Jon West #5.

"I like all types of movies, but I love horror movies. I have a huge collection of hard-to-find horror movies, and my girlfriend got me a huge talking Freddy Kruger doll. And I have a Freddie Kruger head; you put your hand in his neck and squeeze this ball, and water shoots out of his mouth."

Jon was a staple of the Foundation team in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was really into horror movies and often had fake blood spattered ads that earned ire of the overly sensitive folks at Transworld. Of course this ad is rendered in the classic F-Troop fun style with a silly Tod Swank drawing.

For the quote: Thrasher - March 1999 Volume 19 Number 3

Transworld - June 1999 Volume 17 Number 6

Daniel Shimizu #5.

"The guy in high school PE class who, no matter what sport he was playing, got hit in the head because he wasn't paying attention. I guess that's why I skate."

Daniel describes himself in a Thrasher interview back in the year 2000. At the time, he was riding for Foundation, Pig Wheels, Innes, Emerica, Venture, and Furnace Skate Shop. His car was an early 1990s piece of crap Honda Civic. He liked Mallrats and Modest Mouse. Daniel's favorite skaters of the day were Josh Beagle, Jamie Thomas, Heath Kirchart, Brian Anderson, Cairo Foster, and Kenny Reed. He also was into playing guitar.

For the quote and info: Thrasher - June 2000 Volume 20 Number 6

Transworld - May 2000 Volume 18 Number 5

Gary Robinson.

Gary is from Vancouver, British Columbia. He had a part in Nervous Breakdown, the Foundation video from 1999. His section is full of high speed handrail and gap tricks. It's not a F-Troop week without an unknown am.

Transworld - January 2000 Volume 18 Number 1

Justin Strubing #8.

Buckets.

Capt. Strubing skids a frontside bluntslide on one of those plastic jersey barriers. I think he's wearing a pair of the second Marc Johnson model for Emerica. This was probably Justin's second ad on Foundation, after joining the team in May of 2000.

It's yet another week of Foundation just for the adventure of it all. I've got some other stuff scanned and ready, but it would have required more research than I felt like doing this week.

The weather was mostly decent over the holiday weekend. We've been generally mild for November, except for the most ridiculous winds the last week or two. It's rather annoying. The snow appears to have started today.

I decided to put new wheels on my board. I went with some 54s I've been sitting on for too long since I didn't feel like stepping up the set of 56s I have. The 54s felt good the first day, but then were kind of off the second day. My ollies were weird. My board is also creeping up to the end and my shoes might be wearing out, too. Depending on how the snow sticks around, these might be moot points. I think I want to end up using 55s once I clear out my stockpile of wheels.

Transworld - October 2000 Volume 18 Number 10

P.J. Ladd #4.

Pulp Reality.

This was probably P.J.'s first bit of major coverage. Notice that he's riding Tensors in the top ad. I wonder if he sent in any videos for the A-Team's trick contest?

I was a tad surprised not much of P.J.'s Element days were online. It's interesting to note that Element teased the Coliseum video in the third ad, which was also his last ad for them. It makes me think the video was intended to be released using the 411 media empire before he split for Flip. It's also worth noting he had the first two ads of 2002 for Element, which makes me think they had bigger plans for him. I guess we'll never know how that alternate timeline would have turned out.

I think it's probably better P.J. Ladd's Wonderful, Horrible, Life was released as more or less an independent shop video than for his part to be added to a Flip video. The success of the Coliseum video also helped launch the careers of Alexis Sablone, Jereme Rogers, and Ryan Gallant so that's another bonus of it being an indie flick.

With my production minutia musings out of the way, P.J. delivered an amazing debut part. I gave it a fresh viewing the other day. I didn't remember that he jumped down some bigger gaps and handrails. I think of him as more of a technical line skater. I really like his assorted shifty flip tricks.

As an added bonus, here is Pat Canale's review of the video:

Have a good holiday weekend!

Learn: Transworld - November 2000 Volume 18 Number 11

Ollie: Thrasher - January 2002 Volume 22 Number 1

Tailslider: Thrasher - February 2002 Volume 22 Number 2

Review: Big Brother - September 2002 Issue 68

East Coast Car Update.

The stars & their cars.

When you've got 300 pages to fill, you can do fun stuff like this. Transworld gives us the lowdown on what Bam, Kerry, Ryan, and Josh were driving in the year 2000.

The words are by Shad Lambert and the photos are by Ryan Gee.

Transworld - February 2001 Volume 19 Number 2

Jerry Hsu #12.

With Thrasher's recent contest at San Francisco's famed Clipper ledge, I coincidentally stumbled upon this sequence of Mr. Sci-Fi Fantasy stepping to a Louie Barletta style trick. I did not remember the maneuver at all so I did some internet research. It was in Jerry's part in Subject To Change, the Osiris video from 2003.

The photo sequence is by Pete Thompson.

Transworld - June 2002 Volume 20 Number 6

Scott Palmer & Vaughan Baker.

Double Decker Bus.

Scott is from Hull, England, likes rugby, and can do really good 360 flips. That's all I got from a quick interview with Scott in Skateboarder. His part in Waiting for the World features a lot of flip tricks on the streets of London and a bunch of midsize handrail stunts.

Vaughan is from Worcester, England. He previously rode for the bizarrely named Unabomber Skateboards and was getting shoes from Converse. Vaughan is into art and graphic design. This 360 flip was in First Broadcast, the Blueprint video from 2001. He jumped down some stairs, put together some solid tech lines, and even hit up some old skateparks for that video.

The Stone Roses came up on iTunes shuffle while I was editing this batch of scans. It must have been a sign to do a week of Blueprint. I really should have done more research to fill out the posts, but I ran out of motivation.

Scott's photograph is by Sam Ashley. I imagine Sam took a bunch of the photos for the ads this week.

Palmer: Thrasher - October 2001 Volume 21 Number 10

Baker: Thrasher - January 2002 Volume 22 Number 1

Colin Kennedy.

Broadcasting First.

Colin is from Glasgow, Scotland. Panic turned him pro and he later shuffled over to Blueprint. He helped push technical street skateboarding in London by figuring out the potential of the ancient architecture that defines the city. Colin had great switch trick mastery during his time as pro. He had some solid ramp skills, too.

Blueprint had maybe an era appropriate graphic design change from a more classical style to an early 2000s emo flavor. It was a mildly peculiar shift.

I took yesterday afternoon off from work to take another trip to the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall. Nobody was there, probably because it was a sunny 61˚ F (16˚ C) day in November. It was time well spent and I got a better feel for the place. I cruised around doing my dumb little tricks on the ledges and flat bar. There's something really enjoyable about skateboarding in a mall.

Note: This is not the same Colin Kennedy who filmed Skate More, the DVS video.

Thrasher - September 2002 Volume 22 Number 9

Paul Shier #2.

Icebreaker.

Paul was immortalized on the December 1997 cover of Sidewalk, then Sidewalk Surfer, doing a crooked grind on a block of ice in a photo by Wig Worland.

Thrasher - July 2002 Volume 22 Number 7

Mark Baines #2.

We're not in Pittsburgh.

Mark is from Sheffield, England. He was pro for Blueprint, moved to the US to ride for New Deal, and then returned to the UK to ride for Blueprint again. Mark was also sponsored by éS and Elwood clothing. His favorite skaters include Eric Koston, Daewon Song, Andrew Reynolds, and Guy Mariano. He spent some time living at the infamous Warner House with the Baker crew. That must have been an interesting adventure.

For the info: Thrasher - June 2000 Volume 20 Number 6

Thrasher - August 2001 Volume 21 Number 8

John Rattray #4.

Ride Precision Tech.

Blueprint was started up in 1996 by Dan Magee and Alvin Singfield. It was a second board brand to Panic, which was started in 1995. Panic was initially the more well known name, but Blueprint soon eclipsed them and the companies merged. Blueprint had a solid run up until 2012 when the world ended. They released a number of quality videos over that time span. As a sign that they were doing it right, American companies tried to poach some of their team riders. Fortunately skateboarding had grown to more of a global industry so many of their riders stayed. They even put a couple of blokes from the states on the team, too.

We all know John's story. He was pro for Blueprint, joined the Zero army, and is still out there today fighting the good fight for mental health awareness.

I took a refresher course on British skateboarding last night by skimming through all my issues of Sidewalk. This week might be lean on details. I apologize in advance. Also Sidewalk had a lot of great photos, but they used strange fonts and had the text way too small far too often. Some of that can be chalked up to the new technology for desktop publishing that was being used in the late 1990s.

Odds & Ends

The trucks with the curved hanger were called Navigators. I'll do another feature on obscure trucks from the low 2000s in the future since there were so many of them. I'm burned out on trucks right now.

Toy Machine is celebrating their 30th anniversary as the company debuted in the fall of 1993. Ed Templeton is posting some neat stories about the early days on Facebook. It looks like they are doing some guest boards for former riders, too.

What if SOTY season is chill this year?

Thrasher - May 2001 Volume 21 Number 5

Patrick Melcher #3.

Razor Wire Wallride.

I kept flipping by Patrick's wallride and thought the photo was cool. I only planned to do the monochrome Destroyer ads from Thrasher, but a little more research led to scanning what is probably all the advertising they did. This might have been the last call for Destroyer. Most of the riders were either added to Destructo or found better truck sponsors for 2002.

Thrasher - December 2001 Volume 21 Number 12

Richie Belton & Ben Gilley.

Handrail Destroyers.

Richie was a hot shoe am at the turn of the century. He rode for Hollywood, Pig Wheels, and Adio shoes. Ben was a new pro for Black Label who would later ride for Zero.

Richie: Thrasher - September 2001 Volume 21 Number 9

Ben: Thrasher - November 2001 Volume 21 Number 11

Bam Margera & Mike Vallely.

Tough Destruction.

The turn of the century was a wild time for new trucks. There were so many different brands populating the back pages of the magazines. I actually wonder if Independent, Thunder, and Venture sales were down at this point? I assume Indy was doing fine, but Thunder and Venture were in the back pages as well, with Venture often running one page ads instead of the usual two pagers we are used to.

Of all the types of companies to launch, trucks have to be the biggest risk. Developing a new truck is a difficult process with more steps than a board or wheel so if you aren't prepared to do the work, it might not turn out great. It might not turn out great even if you do the work either. I know most skaters are ridiculously loyal to whatever truck they like the best and the thought of switching isn't an option. Or maybe there are more adventuresome people out there than I realize. I also never factor in the folks who simply don't care about their setup a whole lot, which always strikes me as odd. Here's this thing you're going to spend a lot of time with so you should care a little about how it is put together and what it looks like.

Bam: Transworld - August 2001 Volume 19 Number 8

Mike: Thrasher - October 2001 Volume 21 Number 10

Erik Ellington #6.

Aluminar Alloy.

You have to appreciate marketing buzzwords.

I think Erik was riding for Destructo prior to shuffling over to Destroyer. He was on Thunder by early 2002.

The Mule once was hassled for claiming shotgun in the van by a former Small Room/Powell Peralta/SMA/Foundation skater. Jamie Thomas had to step in and Erik got to keep his seat.

It's worth noting the contrast in advertisement styles between what ran in Transworld and Thrasher. Giant must have figured Destroyer fit more with Thrasher's vibe because they eased up on running ads in Transworld for the second half of 2001.

Red: Transworld - June 2001 Volume 19 Number 6

Pink: Thrasher - August 2001 Volume 21 Number 8

Destroyer Trucks.

Dead set on destruction redux.

Destroyer was a third truck brand by Giant that was launched in the second half of 2000. This was in addition to the Destructo and Monster product lines. I never realized it was a separate brand and thought it was simply the name of a Destructo truck model until Kinetic Skateshop pointed this out to me. The initial team was Donny Barley, Bam Margera, and Mike Vallely. Donny and Mike were previously on Destructo and Bam would have been new to the team having left Toy Machine for Element. The trucks look like a beefed up Destructo, which makes sense. The graphic design is also somewhat similar, which could be why I never noticed Destroyer was its own entity.

Barley: Transworld - December 2000 Volume 18 Number 12

Vallely: Transworld - February 2001 Volume 19 Number 2

Bam: Transworld - April 2001 Volume 19 Number 4

Brian Anderson #14.

Who are some of your favorite skaters?

Ben Schroeder.

Good call. He's gnarly. Have you ever seen him skate recently?

Not in person. Ever.

He's the real Trainwreck. Nonstop.

Jake Phelps chats with Brian about his favorite skateboarders. BA's truck sponsorship history has gone from Indy to Monster and then back to Indy. He presently rides for Ace.

This wraps up another scary Halloween week. I'm curious as to whether any of the guys on the team actually rode the trucks. Skateboarding was going wild with ways to hold your wheels on the board at the turn of the century. I was hoping for somebody to leave a comment that they had some Monsters and the trucks were either really good or really terrible.

For the quote: Thrasher - April 2000 Volume 20 Number 4

MSG: Transworld - January 2001 Volume 19 Number 1

DJ Hurricane: Transworld - August 2001 Volume 19 Number 8

Heath Kirchart #15.

Moody Monster.

Heath was riding the liquid metal of Mercury prior to joining Monster. Since Jamie Thomas was also on Mercury, I would assume he asked Heath to be part of the new project. It was probably a better deal financially over what Mercury could pay, too. Both of these tricks were in Transworld's Sight Unseen video from 2001.

Five-zero: Transworld - December 2000 Volume 18 Number 12

Tail skidder: Transworld - April 2001 Volume 19 Number 4

Alex "Trainwreck" Gall #4.

Invited Gest.

Alex and Matt Rodriguez had the first Gest boards on Krooked way back in 2002. The idea of a guest pro model was met with confusion at the time, but what was once an oddity that only Mark Gonzales could get away with has become an industry norm. Weird how often that happens.

Crooks: Transworld - February 2001 Volume 19 Number 2

Flips: Transworld - July 2001 Volume 19 Number 7