This is from a February, 1980 National Geographic article on the Apache Indian Reserve. Genius. Simple, yet effective. Pure. Enlarge-o-rama.

– Thanks to Ryan Mann for the tip.

More tarp surfing, this time from the folks at the Mountain Dew ad agency. I haven’t actually seen this one on the air, but a few months ago there was an iPhone ad that featured an Iphone (duh!) playing a video of tarp surfing. Mountain Dew takes it to the next level by employing the largest tarp to date and combining it with a large bank in a ditch.

– Thanks to Boy Ipoh for tip.

You have to really, REALLY like your sponsor to get a tattoo this big of a brand mark. I just hope for Rob Dyrdek’s sake that Monster Energy is never sold to another entity that decided to let his contract lapse. For insurance sake, maybe Rob should take up this offer to talk about some Patent Pending technology. Follow that link to an auction for a guy trying to sell his phone number to Rob Dyrdek in exchange for a sales pitch. Patent Drama?

UP FOR BIDS IS MY PHONE NUMBER, FOR ROB DYRDEK ONLY. IF YOURE NOT ROD DYRDEK, YOU CAN CALL ME BUT IT’S GONNA COST YOU $1000….SO IM COOL WITH THAT. BUT ID MUCH RATHER JUST TALK TO ROB. SO ROB, I CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA A FEW YEARS AGO, THAT I THINK WILL HAVE A HUGE, POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE SKATEBOARD INDUSTRY! IT’S NOT SOME STUPID GIMMICK, NO RETARDED, SWERVY BOARD OR SPACE SHIP BOARD OR ANY OF THAT CRAP. IT I JUST RECENTLY RECEIVED “PENDING PATENT” STATUS ON IT, SO IM READY TO GET THE BALL ROLLIN AND I THINK YOU MIGHT SEE SOME REAL VALUE IN IT. I WOULDNT WASTE YOUR TIME….I KNOW YOUR BUSY HOLDIN’ DOWN CALI! I JUST NEED 5 MINS. IF YOU DONT LIKE THE IDEA, I’LL REFUND YOUR MONEY AND YOU CAN GO BACK TO “BOSS HOGGIN” OVER THERE AT THE FACTORY.

Rob, as your accountant in absentia, I advise you to take this meeting in case you need money for laser tattoo removal. I suppose it could always be done with temporary inks. Watch the video after the jump if you have a low threshold for entertainment.

– Thanks to Kim and Cary for the tips. Although I think Kim is press agent.

The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest was a 1986 retread of the original 60’s version of the show. Episode 16 of season 2 was titled Other Space and features hoverboard action. In the words of Grover, who unearthed this footage, “They hover the shit out of this episode.”

There’s an article about the Brooklyn Street Skate Spot in the Portland Mercury. The picture is old, because phase one is done, right down to the pool coping! Disturbing news though, according to the article, Portland’s light rail is set to impinge on the spot’s footprint as early as 2014. However, I’m not sure if the author did her research, that might just be a reference to the fact that the pedestrian bridge is scheduled to be demolished. The MAX would have to pull eminent domain on all the adjacent buildings and homes too. We’ll see…. There’s also an appearance from the neighborhood sourpuss who again reiterates his displeasure that the whole thing didn’t go through the proper channels.

[Photo: David Lansdown]

The Chicago Reader has an article with Dr. Yung Tae, the physicist and skateboarder who allegedly fixed the wonky skateboard controller for the sequel to Tony Hawk Ride called Shred… that’s suppsedly out now? Geez, who knew? It’s a pretty interesting article, but real story is the half hour long video on Dr Tae’s web site titled Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning, which asks the question Can skateboarding give us a better model for teaching and learning? I’ll give you a clue, nobody bothers to make a half hour long video if the answer is “No.” It’s clearly labeled as the most important thing on his web site. “Real-life research is more like skateboarding than something manufactured in a school curriculum. The school is the thing that’s artificial and pathological.” That’s a quote from Dr Tae, so you can tell he’s passionate about it. If you’ve got still more time to kill, check out The Physics of Skateboaridng. He’s got three episode previews online. Previews for what? I don’t know yet, I’m still trying to figure out when I’m going to have time to finish the first half hour video. Yes, but as a known scientist it would be a bit surprising if a girl blinded me with science.

– Thanks to Gene Sato for the tip.

UPDATE: Forgot to link to Tae’s web site, but it’s linked now.

Oh hey kids, time to make your room reflect your Extreme!™ lifestyle. Your parents don’t understand you, but they want to pretend they do, so grab their credit card and head on over to, uhmm, the laptop in your bedroom and buy some of this stuff for your crib. It’s tight!

– Thanks to John Egertson for the 411… Yo!

Here’s two marginally skateboard themed comics fromthe Sunday funnies. Baby Blues is a week old and Cul-De Sac was from two days ago.

So there’s a line of toys looking to compete with the Tech Deck Dudes series. It’s called Wild Grinders. They’ve been out for a while, but when they first came out they weren’t pushing the Rob Dyrdek affiliation. That’s right, this appears to be owned or at least fronted by Rob Dyrdek. You’ve got to admire his thinking here, an extension of the Street League philosophy. He’s recognized an are where someone is making marketing skateboarding and injected an actual skateboarder into the organization by starting it himself. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. There’s a WIld Grinders TV commercial running that I’ve been meaning to get online, but instead I’ll spotlight this strange marketing agreement with MovieTickets.com. I’m not sure how many kids are going to buy movie tickets online. Someone must think they are going to, because there is a Wild Grinders spot for MovieTickets.com that is playing in theaters across the country. It’s even going to be in 3D when shown with 3D features. You can watch it after the jump, but be forewarned, On the web site they have the effrontery to make you sit through a completely untargeted commercial before they let you watch what is essentially just another commercial.

I asked my wife if she knew about some shi shi company named Hermes and she had no idea what I was talking about, but that was because I was pronouncing it like “her-mees” instead of the proper French pronunciation, something more akin to “err-mez.” These guys sell insanely ridiculously priced accoutrements. It looks like they hired the best fingerboard video director Alexis Milant to produce a segment for their web site. Alexis is the guy who does the Opus series of videos that we’ve featured before. There are no credits, but it sure as hell looks like his work, except the props are insanely expensive.

– Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.

[Source: Trendland]