Dylan Gardner.

Straight out of Santa Barbara.

Dylan rode for Neighborhood, Venture, Race Wheels, Shorty's, and Puma. He had a pro board on both Neighborhood and sister company Eśpecial.

Have a good holiday and/or rest of the week. Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, December 1st. It will be generally older stuff from the 1988 - 1990 time period.

Andrew Reynolds picked a promo video from Adrenalin for his classic pick over at Thrasher's dot com. Five minutes of big ollies and arty filming. It's awesome.

Scott Starr took the photo for the Shorty's ad.

Eśpecial: Transworld - July 1996 Volume 14 Number 7

Shorty's: Transworld - August 1996 Volume 14 Number 8

Eliud "Shorty" Gonzalez.

Shorty is from Huntington Park, California. He rode for Tracker and Etnies in addition to Neighborhood. He prefers Amtrak over Greyhound for travel. Shorty likes jalapeño peppers with just about any food.

The photos are by Fat.

For the general info: Transworld - November 1994 Volume 12 Number 11

Neighborhood: Transworld - June 1994 Volume 12 Number 6

Eśpecial: Transworld - June 1996 Volume 14 Number 6

Petey Martinez.

Big snaps on the heelflip.

Petey had parts in both Neighborhood videos where he did a bunch of high tech flip tricks. Neighborhood had two videos - 1994's Mi Vida Loca and 1998's LaLa Land.

Tracker: Transworld - March 1995 Volume 13 Number 3

Neighborhood: Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Robert Douglas.

Enough with the formalities, on to the riders.

In addition to Neighborhood, Robert rode for A-1 Meats, Tracker, and Etnies. He's from Imperial Beach, California. His favorite TV shows were Cheers, Star Trek, and the Twilight Zone. For music, he liked the Rolling Stones, The Breeders, and the soundtrack for the movie Juice. Robert's food preferences included fruits, veggies, ham and eggs, Whoppers, and Mexican food.

I had a snow day off from work. The weather has actually been decent and snow free. I think the town where my job is at didn't feel like plowing the streets.

For the general info: Transworld - August 1994 Volume 12 Number 8

A-1 Meats: Transworld - July 1994 Volume 12 Number 7

Neighborhood: Transworld - September 1994 Volume 12 Number 9

Eśpecial.

Neighborhood launched a second company called Eśpecial in early 1996. I think it was meant more to be Julio De La Cruz's team. The two ran split ads often. It kind of felt like Neighborhood was put on the back burner with more of a focus on Eśpecial, although everything went back to the Hood after a couple of years.

The Neighborhood am is Lenny Perez.

Weather update: I live about an hour south of Buffalo. We did get about a foot of snow yesterday, but it was nothing major. Everything is clear today. We might be getting more snow in the next day or two. The south part of Buffalo got dumped on with at least four to five feet of snow. At the same time, the north part of Buffalo had sun and no snow yesterday. It was very focused band of lake effect snow that pummeled the area. Stay safe, Buffalo.

Blue ad: Transworld - April 1996 Volume 14 Number 4

Team ad: Transworld - August 1996 Volume 14 Number 8

On Exhibit ad: Transworld - September 1996 Volume 14 Number 9

Dark Men Of The Cube.

Are we not men?

Thrasher - October 1995 Volume 15 Number 10

Board Game.

The silly business of skateboarding.

Thrasher - July 1995 Volume 15 Number 7

Alan Petersen & Karma Tsocheff.

Small parts isolated and destroyed.

Karma: Thrasher - April 1995 Volume 15 Number 4

AP: Thrasher - June 1995 Volume 15 Number 7

The Surface.

Skateboarders and the sea.

I thought it made sense to pair these two together.

Alex Perelson is on a vertical rampage, with or without pads.

On The Surface: Thrasher - February 1995 Volume 15 Number 2

Under The Surface: Thrasher - March 1995 Volume 15 Number 3

Consolidated Team 1995.

Cube week.

The Consolidated pro team circa 1995.

The enjoi video is looking pretty sweet.

Thrasher - January 1995 Volume 15 Number 1

Tom Boyle #3.

Running down a dream.

The Rock was on New School after stints on World Industries and H-Street. He had parts in both New School videos. His part in the promo was good, but his part in Slash Dogs was better. You could see how much he improved in a short time, not that he was skating poorly in 1993. The airs were higher and the tech tricks were done more smoothly. They even made him skate a little bit of street. At some point Tom switched to Arsenal, a another company done under the S.O.P. umbrella. The Arsenal team included Adam Beltz, Tony DaSilva, Jayme Fortune, Judd Hertzler, Aric Hondell, Jon Miner, and Mike Rafter.

I kept this week on skaters who had parts in Slash Dogs. One guy who got a lot of ads and coverage at the time was Brandon Carabajal. Did he ever film any video parts? I don't think I know much about that guy. Also it seems a lot of the riders for New School had their mid 1990s moment and then vanished.

Thrasher - February 1995 Volume 15 Number 2

Hondo Soto.

Hondo is happy.
Hondo is pretty.
Hondo is from Flint, Michigan.
Hondo is not a Honda.
Hondo drives a yellow submarine.
I beat him up once, now he's mellower.
His skateboarding is fast and beautiful.
Hondo listens to lots of Gang Starr, but listens more to the man upstairs.
Hondo is faithful to his skateboarding and loves traveling. He is the Top Ramen king and the world's best budgeter.
Hondo is motivated for greatness.
- Kip Sumpter

For the Check Out: Transworld - December 1994 Volume 12 Number 12

Transworld - July 1994 Volume 12 Number 7

Bobby Kuhns.

Child's Play.

Bobby put down some smooth flip trickery in Slash Dogs. He also rode for Tracker and A-1 Meats.

Transworld - April 1994 Volume 12 Number 4

Jim Duhamel.

Talking about my generation.

Jim had parts in both New School videos. He previously had ridden for Blockhead. One of his pro models had a Notre Dame Fighting Irish graphic. That's about all I got.

A few items on Vert Is Dead have been getting a lot of page views lately and I can't tell where the traffic is coming from. The one Joe Lopes post on this site has been getting a ton of hits. It looks like Joe would have turned 50 last week if he was still around. A Louie Barletta and Jerry Hsu Big Brother cover has been racking up the views, which I'm assuming is based on the new enjoi video. Also Rob Mertz from Friday has had more page views than normal. It looks like the referring URLs are mostly from Facebook so that doesn't exactly help pin down any answers.

The photo is by Marc Hostetter.

Transworld - March 1994 Volume 12 Number 3

Pete Mihalenko.

It's New School week.

New School was what Alva changed into in the early 1990s. Tony Alva wanted to keep up with the changes in skateboarding and shifted the board company more toward street skating with a new team. Alva and business partner John Falahee parted ways and Falahee kept doing New School. He would later add ATM Click and Arsenal to his list of companies.

Pete had parts in both New School videos, the promo from 1993 and Slash Dogs from 1994. I ordered those videos at college because they were cheap and skateboard flicks were a little hard to come by in a small town in Pennsylvania. You broke university students of today have it easy with the YouTube. Anyway, both vids have some decent ripping and some skating of that era that doesn't hold up very well. Slash Dogs is a little more polished. Pete does some solid tech skating and hits up a few bigger gaps.

Ever feel like you didn't get your homework done and then the teacher picks on you in class? I watched Slash Dogs on Friday and intended to take more notes, but didn't. I'm doing most of this from memory and there was not a lot of info on the New School team.

Transworld - February 1994 Volume 12 Number 2

Jackson Taylor #2.

A Halloween rebuttal.

Thrasher - December 1996 Volume 16 Number 12