Divulge: Marc Johnson

MJ uses his Divulge interview in the April 2001 issue of Skateboarder to talk about why he started enjoi, and what it's like being the boss for a bunch of skaters. Words by Meza and photos by Mike Ballard, except the 360 flip was shot by Jai Tanju.

Skateboarding's Most Infamous Crews

A brief overview of six of skateboarding's most notorious crews, written for the April 2001 issue of Skateboarder. Photo credits can be found in the scans. Although it's outdated (written over twenty years ago), there's a lot of information here that has faded away over time.

Howl - August 2005

The August 2005 issue of Skateboarder was one of the first skateboarding magazines that I ever read. Over 16 years later, I can still recall the feeling I got as I paged through this issue, soaking up every single image and making a point of looking closely at each photo to make sure I understood the correlation between the trick being done and what the caption said the trick was. I particularly remember spending a good amount a time trying to figure out what a "kickflip shifty" was when I saw this sequence of Andrew Reynolds doing one over the Van Owen bump.

Barley's wallie tailslide is also really sick. I don't have a big long story for it, though.

sequence by Colen

sequence by Reda

Jerry Hsu interview - June 2006 Skateboarder

This interview came out right before Bag of Suck dropped, and you can tell that Jerry is burnt out from filming based on some of his answers. At the end, he jokes that he's going to "get into real estate and finally ditch skateboarding" - which a bunch of former/current pro skateboarders are currently doing. Jerry was always ahead of his time. Words and photos by Jonathan Mehring.

Ryan Smith - back lip on the Henry High School 17-stair rail

Backside lipslide on this rail is still so gnarly to this day, and this is from August 2005. Great photo by Mike Blabac. Clip is in the Mystery promo in New Blood.

Minnesota to Mazatlán: Steve Nesser

Steve Nesser gives an overview of his home away from home, Mazatlán, Mexico, for an article in the August 2005 issue of Skateboarder. Photos by Ben Colen. This was the first time that I'd seen a magazine article that mentioned Minnesota, but was so bummed when I found out it actually nothing to do with my home state. Still cool, though.

Billy Marks interview - May 2004 Skateboarder

Billy was one of the first skaters to normalize flipping into rail & hubba tricks, and this issue of Skateboarder demonstrated that. In addition to the three flip-in tricks in this 12-page interview, he also kickflip backside 50-50'd a hubba for the cover and kickflip frontside 50-50'd another for a Fallen ad. I included all of these below, in addition to a Toy Machine ad of him. All photos were shot by Shigeo, except there's no credit given for the Toy ad.

3 Roads 2 Tampa

This article appears in the July/August 2000 issue of Skateboarder, and includes photos from three separate skate trips to Tampa that happened simultaneously earlier in the year. Photos taken by Gabe Morford, Jai Tanju, and Mike Ballard.

New Jack: Grant Taylor (re-scan)

The first scan of this interview was awful, so I'm reuploading new scans of it. Appears in the April 2009 issue of The Skateboard Mag, words by Mike Munzenrider. Grant also had a full interview in and was on the cover of the same month's issue of Skateboarder, which I posted here.

Portrait by Rodent
Sequence by Jon Humphries

Photo by Anthony Acosta

Sequence by Rodent

Lien disaster by Humphries
Kickflip back lip by Rodent

Divulge: Knox Godoy

The Divulge interview in the November/December 2000 issue of Skateboarder features infamous child skate star Knox Godoy. Words by Aaron Meza and photos by J. Strickland.

Element 2001 South America tour

Written by Aaron Meza, this article recounts a two-week Element trip through three different countries. Photos by Mike O'Meally.