This photo of Speedy Duncan (is that his real name?) was sent in by his father Guy. Learn the shocking truth about this up and coming X-Games daredevil after the jump.

left: the current Gabriel Park design, right: Geth Noble at the Talent Skatepark. Photo from THRASHER Magazine, August 1999. Another chance to give your two-cents to Geth Noble from Airspeed Skateparks. Starting at Pier Park at noon Thursday, August 23. We’ll decide from there. He will be dropping in to skate some Portland area skateparks and listen to what skaters like and don’t like about them in preparation for the Gabriel Park skatepark. Think about making some time on Thursday to provide useful input. Save your street plaza ideas for Ed Benedict Park, the next of Portland’s 19 skatepark system after Gabriel which will be built by Newline and California Skateparks in partnership and will be a street plaza.

So I broke my jaw (Sunday) and here’s what came out. First Thursday art ramp. The city set this ramp up to help create public awarness for the need for more skate parks. I filmed it. Soundtrack in honor of Conahan’s new skater girlfriend.

Rod Wojtanik, one of the most influential voices in Pacific Northwest skateboarding, is packing his bags for a new professional opportunity and leaving behind skatepark development. Rod has been the skatepark guy at Portland Parks and Recreation. He led the skatepark siting and public outreach efforts, organizing and presenting at dozens of meetings with neighborhood associations, city council and more than a few NIMBYs. Rod has helped the skateboarding community navigate the bureaucacy and non-skating public opinion. With three skateparks in the ground, two more contracted and awaiting execution, and 14 more sited and planned for development, Rod has us off to a good start on the 19 skatepark system. Read more at Skaters for Portland Skateparks.

People who run skateboard web sites get some weird mail. There’s a guy out there that wants to warn Portland skateboarders… of what, I’m not sure. Something to do with a nuclear blast drill being held in Portland. Curiously, this image from a Harvard University’s 2007 Day After Report shows the outlying St Johns bridge near Pier Park as ground zero, and not the Burnside Bridge, which is typically thought of as ground zero for skateboarding and Portland at large. Subject: potential crisis at Burnside I’m a former skater and I have seen info on the militaries operation Nobel Resolve scheduled for Portland, OR Aug 20-24. The public is nervous because they are doing a drill to respond to a nuclear device in downtown Portland. The target area includes the river and bridge area and after Minneapolis I’d shut Burnside down tomorrow morning, since it’s under a bridge and it can be destroy by the city of Portland at any time it wishes. Here’s a link to what’s flying around the Internet. Better to be safe than sorry. I hope you can contact people who can warn the skaters in Portland quickly. Call skate shops please and skate magazines. Know…

There’s a big vert ramp with Jane’s Addiction playing over the loudspeakers, and guys like Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Chris Miller, Tony Hawk, Duane Peters, Tony Magnussen, Lester Kasai and Steve Steadham are skating. Is this 1987? No, it’s the “Legends of Vert” demo that Steve Steadham organized at the Summer X Games. The real tip off that it’s not 1987 is the almost total indifference registered by the crowd. Brian Baade tipped us off to some video he took from the judges stand.

back in the 70’s there was a different approach to skateboard company logos. A lot of times they were treated as car racing graphics, like say the Super Bee. Jim Phillips made a career out of the cartoonish design style for skateboard product logos. Nowadays a more distressed look and hip hop styles are in vogue. Other companies have maintained the cartoon like art direction, but I don’t think they are as memorable as some of the old 70’s stuff. In the mid 80’s I received a well worn stack of old Skateboarder and Action Now magazines. I never actually saw any of the old Alligator wheels, but the logo was burned into my mind as an archetypal 70’s skateboarding graphic. Bennett Truks has resurrected the Alligator Wheels product name, but curiously enough, doesn’t have them on their sparsely populated web site. They are the same color and rough shape as the old ones appear to be, although it’s hard to tell. I had some of Madrid’s reborn Cadillac Wheels and found them to be good for completing a nice vintage look, but not very useful for riding, even as a cruiser. It seemed to be a fault of the…

Aside from Vancouver, there was another skatepark opening of sorts in Washington last week. Bellingham Washington got some new Dreamland additions to an existing craptacular skatepark. We’ve shown you some pictures of the progress before thanks to John Aguilar, and he has come through again with a bunch more. They are strictly non-action photos though. There’s also a couple on Sleestak. Dan Hughes from Northwest Skater actually got in a session before the rain, as soon as his pics go live I’ll link them up.