With Sarah expecting, the birth of Tom’s daughter and two completed parks under our belts (my babies: St. John and Glen Haven) Skaters for Portland Skateparks is currently regrouping and trying to figure out the best way serve the Portland skateboarding community.

We continue to advocate for Portland skateparks, keeping track of Portland Parks and Rec’s process on the new parks – getting the word out through various channels – and continuing to push the 19 skatepark system agenda. Citizens have continued to donate to the organization and we are banking that for an upcoming effort. A recent $700 donation recently came to us through the United Way (I’m guessing a workplace donation program).

13 years of highbrow Maximum Rock and Roll punk journalism has come to an end. Chicago’s Punk Planet is ceasing publication due to “bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers.” You can get Punk Planet at my local hippie grocery store for cryin’ out loud. Those hippies must not be paying their bills. So it goes without saying (except I’m saying it anyway) that Punk Planet’s other title, the skateboard/culture magazine Bail, will officially die as well. Although I haven’t seen a new issue of Bail in what seems like years already. It’s got to be hard to keep an independent magazine in print. As one star fades out, another is in ascendance, so go on over to Razorcake.org and help them make it.

[Source: Time Out Chicago]

The July 1st issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News reports that Tony Hawk has inked a deal for a signature bike line with a company called Dynacraft. Tony Hawk will be joining Dynacraft’s illustrious lineup of brands that include Hot Wheels and Barbie. You can buy these performance machines at such fine cycling outfitters as Amazon.com and Target. What’s that? concerned about the quality? Not to worry, according to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News

Tony Hawk bikes will be completely different than anything Dynacraft has distributed in the past,” said John Bisges, managing director at Dynacraft. “They will have higher end components, updated frames and the most cutting edge graphics ever. We are all extremely excited about this new bike line, and are certain it will be a big hit when we showcase it to customers at this year’s Interbike show.” The line will be available in retail stores beginning in spring 2008.

I’m placing bets that Tony Hawk bicycles will likely be a BMX facsimile. Maybe we can expect a Matt Hoffman to start hawking toy skateboards in retaliation. Get a closeup of some previous Dynacraft “cutting edge graphics” after the jump. Update: Not just one bike line, but two! “Huckjam” gets it’s own series of bicycles.

Another in our series of skateboard-like deathtraps you can purchase. Oh wait, it looks more like a snowboard you can use in the off-season. Carry on.

Any series that features Joe Strummer (and the Mescaleros) singing over the opening credits has already got a leg up in my book. In this case, HBO’s John from Cincinnati uses Johnny Appleseed from the album Global A Go-go. Why do we care? Because the same credits also feature some skateboard footage and one of the actors is sponsored am Greyson Fletcher, son of famous surfer Christian Fletcher. You can watch the nicely done credits and see a little ancillary skateboarding from the show after the jump. Bonus: Guess which local Portland skate company scored product placement?

When not teasing other people who write about skateboarding, I’m poaching their work. Concrete Wave has made their current issue available for viewing online at a site called Banquet Action Sports Video Community. Even though it says it is the full issue of Volume 5 number 5, it’s actually missing about seven or eight spreads in the back of the magazine that contain an artist spotlight and a lot of the smaller ads. Personally, the back is one of my favorite parts of the mag. I like checking out the small companies to see what interesting or weird new products have come out. The interface is OK, you can click on a page to make it larger, and most of the larger ads act as web links to the companies in question. One annoying thing is that linked ads have a pulsing glow that distracts from the reading experience of the page next to it and prevent a clear view of the ad itself. A better way to implement that would have been to activate the glow on rollover only. Come to think of it, a better way to implement it would have been to make the whole thing a downloadable PDF. The web links could work and you wouldn’t have to wrestle with a proprietary interface. In any case, it’s still useful for being able to read most of the current issue of Concrete Wave if you are too cheap to buy it or just want to check it out. I believe they make each issue available this way, but they don’t seem to keep an archive. Check it out.

[Source: About.com]

Why do they always stand like that?

This Ultra Cool costume comes with 3/4 mask, studded choker, shirt, shorts and studded gloves! (Skateboard not included!)

$25 from Amazon. Apparently, Zombies also have that problem with the boxers riding up.

From The Turkish Daily News (where else?) comes your guide to skateboarding in Turkey. It’s not really a guide but more of a fluff piece titled “Skating not just leisure but a sub-culture” that talks about the cost of equipment, and how you can actually buy skateboard gear and fashions in Turkey now. No great surprise there. They also have a separate breakdown of skate spots in Istanbul titled “Skating fun in Istanbul. Surprisingly, one of the hot spots listed is the New Mosque. A quick search for skatebording and Istanbul on the Interweb™ turns up a web site called KayKayci.com that carries the tagline (in English) of “This is Turkish Skateboarding.” The rest of the site is in Turkish (?) and doesn’t appear to have any photos whatsoever, unless maybe you have to log in to see the content. I also found one video on YouTube, which you can watch after the jump. I wonder if Foundation skateboards are big over there. Think about that moon and star logo, now where have I seen that? Turkish Skateboarding brethren, let’s hear from you.