d like but still solid. The frozen confectionary comes in a cup, but unfortunately the packaging doesn’t have the skateboarding character. The gal in the truck wouldn’t let me buy the window sticker either. Now who gets the noprize?

20 years of skate films crammed into three nights this weekend (July 22nd-24) at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. Guest speakers and a pretty cool lineup after the jump. Presnted by Vans, so it might be coming to your (major metropolitan) neighborhood soon.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports: CAPITOLA – A 17-year-old boy riding a skateboard downhill Tuesday hit an 83-year-old woman crossing the street. The Capitola woman later died in a San Jose hospital, authorities said. Apparently the kid saw the lady at the last minute and tried to avoid her, but that’s not good enough is it? No charges filed as of yet. [source: LA Weekly] – Thanks to… everyone for the tip.

On the plus side, a portion of the the sales go to Girl Riders Organization, but the flips side of this new web series is that it’s horribly paired with new “technology” that allows you click on an object in the video if you’re interested in buying it. I tried clicking on the fiance, but apparently she’s not for sale. It’s hard to take the episode seriously when so many of the shots seem awkwardly contrived for displaying a product. So much so that it seems less than… above the board. Kyle’s got some moves though, so there’s that. Check out Above Board.