A star emerges outta Portlands Burnside skatepark, how f-ing cool is that? Element is hosting a huge party in Portland at the Mission Theater this Friday night, hosted by Portlands “Golden Boy” Brett Atchley. Details on flyer- courtesy of Element Skateboards. Its worth it to see MyG and The Muska spin records- if your into that sorta thing. Watch Brett’s part and see the whole flyer after the jump.

After finally seeing a snakeboard in action a week ago, I noticed that the movement looked a lot more like old school rollerskating than skateboarding. I thought that if you were into that, you would probably want to have sideways rollerskates so you wouldn’t have to point your toes at 180 degree angles like some circus clown. I chuckled about the idea of someone trying to bring to market a pair of sideways rollerskates, or even more improbable, small skateboards for each foot. Well it turns out it’s already been done. I know this company will be in business forever, but I’ve taken the liberty of preserving some pictures from thier web site just in case the unthinkable happens.

Never mind the questionable corporate merchandising tie-in and issues of sweat-shop assembly, this Lightning McQueen child’s skateboard looks just the right size for your toddler skateboarder. But the thing barely turns and is really slow. We learned why when dad swapped out the wheels, Hey! Those aren’t bearings at all! They just molded some plastic into a rough precision-bearing shape. I suppose it’s a good thing that the wheels and bearings could be replaced, the reproduction was accurate enough for that. What do you want for $25 right? Dang, those Disney marketing folks are such assholes!

The great thing about the new millennium is all the small skateboard companies that are started by guys who aren’t really trying to be the next World Industries, and are more concerned with making something they think is cool. A lot of times the first board is a signature model for someone who used to be quite a bit more popular than they are now. Why are so many non-industry type skaters doing this? Maybe because it’s not that hard to scrape up the money to get a run of boards done. Maybe it’s because once you are older it’s easier to meet these people, especially if the star of their celebrity has faded some. Frequently, these signature board projects end up being something that misses the boat in timeliness by about 10 years or so. I’m not being critical, just honest. Heck, I’ve done the same thing, even twice. No wait, three times. What’s the latest? De La Soul has board out on Signature Skateboards. It’s got artwork from 3 Feet High and Rising and comes in two colorways with a total of 150 boards in production. I like me some punk rock, but I probably would have bought…

I was going to title this post “It’s reigning Jesus” or “It’s raining (religious) men” but instead I used a quote from an article in the Anchorage Press titled “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” It’s a heartwarming tale of an 18 year old kid in Anchorage who is fighting the Alaskan weather and racial prejudice on journey to become a professional skateboarder. Sounds like a Hallmark movie. Oh yeah, the whole point of this post is Stephen Baldwin in Russia (!?!) holding a religious-themed skateboard [Source: Perez Hilton] and even better, (Is that possible?) a series of Jesus action figures engaged in Extreme!™ sports, not to mention panhandling (?!) , bull-riding, and in army fatigues(!!?!?!). All this plus a Jesus in skateboarding roundup, or hoedown, if you will, after the jump.

Portland designer Maple (not affiliated with Maple skateboards) makes earrings, bracelets, rings and purses from used skateboards. Sure, that’s been done before, but this is a slightly different take. It’s mostly geared towards gals, but I could see the bracelets going over well in some circles of skateboarding, like the Ipath crowd. The hexgaon shaped one looks cool. Is there a macho word for “bracelet?” Maple is at the mercy of finding used decks with dyed plies to make her craft more interesting. Extra bonus, part of the proceeds from some sales go to a skateboarding charity to be determined. Both owners of the SPS acronym ( 1 and 2 ) were being considered. Maybe Maple can fill in the blank. Check it out.

That’s no typo in the the title, it’s editorial commentary. The April 20th issue of Entertainment Weekly has a “Style” page with this breaking news: “The latest hip-hop style trend? Skateboard Chic.” Apparently, the style is called Skurban. The layout features a couple DGK decks in the layout, and assorted trite skateboard culture observations. If you can stomach it, you can see and read it all after the jump.

Mark Conahan made a comic with featuring the skateboarders on the Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper. Today I saw on the Krux web site that they have some shirts called “sucker” featuring the appropriated art. Nice job Krux, but a bummer for me because I was working on something similar for a different project. I guess that is why Krux (AKA N.H.S.) is a real company, and my operation runs out of a basement. Oh well, you snooze, you lose. If by some chance you’ve never noticed the skateboarders on the Tootsie Pop Roll wrappers, keep reading.

Andy Jenkins of Mel Bend fame among other things has a vinyl figure of Wrench Pilot character Lettus Bee taking faceplant. Limited to 500 pieces and costing $100 (!??), I suppose people would be upset if you called it a “plastic toy.” It’s pretty cool actually, but not a hundred bucks cool. Too rich for my blood. MOre pics after the jump. [Source: Sublimited]

OK, We might lose a few readers with this post, but the Zombie Jesus pro model from Creature made me chuckle. It reminded me of those equally tasteless but funny rock concert t-shirts from the 80’s that said “Adolf Hitler World Tour.” The best part was on the back where it listed the tour dates and locations. The England entry said “Cancelled.” I’m actually kind of surprised Creature is selling these. I’m guessing they hope to avoid too much controversy by keeping them limited to 500 pieces. Or possibly, the artwork is so crappy, that’s all they think they can sell. This board gets an “A” for the concept and a “C minus, minus” for execution. Really. It looks like hell. Actually, the only thing keeping this board from being completely uninteresting (aside from the whole blasphemy thing) is the marketing. It’s being released on Good Friday and You can’t “Passover” this insanse-o limited release.