Yeah, we cover the local beats just on the off chance that someone official in Bonner Springs Kansas might read this. Hey, it’s happened before! Mayor Clausie Smith is running for reelection. One of his past term accomplishments was the construction of a skatepark. I couldn’t turn up a picture of the park anywhere on the web. The parks web site describes it as “Skate Park – 90′ x 60′ pad with speed ramp, quarter pipe, Euro-gap, and grind rail.” Hmm. Speed ramp? OK. Sounds fun, but not according to Escapist Skateboarding: DESCRIPTION: Pretty much identical to Rosedale Skatepark, same playground equipment “skatepark” company. Although miraculously this one manages to be even worse due to the asphalt surface so you don’t even get the flatground blissfulness of Rosedale. PROS: Uhhh…it’s free? CONS: Artists. PADS: None. COSTS: They should pay us to ride it Skaters of Bonner Springs! Arise and join the revolution by voting out Clausie Smith. Suggested chant: “Ditch Bossy Clausie!” Slow news day.

Andrew’s Custom Skateboarders Rule Designs. Damn, I may have to buy all four. CafePress will put anything you want on a tshirt.

As reported in the Evening Courier with the succinct title of Back my bid for new skate park, Daniel Murch is 10 years old and TCB! The rest of you, get on it! I wonder if any of your readers like me think a skate park should be built in Halifax. I’m 10 years old and I think skateboarding is good fun and exercise. Calderdale Council has provided a number of skate parks in the area but none in Halifax, where I live. This doesn’t make any sense because Halifax is bigger than any other town in Calderdale. I have written to the council and also to a number of local firms asking for sponsorship to help meet some of the cost, which is £70,000. I am starting a petition to present to the council. If any of your readers would like to help by signing it or collecting signatures they can contact me by e-mail at Dan@frizinghall.cix.co.uk. Daniel Murch

And I’m sure that’s not the last time you’ll see that title. Professional skateboarder Steve Berra has a movie that he wrote (and directed?) called The Good Life. It’s premiering at Sundance, so he’s starting to pop up in the entertainment news, like over at indieWIRE and the LA Times (See photo above. Site requires free registration). The movie is supposed to be about a disaffected young man, and is loosely based on some of his own experiences. It’s not clear whether skateboarding plays a part in the movie, but all the interviews talk about it. Lastly, here’s an in interview from the Active Mail Order site, one of his current sponsors. Is that weird, having a mail order place be your sponsor? I wonder how much money he gets from them.

It doesn’t snow very often in Portland Oregon. When it does, it rarely sticks on the ground or amounts to much of anything. When we get a snow day we like to maximize it by calling in to work “Oh.. it’s too slippery. I can’t possibly make it in to work today” and then piling into the car with your friends and some beer for a drive out to the skate park. There were a handful of snowboarders dicking around, but we were there to skate. The complete odyssey after the jump.

To the people who love all additionally punk rock, skateboard, and “Bring Out Original Zouls” I found this band from Japan called Chaniwa by accident. The live video sounds like standard punk rock with a little Rancid influence, albeit in Japanese. OK, but the one song working on their Myspace page sounds like a different (and lame) band. They use some skateboard imagery and seem to have appeared on some Japanese skate rock compilations (again, as near as I can tell…) Japanese punk rock? Hell yeah. Let’s hear it from the Blue Hearts fans! Anyone? Come on! Surely you’ve heard of the Japanese Clash? I don’t know what the story is with these Chaniwa guys. Danimal, you are our Japanese proxy corespondent, get your wife on this. Watch the Chaniwa video and see some cool Blue Hearts pics after the jump.

Denver’s Channel 7 News reports that a skateboarder was attacked by a Coyote. Two different residents said a boy was attacked by a coyote while riding his skateboard. They said he was able to fend off the coyote with the skateboard. A certain Wile. E. is being sought as an animal of interest. Apparently, Wile E. has a history of violence against small birds and skateboards as well.

Is What it is from Consolidated Skateboards, circa 1999. I really enjoy these earlier Consolidated videos. It has a really good mix of Street and Vert throughout each persons part. More about Consolidated Skateboards after the jump!

Warning! This has nothing to do with skateboarding, other than the main guy featured in this video is the same guy used in the still at the end of each segment. Don’t worry. It’s the last time, and Grover has been grounded with no TV for a week. – k.ed. So I have a couple of loyal viewers. Here’s something you didn’t know about me. I love R.C. planes so much so I made this video about a friend and his new $1.400 plane. What a ritchie. Watch and destroy. Grover Off.

Every city has a core skate spot. It may not be perfect, but it embodies the heart and soul of scene. When you visit that city, you already know about the spot and you make a point of hitting it. For Vancouver that spot may be China Creek. It’s got a lot of history outside of skateboarding too. It used to be the site of an actual creek, as well as a velodrome in the 50’s and 60’s. In 1979 China Creek became Vancouver’s first public skate park when two mellow coping and edge-free 70’s style bowls were poured, and that’s about the last time the city did anything with the property. The Jaks have held a contest there for years. In the meantime, some of the surrounding areas “lost their luster” and the overall park location filled with the usual assortment of characters that homeowners find disconcerting. The future of the skate park looked grim when the parks department came up with some cash for a facelift of the property. There were three options presented for the skate park part of the park: Leave it where it is, bulldoze and move to a different corner, or bulldoze and move…