the Four: September '24

Your curated list of my fav skate vids last month

Oct 07, 2024

oh hey look it’s me riding a rock. if you want to see cooler tricks than this, i’m gonna run paid subscriber’s pics to open each month. yes, it’s a little like Photo-G.

origin story for the sluts:

‘So,’ and this is how Dr. Julie puts it, ‘the wheels have come off, huh?’ and she’s talking about my arm, which via a chain reaction that began with skating and ended with what was an eventually futile though incredibly cute and thoroughly fun date has become a constant source of discomfort-now-pain. Dr. Julie works the body and releases muscles and causes pain but the good kind, and was introduced to me via a circus ex bc she’s the preferred provider of CircusWorld and is also, to top it off, possibly the world’s bluntest Canadian, non-Seth Rogan category, unafraid to tell me I look fucking frail if I’ve been sidelined but also first with the compliment if I manage some muscle addition.

First off was a fakie fs 5050 — so hyped to be seeing these trending, they’ve long been my go-to, though tbc I’m doing them on, like, little ledges — to ad hoc cartwheel last spring which sprained my wrist; this was exacerbated by skating on it all summer, which lead to tendonitis in my hand and then tennis elbow so that by October I could hardly carry a drink; this weakness led to a surprising pain after a ninja-warrior-style obstacle course date; and this led to another date, with Dr. Julie.

To cut it to the bone: post appointment the pain gets worse --> a sling gets worn --> an MRI gets taken --> a rotator cuff’s revealed torn --> and we’re shut down. It is seven months of rehabilitation before I’m even allowed to cruise, and only within the past few weeks have certain tricks even become possible. Some stuff remains pretty painful — ollies, namely, but who needs those, right? — but we’re back on board. I’ve run out of my first bail, put some pop into shit, and survived the first slam, which maybe felt best of all.

I started Four the Slvts because I needed to feel connected to skating and to make something. So you get another Four!

Two to make it fucking true, right??

Special mention right here up top goes to Fargo’s new Crustworthy vid, via friend of 4tS Corey Henderson, aka Segatron Media, aka Aquaman, Master of the Fisheye. It’s filmed across greater Chicagoland and includes a motherfucking 180 dump truck into some steep shit, which is how you unlock my heart. Scene vids dot the Four and the [more] this month, though I wouldn’t call it a theme — I’d call it luck.

Criteria for who gets capsules can be found here, insomuch as they exist; as always, this isn’t about criticism or ‘reviews,’ which enough corner-couched direct-address-addled YouTube types have handled. This is just a curated list of shit I thought was cool and I’m hyped to share with you.

Four the Slvts: September ‘24

dickies skateboarding, ‘honeymoon’

Now here’s an epic vid in the Homeric sense, a lasting testament to impact future cube gleamers, replete with title cards and terrain variations and tracks of different persuasions, an august effort in September with a nigh-mythological lineup of warriors. Guy Mariano, Dylan Jaeb, Franky Villani, Mike Anderson, Tom Knox, Vincent Alvarez, Ronnie Sandoval, Christian Henry, Frankie Spears, of course Jamie Foy, rocking that Red Bull hat like Ajax’s helmet, because Foy’s hear to handle the man-killing rails no one else is — although its Spears with the most thorough murder, hands drenched in gore, dotting his thermal sleeves as so many islands. Appropriate because Frankie fucking kills the Brooklyn Banks nine — tell me, oh skate muses, how does he murder it?, a fakie 5-0, a fs halfcab flip, a fakie trey, a switch bs bigflip, a 360 flip nosegrind, all delivered between brick swells like a swift ship— just true salt-the-spot decimation, and all this before Telamonian Foy shows up to knock the walls down with SOTY-level, surgical cyclops-slaying fury enough to suspect the guiding hands of the skate gods.

max taylor, ‘broken record – run and gun’

The uncanny spiral shift open and handgun hook gives way here to yet another Austin scene vid for the Four, and in this one shots are briefly fired. Hippy hellrides, horse hops — no, for real, dude fucking ollies a fucking horse, like legit ollies a horse — switch ditch magic, just an entire ethos apart from itself without the big name star power; this is kind of like the polar opposite of Honeymoon, and that’s meant to be complimentary to both, y’all.

vague skate mag, ‘headz’

Built by the sea, Brighton’s got a reputation for being a bit of an odd spot — like so many places on the ocean are — and the ghostly washed grime settled over so much of Harrison Woolgar’s vid gives something of a UK’s SF vibe to the entire endeavor. Also, you’ve probably scene the firecracker filming at South Bank, which is surely a Great Moment in Lensing.

Let’s be honest though, anyone who knows me knows that ambulance indy tail in the thumbnail alone meant CAPSULE BB, and since sometimes I’m gonna use these to point out and drone on about some skate video trends and techniques I’ve been seeing/loving, let’s use Blinky’s first responder four down to highlight one I love — that halftime hammer! No less a personage than Joseph Campos took the halftime hammer honors with that no-regard-for-life-ride-on in Nike’s Quickstrike (for my ramblings on that, here’s last month’s Four), and they’ve been cropping up other places as well. Usually tricks which rely on courage and commitment more than talent and technique — drop ins, dump trucks, roll ins, ride ons, etc. — these are a fabulous moment of unadulterated hype to break up an effort. May they never end!

angel .4now, ‘don’t like’

Much like the Chief Keef cut with which it shares a name, Matt King and Danny Micik’s DON’T LIKE has a kind of dissociative milieu with a woozy vibe somewhere between Strobeck and Ryan Murphy and the metal-feel-revival, a difficult to explain collision of camp and horror with a sprinkling of Spanky and Chandler Burton (who pretty much is the previous sentence personified). Early grab eminence Dakota Erwin is here brining their idiosyncratic approach — a truly sui generis shredder that one is, a cry-laughing cat emoji in a sea of flames and thumbs up — to the Chicago scenes that abound, and its all a fabulous fever dream.