Justin Roy #3.

Piling down.

Justin is from Lafayette, Louisiana and moved out to San Diego for the sake of skateboarding. He was an am for Foundation and turned pro for Hollywood. Later on he would ride for Hellrose, the short lived LA based company with Richie Belton, DJ Chavez, Don Nguyen, James Atkin, and a few others. In a Thrasher interview from 2003, Justin said he didn't see Kevin Staab very often when they were both on Hollywood.

The weather has been windy and rainy since the weekend. I skateboarded a couple of times in the driveway with mixed results. I started breaking in a new pair of shoes, too. I haven't really had much going on lately.

Big Brother - January 2004 Number 104

Don Nguyen & Dorian Tucker.

Hollywood Stars.

It had to be something a little silly for today. I've never cared for the tabloid style ads. I get why they do them because they are fun and easy to do, but they don't look great.

I think Hollywood was Nuge's first big sponsor. He would later ride for Foundation and Baker. Dorian rode for Planet Earth, Creature, and Scarecrow over the years.

Don: Big Brother - June 2003 Number 97

Dorian: Big Brother - September 2003 Number 100

Richie Belton.

Dave Carnie had an anecdote in Big Brother about Guns N' Roses. Every time he had people over to his house he would put a record on in his living room. After a little bit he would leave the room for whatever reason and when he returned, somebody had inevitably changed the music to Appetite For Destruction. He wrote that he got tired of constantly being welcomed to the jungle so he started hiding his copy of the LP. On the rock side of things, skateboarding was obsessed with Axl, Slash, and company in the early 2000s to the point of ridiculousness. It was also obsessed with David Bowie. I'm not a huge Bowie fan, but at least he has an expansive and diverse catalog of songs to pick from. We've gotten about as much milage as we're gonna get from Guns N' Roses, as was evidenced by two different G N'R shirts in yesterday's post. Girl possibly achieved maximum saturation by using a song from each artist for the soundtrack to Yeah Right! in 2003.

Big Brother - December 2003 Number 103

Kris Markovich #27.

Rock & Rollers.

Hollywood was Kris Markovich's company after he had been on Foundation for a couple of years. It was distributed by Tum Yeto and featured a few guys who had ridden for the F-Troop. Kris also brought in some of his friends to fill out the team. If I recall correctly, Markovich liked it at Foundation, but was getting some wild offers so doing his own board project again made sense. They went with the rock & roll theme that was very popular at the turn of the century. Hollywood made a promo with quite possibly the longest name ever for a video. I have it on VHS, but haven't watched it in a couple of decades. I should see how it holds up. The company was not around long before fading away into the hills.

Big Brother - October 2002 Number 89

Guy Mariano, Rudy Johnson & Tim Gavin.

Handrawn Sequences.

It's a power trio of tricks from the younger guys on the Blind team. I like the layout of the advertisement. I know Rudy was pro in late 1991/early 1992. Was Guy pro yet? This was probably The Gav's first time in a proper ad. The backside 360 ollie is so sick, especially considering the sequence was most likely taken in late 1991. I'm not sure if Mark Gonzales was still involved with Blind. He was definitely on his way out the door, if he hadn't left already. Jason Lee was still on, but would be gone by the summer. Henry Sanchez would soon be added to the team and would star with Tim in Tim & Henry's Pack of Lies video in the fall of 1992. Those were the video days.

Chops has a great new interview with Louis Carlton of Small Room fame up at the Chrome Ball Incident.

I got skateboarding a couple days this week. I did put new wheels on the new board. It was needed. I want to go skate someplace other than the driveway, but the yo-yoing weather conditions are making it difficult. I haven't been skating too well either so that is making it even less appealing to hit up a different park or spot. I hope everybody has a good weekend.

Thrasher - March 1992 Volume 12 Number 3

Coco Santiago #6.

Ride on.

Coco is from either New Jersey near Manhattan, New York City, or San Francisco. There really isn't a ton of info about him. He rode for Shut, the famous East Coast powerhouse squad that dominated all the contests in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Real would turn him pro and he would later ride for Black Label. His favorite bands included Mercyful Fate, Motörhead, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, and Slayer. He was part of the original Hellride crew with Jake Phelps and company. Coco was a gnarly all terrain skater for much of the 1990s before disappearing.

I hate when people crop scans. I try to avoid doing it whenever possible and mention when I do. It takes away from the context of the original. Sure there can be a lot of dead space you don't need and many a rad photo has been wrecked by being a subscription or shop ad, but it omits part of the story. I thought this picture of Coco was cool. I also wanted to include the full advertisement it ran in for reference purposes. Whatsport was a shop in SF that carried Real, Black Label, Think, and Alien Workshop goods.

Thrasher - April 1992 Volume 12 Number 4

John Cardiel #21.

Slick gossip.

The nosegrind to noseslide was a popular street move in 1992. It was right up there with running very small photo sequences. Cards was pro for Dogtown before switching to Black Label and winning Thrasher's Skater of the Year award.

It was rainy this weekend so I didn't skateboard much. I set up a new deck. The old one was definitely done, even though it felt like I barely skated the board. My ollies were popping again and I had better control on other tricks. It's weird how boards wear out and impact tricks in ways you didn't expect.

Thrasher - February 1992 Volume 12 Number 2