I thought Bahne relaunched it’s brand for the serious downhill competitor, at least that’s what I remember from a previous decade when when I was an irregular contributor and advertising connoisseur of Concrete Wave magazine. I guess it didn’t pan out because Bahne seems to be engaged in the role of toy store supplier, or at best, close out items for sale at Costco.

– Thanks to Stephen B for the tip.

Let’s see here… David Chappelle and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, back when they were both cool.

Skaters for Public Skateparks (Still at it!) has an interview with Billy & Catherine Coulon, the proprietors of Evergreen Skateparks. That’s nice, but we all want more footage of the dog.

Targeted advertising is nothing new. Google keeps track of what you search for and shows you ads based on what it thinks you might be inclined to buy. It’s old hat, but this weekend I saw an interesting application. As I waited to click through the pre-roll ad on a Portland Timbers video, the content caught my attention. Lately I’ve been getting a few skateboard related pre-rolls. I can’t remember for what exactly, it might have been Vans, Converse SG, or possibly Levis with skateboarding, but this one was different. It was a amateur video montage of a kid skateboarding. Low and behold it’s Schaeffer McLean, the same kid form the janky indoor ramp video. I watched the whole thing (Well 99%) waiting for the product placement or a call to action but it never came. The web link associated with the video took me to Schaeffer’s Youtube user page, which is written in the third person, so one has to assume it’s run by his parents. Those video ads aren’t free, someone has to pay for them. So what is he selling? There are two possibilities, either he’s trying to drive traffic to the user channel and generate revenue through inline ad views, or he’s looking for sponsorship opportunities. It might just be the first paid “Sponsor Me” advertisement, but how many team managers are scouring YouTube for unsolicited new team members? I suppose there is a third less cynical option. Maybe the parents just want to (pay to) share their child’s love of skateboarding with the world.

Elias Parise has released the full length version of the Dreamland Skateparks promo titled Bridge to Bridge.

Dead at 65, original drummer and producer for the Ramones. Legs McNeil of Punk Magazine and co-author of Please Kill Me remembers Tommy and the brudders in Spin Magazine.

[Source: New York Times]

Designboom has a lightweight interview with Jim Phillips. It’s nothing new for the most part, but it’s interspersed with lotos of graphics and the great shot above of Jim in his natural habitat. It’s worth checking out just for the larger version of that photo.

– Thanks to MC for the tip.

At first, maybe only marginally skateboard related, but upon closer inspection, this would be like the orthopedic shoes and braces that Forest Gump wore, effectively making it impossible to push mongo. Mongo-bashing aside, here’s the scoop. In 2008 Tomáš Moravec modified a pallet in Bratislava, Slovakia to run on the tram tracks. Unfortunately there’s no close up of his wheel setup. (UPDATE: Close up added) We’ve got plenty of light rail and wood pallets in Portland, I’m just saying…

[Source: For the Win via Reddit]

UPDATE: Image links are fixed.

A very short documentary on Marginal Way Skatepark. I think this is the whole thing and not just a trailer. I would have liked to see more, even though the story is very simple, I feel like the filmmaker barely scratched the surface. I’m not sure what happened to the official web presence of Marginal Way, it seems to be limited to this Facebook group.