What about all the skateboarding Jews? We just don’t see Hanukka skateboarding marketing tie ins like we do with Christmas. Jew, Gentile, regular, goofy… it’s all the same. I don’t even know when Hanukkah is, it’s probably over already. Here’s an Israeli TV commercial for what looks like an exploding energy bar that blatantly rips off the Girl Yeah Right! video. Who knows, Maybe Spike Jonze directed this one too.

There once was a TV series called Brainchild on the Science Channel that seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. There are a few mentions on discussion boards dating back to 2003, but that’s about it. Each hour long episode had three or four different inventions and their history highlighted. This particular episode dealt with Extreme!™ sports and featured skateboards, snowboards, and jet boats. There’s about five minutes of footage in the skateboard section, so as you can imagine, it’s pretty vague. The thing that is most interesting is that it features interviews with Kevin Thatcher (I can’t beleive that I kind of have to explain that he was the first and most beloved editor of Thrasher…) as well as Frank Nasworthy, the “inventor” of the urethane skateboard wheel. I always scratch my head when he gets credited with inventing the urethane skateboard wheel, since they were actually invented and used on rollerskating wheels first, and in the 70’s there were still rollerskating companies involved in skateboarding, so it seems pretty much like an obvious thing to do, he just did it first I guess. As for the original date of the program, I didn’t catch the credits so there’s no copyright date visible. I think I recorded it some time between 2000 and 2003, but the board graphics shown in the piece suggest sometime around 1996 or 1997. There are Stereo decks from when they were still in business the first time, and the voiceover says that Thatcher owns a skate shop and still runs a skateboard magazine, but that’s got to be an error. He would have been at the helm of Juxtapoz in the late 90’s. Other than that, there’s a little bit of cool footage from the 60’s. Ironically, the snowboarding section of this episode was much more interesting overall, maybe because the snowboard can actually be traced to one guy. Check it out.

All I want for Christmas is a private bowl like this. Well not exactly like this, but you get the idea. These shots are about a month shy of being two years old. Since then this now complete private spot in Oregon has appeared in print and video too, if I recall correctly. Those walls are deep. I think the trannies are something like 12 feet. Don’t ask me where. It wouldn’t help you anyway, and I was only there as a hanger-on. I think MC has actually ridden it.

The sketchy Tony Hawk Christmas ornament was actually a McDonalds Happy Meal toy with a string attached. Danimal’s mom sent him an awesome elf skateboarding on a leaf. World Industries sells these elf sized skateboards that come packaged in a Christmas stocking.

This was going to be a thread about the trend of municipalities closing down skateparks when they get tagged as an incentive program to stop vandalism. I was going to highlight that a new nearby park in Vancouver Washington is going to experience such closures:

our park maintenance office has decided to handle graffiti removal at the park the same way Battle Ground does at their skate park – by closing the entire park to all users until all the graffiti is removed. Depending on the severity of the graffiti, this could require several days of closure.

I was then going to ramble on about how it was obviously not the real skateboarders doing the vandalism, most likely kids that were on the periphery that might own a skateboard in the same way they would own a bike or a pogo stick if all their friends had one.

Look at the picture above. It seems like a fun place to skate right? It’s sheltered from the elements, and it’s not even illegal. If that was my local spot I’d want to take care of it, but the Creekside Underground locals are pissing it all away.

To placate our massive Dunedin Florida reader base, here’s a link to an amusing video of Tampa Bay’s 10 News coverage of the Stirling skatepark. It’s the complete package. There’s a before and after advertising spot for senior citizens choosing medicare coverage (It is Florida), and an over earnest reporter who makes Bob Burbank sound understated. He also gets on the old stunt wood for the first time (Liar!) since 1989. My personal favorite, when they quote the town council as saying the half a million dollars was money well spent as the camera pans to reveals a skatepark devoid of life except for the reporter and one skater. Good stuff.

– Thanks to Tito for the tip.

Welsh Pete wrote “while some skate kids are smashing store owners in the face, others are rescuing babies from dumpsters…” So in the interest of fair and balanced reporting:

Four skateboarders found a crying infant girl – the umbilical cord still attached – wrapped in a blanket and left atop a trash bin Monday night in Queens, authorities said.

So check out the skateboarding guardian angels (not to be confused with the skateboarding Charlie’s Angel) in the New York Daily News. AP Video available as well. Lest any of our regular readers think we are going all soft, that’s one of the teenagers, Christopher Moncada in the shot above, and he looks little bit like a pudgy 10 year old girl. Guardian Angel art, sans skateboard, from Sykel Enterprises.

Jason Jesse has a few choice things to say about the “documentary” on his life (Pray for Me) and David from Shitbird who made it. First off, I don’t get the cult of Jason Jesse, but I don’t begrudge anyone of their right to identify with him. Jesse comes off as a bit unstable at times in this video appearances (come to think of it, maybe I’m just thinking about a trailer I saw for Pray for me…) Also, I’ve only had very minimal interaction with Dave, but I’ve heard some questionable stories and read a lot of unsubstantiated crap about him on the Interwebs™ – all hearsay, mind you. The video is made by some Japanese cats, and it’s basically Jason Jesse on camera stirring up a shit(bird) storm about Pray for Me and Dave Shitbird, who he accuses of admitting to being an informant for the FBI and in general just being a lying scumbag. Take this video with a grain of salt, and watch it for some pretty amusing quotes from Jesse as the interview gets going. He maintains that Shitbird has gotten some sort of revenge on Jesse just by infecting his life. Jesse has resigned himself to defeat at Shitbirds hands, and surprisingly enough, seems to think a pie to the face will be good payback. Well that, and bootlegging the film and giving it away for free. Or just not watching it because it is stupid and boring – his words, not mine! Jesse’s video rant is a bit slow for the first quarter or so, but stick with it. I haven’t seen Pray for me. Anyone?

You may have noticed banner ads in rotation for Razorcake magazine here on Skate and Annoy. It’s originally the brainchild of Todd Taylor, author, punk rocker, publisher, skater, drinker and general all around good guy to know. Razorcake is bigger than him now, it’s a non-profit organization for baby Jesus’ sake! Issue #41 has a seven page article, How to fight for a skatepark that has heroes, villains and an epic tale of struggle, much like Homer’s Odyssey – mostly because the villains seem to have the intellect of Homer Simpson. Imagine you are tied to a railroad track in the middle of a dessert, and you can see the smoke from the locomotive approaching over the horizon. You think to yourself, surely someone will find and help me, right up until the point where you can see engine approaching, and feel the rails rumble. Todd Taylor was tied to the tracks just blocks away from his apartment as the Red Tape engineer of the City of L.A., The Cho-Bot, and Teflon were intent on railroading prefab modular skateparks from a playground company down the throats and up the collective asses of his L.A. neighborhood’s skateboarding population. It’s a good read, and one that explains how it is possible for the city like L.A. with the largest population base, and in the state that is the supposed birthplace of skateboarding, can only have three public skateparks in the year 2007. The article is not available online, so look for Razorcake wherever you buy your independent media, or head on over to Razorcake.org where you can buy issue 41 or better yet, subscribe for as little as $15.