September 2008. The economy is really starting to contract. The housing market has been sucking for ages, and now banks are failing and the economy is streaking towards recession. Skateboard prices are not immune. They are starting on a downward trend, which will continue for sometime I would imagine. It’s a really good time to buy, not so good if you are a seller. Read eBay Watch: September 2008

Hello from G.P.K. (Grover’s Photo Korner) I went to so-cal and the skating is lame except for a few parks you know which ones… They are Encinitas, Clairemont, but you can only ride those certain hours and you pay every where except W.S.V.T. Oh yeah they also have a state wide age minimum of 6 years and above, so my son also learned to lie on his trip to California. Yes “to lie” not “to ollie.”

Sherwood, Oregon is about to get “Oregon’s first sporting goods store for dogs.” Err… Does that mean other states already have sporting goods stores for dogs? Aren’t those just called Pet Smart? I guess not. They sell obstacle course setups and skijoring equipment too, but probably not skateboards. To show they are serious, they’ve hired Tilman the skateboarding Bulldog to appear at the grand opening November 1-2. Hold on, who is this Tilman? What happened to Tyson the skateboarding bulldog? I guess Tilman is doing a good job of riding on the coattails of Tyson. Tilman’s last appearance reportedly drew a crowd of 12,000 (?) people. Come on. that’s go to be a typo. People probably thought they were going to see Tyson anyway. I wonder whose dog was named first. They sound too simialr to be a coincidence.

An anonymous party painted over a graffiti covered bowl in the Corvallis, Oregon skatepark a few weeks ago. It was a solid one color job that covered existing graffiti, including the usual genitalia and swastika nonsense. When the city eventually got around to cleaning it themselves, they were annoyed and/or potentially embarrassed to find that the park users had taken matters into their own hands. They plan on spending an estimated $500 to remove it, an the police are treating it as an act of vandalism. Brilliant! Way to instill a sense of pride and community. I imagine the local activist group, the Benton County Skateboarding Alliance will have something to say about this. I leave it to them to take action, but we’ll report here if anything noteworthy happens. Fight the good fight! – Thanks to Danimal and Joesf for the tip. [Source – Corvallis Gazette-Times]

This week’s Shot of the Week is from Halloween at Burnside last year. I’m not sure if I’m going today, I just don’t have a thing to wear! in any case there’s always last year’s shots, and of course, GVK’s Halloween Hodads. Check out the Shot of the Week.

Jon Favreau and Tony Hawk are on tonight’s episode of the Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts show. If you haven’t seen it, two “iconoclasts” spend an hour talking to each other about the things that made them iconoclasts in first place, as well as completely unrelated matters. It’s a good show, though somewhat slow paced at times. If you are looking for something with a little more substance than your typical TV interview piece, Iconoclasts is the place to get it. The show airs tonight on the Sundance Channel at 10p E/P time zone. Video clips after the jump.

Bogtown Boyz is a vintage slide show featuring 149 pictures of most if not all of the historic UK skatespots featured in the excellent documentary Rollin’ Through The Decades. OK, I haven’t fact checked this since I haven’t watched Rollin’ in a while, but the names are familiar, Meanwhile Gardens, Rolling Thunder, Romford. A rare construction photo as well. I still have to make it through all the shots. It’s a Flash player, so it’s a bit less responsive than straight HTML, but you can sit back and let it play. The only thing missing is volume control for that Tony Alva vs. Jay Adams song, which is great, but tedious after the third time in a row. That tune was a blind link on SkateDaily quite awhile back, I still haven’t been able to find out who the band is.

Joesf is pouring faster than I post. This next batch covers a couple of pours over different days. He might be done by the time you read this.

We haven’t reported on the Bennet Colorado DIY project since a benefit from last year. Looks like they got a bowl poured with some help from Team Pain. We got a ton of help this past Friday. The pool was poured in approximately 10 hours. It came out really well (thanks again to guys from Team Pain). Next steps are tile and pool coping. A new wall tying the pool to the slab has already been framed out, so I’ll keep you all updated. Many thanks to all of the volunteers! – Ash More pics and vid at Colorado Coalition for Public Skateparks.

I dragged my family down to see There is Xerox on the Inside of Your Eyelids and my daughter Kathleen took this picture of me next to my ‘zine Bodyslam. And that’s a cool shot of Garry Davis from the show. The Portland exhibition ends Friday, October 31 but it is going to New York next. Opening is November 8th at Printed Matter 195 10th Ave New York, NY 10011 (212) 925-0464 opening on the Saturday the 8th from 5 to 7 pm. The show will travel to Holland in January.