Kris Markovich.

Trampled under foot.

I figured I had to include Markovich when I was putting this feature together. He produced so many great video parts in the 1990s that to leave him off the list would be wrong. Of course the peanut gallery is going to bring up that he rode for a million different companies, but whatever. That's a moot point. Kris always had the last part and it was usually the best part, no matter if he had been on the team for a few years or a few months. Plus I really like the vibe Foundation had going in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Big Brother - December 2000 Number 67

Max Schaaf.

4Q.

Vert dog, dog owner, motorcycle builder, and occasional street skater Max Schaaf has been pro for Real for almost 30 years now. His ramp skating parallels street skateboarding with how he pops out of lip tricks. He also was an early practitioner of doing kickflips on vert. There's no need to ever fast forward through one of his video parts. He's always been a favorite of mine since the first Real video.

Here's a bonus picture of Max by Grant Brittain. It was on the back of a poster for the 1995 Vans Hard Rock Cafe World Championship of Skateboarding. The contest was held on October 1st in Newport Beach.

Thrasher - June 1997 Volume 17 Number 6

Ocean Howell.

Oregon Duck.

Ocean was one of the innovators of technical street skateboarding in the early 1990s. His section in Birdhouse's Ravers video is great and for the most part holds up to today's standards. Everything he was doing at the time was so much smoother and faster than everybody else. It's one of my favorite parts from the early 90s era. He was on H-Street and Birdhouse Projects before retiring from the pro ranks. Ocean moved on to the world of academics and earned a Ph.D. in Architectural and Urban History from the University of California at Berkeley. Some of his graduate writings appeared on the pages of Slap because he was studying how skateboarders use urban spaces. He is presently an associate professor of history and architectural history at Oregon.

The photo is by Scott Starr.

Thrasher - January 1993 Volume 13 Number 1

Curtis Stauffer.

Minimalism.

I might as well follow up Natas with an ad for the company he got his skateboarding career started on. Santa Monica Airlines always had top notch graphic design in their advertisements. This one pairs a great photo with a plain background to stand out from the other pages in the magazine. The story element is a nice touch, too. I have no idea who Curtis was, but this image has stuck with me over the years.

Thrasher - April 1991 Volume 11 Number 4

Natas Kaupas.

The debut of the nollie to 50-50.

I've always liked the simplicity of this ad. I was also surprised I'd never posted it here, although it has been on the internet nearly every other place by now. This was also the debut of Natas riding for 101 after leaving Santa Monica Airlines. 101 was the fourth brand backed by Steve Rocco to go along with World Industries, Liberty, and Blind.

I eventually learned nollies to 50-50 on the low PVC slider bar I had. I was riding a Matt Hensley church glass board so there was plenty of nose to do the trick off. It took a while to get the hang of how to pop off the front of the board. Nowadays one of my favorite tricks is to just go fast and nollie on flat ground.

I've soured on skateboarding's fascination with everything Rocco in the last few years. Sure his riders ripped, the videos were mostly good, and some of the graphics were funny, but the whole being controversial for the sake of being controversial has grown very tired to me. It all completely made sense in that era of skateboarding. Yet it also feels like some of that creativity could have been directed towards more meaningful endeavors. And when the last few mysteries were tracked down from that time period, the results were disappointing. It's probably always better to not know and leave portions of the past as cheerful and hazy memories.

Thrasher - February 1991 Volume 11 Number 2

Matt Reason.

Big wheels.

I was going to Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1996. Around about this time was when the Philadelphia crew started to get coverage in the mags and videos. It was cool to see skateboarders from the state I was living in get some press, even if they were on the opposite side of PA. It made the world seem a little smaller. I liked their approach to skateboarding with cruising around on larger boards and wheels instead of tiny wheels and trying some flip trick repeatedly. I started riding bigger wheels and focusing on the rolling part more. I also ditched a few of the weird flip tricks I was messing around with that never looked great anyway. The idea to get the fundamental tricks down so you can do them anywhere while going fast is an important concept to master.

Matt rode for Acme, Silverstar, Illuminati, Adrenalin, and Supernaut over the years. He worked in landscaping after skateboarding. Sadly, Matt passed away in 2014.

I feel I did not do a good job putting this month's content together. I forgot too many things. We shall see how it goes.

The Physics photo is by Ryan Gee.

Physics: Transworld - June 1997 Volume 15 Number 6

Adrenalin: Thrasher - September 1995 Volume 15 Number 9

Tim Brauch #19.

The finest in the world.

Vert Is Dead turns 12 in May so I'm going to do something a little different for the month. I've long since posted nearly everything that inspired me to do the site so I thought it might be neat to revisit a bunch of what I deem classics. Y'all are getting a clip show basically. I'm still sort of piecing things together and it's been a tad confusing. I'm getting my favorite photos or ads mixed up with my favorite skaters. The two aren't necessarily the same, although often they are. I've also acknowledged I'm going to leave out some stuff* that I really like and that's bugging me. It is difficult to pick from five decades worth of skateboarding. I've always liked the more obscure so in keeping with that concept, I'm mostly steering clear of common picks that fill out the bulk of best of lists.

* It never remotely occurred to me to do a shoe post. Oops. Lakai's Soca is the best skate shoe ever. End of discussion.

The photo is by Chris Kardas.

Thrasher - April 1993 Volume 13 Number 4