Ocean Howell #6.

Projecting a stereo mood.

Ocean was one of the finest technical skaters of the early to mid 1990s before moving on to an academic life of studying architecture. He was still ripping and would pop up in Slap or get a mention from Patrick O'Dell from time to time. Occasionally his writings on how skateboarders interact with the concrete environment would be published in the mags. Ocean is currently a professor at the University of Oregon. I think the university should make commercial of him skateboarding around campus for a minute. It would really stand out in the sea of college adverts that dot the television landscape. Ocean is riding a Flip board, which isn't as shocking as it sounds since they shared an office space with Birdhouse way back when.

The weather has been rainy, windy, and cold so skateboarding hasn't been happening a lot lately for me. I think I'm in a slump and not stoked on things either. I put on some new wheels the other day and that seemed nice. It might even dry out and warm up for the weekend.

Vert Is Dead is taking a break and will be back in a week or two.

It's going to be at least a week off and maybe two or even three. I'm just burned out on computers and I want some time off. I'll post a comment once I have a schedule plan in place.

The photographs are by Rob Brown.

Transworld - March 1995 Volume 13 Number 3

Marc Johnson #18.

Trippy night at Tito's Shampoo Lounge.

Marc takes a backside tailslide down Hubba Hideout during the much simpler times of the mid 1990s. He would have riding for Maple and Etnies when the photo was taken.

Transworld - November 1995 Volume 13 Number 11

Sean Mullendore #10.

Repping the district.

Sean crushes one of the ledges at Pulaski with a switch Smith grind. He rode for a bunch of companies, including Capital, Silver Star, Circuit Wheels, Pig Wheels, and more. Sean was also on Stereo and in their very last print ad, near as I can figure. Vanilla was a clothing line created by Joyride Snowboards. The other riders included Charlie Coatney, Reese Forbes, and Satva Leung.

This dumb thing turn 17 as of today. Yippee.

Note: This ad ran opposite Sean's Check Out in Transworld.

Pete Thompson took the photo sequence.

Transworld - December 1995 Volume 13 Number 12

Mike Sinclair #2.

Team manager to the stars.

Mike gets a lofty ollie for Endless Grind back in the good old days. He currently works as the team manager for Nike and Tum Yeto. He's been in those roles for a long time now. His pet project is Slappy Trucks, which seems to be gaining popularity as a new way to hold your wheels on your board. I like finding random older ads and photos like this where the person is still involved in skateboarding after all of the years.

The photo is by Ben Knight.

Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Josh Beagle #15.

Vroom Vroom.

The OG Beagle was a handrail titan back in the 1990s and was a pioneer of doing more technical tricks on banisters. He stepped away from the pro ranks to work behind the scenes at Foundation before disappearing from the scene. His middle name is Zeus.

I rummaged around some Transworlds from 1995 and managed to find enough stuff I hadn't posted for the 17th anniversary week. I've been really into the middle to late 2010s, but wanted to switch it up for a little bit.

Transworld - May 1995 Volume 13 Number 5

Ruby Lilley.

DJ Goldfish.

Ruby is from Ocean City, Maryland. She moved out to California in an RV with her mom a few years back. Her speciality is parks and transitions with a focus on some of the older tricks like crail grabs, finger flips, and going to disaster. She is sponsored by Foundation, Vans, Ace Trucks, Bronson, and Bones Wheels.

The photo is by Brian Shamanski.

Thrasher - July 2022 Volume 43 Number 7

Toby Ryan.

Real Madness.

I think Toby is the new hot am on Real, but I'm not positive on this. There isn't much concrete information on his background and I'm connecting a couple dots that most likely connect. He possibly rode for DC Shoes and hung out with the SK8MAFIA crew, too. Did Toby maybe have a Lunatic Fringe in Thrasher within the last year or two? Anyway, this is a sick vertigo inducing photo.

Chris "Rhino" Rooney documented the foolish behavior.

Thrasher - March 2019 Volume 40 Number 3