At first I was aloof about the Maloof Money cup… Yes, Thank you. Good night! Don’t forget to tip your bartenders. I’ll be here for the rest of the month… OK. The idea of a building a concrete street course for one event and then tearing it down seemed absurd and grossly decadent, but it turns out California Skateparks was using mostly Spohn Ranch (I think?) reusable prefab concrete elements. I saw some of last year’s street footage on network TV of all places, and it was enjoyable. The participants fell all over themselves to gush about the event and the prize money, which seemed a little forced in the way the TV program presented it. It was almost like extreme ass kissing to guarantee another event. This year the vert event (was there one last year?) features a crazy ramp with a mini megaramp. I’m not sure how that fits into the judging or whether or not it will be a separate event. The total purse is at $450,000, and Fuel TV will being doing a live HD webcast. To get you in the mood they have a video teaser, and interviews with Bryan Herman, Braydon Szafranski and Joe…

A lot of people are excited about this book. Disposable was reprinted in several editions with additions. The Disposable Skateboard Bible (Or Disposable II, depending on where you look) is available from Gingko Press. I’ve got conflicting information on cover art and page counts, but I’ll find out soon enough when my copy arrives in the mail. (Update: The Gingko site has prerelease information and graphics, as they are in the middle of a site re-design.) The scope of the book is supposed to be broader. I asked Sean Cliver if the new book encompassed the first one, and here’s what he had to say: …it’s an all-new book. a complement to the first, really. 1) Includes 60s/70s stuff; 2) Includes a lot more 80s stuff that didn’t fit the first book; 3) Includes new artist/rider stories from like VCJ, Greg Evans, Art/Steve Godoy, Gator, etc.; 4) much more of a “collector” bias in its opening words. on that note, it’s also far less wordier than the first book with more pages devoted to board images (a total of like 2500 i think?). Can’t wait to see it. He’s been working on this for a few years now, and with…

I was perusing the back issues of Thrasher (yes, perusing…) when I found MC in the April, 1984 issue of Thrasher. It’s the Photograffiti section. It includes a paragraph where Mark (AKA Max Concave) talks about a ramp some surfers built here in Oregon, and laments about the lack of initiative shown by skaters. Well, 25 years later MC finally remedied the situation. Check it out after the jump… or I suppose you could actually read it at the Thrasher site. Gee whiz, don’t those High Speed Publications guys realize they are putting hundreds of nostalgia skateboard bloggers out of their imaginary, non-paying jobs? Seriously though, that is the MO of a lot of skate blogs out there, scan some old ads or features from the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s, and then reminisce. I’m not knocking them, because I do it all the time.

Here’s a couple more pictures of the now finished roman pool in the Roxborough Village, (Littleton) Colorado skatepark. Thanks again to Tito for sending these in.

If you thought this was beautiful, wait to you feast your eyes on the best commercial in the entire world, ever. Yeah, that’s right, the results are in, and this commercial for the skate bike has won hands down. Check it out after the jump, with a bonus advert for the product as printed in a couple of 1984 issues of Thrasher. While you were out… Thrasher has brought the complete back issues online up to 1985. I wish they would go back to the old method of making it a single pdf download. For one thing, the image size was bigger and even the tiny print was legible. I guess they get more page views that way. – Thanks to Matt Beasley and Ben for the tips.

Colin Walsh (rules) took his camera to the BCSA contest at Harrisburg, Oregon on the 4th of July. Check out the shots. Colin, looks like you’ve got some intermittent problems with the image sensor on your camera. It may be related to shooting into the sun. I know my D-70 gives me some weird green streaks in similar situations sometimes.

Three bits of iPhone related skateboard news at once. First up, Apple’s advertisement for the video shooting and editing (!) capabilities of the the new iPhone. Check it out here. Somebody built a nice miniramp for that hurricane wall studio setup. I wonder what happened to it afterwards. Next up, Made for Skate has launched an iPhone app version of their collection of skateboard shoe history. Aside from the massive historical archives at your fingertips, you also get free updates, a store locator, etc… If you are obsessively into skate shoes, this would seem to be your go to app. Not bad for two bucks. Made for Skate web site has been recently updated with new pictures from their ongoing exhibitions, and wallpapers for your desktop and phones. Lastly, there is an iPhone app called Go SK8 that is the high tech equivalent of those hand held golf counters or ball, strike out clickers that little league baseball umpires use. It does more than just keep track of your letters, it will also randomly pick your tricks. You can choose three different skill levels and three different terrain types (flatground, rails and transition) I suppose that would be a good…

On Sunday we set the coping (Tedders Stone) at MC’s bowl… well, Mike Swm and Burke were the chief technicians. The rest of us were apprentice “hose boys” and the like. There was a lot more fiddling and adjusting than I thought there would be. It was pretty straight forward, but time consuming. The whole thing took about as much time as the bowl pour itself. I took a couple pictures before settling down to work, and then Grover got behind the lens. The finished bowl looks beautiful. The tile really adds a lot to the end result. Three days and it should be ready to ride.

Skateboarding has spawned some interesting cottage industries. I just found a guy making fingerboard skate obstacles under the name Stone Tech Ramps. The halfpipe, bowls and street obstacles are made out of some sort of resin that must be lightweight. You can see a kid above lifting up one of the massive bowls without a problem. The scale of the ramps vs. the Tech Decks have tipped further towards gigantic. There’s a wide variety of obstacles, and you can easily spot his earlier work where he didn’t quite have the casting method down. The stairs and would-be sharp edges have the appearance of rock left under a waterfall for 50 years. Prices are pretty high. That half pipe will run you $95 and one custom bowl has a buy it now of $165! Smaller obstacles start around $16. These are hand crafted, one of a kind toys, but still, that’s a lot of coin. Check out a hilarious “review” by a nonpartisan source. It’s a kid whose “friend’s uncle” makes these things. Stick with the whole thing, it’s great how he bashes the Tech Deck gear, using sounds as a benchmark. he’s a regular Billy Mays in training.

Dan Hughes’ Northwest Skater has an archive of the regional newsletter/zine Skateboard Northwest from 1978. Yes, that’s Mark Conahan on page three. Now that Dan has moved to Utah, will he change the name of his site? Did you know Dan is getting married? For those of you that know Dan, S&A obtained an exclusive sneak peak of the ceremony.