I went to art school. Best five years of my life… But none of this silliness. No sirree. It was all business. Not like Matt Cheney, action artist. He makes art while doing things like skateboarding and skydiving. He’s even used his skateboard as a brush. Now that’s putting your parents’ tuition money to good use! [Source: John Bakos]

Give thanks you don’t live in Fort Walton Beach Florida, where the city golf course will remain open on Thanksgiving day but other facilities, including the skatepark will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving Holidays. My guess is that a golf course is more expensive to leave open than a skate park, so someone at city hall must want to get in a few rounds before they gorge themselves. Up here in Portland? well if the weather cooperates, all public skateparks will be open and free of charge.

Hughes was recently in Arizona and found some very specific rules at the Wickenburg Skate Park. Check out a larger image at Northwest Skater. You have to like the use of a old west typeface, the rustic spelling and the creative editing by the local intellectuals.

If you give a monkey a typewriter and an infinite amount of time, it will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. It looks like someone is looking to hire a blog monkey to write about skateboarding: I am seeking someone to write 35 unique 200-250 word Blog Articles related to skateboarding (art of skateboarding, current famous boarders, the skateboard itself and/or its parts). Your bid should be for writing ALL 30 Articles, not a per Article price. Writers must have complete command of the English language, including sentence structure, spelling, grammar, and must be able to write from a North American perspective. Having used a skateboard and/or at least familiar with the skateboard “lingo” is a must. As the articles are to be used to achieve high rankings in search engines, we require unique, high quality, well-written, keyword-rich, spider-friendly Articles. Keyword density should hover around the 5% mark. I can’t wait to see the web site this these articles get used for. I’m sure those high search engine rankings are going to be used for the love of skateboarding and not to try and sell us some crap. Are you applying for this job? The Minneapolis Star Tribune promises…

This weeks shot is from an Arizona pool party that Old Man Army recently threw, complete with live honky tonk on the deck. Russell proves you can rock and roll to honky tonk. You can see it larger over at the Shot of the Week.

The Royal Hawaiian Pool Service has a page documenting the Poi Bowl that is right up our obsessive compulsive alley. It’s a famous pool that aside from being skated, also had the honor of appearing in several episodes of Hawaii Five-O. RHPS has some pics from magazine appearances, a skateboard graphic tribute, and a little video footage from TV as well.

Just a reminder, there is still a war going on in Iraq, and there are still guys skating over there too. This pic is from Mr M’s World.

Larry Pescatore sent in some more progress shots of the Wormhoudt park in San Jose: It looks all but finished: the concrete and bowls all look done and the perimeter fence has been built. The testament to monolithic artsy skatable landmarks is complete. The bathrooms have been built. All that seems left is the parking lot and/or outer landscaping. They even built a walkway up but it’s all fenced off. It looks more like a nuclear power plant than a skatepark in the shot above. More after the jump.

Read the whole comic here.