Two countries that are alike in so many ways… at least if you are mostly going by the fact that I’ve never been to either, but that doesn’t stop me from being vaguely connected to people there through the magic of the Interwebs™. After the jump catch two videos sent to me through various global dealing of Skate and Annoy. We’re huge, you know.

There are a lot of charity board auctions these days, and they tend to get lost in the shuffle. I checked out some of the offerings for Good Wood and found several that I liked, not all limited to the one I chose for this post. Winner for the “Duh! Why didn’t I think of that?” category is Jeff Mullin’s Back to the Future deck. Hello McFly! Check out the Good Wood. It’s called Good Wood 2008 – “Give Back”, an auction-cum-party presented by Aww Sweet & Alldaybuffet at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. 50 artists will be auctioning off one-of-a-kind custom skate decks to support Stoked, an organization that mentors kids through action sports. On Saturday, July 26th from 7 to 12 pm, bid on a custom deck (all priced below $500), dance to beats by Brion ISAACS (33Hz and ShindigNYC) and help prove that “one teen at a time, counterculture WILL change the world.” Full flyer and info after the jump.

U sho’nuf do be cookin’ in my book Your face is jammin’ Your body’s heck-a-slammin’

Andrew Lewicki made some very fetishistic skate art objects, namely this gold plated grind rail and a walnut launch ramp. Said the tipster: “Even Norm Abram from The New Yankee Workshop would say ‘This is fucking gay!'” Well, I don’t know if he would use those words exactly… I’m not sure where in the price scale the next item falls. Tom Sachs made a life size quarterpipe that was cast in bronze. Somewhere I thought I had seen a solid bronze casting of a skateboard. I thought it was Burnside muralist Jay Meer, but I might be wrong. What if you wanted a four foot tall bronze statue of a girl on a skateboard? Well, you’re in luck, provided you have $2,000 to spend. When will we see the inevitable gold plated skateboard?

Just about this time last year everyone was freaking out over Jake Brown’s amazing escape from a potentially life ending or at the very least, life changing bail on the mega ramp at the X Games. Hard to believe he walked away from the slam heard round the world. Thankfully I’m not posting about the first annual memorial Jake Brown contest. I’m sure he’d be pissed that we’re bringing it up again, but after the jump there’s a handful of links that date back to the hysteria, and of course, you can watch the video again if you are feeling robust.

So it’s 30 years later and the Today Show is still into skateboards. This time is from a recent segment on how to stay young. The video is embedded after the jump, but unfortunately there are nine minutes and thirty seconds of unrelated facial cream, fashion and stress management footage before you get to the skateboard. There’s not really much to see anyway, although it is slightly amusing to see the host stall for time in order to avoid having to ride on camera. In local news… the setup is advertised as coming from Portland’s Daddies Board Shop. – Thanks to Michael Brooke for the tip.

This week’s Shot of the Week features Mark Conahan in a photo that he says he’s embarrassed of, but shouldn’t be. When is two and a half feet below the coping still an admirable feat? When there’s another 8 feet below you and the transition is ridiculously tight. This is the horizontal crop of the pic so it would fit in the post reasonably. Check out the vertical frame Shot of the Week and then follow the rest of this post to get an idea of how deep that deep end is. This pool was demolished this morning, so everyone who feels obligated to comment on how it looks like a piece of crap can just save your breath. Someone has to skate the crap so the super cool tough guys can get all the glory. Thanks again to the guy who gave us the opportunity to skate this very short lived pool. Much appreciated.

This week’s installment of Saturday Starrs is a 1977 Today Show piece on the new and booming skatepark industry. The report was filed by Irving R. Levine, and is about as dry sounding as it gets. It’s funny to hear about the owners of Skatopia expecting to take in twice the cost of building the park ($300k) in the first year. It mentions the first skatepark in the world being built in Florida, but it doesn’t say what the name is. The guy who built it Charles Cromie, says a skatepark operator can expect to recoup a $175K investment and own the land in 18 months. Levine said 50 skateparks were built in the first year, and at the time there were 100 more planned or in construction. What he doesn’t mention is that 125 will be gone in two years. It’s full of excellent terminology like “radical” and “water surfing.” For now it’s an industry going full speed ahead, and not at all worried that it might be headed (wait for it..) for a financial tumble. Good stuff.

F-Word! This took me even longer to do. I was even looking at some of his body positions in previous comics instead of scribbling from scratch. And, yes, I copied and pasted his head on the voodoo doll directly from another comic. And no, don’t worry. I promise I am not going to make this a regular feature. Sure is fun though.

No, this is not just an excuse to see how many classic post punk album covers I can (in this case, poorly) Photoshop that yellow skateboard into. There’s a community meeting for Miami Beach residents about renovating and enhancing some public facilities. One thing on the agenda is a “new cultural multi-purpose skate plaza.” No thanks, I prefer my skate plazas to be culture-free. Based on the wording, it’s not evident that they know what they are talking about. Miami skaters should go to the meeting on Tuesday, July 22nd at 6pm in the Miami Beach Botanical Garden “Butterfly Room” on 2000 Convention Center drive. Flyer after the jump. – Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.