1975 Gallery, in conjunction with BookSmart Studio’s Gallery Kunstler, presents THE WORST IS YET TO COME, collaborations between Don Pendleton and Mark Penxa, two artists/designers highly regarded for their work in the skateboard industry with companies including Alien Workshop, Element, DC Shoe Co., and Girl skateboards. THE WORST IS YET TO COME explores the modern decay of interpersonal communication and a culture in overall decline. Both artists will be in attendance. Mark and Don each have two full walls of works, and there’s a middle Island Wall that has 17 total collaboration pieces. There are 43 total in the show. THE WORST IS YET TO COME September 3 – 25, 2010 Opening reception Friday, September 3, 2010 6-9PM 1975 at Gallery Kunstler (inside Booksmart Studio) 250 North Goodman St. Rochester, NY 14607 For more information: www.1975ish.com www.theworstisyettocome.net facebook.com

It can be a bit jarring when you leave the friendly confines of the Pacific Northwest and you want to visit a skatepark in another state. All of the sudden you have to worry about whether or not it’s going to be open during school hours and how much it might cost you. The city (village?) of Northport, New York has a new skatepark waiting in the wings and skaters in and around the area are trying to get the city to change their minds about charging a fee to skate. To be fair, you don’t have to pay to skate in public skateparks in most states these days. The East coast may have pioneered the skatepark, but they seem to be having a hard time letting go of the pay-to-play public skatepark. There’s a list of city emails to (respectfully) beseech for a free skatepark experience in Northport over on Sleestak. [Photo: Can’t seem to find the original. Anyone?]

Two comics with skateboarding, one is Cyanide & Happiness and the other is from a Imperial Valley, Ca paper, as featured on a crackpot’s blog The Snake on the Flag. Thanks to Boy Ipoh and Ryan Mann.

Bingen, Washington is a sleepy little town of 672 people (back in 2000) across the river from Hood River, Oregon. Carl Warren reported that Grindline broke ground on a skatepark there. I can’t find any design drawings for it anywhere. Maybe if you squint real hard you can see it in their hands.

…of video from last weekend’s Alley Jam 2010 in Bend, Oregon. Proceeds raised from the event went to the American Cancer Society and the (Bend, Oregon) Division Street Skatepark Project. Check out the video on Crust Productions.

Brought to you by alternative-vehicles week at Antigravity Press.

Kids meal toys at Taco Bell are (were, most likely) really cheap Weird-Ohs brand fingerboards. I am officially losing my mind now, because I swear I already did a post about some Weird-Ohs branded magnetic figures on a skateboard, but I can’t find it anywhere on the site. I can’t link to it, but the figures were on skateboards that were kind of crappy, so it’s no surprise that the freebie kids meal toys at Taco Bell are even crappier. It’s a shame cause the Weird-Oh legacy is pretty cool. If they did it right, a lot of people would really dig them.

Two videos, one with a lot of skateboarding, one with about a half a second. The first one is for an Underworld song called Always loved a film. It expands on a concept where old guys act like teenagers. You may remember in 2007 we posted a commercial for something called 118 118 that was pretty much the same deal. It looks like one of the old guys still skates though, he’s not quite as old looking as the rest of them though, but maybe it’s the long hair. I feel like I should know who this guy is. The second is for a defunct outfit called These Animal Men. The song The Sound of the Youth has a great bombastic intro and about 14 frames of a plastic skateboard, in 1994 even. Watch them both, then imagine the first video track playing with the audio soundtrack of the second video. Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine it because I swapped it out myself and uploaded the mashup.

Did anybody see the 2005 remake of Bad News Bears? Anybody? Anybody? I wonder if there is any skateboarding in the movie. I believe skateboarding surpassed baseball in youth practitioner #’s some time in the new millennium, so nowadays if you want to be an individual and be a rebel, you gotta join an organized sports team.

If you like that sort of thing. Buy Hopeless Old Men on Skateboards books.