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