Jimmy Wilkins #4.

One of the best videos of the year was Jimmy's "Under, Over" part. He teamed up with fellow Real rider Shea Donavan for a doubles filled vert video filmed at Tony Hawk's ramp. Both excel at proper street tech vertical skating. Jimmy is doing some of the best ollies in all of skateboarding right now. Nobody else looks as smooth and stylish as he does.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Thrasher - February 2022 Volume 43 Number 2

Elijah Berle & Austyn Gillette.

Rodeo Technology.

I guess whatever beef Elijah and Austyn had has been squashed since Austyn had a trick in Elijah's most recent video part. Or maybe they're making it worse? I don't know. It's a strange world these days. The Pretty Sweet ad could almost be an FA ad if it was BW with some film grain and collage elements added. I think Austyn was riding for WKND in 2018. Elijah would leave Chocolate in 2017 to ride for Jason Dill and Anthony Van Engelen's board company. He recently released a new video part full of gnarly handrail stunts set to sad country music.

Elijah: Thrasher - September 2012 Volume 32 Number 9

Austyn: Thrasher - July 2018 Volume 39 Number 7

Evan Smith #5.

Spinning out in the grasslands.

Evan, Roman Pabich, and Trey Wade did a demo at the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall and hit up Jamestown Skateboard Products two weekends ago. I didn't go because of adult life, but I saw the clips Food Court and JSP posted on the internet. Evan and Roman destroyed Food Court. I know the park fairly well so the tricks they did were amazing. Roman wasn't messing around in the giant bowl in Jamestown either. I'm glad Western New York is starting to have visiting pros swing by for demos and events.

Chops has an awesome new interview with Duane Pitre up at the Chrome Ball Incident.

The photograph is by Brian Gaberman.

Thrasher - November 2014 Volume 35 Number 11

Jamie Foy #2.

Diamond Days.

Mr. Foy has basically dominated skateboarding the last 12 months and is probably on his way to winning a well deserved second SOTY. Diamond started off as a bolt company that grew into a streetwear entity with their own line of sneakers. The shoe team included Foy, Torey Pudwill, Boo Johnson, and Brandon Biebel.

Icon: Thrasher - January 2018 Volume 39 Number 1

SOTY: Thrasher - April 2018 Volume 39 Number 4

Tiago Lemos #3.

Sure Shot.

Tiago has been on quite the roll lately by churning out three full parts of his high tech street skateboarding and scoring the cover of Thrasher. I like that he skated some handrails to add variety to the expected tall ledges. I wanted to find an ad of him on either Listen or BLVD, but that might have been a lot of time spent searching for something that didn't exist so I went with Primitive instead. I think Tiago was still sponsored by DC Shoes in 2019. In a perfect world, he should probably win SOTY this year, but I don't really see that happening. Thrasher needs to impose a one and done rule for the trophy going forward.

The photo is by Oliver Barton.

Thrasher - July 2019 Volume 40 Number 7

Brandon Westgate #6.

No tow-ins.

Brandon has maintained his mastery of giant street ollies and kickflips after all these years as was shown in Intervals, the latest New Balance video. It's too bad he's stuck in board sponsor purgatory by riding for Element, but it somehow seems to be working for him. What's more impressive is that Brandon relied on his legs to get the speed for nearly every trick he did in the part. Modern skateboarding, with its reliance on tow-ins to jump a gap or rail and then crash into a wall upon landing, is uninspiring to watch. I'd rather watch Westgate push.

Thrasher - December 2015 Volume 36 Number 12

Peter Hewitt #20.

Joe Pino's old ledge spot.

Pete gets inverted at the famous Washington Street skateboard park. The place has been around for 25 years now. Thrasher had a story on its history in the November issue. Joe started building concrete benches back in 1999 due to a lack of spots in San Diego. A bench and a flatbar eventually grew into a massive concrete park underneath a bridge.

I know Dickies has had a skateboard team for a while and I was curious who else rode for them. In 2015, they were giving free clothes to Vincent Alvarez, Stevie Perez, Ronnie Sandoval, and Jon Sciano to name a few. I believe Jim Greco was a rider at some point, too. Vincent and Ronnie are still formally on the team in 2024. I imagine Dickies flows a number of other skaters gear, too.

The photograph is by Sam Muller.

Thrasher - December 2015 Volume 36 Number 12

Ed Templeton #35.

Yellowish green.

Ed goes for a long boardslide ride in the heyday of Emerica. Jamie Thomas has a new shoe company called WARSAW. Ed is possibly involved and has at the least drawn the logo.

I probably should've gone to the UMA Landsleds demo at Food Court this weekend, but it wasn't really going to fit into my schedule. I did check back in at Jamestown Skateboard Products. I hadn't been there in a couple of months. They added a 10" high, extra long, wide straight ledge to their garage street course. The ledge doubles as a stage for when they have bands. It really makes the street setup a lot more fun. The crew from Lowcard visited for the annual King of the Ramp contest and will have an article on the event in their next issue. That's about all the local skate gossip I've got.

Transworld - February 2002 Volume 20 Number 2

Rob Welsh #9.

All things pass into the night.

Lakai as we've known it for the last quarter century is done. Crailtap posted a thank you video that fully implied the people who made the company are no longer involved. I imagine the brand will live on as some phantom entity until the venture capitalists put it out to pasture, but it won't be the same and nobody is going to buy the shoes. I'm a tad bummed out over all this. It's going to be weird not wearing Lakai after 25 years.

Transworld - November 2003 Volume 21 Number 11

Kerry Getz #8.

Our showroom is next door.

I'm always stoked on any Kerry Getz coverage. He was such a powerhouse of a skater in the late 1990s and early 2000s. His gap out to frontside slider was in Mosaic, the Habitat video from 2003.

This contest was wild. Did anybody win it?

The photo is by Ryan Gee.

Transworld - November 2002 Volume 20 Number 11

Adrian Lopez #2.

Technical Zero.

Adrian was probably the most technically inclined of the skaters on Zero until Wilton Souza came along in 2024. He was throwing down switch 360 flips in his video parts to go along with the expected rail stunts.

Paul "Skin" Phillips was the photographer.

Transworld - October 2002 Volume 20 Number 10

Karl Watson #5.

Best griptape out there.

I always rode Black Magic for grip until it started getting kind of crappy so I switched over to Jessup. I've never had any problems with it in the years since. The design staff did a respectable job piecing this ad together with the griptape in the background.

Thrasher - October 2002 Volume 22 Number 10

Ricardo Carvalho.

Former Chocolate am Ricardo Carvalho holds the honor of being an interesting bit of skateboard trivia. He was on the cover of the last issue of Big Brother twenty years ago. His other sponsors included Lakai and Stealth Wheels. Ricardo is from Capão da Canoa, Brazil.

After reading ‪Cole Nowicki‬'s latest Simple Magic column, the future doesn't sound very bright for Lakai. Lucas Wisenthal astutely observed that Royal Trucks has outlasted the once premiere footwear brand. I vaguely forgot Royal was still around until I noticed their new ad with Zach Allen in the November issue of Thrasher.

Ricardo's Big Brother cover photo is by Giovanni Reda.

Cover: Big Brother - March 2004 Number 106

Royal: Transworld - February 2002 Volume 20 Number 2

Marc Johnson #17.

The Plan.

I was never great at keeping up with all the Transworld videos so I skipped over Marc Johnson's part in Modus Operandi. I've watched the section a couple of times recently. It's a good time capsule of the year 2000 with the Built To Spill and Marc's top notch technical skateboarding. There is corresponding footage to a whole slew of his Emerica and A-Team ads in the part. Those were the days, man.

There's been some open discussion on the future of Lakai taking place this past week. Allegedly the company has been losing a lot of money each year and was on the verge of shutting down. Supposedly the team was cut to save money, but that is potentially up in the air to some extent. There exists a possibility that Rick Howard and Mike Carroll will still end up being involved in an attempt to save the company. It will be interesting or depressing to see where this ends up. I imagine there are a lot of skateboard brands that are struggling to an extent these days.

I'll see people wearing Lakais so they do have a following. I've fluctuated on their skate shoes, but I'm nearly always wearing a pair of Manchesters for general day to day living. It would be good if some credible version of the company survives after the financial business is sorted out.

The photo is by Paul "Skin" Phillips.

Transworld - June 2003 Volume 21 Number 6

Heath Kirchart & Alex "Trainwreck" Gall.

Monster trucks for monster tricks.

Monster was a project of Jamie Thomas in the early 2000s. The trucks were distributed by Giant Distribution. They went with a scary theme for the trucks and ads.

Sam Korman's interview with Heath Kirchart in Plank was an interesting read, but he dropped the ball by not asking about Monster Trucks. I'm going to assume that part was edited out due to a lack of space.

The photo for Heath is credited to Oden. Might it be a typo for Luke Ogden?

Heath: Transworld - March 2002 Volume 20 Number 3

Trainwreck: Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4