Santa Cruz sends a cease and desist order to Jim Phillips for unauthorized licensing of the screaming hand logo. Phillips claims he barely got paid and a bunch of guys on Skull and Bones mostly rally to his defense. In fact the hand drawing on the left is S&B user SkaterBonds’ opinion letter to NHS. “Sit on it and twirl” indeed. Lot’s of people weigh in with their opinions including industry insiders and artists such as Sean Cliver, as well as a few others that are not as easy to identify. 9 pages into the discussion someone purporting to be NHS bigwig Richard Novak finally chimes in with his side of the story, mainly that they are willing to work with Jim , he just needs to ask first, and he (Jim) has been and still is getting paid for his reissues, etc.

$150 will buy you one out of 500 Screaming Hand figures made world wide. They must have had some hardcore economists genius, or wizards if you will, figure out the intersection of supply, demand, and price to give the highest profit potential. I’d imagine they could sell a lot more than 500 if they priced it for mere mortals and not hipster lowbrow art speculators. Jim Phillips deserves to get paid for sure, but it would be nice to allow working class fans the chance to appreciate art as well. You can preorder yours now from Garage Works. Then again you can pay a mere $100 for one of these. [Tip off: Doogantown from Old Man Army]

Mike V. landed a gig blogging about hockey for Anaheim’s Mighty Ducks which isn’t a big deal except that in the May 28th entry he claims to have created skateboard hockey. I’ll bet there are a few Jaks who might care to contradict him. I seem to remember skateboard hockey in the mid eighties when mike V was just an amateur. Maybe he just meant that he created it on his own without knowing others were already doing it.

Sometimes the fruits of a good session last long after the the actual session is done. Our own Steve Grover, of Grover’s Video Korner fame is now a comic book hero on Earth Patrol Media. See why he’s considering changing his name to L.L. Cool Grover.

I am here at Mammoth Lakes right now, doing some things that shall remain undescribed for this skateboarding-focused crowd. In so doing I made it my mission to head over to the Volcom Brothers memorial skatepark today to get a session in. This park is O.K. I am a bit dissapointed in the finishing work (it’s moon-like) but the lines are fun once you get them figured out. It doesn’t seem like anybody really bothered to use any templates here. There are a lot of kids. A lot of snowboarding-style kids, which can get annoying in a damn hurry. The sun is also in your face, so this is a great place to work on your Salba sunglasses tech.

Battleground is a freakin’ zoo. Must have been 150+ kids there last night, most of them just sitting or standing in the way. This is a great park. I can’t wait for it to calm down a little so it can be ridden without the whole human pinball game effect. Even so, we still had a good time there. This park has something for everyone. Check out some clickable pics after the jump.

Sacrifice Skateboards reported yesterday Neil Heddings is FREE! No more rumors… Neil was released this morning in Los Angeles. Raise a glass and celebrate with all of us in this joyus occassion! You will see alot more of this in the very near future. Sources at Sacrifice say Neil is confined to the state of California for now. We would have brought this to you yesterday, but our so-called contributor who shall go unnamed (Estes!) was too lazy to go to the Sacrifice web site and grab a pic. Oh snap! [Photo: Brendan klein]

Time to break out the camera for action shots again. It’s been almost three months, but EPM’s been TCB so it’s not like I was missed. Abusrd! I hauled my injured ass (shoulder and hip, actually) out to Pier to take pictures of old men skating vert. Heard I missed Childress, Drehobol and Kanights. Still, I didn’t get the camera out until I was walking back to the car. I noticed Louis because he (politely) asked me to get my 2 year old kid out of his way so he could hit the wave banks on the sidewalk. I snapped a few pics. I must have bumped the mode dial on the camera to automatic because I have a slow shutter speed and unintentional motion blur. I was too busy trying to get a good composition with curves in the walkway and the skating without getting in Louis’ way. Plus my kid was kind of crying, making my wife crabby… Calgon take me away! Must focus mentally. Cropping? That’s for wussies. See some full frame pics after the jump.