Pat Channita #2.

High Ya!

Pat was the second rider for Dukes. Since he is friends with Jeremy Wray and they both rode for Plan B, it was easy to see why he was added to the team. It's got to be a little awkward being a pro for a company and being in all the ads so I bet Jeremy was good with having a month off. I forgot Pat had a part in All Systems Go!, the classic video from 1998 by Pig Wheels. I gave the video a fresh viewing today and it made me nostalgic for Josh Beagle's music selections.

Daniel H. Sturt took the photo.

Transworld - September 1996 Volume 14 Number 9

Jeremy Wray #13.

Raising the bar.

Jeremy's great-uncle was the cartoonist Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois.

The photos are by Daniel H. Strut.

Noseslide: Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Backside lip: Transwold - February 1996 Volume 14 Number 2

Jeremy Wray #12.

Dukes was Jeremy Wray's shoe company. These are the first two ads from 1995. He had previously ridden for Airwalk and would move on to Adio when Dukes ended. The shoe line was distributed by Plan B/World Industries so I'm making the educated guess that Duffs handled the manufacturing of the kicks. Daniel H. Strut was the photographer and brought his distinctive images to the project. Jeremy was in nearly all the ads. At the same time, he was productive enough and pushing skateboarding forward so there was no shortage of amazing photos. I didn't pay too much attention to Dukes since I wasn't really into Plan B and the assorted affiliated World stuff, but as enough years have passed, the ads have held up great. It's strange to think skateboarding supported its own shoe brands enough that a pro could reasonably do his own thing thirty years ago.

Lipslide: Transworld - July 1995 Volume 13 Number 7

Ollie: Transworld - August 1995 Volume 13 Number 8

Gershon Mosley #9.

Overlap.

Gershon does a switch Smith grind on a handrail. Based on his Transworld interview from December 1995, he was into hip hop and The Sundays for music. Some of his favorite skaters were Marc Johnson, Jamie Thomas, and Mike Vallely. He was stoked on skating vert and felt it was a natural progression from mini ramps. GMOS rode for Simple before Etnies/Emerica.

This is the ender on the look back at the transition from Etnies to Emerica. It was interesting to see how the changes happened. There was some team shuffling and riders departed for other sponsors as skateboarding grew in popularity in the later half of the 1990s. For instance, Gershon moved on to Osiris by November of 1997 and then switched to Globe by the end of 1998. Another fun one is Rune Glifberg. He was on Airwalk after Emerica and possibly departed Airwalk after his October 1998 Slap cover where he was wearing Vans. He belonged on Axion anyway. It's cool that Emerica is still going today, even with all the up and downs that go with skateboarding.

Vert Is Dead is taking a fall break.

I'll fire this thing up again on Monday, October 12th.

I might end up only doing two weeks of stuff this month. I've got something dark planned for Halloween and could opt to take it easy. I'll see how it goes. I've been skateboarding a little after work since the weather has been still been warm. Have a good one!

Thrasher - January 1997 Volume 17 Number 1

Chris Senn #16.

Overground.

It somehow made sense that Chris won Thrasher's SOTY for 1995. I can't really explain it, but it seemed like the correct choice at the time. This is perhaps because SOTY was a tad more low key back then and not the all out marketing campaign it has become in the last 15 years. The March 1996 issue that announced Chris had won featured Ron Whaley on the cover with only a blurb proclaiming the Senn Dog as the top skater of 1995. He did have a full interview. The award was an important thing, yet it was also treated with less reverence. When Eric Koston won for 1996, he cool guy'd an interview and the mag ran two pages of photos, which included a sequence from the X-Games. It's interesting how things change over time and to note the differences between different eras.

Thrasher - November 1996 Volume 16 Number 11

Darren Navarrette #19.

Dig for fire.

Thrasher - October 1996 Volume 16 Number 10

Phil Shao #16.

Dump Truck.

Phil takes flight at Fort Miley. The photo was probably taken around the same time as his Thrasher cover where he grinded the top bar. It's not the same session because he's wearing a white shirt and riding a board with black wheels on the cover. This Emerica ad could almost double as a Sheep ad. It's wild to think Sole Tech had enough gas in the tank to briefly field four different shoes lines in skateboarding in the late 1990s.

Thrasher - September 1996 Volume 16 Number 9