The Hollywood Theater is showing to 16mm skateboarding films on Monday, February 16 at 7:00 pm in Portland, Oregon. Tickets are only $5 so that’s a no brainer if you’re on the fence. You’ve probably seen Skater Dater before, but you’ve not likely seen the Australian film Ultimate Flex Machine. These prints are owned by Stephen Slappe, and they are only shown every couple of years in order to prevent wear and tear. Both of these films had theatrical releases, Skater Dater in 1965 and Ultimate Flex machine in 1975. Slappe’s print of Ultimate Flex Machine is in especially good condition, and he’s got a newer print of Skater Dater than he had previously shown. Slappe has a couple of short mystery reels that will also be included in the show. You can check out larger versions of the posters for Ultimate Flex Machine as well as some stills after the jump. See you at the Hollywood on Monday!
You might remember a Dutch newspaper article from 1980 talking about how skateboarding was becoming very popular. Here’s remnants of the same skatepark in the May 4th, 1982 edition of the Leidse Courant newspaper. This article is about the sport’s demise. This must have been slightly better than it looked when Jeroen and crew found it in 1985. Even then, you had to keep an eye open for those Mad dogs.
Issue #268 of Mad Magazine, on the newsstands in January of 1987. It’s the lighter side of evolution. Bonus punk rock lighter side of appearances after the jump.
I couldn’t find out a single thing about who this Tiffany Eubank is. There are too many current day Tiffany Eubanks littering social media for Google to be much help. I believe she must have been an English model or actress. She was featured in a series of ads for Ushers Green Stripe scotch doing things like skydiving and skateboarding. The advertisement on the left ran in 1965, the same year as this Nash Sidewalk Surfboard ad. Actually, It’s unclear what company produced this advert. It appeared in a surfing magazine, and Surfing Heritage lists Ventura International Plastics (in Ventura) as the manufacturer of the Duke Kahanamoku surfboard model, but the Nash name is not on the (at least) 2 different Duke Kahanamoku skateboards, and their address was in Texas even back then. Then there’s the mail away surfing stickers. That address is for a third entity called Program Sales with a Hollywood address. It’s a bit of a head scratcher, but the Cowabunga ad is a pretty cool one.
The Willamette Week has a piece on the acquisition and relocation of mail order giant CCS by local Portland business Daddies Board Shop. The title of the article and accompanying video, “Portland’s Skate Community Isn’t Stoked for CCS” is a little misleading, as if there is a broad outcry when there likely isn’t even a broad awareness. In fact, of the three businesses interviewed besides Daddies, one had nothing negative to say, and the other two were skateshop owners that were pretty reserved, more or less of the opinion that it will have no real effect on the the Portland skate scene, or even their businesses. This is a position I agree with, as I mentioned back in December. Bringing the physical location of CCS to Portland is likely to have zero impact on local businesses. The really big news here is that Daddies owner Darren Horowitz looks like a Seth Rogan impersonator! (More editorial and the video after the jump.)
It a work of art, Snoopy riding a skateboard on a giant cookie. That skateboard looks like a plank of wood. I’m not sure if that’s Woodstock or some sort of very ill platypus. I had lots of other Snoopy things I could have added to this, but I didn’t want to detract from the glory of this edible masterpiece. The next big thing in outsider art can be found at your local supermarket bakery counter.
Do you have enough gallery frames? You know, they are room, nay, lifestyle essentials. Target sells a lot of frames, and several of them have kids with skateboards. There’s also a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off looking casual longboard dude.
It’s the Buckwheat B. Rad O-Tay Skate Club T-shirt. I can’t read a copyright date on this, but it was surely produced after Eddie Murphy popularized the “O-tay” saying in his portrayals of Buckwheat on SNL. Those Buckwheat skits aired from 1981-1984, and forever on reruns. Two cast members are making the most of the u-shaped slide, but Buckwheat is getting the short end of the stick with that bent freestyle board. This appears to be officially licensed “Our Gang” merchandise.
Costco has skateboards, and not just some schleppy pile on the shelves, they’ve got a nice display of Jaseboards, a brand from Hawaii that only appears to be available the website or at Costco for the time being. And because it’s winter time, they’re also carrying those snow runner wheel replacements. (See Railz) For the summertime they’ve got LED light up wheels from Puka, a brand that I can’t seem to find an online presence for.
