I’d be stoked too If I lived in a city with a good skate park. Oh wait, I do. Anyway, The City of Stoke On Trent (True!) in England is coming up on the first anniversary of their skate park called, what else, but Stoke Plaza? It looks pretty damn good (from the Internet at least.) I’m not much for today’s street parks, but this one has plenty of banks and an interesting layout that looks fun. Topping it off is an outlying system of skate paths, an interesting concept that appears to be gathering momentum among builders and advocates. These pictures are from the UK Sketchy Skateboarding website.

OK. Finally it looks like things might be picking up over there. I’ve posted some more progress pictures. Looks like the permit problems have been resolved and the only thing holding them back is a work crew that is scattered to four corners of the Northwest. Opening date is supposed to be Oct 14. Check out the progress.

Getting ready to go to Chicago next weekend for the 25th anniverary of Touch And Go Records, mostly to see the legendary Didjits reunion with all original members!(!!!) This is an excuse to bump that ugly graphic from the West Linn Tidings. So here’s a shot of a suburban Chicago skatepark in Burbank from 2002. At the time it was one of the better tranny parks in the Chicago area. Small, but with nice transitions and the smoothest finish to date. It was kind of a ghetto scene out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s changed. I hope I get time to hit some Chicago cement, but it’ll be rough with family and other reunions. There’s another pic after the jump. Holy @!$#! Street skating on Skate and Annoy!

A sensible reply to an irrational argument.

Parks & Recreation, the official magazine of the National Recreation and Park Association, an organization whose goal is to advance parks, recreation and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people. The target audience is park professionals, urban planners, and concerned citizens. Kent Dahlgren, Executive Director of Skaters for Public Skateparks and long time Portland OR scenester wrote an article for the magazine titled “Taking It To the Street.” The article is not available on the NRP web site, but we have some highlights, complete with the requisite grunge typeface. How extreme.

According to (the complaining resident), the out-of-towners look “rough-and-ready.” They’re not wearing khakis and polos… Oh god. Here we go again. This joker is pissed cause he bought an overpriced house that sits on top of his neighbors and overlooks the West Linn skate park. His neighborhood association says they don’t like it. Well that means it’s time to move. The park sits in the midst of a pretty uptight neighborhood, that’s for sure. It’s time to get the folks over at Skaters For Public Skateparks to trot out the noise level studies again. Will they try to get it torn down? Seems implausible, but there’s a lot of collective wealth in those subdivisions. This guy has a lot of nerve posing for a picture in the skate park and giving his name, which is William Relyea. What a tool. Check out the story in the Aug 23, 2006 issue of the West Linn Tidings or read more commentary here.

MC has an update on Pier Park progress. Check out those beautiful tiles! We hear that the opening date is being pushed back to November. More pics on his site. Antigravity Press

Firefighters suspect arson in the August 16th fire that destroyed the vert ramp at Mount Trashmore – Virginia Beach. Looks like the Street Vs. Tranny battle has gotten out of hand. This long time landmark in skating has been rebuilt before. Hopefully it will rise from the ashes and the guilty party will hang from the deck. These things are usually the result of disgruntled park users who get kicked out, be they BMX riders who aren’t allowed or just troublemakers. Cold War bigwig Steve Grover is just weeks away from a vacation in Virginia Beach. Could this be his wife’s way of making sure he spends time with the family? Did someone forget to keep the damn racoons out my truck? Good news is that at least the big vert ramp came away unscathed and the park will remain open, forcing kids to learn how to drop in. Get the scoop from News Channel 3. More links and pictures after the jump.

In today’s Oregonian there is an article on yesterday’s casting call for the new Gus Van Sant film Paranoid Park. Has anyone seen Wassup Rockers? Kids left a bad taste in my mouth so I avoided Whassup Rockers like the plague. Even though the Wassup PR people kept sending us crap and Chad Muska and Roger Ebert both gave it a thumbs up, it seemed like it had the potential to be another creepy exploitive movie. Paranoid Park involves some young skaters and an incident at a local skatepark where some rough kids hang out. Guess which park they are filming at?

After the initial excitement died down over the figure eight with a metal full pipe crossover being built by Grindline in Dillon MT, some people began to speculate about the feasability of placing concrete over a metal full pipe. Basically, the thought was that the pipe would be too flexible and cause premature cracking, possibly falling apart. Set your fears aside because it looks like there is already one case where it has worked. The public skatepark in Lancaster County PA has a “unique pipe, which is a marriage of half-inch-thick steel over shotcrete, is the only one of its kind in the United States.” So there you have it.