A computer game called Peggle, kind of a pinball or Pachinko kind of game has this “skatepark level.” The game is funny, when you clear the level you get the Ode to Joy music as you enter Extreme Fever! Funny graphics. Bobcat, this might be up your street with unicorns and rainbows. You can play the demo for an hour then it’s twenty bucks.

I don’t know anything about this project. Mark Scott gave me these photos and said I could post them. It’s a renegade project but it looks like it gets a lot of visitors.

Censorship is Weak as F##k: A Skateboard Art Retrospective:

Censorship is Weak as F##k is a collaborative retrospective featuring over 40 skateboard graphics designed by Marc McKee and Sean Cliver. The show features work the two have done for World Industries and its subsidiary brands from the formation of the company in the late 1980s to its mid-90s rise to industry dominance. The collection of original skateboards demonstrates, literally in graphic detail, how World Industries set itself apart from its competitors by using a totally uncensored approach in its graphic program, relentlessly featuring one controversial subject after another, covering issues such as religion, pornography, gun control, sex, profanity, racism, drug use and violation of copyright law, all on the bottoms of its skateboards.

Trying to pass off that entire period of World Industries as a battle against censorship is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly were infamous, and they certainly did shake up the industry. Besides, with the way these things sell on eBay, this may be your only chance to see some of these decks in person. I’ll tell you what’s weak as F##k… There’s nothing like having to register and log into a bullshit corporate site like MySpace just to be able look at a few pictures. Surely there is a better way. Looks like an art show I’d like to see though.

[Source: Juxtapoz]

I’ve got a son that’s just over two years old. Since he could walk he’s been climbing all over the skateboards that I leave lying around the house. He’s got fingerboards that he likes to play with like other kids play with toy cars, which he has too. I just started taking him to the Saturday morning 14 and under time slot at our local indoor spot, the Department. I get odd looks when I bring him there, but I’m not pushing him to be the next Tony Hawk. He likes playing around on skateboards, and he likes watching kids skate. If we are there for an hour, he’ll maybe spend 10 minutes max actually trying to skate on his own. It’s mostly a way to get him out of the house and give his mom a little break once a week. Why am I telling you this? I found this discussion about stage dads in skateboarding, AKA skate dads. It was instigated by a sponsor me video, or more accurately, a sponsor-him video for a 10 year old kid supposedly put together by a friend of the kid’s dad. It’s pretty funny because it’s got all this aggro heavy music with swearing as a soundtrack for a little kid’s video. I guess that’s what happens when you get a guy who calls himself Skull Crusher to do your video. And just to prove that no matter how young you start them, someone will always be starting younger: there’s another video of a one year old kid monkeying around on a skateboard. Yeah, he’s hanging 10 on the nose, hardwood floors and not eating it.

Kickbacks? That’s the only thing I can think of that would convince a physical education program to buy Waveboards for PE classes. Let me try a different approach:

In my day we had to push uphill five miles on a dirt road to get to the waveboard track and the U-shaped slide. Kids these days are spoiled in their PE classes with alternative sports. Not working for you?

OK. Seen above, Angela’s friends stage an intervention and try to divert her from her quest to run off and join a very low paying circus for social outcasts. I’m not sure if these are better than the flat boards with caster wheels that they use for crab races on rainy days.

Where did I get these pictures? Why, from the Ledger’s article titled Physical Education Rides the Wave Of New Recreational Technologies. Jealous? You can even buy print copies for yourself!

Tony Hawk’s Big Spin has been open for a while now. It’s got to be surreal having your own amusement park ride. There’s no Michael Jordan’s Big Dunk ride out there, but you would think he would have been able to sign the contract if he wanted. Here’s two YouTube videos with two different takes on the ride. One is a guy who obsesses on amusement park rides and the other is a couple of snotty kids who just like to hear themselves say “I hate Tony Hawk.” Check ’em both out after the jump.

– Thanks to Tito for the tip.

Whatever your stance on Nike’s presence in the skateboarding industry, you’ve got to hand it to them for the commercials they made and actually aired on broadcast TV the first time around. They are great from a skating and an advertising perspective. I’ve been trying to get ahold of these and post them, but someone else has already done all the work, so why reinvent the wheel? My personal favorite is the running one because it brings back the times when people literally thought you were a freak if you were over 12 and still skateboarding on a public sidewalk. Of course now you’re a freak if you are over 30 and the hassle often comes the skaters instead of the non-skating public. So you can still be a rebel and participate in one of the world’s most popular sports.

[Source: Transworld beat me to it.]

The Death video parts that pop up on the Interwebs seem to get people talking. This Patrick Melcher spot is no exception. I thought he was on Black Label but apparently he chose Death, no matter how angry that makes Wham! (80’s time warp again, bad kind.) This video has something for everyone unless you are a humorless twat. Street, tranny, break dancing, rails and even slalom… I wish all video parts were like this one. I included the Richie Jackson spot at the end as well, just to jog your memory.

– Thanks to JF for the tip.