Sean Mullendore #11.

Set Freedom Plaza free.

It's weird how we mythologize skateboarders who are wistfully obscure. Sean isn't exactly an unknown, but he wasn't getting the same amount of coverage that Chet Thomas and Willy Santos were back in the day. He certainly wasn't on the level of fame like Chad Muska or Tony Hawk either. That's fine. The more esoteric characters are somehow more appealing because you don't know much about them beyond a handful of photos and a couple blurbs on how they totally destroyed the local spots. What makes them fascinating is the not knowing. We know that Sean had more pop than everybody else and that he possibly works on very expensive automobiles. That's it. And that's plenty.

I legit can't believe I've been scanning and writing stuff for this thing for 18 years. Thanks for the support.

The photos are by Pete Thompson.

Capital: Slap - June 1996 Volume 5 Number 6

Nicotine: Slap - December 1996 Volume 5 Number 12

Ryan Hickey & Matt Willigan.

Strobe flares.

It's a couple of arty photos of night time skateboarding that I thought looked neat. Ryan is a proper New Yorker who rode for Zoo York, Supreme, Stereo, and Capital over the 1990s. Matt was on Capital and Nicotine. He is a graphic designer and has done work for Girl, Converse, éS, and more.

The photos are by Thomas Campbell and Adam Wallacavage.

Ryan: Slap - August 1996 Volume 5 Number 8

Matt: Slap - December 1996 Volume 5 Number 12

Brian Howard #4.

Tall ship, tall air.

Planet Earth pro Brian Howard does a method to fakie in front of a nice nautical scene. Nicotine was a wheel company that was rolled out in 1995. The original team was Chris Hall, Pepe Martinez, Andy Stone, and amateur Reese Forbes. This soon led to Pepe and Andy leaving Element to start up Capital Skateboards. It's cool that they included a few rippers vert on the team to go with the street shredders.

The photo is by Dimitri Elyashkevich.

Slap - October 1996 Volume 5 Number 10

Kevin Taylor #8.

Substantial.

It's a Capital blowout for the anniversary week. This was an East Coast entity run by Mike Agnew and distributed by Intensity Skates mail order. They had a ripping team and some fresh looking graphic design for the 1990s. You could tell that whoever was doing the catalogs for Intensity was doing the ads for Capital because they clearly knew what they were doing. When we last checked in with KT, he was pro for Aesthetics and getting an ad every other month. Prior to Aesthetics, he was riding for Capital. I think he skates for Hopps these days after being on Pittsburgh's Scumco & Sons. I like all the banners on the wall behind Kevin.

The photo is by Pete Thompson.

Slap - May 1996 Volume 5 Number 5

Chany Jeanguenin #4.

The Dirt of Luck.

The Swiss all-terrain ripper holds on to avoid floating away. I don't know how much a little helium in the insole would actually reduce the weight of a shoe, but you have to give Converse credit for trying something different. I can't recall ever seeing many Converse in the wild. Were they selling? The shoes look like a big athletic company's attempt at copying the excessively padded skate shoes of the day. I don't think I've seen too many pairs of their current effort either. It seems like a lot of pros and sponsored ams wear them so I imagine they do move enough kicks to keep the skate team going.

We had all the spring weather this week which even necessitated skateboarding in gloves a couple of times. Have a good weekend.

Atiba Jefferson handled the photography.

Transworld - June 2000 Volume 18 Number 6

Felix Arguelles.

Disco Inferno.

Felix is from New York City and got into skateboarding in the 1980s. He skated both vert and street until some injuries caused him to focus more on street skating. Early on he was sponsored by Shut and World Industries. His folks relocated to Miami and Felix moved with them. At this time, Chris Miller offered him a spot on Planet Earth. After enduring a bunch of late night prank phone calls from Jeremy Klein and Ron Chatman, Felix moved out to California to ride and work for Planet Earth. He was pro and also served in a team manager type of position. This would lead to starting Rhythm in 1995. Rhythm was a second board company by Planet Earth with a focus on fresh styles and gave us the classic Genesis video in 1997. Felix was sponsored by Converse in the late 1990s and scored a pro model shoe. He moved over to the industry side of skateboarding in 2000s while still skating a lot.

The photos are by Frank Galland and Jeff Taylor.

Transworld - August 2000 Volume 18 Number 8

Kenny Anderson #6.

Kenny is the OG that gives your boot up or reboot a degree of instant credibility. When Elwood was brought back from the deserted high plains, he was one of the riders on the new project since he had previously ridden for the brand. If I recall correctly, Kenny signed up with Converse with the hopes he could make a skate version of the Chuck Taylor. That didn't happen the first time around, but he got his chance when they had a skateboard team again in 2008.

Frank Galland was the photographer.

Transworld - December 2000 Volume 18 Number 12