Jerry Hsu #7.

Sci-Fi Fantasy.

A young Jerry throws down in the Osiris days. Jerry recently left Chocolate to start his own company called Sci-Fi Fantasy, which appears to only be a clothing company at this moment. He also might be off of Emerica and on Vans for shoes now.

Did anybody see the Trouble Shooters video they are advertising in this? I don't ever remember hearing of such a video.

The photo is by Brian Reid.

Big Brother - April 1998 Issue 35

Andrew Reynolds #9.

The Boss spins a full cab over the rail. This was one of his tricks in The End, Birdhouse's 1998 video. It doesn't seem like some of the things that are turning twenty this year happened two decades ago. Time is flying. Maybe it means I should put together a feature on The End at some point this summer.

Atiba Jefferson snapped the sequence.

Big Brother - April 1998 Issue 35

Fred Gall #5.

22 oz. bottle of Heineken.

Fred was the subject of a recent Bobshirt interview where he talked about Recs. He had happened upon some troubles and needed cash. At the time he was in the process of getting on DC Shoes and would have been fully on after six months. Recs team manager Bill Weiss offered him a nice monthly guarantee. Fred took the money and missed a chance to ride for DC. Recs went under after about a year.

It was cool to hear Fred talk about his part in Timecode, the Alien Workshop video from 1996. I always liked how raw it looked, which turns out was the result of whoever had a camera and was able to film at the moment doing the taping. When paired with the Black Sabbath song, it gives the part a good layer of East Coast grime.

The photo is by Atiba Jefferson.

Big Brother - July 1998 Issue 38

Bill Weiss.

Fully clothed and above the coping.

Recs was a late 1990s shoe company that featured a team with Pat Duffy, Fred Gall, Mike Crum, Adam McNatt, Justin Bokma, and a couple others.

Bill is from Toronto, Canada and has ridden for a lot of different companies over the years. He's been on Dogtown, Fishlips, Balance, Premier, and a few more I'm not even going to attempt to list. Bill is currently the team manager at Blind. He's a big basketball fan, too.

The photo is by Chris Ortiz.

Big Brother - April 1998 Issue 35

Gideon Choi #4.

Stylish tech ripper Gideon Choi takes a 360 flip over a 55 gallon drum for Natas' old shoe company. Gideon rode for Blind for most of the 1990s and early 2000s. He had parts in Trilogy, Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song, and Listen.

Happy decade of scanning pages of old magazines and interviewing skateboarders to the Chrome Ball Incident.

Big Brother - August 1998 Issue 39

Mark Appleyard #3.

We the North.

Before winning Skater of the Year in 2003, Mark Appleyard got his start on True Skateboards. True was based out of the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal. Mark would go on to ride for Birdhouse, Element, Flip, and Habitat. That graphic is a little unsettling.

I scanned a bunch of stuff from the 1998 issues of Big Brother that I have. I had intended to include some of the funny articles, but none of them seemed all that appealing. The humor hasn't aged great and Big Brother appreciation has been overdone anyway. The stories are all still really funny, it simply didn't seem worth the effort. So I picked out a bunch of skateboarding stuff that has probably been on the internet already.

I forgot how to skate my local park. Nothing felt right on Saturday, but I think I remembered yesterday. It's not cold out now.

Ryan Allan was the photographer.

Big Brother - October 1998 Issue 41

enjoi #5.

Silly business with the old enjoi crew.

There was a request for the ad with the team listed in brackets. It's a rather plain bit of design and I didn't think it would be enough by itself so I threw in a couple of the panda squad's other adverts. They all fit the time frame I had been posting stuff from so it works out. Cheers.

Spring might be here now. Maybe.

While You Were Filming: Big Brother - April 2002 Number 83

Bobby: Big Brother - February 2002 Number 81

Bracket: Big Brother - July 2002 Number 86

Diego Bucchieri #3.

"What happened to us was that we’d watch an H-street video or a Santa Cruz video, and we’d see all the guys doing the tricks, and then we’d try and do the same tricks on our spots. Our spots were so shitty that it was actually way harder to do the tricks, so once you could do ’em there, you could do ’em anywhere. When I went to the States for the first time, I couldn’t believe how good the ground was. I was riding 59 millimeters and an eight-and-a-half-inch board on street in Argentina, and when I went to the States, I didn’t have to ride that tractor anymore. I got smaller wheels and a smaller board."

Lance picked a great angle to take the photos of Diego's stair blast.

Special enjoi post for Saturday. I've got no idea what I'm doing for the next week. Maybe 1998 or Big Brother stuff. I want to focus on some current pros and ams, but I haven't felt like putting the work into that quite yet.

Lance Dawes documented the stair jump.

For the quote: Transworld - January 2006 Volume 24 Number 1

Transworld - August 2002 Volume 20 Number 8

Ray Barbee #5.

Bad Dream Lover.

Ray takes a frontside varial heelflip down a good sized gap. It seems like you don't see that trick all too often any more when it once was a staple of tech during the 1990s. Marshall Heath did recently have a sequence for the clothing company that runs the two page ads in the back of Thrasher where he did a switch frontside varial heelflip to switch manual to switch frontside varial heelflip out. That's a lot to think about right there.

The lights are now on at the skatepark. I hadn't been by there in the evening at all this year, but I swung by last night since the sun had come out and the sparse snow had let up. Now if the city can only turn up the heat.

Ben Clark took the photos.

Transworld - May 2002 Volume 20 Number 5

John Rattray #4.

Up for a bit.

The man from Scotland can throw down a backside noseblunt on any and all sort of curved surface, being it a crusty pool, dirt bank or skatepark transition.

Transworld - August 2003 Volume 21 Number 8

Anthony Pappalardo #7.

Precise Drop.

It takes a few tries, but Anthony rides away from this nose manual into a thin bank in Habitat's Mosaic video from 2003. His part is good in that video because it combines a few raw ollies into banks and 50-50s on rails with different tech tricks like a hardflip to manual and a fakie ollie nose manual. There's a nice variety of tricks. The Dinosaur Jr. tune works perfectly with the skating. I miss these days of Lakai, but maybe it's better not to try to revisit them.

Rudy Johnson's son Diego has a nice little clip skateboarding to Sebadoh for Royal Trucks.

Transworld - October 2003 Volume 21 Number 10

Mike Carroll #21.

The Fourstar Days.

Fourstar was a clothing company from Girl with creative direction by Guy Mariano and Eric Koston. It was started in 1996 and continued up until late 2016. The team was fairly small at first with more heads being added as the years went on. The clothes tended to be more on the fresh and athletic side initially, although they would go on to cover a range of styles. I've been wearing some of their shirts a little more lately since they folded. Although a good number of mine have seen better days or are a tad too big. I guess I was still buying larges back in 2002 or 2003.

It feels like I haven't been skating much lately, even though I have managed to roll at least a little every day. Our weather is tinkering around with variations on cold, rain, and wind so it's been tough to get any sort of consistent sessions going outside at the park. It's been an odd year thus far.

Transworld - June 2002 Volume 20 Number 6

Chet Childress #8.

Ludacrooks.

Transworld - December 2003 Volume 21 Number 12

Buster Halterman #3.

Out of the barn and into the fresh air.

Buster takes flip-in street style to the vertical realm. He used to ride for Schmitt Stix and Planet Earth back in the day. His famous spot was the vert ramp he had in his barn in Pennsylvania.

Lib-Tech is a skateboard, snowboard, and surfboard manufacturer that builds decks with wood, fiberglass, and other materials to produce a stronger board. I've never ridden one. They've been in business for a long time and Ben Krahn was on the team so they must be doing something right.

Dan Bourqui shot the sequence.

Transworld - October 2003 Volume 21 Number 10

Jose Rojo #2.

My Lonely Sad Eyes.

Savier was Nike's second sneaky attempt to crack the fickle skateboard footwear market. It went a little better than the first go round and led to the emergence of the Nike Skateboarding brand that has given Stephen Janoski financial security for the rest of his life and beyond. Surprisingly Nike kept Savier going for a little bit after they formally introduced their new skate specific product line. Some of the team, such as Brian Anderson, Brad Staba, and Janoski, were moved over to the Swoosh, while others, like Tim O'Connor and John Rattray, were left to find new shoe sponsors.

After spending the entirety of his career on enjoi, Jose recently left the team. I'm not sure if he has a new board sponsor or not. He had been on since Marc Johnson started the company in 2000.

I started breaking in a new pair of shoes yesterday. It went about as awkwardly as one would expect. I was brain dead from work so that didn't help much either. The funny thing about new shoes is the first couple times skating in them is the worst thing ever and then after a couple months you can't imagine skating in anything else.

Jon Humphries took the photo.

Transworld - November 2002 Volume 20 Number 11

Brian Anderson #8.

Invisible green board.

This was Brian's ender for his part in Girl's Yeah Right video from 2003. He's doing a fakie varial flip on a board that was painted green so it could be made invisible in post-production for a skit in the project.

Transworld - September 2003 Volume 21 Number 9

Elissa Steamer #4.

Nollie power.

I went skateboarding at the indoor park on Saturday. This 13 or 14 year old kid plugged his iPod into the sound system. His music of choice? The Smiths. It was awesome.

Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4

Matt Hensley #11.

The sunny side of the ramp.

Transworld - July 2003 Volume 21 Number 7

Caswell Berry #5.

Enjoy the Machine.

Caswell was on Powell before Ed Templeton added him to the monster squad. Toy Machine was going through a rebuild in the early 2000s as the entire team except for Austin Stephens had quit. Caswell didn't stay on very long before switching to enjoi. The change was based mainly on the fact most of his friends were on their team and not Toy Machine. He's still sponsored by enjoi. Caswell has battled a few serious injuries over the years, but he keeps on rolling. I'm a fan and it's good to see he's been able to keep skateboarding for a long time.

In regards to the comment from the other day, there was an enjoi ad that was set up like a bracket with the names of the team riders. It ran in the July 2002 issue of Big Brother. The team at the time was Bobby Puleo, Marc Johnson, Brad Staba, Jose Rojo, Jerry Hsu, Louie Barletta, Clark Hassler, Dave Mayhew, and Rodney Mullen. It's not the most exciting ad ever with a blue background and a whole lot of Helvetica. I'll think about scanning it in, but it might not be for a while as I'm all set for 2002-3 content and will be moving onto something different in two weeks.

Luke Ogden shot the sequence.

Transworld - March 2002 Volume 20 Number 3

Clyde Singleton #4.

I'll take expired shoe companies for $400, Alex.

4CE (Force) was a short lived footwear company in the early 2000s. Clyde was on the team along with Mike York, who skated a bunch of his part in Yeah Right wearing their kicks. I had a pair of their shoes for some reason. It was a running shoe type of model with more mesh and intended for chilling instead of skateboarding. I don't think they were too good, even for doing nothing.

Speaking of shoe companies, Chima Ferguson's part in the Vans video is awesome.

Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4

Danny Way #4.

Tricks that defy logic.

Danny is regular footed so I'm making an educated guess that he did a frontside ollie from the ramp to nose grind on the box since there was no caption for the ad.

Ramp Logic was Danny's obstacle company that was supported by DC Shoes. Tony Hawk and Eric Koston were on the team. It was around for a couple of years. Koston even had his own pro model ledge. I had found an ad with Eric, but I didn't like how it split between the two pages so I didn't scan it. Once I decided to do something on prefab ramps, I couldn't find that ad again and stumbled upon this one instead. It's a little more exciting.

Mike Blabac made the camera magic happen.

Transworld - May 2002 Volume 20 Number 5

Kristian Svitak #2.

Team Insanity.

Kristian got a lot of coverage at the turn of the century. I realized that when I was flipping through those thick Transworlds. He rode for Invisible and Black Label before starting his own company, 1031. That ended a few years ago and he is working with Mike Vallely at Street Plant. Kristian is also a licensed real estate agent so he is good to go for job security. Team Insanity was his skate crew when he was growing up in Ohio, hence the T.I. in the signature. I have friends who swear by his boards and rummage dead 1031 stock when they go to the Buckeye State.

Destructo was launched in the mid 1990s by Giant Distribution/Element. They are still going today as an independent entity.

Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4