I don’t know what the title of The Chrome Ball Incident refers to. Calls to mind pinball for me. This site picks up exactly where I stopped paying attention to the major skate mags. Even as someone who doesn’t really feel a connection with the popular culture of skateboarding during that time period, I still find these old archives interesting, sometimes even fascinating. It’s all about the hindsight and knowing how it all shook down in the end. Through all the cat fights and temper tantrums in the industry, there was still some great skating going down. One post I enjoyed reading was an interview with Matt Hensley as he was fading out from the public eye of skateboarding. HE was working at the Chicago Sessions shop, who was actually a client of the silkscreen company I was a partner in. He came in with the Sessions dude (Scott?) and we worked up the art for a Sessions T-shirt that looked like a “tribute” to the first Specials album. I remember I vaguely knew who he was, but totally didn’t recognize him. I only mention it (becauee I want you to love me) because in the interview Matt briefly talks…

Before he started appearing in commercials, hosting lame TV shows and playing even lamer “stand up comedy” gigs, Henry Rollins was cool. He appeared on a skateboard in Thrasher for two months back to back in 1982.

The Escapist Magazine presents this No Punctuation productions review of EA’s Skate 2, and it’s pretty funny, from just about any point of view. Check it out after the jump. Make sure you close the annoying advert or it will prove to be very distracting. – Thanks to Colin for the tip.

The economy sucks, and BMX riders and skateboarders at Burnside will be closer neighbors as a result. The Burnside Bridgehead redevelopment project is having funding issues. Instead of funding some of the planned landscape architecture, a parcel of land overlooking the new addition to the skate terrain is going to be turned into a temporary BMX dirt “pump track” filled with “rolling jumps, step-ups, and berms” according to BikePortland. You’d think the city would know that once you let anyone squat, it’s going to be hard as hell to get rid of them! That reminds me, there’s a bizarre new mural at the Department that shows a skatepark under the Fremont bridge and a buttload of bicycles going over the bridge. There’s only one or two skateboards in the whole thing. It’s strange indeed. Who commissions those things anyway? There must not be much of a screening process. – Thanks to Fitz for the tip.

The first comic I submitted to Thrasher appeared in the February 1982 issue. That must have been my birthday present. I turned 21 that month. Thrasher Magazine has posted all of the issues from their second year on their website.

California used to be synonymous with skateboarding. If you can believe it, there once was a time in the not to distant past when California had to export skateboarding to the rest of the country, let alone the world. In some parts of the midwest, even as recent as the 80’s you might still hear the taunt “Go back to California, dude!” if you rode a skateboard. It was supposed to be a put down, much like jocks would yell “Devo!” as an insult to anyone who dressed like they didn’t listen to Journey or Zepplin. Ahh… fun times. This California key chain skateboard souvenir dates back to the 80’s according to the eBay auction. They also have another one in pink with an inscription that says “Super Boy,” but I’m willing to be that was a typo that was supposed to read “Surfer Boy.” It’s funny now, but California might not be the first thing that non-skating people think of when playing the word association game with “skateboard.”

My grandfather once made me a pretend switchblade out of a clothespin, rubber band and a popsicle stick. He also made me some stilts and one of those metal rings you push down the street with a stick. $100 will get you this historical inaccuracy, curiosity, and conversation starter. It’s a replica of the precursor to the skateboard, an orange crate scooter. The irony is that instead of roller skate trucks, it has actual skateboard trucks. It’s kind of like watching a period movie about a civil war vet where the female love interest is a white chick raised by native americans but still has a feathered 80’s hairdo. Or a WWII movie about Hitler where all the Nazis have British accents. Mountain Boy Sledworks makes these things by hand.

Legos are some of the best toys ever. I’ll be a skater for life, but I might not be able to actually skate at age 90, assuming I make it that far. But if the arthritis gets too bad for me, I’ll still be able to build stuff with those oversized Legos they make for preeschool kids. Bricks 4 Life! Nathan Sawaya is a brick artist who among other excellent constructions, also built a lifesize skateboard sculpture out of Legos. Check it out on The Art of the Brick. [Source: Zedomax]

The Berkeley, California skatepark will host the rain delayed Day After St Valentines Day Skate Massacre on this Sunday the 22nd of February. That’s a mouthful. Is that vintage hardcore act Verbal Abuse I see on the flyer as well? Yes it is! I’m sure they’ve aged well, like a fine, angry wine. Catch the full, confusing flyer after the jump. – Thanks to Tom from Weirdo for the tip.

I found these Chupa Chups over on a blog called sa ka woulé which might be French for something I don’t know, but over here in the U.S. we call these things Blow Pops. I’m digging the fact that the skater is dressed up in a suit.