I’m a couple weeks remiss in posting about the death of Otis ‘O’ Barthoulameu. Anyone who read skate mags in the 80’s will remember that “O – Photo” byline. Encinitas Magazine has a remembrance of O that spans several spreads and start on page 24.

This unassembled Ben Lexan Skatewing was won on a cruise many years ago, and has sat in storage since then until Jamie Shain decided to help their mother-in-law do some cleaning. It’s funny because I’ve often wondered how they packaged these boards for shipping, being as unwieldy as they are, and now I know. Trucks (regular, and auxiliary) and handles came unassembled. – Thanks to Jamie for the pics!

I just made almost 70 additions to the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Ads gallery, bringing the total to 617. This last batch is primarily from Skateboarder 1975 V2 N3 and Skateboard World Nov. 1977.

Pep #331 (November 1977) features a one page story with Archie skateboarding titled “Tide Ride,” as well as a Youth Opportunity Sales Club ad in which you can earn a skateboard by selling 16 boxes of greeting cards.

It’s hard to believe that the parties involved in making the infamous Stroker trucks went on to build Independent, a brand that by any metric inspired loyalty above and beyond anything else in the skateboard industry. Check out some painful over-engineering after the jump.

The 60’s, when a “Skateboard kit” need only contain a set of trucks and wheels because the quality of the wood you rode on really wasn’t a factor in performance or fun. You had to assemble the trucks yourself, but they did throw in a skate wrench. Funny that they mentions the trucks twice (Two steel plates with hangers!) but neglect to mention the wheels. – Thanks to Mark Bader for the pics.

I saw a post online from David Whitney looking to sell an 80’s era “Wizard Pro Model” from Action Sports which appears to be a graphic that they barely modified from their 1986 Brian Martin pro model, as seen in our Vintage Skatemag Ads gallery. Barely modified? It looks like they cut out Brian’s name on the black plate and hastily replaced it with the word “Wizard.” You can see where the “Martin” has been knocked out of the blue plate. Brian Martin himself chimed in on the original post in the gallery, and we’d ask him for the rest of the story, but sadly he passed away some time circa 2021. Sure, you can read your Disposable volumes and all to get the low down on your Powells and Sant Cruz variations, but Skate and Annoy is here for your c-grade company minutia!

Pacific Northwest legend Pat Quirk, known simply as Q passed away. (no details) You may know him from his appearances in Fruit of the Vine and other videos. He was gung-ho, that’s for sure, the hot sauce at any session he was part of, even if he wasn’t riding.

Surfer Today has an in-depth interview with Gregg Carroll, one of the co-stars of the seminal Oscar nominated skate film Skaterdater, that was released in that golden year of skateboarding, 1965. It’s definitely must-read material if you have any interest in the real roots of skateboarding, and full of fascinating insights into the pro scene at this pioneering time. The forward is written by the former publisher of Concrete Wave magazine, Michael Brooke. The publication date is May of 2022, which was surprising to me, I had assumed this would have been an older article. Gregg is still skating (he was only 12 at the time the movie was made.) Well done on saving this bit of skateboarding history. The fun version of the movie is somehow still available on Youtube.

Like many things (most) on this site, this post started out as a relatively simple showcase of a board from Michiel Walrave to add to the crappy board series. And because it was a company I’d never heard of I tried to learn a little more about it and found out there are barely any pics old AISI boards out there. You might think maybe it’s actually “AISL” and not “AISI” but those searches returned nothing. UPDATE: 2026 – several of these decks can be found in the Athena International catalog. Also added two decks: The Rattler and Skull.