Stefan from Placed to Ride sent in a couple pics of the newly finished skatepark in Seaside Oregon. The grand opening is June 9th. This one kind of slipped in under the radar. We are spoiled here in the Pacific Northwest. But not spoiled enough I say! There should be more pics on the PTR site tonight. That Sunset Empire park district sign looks like it belongs outside a church parking lot.

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.