It looks like the long, protracted war is finally over as Skateboarding will be proposed for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, so it’s pretty much a fait accompli. The International Skateboarding Federation is excited about it. Who is in that federation, some notables for sure. Also, the Telegraph definitely thinks I’m too old to skateboard. On a positive note, four Canadian skateboarders are being honored for stopping a sexual assault and helping to apprehend the culprit.

(The image on the top left is from Mpora, who has a lot to say about the Olympic announcement but for some reason can’t bring themselves to actually link to it.)

A spare cordless drill and a few parts from the hardware store is all you need to make your own electric skateboard. Start with a round wire brush, right angle bit holder, flexible bit extension, and some nuts and bolts. Just ad a skateboard with large size wheels and you’re good to go. I’m curious how long a charge on drill would last. This seems more like a fun project to do with kids than a viable transportation solution. Much nicer than this one.

[Source: BoingBoing] – Thanks to MC for the tip.

70’s vs 80’s, hippies vs preppies.

Kei Kamara, former DP of Columbus Crew and recent high profile / scandalous signee to The New England Revolution taking his longboard with him on a flight to Boston. That’s right soccer/skateboarding fans…. more breaking MLS action here on Skate and Annoy. I never thought there would be another S&A crossover post that didn’t involve the best team in MLS, the mighty Portland Timbers, but here you have it. This is from Kei’s Twitter feed. You know, I actually felt a little bit sorry for Kei last year.

Check out these two designs from Swampco combing a cool late 50’s early 60’s aesthetic with some 80’s and 70’s style skateboard action. This is a fun collaboration with Mike Guerrero. A couple of the designs are available as t-shirts, and the complete series is available as a screen printed poster. Not shown are Ollie and Wall Ride.

I found a seller on eBay with a lot of well-done bootlegs for sale. They are all from the same brand ‘Choke’ and the quality of the graphics is pretty good. From left to right we have a fake Santa Cruz Jason Jessee,  S.M.A. Mike Conroy, Vision ‘Street Ghost’, S.M.A. Eric Tuma and a World Industries Jesse Martinez. I contacted the seller and he seemed to be a very friendly reader of S&A and a collector of bootleg decks! So here goes his story on Choke according to Omar:

‘Choke was a brand of skateboards sold in a department store in Spain called ” EL CORTE INGLES. ”  They were sold between 1986 and 1991 approximately . There were 3 different prices and 3 different qualities . They came complete with trucks and wheels,  bad axles and plastic wheels in cheaper models, and bootleg trucks of the Gullwing Super Pro and PU wheels (with a lot of sizes and designs) in the “best” models. Over the years I discovered that most of his designs table were copies of brands such as Vision , SMA, World Industries …’

Check out more details of the graphics after the jump. Some of the boards are still for sale on eBay.

Thanks a lot to Omar for the pics and story!

What’s a Rich Eisen? He’s a guy with a sports talk show who got a skateboarding lesson from a man who needs no introduction. Shortly after this clip was uploaded, an intern was fired for forgetting to turn on the deinterlace option.

Here’s an excellent time capsule of skateboard harassment from a local Springfield Illinois news channel concerning a proposed ban on skateboarding downtown. Local business and civic leaders speak out against “skateboard terrorists” in advance of the ban, which ultimately passed. The video was digitized from a decrepit old VHS tape, so there are tracking issues and the sound doesn’t always sync right, but it’s still a good watch. One of the skateboarders makes a reasonable request for a public skatepark to serve the needs of the population, and they did get one after only 25 years.

– Thanks to Nick Rudd for the tip.

Check out Dan Bourqui’s Downhill Disco edit:

The Downhill Disco is an yearly San Diego event which mixes disco music with longboarding, downhill skating, jump ramps and even a smaller megaramp like gap. It also features a mini ramp jam, disco night and Sunday races that are not showcased in this video clip. The entire event feels more like a weekend festival than a contest.

The Video Toaster was an Amiga computer-based video effects editing system. A hardware and software combo, it was pretty much the first consumer desktop computer system available for video editing. The first one came out in 1987. I can vividly remember going to a computer store to watch the demo tape and gape at the the computer on several occasions, convinced I would do great things if I could afford one. The stills above are from the Video Toaster 4000 which came out around 1993, and features Tonyy Hawk in some recycled Bones Brigade video footage. Of course this predates Tony’s appearances for Apple Computer on behalf of Final Cut Pro. The demo reel is cheesy as hell, and therefore well worth watching. I assumed that the Video Toaster products were purely a 90’s phenomenon, but they were actually being marketed until 2010.

– Thanks to Stephen B for the tip.