Mike Archimedes & Phil Esbenshade.

Night & Day.

I figure the best way to close out the year is with a couple of slightly more obscure rippers. The same old rehashing of the well known gets stale after a while. There's always more variety than what is remembered the most. Phil E. was pro for Skull and became a lawyer. Arco was recently granted a guest pro model by his bros at Anti-Hero on their spinoff Jalopi Skate Co.

I rode a fair amount of Speed Wheels back then. I like the pair of videos they released, Speed Freaks and Risk It. As I've gotten older, I appreciate the absurd number of team riders they managed to fit in both. It helps with generating content for here. The funny thing is that I've never had a board made by Santa Cruz. I have picked up a few of their reissue t-shirts and I think Bronson are awesome bearings.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, January 21st.

I'm taking a little longer winter break than normal due to how the holidays worked out this year. With Christmas starting in November and an early Thanksgiving, it was a tad disorienting dealing with the calendar. At any rate, I'll be back with the daily updates for 2019.

If you have been paying close attention to my comments or emailed me, you might have picked up on my vibe about switching to a weekly format and being slightly over doing this. Realistically, the material worth scanning is starting to get thin.

I have come up with a few ideas for next year that I'm excited about, including Emerica, Circa, Strange Notes, and more. There's a couple skateparks I want to do stories on, too. I'll also have a list of my favorite stuff from 2018. I spaced out on compiling that this month. Thanks for the support.

Mark Waters took Phil's photo and Tobin Yelland took Arco's photo.

Thrasher - September 1990 Volume 10 Number 9

Ray Barbee #6.

The Ragdoll.

After preferring Thunders early on, I've ridden nothing but Ventures for roughly the last 25 years or so.

To fill out the month of December, I picked an ad from each of the truck companies of the day - Indy, Tracker, Venture, and Thunder. I completely forgot about Gullwing. Oops. Next year.

There's a cool interview with Thomas Morgan up at the Chrome Ball Incident.

Thrasher - January 1990 Volume 10 Number 1

Chris Cook #2.

The vibe about skating rocks.

I always rode Thunders back in the late 80s and early 90s. I liked the little lizards and daggers on the baseplates.

It's worth noting the Alva version of Rip Grip on Cooksie's board.

Thrasher - January 1989 Volume 9 Number 1

Sartorius Catalog Fall/Winter 1991.

Merry Christmas!

We used to order from Sartorius back in the day since they were based in Connecticut and we lived in New York. I think a friend must have noticed where they were located and wrote for a catalog. The first catalog was this huge two sided one-sheet in black and white. I still have it, but it's roughly the size of eight pieces of paper so I've never attempted to scan it. They had a very good selection from all the big companies and the quicker delivery time was an added bonus.

This is their catalog from late 1991. I believe the skater on the cover is John Duff, an am who rode for New Deal and Tracker. You get a good sampling of where skateboarding was at in that time period. There's a mix of older and newer companies for deck choices. The shoe choices are either Airwalk or Vans. I threw in the clothing to round things out. I didn't bother scanning the two page spread of text only for wheels, trucks, and bearings.

LOL:

Noah Salasnek #2.

Always remember those who have left us too soon.

The photo is by Luke Ogden and the illustration is by Kevin Clark.

Thrasher - December 1988 Volume 8 Number 12

Brian Frostad #2.

"Here's the bucket that was used to bail the pool. Here's the pool. There's Brian Frostad. Brian Frostad Flakes. There he goes. Watch him grind. The pool's wet." - Sam Cunningham

Brian is from Danville, California. He was sponsored by Blockhead and had the opening part in Splendid Eye Torture. He had a shared part with Sam where they skated some pools, too. Brian had a solid mix of street tricks, including handrails, long slappys, a cleanly caught kickflip, and some carve action at the China Banks. This ditch wall ride was in his section, but he was wearing different clothes in the video. He also rode for Thunder Trucks.

Bryce Kanights was the photographer.

This is from the 1990 Thrasher calendar.

Blockhead Catalog 1989.

This is the 1989 Blockhead catalog. It ran in black and white in the mags, but if you wrote in, you got a color one-sheet. I imagine you got a sticker with this, too. The graphics look so vibrant against the wood grain. I had the Mark Partain back then and I picked up a Tragicomic reissue recently. I like the Sam Cunningham large with symmetrical reptile graphic. And of course there is the classic Nothing Is Cool t-shirt.

Omar Hassan #7.

"Once when I was surfing, I came out of the water and saw Gonz riding down the street. I'd heard of this Mark Gonzales guy who just started riding for Vision. He was like the hot guy. One day, I'd just finished surfing and was kicking back on the beach, and I saw this fight break out. I walked over and saw the Gonz sitting there. I was the kind of kid who would go right up to you. I said, 'Hey, if you skateboard, then do something.' He was telling me who he was and I got all stoked, and then I started skating with him. I was sitting there watching, and I tripped out because he was so rad on the street then. I'd never seen any of the stuff he was doing."

Omar recalls a tale of bugging the Gonz when he was younger. It's kind of hard to warp your head around how different it would have been growing up in California where the skateboard biz is versus the rest of the country back in the 1980s. It seemed like this whole different universe, which it probably was.

Note: This ad ran as a negative in Thrasher. After I got it scanned in and tidied up, I hit invert in Photoshop to see what would happen. I think it turned out a lot better. I wonder if there might have been a production error since Blockhead didn't do any other advertisements in a similar style.

The photo is by Sean Sullivan.

For the quote: Transworld - November 1991 Volume 9 Number 11

Thrasher - November 1988 Volume 8 Number 11

Sam Cunningham #5.

"I put a board together once every two weeks. That's if I skate every day, then I put a street board together. A ramp board lasts me a year. Pool boards about once a month. I don't like skateboards with any jagged edges or the tail too worn down."

Sam talks about board care in an old Poweredge interview. I set up a new deck every two to three months. I've been riding boards a bit longer lately, but three months is always the cutoff point. I like them when they are a little more broken in. Wheels are good for a year and trucks last forever.

The photo is by Hunter Kimball.

For the quote: Poweredge - July 1989 Volume 2 Number 6

Thrasher - February 1989 Volume 9 Number 2

Mark Partain #4.

Free from static cling.

Thrasher - October 1989 Volume 9 Number 2

Andy Howell #4.

Atlanta thrasher.

The photo is by Josh Curry photo and the illustration is by John Ritter.

Transworld - June 1989 Volume 7 Number 3

Mickie Alba #2.

Steve's brother grinds a pool.

The gas company was fixing a line on my street when I got home yesterday. This meant traffic was blocked off so I got to skateboard without the worry of getting hit by a car. The forecasted warmer second half of December appears to be materializing as predicted. Color me impressed.

The photo is by Chris Ortiz.

Thrasher - March 1990 Volume 10 Number 3

Lance Conklin #2.

"It's 30 below right now."

Lance is from Madeira Beach, Florida. He rode for and turned pro for Powell Peralta. His brother Scott was also a pro for Alien Workshop. Lance later rode for Change and Platinum. He was sponsored by Droors Clothing, too. His part in Propaganda featured a lot of shove-its, frontside sliders, big spins, manuals, and weird power slides into manuals. There was some mini ramp ripping as well. For a section filmed in 1990, a fair amount of it holds up by today's standards. Lance currently works as a tattoo artist.

Transworld - December 1989 Volume 7 Number 8

Toxic Amateur Team.

Hazardous waste.

The Toxic ams showcase the ever popular Toxic Wheels. For whatever reason, people always wind up here based on search results for those wheels. Toxic recently released a pair of reissue boards - a Danny Riordon pro model and an Acid Rain team model. They even got former Toxic rider Kris Markovich to create a custom top graphic for the decks.

My friend sent me a sticker:

Geoff Graham snapped all the photos.

Transworld - February 1989 Volume 7 Number 1

Corey O'Brien #2.

Pailhead.

I've had the conversation a few times with a few different people about whether Corey was deserving of pro status. For better or worse, I've always wound up on the side of defending Corey. I've got a couple of reasonable points in support of him. I'm not claiming he was the best pro ever, but he was talented enough. Granted his part in Streets On Fire does not exactly feature top of the line ripping, even for where street skating was at back in 1989. His part in A Reason for Living ups the shredding to an acceptable level for a pro from 1990 who skated street and vert.

One thing that Corey had going for him was how videos were made in the late 80s/early 90s. Other than the top pros, most companies only spent a day or two filming many of their team riders. Whatever you got for that afternoon might be it for all the material for which you will be forever judged on YouTube. Another factor is that in the early days of video making, guys would only try something if they knew they were going to land it fairly quickly. This included giving up on a trick that could have been landed after a few more tries instead of moving on to something else after three tries. Although in Corey's case, I feel the tricks he did he could get every time since it wasn't the biggest variety ever. Those were the moves he liked doing and stuck with what felt good. Everybody has a slightly different approach to skateboarding. Finally given the short amount of time to film, factors like being hurt, having a hangover, or simply having an off day would have a larger impact on how your part turned out. And let's face it, some people don't like skating in front of the camera. It's not called the bail gun for nothing.

Now getting back to his Streets On Fire part. It doesn't have a lot of skateboarding in it. The skating it does have is curb and mini ramp trickery. There are plenty of lifestyle shots so you get a glimpse of Corey's interests. He plays pinball, shows off his tape collection, and possibly has a pet snake. There are several shots of his reaper board graphic. These videos are commercials to sell products after all. He matches the image of a skater on Santa Cruz team: a punk rocker who skates curbs and ramps. Sometimes the parts all fit together and explain why maybe one person is sponsored by a particular company and maybe another person isn't.

That's my two cents on the matter. A number of these points can probably be used to stick up for other pros of a bygone era. I also hope Corey never did anything horribly wrong with his life to completely invalidate all of these words.

Note: There was a nasty magenta ink splatter all over this ad that I cleaned up for Corey's photo. You can still kind of get a sense of it on the page.

The photo is by Bryan Temmermand.

Thrasher - May 1989 Volume 9 Number 5

Alan Petersen #16.

Debunker.

Thrasher - March 1990 Volume 10 Number 3

Julien Stranger #24.

Lakers hat and Vision shoes.

Thrasher - January 1990 Volume 10 Number 1

Jim Thiebaud #5.

60.5 mm OJII Street Razors 95A.

I've been watching a bunch of the old clips with the SMA team on YouTube over the last couple of days to refresh my memory on how they skated. Jim did a bunch to pioneer early technical street skating. He was doing fakie ollies into manuals and tailslides along with varial kickflips. He was also doing a lot of lipslides and pushing how far you could take a railslide.

Congrats to Tyshawn Jones for winning Thrasher's Skater of the Year award. Everybody they nominated this year was worthy of the honor.

Thrasher - September 1989 Volume 9 Number 9

Micke Reyes #2.

The long arm of the law.

Thrasher - March 1989 Volume 9 Number 3

Natas Kaupas #7.

Pickpocket Man.

Natas was a major innovator in the realm of street skateboarding in the 1980s. He helped take the ollie to new heights and laid the groundwork for what people are doing today. He also did a lot of airwalks. Later on in his pro career, Natas was busting out on ramps, as is illustrated by his part in Santa Cruz's A Reason for Living video from 1990. He would go on to start 101 with Steve Rocco. After 101 came to an end in the mid 90s, he rode for Element and started Vita Footwear. Over the years the brave captain moved behind the scenes to focus more on the art and design aspects of skateboarding, although on board photos still surface from time to time.

I always liked SMA because they had a smaller team of guys who all were friends. That was something you could relate to because it was similar to your crew of friends, except the Santa Monica Airlines team skated way better than you and your buddies did. The ad designs and board graphics were great, too.

I put this month together a little differently then previous Decembers. I picked out two weeks of random stuff as always and decided to do a week each on SMA and Blockhead in the more traditional one company at a time format I use for the site. Things are starting to get a little low for content from back in the day.

I skipped out on watching the Bills get squished by the Fish yesterday afternoon to skateboard on a mild and sunny day. Those have been a rare commodity of late around here.

Thrasher - 1989 Volume 9 Number 2