Irene Neuwirth has a skateboard covered in $60,000 worth of rocks up for auction to benefit the Laxart gallery. While I was shocked to learn that she is “admittedly no Tony Hawk,” I was even more shocked to see what amounts to a very expensive and amateurish crafts project passed off as art by a well known jewelry designer. Actually, I know nothing about her, but I’d have to assume she is successful to be able to pony up that much cash for… trash. Natas Kaupas is going to have a piece in there too. Seems like I’ve heard of him sompeplace before. Fashion strikes again! [Source: Style.com] via Betsy Gordon.

I found Stoic skate zine on in the portfolio of Illustrator Alex Gorodskoy while looking for something that was probably screen printing related. It’s a killer looking zine with nary a traditional photograph in it, instead they have been replaced by drawings of photos, or constructions. You can see the whole issue on.. Issu. Every other time I’ve been to Issu lately, their server seems to be overloaded. So you might have to check back if it won’t load immediately.

I met a guy lurking outside of the Street League contest in Portland.he said he could show me something I hadn’t seen before. I told him “Not, here. Not now, especially with my kids present.” No, no… I took a glance and said “I don’t know man, I’ve seen hubcaps on skateboards before.” But then I took a closer look, and he explained that these were bearing covers. If you look closely, you can see that these are indeed unlike any other bearing cover that you’ve seen. I’m still unclear as to whether Sk8rNutz are a complete assembly that include the bearings, but they are definitely more useful than Sk8nutz. Sk8rNutz vs. Sk8Nutz, a subtle distinction in product names, but not in product. If you are going to spend a hundred dollars or more on ceramic bearings, these look like they might do a good job of protecting your investment.

I feel bad every time I laugh at this picture, which is every time I see it. I can’t track down the original source. The flip flops are the icing on the cake. Also, yes. Every time. Mean.

Adidas Skateboarding is celebrating 15 years of having Mark Gonzales on the team with a video featuring photogs and videogs waxing nostalgic about him and the of course, a whole lot of skateboarding. As you should expect, it’s highly entertaining. Here’s to another 15 years of the Cult of Gonzales.

Nike SB is now one of the major sponsors of Street League Skateboarding. Next stop is Portland, Oregon this Sunday. Nike’s team put on a little demo yesterday at the world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. This morning this big skateboard was parked out back. A few shots of the event after the turn.

I’m not going to make any judgements or cast him in a disparaging light, but MC is the king of finding fashion skateboarding shoots lately. Here are not one, but three fashion spreads featuring skateboards and/or skateboard parks. Fashion, not function.

It’s a bit of a stretch to include this here on Skate and Annoy, but there actually is a little skateboarding footage so I’m running with it. Faction of the Fox sent me some stickers and a couple buttons in a tiny envelope with no return address or note. Google turned up a web site with literally no information except for some strange video collages, some of which masquerade as music videos. It’s definitely an acquired taste, like a hip-hop version of Men’s Recovery Project. I’m not 100% on board musically, but these videos are right up my post modernist art school degree with which I did nothing, except tune in Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I don’t have any money! Watch and enjoy, or come highly irritated. Either way, mission accomplished! There are a few moments in these videos that are absolutely brilliant. And my wife thinks the Moody Blues are weird.

Rip Skates was a (crappy) budget brand from Surrey Skateboards, a skateshop in the UK that exists since 1977. The shop in Surrey closed down, but you can still visit them online and buy their new stuff or check out the cool pictures of the good old days. The graphic on this deck looks great, the ‘monster clown’  killing the vert skater and destroying his ramp reminds me of some of the old Deathbox designs. Was it a reference to the death of vert in the late 80’s? Anyway, it was very unlikely that you would have become a good street skater with this complete! For sale on Gumtree for £5.