It’s Spongebob Squarepants on a skateboard, available as a Happy Meal toy. Thanks to Colin Sharp for bringing his whole family to McDonalds on a weekly basis and photographing this for me, becasue I wouldn’t be caught dead feeding this to my kids.

– With apologies to McRad.

Enjoy, if you can, these two music videos with downhill skateboarding themes. I think the first one is actually a commercial for Kia. The first is Ivan Gough & Feenixpawl ft. Georgi Kay – In My Mind (Axwell Mix) [OFFICIAL VIDEO] Thank god. I’ve been burned on those unofficial videos before. I never got my money back, it was a hard learned lesson. The second video is for the song Puppy by Netsky. You can relax though, it’s another official video. (Don’t get me started…)

– Thanks to Matthijs for having poor taste in music.

I’ve been wondering what’s been going on with Dreamland since I hadn’t heard about them lately. Turns out they’re working on a stealth park in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. I like to call it Beavertron though, but that’s just me, and I’m fairly immature. Carl Warren has some photos. I don’t know where or when in Beaverton this is. (Update: Schiffler Park.) Didn’t even know it was in the works. I’ve got my finger on the pulse. My pulse, because apparently I’m dead.

Videos each about a year old that were lost in the wasteland of my Facebook messages. Check out Tyler Martin and Frank Shaw. Both these guys might live in Portland now.

It’s another Kickstarter project, this time to fund the final editing an film clip usage rights for a documentary on Devo. I mention it here on Skate and Annoy partly because they brought Tony Hawk in to comment on the Freedom of Choice video, but mostly because I love DEVO. They make a big deal about this being an authorized documentary, as compared to the Devo biography which the band originally cooperated with but ended up denouncing. I spoke to Gerald Casale about it and he said it was “all bullshit.” (Yes, I am almost that cool, but not really, I just met him at a bar after he did guest vocals with Portland’s legendary Punk Group.) Regardless of Casale’s opinion of the book, We Are Devo! is a must read if you believe in Devolution. The documentary looks good from the preview clips, I just hope they don’t water it down with too many celebrity appearances. Iggy Pop, sure, I’d love to hear about how he turned David Bowie on to Devo, (or maybe even how he turned David Bowie on) but Tony Hawk seems kind of, well, gratuitous. Surely someone like Steve Olson or Duane Peters would have been more appropriate. No knock against Tony, he just seems like the low hanging fruit in this case. So yeah, Devo documentary. I can’t wait. Trailer and bonus Freedom of Choice video after the jump. This time around, Devo has gotten on board with a YouTube Channel, so we don’t have to worry about the record company suits pulling it down.

Turns out that the Otro skatepark we showed earlier this year is now coated with phosphorescent paint. So now it glows in the dark and possibly gives you cancer if you knee slide without pads… Other sites are reporting that the concrete itself is phosphorescent, but on the architect’s site it mentions the paint. I can’t imagine how much radium it would take to make the concrete glow, so painting seems the obvious choice. OK, Ok, they probably don’t use radium these days, but it makes for a good pun.

[Source: Cnet] Thanks to Seth Levy and others for the tip.

This week’s Shot of the Week features Demarcus James photographed by Steve Potwin at the Weirdo bowl. I love boneless ones, frontside, backside, whatever. This is a great photo.

…In which Skate and Annoy takes a momentary time out from snarky comments to put on the serious hat of a legitimate editorial news outlet.

UPDATE: A Spohn spokesperson has pointed out that Spohn is not a plaintiff in any lawsuit against California Skateparks or ARC ramps:

FYI we never filed a lawsuit against ARC (we were a whistleblower in that one) and are definitely not filing one against CA Skateparks.

We simply protested their bid rigging practices with the City of LA. No one is suing anyone.

…We made a complaint under the LA Contractor Responsibility Ordinance based on allegations that CA failed to disclose Ciaglia’s interests in his various entities including Site Design Group and Street League, failure to disclose lawsuits against California (Skateparks), failure to disclose his relationship with Dyrdek as part of the multiple millions in sole sourced contracts, attempting to bid rig a previous bid, etc.

The City of LA requires disclosure of all of those things as part of its very restrictive pre-qualification process. Right now, the City is investigating. But there is no lawsuit from Spohn against CA Sk8 or Joe.

All we are trying to get is a fair shot at the projects in the City where we live and pay taxes

On behalf of Skate and Annoy, I sincerely regret misrepresenting facts. Original post below:

At first glance the headline is shocking, Rob Dyrdek and a business associate accused of fraud, collusion, bid-rigging and perjury. Then you have to consider the source, another lawsuit filed by Spohn Ranch. (Correction:Spohn has not filed suit against ARC or California Skateparks. See above. ) And it would be easy to dismiss the investigation as sour grapes, but there’s some meat to it after all. The business of so-called donations of park designs contingent on the contract being awarded to specific construction companies certainly has the appearance of impropriety. If you’re going to make a donation, make it without strings attached, for the benefit of the community and not your buddy/partner’s construction company. Especially when it’s a donation that most design/build firms are happy to make when regulations allow. If you read through all the complaints you’ll be left with the impression that their operational practices are misleading if not outright shady. According to Celebsleaze (UPDATE: Appears to be a website set up explicitly for the purpose of providing links to documentation on the investigation. The rest of the site allegedly contains wholesale plagiarism.) both Dyrdek and California Skateparks make cash contributions back to L.A. City Council members who pushed deals through with the city. Yeah, I know, there goes my credibility, but it’s documented. Still, nobody ever sued their way into a profitable business, tech industry notwithstanding. Spohn Ranch might do better to let their skateparks speak for them instead of the lawyers. But then again, it must be nice for a skatepark builder to have the wheels greased by a major celebrity skateboarder who “donates” designs.

[ Source Celeb Sleaze via Commonwealth Skateboarding on Facebook. ] – Photo: Construction Currents, a construction industry website that also has coverage.

I collect a lot of skateboards that are, quite frankly, whack. I have not been able to bring myself to purchase this one, and apparently nobody else has either. This item has been on eBay for a couple of years running. Yes, I’ve been following it that long. I actually saw a kid on one of these at a skatepark some time circa 2001. The question is, did the Gonz get his inspiration from this or did these guys copy him?

Kevin Cann sent in some pictures of his nephew Tristan Rennie who came up from California to skate with his uncle in Quebec. Check him out in some spots in and around Notre Dame de L’ile Perrot, including Kevin’s back yard.