Louie Barletta #12.

Happy Halloween!

Evil Lou slashes a noseslide across a burning plinth. This was the ad that prompted a Speed Demons week since it seems to be such an out of character sponsor for Mr. Barletta. For as much as the running gag about his age casts him as a permanent 21 year old, Louie has always seemed like a grownup to me. And by the early 2000s, Dwindle was strictly for the kids. I understand the convenience of getting bearings from your board sponsor, but I sort of figured Louie would take a pass on that option.

I've been trying to get in some skateboarding while it has been mild and we still have daylight. It's been raining the last couple days and the forecast going forward looks wet. I've been successful in rolling around, but again have had mixed results with how I'm skating. Like I've written before, I'll land enough to think I can still skate, yet I never really get a full, fun session out of it.

Have a good weekend, party smart, and don't forget to change the batteries in your smoke detectors when you flip the clocks back an hour.

Transworld - November 2002 Volume 20 Number 11

Jerry Hsu #13.

Escape the Flames.

Jerry jumps across a fiery chasm. I'm guessing this is probably a switch hardflip. He's riding a Louie Barletta enjoi board with the London calling graphic and wearing some Osiris. Speed Demons seems like such an odd sponsor for Jerry, but you do need bearings and the company is run out of the same office as his board sponsor so it makes sense.

Transworld - October 2002 Volume 20 Number 10

Josh Kasper #2.

Fire & Brimstone.

Josh launches a grab into the pits of hell. The art department directly took the copy from one of Josh's Blind ads of the time and used it for a Speed Demons ad. This is a vintage early days of World Industries type of move.

Transworld - August 2002 Volume 20 Number 8

Kanten Russell #2.

Depths of Hell.

Kanten takes a switch flight down a large piece of evil real estate.

Seu Trinh documented the plunge into the abyss.

Transworld - May 2002 Volume 20 Number 5

Mike Crum #8.

Demonic Hellfire.

Welcome to Halloween week 2025. I'm amazed I keep finding new spooky stuff year after year. Speed Demons was a bearing company out of the World Industries camp. It started in the late 1990s and borrowed from the same cartoon aesthetic that was used for World and Blind. They went bonkers with the layers in Photoshop to create ads with the flames of hell. The team was mostly Dwindle riders along with a few others like Chany Jeanguenin, Anthony Mosley, Tom Penny, and Geoff Rowley. Speed Demons eventually expanded to include wheels and price point boards. After the demise of Dwindle, I'm not sure what happened to the brand, but I speculate it will live on as a zombie company. That's some truly scary stuff right there.

Seu Trinh captured Mike's soul for all eternity.

Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4

Patrick Praman.

The end number.

Patrick was born in Bangkok, Thailand and moved to the states when he was a little kid. He grew up in Virginia. He got into skateboarding while living in Virginia and would film in DC, Maryland, and North Carolina. Deluxe hooked him up with Real, Thunder, and Spitfire. Patrick made the move out to California and was part of Thrasher's Am Scramble 2022 tour. He turned pro for Real in the summer of 2023. For the demo, Patrick did a number of tricks over the bump to bar. In addition to this backside noseblunt, he also did a nollie heelflip to noseslide on the hubba.

I dumb lucked into this photo and caught the light from the filmer's camera illuminating Patrick. Some moderate lifting in Photoshop was enough to make it look good.

It will be something quickly demonic for next week.

For the info: Thrasher - February 2023 Volume 44 Number 2

Andrew Reynolds #19.

Florida Marlin.

The Boss skated the whole time and had tricks for the entire park. You got to see the classics: kickflips, frontside flips, a kickflip shifty or two, and a varial heelflip over the picnic table. He did a noseslide down the hubba and some frontside ollies on the quarter pipes. Andrew was riding a Kevin "Spanky" Long deck and wearing a Florida Marlins hat. He had his pro model sneaker from New Balance on his feet, too. I'm sure he was who the majority of the crowd wanted to see the most and Reynolds delivered.

One highlight of the demo was Jake Hayes blasting a 360 flip over the bump to bar behind Andrew. Wilton Souza skated a bunch. Justin Henry landed a frontside shove-it to backside 50-50 on the hubba. Brian Reid also had a bunch of tricks over the bar, including landing in a 50-50. Brian was really good and did a lot of unique transfers around the park. He has a similar jump over the whole spot approach that Brandon Westgate has. I was stoked on his skating and wish I'd gotten a picture of him.

Franky Villani #2.

Horror business.

You can have two pictures of Franky as a treat for Halloween. I wasn't sure what to expect from the demo. It was mostly the guys casually skating the park before they did the more formal show portion of the demo on the stair section. Of course, a pro casually skating a park means way better tricks than us mortals can do. Franky did a whole lot of stuff and landed his tricks fairly quickly. He did take a couple of slams, too. Also like Jamie Foy, he had lip tricks for the quarter pipes. Some of the highlights were a kickflip to frontside nosegrind on the hubba, a kickflip to late shove-it over the picnic table on the right, a Bennett grind to 360 out down the hubba, and a couple of flip tricks down the stairs. The photo is of a nollie heelflip. The other picture is of a wallie out of the bank. He did all of these tricks on his egg shaped board. Franky rips.

I kept more space in the wallie photo so you can get an idea of the park's layout. The quarter pipe wall in the back is where Foy did his frontside heelflip. Franky landed a nosepick of some sort on the quarter and Andrew Reynolds did some frontside ollies. I think that's Tiago Lemos standing on the pyramid. I know Tiago skated, but I don't think he skated a long time. He was also on the opposite side of the park so I simply missed what he was doing.

Clyde Singleton was the MC for the event. He is wearing the Champion sweatshirt on the left side of the nollie heelflip photo. Against the wall by the fence is Brandon Westgate talking to Levi Brown. Brandon didn't skate. I'm not sure on the name of the kid in the tall white t-shirt next to them as there are no titles in real life. He absolutely crushed the demo with massive pop shove-its, flip tricks, and a smooth backside 360 ollie over the picnic table.

These photos were rather drab in color so I went with the easy fix of making them BW and adding film grain.

Jamie Foy #4.

Balancing act.

The reigning SOTY did not disappoint at the New Balance demo. Most of the guys skated the whole time and checked off a lot of tricks. Foy put in the work and took a couple of slams, too. This is a fakie ollie to backside lipslide. He also did a fakie ollie to backside tailslide and a 180 to switch crooks on the hubbas. He had lip tricks for the ramps, which was neat to see. I believe he did a massive frontside heelflip on one of the quarters. Jamie landed a huge frontside heelflip over the picnic table to the right for good measure. The crowd was stoked.

This picture was kind of drab in color so I made it BW and added some film grain to make it a tad more interesting. I wish I took a few more photos, but I wasn't sure how the images would turn out. I didn't want to spend the whole time looking through the viewfinder instead of watching the skateboarding.

Tyler Surrey #2.

Running the Numbers.

I went to the New Balance demo at Food Court Skatepark in Buffalo, New York on Saturday. It was a lot of really great skateboarding in a mellow atmosphere. Most of the team was there, including Andrew Reynolds, Jamie Foy, Franky Villani, Brian Reid, Patrick Praman, Tiago Lemos, Jake Hayes, Tom Karangelov, Justin Henry, and a couple others. There was a good sized crowd and people were stoked. They skated for about two hours, did a product toss, and then signed autographs. I'm not an autograph collector so I split after the skating was done. I didn't talk to anybody and stuck to watching the skateboarding.

I brought my camera. The lighting at the park is equal to a hockey rink so without flashes and/or studio lights, it's rough sledding. I eked out a few pics that are decent enough for the internet. Thrasher is covering the tour so there will be better documentation at some point down the road. If you need an instant fix, I imagine all the highlights are on the Instagram by now.

Tyler closed out the demo with this nollie to backside 180 nosegrind type of move. I was a little surprised to see him there since he lives in Spain.

Eric Koston #17.

Edgy.

Eric pilots a nollie lipslide down a handrail. This was a popular trick amongst the rail skating pros and ams at the turn of the century. I've only ever landed two of them to forward on a flat bar and that was well over a decade ago. I've done more than a few nollie lipslides on ledges and flat bars to fakie, but the trick is awkward and doesn't feel good. But that one evening I was skating with this kid who coincidentally is also named Eric and he encouraged me to give the trick a try on the flat bar. I successfully did two and have never done a nollie lipslide since.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, October 20th.

Work's been really busy and I'm burned out so I'm taking a week off. I'll see what I can come up with and then it will be something demonic for Halloween week.

Thrasher - July 2001 Volume 21 Number 7

Robbie McKinley #4.

Society Dog.

The late Robbie McKinley skids a frontside noseslide across a piece of copper. I always thought this was an odd photo. While it is interesting and functions as almost an abstract painting, it doesn't do the trick any favors.

Thrasher - June 2001 Volume 21 Number 6

Colin McKay #11.

Heavy metal parking lot.

Colin rode for Plan B and DC Shoes with Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. He would ride for Girl for a couple of years after the initial run of Plan B came to an end. Colin was also on Fourstar. He switched to Seek in 2002, the short lived third board brand from the Alien Workshop, before returning to the rebooted Plan B. I don't think the strange detour that Seek was is talked about enough. He has a strong part of vert tech in The Chocolate Tour video from 1999.

Thrasher - March 2001 Volume 21 Number 3

Rick Howard #21.

Power forward.

Rick rode for Blockhead and Plan B before starting Girl in 1993 with Megan Baltimore, Mike Carroll, and Spike Jonze. He's been mostly behind the scenes in running the company since the middle 2000s, but will still pop up for an occasional clip or photo. His last full part was in Lakai's Fully Flared from 2007. I thought this noseslide was in a video, but I couldn't find it. I might be thinking of a different spot and/or clip. There were also video magazines 25 years ago so maybe footage wound up in one of those productions. Rick did a lot of noseslides on big rails and hubbas.

Thrasher - February 2001 Volume 21 Number 2

Tony Ferguson #5.

Loading dock.

Tony spins a backside 360 ollie in Philadelphia while wearing some Lakais. The trick was in the Girl montage of Yeah Right! from 2003. I didn't know what to pick out for the week and some Girl scans from 2001 was an easy find. I was surprised I hadn't posted any of these before. They would have been starting to film for Yeah Right! around this time. Tony is from Ottawa and moved out to Vancouver. He rode for Real, Plan B, and Girl.

Thrasher - January 2001 Volume 21 Number 1

Dan Drehobl #34.

Freedumb flight.

Dan does a frontside air at Kempsey in New South Wales, Australia. This was from a trip down under with Brian Anderson, Brad Staba, Julien Stranger, and Tim Upson. Luke Ogden was the photographer. Jake Phelps was lurking in the background and I'm guessing he organized the ride. It's sort of an odd crew. The trip would have been from 2000 or very early 2001. Dan was on Think and Emerica at the time. Brad and Brian were both still on Toy Machine and wearing Saviers. The article was lean on words, but had lots of pictures of everybody. Luke even got a skate pic. I like how in your face and up close the photo is. It stands out even with all the text. I had to include this cover in the feature because Dan is one of my favorites and I think this was his only Thrasher cover.

Here's a Google street view of the park. Dan would've aired the hip on the front left. I like the skeleton sculpture and shoes hanging from the power lines.

The weather has remained in summer mode so I've been skateboarding most days. I hit up the Jamestown city park, too. I'm still not really skating so great for me and it's getting kind of frustrating. I'm trying to make it work, but it's a chore.

Luke Ogden was the photographer.

Thrasher - March 2001 Volume 21 Number 3

Darren Navarrette #18.

Guy in the sky.

I'm a fan of Darren and knew I wanted to include him in the cover feature. He graced the front of Thrasher with this vibrantly colored creature. It's a full blown 1980s style cut-out design with the relevant talking points of 2003. Those were some wild days, let me tell ya. Darren would've been on 151 at the time. He's wearing a pair of Emericas. I thought this was his only cover, but he was also on the front of The Skateboard Mag with Al Partanen back in 2008.

The photo is by Luke Ogden.

Thrasher - October 2003 Volume 23 Number 10

Julien Stranger #29.

Caution tape.

I had to pick a couple of Slap covers from my senior year of college. Slap was a welcome third voice in addition to what Thrasher and Transworld were publishing. They were a little more creative and arty while focusing on slightly more underground skateboarders. The music reviews were solid and more likely bands I was actually into. I put this feature together quickly so I'm not sure if I'd chosen the same two I scanned. I think I'd maybe have gone with Greg Hunt's cover instead, but I wasn't going to change anything once I got everything organized. You also can't go wrong with any Julien photos so that made this one an easy choice. I think he is wearing some Etnies or possibly some early run Emericas. I like how he's got "nose" written on the front of his board.

As was the case for the Rick Howard cover, there was no photographer credit for the picture. My guess would be Lance Dawes took the picture and didn't credit himself.

Slap - April 1996 Volume 5 Number 4