Rob Welsh #11.

Neon Optical Art.

Rob preserves his graphics with a frontside bluntslide. He's riding an Aesthetics board and would turn pro for them later on in 1999. This has to be one of the more disorienting and vibrant Venture ads ever.

Vert Is Dead is on a late summer break.

I'm taking next week off from this thing. There's a chance I might take two weeks off. I'll see how it goes. I've found a few interesting items that I have to put together. It feels like I never have time for stuff any more.

I'm still looking for the Adidas Norton ad with Paulo Diaz. It was a sequence of him doing a manual trick in a garage or warehouse setting. The shoes were available from Sartorius in 1995, which corresponds to the release date I found. I've checked most of the Transworlds and Thrashers from 1994 to 1997 and haven't found anything. I'm wondering if it ran in a different mag or even a non-skating mag? I'm going to put this one on the back burner because it is driving me crazy. I don't really like Adidas so I'm not sure what my motivation is to find it beyond proving that it exists. I did find a couple of other Adidas ads. If you think Nike had an awkward initial foray into skateboarding, Adidas struck out swinging on three straight pitches.

There's been rain and early sunsets so skateboarding has been lackluster lately. I did check out the new park on the Seneca Nation's Reservation. It's a little Grindline creation with some ledges, a tiny hip, quarter pipes, and a bowled wall type of obstacle. The place is really fun and has me stoked on skateboarding again. Have a good weekend!

Slap - April 1999 Volume 8 Number 4

Skip Pronier #11.

Brickyard.

I've always been a fan of Skip after reading a couple of interviews with him in Thrasher and Transworld a very long time ago. He rode for the Black Label, Vans, Indy, and TSA Clothing.

The photo is by Dean Yoshihara.

Thrasher - June 1997 Volume 17 Number 6

Javier Mendizabal #8.

Barbed wire skies.

I gave Strongest of the Strange a rewatch a couple weeks ago. It's such a great video and hard to believe 21 years have passed since it was released. Javier has one of my favorite parts ever. He's living in France, painting, and surfing these days after being pro for Cliché. I never knew that Javier was getting some boards from Stereo.

The photo is credited to Palo. I'm not sure on a full name.

Slap - November 1999 Volume 8 Number 7

Brad Hayes #2.

Here for a good time, not a long time.

Good Times Operation (GTO) was a clothing company from San Diego that was around in 1995. The team was Marc Johnson, Brad Hayes, and Tony Tieu. Marc was often wearing their shirts at the time and that's what made me think of them. GTO also had a women's line called Ethyl. Brad rode for Acme, Origin, Volcom, and a couple other companies. According to the quote section in Big Brother once, his sponsor me tape was heavy.

Transworld - November 1995 Volume 13 Number 11

Josh Kalis #16.

Three Stripes.

The early days of Adidas sponsoring skaters recently came up on the Mostly Skateboarding podcast. I'm inclined to believe Josh was on Adidas for a hot minute by virtue of being in an ad for them. He was wearing shell toes on the cover of the November 1995 issue of Transworld, too. Julien Stranger is also wearing these shoes in an Anti-Hero ad from February of 1996 so Adidas must've been making some effort to get into skateboarding. Did Josh ever discuss the sponsorship? I don't recall him doing so, but he does give a lot of interviews so I could've easily missed it. I wonder if this was maybe a one-off advertising project? It's an interesting little detour before Josh would find his home at DC Shoes. It would take more than a few years before Adidas finally staked out their space in the skateboard footwear marketplace.

Transworld - June 1996 Volume 14 Number 6

Roman Gonzalez.

Classical architecture.

Roman is from Paris and lives in Marsille. He's been on Polar a long time and turned pro in 2021. I don't know too much about him. I keep buying his boards because they are always in the size I like. This is a good use of the two shot sequence, which can sometimes look very awkward.

I set up a new board last night. You can probably figure out from the post what it is. I've been trying to skate the park a little more since the lights are on and the sun sets earlier. I want to get to some of the other local parks, but never have the time or the weather ends up being weird. Skateboarding hasn't really been a lot of fun lately. I keep trying, but nothing ever clicks. It's getting frustrating. Have a good weekend.

Thrasher - March 2021 Volume 42 Number 3

Daniel Bergström.

Computer Age.

Daniel Bergström, formerly Håkansson, had the last part in Strongest of the Strange. This was Pontus Alv's first video from 2005 that laid the framework for what Polar would be. Daniel is from Malmö, Sweden and likes to skate odd, crusty spots. I only know a minimal amount of information about him. I feel content with one video part from twenty years ago where he absolutely crushed every spot to the sounds of Sonic Youth covering Neil Young.

The photo is by Nils Svensson. I had to crop it a little since it awkwardly ran across two pages.

Free - March/April 2022 Issue 41