It’s a far cry from doing demos in the paring lot at Six Flags for a couple hundred bucks! That’s right, you can have your own private session with BONES BRIGADE members Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, Tommy Guerrero, and of course, Tony Hawk. It will cost you $75,000, but the money goes to the Tony Hawk Foundation, I assume after all the expenses are paid. That’s a buttload of cash for a vanity session, but if someone rich kid’s parents or middle aged lottery winner wants to shell out that kind of money to benefit skateparks, so much the better. They have cheaper packages at Tony Hawk Experience. Actually , it will cost you more to spend a day with Tony’s family (100k) than it will to skate with the Bones Brigade. Sure, it’s absurd, but I have to say I’m all for it, considering the the benefit. However, the prices make it seem like many of these packages may go unclaimed. They hired a special firm to set this up, so maybe they know what they are doing. For $2,000 you get a phone call from (Limit, 10 packages). So if our readers want to pony up…

Well, that’s who it is. I snapped this shot of her at a NSA contest called the Bluegrass Agression Session in Louiville, Kentucky back in 1989 or so. I had her phone number to get a date do an interview but I decided against it since I asked for it as a goof and though it best not to hassle her. Stupid conscious. Found it again around 2000 and threw it out. OK, nothing to see here. move along.

I almost forgot to do a Shot of the Week, so I pulled this one out. This is street skating circa 1989, and part of that scene was being a dick to pedestrians and cars… This shot involved the fake ollies (layback ollies?) where you skate up to something and put your hand on it to support your weight while you ollie the board onto whatever impossibly high obstacle was in front of you. Of course, nowadays people could probably ollie onto the hood of a car without help. I still love to do this trick, and recently brought it out of retirement, although not on the hoods of a cars belonging to people I don’t know. The guy in this pictures shall be named only as “Carl” as he has since gone onto become a productive member of society, and probably wouldn’t appreciate this picture showing up in his background check the next time he applies for a job. Check out the full frame Shot of the Week.

There had been rumors a year or so back that the next Tony Hawk game was being developed with a prosthetic skateboard device a la Guitar Hero, but it’s finally been confirmed. The game trailer is up on the official site – THRide.com, after the game’s official name, Tony Hawk Ride. There aren’t any details on pricing, or anything else, really. Game Trailers TV has has the, uh, game trailer and a super short interview with Tony and the new developer, but the trouble is it’s split into two chapters with some unrelated stuff in between. Chapter one is where you watch Tony sidestep the popularity of the competitor “Skate.” Chapter three is where you watch the developer sidestep the popularity of Skate. Whatever, unless they kooked the game play completely, this thing has the makings of being a huge, huge hit. The board senses motion, whether or not you have a hand over it, etc… It’s free standing and not connected to anything. Pop a wheelie or a 180 and it’s reflected on screen. I’m just wondering what the aftermarket options will be for peripheral add-ons, like, say, trucks and wheels? Oh wait… The game comes out June 2,…

I can use “potpourri” right? I mean it’s core, isn’t it? Clockwise from the top left. Tony Hawk shows you how to ollie on one of CNN’s iReport videos. Nice PR move, as if an ordinary citizen gained a private audience with Tony in his training facility and captured an impromptu interview. While we’re talking about CNN, I need to repeat how annoyed I am with CNN’s recent fixation on “iReporters” and call in opinions. It’s supposed to be the news, not amateur talk radio. Next: More pool skating mortgage forclosure pieces, this time via the BBC who took a camera crew out for a very, very short video. Rumor has it that the Reader’s Digest is also working on a rehash. Next: Weird Al Yankovic collects Vans… Err, OK. Lastly, the New York Times Home & Garden section highlights a skater owned property that cost a pretty penny. Who knew that the team manager position for Think Skateboards paid that well. – Thanks to John Aguilar, Rich Burton, Dean Tyrell, Corey Nelson and Aaron Shims (via Bordistan) for the tips.

You can look at this picture of some sort of anti KFC protest by PETA, or you can watch some video footage of Peter Hewitt dressed up as an eagle in the 88 footwear Destroy Everything video. There’s also a short and boring interview with Tony Hawk (not his fault) from FHM magazine where he briefly talks a bout doing the loop in a chicken suit for Jackass. Your choice. – Thanks to Seth Grossman for the tip

If I read my Google Alerts anymore I probably would have known this before hand, but Tony Hawk (Yeah right, more like his minions) stashed autographed boards in several locations world wide and then provided clues via Twitter and Shred or Die so his fans could find them. Pretty cool idea. GVK had a similar plan, that involved hiding candy in his pants… – Thanks to Mrs. Kilwag for the tip. [Source: Perez Hilton]

From the marketing book, Chasing Cool. Tony Hawk has at least one quote: “I can’t imagine having to hire a so-called Cool Hunter. If I had to go to someone else to be cool, I’d just pack up my bags and find a new profession.”

The magazine Fast Company is all up in Shaun White’s business. Sure, Tony Hawk was in Success magazine, but leave it to Shaun to appear in a “hipper” business publication like Fast Company. I happend to catch an episode of MTV’s Run’s House where they were trying to figure out in a very contrived way how to make one of Run’s kid’s feel better about being heckled for skating. Run had a contrived inspiration to have Tony Hawk come and visit, but one of his sons had a contrived idea that it had to be someone cooler, like Ryan Sheckler. He might have said fresher or even younger, I can’t remember. Anyway, what a coincidence, Sheckler just happened to have a show on MTV at the time. Poor Tony. First he suffers form age discrimination on MTV, then his Mad Dog pajamas catch on fire. With a name like “Mad Dog,” you’d figure they would be Tony Alva pjs. I think my nephew might actually have a pair of these. [Source: Boardistan]

Ars Technica reports that the developer of the THPS series of video games has decided to bail on the franchise, even though it was the their main source of bread and butter for a long time. Strange, considering Tony seemed so stoked on the next version. Must have been sales talk. I wonder how he’s taking the breakup. Is thi s the beginning of the end? Will he be back to parking lot demos in spandex at Six Flags? I doubt it. Does anyone remember the old Thrasher video game Skate and Destroy? It was pretty fun, but apparently never really took off. – Thanks to Steve B for the tip.