My Totally Rad (Mostly) Tony Hawk Tech Deck Figure!

I love skatebording. And I love toys. So I really love skateboarding toys.

And when I spotted this little stylized figure of my all-time favorite pro skater, Tony Hawk, I wasted no time in dropping a few shekels on him. And by "a few" I mean, like, $5 shipped. BOOM!

There are several skaters in this series (which I believe is now defunct if the clearanced Chris Haslams I see peg-warming at TRU is any indication). But being an old-school dude (or just old, really), I don't really want the other guys. If they were little Lance Mountains or Rodney Mullens, that would be a different story.

Sadly, the figure looked cooler in the box. Once I got it out, it lost some charm. they gave poor Tony a pretty goofy-looking head on an obscenely long neck, and quite frankly, didn't capture his likeness at all.

The board he comes with (a Birdhouse deck, natch), has a little swiveling peg in it which fits into the holes of his feet, allowing him to do 180° shuvits (or 3240° shuvits if you just want to sit there spinning it all day).

And the peg allows for some cool poses. 

Frankly, I wish there was a bit more articulation instead of just the neck and shoulders, but this is coming from a guy who designs PVC blind box figures all day that don't pose at all, so maybe I should just shut up about that.

The good news is that his hands are perfect for holding weapons, which allows you to have a heart-pounding session of what I have dubbed "Battle Skating".

And thanks to my uncontrollable urge to buy every cool Tech Deck I see, Tony Now has some homies to skate with.

And make no mistake, that Ree Yees totally shreds.

These Vintage Skateboarding Stickers are Totally Rad!

I mentioned back in my latest Horde Address that the great Shawn Robare (from Branded in the 80s) sent me a little care package full of all kinds of goodies. Each item in the box deserves (and will eventually get) its own post, but one of the items in the package is so unbelievably awesome, that I just couldn't wait to blog about them.

As I was going through the box that Shawn sent, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw these beautiful vintage skateboarding trading card stickers...

What a stunning slice of pop culture history we have here. From a designer's standpoint alone, the retro graphics on these cards are a lesson in 70s style. And each card is like a little time capsule offering up a taste of what the skateboard boom of the 70s was like, at least in the mainstream view.

It's all I have in me to not go and get the above image tattooed on my chest.

 

Looking through these cards (which are actually stickers, much like Wacky Packages or Garbage Pail Kids), I'm thinking that these are from around the late 70s. I'm mostly basing this on the style of the images, the groovy sayings that are on some of them. If so, then they are possibly just pre-Dogtown takeover, or just completely ignoring the whole radical California boom that skateboarding experienced once legends like Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta hit the scene.

One bit that was pretty interesting, however, was the card shown below declaring that skateboarding should be made an Olympic event in 1984. If these cards were made int he late 70s, why not say 1980? Are these possibly made post-1980? If so, I'd venture to say that the graphics were probably a little out of date by then.

Another clue about the date of these cards lies in the brief biographies of various champion skaters of the day that are on the backs of each card. The latest date I could find on any of these was 1977. And let's face it, these pictures look pretty groovy.

Anyway, I just love stuff like this and can't thank Shawn enough! Looking at these cards has me looking forward to warmer weather up here in the Pacific Northwest when I can strap on the pads, grab my deck and glide over a little concrete once again.

The Classic 1984 Nash Executioner is Mine At Last!

A while back, I wrote a piece as a League of Extraordinary Bloggers assignment all about my original skateboard, a Valterra Dragon, which, as mentioned in the previous piece, was the skateboard I had to settle for (but eventually loving dearly) in lieu of the board I really wanted, a Nash Executioner.

The Nash Executioner was a total K-mart piece of crap by the standards of the skate scene, but I didn't know that. All I knew was that it was the first wide wooden skateboard with all kinds of plastic bumpers and doodads that I had ever seen (a few kids in my neighborhood had them) and it was totally rad to my eyes.

Well, it only took me 28 years, but I finally got my Nash Executioner!

Ah, eBay. How I love you. This lovely specimen is pretty much how I remember the one I saw for the first time. I'm pretty sure it was a yellow deck, but it may have had neon green accessories. Whatever, I snapped this up as soon as I saw it online, and it's as glorious as I remember.

The top is pretty shredded, but that's no biggie. I took it for a spin around the neighborhood and the tape still grips. It is a bit weird riding a deck that's not concave (as they all are now) and the trucks are hella loose on this thing (making for a couple of scary turns), but overall I couldn't be more jazzed.

It's funny how much I wanted one of these when I was 12, only to later learn that they were considered junk to all those serious skaters with their Caballero and Lance Mountain decks.

I wonder if it had anything to do with the giant, pink bubble tail guard on the back?

My god, that looks silly! But in 1985, I thought that was awesome. I would eventually add a black bubble tail guard to my Valterra, along with a set of black Powell-Peralta Rib Bones. However, that didn;t hide the fact that it was a $19.99 deck from K-mart.

Check out the bitchin' rear truck guard, for defending against scrapes while doing ollies up curbs...

I make fun a bit, but the truth is, this deck gets my inner 12-year-old jumping up and down and throwing air punches.

I'm gonna tighten up the trucks and take her up tot he nearby skatepark and ride this baby like I don't care who's laughing.

Then I might ride it up to the nearest tattoo shop and get that dragon graphic done on my chest. It's a dragon! Standing on a pile of skulls!

So rad.

Uh Oh... I Think I May Have Just Become a Tech Deck Collector!

I haven't really mentioned this on the blog, as I'm not really sure if this fits into the "geek" theme here at the Lair, but I have recently reignited an interest in skateboarding. This must be yet another manifestation of my mid-life crisis (I'm about to hit the big four oh).

I started skating just like every other kid on Earth back in the mid 80s, during skateboarding's 3rd resurgence, with the rise of Powell Peralta and the reign of Tony Hawk and Lance Mountain. I skated like a maniac all through middle school and a bit into high school. Later, in my early 20s, I would rediscover skating and find myself on a board again for the next few years. A nasty head-first collision with some concrete, complete with concussion, got me off of my deck permanently. Or so I thought.

My most recent reconnection with skateboarding started a couple of years ago with the purchase of a new longboard, which is basically like a skateboard for old guys, content with surfing the sidewalks and paved park trails. (I suppose I was also influenced by all of the skateboard related artwork I was assigned to create at my t-shirt/toy design gig.) I had come to really love my longboard, and have been casually riding it for a while when early one one morning, while most sane people slept, I got it in my head to grab my vintage Valterra Dragon deck and to head on up to the new nearby skate park. Luckily, the place was deserted since most kids didn't get up to skate at 6:00 AM on a Sunday morning.

Long story short, I had a blast and went out that day to buy a new street deck, some pads and a helmet.

I've since been heading up to the skate park about every other morning (I usually need a day for my sore muscles and knees to heal), but that is another story.

Today, we're going to talk about how my new-found love for skateboarding has clashed with my penchant for toy collecting, when both aspects of my life lined up like the suns and moons of the Dark Crystal as I found myself staring at a display of little toy skateboards called Tech Decks.

I have walked past the Tech Decks at Target and Toys R Us a million times while on my search for action figures and Lego minifigures. But now that I was a totally radical skate rat again, I found myself taking a closer look at these little four-wheeled wonders. And what little strength I had against buying any of them crumbled when I saw this sweet Black Label longboard. What's that? It's only $3.49? One thrid the price of an action figure? Done. Take my money.

The board itself is a work of pure beauty. I guess the Tech Deck people have really mastered the art of applying crisp, clean graphics on their products, and they would have to, because that's pretty much what these bad boys are all about. Sure, you can do all kinds of little finger tricks with them, but I'm a stranger to all of that. I'll learn some moves soon, but until then, I'm just loving the graphics on the deck.

Each Tech Deck comes with a slew of killer miniature skate gear. Grip tape, wheels, stickers. This one also came with some sort of sticky gel-pad thing that supposed to help you do tricks with your deck, but that didn't really interest me.

Putting the grip tape on the board was pretty easy and it didn't take me long to get the tape lined up with the truck screws.

One of the coolest features of Tech Decks is how you get to change out the wheels. There was nothing sweeter back in middle school than when I finally got a bright orange set of new Slime Ball wheels and put them on my deck. This was like living that moment all over again, only on a really teeny, tiny scale.

Surprisingly, despite their almost microscopic size, the wheels came off pretty easily.

I switched them out for the set of black wheels. I sort of liked the white wheels better, but I wanted to experience changing the wheels on one of these. Look how tiny that nut is! (That's what she said.) It takes a steady hand to switch out the wheels, but I managed.

Oh man, now that I look at it, this Black Label deck looks even more badass with the black wheels on it!

As I mentioned before, the deck came with a small sheet of stickers. I didn't want to grime up the graphics too much, so I just chose one small sticker and applied it near the tail.

Seriously, I think I'm hooked. These things are just too damn cool. I actually bought a few of these, so get ready ready for more Tech Deck reviews/show-and-tells. In fact, I may have to do some more general skateboarding posts. Sure, it's not necessarily a "geeky" subject, but I sure am geeking out on it. So, get ready kids.

Hey! Check out Frank! He's totally shredding! Actually, he really should be wearing a helmet.