Dreams Come True: My first skate video part

It only took me 18 years to make it happen.

In the margins of my high school notebooks I used to doodle skateboard graphics. Instead of focusing on chemistry, I’d daydream about hitting a spot with a board that had my name on it.

Someday, I’d tell myself, you’ll be in a video that’ll be available on skate shop counters nationwide. Kids would flip through their CCS catalogs and beg their parents to order them the Platania signature jeans, made by Mada or KR3W or Volcom. Those jeans would most definitely have been made with purple denim, by the way.

Being a pro skateboarder was the first capital-d Dream I remember having that I felt was actually within reach. But it never happened.

I hit a wall, or maybe burned out on that dream. I lost interest, that’s all that matters. I gave up skating for the better part of a decade until quarantine led me back into it, a rare silver lining from the stultifying days of spring 2020.

A year later, I decided that just because the dream of going pro never worked out, didn’t mean I couldn’t achieve my dream of putting out a video part.

Zach Dowdy, whose YouTube channel wound up being one of my favorite things from 2021, showed me how good a self-filmed part could be, so last summer I bought a little tripod, staked out some spots — including some I’d skated as a kid back in the day! — and gradually collected clips.

It’s not as good as I dreamt, hell, it’s not even as good as the part 16-year-old me could’ve put out. There’s a bunch of tricks I wanted to get but just couldn’t.

But I made it, and it was fun. Even learning editing in iMovie was a good time. It exists, it took me a while, but I did it. I have to say, it feels fucking great.

Okay, enough chest-clearing. Here it is, my first ever skate video part: