Jerry Hsu #12.

With Thrasher's recent contest at San Francisco's famed Clipper ledge, I coincidentally stumbled upon this sequence of Mr. Sci-Fi Fantasy stepping to a Louie Barletta style trick. I did not remember the maneuver at all so I did some internet research. It was in Jerry's part in Subject To Change, the Osiris video from 2003.

The photo sequence is by Pete Thompson.

Transworld - June 2002 Volume 20 Number 6

Scott Palmer & Vaughan Baker.

Double Decker Bus.

Scott is from Hull, England, likes rugby, and can do really good 360 flips. That's all I got from a quick interview with Scott in Skateboarder. His part in Waiting for the World features a lot of flip tricks on the streets of London and a bunch of midsize handrail stunts.

Vaughan is from Worcester, England. He previously rode for the bizarrely named Unabomber Skateboards and was getting shoes from Converse. Vaughan is into art and graphic design. This 360 flip was in First Broadcast, the Blueprint video from 2001. He jumped down some stairs, put together some solid tech lines, and even hit up some old skateparks for that video.

The Stone Roses came up on iTunes shuffle while I was editing this batch of scans. It must have been a sign to do a week of Blueprint. I really should have done more research to fill out the posts, but I ran out of motivation.

Scott's photograph is by Sam Ashley. I imagine Sam took a bunch of the photos for the ads this week.

Palmer: Thrasher - October 2001 Volume 21 Number 10

Baker: Thrasher - January 2002 Volume 22 Number 1

Colin Kennedy.

Broadcasting First.

Colin is from Glasgow, Scotland. Panic turned him pro and he later shuffled over to Blueprint. He helped push technical street skateboarding in London by figuring out the potential of the ancient architecture that defines the city. Colin had great switch trick mastery during his time as pro. He had some solid ramp skills, too.

Blueprint had maybe an era appropriate graphic design change from a more classical style to an early 2000s emo flavor. It was a mildly peculiar shift.

I took yesterday afternoon off from work to take another trip to the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall. Nobody was there, probably because it was a sunny 61˚ F (16˚ C) day in November. It was time well spent and I got a better feel for the place. I cruised around doing my dumb little tricks on the ledges and flat bar. There's something really enjoyable about skateboarding in a mall.

Note: This is not the same Colin Kennedy who filmed Skate More, the DVS video.

Thrasher - September 2002 Volume 22 Number 9

Paul Shier #2.

Icebreaker.

Paul was immortalized on the December 1997 cover of Sidewalk, then Sidewalk Surfer, doing a crooked grind on a block of ice in a photo by Wig Worland.

Thrasher - July 2002 Volume 22 Number 7

Mark Baines #2.

We're not in Pittsburgh.

Mark is from Sheffield, England. He was pro for Blueprint, moved to the US to ride for New Deal, and then returned to the UK to ride for Blueprint again. Mark was also sponsored by éS and Elwood clothing. His favorite skaters include Eric Koston, Daewon Song, Andrew Reynolds, and Guy Mariano. He spent some time living at the infamous Warner House with the Baker crew. That must have been an interesting adventure.

For the info: Thrasher - June 2000 Volume 20 Number 6

Thrasher - August 2001 Volume 21 Number 8

John Rattray #5.

Ride Precision Tech.

Blueprint was started up in 1996 by Dan Magee and Alvin Singfield. It was a second board brand to Panic, which was started in 1995. Panic was initially the more well known name, but Blueprint soon eclipsed them and the companies merged. Blueprint had a solid run up until 2012 when the world ended. They released a number of quality videos over that time span. As a sign that they were doing it right, American companies tried to poach some of their team riders. Fortunately skateboarding had grown to more of a global industry so many of their riders stayed. They even put a couple of blokes from the states on the team, too.

We all know John's story. He was pro for Blueprint, joined the Zero army, and is still out there today fighting the good fight for mental health awareness.

I took a refresher course on British skateboarding last night by skimming through all my issues of Sidewalk. This week might be lean on details. I apologize in advance. Also Sidewalk had a lot of great photos, but they used strange fonts and had the text way too small far too often. Some of that can be chalked up to the new technology for desktop publishing that was being used in the late 1990s.

Odds & Ends

The trucks with the curved hanger were called Navigators. I'll do another feature on obscure trucks from the low 2000s in the future since there were so many of them. I'm burned out on trucks right now.

Toy Machine is celebrating their 30th anniversary as the company debuted in the fall of 1993. Ed Templeton is posting some neat stories about the early days on Facebook. It looks like they are doing some guest boards for former riders, too.

What if SOTY season is chill this year?

Thrasher - May 2001 Volume 21 Number 5

Patrick Melcher #3.

Razor Wire Wallride.

I kept flipping by Patrick's wallride and thought the photo was cool. I only planned to do the monochrome Destroyer ads from Thrasher, but a little more research led to scanning what is probably all the advertising they did. This might have been the last call for Destroyer. Most of the riders were either added to Destructo or found better truck sponsors for 2002.

Thrasher - December 2001 Volume 21 Number 12