With all the recent skatepark construction in the greater Portland area and beyond, it’s hard to believe PIer Park is only a year old. It seems like an institution already. This past weekend saw some great Indian Summer weather in Portland, and although the pictures might not show it, there was a healthy, festive crowd at Pier Park on both days. More pics after the jump.

When I first got a copy of Wire’s Pink Flag album I was hypnotized. The music was unlike any of their punk contemporaries, but it still made perfect sense to a kid in the suburbs of Chicago in the mid-80’s. It was kind of like the missing link for me. Minimal, but incredibly rich at the same time. Catchy but abrupt and confrontational. Discovering music used to be a much more sensual experience. It required considerably more effort than it does today. After buying a record I would usually pour over every minute detail of the artwork while listening to the turntable. It was an experience that deserved my full attention. When you were in a cultural desert like the suburban Midwest was, you savored every morsel you got. The back cover of Pink Flag has fake biological data about the band, and one of the things I couldn’t get past was the drummer’s name, Robert Gotobed. Everyone else had regular enough sounding names, so was Gotobed a goof or what? Anyway, it fascinated me. I desperately wanted to meet him – remember, cultural desert… Others have waxed on about Wire much more articulately than I am apparently capable of,…

UPDATE: We’re back!!!!! Don’t pay any attention to the words below. We are experiencing technical difficulties with our web server/hosting company. Bear with us please. You won’t be able to read posts that have a “There’s more” link, you won’t be able to comment or look at earlier posts that aren’t on the front page, which makes this site 80% useless, just like a tech support line in India. This is a photo of Mark Conahan bailing over Kuna Idaho last year.

It was raining but we rode the park anyway, sort of.

While I was chasing off a Chinese bandwidth thief I came across a link to a three page photo set from ASR. It’s in Chinese, so I don’t know what the scoop is. Here are two of the most interesting ones. The first is what appears to be a very ornate six wheeled skateboard and the second is some band playing at the House of Blues with a giant Thrasher logo in the light show. Does anyone know what the scoop is on either of these two items? Also, not shown is the children of the corn. [Source: Kicker Club]

Ooops! Forgot to switch over the week. I’d feel bad except it seems to keep happening, so everyone still gets about a full week. This week’s shot comes courtesy of Bryce Kanights, who had this to say: From the early 90s and beyond John Cardiel blew many minds and raised skateboarding’s gnar level up several notches. In 1992 he leapt over Ft. Miley’s tall turnbuckle setting yet another benchmark. Check out the full size version of this week’s Shot of the Week.

Windell’s Snowboard Camp has evolved over the years. They had a bunch of outdoor ramps including a crazy spine bowl and various street and mini combinations, then they built a crazy indoor bowl setup and then later the indoor Bobcomplex with a 75 foot miniramp. The latest and greatest seems to be concrete. Old School Skateboarding had a party there last Sunday.

This appropriately named spot is called the Bubble Banks. A reader named Mark W. pointed out that it was near the mystery spot that we found through the Disciplinary Architecture Anti-Sit Archives post. The Bubble Banks photos are from Quartersnacks.com, a NYC-centric web site that even has an online guide to various spots, complete with location, occasional direction, bust factor and visual aids. I guess in a city as big as New York it’s not a big deal to spell out all the details on spots because they are all probably blown out already. It’s not like posting an online map to something as fragile as a pool ecosystem. Check out Quartersnacks.com, named after those Little Debbie snacks you can buy for a quarter, I guess. There’s a lot of content and it looks like they put some effort into the design and concept.

Everyone has their favorite scenes from the Bones Brigade Video Show. For me, one of the standouts was always the downhill slide sequence featuring Cliff Coleman I believe. Just typing this subliminally triggers the opening wild animal sound effects in my head. If you can imagine that sequence amped up on today’s equipment, sounds and video technology you might get the trailer for the movie project Drift. Drift was actually supposed to be released on October 10th, but it has been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The film is being made by a few key members of and with help from the downhill scene in Montreal, Canada. Watch the whole thing and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The camera work and editing are sharp, and the music fits well. Even in today’s polarized climate of what is and isn’t cool, I’ll feel sorry for you if don’t get stoked by Drift. – Thanks to Jace Samikov for the tip.