Al Midgett & Blaize Blouin.

Unemployed East Coast Vert.

Al is from Virginia Beach, Virginia and was pro for Schmitt Stix. Blaize was from Charleston, South Carolina and was pro for G & S. Jobless was a clothing company based in New England. I kept flipping by this ad and couldn't figure out why the one skater looked familiar until I read the caption and realized it was Blaize. Sadly, he passed away in a car accident 25 years ago. I don't think this has been online yet so I felt it needed to be posted. I believe Al's son also skates vert and has had some coverage here and there.

The photos are by R.R. I am not sure on a full name for the photographer.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3

Tony Manfre #3.

Tony nosegrinds a handrail during his days on Powell. He would later jump to enjoi and eventually joined up with the relaunched Shut. His switch ollie down Wallenberg would've happened while he was riding for Powell. He's currently a musician/DJ who still skateboards.

Is there a Powell Peralta resurgence afoot? They kept plugging away in their skate zone all this time and it sort of feels like they are back. I'm sure the older dudes with money who fulfilled their childhood dreams of having a Bones Brigade themed man cave have helped P & P's bottom line all along, but it seems like the company is now doing more than dominating the reissue game. Although they are making a special Mike McGill deck to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the McTwist. Make what you will out of all of this.

An attempt was made to fix my old iMac last night. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. On the positive side, we were able to recover all the files off the hard drive so I have access to the Vert Is Dead archive again.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Kevin "Spanky" Long #11.

Remember when Spanky was on Ezekiel? Me neither. I have not made that joke in a spell. Kevin would have been an am for Baker at the time, prior to winning the Tampa Am in 2003 and Emerica's This Is Skateboarding video.

I got a batch of Fourstar scanned and decided to go with some random stuff for this week. I'm still plugging away at using Affinity Photo. It's kind of clunky to use, even for easy stuff like piecing together two pages. I don't full trust how it levels colors, but that's more on me needing to read the instructions.

The photos are by Jeff Landi and Russell Hoover. I'm not positive on Hoover's first name. The design is credited to J. Clark.

Transworld - July 2002 Volume 20 Number 7

Alex Carolino.

Secrets.

Alex Carolino is from Curitiba, Brazil. He was visiting Europe for the contests at the turn of the century and started skating with the Lordz Wheels crew. This led to assorted sponsorships and professional status for Santa Cruz after Seek had ended. He was also riding for DC Shoes. Alex has the massive pop for technical street tricks that has become a hallmark of Brazilian skateboarding.

I think it is going to be some Fourstar ads from 2003 for next week. It might end up being a relaxed schedule week again. I am unsure until I start the scanning and see how the ads look. If it is too many lifestyle photos, I might just dump everything on one day. I have to finish up the March 1990s issue of Poweredge, too. I don't know yet. I also need more practice with Affinity. It's possible an attempt to repair my old iMac will made be this weekend, but I'm not sure. Everything is in a state of flux at the moment.

Sébastien Michelini was the photographer.

Transworld - April 2003 Volume 21 Number 4

Colin McKay #10.

Seeking street on vert.

Colin spins a frontside cab heelflip on vert without grabbing. I wonder how many tries it took him to land this? Colin was on Girl prior to the start up of Seek and then went to the rebooted Plan B when Seek ended in 2004.

The sequential pictures are by Mike Blabac.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Florentin Marfaing.

Le Dome.

Florentin is from Mühlhausen, Germany. He also spent a lot of time living in Paris, France and possibly lives in Barcelona, Spain now. Josh Kalis recruited him to ride for Seek in the early 2000s based on his part in the Lordz Wheels video. After Seek ended, he was pro for Santa Cruz for a number of years. I want to say he's still skating and sponsored by a couple of European companies. Flo was on Vans for the longest time. It's a little odd to see him wearing Vans in this photo sequence because nobody else on Alien was wearing Vans back in those days. His skating is a prime example of high quality Euro tech. Flo absolutely demolished the classic Le Dome hubba spot in Paris.

Flo and Kalis owned the first few months of ads for Seek. I picked out the relative best of the batch to use. The design of this one skews a tad into Habitat territory.

Helge Tscharn was the photographer.

Transworld - November 2002 Volume 20 Number 11

Josh Kalis #14.

Rising under the sovereign sect.

It's sort of unremarkable how much Seek looked like the Alien Workshop in terms of graphic design. When they started Habitat, they made sure it had a unique visual identity to make it stand out. Seek didn't have that. Mike Hill and Don Pendleton were doing the art for Seek so there was bound to be some conceptual overlap, but nothing that outwardly differentiated them from Alien. To be fair, those guys did have a deep pool of strong ideas to draw from, but the point of creating a new company is create something at least a little different from whatever else is out there. It's not like the differences between Girl and Chocolate or Real and Krooked. This probably didn't help any for the longevity of the brand.

It's also worth noting that Seek was basically a board line for the DC Shoes team with Kalis, Rob Dyrdek, Colin McKay, and potentially Stevie Williams on the squad.

The sequence is by Mike Blabac.

Transworld - July 2002 Volume 20 Number 7

Seek.

Searching for the nonexistent.

Seek was a third board line launched by the Alien Workshop in 2002. I want to say it was intended as kind of super team company. Rob Dyrdek and Josh Kalis made the in-house hop over from Alien with Colin McKay being added from Girl. Stevie Williams was supposed to jump from Chocolate, but opted to stay put at the last moment. Florentin Marfaing was the fourth original team rider. Seek lasted a couple of years before everybody went their own ways. I like how they used a contemporary photo for the debut ad instead of going with a stock photo.

I did this batch of scans in Affinity. I'm getting the hang of the program. It's kind of clunky for color leveling and piecing together files, but I'm learning to deal with the quirks.

The photograph is by Jon McGrath.

Transworld - June 2000 Volume 20 Number 6

Ron Cameron #3.

Can of Coke.

The Blockhead artist gets inverted on a mini ramp. Ron was the subject of a somewhat recent Chrome Ball Incident interview and it sounds like he's got a couple of projects in the works.

I got swamped with work yesterday and ran out of time to update. That has not happened in a very long time.

I'm not sure I like how this one leveled out in Affinity. It's difficult to figure out how to get the black set and the colors to pop. I'm liking their Publisher program, even though I've barely played around with it. It's good enough for what I would need at home. Also it seems a little easier to pick up, but maybe that's because I mostly do design at the office. You're really only moving boxes around for graphic design versus the finer points of photo processing.

I'm thinking some Seek and Fourstar scans for the next batch. I'm not sure on the schedule for the upcoming week. It might be more of a relaxed schedule, but it depends how much I can get done over the weekend.

The photo is by Christian Kline.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3

Ron Chatman #9.

“I am not a number; I am a free man.”

Here's a classic example of World Industries being both silly and wordy back in their early days. Ron's blunt to forward pop out is a fairly advanced move for 1989.

There's no credit, but I'd venture a guess the photos are by Christian Kline.

Poweredge - October 1989 Volume 2 Number 9

Bobby Puleo #13.

Travelling cellar door side blues.

I like how Bobby has become this obscure skateboard historian. He tracked down the location of the first documented NYC cellar door to be skated to discover that the door probably isn't there any longer. He also sorted through a randomly gifted box of old photos and proofs from early 1990s Transworld. His fascination with minutia is pretty cool.

Venture was using some Photoshop trickery in the late 1990s to add in their logo to ads. They were mostly successful, but it still looked like somebody stuck in a logo on the computer instead of a sticker occurring naturally in the wild.

Speaking of Photoshop, I downloaded the free trial of Affinity. I probably need to read the instructions. I put together this week's scans with it and I'm not sure how well they turned out. Affinity is very similar to Photoshop, except everything is in a different place. I'm not too keen on their color leveling features yet. Not having Photoshop at home to compare the results doesn't help. I've also been using Photoshop for so long that I've forgotten the how and why for the settings so seeing options in a new program is strange. I downloaded their Publisher program, too. I only tested it for about 15 minutes, but it seems like a nice option to have for design at a reasonable price.

Thrasher - January 1997 Volume 17 Number 1

Scott Conklin #5.

The Jetty.

This is a classic Transworld cover from 1993. Scott's riding his slick pro model with a Neil Blender drawn deep sea diver graphic. The orange/blue/green color scheme looks great. He's got Thunders and some very small wheels. I think that's a sticker for Front Clothing, but I'm not positive. Scott's one of my favorite pros and his part in Timecode is neat.

The photo is by Dave Swift.

Transworld - July 1993 Volume 11 Number 7

Michigan Pro-Am 1989.

This was the article for the Michigan Skate Classic Pro-Am held in Lansing. The contest was on June 10 and 11, 1989. They built a vertical spine ramp. I didn't recall reading about this event before, which was odd given the unique ramp design.

Roger Bridges begins the story by stating that some companies declined to send riders for whatever seemingly important reason 35 years ago. That's probably why Thrasher and Transworld didn't cover the contest. Transworld did have a list of winners that included the date. The event was sponsored by Airböurne and Zorlac.

Even with a vague boycott, there were still some big names at the contest, particularly in the am section. East Coast vert was well represented with Mike Conroy, Tom Boyle, Sean Miller, and Buster Halterman. Florida, the South, and the Midwest were also well represented.

H-Street did send their team and this resulted in Danny Way earning his first professional victory at the contest. Reese Simpson finished second. The article suggests that perhaps Reese should've won and I'm inclined to agree with that take, but Danny's trick list is very tough to beat. It's cool to see some different pros in the top ten, too. Regardless of skateboard politics and turnout, I'm sure the locals were plenty stoked to have this competition in town for the weekend.

The article is by Roger Bridges. The photos are by Roger and Mike Ballard.

Poweredge - October 1989 Volume 2 Number 9

Curtis Hsiang #6.

The shadow.

Curtis floats a frontside ollie in the Cancer Bowl. He was affiliated with the Deluxe crew and would pop up in ads or articles from time to time. Sadly, Curtis passed away in 2000.

Has anybody used the Affinity photo software? It's supposedly good and a way better value than Abode's subscription scam. I took a quick look at it over the weekend and it appeared about the same as Photoshop.

The photograph is Bryce Kanights.

Thrasher - January 1997 Volume 17 Number 1

Consolidated 1996 Pro List.

I get irked by how vague teams are these days. You're never really sure who rides for any given company at any given moment. Skateboarding is loose enough that there are always going to be ams that don't work out and fickle pros who jump ship often, but it isn't that hard to update the company website. Or you'll have a general sense of who rides for a company and then they'll run a 14 person group photo without credits. You can pick out the pros and a couple of the ams, but the other five riders remain a mystery. It doesn't help much when a brand will turn an amateur you haven't fully heard of pro with a cool video and then you never see them again until you find out later on that they're also the warehouse manager at the company. We're fully living in the Acme world of no pro models, except we have too many pro models to pick from. I'm all for keeping skateboarding quasi shady as that is part of the appeal, but I'd like a little more clarity on who officially rides for each company. It might even be time for another of those Transworld or Big Brother articles about what it means to be a professional skateboarder.

Thrasher - September 1996 Volume 16 Number 9

Lori Rigsbee #3.

Invert.

Lori is from Del Mar, California. She rode for Powell Peralta, Airwalk, and Independent. Lori was featured in Powell's Public Domain and Propaganda videos. She was a pioneer of women's ramp skateboarding and you have to wonder if the current generations are aware of her legacy. Not that it matters much because they are doing great, but it would cool if they did know some of the history.

The old iMac I do all the Photoshop work on for Vert Is Dead broke this weekend. An attempt to fix the computer is going to be made, but there is no guarantee how successful it will be. I have honestly no idea right now what the status of the site will be going forward after this week. Don't worry, this probably isn't the end, I just have to get some technology squared away and that might take some time. I'll provide updates when I have more information.

The photo is by Daniel Harold Sturt.

Poweredge - October 1989 Volume 2 Number 9

Sam Cunningham #6.

Parking Garage.

Sam is from Sacramento and was pro for Blockhead. He had a great part in their Splendid Eye Torture video from 1989. I was stoked to find an ad I hadn't seen of him on the pages of Poweredge. Sam also rode for Airwalk.

Steve Sherman took the photo.

Poweredge - April 1989 Volume 2 Number 3

Ken Fillion #2.

"He's nice. He's a tricky little man. He's whacked!" - Neil Blender

My first Ken post gets a ton of traffic from Ben Raybourn's interview at the Chrome Ball Incident. He's from Houston and was pro for G&S. Ken switched to Toxic in the fall of 1989. He also rode for Speed Wheels and Gullwing.

G & S had some great ads and boards that used color gradients. The contrast between the black & white graphics on the deck is awesome. As an added bonus, they even went with Courier for the font.

Have a good Thursday. I'll be back on Friday.

The photos are credited to S. A. M. I'm not sure who that is. I imagine a few photographers used aliases to avoid ticking off the mags or companies they worked more regularly for.

Poweredge - April 1989 Volume 2 Number 3

Mark Heintzman #6.

Superior product placement.

Ohio's finest street skater shows off some hightop Airwalks and Gordan & Smith Trucks. Mark won the 1988 NSA Amateur Street Finals and turned pro for G & S soon after. Airwalk was a company that did run some different ads in Poweredge. They had the team and resources to do so. I know I had the purple and white version of this shoe, but I don't think I had the orange model, although I might have.

Note: This was the inside back cover so the page took some lumps. I didn't bother cleaning up a lot of the damage. It gives it some character.

The foto credit is Hadji. I've got no clue on who that is.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3

Rick Howard #19.

Happy Canada Day!

Rick does a frontside ollie at Griffin Park in Vancouver. He was riding for Blockhead and Gullwing in 1990. From going through the old issues of Poweredge, I forgot how many people rode Gullwings back in the day.

Jamestown Skateboard Products has their new street obstacle section done. I checked it out yesterday. It's all concrete and in their former garage. There's a flat bank, two different hips, a small bowled quarter pipe, and a long straight ledge. There's also a lot of flatground between everything so it resembles a street spot. I didn't have a lot of time so by the time I started to get a feel for the layout, I had to go home. It's definitely worth checking out and I'm looking forward to skating it again soon.

The photo is by Rick Kosick.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3