Jason Dill #13.

Awesome street ollie in England.

Sam Ashley was the photographer.

Transworld - December 2010 Volume 28 Number 12

Jerry Hsu #6.

"I’m not into gear at all. The only thing that’s important to me is that it feels good when I take a picture. You know what I mean? I have so many different kind of cameras just because I like cameras. And after a while, if a camera doesn’t feel good anymore I gotta use a different one. It’s like board shapes: you know, this is what I ride right now and then when I don’t want to ride it anymore I’m gonna ride something else. I’m not obsessed with, like, “Is this eight-and-a-quarter or eight-and-five-eighths?” Kids are so obsessed with that shit. They ask me constantly about sizes and I’m, like, “I don’t know. I just stand on it and I know it’s good.” And it’s the same thing with cameras: if it feels good when I hit the shutter and the photos are what I want, then this is the camera that I’m gonna use."

Jerry is not overly concerned with his gear. It's funny because I've gotten rather fussy about that stuff. I think it's partially practical because I know exactly what I want so having the numbers ensures an exact match when shopping on the internet, contingent upon whoever typed those numbers onto the website. It's also probably from getting older where you are more aware of serial numbers and specific sizes, stuff kids don't think about. That's more in general and not necessarily applicable to skateboarding. At the same time, I'll still go by feel. Sometimes a board or pair of shoes doesn't feel right to me. After thirty years of skateboarding, I have my sense of what is comfortable, what needs a little getting used to, and what is flat out wrong. You just have to evaluate the equipment and see how it matches your expectations.

One thing I never get is skateboarders who say they only care about the shape and not the graphics. I understand that idea fundamentally because the graphics don't matter all that much after they've been wiped away by a bunch of boardslides. I know over the years I've ridden a deck here or there that I was more into the shape of than the picture, but generally I have to at least like the graphics somewhat. The art draws you in and then the shape sells you on the board.

For the quote: Thrasher - May 2016 Volume 37 Number 5

Transworld - November 2009 Volume 27 Number 11

Javier Mendizabal #6.

"He's powerful and stylish on his board, shoots amazing photos, and is also a great painter." - Joe Brook

The photo is by Sam Ashley.

For the quote: Thrasher - February 2017 Volume 38 Number 2

Transworld - August 2011 Volume 29 Number 8

Ben Gore #3.

"I was living in SF at that point. My friend Evan randomly grabbed my footage and sent it to Hi-Fi Wheels, a Stereo distributed wheel company. They started sending me wheels and then I had a little part in one of the Hi-Fi videos. Chris Pastras hit me up after that and asked me to come down to LA. So I did Stereo for a little while. Turned pro. That was rad."

Riddles in mathematics.

One more week of new stuff and then it will be old stuff for December. I still have to figure out what all to scan for the month. I intended to do a little planning over the long weekend, but inertia won out.

Dave Chami took the picture.

For the quote: Transworld - February 2017 Issue 384

Transworld - September 2011 Volume 29 Number 9

CCS Shoes 1990 - 1992.

Get yo kicks.

This is a retrospective of the shoe pages from assorted California Cheap Skates catalogs from 1990 to 1992. We wore some kind of weird footwear back then. It's also crazy to think how the catalogs had between two to four pages of shoes compared to how many different brands there are today. Fewer choices isn't always a bad thing.

Airwalk, Vans, and Vision are the big three. It's a little surprising how few options Vans offers. There is Steve Caballero's model, the Classic High Top, and the Chukka Boot. It seems odd that the Classic Low is not available. Maybe people really weren't skating the low at the time so CCS didn't carry them. I never had any Vision sneakers. There are also the initial offerings from Etnies and Simple.

I primarily stuck to Airwalk and had a good sampling of their assorted models. I like the 540˚ in blue. I went through two pairs of the Velocity model, one in black and one in white. I had a pair of the Enigma in the classic green colorway. I also had two pairs of the 620˚. I think I had the black ones and a version with a white/purple color scheme. I really wanted the NTS, but that never happened.

I tried out the Etnies E-Z when I started college. They were very stiff and I don't think they ever broke in correctly. They were durable, but if I had them today, I would have tossed 'em for being uncomfortable.

Were Simple Shoes vegan? The copy is poorly worded. It sort of sounds like they used some synthetic materials, but at the same time used leather and suede.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, November 27th. Have a good holiday and/or weekend.

Top to bottom:
1. Spring/Summer 1990
2. Fall 1991
3. Winter 1991/1992
4. Winter 1991/1992
5. CCS Fall 1992
6. CCS Fall 1992
7. CCS Fall 1992

The Plaza.

For those of us who didn't grow up with an urban plaza like Love Park, EMB, or the one designed by Rob Dyrdek, this is what a plaza looked like. Depending upon the size of your town, there were usually a couple of strips of asphalt and concrete that maybe offered a few things to skate. If suburban sprawl set in, your town was blessed/cursed with a whole bunch of these things. At the least there was a lot of flatground. Maybe it wasn't always the smoothest flatground, but there was a lot of it.

The plaza has been somewhat unchanged over the years in terms of general layout. I'm guessing that it was skated in the 1980s, but the peek usage was in the early to mid 1990s. Kids probably still skate there today, but there isn't much left and there are always cops around. It has seen the coming and going of many businesses over the years. There was a donut shop and a Fotomat. Both have long since been demolished. The donut place has been replaced with a drug store that does have a couple of manual pads. The film processing kiosk is now parking spaces.

We would skateboard here after 9:00 PM when all the stores had closed. It was relatively hassle free. There used to be a couple of wooden benches that could be moved. My recollection is that the only time the cops said anything was if the benches were moved away from the storefronts. There was a little flat gap on the right side of Big Lots, formerly Sidey's, where a couple of shrubs used to be. I remember a lot of time spent trying flip tricks in the parking lot during the early 90s. It was not the greatest blacktop at the time.

Honestly, the plaza was lacking for excitement. I don't think I hated the place, but I wasn't thrilled with it either. It was more of a neutral default spot. The benches were mediocre at best, although they did slide OK for board and nose slides. There weren't any curbs, sidewalks, loading docks, or stairs like some of the better plazas I've skated over the years. I feel we gave up on going here because it was dull.

Walmart.

"The sun is the enemy of all skateboarders. It brings onlookers, who bring security guards, who bring ignorance. And it's too damn hot. The night time is a refuse from society. It's pure freedom at 3 am." - Paco Leche

This is a head scratcher of a spot. We used to skateboard here at night during the summer of 1996 or 97. I think it was 96. We'd go at about 9:30 PM, roll for a half hour, and then go elsewhere. We might have even done some shopping. What makes it puzzling is that we never got kicked out and nobody said anything. It was usually my friend Paul and I. Our friend Kyle and maybe a random college student who skated would come, too.

There were red curbs and a sidewalk all the way around the front of the building. We would skate the part of the sidewalk that was roughly where the Walmart sign is. There's an entrance immediately to the left that isn't in the photo. This area was set back from that entrance so it wasn't really in direct traffic and you could hit the curbs. Not that I remember there being many cars. It might have been the fire lane area. I also don't recall if the store was open 24 hours at the time or not. There would be the occasional employee out on a smoke break and that was about it for human interaction.

They remodeled the building into a super center about ten years ago to give it a completely flat and curb free front. Just another example of how architects are designing buildings to eliminate skateboarders from the environment. Thanks for the slappys on the red curbs and not kicking us out, Walmart.

Note: I adjusted the levels in the photo to add a bunch of yellow to give it the lighting I remember and not the sterile white light of the present day.

For the quote: Wrench Pilot No. 18 - Transworld - July 1991 Volume 9 Number 7

Louie Barletta #6.

"I've always had a job and have never taken too many things for granted: from McDonald's when I was 16 to buy my first car, to having a board out and still moonlighting as a manager at the local coffee shop, to fixing houses in between filming trips - I'm blue collar. Work is in my blood."

Sweet Lou grinds over the bar. You have to really appreciate the creativity in Louie's trick selection. One minute it's a switch hardflip and the next it's a caveman to wallride.

Two spot stories and old shoes from CCS for next week.

For the quote: Thrasher - December 2014 Volume 35 Number 12

Transworld - August 2011 Volume 29 Number 8

Rick Howard #14.

The Cutter.

Rick noseslides a big handrail from the Yeah Right! days.

Apparently today is the ten year anniversary of the release of Lakai's Fully Flared video.

The photo is by Ben Colen.

Thrasher - July 2003 Volume 23 Number 7

Dennis Busenitz #5.

Dennis decks a backside disaster on a steep quarter.

I stand corrected on the Berrics magazine. They did move subscribers of the Skateboard Mag over to the new venture. I got the debut issue the other day. The Berries reminds of Warp.

The day off was OK. I went skateboarding for a bit, but was moving a little slow. The weather was nice at least.

Thrasher - June 2003 Volume 23 Number 6

Jake Johnson #4.

"I would really like to be an inventor. Maybe coming up with some of those as-seen-on-TV things, probably living in a mobile home. Who knows, I could have a family, too. I just wanna be happy and skating vert."

Jake takes a switch frontside 360 up and over the handrail Mike Carroll backside 50-50'd for a Slap cover. I picked this one because a 360 over a rail is pretty crazy, but a switch one is the next level.

For the quote: Thrasher - March 2016 Volume 37 Number 3

Thrasher - June 2016 Volume 37 Number 6

Caswell Berry #4.

"Well, I always root for the underdog no matter what. At this point I'm not even sure who the underdog is. For right now, it seems like the money is going to win out. Whoever has got the money can kind of keep it going. But then again, in the early '90s at one point everybody just wore white t-shirts and blue jeans. And that sort of launched Girl and a lot of the companies that have set the tone since then. Then FA and Supreme now seem like the response to that to a degree. But honestly, at this point I don't even know what comes next."

Hot dog.

The photo is by Pete Thompson.

For the quote: Transworld - September/October 2017 Issue 388

Thrasher - April 2003 Volume 23 Number 4

Ryan Lay.

Touch, Part one.

Ryan is from Arizona. He turned pro for Welcome in 2016. His other sponsors include Krux, Etnies, and Altamont Apparel. He had previously ridden for Enjoi and Rasa Libre. Ryan runs Skate After School, a nonprofit organization that works with Phoenix area schools to teach skateboarding to underprivileged children. He had the opening part in Welcome's Fetish video from the beginning of the year. Ryan does a bunch of nollies, noseslides, ollies, and boardslides set to the synth pop sounds of Secession. His switch game is on point with backside tailslides and lipslides on handrails and a big backside 180 down a hefty chunk of real estate. This is one of those parts where the skating, the music, and the editing fit together perfectly.

Dan Zaslavsky took the photo.

Skateboarder - May 2008 Volume 17 Number 9

Jimmy Lannon.

Spirit Quest.

Jimmy is from Sarasota, Florida. He rode for Element before joining up with the Magenta crew and turning pro for them. He was sponsored by Lakai, but might be on Adidas these days. I had one of his boards from a few years ago that had a fire hydrant for the graphic. It was a really good deck. Jimmy and his big ollies turn up quite often in assorted independent videos.

This post is for all arty and/or shop videos that feature the lesser knowns in the sometimes lesser traveled lands. It's also for all the skaters in those videos that I cannot find pictures of in print. I know the importance of ink on paper is fading in this digital age, but it still is a nice thing to have. Keep on rolling and keep on filming. I watch what I can and I like what y'all are doing.

Solsticij.

I picked a good day to take off from work. It was sunny and pleasant. I got to skateboard for a while this morning before the wind really picked up. A little snow might show up over night.

Skateboarder - January 2008 Volume 17 Number 5

Lem Villemin.

Lem is from Stuttgart, Germany. He was getting boards from Plan B before switching to Cliché in 2012. Lem was given a signature model from Jeremie Daclin's company in 2014. His going pro video is pretty cool and features classically trained technical street skateboarding done with an effortless style. There are plenty of ledges, manuals, and switch heelflips. He just cruises around. The part is on the Thrasher Hell of Year 2014 DVD, which is where I started watching it. I like the song, but I'm not sure who it is by. Lem is also sponsored by Adidas. I don't know who he is riding for since Cliché came to an end.

The photo is by Daniel Wagner.

The Skateboard Mag - November 2011 Issue 92

Kyle Frederick.

"Square tail 8.5 in the back, 8.75 up front by 33 long. She's a beaut!"

Kyle filmed a part called "12 O'Clock Karl". I saw it on the Thrasher Hell of a Year 2014 DVD the mag released to sum up the best of the previous twelve months. He acquired the nickname of Karl by accident from Michael Burnett, hence the video part's official title. Kyle is from the Philadelphia area and rode for Mystery. He started riding a 1991 shaped deck and it worked for him pretty well. He reminds me of Fred Gall in a way. Kyle had no problems making the filmer board flip or doing early grabs to crooked grinds down handrails. I'm not sure what all he is doing today, but he was working as an ironworker in Phillie.

Omit was a short lived clothing company done by Chris Cole. It was distributed by LRG. I thought it was by DC Shoes because Blabac was taking the photos and the ads looked similar.

Mike Blabac took the photo.

Transworld - November 2011 Volume 29 Number 11

Brent Atchley #2.

Quick feet.

I picked out five guys who made video parts that I like. It's kind of a random sampling of different styles.

Brent is from Portland, Oregon and he turned pro for Element in 2006. They sent out a promo DVD with his debut part. The section features skateparks, pools, and street action all set to the rhymes of the Freestyle Fellowship. He skates Burnside a bunch. Brent does a lot of odd transition tricks in a loose style probably only he can pull off. There are many ollies and 360 flips, too. He reminds me of Quim Cardona to an extent. I wasn't sure what I thought of this part when it came out, but I appreciate it more now because it was different from much of what was going on at the time. Heck, it still holds up as different from a lot of what is going on in skateboarding. The photo is of his ender - a frontside ollie on a very thin natural launch ramp.

Props to Louie Lopez for including Remy Stratton in his top five video parts at Quartersnacks.

Transworld - April 2006 Volume 24 Number 4

Darren Navarrette #10.

"We listened to Navarrette's mix tape everywhere. It wasn't bad, except for this one song that Darren would have to listen to when he was trying something for the camera. Like at Lincoln City he was trying frontside hurricanes to fakie on the big vert wall - so gnar gnar - but unfortunately it took him a few dozen tries to make it, meaning we had to listen to the beginning of that damn song a few dozen times. We don't even know who plays it. "I like the bass line," he said. All I can hear is the buzz that starts the song. It's so annoying. I can only describe it on paper as an army of robot crickets all chirping together at the same time. "DEEDEEDEEDEEDEE!" Dan Drehobl would cue up the tape, hit play, "DEEDEEDEEDEEDEE!" Darren would roll in and bail. Drehobl would rewind the tape, cue it up, hit play, "DEEDEEDEEDEEDEE!" bail. Over and over again. It sucked. But it worked. He made it." - Dave Carnie

Dave explains Darren's motivational tactics on a tour of skateparks in Oregon for the Skateboard Mag from 2004.

I got skateboarding for the first time in a week last night. It's been raining since Saturday. Things were still warm so that was nice. Taking a few days off felt good, too.

Random newer stuff is on tap for November. There will also be a pair of old spot stories and pages of shoes from CCS catalogs.

Jeff Kendall took the picture.

For the quote: The Skateboard Mag - October 2004 Issue 7

Thrasher - June 1996 Volume 16 Number 6

Chet Childress #7.

"Making art helps me pass these raining, dreary days. Riding my bike and skateboard in traffic on dry days makes me feel young again. When a car honks at me, I laugh. Oh, you're in your car and you're in a hurry? To do what? I'm out here in traffic not wasting our resources called gas. Sometimes I get my kicks by flying by ten cars stuck in traffic. I see their eyes and they're in such a hurry - suckers."

Ludacrooks reflects on living life in Portland, Oregon.

Jeff Kendall snapped the photo.

For the quote: Transworld - March 2009 Volume 27 Number 3

Thrasher - August 1996 Volume 16 Number 8

"Crazy" Eddie Nemeth #2.

TV Eye.

The photographs are by Jai Tanju.

Thrasher - July 1995 Volume 15 Number 7