OK, top picture first. Garage Manufacturing, the makers of Soft Trucks, also makes a wire rack that hangs over a door and holds several boards horizontally, plus one “go-to” board vertically. Not noteworthy except I liked the picture they used in the “natural environment” setting. With those Kiss and Farrah Fawcett posters there ought to be fiberglass GT boards in that quiver intead of modern popsicles. Look closely and you can see Farrah on a skateboard.

Lastly, aside from serving as a location to shoot Bratz commercials, Skatepark franchise Skatelab has teamed up with an artist called ZAZ (never heard of him/her/it) to sell skateboard bookshelves, pictureframes and the like at Target. under the name Skatelab Furniture. I’m not sure how they talked Target into it, considering they used to sell unbranded skateboard curios. Even Pottery Barn Kids used to do it. It’s not like Skatelab has huge brand recognition outside of their two locations and Concrete Disciples. There was a “news item” about it on Kids Today, turns out Skatelab has a few other licensing deals too.

Psst! Hey kid. Wanna see a titillating picture of Farrah Fawcett?

I didn’t have an appropriate cultural time machine sound bite reference for these boards like I did for the Max Headroom deck. I dunno, maybe I should have used “You can touch this.” A lot of 80’s and and even 70’s era boards have been reissued, but you don’t see too many from the dark ages. Or maybe you do, but I don’t. Here’s two circa 1991 from Foundation with the skinny from Swank himself:

Not a huge deal. Just some fun stuff. Eighteen years in business. That in itself is crazy. I like the mid modern shape to ride. It has a nose and tail and a melow concave. The OG seem to be popular to people from that era just to have one. I have been signing a handful. Very close to OG mold. The OG mold was a Prime wood and had a bump on the top for the arch of the foot. Brainchild of Rocco. Watson still has mold from back in the day. That place is a fricking museum. These are made here at WL in San Diego, USA. We have made some wide decks over the years but they mostly sat and my sales staff would not be siked on trying to sell. Whatever. We just keep them around for those few that wanted them.

I miss wheel wells sometimes. If you get yours, Tod can go back to concentrating on more important things like trying to top this.

A certain someone I know loves those ridiculously tacky nature shirts with airbrush styled wolves and eagles and bears. He’s been known to frequent many a skate spot wearing a shirt covered in similarly styled killer whales frolicking all over it. Some one at Element either shares his sense of humor or has the same bad taste. They have collaborated with The Mountain on a series skateboards and t-shirts. Seriously? I mean is this a goof or what? What’s next, a collaboration with the guys who make… I don’t know, “No Fear” t-shirts? See if you can make sense of this.

Jesus Mousepads! Get your Jesus mousepads here! Holeyware is a Café Press store, so it’s not like these are actual mass produced items for sale. Still, it’s nice to know you can buy a mouse pad with Jesus on a bad 80’s skateboard. I mean if he’s really old school, shouldn’t he be on a 70’s deck or even a 60’s plank with steel wheels. Actually, your Lord and Saviour is from the New Testament, so he’s really more New School, like this Jesus on a hand rail action figure. I think my source for this post is actually upset about this.

Dr Brad wrote a review of the Julien Temple film Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. and proceeded to nag me relentlessly until I got it posted. It got to the point where I was considering not using it out of spite! So here it is, becasue if I don’t take care of this immediately, he may decide not to make his annual written contribution to Skate and Annoy.

Design Within Reach is a catalog and store that sells “modern” furniture and household doodads that look cool and are often kind of expensive, but less so than typical modern furniture that you don’t buy from Ikea. Bottega Montana has produced an edition of 57 boards in collaboration with Design Within Reach. As far as I can tell, the collaboration consists of wood burning the DWR logo on the deck. If the name Bottega Montana sounds familiar, it might be because we covered another collaboration they did last year. These decks will actually be available for purchase in select Design Within Reach stores. What will they cost? Get ready to spend at least $400, judging by their current catalog. Think of them as family heirloom skateboards. They also reportedly have a Shepard Farey short board collaboration in the works. Update: Available online and priced at a whopping $798, down from $1000! See DWR

It looks like Jim Phiilips’ second book of skateboard related art is finally out. The first one was a very good collection, but had more than I cared to see of his early non-skateboard related pieces. I understand it’s good to get a larger sense of history and the context of his style, but I could have done with a little bit less of the overtly hippy stuff and other works with a religious overtone. This new one focuses on skateboard art only, and covers recent work with Pocket Pistols, so The Skateboard Art of Jim Phillips looks to be more than just a rehash of the skate section of the previous book. His publisher must really like him to put this out when his previous book already does a fine job of documenting the skate art. Phillips’ style is such a a standout. While I’m not a fan of most of the monster stuff, I love his style and I’m drawn to his logo design. Even the stuff I don’t like, I still can’t help but stare at and study. I’m looking forward to this one.

[Source: Juxtapoz]

I’ve mentioned the old Flyaway helmets once or twice before, mostly in the context of the re-issues, but without a lot of actual information. Concrete Disciples has a nice piece on the new Kanoa Flyaway helmets that is no so much product review as an endorsement. It does go in to some detail about the history of Flyaway which is interesting, including some good sized scans of original advertisements. They are the best looking helmet out there, but the new ones have no safety rating so I’m hesitant to shell out the extra cash (and it’s a lot) just to look marginally cooler if I am wearing a helmet, regardless of the amount of work that goes into making one. I know there is a lot of work required to make these. Grover made several prototypes a few years back, and it was quite involved. You can see the results of his efforts after the jump, or go onto the Concrete Disciples piece, which is where the photos above came from. Thanks to Rich for the tip.

I got an email from CSS titled “Ryan Sheckler’s Must-Haves.” First I was grossed out, and then I got curious. Man they are really giving it the hard sell. Buy his crap and you can live just like him kids! Ryan Sheckler signature jeans? FREAKING AWESOME!