These articles about old guys who are still skating are still being generated. The latest one from the San Francisco Chronicle it titled “Shredding Again: In which we chronicle midlife skateboarders and their return, to be schooled by 6-year-olds.” It’s a fairly lengthy article, and includes the now obligatory video piece and photo gallery, except this time they managed to get a decent action shot. See above – “Joey Vela, 38, pulls a giant backside air out of one of the giant bowls at Pacifica Skatepark. Chronicle photo by Mike Kepka.” OK, they call it a backside air instead of a frontside, but it’s still an above average photo for one of these pieces, and not bad in it’s own right. Highlights of the article/video include a 45 year old relating the story of being taught how to drop in by a 9 year old kid. Also amusing are the quotes from the young kids whose turf has been invaded by the old dudes:

From the kids’ perspective, the old-schoolers are a welcomed addition to the parks. “They rock!” said Colin Dallara, 11, from Lagunitas. “They remind me of the Z-Boys; they’re really good at axle stalls.”

Yes, axle stalls. People say Tony Alva invented them, but someone in Florida did one 1968. Ha ha. At the end of the article they point to an affiliated blog that has Tommy Guerrero’s part from Future Primitives embedded from YouTube:

San Francisco was also home to one of the country’s largest skateboarding subcultures, and this subculture would produce some of the decade’s finest skaters. The beginning of a 1985 skateboarding documentary, “Future Primitive,” shows San Francisco’s Tommy Guerrero carving, ollying and sliding his way down an avenue in the Sunset District to the chords of a bluesy skateboarding ode: “Well I’m a Future Primitive, and I skate to live.”

Ah yes, the respected documentary Future Priitives… Didn’t that win an Oscar? Right. That’s also the first time I think I’ve seen “ollieing” spelled ollying. “Ollying” may follow some sort of spelling rule, but it still looks wrong. Who makes that call? Check out Shredding Again at the San Francisco Chronicle, and if you want to recap some other efforts, try these.

Wes Humpston and Kat Von D got together to design a skateboard on Kat’s tv show LA Ink. Supposedly they are going to have a whole line of boards, although it seems more like something that was cooked up just for TV. The first hand drawn original board is being auctioned on eBay to benefit the Tony Hawk Foundation. My DVR didn’t pick up that episode, but someone else’s did. In the beginning of the design process there’s a funny bit where Kat says, “What should we put in the inside?” and Wes responds with “I like to do skulls and stuff.” Didn’t see that one coming. You can see the board in detail and watch the episode after the jump. It hasn’t been edited to show only Wes’ bits (get your mind out of the gutter), but hey, I didn’t have to do anything. The auction ends Friday, November 16 at 6 PM (PST). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Kat is slightly more photogenic than Wes.

This is the new skate video directed by Wes Anderson, starring Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson. A day of skateboarding around the city of Bangalore, India. Video by Maxwell Scott and Paul Mathews. As far as skate videos go, it’s not spectacular, but it is a very well executed piece of editing. Highly pleasing, in fact. Of course they skate in India, they’re doing in Armenia for the love of Hosoi. Now name the band, song, and album: “India….. I’m American. Ha ha ha.” Or watch the video after the jump.

Tigard has decided to rescind Skatepark Rule 3 concerning the consent to search bags. That rule was whited out for the Grand Opening tonight. Well done Tigard. Well done all you social irritants and furious bloggers! Oh and Mr. Mayor: sorry we missed the fifth Tuesday meeting but we did make calls to City Hall and Parks right after the signs went up.

Updated: An article on Oregon Live about the controversy.

Wow. What a totally shit month on eBay October was. I can’t remember covering a more generic month in the 5 years that I’ve been doing this. Guys that bought and sold in October, don’t take that as an insult, and admittedly there are a couple of beauties, but on the whole it was a blah month. If anything totally cool went off, then I missed it. Please, fill me in. Or am I totally wrong, and just getting burned out? Let me know. Any and all feedback is always welcome.

Check out: eBay Watch: October 2007

Tony Hawk appears on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” tonight at 8pm (7 central). You can watch a few clips on the official Fox web site. Must be a celebrity edition for charity. Tony might be fond of game shows with question marks, as he was also on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Is he smarter than a 5th grader? Who knows, but one thing is for certain, chances are he’s richer than your dad. Headlines like “Tony Hawk: The “Bird Man” with Hawk-like Vision” have got to make him cringe whether or not the web sites is “dedicated to redefining success.”

Calling all Ho-dads near and far. One week ago there was a meeting you should have attended. If you do not see your self on the tape consider yourself out of the club, and banned from future meetings. Pledges may attend next year for consideration of entry. Pledges must make themselves recognizable by wearing a pair of women’s panties on their head. – Signed The Boss of All.

Seth Berg sent in this picture of a Ryan Gray air in the square corner at Tigard. It’s not technically masterful, but it has a certain appeal. Enjoy.

The Back Athlete Sports Network (Yeah, I’m a subscriber) has an article titled Extreme Sportsman Carving His Own Way Through Life. I love the title “Extreme Sportsman.” It makes him sound so gentlemanly and brings to mind some old English guy dressed up for a safari with a pith helmet, pipe and Elephant gun. Blacula, I mean Blaxtreme sportsman Christopher “Crib” Butler’s interview is not very extreme. We do learn that in the 80’s his black friends accused him of trying to be white by skateboarding. Flying in the faces of stereotypes, he actually had to go to the ghetto to buy his first real skateboard! What was it? A Vision Kele Rosecrans. That makes him even more of a minority! Oh stop it, you’re killing me! Crib still skates, surfs and snowboards. Since 2007 he’s been shaping some nicely crafted longboards reminiscent of old surfboards under the name Malu Longoboards. For a brief time in the early nineties some of my friends and I thought we were “______.” I leave that term blank because “Extreme Sports” hadn’t been coined in 1992. We were skateboarding, bungie jumping, mountain biking, skydiving and motorcycle riding, etc. We called it “Live by the sword.” Thank god I got over that identity crisis. Then I found out what we were… a Demographic!