Al Midgett & Blaize Blouin.

Unemployed East Coast Vert.

Al is from Virginia Beach, Virginia and was pro for Schmitt Stix. Blaize was from Charleston, South Carolina and was pro for G & S. Jobless was a clothing company based in New England. I kept flipping by this ad and couldn't figure out why the one skater looked familiar until I read the caption and realized it was Blaize. Sadly, he passed away in a car accident 25 years ago. I don't think this has been online yet so I felt it needed to be posted. I believe Al's son also skates vert and has had some coverage here and there.

The photos are by R.R. I am not sure on a full name for the photographer.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3

Tony Manfre #3.

Tony nosegrinds a handrail during his days on Powell. He would later jump to enjoi and eventually joined up with the relaunched Shut. His switch ollie down Wallenberg would've happened while he was riding for Powell. He's currently a musician/DJ who still skateboards.

Is there a Powell Peralta resurgence afoot? They kept plugging away in their skate zone all this time and it sort of feels like they are back. I'm sure the older dudes with money who fulfilled their childhood dreams of having a Bones Brigade themed man cave have helped P & P's bottom line all along, but it seems like the company is now doing more than dominating the reissue game. Although they are making a special Mike McGill deck to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the McTwist. Make what you will out of all of this.

An attempt was made to fix my old iMac last night. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. On the positive side, we were able to recover all the files off the hard drive so I have access to the Vert Is Dead archive again.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Kevin "Spanky" Long #11.

Remember when Spanky was on Ezekiel? Me neither. I have not made that joke in a spell. Kevin would have been an am for Baker at the time, prior to winning the Tampa Am in 2003 and Emerica's This Is Skateboarding video.

I got a batch of Fourstar scanned and decided to go with some random stuff for this week. I'm still plugging away at using Affinity Photo. It's kind of clunky to use, even for easy stuff like piecing together two pages. I don't full trust how it levels colors, but that's more on me needing to read the instructions.

The photos are by Jeff Landi and Russell Hoover. I'm not positive on Hoover's first name. The design is credited to J. Clark.

Transworld - July 2002 Volume 20 Number 7

Alex Carolino.

Secrets.

Alex Carolino is from Curitiba, Brazil. He was visiting Europe for the contests at the turn of the century and started skating with the Lordz Wheels crew. This led to assorted sponsorships and professional status for Santa Cruz after Seek had ended. He was also riding for DC Shoes. Alex has the massive pop for technical street tricks that has become a hallmark of Brazilian skateboarding.

I think it is going to be some Fourstar ads from 2003 for next week. It might end up being a relaxed schedule week again. I am unsure until I start the scanning and see how the ads look. If it is too many lifestyle photos, I might just dump everything on one day. I have to finish up the March 1990s issue of Poweredge, too. I don't know yet. I also need more practice with Affinity. It's possible an attempt to repair my old iMac will made be this weekend, but I'm not sure. Everything is in a state of flux at the moment.

Sébastien Michelini was the photographer.

Transworld - April 2003 Volume 21 Number 4

Colin McKay #10.

Seeking street on vert.

Colin spins a frontside cab heelflip on vert without grabbing. I wonder how many tries it took him to land this? Colin was on Girl prior to the start up of Seek and then went to the rebooted Plan B when Seek ended in 2004.

The sequential pictures are by Mike Blabac.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Florentin Marfaing.

Le Dome.

Florentin is from Mühlhausen, Germany. He also spent a lot of time living in Paris, France and possibly lives in Barcelona, Spain now. Josh Kalis recruited him to ride for Seek in the early 2000s based on his part in the Lordz Wheels video. After Seek ended, he was pro for Santa Cruz for a number of years. I want to say he's still skating and sponsored by a couple of European companies. Flo was on Vans for the longest time. It's a little odd to see him wearing Vans in this photo sequence because nobody else on Alien was wearing Vans back in those days. His skating is a prime example of high quality Euro tech. Flo absolutely demolished the classic Le Dome hubba spot in Paris.

Flo and Kalis owned the first few months of ads for Seek. I picked out the relative best of the batch to use. The design of this one skews a tad into Habitat territory.

Helge Tscharn was the photographer.

Transworld - November 2002 Volume 20 Number 11

Josh Kalis #14.

Rising under the sovereign sect.

It's sort of unremarkable how much Seek looked like the Alien Workshop in terms of graphic design. When they started Habitat, they made sure it had a unique visual identity to make it stand out. Seek didn't have that. Mike Hill and Don Pendleton were doing the art for Seek so there was bound to be some conceptual overlap, but nothing that outwardly differentiated them from Alien. To be fair, those guys did have a deep pool of strong ideas to draw from, but the point of creating a new company is create something at least a little different from whatever else is out there. It's not like the differences between Girl and Chocolate or Real and Krooked. This probably didn't help any for the longevity of the brand.

It's also worth noting that Seek was basically a board line for the DC Shoes team with Kalis, Rob Dyrdek, Colin McKay, and potentially Stevie Williams on the squad.

The sequence is by Mike Blabac.

Transworld - July 2002 Volume 20 Number 7