We’ve had a few risque posts here lately, so I thought I’d be open handed and fair by putting up something for the ladies… This exotic dance team will be appearing at the Scab and Flab nightly for your enjoyment. Try the chicken fried steak and don’t forget to tip your waitress. So drink it in, and don’t thank me all at once. And, yes, summer is over.

As if there isn’t enough going on in Portland this weekend. There’s the Rocco Docco(umentary), the Cording/Frisone affair and also the Michael Tubb’s Benefit where aside from helping a brother out, you can catch the premier of the new Vox video, Black & Blue Volume 2. Someone should start a calendar so people can schedule these events without conflict. Someone. Hmmmm…. Who should that someone be?

This is a shot of a well known Portland skater Wes Cording taken in 1980 at a skatepark in Philadelphia called the Roxy or Roxbourough or something. Wes originally submitted it for the blue fiberglass ramp collection, but I am using it to announce that Wes is getting married tomorrow and all interested parties should meet at Union Jacks tonight if you want to send him off in the customary fashion. That’s not him on the cover, but you get the idea. Wes cleans up real good, you can see the proof after the jump.

Everybody sing! Who can take a sunrise Sprinkle it in dew Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two? The candyman Handstand man! The Handstand man can The Handstand man can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good! I’m not going to begrudge anyone from trying to make an extra buck off of a web site, but the Handstand Man is really, uh, pushing it. He’s got one claim to fame, and it’s a burly one to be sure, he’s ridden a handstand down the infamous Signal Hill. That’s gnarly, but he won’t show it to you unless you pay $14 for the DVD. He has some still photos for sale, but has graciously provided a few “free” pics for downloading as well as a couple of video clips you can watch for free, as if that is some kind of rarity. Let’s see, anything else? Most of the pics don’t show his face and he performs most of his stunts in track pants, sometimes even white sweatpants! The whole site is a trip: “The ballsiest skateboarding action sequence I have ever filmed!!” As quoted by James, the video cameraman who filmed the stunt.…

Tracy Sigler built a mostly modular miniramp in his basement and documented the hell out of the whole process. It cost him about $800 to get all the materials delivered to his door to build what looks like a 12 foot wide 3 and a half foot tall mini ramp. I’ve built a handful of ramps in my day, and I’ve been known to over engineer my structures so that they could withstand large earthquakes (or small Grover-quakes.) Tracy builds them right. He’s more of a Yankee Workshop ramp builder than a measure once cut twice guy. Er, I assume tracy is a guy, or maybe I’m just a sexist pig. Tracy even has a nice diagram on how to set the coping (too low!), which is one area where a lot of first time ramp builders balk. Check out Tracy’s basement ramp break down, he/she is Heavy Duty.

In case you were wondering what’s been going on here, In the past few days we’ve had some server issues at our crappy web host (Ixwebhosting.com – I can’t recommend them) as well as two separate plumbing leaks at my house that have conspired to leave Skate and Annoy in a sorry state. Everything is back to normal now, so move along, there’s nothing to see here. I mean, wait, there is something to see now. Bail photo by Rich at EPM.

Inspired by this.

This guy didn’t make the cut. He was lying around the site for a while but they didn’t en up using him. I think he was originally going to be flipping off the T.Rex. Looks like he’d fit right in with our crew.