God Skates! Not to be confused with the seminal skate rock band McWilson’s tune of the same name. Skate churches are nothing new. Here’s a roundup of Christians and skatebording in the news.

This is Brian Crane at the deceased Beaverton vert ramp back in ’00 or ’01. He was in a band called Avalauncher. One New Years eve he played in a one off band billed as the Pretendents, a Decendents cover band. We showed up and drank the last of the beer and rocked our asses off. It was great. A transplant from Milwaukee Wisconsin, Brian stopped going to the regular vert sessions when he lost his job or went back to school or something. We did see him briefly later with some fancy home made stash boxes made out of exotic hardwoods that he was crafting. Maybe the pseudo vert ramp conditions at Pier Park will see him come out of the woodwork again.

My friend Steve Grover has a theory that if you are over 30 and skateboard, you will eventually meet everyone else who is, or run into someone who knows them. This is not a strict application of that theory, but last night as I was trying to get in a few post-work runs at Pier Park before the sun drained, I ran into a recent transplant from Pennsylvania who just happened to be in Sunburry PA the day I took this picture of his friend Victor Koons. That would have been 2000 or 2001 when I went to Pennsylvania for Grover’s wedding. I was searching the hard drive for any other pictures I might have had from that session. I remember the shot of Victor was pretty much the only good one I got, but I did find this shot of a little kid who was barging the adjacent BMX track on his skateboard, and having a blast. I forgot the guy’s name I met last night. Dave maybe?

FedEx, Gatorade Propel, and Levis Dockers all have commercials currently airing using skateboards. They range from pretty good to average. Decode my cryptic title with video links and commentary after the jump.

Earth Patrol Media’s Foto Friday feature has some cool shots from yesterday at Pier Park that Rich managed to take with a lowly point and shoot. The sun was setting and I knew he was going to get a few beauties if he could time the shutter lag right. Fortunately for him, with the height some of those guys were going it wasn’t always that tough. Check it out, and tell EPM to lay off the filters a little bit.

There’s a company in the U.K. that makes boxes for packaging cell phones. I can’t understand who would need to repackage a cell phone, but the important thing here is that they offer a skateboarder theme as an option along side of such other extreme perennial favorites as skydiving. Mobilephoneboxes.com. If you really need to see it larger:

Skateboard Champions. Flying is in style. Fun Colors and designs that let your kids show off their own personal look (as long as someone else has already pre-manufactured it.) That kid looks like a sassy Ryan Sheckler, and the little girl holding the skateboard has a head start on a beer gut.

The folks at Marginal Way skate park are having a some recent problems with theft and vandals. (Anarchy Burger!) They are trying to publicize their plight in hopes of stopping it or getting a tip. Portland’s Pier Park has been experiencing it’s own share of boneheads lately. The demographics of the offenders might be different, but the problem remains.

This may be old news to you Social Distortion fans. I’m a fan but I don’t feel the urge to see them live anymore. Austin360.com reports: Last year, Ness’ better judgment went downhill in a hurry resulting in injury and a last-minute phone call to a fill-in guitarist to save the Social Distortion tour from being detoured. Which made me jump to the hasty and obvious conclusions: Did he have relapse or run in with the law? Turns out he was skateboarding with his son. “I was helping my son do an eighth-grade school project,” Ness says. “We went downhill skateboarding and I was filming him, and I just ate it going about 25 miles per hour. I broke my wrist in about four places.” Skateboarding under the influence of good intentions is better than wiping out on drugs, which is what Ness was doing early in his career. I wonder if he has any of the old Skull Skates Social Distortion boards laying around. Earlier in the article the author says that Ness laments having his tattoos. Oh well. Photo by Shigeo Kikuchi. Story by By David Glessner for Austin360.com. Read From punk riot to family man

I know we’ve covered this twice already. But since I have a weird and vague, sideways personal connection to this story I feel like I need to chime in again. Big Black, by the way, was one of the highlights of the 25th anniversary of Touch and Go Records. Rob Dyrdek and Steve Albini? Now there’s a reality show I would watch.