I swear there are less than five pictures of the

The diffusion of skateboarding into the popular culture as a fashion trend always tweaked me but blue jeans and t-shirts were popularized by poseurs trying to look proletarian. Any thoughtless aping of an idea is to be despised. That said, I will admit to fascination with all aspects of the history of skateboarding. This looks like a well designed book about skate shoes. Great photographs of the shoes are juxtaposed with magazine layouts and ads. Based on the collection of the Museum of Skateboard History in Stuttgart, Germany which we posted about before. I found the book here but you can also find it at Amazon

I don’t know what you call this kind of riding, half-ditch? Who cares, it’s rad. This is a closeup of a shot of John John Aguilar skating a ditch type situation in Mexico City, circa 1989. See that concrete halfpipe in the background? John said this was an old closed up skatepark called Dogtown. They had to hop a fence and barge it. The caretaker kept a small amount a sheep on the lot and occasionally skaters would have to dodge the males with horns who were intent on ramming intruders. John lives in Bellingham, Washington now, so the only thing he has to dodge is little kids. See the whole thing after the jump.

Bryce kind of looks like a thug in this still from Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. I snagged this image from Bordistan. This is just a reminder about his show at DOS on Friday the 30th, from 7-10pm. See you there!

On Tuesday we got a nice covering of fat, white snow here in Portland. It came down pretty good for a couple hours in the middle of the day. It even stayed solid on the streets, which usually doesn’t happen here. But, by the end of the daylight it had pretty much been replaced by rain, and it melted away. I looked outside at about 5:00 and it all seemed like a pleasant dream. Over the weekend I went to a kids birthday party (with my kids, not to abduct toddlers…) that was at an ice rink. It was the firsttime I’d had on ice skates since grade school. I go to thinking about those old ice board kits that were for sale in the back of Thrasher.

I always thought Xeni Jardin seemed cool with that spiky while hair. Turns out she’s actually a punk rock survivor. She does an interview with Glen Friedman on Boing Boing TV. Looks like Glen Friedman had a show at Shepard Fairey’s gallery in LA. Fairey’s interview last week was pretty great too. I was wondering about the skate photos in the background. You tube version embedded after the jump.

This week’s Shot of the Week is Adam Hopkins skating in Burnaby, British Columbia. This is the teaser shot designed to disorient the viewr, the full frame shot will give you a totally different perspective. Dylan Davies took this shot in the fall of 2008. After you check outhte full frame Shot of the Week, (No peeking!) come back here to finish the conversation.

There’s no relation whatsoever. I got a press release from DC Jams records letting me know that JFA is going to release a live album called “To All Our Friends” in April. It’s been 10 years since a full length release from JFA. I’ve never been a super huge JFA fan, I always like the concept better than most of the actual music, but I did wear out the groove replaying the Peanuts theme on my copy of the Mad Garden EP. Need some JFA to tide you over? Heres the official band site, and an interview from Maximum Rock and Roll, circa 1983. I hate to keep bringing up Juice Magazine, but the last issue (#65) also has a really good interview with Tim Kerr of the legendary Big Boys conducted by Steve Olson. Kerr talks about the infamous open letter in Thrasher from JFA challenging all so-called skate rock bands to put up or shut up. Basically a skate challenge. Kerr recalls JFA coming to Texas and bringing them to the Pflugerville ditch for what he thought was just a friendly session, but in retrospect turned out to be JFA assessing whether or not the Big Boys qualified…

Mike V has a supporting role as one of the bad guys in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and he’s pimping it hard on his web site. He’s go the trailer, a couple previews, three TV appearances and and some production stills on his web site. Mike did more than just stunts, he’s a real character in the movie. One TV commercial for Mall Cop shows a split second of skateboarding. I figured it was not a big part of the movie. But apparently, the “bad guys” are all terrorists who happen to be good at extreme sports… Good thing is a comedy and not xXx. Sounds corny? According to Vallely in an Buzzine interview: More importantly, Vallely said James and the entire production crew went out of their way to understand the perspective of skateboarders and BMX riders. “The most important thing for us is that everyone wanted to this right,” the skateboarding veteran said. “Usually people don’t get skateboarding. The stunt team and production team learned a lot from me, but I also learned a lot from them in terms of how to work on a Hollywood movie.” Who esle is in it? Jason Ellis, Rick Thorne,…

Want to take your fingerboarding sessions to the next level? (Did I actually just type that?) There’s an IPhone app called Touch Grind that is basically a slightly different interpretation than the original concept-only Vans Finger Fracture. One big difference, Touch Grind is something you can actually purchase and play. And, it’s supposed to be pretty good. I’m one of those poor peasants who can’t afford an iPhone, so I don’t know how this game plays. It looks fun, but it also looks like it needs to be played with some extra screen real estate, say on a 17″ monitor. Yes, I know this game is not news anymore. I’m only mentioning it because I never got around to it originally, and if I don’t write about it on Skate and Annoy, it doesn’t exist. Errr… Yeah right. Concrete Wave had some sort of marketing partnership for inline advertising with the Swedish developers of Touch Grind, but the partnership went sour, just in time for a new ad that Concrete Wave took out in Transworld, of all places. I guess if I wanted to help them out I should have posted this earlier. What else? How about video captures of…