Dan Drehobl #32.

Red, I'm seeing red.

Spiderman Dan sticks to the wall for a backside tail stall at one of the many skateparks that were starting to pop up at the end of the 1990s.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, May 6th.

There are over 3,800 posts on this thing so browse the archives if you need a content fix. Also feel free to leave some suggestions for easy posts. I've been stuck in a late 1990s zone for way too long. Thanks for the support.

Thrasher - May 1999 Volume 19 Number 5

Diego Bucchieri #7.

Chopping block.

Jake Phelps gave Diego the nickname of The Butcher because his last name is difficult to pronounce. I dig how straight forward Think was a lot of times with their graphic design. No frills, just make the best of whatever photos they had and put the logo in there somewhere.

Thrasher - June 1999 Volume 19 Number 6

Pat Duffy #5.

Sailing the seas of cheese.

The Duffman recently turned 50. It's been 31 years since Plan B's Questionable was released. It somehow doesn't seem that long. Duffy had probably the most iconic of all debut parts since nobody had really heard of him and his skateboarding was miles above what most folks were doing. The only other skater I can think of who had such a similair mindblowing debut is PJ Ladd. Also it seems like everybody is turning 50, with Peter Hewitt also clocking in at the half century mark.

Did anybody ever try the nine ply boards? Does it even work? I maybe had a Real with nine plies around this time, but I think something was wrong with it so I didn't ride it for long. The deck simply might have been too small. I don't remember.

My mom is doing well. She had to have a fairly serious operation to fix some standing health issues.

In regards to this site, I'm not sure what the schedule will be going forward. The plan is to finish out the Think scans for the week and see how everything is going. There very well could be a week or three off before I get back to regular posts.

Thrasher - September 1999 Volume 19 Number 9

Brett Margaritis.

Bump to bar blaster.

Brett is from Perth, Australia. He rode for Think. I like how directly in your face this photo is. Brett runs Modus Bearings & Hardware, a company he started in 2003.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Wednesday, April 17th.

My mom is having some health problems that need to be addressed so I'm taking a break from this thing.

Thrasher - October 1999 Volume 19 Number 10

Jesse Paez #6.

Pure Skateboarding.

Jesse blasts a kickflip to fakie over the hip at some skatepark somewhere.

Think came up on Skate Twitter recently. The idea was that the GX1000 team is kind of the modern day version of Think in the 1990s, particularly the second half of the decade when they had Wade Speyer, Dan Drehobl, Phil Shao, and company. Both Think and GX represent raw, powerful, no frills skateboarding.

Nile Gibbs wearing what I assume is a leftover Think hat reinforces that idea.

Thrasher - January 1999 Volume 19 Number 1

Chris Senn #14.

Flat Bottom.

Chris is riding a board with a graphic by the late Margaret Kilgallen. She did a series for Toy Machine in 1998 that was reissued in the fall of 2021 for the current team. CJ Collins was paired with the graphic on Senn's board on the second go-round.

He's skating the rebuilt Combi Pool from the Pipeline Skatepark in Upland. Vans recreated the spot in a mall in the late 1990s. It's probably so much for the best that malls have fallen out of favor with the youth. I could't deal with being heckled by bored teenagers when I'm at the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall.

I appreciate the subtle little labels that are in this run of Emerica ads.

Transworld - July 1999 Volume 17 Number 7

Dan Drehobl #31.

Stairway.

Dan first popped off the top step into a frontside 50-50 on the rail for a Freedumb Clothing ad in 1996. This was one of those tricks he started messing around with for fun and then figured out what all he could do with it.

Transworld - June 1999 Volume 17 Number 6

Andrew Reynolds #18.

The Boss kickflips into a frontside lipslide. I like how plain his ride is with just the Emerica and Indy stickers on a gloss black deck. I was surprised the trick wasn't in The End, the Birdhouse video from 1998. I think Emerica made a poster of this ad. I didn't really care for the layout at the time, but now I kind of dig the unusual cropping.

Transworld - May 1999 Volume 17 Number 5

Arto Saari #6.

Arto is from Seinäjoki, Finland. He caught the eye of the skateboard world as a young am at the 1998 Munster world championships. This would lead to him riding for the short lived Platinum before making the appropriate switch over to Flip. Arto also switched from Emerica over to éS. There are a whole bunch of Platinum stickers on that rail.

RIP James Hardy.

Transworld - April 1999 Volume 17 Number 4

Donny Barley #10.

Spring into Emerica.

Mr. Barley floats one over the masses at a demo. Emerica was getting arty with their ad layouts in the later half of the 1990s. I think Yogi Proctor was the creative mind behind the graphic design for the company. I like how they look. It feels weird to mention it, but I wonder what sort of career Donny would have had if he stuck with Emerica and Element?

Transworld - March 1999 Volume 17 Number 3

Sean Mullendore #9.

Chops: So that first Static trip you went on cross-county was with everybody. . .

Jake Rupp: Yeah, the DC to Cali trip was with the whole crew. Joel Meinholz, Ed Selego, Steve Brandi . . . Sean Mullendore was on it for a second but then he got weird and bailed, which was awesome. Classic, dealing with a bunch of psychos.

What do you mean?

We were just being crazy. Skating and getting wild. That was just how we were living and Sean wanted no part of it.

But Sean was such a good skateboarder, man. He could ollie anything.

Whatever happened to Mullendore? He was incredible.

He lives around here, in Maryland. I’ve heard that he works on high-end race cars. Like, the super crazy ones in sterile garages.

The DC guy with the massive pop takes a kickflip over a barrier. It looks like he is wearing a New Deal shirt and some fly DVS kicks.

For the quote: Chrome Ball Interview #130: Jake Rupp

Thrasher - May 1999 Volume 19 Number 5

Colt Cannon #2.

Oops! . . . I did it again.

A young Colt does a backside Smith grind on a handrail when he was riding for Think. He's wearing a Freedumb t-shirt that has a bunny holding a gun drawn on it. Freedumb was Dan Drehobl's clothing company that was distributed by Think. I'm not sure what shoes he is wearing. They might be Vitas, but I am not positive. Colt would later ride for Element and Circa.

Thrasher - June 1999 Volume 19 Number 6

Elias Bingham.

Elias is from Austin, Texas. His sponsors were Element, Venture, FTC, and Vita. He is one of the founders/owners of No-Comply Skateshop in Austin. Elias joined other shop owners including Steve Nesser and Kerry Getz as having been on the cover of Thrasher with an ollie for the May 2001 issue.

Thrasher - July 1999 Volume 19 Number 7

Ron Whaley #4.

Powerbolts.

Mr. Whaley would have been riding for Santa Cruz and Krux in 1999. I'm not sure if Ron was on Etnies, but he did the trick a lot of skaters without shoe sponsors did in the late 1990s: wear a company's gear for the photos. It's weird how that never turned into a sponsorship opportunity for anybody because it happened often enough.

Thrasher - August 1999 Volume 19 Number 8

Jake Nunn.

Texas sized hydrant ollie.

Jake is from Austin, Texas. He was pro for Think. His other sponsors included Circuit and Indy. He might be involved with Austin's No Comply Skate Shop, but I'm not positive if he currently is.

Circuit was a late 1990s wheel company done by Think. They had a stacked team and their ads are an easy go to when I need something to fill up a week.

I cruised up to the Food Court Skatepark again on Sunday. It was busier than on a weekday afternoon when everybody else is at school or work. Go figure. The mood was good and everybody was positive. I wanted to check it out again and had the free time. Going there twice in under two weeks gave me a better feel for the place. The setup isn't the widest variety of terrain, yet it works out fairly well. The drive is also a fairly quick trip. I think I'm going to try to get up there more often because it is a fun place and something different to roll around on.

Thrasher - October 1999 Volume 19 Number 10

Alan Petersen #19.

The man in black floats a backside ollie down in Australia. Alan was on Puma's skateboard program before switching to Vans. He might have ridden for Vans previously, too. I like how they used a close up of the graffiti to fill up the ad.

I enjoy Thrasher's This Old Ledge series with Ted Barrow. It's nice to get some architectural history to go with the famous skate spots. I also decided I'm not reading Thrasher until the calendar month matches up with the month on the spine. I'm tired of the rush. You get all this hype about the new cover and then a week later the next issue is already being teased on the internet.

The picture is by Dimitri Elyashkevich.

Thrasher - March 1999 Volume 19 Number 3

Willy Santos #6.

Enjoy skateboarding.

Willy was on Duffs prior to Vans. He would stay on Vans until the company gave up on the puffy shoes and shifted back to the original waffle soles in the low 2000s. This noseblunt slide was in his part in Birdhouse's The End.

The sequence is by new Vans employee Atiba Jefferson.

Thrasher - December 1998 Volume 18 Number 12

Scott Bourne #11.

Old Black Arm follows in the footsteps of Phil Shao and goes to the top shelf at Fort Miley. I don't get fly out tricks at all. They don't seem physically possible to me, but then again I'm not very athletic and getting on in years.

This Thirteen model looks slightly similar to Eric Koston's first shoe on éS.

The photograph is by Tobin Yelland.

Thrasher - May 1998 Volume 18 Number 5

Steve Caballero #3.

Double Dragon.

Vans kept kicking out new pro models for Cab that reflected the styles of the day as the years rolled along. The Half Cab II is looking very beefy, but they protected Steve's feet for kinked rail boardslides. In retrospect, it's neat that guys like Cab and Lance Mountain took their vertical skills to handrails in the later 1990s.

The photos are by John Old.

Cab 5: Thrasher - January 1999 Volume 19 Number 1

Half Cab II: Thrasher - September 1999 Volume 19 Number 9

Omar Hassan #11.

Promar.

Out of curiosity stemming from last week's Salman Agah post, this week will be a look at what pro shoes Vans was selling from 1997 to 1999. Omar was holding it down on Formula One and generally ripping up everything in 1998. He had been on Vans for a while so a pro shoe was warranted. The designs were more in line with what other shoe companies were doing at the time and featured cupsoles with well padded uppers. It's interesting to note the classic Vans wave has been toned down and moved to the tongue. There has also been the borrowing of elements from DC and DVS with the heel tab and lace loops. Van was still making their classics, but they were also pushing a more technical line of skate shoes.

Chris Ortiz snapped the photograph.

Thrasher - January 1998 Volume 18 Number 1

Aesthetics Team 1999.

Model Race Cars.

This was the Aesthetics team in 1999. Sal, Kevin, and Clyde were the pros and Rob was the amateur. Rob actually might have been pro or would be turning pro shortly. I'm not really positive on the timeline for him. Anyway, the graphic design is top shelf work and as the years zip by, Aesthetics keeps on looking better and better.

Check the sizes on the boards:
KT - 8" x 32"
Clyde - 7.75" x 31.75"
Sal - 7.5" x 31.75"
Team - 7.5" x 31.5"

The photo is by Eric Coleman.

Transworld - June 1999 Volume 17 Number 6

Ronnie Sandoval #4.

The Anchor.

Ron was ripping around San Pedro in Lakais a decade ago. He's on Vans these days.

I took a half day yesterday to take another trip to the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall. My friend from Rochester was able to meet up with me. It was a really fun time. You can't beat playing skateboard in a mall to the sounds of 1990s alt rock hits. Food Court is worth checking out if you're ever in the greater Buffalo metropolitan area.

The photo is by Ben Colen.

Thrasher - October 2014 Volume 35 Number 10

Nevada #6.

Made of air.

Apparently my friend Alan and I are about the only two people wondering whatever happened to Gustavo Vargas. I'm a little amazed that I'm the lone soul who has scanned a bunch of Nevada episodes for the internet, too. These things had to have registered with other folks over the years.

Slap - December 1997 Volume 6 Number 12

Salman Agah #8.

Large pizza with all the toppings.

Vans hosted a demo recently with a huge orange vert wall and gigantic pyramid. They had some bands playing a stage built like a window into the vert wall, too. The setup looked strangely unimpressive and minimal. It didn't really look fun to skate at all, even if you were really good at riding a skateboard. I imagine the end result of edited photos and video will look cool. It's marketing, I guess.

Check out how bulky and padded those Vans were back in 1998.

Lance Mountain was the photographer.

Slap - December 1998 Volume 7 Number 12

Matt Bennett #5.

Supreme Machine.

Ed keeps posting funny stories about the early days of Toy Machine on the company Facebook page. I'd do another celebration week for their 30th anniversary, but I've scanned most of their ads in already over the last 15 years. I did pick up all three reissue t-shirts for Brian Anderson, Mike Maldonado, and Elissa Steamer. They've also got Lincoln Ueda's son riding for them now. He flies around the vert ramps just like his dad.

I ran out of time over the weekend to scan new stuff, but I did get my taxes done. I browsed around the hard drive and there were enough unused scans to fill up two weeks. Think of it as spring cleaning. It's going to be very random. I'm stoked I don't have to take a break while I figure out what to post next.

Eric "Rodent" Cheslak was the photographer.

Thrasher - September 2009 Volume 29 Number 9

Mario Rubalcaba #3.

Mirror Imagery.

Mario got in on the big wheel craze of the late 1990s with a 59 mm shape. He was pro for Alva, New School, and ATM Click. Mario also plays drums in a lot of bands, including Earthless, OFF!, and Clikatat Ikatowi to name a few.

Thomas Campbell was the photographer.

Transworld - January 1998 Volume 16 Number 1

Matt Reason #9.

57.

Matt's pro wheel actually shrank from 63 mm in 1997 down to 57 mm in 1998.

I think Matt is taking a pop shove-it from the stairs to the sidewalk. What's funny is that I liked the Physics team and video, but I never had any interest in riding their wheels. But of course back then, you could support a company simply by buying their video and not having to worry about it.

Tony Cox took the picture.

Transworld - August 1998 Volume 16 Number 8

Sean Mullendore #8.

Sean popped up with a couple tricks in Josh Stewart's new Static 6 video. I've only watched the video once so I didn't check to see if it was older footage or new clips. It was probably vintage stuff, but it's good to see his name being kept in circulation. Sean seriously ripped up the DC area in the 1990s.

The photo is by Ben Wagner.

Transworld - August 1998 Volume 16 Number 8

Jim Menscer #2.

Gone in sixty millimeters.

Jim was another of the Philadelphia folks who endorsed the use of bigger wheels. He rode for Screw, Capital, and Kastel.

The photograph is by Julius Reeves.

Transworld - September 1998 Volume 16 Number 10

Dave Caddo #2.

Skait Brane.

It totally makes sense that a Cincinnati kid would ride for the local skateboard company. This was probably Dave's first piece of major coverage. He still skates and writes a blog that addresses concerns over skatepark design with a critical eye while offering solutions to make parks better. To oversimplify his writings, parks should have smaller street oriented obstacles with plenty of space around them to make them more accessible to everyone.

Transworld - September 1998 Volume 16 Number 9

Mike Crum #5.

The Nollie Lama.

Mike was added to the DVS team in 1999. I think he might have been on Recs previously. Mike is a Texas vert legend with perfect nollies above the coping, hence Darren Navarrette's nickname for him. He was also doing plenty of technical street style tricks on the big ramps so he fit right in with the rest of the DVS team.

It went from 64˚ F on Wednesday down to the mid 20s for Thursday. There was a minimal amount of snow and ice overnight. I did get in some skateboarding yesterday in the driveway, but it was cold and windy. I did not roll for long. The weather appears to rebound to warmer temps starting today and going forward.

Congrats to Karim Callender on turning pro for Limosine.

Transworld - April 1999 Volume 17 Number 4

Chico Brenes #5.

The last OG.

Chico was the original Chocolate rider who stayed the longest. He was on the team from day one in 1994 until the fall of 2018. It looks like he is doing a small board brand called Chico Stix these days. I think he was one of the original riders for DVS when they started back in 1995, too.

Transworld - May 1999 Volume 17 Number 5

Keenan Milton #13.

The pinnacle of style.

I wish I had a pair of those shoes.

It has been unsettlingly warm for the last few days of February so I've gotten in some comfortable outdoor skateboarding. The snow comes back for a cold minute the next day or two before it warms up again.

Transworld - June 1999 Volume 17 Number 6

Sean Sheffey #9.

Blue wigs and switch stance skills.

Shout out to Scott Morton of Eat The Bologna 'zine fame for making the Skate Twitter video.

Transworld - July 1999 Volume 17 Number 7

James Craig #3.

The 4-22-19.

DVS was one of the relatively newer shoe companies that started to take off in the late 1990s. They expanded the team and added the Matix clothing line, not to mention becoming the first distributor for Lakai. James Craig was a fresh am on Blind and picked up DVS as a shoe sponsor. I don't think he rode for them for very long.

Transworld - September 1999 Volume 17 Number 9

Ronnie Bertino #5.

A constellation in the sky.

Orion was Tracker's cool truck brand in the 1990s. They had a team of heavy hitters and supposedly the trucks were popular amongst the pros. Now that I think about, I don't ever recall encountering a pair in the wild.

The weather has been mostly decent so I've gotten in a good amount of skateboarding after work for the week. The warmer temps and later sunsets are nice. I've also been catching up on a few videos. I watched Josh Stewart's Static 6 on Sunday, as in sat down on the couch and watched the DVD uninterrupted. It's another noble edition to the Static series. I liked Caswell Berry's new video part. The Primitive amateur flick was impressive. Kyonosuke Yamashita had my favorite section of the video. Blake Carpenter’s footage of tricks for Spitfire was great, too.

Ronnie: Transworld - September 1997 Volume 15 Number 9

No weight: Transworld - February 1998 Volume 16 Number 2

Product line: Transworld - July 1998 Volume 16 Number 7

Crail.

Caminhão de skate.

Crail is a Brazilian truck manufacturer that started in 1990 and are still trucking to this day. It's neat how they had a co-branding deal with Shorty's for the bushings in the mid 1990s. Shorty's had a similar cross promotion with Capital, too.

Sandro's photo is by Flávio Donadio. Luis Naka did the graphic design for his ad.

Cristiano Mateous: Thrasher - August 1997 Volume 17 Number 8

André Hiena: Thrasher - November 1997 Volume 17 Number 11

Sandro Sobral: Thrasher - December 1997 Volume 17 Number 12

Rellik.

Canadian Trucking Industry.

Rellik was a truck company based out of Montreal. I don't think they lasted very long, although they might have switched over to making long boards later on. They also made bearings, hardware, and wheels.

Jon's photo is by Kevin Kelly and Matt's photo is by Mike McCourt.

Jon Campbell: Big Brother - June 2001 Number 73

Matt Pirog: Big Brother - August 2001 Number 75

Dan Pageau: Big Brother - October 2001 Number 77

Unit.

The spirit of Gullwing's Street Shadow.

Unit was started in the late 1990s by Syndrome Distribution, the umbrella name for Zorlac, Status, DNA, and a few other companies. They launched a new truck design called the Phantom in 2000. It very much kept with the marketing idea at the time that trucks should be scary, as was the case for Monster and Kre-Per.

Matt Mecaro took the photo of Aaron.

Mike Rosa: Transworld - February 2000 Volume 18 Number 2

Jeremy Deglopper: Transworld - September 2000 Volume 18 Number 9

Aaron Yeager: Big Brother - July 2001 Number 74

Navigator Trucks.

Concave'd.

Navigators had a different style of hanger that featured a concave shape. It's almost like a reverse of the extra grind pad that Rannalli Trucks had. It is also kind of similar to being an extended Gullwing groove. I have no idea if this would work or not.

It's another haphazardly pieced together week of unique, obscure or popular trucks.

Thrasher - July 2001 Volume 21 Number 7