Hobie Alter of Hobie Skateboards (surfboards, sailboats, etc..) passed away last Saturday at age 80. The image above right is from a recent Surfer Magazine interview with Hobie concerning his recently published biography.

Check it.

Dieta Skateboards in Estacada, Oregon = Diestacada

Built by Dreamland and located in Estacada Oregon, Frank and Johnny enjoy a morning skate session at Wade Creek skatepark. Filmed and edited by Daniel Evans, additional footage by Spencer Knuttila.

Video after the jump.

I just spent another week in a town with a perpetually flat ocean and yet every third retail store serving the tourist trade has a few mint condition surfboards on the walls, ceiling, or in the window. Must be a city ordinance. I’ve been coming here for almost 10 years during different times of the year and I’d venture to guess that every day in Oregon would beat the surf conditions here on any day, water temperature excluded. In any case, I’m back from vacation. Regular transmissions from Skate and Annoy will resume shortly, although there will be no travel documentary as I’m approaching the half point in a recent tendon tear recovery via DOS Trusty Bowl. Didn’t even pack the (skate)board.

This is clearly a Kevin Staab bootleg. More than one company seems to have copied the ‘Mad Chemist’ graphic in the past. We had some here and I have seen some other fake Staabs around.  The original deck was designed by John Lucero in 1986 for Sims. Also, this fake one is made by Saturn, the same company that produced the fake Monty Nolder from December. It was also the same seller who sold this deck on eBay. This one went for £10.73 after 5 bids.

Thanks to John William Davies for the tip and Chandra Ruegg for the pictures.

Secret background compound in the “Weird Woods of Maine.” I didn’t even notice the wooden ramp the first few times I looked at this photo.

[Photo: (with Permission) Rob XXXX]

This is a commercial with skateboarding in it that I can get behind. Death Wish Coffee presents The Late Riser.

– Thanks to Mezmer for the tip.

Pause magazine wants to redefine men’s fashion:

The skater boy is the contemporaries new man and fashion wants him for their own.
AW or SS it doesn’t matter….THIS IS THE FUTURE.

This guy so surreal looking I can’t even laugh at this. A one point the video is like Charlie Sexton in a Devo video. Sometimes he looks like a computer animation. The model is one angular mofo. The video runs from skateboarding to motocross to a quasi bullfighter look. I keep expecting Ali G or Bruno to pop up. And the title, so hopelessly out of touch/fashion. That was popular in 2002! I don’t know why, but this whole thing fascinates me. It makes me want to stand in the corner of a skatepark and do the fake make out thing with my hands around my back. Yes, I know there are no corners in a skatepark. “Bonus” Avril Lavign video after the fashion disaster.

[Source: Caught in the Crossfire]

Avenue Trucks is the latest attempt to redesign the skateboard truck. It’s getting harder to come up with new ways to fix something that isn’t broken, but they managed to do it. They must have used up all their creativity by the time it came time to choose a name though. The combination leaf spring baseplate looks like it would bend all to hell if anybody other than a little kid was riding it. They have a video showing it in action, and it looks stable for the most part, although it does dip pretty low at points. If it’s the same rider that they show at the end, he’s not exactly taxing the board. Benefits? I imagine they’ll claim some sort of extra carving feel, maybe a shock absorber for high impact landings? Maybe they are cheaper to manufacture. It’s hard to know, as the web site is retry much just a place holder right now. You’ll find more info on their Facebook presence. Even as I can hear the choruses of naysayers, I’d like to ride a set of these just to see what it feels like. That’s going to be their biggest challenge. I can’t imagine a lot of people shelling out to to try these on the off chance that they would actually like them enough to replace a conventional skateboard truck. Avenue trucks might have missed their golden opportunity though. I’m thinking of two brief periods in the late 70’s and mid 80’s when anti-hangup devices and lappers were popular. Video and pics after the jump.

Sewa Kroetkov for Lenovo computers is the focus of a commercial in Lenovo’s campaign awkwardly titled “Make your DO come true.” On the the DP’s list of things to do, maybe reshoot the 2/3 of the action that resulted in butt shots. I had to look up Sewa Kroetkov because I am an old man whole lives in a cabin in the woods, but he’s a real guy from the Netherlands and not a construct of a creative director’s imagination. The example of Sewa giving up life as an accountant to skateboard for a living seems at odds with Lenovo’s target audience. They’re saying he’s a “doer” and people who “do” use Lenovo notebooks. The unintended message is “Screw a straight job, go skateboarding!”

– Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.