a little history about DOGTOWN SKATEBOARDS.....

THE HISTORY OF DOGTOWN SKATEBOARDS

"Our only Crime is Being Original" ad -c.1977 Dogtown, as a concept, has existed since the early 1970's. It was the birthplace of progressive skateboarding, Santa Monica/Venice, California. In the celebrated documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, Venice was a forgotten slum by the sea. Out of the wreckage of Abbot Kinney's dream town gone bad, roamed young surfers searching for outlets after the surf got blown out. They found it through an aggressive approach to skateboarding never seen before. Jim Muir, the founder of Dogtown Skateboards, was one of these kids. For nearly 30 years Dogtown Skateboards has been synonymous with hardcore skateboarding and has a hardcore loyal following. Dogtown History Venice, California, circa early 1970's, a group of kids rode hand me down clay wheel skateboards, trying to emulate the surf moves of Larry Bertlemann, Buttons and Mark Liddell. They'd speed down the block, bombing the hills and running the stop signs at the bottom with reckless abandon. This group of surf /skate rats soon came to be known as the Zephyr Team. Being poor kids in a mixed ethnic neighborhood made them grow up fast. Low income backgrounds often lead to creativity and ingenuity by necessity. As the skateboard movement of the 70's became surf /skate and the Zephyr Team had imploded a partnership between 19 yr. old Jim Muir(Red Dog) and 21 yr. old Wes Humpston(Bulldog) came to effect. In early 1977 Tom Sims(Sims Skateboards & Snowboards) made the first two laminated skateboards produced by a water-ski company. A good idea. At the time riding for Sims the two boards went to Reddogg and Bob Biniak. These boards were 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch thinner and half the weight of all other production boards. They were above and beyond the best boards they had ever ridden. At the time Jim went to tell Tom how good these boards were, he kicked Jim off the Sims team for having a Makaha Skateboard Club patch his mom had found at the Salvation Army and sewn it onto his shorts, and also said, ” these are too expensive to make”. A bad idea. Bob rode his and gave it to Bulldog when he considered it worn out. Jim and Wes were skating these early laminates in pools and knew that these board's days were numbered. With no board sponsor and all production boards too heavy for pool riding, Jim decided to design his own pool board. He searched hardwood supply houses while working a summer construction job. This led him to experiment with different wood for a lighter board. He tried to recreate the lightweight high performance laminated board similar to what Sims had given him. He made a pool board that was even lighter. Wes had a go on it and the boys knew they were onto something. These were the first hand made Dogtown boards. They didn't know it yet, but the Dogtown boards and graphics designed by Wes helped launched the hardcore Venice skate mystique that continues today.

some sick skateboarding pics!

Top 10 Skateboard Deck Brands

Top 10 Skateboard Deck Brands

By Steve Cave, About.com Guide
See More About:

* building skateboards
* skateboard shopping
* skateboard maintenance
* skateboard decks
* top 10 lists

Skateboard decks come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and picking out the right one for you can be confusing. This list is to help you pick out a brand you can trust - there are a lot of cheap skateboards out there that are also cheaply made. This list isn't in any particular order, and there are actually 11 - I couldn't pick one to shave off! All of these are good quality skateboard brands. To get help in picking out the size and shape, read Build Your Own Skateboard. If you want advice getting a more unique, but yet good quality brand, read Which Brand Should I Buy? You can also Share your Own Top 10 List!
Zero Skateboards
"Zero Skateboards Logo"Zero Skateboards
Zero has always had a strong gritty image, with plenty of blood and skulls. When pro skater Jamie Thomas took over the company, Zero kept the same feel but added an even stronger Gothic tone, sprinkled with punk. Zero decks are well made, and have been one of my personal favorites for a long time. The Zero team features skaters like Jamie Thomas, Chris Cole, Elissa Steamer (a girl!) and more. Mystery is another Jamie Thomas company, and Mystery decks are made exactly like Zero boards.
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Habitat
"Habitat Skateboards Logo"Habitat
Habitat is a skate deck company with a calm, earthy, stylish feel. Sort of like Element, but without even trying to appeal to the kinds of skaters who like Bam Margera. That means that Habitat might be less well known, but their boards are still very high quality, and their graphics are artistic and iconic. Habitiat has a few board styles other than the usual 7 ply: the Skylite lighter skate deck, corrugated bottom ply decks, and Terralone Earth-tone decks.
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Plan B Skateboards
"Plan B Skateboards Logo"Plan B Skateboards
Plan B is a relatively newer skateboard deck company, and they have made their name with quality skate decks and by putting together a very respectable skateboarding team. Plan B decks are high grade 7 ply skate decks, with nothing really special about them besides being well made, wood, and reliable. Plan B's graphics tend to be simple. The Plan B team features skaters like Danny Way, Colin McKay (those two took over the team in 1994, and eventually the company), Ryan Sheckler, Jereme Rogers... seriously, it's an all star team, which is how Plan B originally started. Plan B decks are good quality, and I recommend 'em.
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Element Skateboards
"Element Skateboards Logo"Element Skateboards
Element skateboards have been one of the higher quality brands of skateboards for a long time. Element is a highly environmentally conscious company, with boards like Triftwood decks, which are 7 ply skateboards set at a cheaper price than their lighter, higher tech Fiberlight and Featherlight boards. Element also has a Helium line of skate decks which have air chambers inside making them stiff and light. Element's graphic style is generally simple, with crisp clean imagery with complementary colors. The most famous rider on the Element team is probably Bam Margera.
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Powell Skateboards
"Powell Skateboards logo"Powell Skateboards
George Powell teamed up with Stacey Peralta back in the stone ages of skateboarding, and created Powell Peralta, the company that founded the legendary Bones Brigade. Powell skateboards have been well built now for decades, made in California from rock hard American maple. They even brag about having a spacial unique AirLam press for the boards. The bottom line is that Powell skateboards are well built and good to ride. The style of Powell graphics varies quite a bit - it really depends on the year!
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Blind
"Blind Skateboards Logo"Blind
Blind's skateboard decks are good quality, and they have several unique skate deck technologies: an 8 ply board, a lighter 7 ply board, boards with a vertically laminated core, and decks with Texalium (aluminum and epoxy glass) inside. That might seem like too much to choose between, but it's not, really - just get the deck out like the look, weight and shape of! Blind's graphics tend to be very dark, gritty, violent, and death-filled (with their little "cute" reaper).
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Birdhouse and Blitz
"Birdhouse Skateboards Logo"Birdhouse
Birdhouse is Tony Hawk's company, and he has made sure that his skateboards are good quality. Birdhouse also has its Black 6 technology - this is a 6th thicker ply in the skateboard deck's construction that is supposed to add pop and help with flicks. Tony Hawk has assembled a pretty impressive skateboarding team, with himself, Shaun White and plenty more.

Birdhouse is part of Blitz, which also distribute Flip, Baker and Hook-Ups. These are good brands too - nothing really fancy or anything, just good quality 7-ply skateboard decks.
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Girl and Chocolate Skateboards
"Girl Skateboards Logo"Girl Skateboards
Girl and Chocolate are two totally different skateboard brands, but they are made the same, and are both under Crailtap. Both are great boards though - nothing super fancy, just American made 7 ply skateboard decks that you can ride on. Both companies have good teams (riders like Eric Koston and Devine Calloway), and I've reviewed both brands and liked them each.
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Toy Machine
"Toy Machine Skateboards Logo"Toy Machine
Toy Machine makes good 7 ply skateboard decks. They don't offer much new technologies or anything in their decks - but their decks are good quality, and well made. A lot of their graphics feature cartoon monsters. The Toy Machine skateboarding team features riders like Billy Marks, Ed Templeton and Josh Harmony.
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LIB Technologies Skateboards
"LIB Technologies Skateboards Logo"LIB Technologies Skateboards
Lib Tech skateboard decks are strange - they are well built, and always feature some new technology that puts them in a league of their own. But, they tend to not be seen as often as regular 7 ply wood decks. But, they do tend to work very well, so if you are into trying something unique, check out Lib Tech boards. Lib Tech's graphics tend to be a little ugly in my opinion, but that doesn't mean that you won't love 'em. Lib Tech is also well known for their snowboards.
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Alien Workshop
"Alien Workshop Skateboards Logo"Alien Workshop
Alien Workshop makes highly artistic and unique skate deck designs. They make traditional 7 ply skateboards, have some corrugated technology decks, their Ultralight, and "Nice Price" decks that feature less ink and untreated veneers so they cost less. These are only some of the different types of boards made by Alien Workshop - they are a highly innovative skate deck company!

skateboarding is not a crime,but rape is!

He can fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but can Brian Keith Patch skate on a sex charge?

Patch, 36-year-old professional skateboarder, is set to be arraigned today on a charge that he had sex with a 15-year-old girl who had run away from home.

Patch of Westminster, California, is charged with one felony count of lewd acts on a child and faces a maximum of three years in prison if convicted.

In the world of skateboarding, this guy’s a superstar. He has five X Games medals, and set a record of 58 feet for “longest air” in 2001 — a record that stood for five years.

Here’s a snip:

Patch is accused of letting the 15-year-old sleep at his house and having sex with her in his room on April 11, 2008, prosecutors said.

The girl later told her parents, who contacted police, prosecutors said.

Patch said Tuesday that he and the 15-year-old have known each other for about three years.

“We skated a lot of the same places,” he said.

While declining to comment on the allegation, Patch said that the truth will come out.

“She ran away, like, three days before,” Patch said. “She called all kinds of people looking for a place to stay. She called me. I told her I wasn’t coming home that night. I came home at two in the morning, and she was there outside my house.”

He let the girl sleep over and her father came to pick her up the next day, Patch said.

Patch says police interviewed him after the girl told her parents she was pregnant. Reportedly, he said this:

“If she’s pregnant, the cops have my DNA,” Patch said.

dogtown vintage skateboard pics

my favorite skate boards!

stacy peralta the most business minded of the zboys skateboarding team

Stacy Peralta (born October 15, 1957) is an American director, as well as a former professional skateboarder, team surfer and entrepreneur. He is one of the original Z-Boys.
He was born in California. At age 11, Peralta began competing with the Z-Boys, a group sponsored by the surf shop "Jeff Ho and Zephyr Surfboard Productions". His second sponsor was "Gordon and Smith". The Del Mar Nationals was his first competition, a contest with two board skate categories, slalom and freestyle. He nevertheless placed well, sixth or eighth in the freestyle. Following the Del Mar Nationals, Peralta worked to master the conventional maneuvers required of competitive freestyle skating, and within eight months of his first competition became the number three skateboard freestyler at the World Skateboard Championship.[1] He even showcased his talent in the popular television show Charlie's Angels.
Peralta can lay claim to the invention of the frontside flip to fakie, although this was on the rolled-over lip of skatepark bowls—it took the young Alan Losi to take it to the coping at the Upland Pipeline skatepark. To help skaters ride this maneuver in, Stacy came up with a device called a "lapper" which was essentially a tough polyethylene flap that bolted to the front of the board's rear truck. These are rarely seen nowadays.
At the age of 19, Peralta became the highest-ranked professional skateboarder. Soon after, he joined with manufacturer George Powell to form the Powell-Peralta skate gear company. With the financial backing of Powell-Peralta, Peralta formed the seminal Bones Brigade, a skate team composed of some the best skaters at the time, many of whom revolutionized modern skateboarding. He also began directing and producing the first skating demo videos for skaters such as Tony Hawk.
Stacy Peralta is also credited in the 1985 movie Real Genius with Val Kilmer, William Atherton and Gabriel Jarret. Stacy played commander of a fictional space vehicle delivering a deadly laser toward an unsuspecting criminal during the film's opening scene.


Peralta holding a producer credit for The 1 Second Film in January 2005
In 1992, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His still-lingering love of the board manifested itself in the film, Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary film regarding the legendary skateboard team known as the Z-Boys, and Riding Giants, a 2004 documentary of the history of modern big wave surfing and tow-in surfing. Dogtown won an award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the dramatic retelling of the Dogtown days in Lords of Dogtown (2005). His most recently released film, Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008),[2] focuses on gang violence in south-central Los Angeles. Showing his typical historical flair, he provides an insight into the origins of the infamous Crips and Bloods with a look at the social injustice of 1950s and 60s L.A.
Most recently, Peralta directed a series of television commercials for Burger King featuring the invasion of American culture into places television had never corrupted before, in the guise of science and anthropological study. Peralta helped promote the illusion this was a friendly cultural exchange. Subsequently Peralta came under attack for directing the ad.
Peralta's experience as an entrepreneur and skate demo filmmaker was adapted for the video game Tony Hawk's Underground; Peralta played himself in the game.
Divorced in the 1990s, he has one son, Austin Peralta, he remarried again in 2001 to Gemma Vizor, together they have one child, called Willow.
Peralta is one quarter Mexican on his father's side.[3

tony alva the originator of so cal skateboarding!

Tony Alva (born September 2, 1957) is one of the original Z-Boys and is considered to be one of the most influential skateboarders of all time.
He is Professional Skateboarding's first World Champion in history. He won this title in 1977.
He was born in Santa Monica,California and comes from a Mexican-American family.[1] The level of aggression with which Alva skated was in stark contrast to the traditional style of the era which was still based around tricks formulated in the 1960s. Alva and the other Z-Boys were among the first to bring skating empty pools into the mainstream. In these early days, it was noted that Alva was hitting the lip so hard that he was actually taking off, hence Alva is often credited for the first recorded aerials, a frontside air, although Alva himself claimed that George Orton was the first to perform aerials (Skateboarder magazine, July, 1978).
In 1977, at age nineteen, Alva shunned the major skate companies to form his own skateboard company, Alva Skates. Alva's company was the first company ever run and owned by a skateboarder as well as being one of the first to use layered maple plywood for the skate decks. The same year he was voted 'skateboarder of the year' in Skateboarder Magazine's readers' poll and he set the Guinness World Record for barrel jumping.[2]
Alva is featured in the documentary on Venice Beach skate culture Dogtown and Z-Boys which was fictionalized into the 2005 feature film Lords of Dogtown. He also played the role of Tony Bluetile in the 1978 film, Skateboard: The Movie.
Tony Alva recently signed a three year deal with Vans shoes and his new pro model high top was released in 2006.
Tony Alva was recently featured in the video game, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.
In December 2005, Tony Alva opened two stores in Southern California locations. The Alva Shop stores are located in Oceanside near San Diego, California and, the other Alva Shop was opened in Los Angeles on Fairfax Ave. In December 2006, he celebrated the first anniversary of the stores with a party at the Los Angeles Alva Shop attended by some of the old Z-boys, current Alva Team members, MySpace friends, skate fans, and some minor celebrities including “Ryno” Ryan Opray of Survivor. Tony signed autographs and served as DJ for the catered event. The evergreen bad boy image of the legendary Z-Boy was present in the publicity post card invitation for the Alva Shop 1 Year Anniversary Party which featured a drawing of a hand flipping the bird with a lit wick coming off of the end of the middle finger as if it were a birthday candle.