Windbreaker and t-shirts by Insight

You know what's weird? What's weird is that my favorite new clothing company isn't new at all, it's actually been around for like 25 years. You always see crappy surf brands that don't translate trying to cross over and sell their shit to skateboarders (like that one company with the energy drink that's trying really hard right now) but rarely do you ever see one like Insight that comes in properly. I won't explain what I mean by "properly" but it just really appeals to me somehow. From their clothing range to their skate team to their creative, well thought out and executed 2007 ad campaign (documented below), these guys are just... well... really good.

Drop Shoes Not Bombs
eS and DC Shoes x Active

Active Mailorder recently teamed up with Emerica, Vans, DVS, Lakai, eS, DC and Nike SB to release ten special edition skate shoes available only at Active. Portions of the proceeds from this series will go to Invisible Children, a non-profit organization that helps kids in wartorn countries (hence the name Drop Shoes Not Bombs). That's pretty rad. So rad, in fact, that they only had two pairs in our size (pictured left), so if you want some you'd better hurry up and order 'em.

The somewhat unrelated video clip below is of an event called Hot Dogs and Hessians that Active's been putting on lately. I think the idea is that they invite people out to their stores for games of skate and free hot dogs served up by some glam rock looking mascot dudes. I don't know if hessians listen to the Pixies but they used that one song of theirs that Steve Berra had in his part in Birdhouse's Feasters back in '92 for this clip...

And speaking of the Pixies and Berra and Feasters, I just remembered that he's a member of Active's team of pro skateboarders, making this next old clip even that much more relevant...

Hey Fudge by Travis Millard

Yep, we got Fudge Factory Comics dude Travis Millard's new book. It's a collection of art and comics, a lot of which were originally photocopied and assembled by hand. You know, zines. Like this one that we showed you not long ago. If you liked it (like we did), you'll love this book (like we do).

Milk And Cookies and Dropin [sic] Phat Rhymes t-shirts
by Basement Clothing

What were you doing when you were 11 years old? 14? 16, even? Did you have a job? Spencer, Patrick and Blake Gilley, (three brothers from Vancouver who are aged 11,14 and 16, respectively) do. They're actually the bosses of their own shit.
A couple years ago these lil' dudes started designing and hand screen printing t-shirts in the basement of their parents' home and then selling them to skate shops and boutiques. The little guy designs most of the stuff, I think the middle guy actually does the screen printing part and the oldest of them helps out in all areas and maybe is the business smarts guy. However it works, it's working; we might end up running a Doing It Right feature on these guys.

Here's a photo of the mini ramp they built at Basement corporate HQ...

ZX600's by Adidas Originals

If I had to make a list of the Top Ten Things That I Really Like for some sort of school project or something I don't think France, Bright Colorways and Brazil would be on that list. I mean I like all three of those things just fine but I like reading, fish tacos, skateboarding and seven other things a lot more. Maybe one of these days Adidas will release some colorways of the ZX600 that perfectly match my absolute favorite things in the world. Until then I'll be happy with these I guess.

Some Fall pieces from Modern Amusement

Sure, the middle of the summer is nice and everything but don't you love it when you can wear something a little fancier than a t-shirt? Modern Amusement does Fall really, really well. Get ready for it.

Limited Edition Poker and Craps 574's by New Balance

Again, like I mentioned in Adidas thing above, nobody has hit exactly on my absolute favorite things for shoe themes. Still waiting on the fish taco colorway over here, people.

Dead stock Mr T voicebox keychain thing
compliments of the Wildlife Rescue Thrift Store

Is that crappy (read: sad) Mr. T reality show still on TV? Oh, man.
Here's a clip of him on David Letterman in 1985 to make up for even mentioning it...

Horizon zip by Planet Earth

Sorry to keep bringing up old skate videos but do you remember Brian Lotti's part from Now N' Later? Man, that video was so awesome. If Brian was still skating for Planet Earth he might be doing backside bigspins in this sweatshirt that's a part of their Green Label series right about now. But he's probably sitting at home in sweatpants and a tank top painting or playing the guitar or something. Maybe not.

The clip below is of a Planet Earth trip to Greece from a recent issue of 411...

Chris Pronger figurine by Mcfarlane Toys

As soon as the Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup this year, while the team was still skating around the ice hoisting the cup over their heads and kissing it and shit, I got sparked to do an entire feature on them and their road to victory. After settling down, I finally went to bed, woke up the next morning with a clear head and realized that you probably don't give a sweet goddamn about professional hockey. You probably didn't even notice that this Chris Pronger figurine is actually wearing an Oilers jersey, and that we re-positioned him to make it look like he's riding his stick like a toy horsey because we thought that's what he might have done when he got traded to the Ducks from the lamest team in the league. But just in case you actually do give a sweet goddamn and you can't wait for the next NHL season to start, here's a 2006-2007 Ducks Playoffs montage that makes use of an amazing Van Halen song...

Summer stuff and a cardigan by RVCA

When I asked RVCA for some stuff to feature in this month's Buyers Blitz, they asked me what they should send. I didn't have their current catalog to go through so I just said "I don't know, something summery?" because, you know, it is summer and everything. When it arrived I donned the t-shirt and the trunks and the flip flops on the left and my lady put on the women's outfit on the right and we went to the beach and straight kicked it in lawn chairs for like 10 hours in the blistering sun. Halfway through the day, after we had cooked ourselves a nice lunch on the hibachi, there were these dudes playing frisbee close to us and one of them overshot his buddy and the frisbee hit my lady in the head. I was so pissed off that I picked it up and threw it as hard as I could into the ocean as we left.

Okay, all of that was a lie. The truth is that we stayed inside until 10 that night when I put on the cardigan and we walked to the store to buy Slurpees... I mean, Squishees.

Here's an ANP Quarterly (RVCA's arts magazine) interview with Ed Templeton. Unfortunately, they don't address the question of whether or not he drinks Squishees in it...

No review is needed for this righteous Spitfire belt, t-shirt, soft durometer yet relatively small 55mm cruiser wheels, Nick Dompierre pro model tires and Eric Koston's first pro model wheel on Sptifire

Koston in Chomp On This...

And Dompierre's part from a video his shop sponsor, Solstice, put out...

Toms Shoes

Have you heard about this yet? For every pair of these shoes that you buy they give one pair to a child who needs them? It's for real, and as far as I can tell it's not one of those charity organizations where you give money to them and they go on a mission to give it to people in need right after they slather it all up in the word of their god. Actually, not only is it not one of those sleazy religious things but it's not really a charity at all because you get a pair of shoes out of the deal! The bonus is that some kid who actually needs a pair does too.

Fitted cap by Transworld Skateboarding

Yes, we try to keep this section reserved for "products that you can find in stores right now" but I had to show this not-available-in-stores hat to you. The fabric on top is supposed to look like griptape, under the brim's supposed to look like wood and the lining is printed with a pattern of covers from Transworld's first 25 years of publishing. So it's like wearing a skateboard and a bunch of magazines on your head, only better. There were only 80 made and most of them were given out to the presenters and the nominees of this year's Transworld Skateboarding Awards. The remaining few got sent out to random people like myself who have friends who work at Transworld. Hopefully you'll actually be able to buy a similar hat from a store in the future because the design is really cool.

The only thing that's really wrong with it is that it comes in one of those goofy wooden hat cases with the little mirror on the inside. Every time I see one of those things I get this picture in my head of some idiot adjusting their brim in it while pursing his lips making a gangsterface and thinking to himself "I look dope. Yeah, I look dope".