Feeling stressed? Grab your bath salts and some candles, drag you subwoofer into the bathroom and enjoy a soothing bubble bath while watching this latest (actually old) fashion look book from Koch shot at a very lovely skatepark. No more frontside grinds, release your aggression. Let it go… UPDATE: Added some retina-relaxing images.

At about 11:40 in the Chris Rock episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee you can watch Jerry profess his unsolicited admiration for skateboarders. Weird. I first saw this via Jeff Hedges on Facebook. Not that weird. There’s no embedded video so you’ll need to click through. I’ve watched a handful of these and overall they are pretty good. Some that you’d think would be funnier aren’t, but some that you’d expect to be less amusing are surprising. Jerry, I gotta take issue with your comment on the 1971 Porsche 911 Carrera (See the Seth Myers episode) . I believe the distinction of the first aerodynamic spoiler to be sold on a stock consumer car belongs instead to the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, which was literally a race car they had to sell to the public in order to qualify for Nascar. It was such a game changer that Nascar changed the rules to get rid of them. In fact, the Plymouth Superbird designed at the behest of Richard Petty (to keep him from leaving the team) came out with an almost identical spoiler in 1970, so that Porsche would actually be the third consumer care to have an aerodynamic spoiler. Really, Jerry? Sure, they lack the subtlety of teh porsche, but you have to give credit where credit is due. I expect all you readers to click through a couple times. I want the show’s sponsor Acura to think that skateboarders have lot’s of money. I’ll be checking the mail for my review model. I think the TSX Sport Wagon would do nicely for Mrs. Kilwag. I’ll stick with my ’93 Civic until the last plastic part breaks and I need duct tape to keep the door closed.

My dad is such a loser by youtube user Marcus Johns. Almost too short! – Thanks to Kathleen Conahan for the tip.

Not to be confused with Pizza Grip, (Man that stuff is gnarly), here are two skateboards in the shape of a slice of Pizza. The first is a graphic for an 2012 book signing event with Christian Hosoi at Pizzanista, which it turns out is partially owned by Salman Agah. On the right, an actual production board called the Slicer, this one from a NYC clothing company called The Good Company. My source for the Slicer was Pee Wee Herman’s Facebook feed.

Above Coping is seeking skateboarding themed art for a benefit show at Commonwealth Skateboarding on August 30th. See the flyer for details. What is Above Coping?

“Above Coping is a non-profit that brings skateboarding to youth with chronic health conditions and life threatening illnesses. AC has two major programs: “Skating Through It” art clinics where children paint their own blank skateboard deck, and “Getting Over It” skate clinics where children paint decks and we set up complete skateboards while teaching the basics of riding them. The programs are conducted in partnership with hospitals (Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, Shriner’s Hospital for Children) and child serving non-profits in Portland, OR (Children’s Cancer Association, Children’s Healing Art Project, Hands and Voices, etc.).”

In this edition of counterfeits we have 2 fake Sims decks. The blue one on the left is an almost exact copy of the Kevin Staab ‘Mad Scientist’ model from 1986, designed by John Lucero. The ‘Pirate’ model on the right was based on a Staab pro deck from 1987, designed by Lance Welborn. The pink complete says ‘Aims’ instead of ‘Sims’ and ‘Ataab’ instead of ‘Staab’, very clever …

Thanks to Matt Bass for the tip.

Future Envy, by Nathan W. Pyle, available on Threadless.

Gold Cup Skateboards comes to you from the mind of Lance Mountain. The boards are all made in U.S.A. and distributed by NHS. The product looks fully flushed out, right down to the “Power Slider” tail blocks. It’s not all retro nostalgia. Well maybe it is actually, but they do seem to be built with functionality in mind, as long as you are OK with a bizarro Streets of Fire ( Note “of” not “on” fire ) scenario where the technology of the future is wildly available in the past. It’s as if somebody forked a parallel universe on GitHub where certain niche technologies and fashions remained the same while the rest of the world advanced. Maybe they can get a young William Dafoe on the team. It’s a strange but interesting time in skateboarding. You can basically buy skateboard technology form any past generation right now. I can’t think of a similar scenario in any other sport. Imagine a football team where everyone decided to wear the old leather style helmets. I suppose you can still buy a basic wooden tennis racket. Maybe it’s just that skateboard styles and technology are more distinct through the ages.

Lorem Ipsum is nonsense text that looks vaguely latin. It’s used by designers and publishers to fill in some content in order to flush out a design or layout. Whenever I need it for web design, I’ve always used an online generator at Lipsum.com. That was before I found Skate Ipsum, which unlike traditional Lorem ipsum, it uses real words from a tome of common skateboaring terms, enabling such excellent paragraphs as:

Santa Monica Airlines kickturn nose slide lip sponsored nosepicker casper slide. Body varial Burnside durometer masonite steps slappy locals. Crail grab hurricane helipop hard flip backside blunt. Coper fastplant heel flip boned out nose-bump transition. Cab flip transition hurricane judo air goofy footed ollie. Skate or die skater birdie nollie frigid air shoveit. Hospital flip kick-nose H-Street pivot pump flypaper frontside. Crailtap regular footed Arto Saari yeah camel back bail flail. Freestyle crail slide street vert boneless manual. Kevin Jarvis freestyle lien air durometer manual soul skate speed wobbles. Baseplate betty ollie slam fakie opposite footed.

There are all kinds of Lorem Ipsum generators, a close second favorite of mine is the Samuel L. Jackson inspired SLipsum, which deviates even more from the standard by using actual quotes from Mr. Jackson’s more memorable movie appearances. It’s not really the content, but more the manner in which you choose your options that makes it entertaining. I hear him in my head every time I read it. Check out all the Lorem Ipsum flavors at Meet the Ipsums. In the meantime, I think I’m going to see if I can use Skate Ipsum to generate a week’s worth of posts. They’ve got an API for Hosoi’s sake!

[Clipart source: Russ Howell (Yes, the Russ Howell)]