Fingerboarding Chaos: Leaks, Closures & Nationals Showdown | S3 E134

On this week’s episode of the USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, we dive into David Jones landing the Plies Mag Issue #11 cover. We talk about the Blackriver Chicago store closure and what it means for shops, brands, and the community, and we break down a sustainable shop model that actually works. We also get into Nationals weekend (Oct 10 - 12 in Indianapolis), trading cards for top competitors, and VIP plans for Fast Fingers 22 in 2026. If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share! 

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Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00)
Yeah, I can't actually say the f-word or any bad words in the first two and a half minutes I think it's two and a half minutes of our YouTube

Speaker 1 (00:09)
Fun fact, welcome to USAFDA- FUUUU-

In the skate park of Thelma

Welcome to USAFPL Fingerboard Podcast, the official voice of fingerboarding culture from league news to community stories with real insight, writer interviews and heart of the scene. Please follow and turn on notifications for us. Now let's get into fingerboarding. I'm your host, Levine Cunningham. Today I've got Brian O'Neill. Brian, welcome to the pod.

Speaker 2 (00:41)
Whatever dude, just whatever.

Speaker 1 (00:44)
I love the energy.

Speaker 2 (00:46)
shitty ass day and finger boarding.

Speaker 1 (00:48)
Yeah, we got some good news. We got some bad news. We got some better news and some even better news than that. So we're in for a, you're in for a treat. We've got, we've got everything. We get everything from David Jones to black river store closings to bringing people to Germany, to national events, to you name it.

Speaker 2 (01:10)
Boy, I like how you set all that up. makes people want to stay listening. You know, they're all going to click off in like 10, 15 seconds anyway. So now they got the whole rundown.

Speaker 1 (01:18)
Do

that? But do that really.

Speaker 2 (01:21)
No, they don't because we're going to talk. I'm going to talk. I'm just tired of holding my tongue. And I know most of you out there think I don't hold my tongue, but I am done holding my tongue. We're going to talk some we're going to talk about some stuff today.

Speaker 1 (01:33)
Man, ⁓ I'm kind of here for it. I think low key, I'm definitely here for it. I usually hold you back a little bit, but I feel like...

Speaker 2 (01:41)
This is the news section. David Jones is on the cover of issue 11. That's cool. That's dropping right now, right?

Speaker 1 (01:47)
Yeah, right now today. mean, I'm not going to say not to go on the Pliesmag.com and go check it out for free, but ⁓ yeah, don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:54)
Yeah, don't do it.

You know, here's the weird thing David Jones, like I've talked to the dude a couple times super cool dude, right? Like you like super cool dude. Um, but he's like at a different level. Like he just he's just like he's just at a different level as far as the Instagram world and everything else is concerned. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 1 (02:17)
No, for sure. He's been around since the beginning.

Speaker 2 (02:20)
And almost immediately we got like people hating on the Instagram post. And I'm kind of like, holy s***, what it means to be dealing with like the top level MFers out there in this game.

Speaker 1 (02:35)
I feel like the higher in the archive, like the hierarchy that you go, like the more haters you kind of accumulate on your way up to the top.

Speaker 2 (02:44)
But I mean, are they hating just because they want to stand out in a crowd of positive comments? What is the dynamics of the person sitting there going, oh yeah, David Jones. The dude is incredibly positive, super helpful, supportive. Every finger boarder that meets him walks away with a great experience. I can see why people freak out and start like.

Toxically going back and like answering all of the negatives like super fast

Speaker 1 (03:15)
The haters cuz they hate us.

Speaker 2 (03:18)
Okay, well David Jones drops today. He is a super cool dude. Don't check it out Don't don't go to plies magazine comm Plies mag comm it's available right now Go flip through it post in the comments how much you hate it. I don't care. Let's do it

Speaker 1 (03:33)
Yeah, just do it one. All right. So like, I don't know if anybody saw this, but the t-shirt with the gorilla marketing.

Speaker 2 (03:40)
⁓ you know what? didn't even want to say anything about it because like listen, that's what I'm talking about with this David Jones, dude He is at a different freaking level like he went to Chicago to fill to take if you guys haven't seen his video edit We'll put a link to it down here went to Chicago specifically to film photos for the Plies magazine issue Super appreciative great shout outs. Thank you so much for shouting us out in those videos the mother

wore a Grilla Marketing t-shirt for those photoshoots. is next level. Petty awesomeness. I love it.

Speaker 1 (04:16)
You know what this reminds me of is ⁓ the money grabbing horse t-shirt, the toy t-shirt. kind of like did the same thing. If you haters want to call you out on it, you know, you might as well put it on a shirt. feel like we should put it on a shirt.

Speaker 2 (04:24)
next level.

Yeah, we should. We'll just copy all of these f***ing comments and put them on shirts. I love-

Speaker 1 (04:34)
it. love it. But no, we can't we can't continue on with the toxicity, but we do got to call out the toxicity when it's out there for sure.

Speaker 2 (04:41)
I don't know what toxicity is, but toxicity. Yeah, I'm down. Let's do it. We're gonna blame it on the braces.

Speaker 1 (04:44)
Yeah, all that.

Blame it on the braces. Love you brother.

Speaker 2 (04:52)
Other news stuff we got dude we got the thing that's got me bummed out and kind of pissed off and I don't know I don't know how to even deal with this stuff, but Black River store closed last Saturday

Speaker 1 (05:03)
Yeah,

so their final event was last week's Saturday. So this is kind of like a mark of a era, but I'm hoping that this becomes a mark of a new era.

Speaker 2 (05:15)
I'm just sick of it. Like I am so, I mean, listen, okay, first off, number one, Black River is the Bible. Bitches, Black River is the Bible. Okay. They were here before us. They're going to be here after us. Their store closing. I don't really has anything to do necessarily with the overall business of Black River. But if Black River is having trouble maintaining a store in the United States, wake the f**k up. Like that's all I got. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how else to say it guys.

We got people like this FB out there in Colorado. got Steven Levine had a store in Indianapolis. If, if the stores are not able to be sustainable for some reason, and if black river can't sustain it, good Lord, it's, it's gotta be, it's gotta be tough. It's gotta be hard out there in the world. You know I'm saying? Facts. Make your trips, go to the events, go to skate station over in Utah, go to this finger boarding, go to, ⁓

Go to Phoenix FB down there in Dallas. You got to get your asses in your cars and go to these shops. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (06:22)
said couldn't be said any better. You definitely got to support the scene. You got to support especially anything that's physical. So like anything that's physical, there's overhead on all of that stuff. So you're talking about storefronts. You're talking about print for applies magazines. Like you're talking about all kinds of stuff. So if it's a physical product, best believe that there's overhead on that stuff, anything digital, pretty low overhead, but you're talking about some physical products, physical storefronts, things like that. I mean, it takes a lot to make those things sustainable.

Speaker 2 (06:50)
So what happened? What's what's going on? I know you were just you were just up in Chicago like it was what Thursday before the close the store closing. Did you do it Levine?

Speaker 1 (07:00)
I did. your fault. was my fault. I know. Yeah, we came up Thursday, two days before the official store closing event. I sat down, talked with Denise and Ollie, picked their brain a little bit. We got some pretty cool details and stuff like that for 2026 and 2027, which we'll get into that a little bit further into the episode. Get some great leaks and stuff there. But I mean, they have

Speaker 2 (07:02)
It's your fault. You b-

Speaker 1 (07:26)
They've got some struggles. So I want to kind of lead this conversation off with like, this isn't doom and gloom. This is basically like finessing and figuring out the keys to keeping a storefront open. So like I had a storefront in Minneapolis, so I can definitely speak on my experiences firsthand and with the entire community, Black River, you know, they're going through some stuff and they're going through a lot of the same struggles that everybody's going through. But I think I figured out the formula for a sustainable business model for.

Speaker 2 (07:54)
What's the formula, dude? Tell me the formula, because I need to hear this.

Speaker 1 (07:57)
All right. So you have to keyword have to have a hundred percent of all of your expenses paid for through online retail and distribution of some sort. Meaning that your foot traffic through the door items being purchased in the door is where all your profits are made. So a hundred percent of everything else cannot come from the foot traffic through the door.

Speaker 2 (08:23)
Wait, what?

Speaker 1 (08:25)
That's where your profits are is the foot traffic. So if you're relying on foot traffic, I think that's a failing model. I think that you have to be able to make profits from the foot traffic, but I don't think that your expenses can be covered by the foot traffic alone. think that anything walking through the door should just be extra on top, but it can't be purely just from foot traffic through the door. So most shops that are sustainable that had been here a long time, you know, like this FB, he's a print shop first, finger boarding second. So theoretically the print shop covers

everything and then the finger boarding is basically second nature allegedly allegedly allegedly

Speaker 2 (09:01)
We got it. We got to do a letter Kenny thing on here because like, you we don't know whether they that ostrich or not, but allegedly. But this FBI just saw a video drop. I think it was Casper who dropped. It was the walkthrough of this FBI out in Denver. Did you see it? It's like two weeks, two weeks, two or three weeks old or something. But man, it was just amazing. And these shops are spending so much money and overhead just to create a place where you can go fingerboard.

You know I'm saying like you had a shop in Indianapolis. Hell, you had 30 parks setting in the middle of your shop. It was the biggest show up playground arena in the country and you know, Indy was. mean, Indy is a great. don't know. Indy is a great part of the country, but man, there just wasn't enough people supporting the shop to keep it going. And we had we were trying online sales. We were trying lots of things. We just weren't there yet. You know what mean? Like.

If we had the online box figured out and working good and smooth, if we had Plies magazine up and going at the time that you had your shop, that was what, two years ago now? If we had all those other boxes operating and stuff, it would have been a totally different story with the USAFPL headquarters shop. like, know, Stephen down in Dallas, he's, you know, I mean, he's cranking out, he's cranking out RC car racing and finger boarding. You know, I mean, you gotta be able to, to,

In Levine and I's world, and I don't want to bore everybody to death with business discussions, but in our world, we talk about our businesses based on boxes, right? Well, a box is something that you put money into and then it kicks out a certain amount of money. Like you put money into the storefront, right? And people walk in, they buy retail, all that kind of stuff. It kicks out a certain amount of money. The problem with retail boxes right now is retail is a 50 plus. God, I don't want to bug. I don't want to drive everybody crazy with the details of it.

But if you buy an item for $10, you've got to be able to sell it for $20, right? I mean, that's just like almost like the basic numbers of retail sales and stuff in the finger boarding market with all the custom finger boards and all that other kind of stuff. That's not always possible to do. I mean, you're buying 15 $20 custom decks. You can't sell them for necessarily for $50 every day of the week as a retail item in your store. So

Without having that online option and those other things, that's what the line's talking about. You really just can't move enough product to keep the margin high enough for you to pay all your bills.

Speaker 1 (11:28)
Yeah, basically, long story short, you've got to have something that basically covers the entirety of your business where foot traffic is second tier at second. It's just the extra, so sprinkles on the cake, basically.

Speaker 2 (11:40)
Well, the problem is, is we're talking to like maybe 10 people in the entire finger boarding industry right now. Like there's only like 10 people out there that are paying overhead for a building and everything else. We got veto. got, you know, we mentioned them and stuff like that. The other conversation we got to have is with the finger board deckmakers and product makers and stuff like that. We got to be quick about this. I don't want to go into it we've got a lot of shit to get through, but guys, you got to make sustainable product. You got to make sustainable product. It's got to be available to shops.

Like I know we've had conversations with people on the podcast. They're like, yeah, I'm not really looking at selling to shops and stuff like that right now. I get it. You can make your own little Etsy thing and sell your finger boards real quick, right? But shops have to have access to finger boards and finger board equipment and finger board stuffs. How many brands was, how many brands was Black River carrying up there?

Speaker 1 (12:34)
I honestly couldn't tell you. I'd probably say maybe a dozen brands that weren't Black River products.

Speaker 2 (12:40)
Yeah, and there I mean it was like, okay. Yeah, we got two of these decks left We got one of these decks left. No, dude, you gotta have like 20 of those decks left That's how I mean, that's how a shop works You know one of the core aspects of our mine and leviathan's business and we might cut this out because we don't want to give away the secret sauce But it's availability and consistency dude It's all about being available and being consistent if you want to steal that steal it and make it part of your business It doesn't matter whether your business is on your kitchen counter

Or it's in a brick and mortar shop. You know, gotta be available and you gotta have consistency. That's what wins the game.

Speaker 1 (13:14)
Nothing but facts being told right here. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (13:18)
Alright, what else about the Black River store closing? this creates a big giant hole. mean, Chicago is a massive community for finger boarding. So what's going to happen, dude? Like, well, first of all, why did they close? Do you know any insight about that?

Speaker 1 (13:33)
So based off of.

what they have released and the questions that I asked them based off of that. mean, they didn't have a CPA. They didn't have an accountant, which they, you know, made that clear during their store closing announcement. But the other big thing was just tariffs, the tariffs and the ability to get their product here into the United States has been a massive issue for Black River. So getting their product here to the store, getting their product here, period. just like right now, like you can't go on to Black River, Germany,

⁓ and pick up items unless it's...

through express shipping because that's the only route that they can actually ship it directly to us. So there's not really an affordable shipping option for them right now. And they're working on figuring all that out and stuff like that for Christmas season, but it's been a absolute strain on their business. So not having an accountant, that stuff will definitely lead to anyone's demise, but that's definitely some things that they could have basically done better, but also some things that you you couldn't help. You can't help tariffs. You can't help all this stuff happening on a whim and being able to adapt to that stuff. So it's tough out here for sure. Yeah.

It's tough out here for sure.

Speaker 2 (14:39)
All right. And is there anything that we want to talk about after the fact? So the show, the store is closed down, but what's happening? What's happening with that space? What's going on?

Speaker 1 (14:49)
So this is a lot to unpack and this story is amazing and fun and also slightly concerning all at the same time, but we're gonna come through this. So Black River store is gonna be officially done at the end of the month. So September 30th, their store is gonna be officially done.

Andy, who currently runs the store right now is basically starting a new lease in the same exact spot that the Black River store is. same address, same spot, same

Speaker 2 (15:21)
Bat

Channel, same bat location.

Speaker 1 (15:23)
Yeah, but they're doing a finger boarding only store there as well. It's going to be called index. So I don't know if I'm even allowed to say that, but we may have to edit. Yeah, but it's going to be called index. Their new lease will start on the 1st, so October 1st, and they're going to be opening their store mid October. So I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say that or not. He said he was going to make some announcements. So we'll see if you hear it here first or if you actually see it on Instagram first, but.

Speaker 2 (15:33)
You might be bleeping that out.

Is Nash, is Nash still in there with him?

Speaker 1 (15:53)
Yeah, so Nash is still part of the equation. I didn't get a chance to meet up with him when I was there at the store Thursday, so I can't speak on his involvement, but I do know that he is involved in there. I just don't know what capacity so.

Speaker 2 (16:07)
Well, we wish them all the luck in the world, man, but like it is not easy to be. I mean, it's just not easy to be running a store front in fricking downtown Chicago. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 (16:17)
It's tough. mean, rents are tough. Space is tight. mean, it's definitely.

It's going to be interesting nonetheless. I've got, mean, I've reached out to them in person and both online. I'm like, dude, if you guys need anything, you guys need parks, whatever it is, like hit me up. You got my full support. I'm definitely here to try to make things happen. Cause like for us FPL being like the platform, like we need more stores opening up, not stores closing down. Like that doesn't help us out at all. Like I need 50 storefronts opening up next year. Like that's what we need. that.

Speaker 2 (16:47)
Let's also

call it. Let's call out the frickin people to deckmakers But I if we had five deckmakers we can say okay guys listen I need you to make a hundred decks a hundred decks and then I need you to contact the active brick-and-mortar stores and make sure they have access to buy and sell those decks just 100

Everybody doing these five deck drops or six deck drops and selling them out in 15 minutes. Screw that. Make a hundred decks. Make those decks available to these stores. Call them and say, Hey, listen, I've got a wholesale price on these decks. How many you want? Like these stores have to have your decks available, right?

Speaker 1 (17:27)
No, it was very, true. It was one of the biggest issues that I had with my store was waiting on, cause we had, man, we had probably like 40, 40, 45 brands that were in my store, but the problems were it's like, I can only keep like 15 to 20 brands in stock at a time just because of the time it takes to place your order, get the product made, get the product shipped. And then actually like,

clearing all that product out and getting it onto a shelf and pricing all that cool stuff. that process is a minute. like you definitely is a shortage of companies that have product available all the time.

Speaker 2 (18:01)
Decks, ⁓ 3D printed stuff. just met with, you just had a, we just did a podcast with Ryan with, what's that company? Yeah, man, their stuff is amazing and they're ready to go. I mean, they've got retail stuff. We gotta get the retail. mean, guys, listen, retail is about availability, dude. If you want your stuff seen and I mean, I understand it's cool. Drop it on Instagram, sell it out really quick. Hey, cool. You're an artist.

Speaker 1 (18:09)
future Brown Prince, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:30)
If you want to be a entrepreneur and you want to take your business to the next level, you got to figure out how to live inside the supply chain too, right? Yeah. And the supply chain is what's really breaking these shops because they can't depend on a supply chain.

Speaker 1 (18:43)
It's wild out here for sure. But yeah, if you can, people can start figuring out ways to kind of crack the code and stuff. It's only going to benefit you. It's also going to benefit the community and stuff as well. Cause like I said, it takes a, it takes a village.

Speaker 2 (18:54)
Well, okay, best of luck to Andy. Hopefully Nash is still with him and stuff. Guys, if you guys, Andy, Nash, speaking directly to you, if you need anything, you need any help, you need any support, we're obviously here for you, man. Andy's long-term USAFBL writer. We've been through the mud and muck with him. He was in 2021 with us, doing videos and stuff with us.

Speaker 1 (19:19)
Yeah, he went on a tour with us for the entire 2022 season and the entire 2023 season. like Andy, AKA Knife Daddy, I mean, ⁓ he's been with us since day one.

Speaker 2 (19:31)
What's the shop's name again? Do we know it's index?

Speaker 1 (19:33)
Yeah

Speaker 2 (19:35)
Like

your index finger so like in which one's your index finger? This is your pointer finger. Is it what's Which one is your index finger? Fuck? I forgot. Is this your index finger?

Speaker 1 (19:38)
index finger

Yeah,

all right and everything.

Speaker 2 (19:49)
All right, cool. That's my index finger. All right, cool. What else we got going on, What else is happening in October?

Speaker 1 (19:56)
We've got our national event happening in November and October. I don't know why I said that.

Speaker 2 (20:02)
I

don't know either like you know, I'm gonna leave it in but okay So we got we got to mix this up a little bit because people are sick and tired of hearing us talk about our national event But it is happening literally as you're watching this podcast. It's happening a week and half from now, right?

Speaker 1 (20:16)
Yeah, it's coming up and it's coming up fast.

Speaker 2 (20:18)
October

10th 11th and 12 three days at the Marriott East Conference Center Don't fucking click off this video pay attention what I'm telling you a Marriott East Conference Center and hotel three days of shredding three days of hanging out ultimate finger boarding weekend in the Midwest is happening again October 10th 11th and 12th, right and You're still trying to get your hotel. I think there's a moment. I mean, I think there's some rooms left is there

Speaker 1 (20:46)
Yeah, we've got a few rooms left in the room block. If you guys are looking to get a discount on those rooms, definitely call up the hotel, book your room, tell them to put it on the United States from the Warden League room block and they'll get you taken care of. Save that money.

Speaker 2 (20:59)
We got some vendor space left. I think we got one or two spaces left for vendors too.

Speaker 1 (21:03)
Yeah, if you guys are still kind of on the fence last minute, whether or not you can make it out or not, I've got at least one or two more vendor booth spots left. So if you're looking to come out and rep your brand, sell some merch, connect with all the attendees, see all the hype, it's definitely the best time, best place to do so.

Speaker 2 (21:19)
OK, and what's happening at Nationals this year is basically we've gone through Portland, Philly, Detroit and Atlanta. You guys can go to USAFBL.com. You can see all the top ranked finger boarders of those four regional events. We've got them coming to Indianapolis again October 10th, 11th to 12th, and they are battling it out for a trip to Fast Fingers 22, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:46)
Yeah,

I'm excited for this.

Speaker 2 (21:48)
is

crazy and we actually can confirm kind of we can confirm fast figures 22 is absolutely happening right in 2026.

Speaker 1 (21:59)
Yeah, that was one of the main reasons for me to come up and go to the Black River store was to have that meeting, sit down, chit chat with them, talk about all of the cool collaborations and stuff that we have going down for 2026. And we are not only sending people to Germany for Fast Fingers 22, but we have also sat down and talked about some of the VIP experiences that we are going to be giving to these people as well.

Speaker 2 (22:25)
What does that mean VIP? What are we talking about? Well strip clubs in Germany. Surely they do. They got to have clubs in Germany.

Speaker 1 (22:28)
man, we're talking about I'm sure

Maybe, I don't know. I'm married, I can't tell.

Speaker 2 (22:37)
You're so full of shit. many times you've been, you've been over to, I'm married. can't tell. I'm married. I don't see other women.

Speaker 1 (22:45)
Exactly. I'm trying to get me in trouble. They don't even exist. They don't even. All right.

Speaker 2 (22:48)
They're invisible to me!

So, okay, so Fast Winger's 22 is absolutely happening. We've got the top people in Game of Skate. ⁓ Well, it's not Game it's Battle of the Plies, Combo of the Year, Line of the Year, from the Nationals, the top spots are gonna be going to Germany. We can't tell you when, but we do know that it's gonna be in the first half of 2026.

Speaker 1 (23:15)
Man, it takes every bone in my body to not leak the dates. ⁓

Speaker 2 (23:19)
Yeah,

yeah, but the first, you know, it's happening in 2026. We're going to be on our dime. We're going to be going overseas and we're going to be battling it out at Fast Fingers 22 to hopefully grab that that that world champion spot, right?

Speaker 1 (23:33)
I want, man, I don't know if it's just the pride in being an American, but I want an American to win this contest for once. I want someone other than a German writer to win this, but I really want an American writer to win this.

Speaker 2 (23:49)
55 years old dude I'm always thinking Rocky Balboa in the and the and then the Russian fight was his name what was the guy the big giant Russian guy

I would crush you or something. Yeah, Break you. Yeah, I just want our little I want our little American guy to go over there. I mean, it's nothing against Germany. We love you guys. But like I want our little American guy to go over there and just like crush everybody. For sure. You didn't even see it coming. Yeah, I want to rock. We're to play the Eye of the Tiger.

Speaker 1 (24:13)
Yeah,

the entire way there on the plane. Hey, faster. Listen.

Speaker 2 (24:34)
Black River Black River have it queued up guys you better have Eye of the Tiger ready if one of our American riders wins Fast Fingers 22

That has a-

Speaker 1 (24:53)
The song that like plays whenever we announce the writers coming up.

Speaker 2 (24:57)
They start throwing water at everybody and like, you know, confetti's going off. It's like.

Speaker 1 (25:01)
Man, all right, but yeah, we're talking about sending our best to FastFingers22. We've got some cool VIP experiences. We got some behind the scenes stuff set up for you guys and some private Black River tours of the headquarters and things like that. So we've got some cool stuff lined up for the winners that are gonna be going on that trip next year.

Speaker 2 (25:20)
You're going to go to a strip club with LeVarne too.

Speaker 1 (25:23)
there may or may not be a stroke of open walled.

Speaker 2 (25:25)
Okay, but it has nothing to do with blacker, but there might be a strip club. Okay. Hey, real quick, let's talk about teak tuning. Uh, because I just need to make sure that you, uh, people know that if you go to teak tuning, put in plies 10, you'll get 10 % off your entire order at teak tuning.com. Uh, teak tuning because by God, you deserve a discount. That sucked. What do you got?

Speaker 1 (25:27)
Thank you very much.

saying times are tough go pick up some cool swag save some money teaktuning.com

Speaker 2 (25:56)
Teak tuning dot com teak tuning teak tuning dot com bitches do it twice Okay, what else we got? Okay, we got to get through this Telling everybody about how to get to fast fingers 22. We've got an entire list here I'm thinking I see two pages here Levine But I'm turning it over to you rifle through this shit fast because people are sick of hearing about it. Let's do it. All

Speaker 1 (26:01)
10. Do it now.

We've got a three day weekend event, October 10th, 11th and 12th. Friday is the qualifiers. Saturday is the national championships and Sunday. That's our, ⁓ our season ending sesh. It's not season ending like USFPL is done. It's season ending, meaning that everything leading up from sanction events to regionals and nationals is all coming to a close. So Sunday, just to chill, skate the parks one last time kind of day, but we've got a fun, fulfilled weekend stored for you guys. So.

Speaker 2 (26:49)
Is Chris Daniels gonna win this whole damn thing after I gave him shit because he was an influencer and not a real fingerboarder and that motherfucker won like all these places in Portland?

Speaker 1 (26:58)
⁓

Honestly, don't know he's got to pull up he's got to show out and he's got to dominate to get that number one spot

Speaker 2 (27:10)
think Chris Daniels is going to win it. What do you think?

You can't say, wait a minute, you can't say you're running this shit. I don't know. Like I think, ⁓ Baja extra blasts is, is definitely in the running. Chris Daniels, who else have we got? ⁓ that's it. That's already guaranteed. That's going to be a nationals. Do you know

Speaker 1 (27:29)
Man, we've got several stuff. Like I can actually run through some crazy stats. it. Okay, so we've got some crazy stats. We've got some crazy individuals in attendance. So let's start off with the West. So we've got the number one ranked finger boarder in the West. We've got Chris Daniels, AKA CD player zero. Number one in Cody, number three in Battle of the Plies.

number one in Lodi for the Western regionals. So he's going to be in attendance representing the West. And I know, I know the West man, they are, there's some prideful people. know they hate us cause they ain't us. ⁓ it is a hot take. I don't know if I want to get into it, but we got CD player zero coming in from the West representing the West. Number one ranked person in the West that'll be in attendance. And he is going to be throwing down that weekend, trying to claim his spot.

Speaker 2 (28:10)
That was kind of a hot take.

Speaker 1 (28:26)
for FastFingers22. East. The East. Alright, so we've got Tanner Hench aka TH Fingerboarding. He is a clean sweep in the east. We're talking about the number one ranked person for Cody, Lodi, and Battle of the Plies.

Speaker 2 (28:27)
What about you?

And he's also a team writer, right? Team writer for teak.

Speaker 1 (28:44)
He is a team rider for TEEX. Yeah, he's representing TEEX Tuning, putting TEEX Tuning on the map, so...

Speaker 2 (28:49)
Go ahead bitches come at us think like we're think like we're being biased or not But the dude came in and swept first place in all the games

Speaker 1 (28:57)
all three contest. He is going to be in attendance this weekend as well or that weekend. I'm sorry. We're talking about some heat. All right. So I always say like the North is like definitely the division, the region to basically try to beat. And that's purely because of how many monsters that they are on the Northern roster.

Speaker 2 (29:15)
Okay, give us one. What's one not monster?

Speaker 1 (29:17)
So we've got the number one ranked Matt Witt aka Colt Boards who will be representing the northern region number one in Cody, Lodi and third in Battle of the Plies for the northern regional event.

Speaker 2 (29:29)
And North has like, North has literally 41 or so qualifiers for the nationals in their, in their roster. They're super deep. ⁓ So like North definitely could take it regardless, but Matt Witt is, is definitely nobody to be trifled.

Speaker 1 (29:37)
They're rolling deep.

You

with. No doubt. mean, we also got the number two ranked as well, going to be in attendance. Michael Smith, AKA classy fingers, number two in battle applies. I mean, hand to hand combat. is lethal. So I'm excited to see these matchups go down as well. A couple other noteworthy people that'll be in attendance from the north. We've got Duncan Hodgins, AKA donut finger dot FB. ⁓

Speaker 2 (30:11)
I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit what that what that guy placed. He is I love his videos.

Speaker 1 (30:15)
killer videos, but I mean, he is a heavy, heavy hitter in the sanction events. And I know he's looking to get some redemption here at this national event as well. So I wouldn't count him out. And we got the number three guy in the North as well. Noah junkage, who's going to be there. Number three in battle applies hand to hand combat. He's a young gun, but I mean, I feel like he's really, really, really good for his age. So don't count him out.

Speaker 2 (30:39)
Okay, enough about the north dude, what about south?

Speaker 1 (30:42)
All right, we got some interesting stuff and some stats here for the South. So we got the number one ranked Mitchell rushing AKA Mitch rush FB with a clean sweep for the Southern regionals. Lodi Cody and battle applies number one. But what makes this interesting is that he is actually from Illinois. So he's from the North and he flew down to Atlanta. So he didn't compete in the Northern region.

Speaker 2 (31:07)
Foul!

Speaker 1 (31:08)
No, two fouls. He can only compete in one regional. So he actually flew down to Atlanta, clean swept the South. I don't know how I would feel if I was from the South knowing that a Northern guy came down and took it all. But he will also be in attendance. So we got Mitch Rush going to be in attendance. We've got some straight up heat, some battles getting ready to go down that weekend. So we're got some exciting weekend of finger boarding ahead of us.

Speaker 2 (31:30)
So we will have all number one seats at the event,

Speaker 1 (31:33)
Right? Yeah, so all number one seeds will be at the event. We also have three of the number two seeds that will also be at the event as well.

Speaker 2 (31:42)
If you want to, I mean, listen, we're not all about competitions, but literally the best finger borders in the country are going to be in Indianapolis, October the 10th, 11th and 12th period. Hands down, never before done. First time ever. You're still going to be able to go have a good time with your friends. You're going to have 30 parks to sesh all weekend long, three day event as opposed to a two day event. There's going to be vendors, everything else, literally the best finger borders in the country.

Possibly the world I said it I'll say it again. They're gonna be in Indianapolis next weekend the 10th 11th and 12th

Speaker 1 (32:19)
Exactly, so yeah, we've got a fun day of shredding, fun day of hanging out, fun day of watching the contest, being in the contest, also being able to compete. So I mean, we've got a lot of cool stuff going down that weekend. Definitely some noteworthy stuff for sure.

Speaker 2 (32:32)
Alright, we gotta keep this thing moving. What else? What else we want to talk about with that everybody everybody coming out of the nationals and the the regionals and the national events top three positions are getting trading cards made for them pro finger boarding trader cards, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:48)
super super excited about this. Can we leak some of the images on the

Speaker 2 (32:52)
We already did. sent you a damn video and you've been promoting it as some of the people that are showing up in Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 (32:59)
Yeah, but we gave away some samples. Like I'm talking about like more, more official content, like more.

Speaker 2 (33:04)
What, like you want to see a picture of Chris Daniels right here? Yeah. Or do you want or do you want to see a picture of like Matt Witt right here?

Speaker 1 (33:07)
Yeah, what's gonna be?

Speaker 2 (33:15)
all you want to do you want to know you'll see them

Speaker 1 (33:18)
do it. Let's let's show. Let's showcase it. mean these.

Speaker 2 (33:21)
We're

be ending up with trading cards for the top pro fingerboarders coming out of 2025 regional events. And of course, we're going to have those national winners. They're going to be on their own trading card. We're going to identify them a little bit better. They're coming from the pool of over 140 fingerboarders that have competed so far at the regionals and going to the national level event. Where are we at? What else? What else? You know, that one of the trading cards, you think they're going to be available?

Speaker 1 (33:50)
Man, I want to say that they will be available sometime late November, maybe early December, but definitely before Christmas. ⁓ my goal is to like, is for people to literally like get these like underneath the Christmas tree and just like, yeah, like I'm all about it.

Speaker 2 (34:05)
Of we got November and we got December. We're going to be able to talk about the winners of the event in Plies Magazine, pliesmag.com. Don't go there. Do not get a subscription. ⁓

Speaker 1 (34:17)
you know something I just forgot? Well, that too. Let's do things. So, Plies Mag is now officially the longest running finger boarding magazine in existence. So far.

Speaker 2 (34:20)
What? our t-shirt! you forgot two things. I forgot two-

so far.

Start up bitches, come at us, see what you can do.

Speaker 1 (34:39)
facts, but that's still a pretty crazy feat. We've achieved the unachievable, think. ⁓

Speaker 2 (34:46)
We'll pat ourselves on the back. Okay, but fuck that. We're gonna have all of the ⁓ we have the winners and stuff. We're be talking about them through through November and December. We got us. We still have Day in Life contest coming up, right?

Speaker 1 (34:59)
Yeah, we've got the day in the life contest. featured that in this issues of applies. So go check out their day in the life edits. Also for nationals will be in a full attendance as well. definitely submit your day in the life for national so that you can win man, a year's subscription applies mag and for tour t-shirts for something that you're going to do anyways.

Speaker 2 (35:20)
Now we're sponsored by teak tuning. We also have media sponsors, Plies magazine, obviously us, USA FBL underscore FBP, which is what you're fricking watching or listening to right now. ⁓ when we talk about some of the vendors and stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:36)
Yeah, we've got 27 decks, teak tuning, lost in transition, it, GK, fingerboard company, I hope I'm saying. I, I, I, I, board paradise late arrival, but he's going to be in attendance as well with the vendor booth, curbed FB, lots of love crafts. Of course applies to mag and USA FBL. So we got like a, what 10, 10 vendor roster coming down.

Speaker 2 (35:46)
Say it again. Say it again. Do it again. I-I-I-I-

I don't know, screw that Curbed FB, they don't, I don't like them.

Speaker 1 (36:09)
Don't buy stuff from Curved. ⁓

Speaker 2 (36:13)
by stock.

But our sponsors, sponsors for our national event who got

Speaker 1 (36:19)
Yeah, we got teak tuning, lots of love crafts, curved fingerboards, entity fingerboard wheels, Islander ramps, ledge gloss wax, Mucks Pops, Mucks FB, silent skateboards, Sweet Kandamas, Totally Rad skateboards, Workers FB, Zona Wood FB, Spitboards, Wood Club Fingerboarding, Warehouse Ramps, Black River Official, and man, I gotta go to like what, another page? We got a lot of sponsors.

Elastico, Spicy Boardco, Flatface, Gemfinger Boards, ThisFB, This Denver, Cubeco, iLoaf, PliesMag, USFPL, and StaticSpaceFB.

Speaker 2 (37:01)
I don't even think listen, you guys don't even know what you're doing. You're not even compared to this guy, Levine Cunningham. He's got the sponsors. He's got the brought to you buys. He's got all the stuff going on and you need to just go to Indianapolis again, October 10th, 11th or 12th, even if it's to do nothing else but to give him shit about being just such a big bad baller in this space.

Speaker 1 (37:23)
Either way, it's going to be a great time. I'm here for it. We got a fun weekend planned ahead of you guys. We've got finger border stores coming and going. We got new stuff popping up. I'm excited. I think 2025 is going to end up with a bang. And I think 2026, we've got some stuff curated for you guys for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:41)
And right now you can go look at Plas Magazine, Plasmag.com, David Jones on the cover. And we've got a write up about him in there.

Speaker 1 (37:48)
Definitely, also an exclusive poster for all of the subscribers.

Speaker 2 (37:53)
shit, I wasn't gonna tell them that. That's just for the subscribers though,

Speaker 1 (37:56)
Yeah, if you're a print subscriber, if you're not a print subscriber, you can go become a subscriber. We're going to send you the mag and an exclusive free poster.

Speaker 2 (38:04)
Okay, but you gotta be a subscriber. That's secret sauce shit. Okay, it's leak time, bitch. Let's do the leaks. What do we got? What are we leaking? You said it earlier in the damn podcast, you were going to leak some shit.

Speaker 1 (38:08)
That is secret sauce stuff.

What are we leaking?

I've been leaking stuff all the way through the pod.

Speaker 2 (38:20)
so we didn't tell them that it was a leak? They're not going to know. They're going to think it's shit we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (38:25)
man, we leaked the new store in Chicago, we leaked Fast Fingers happening in 20... I can actually leak... should I leak some dates?

Speaker 2 (38:33)
For Fast Fingers? Yeah, go ahead, I'd love to see us get, like, sued.

Speaker 1 (38:37)
don't say that. Alright, this is what's going down. The month? I'll give it the month.

Speaker 2 (38:43)
You can, can you say that? Wait a minute. As far as we know right now, the month is now go ahead.

Speaker 1 (38:45)
It starts

It starts with a J. That's all I can say.

Speaker 2 (38:56)
It's June, July, January. That's three different. It's not in January.

Speaker 1 (39:02)
We don't know that it's not in January.

Speaker 2 (39:05)
July June I'm sure I'm thinking June I'm thinking I don't know like but those are the only three months to start with a J right

Speaker 1 (39:06)
In summer

You got options, but it starts with a J.

Speaker 2 (39:16)
It's not January, but you can't be January. We can't go to we can't go to Germany in January. So like, it's got to be June or June or fuck. OK, we'll find out. I'm sure it'll come from Black River. They'll end up telling us. All right. Anything else?

Speaker 1 (39:32)
No, I think we killed it. think,

Speaker 2 (39:34)
Even a

fun was this is fun freaking up. Are you guys subscribed? Are you subscribed to the channel? Did you click the thing? I mean the more people to subscribe the less I'm going to be on this thing I'm just saying like if you subscribe we once we hit well wait wait once we hit 100,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel, we're gonna be giving away a a gold covered finger

Speaker 1 (40:00)
gold covered fingerboard. You know that these people literally save it and snip it and then they're literally waiting for this. the

Speaker 2 (40:07)
Fuck you bitches if you want to win a gold a gold encrusted fingerboard help us get to a hundred thousand subscribers

Speaker 1 (40:14)
Sounds like another case of the lifetime plies mag thing. Yeah the tattoo go

Speaker 2 (40:20)
Old

covered fingerboard once we had a hundred thousand one of you motherfuckers are gonna win it

Speaker 1 (40:25)
Shout out to FB Moose. Yeah, we're like, yeah, dude, like go get a applies tat. Mike will give you a lifetime subscription applies mag and then like, sure enough, like four months later, he's like, yeah, look at this, look at this tat. And I'm like, okay, cool. Then you like, you don't remember what you said. And I'm like, no, we just talk shit on the mic all the time. So I don't know. And so.

Speaker 2 (40:33)
Sure, I'm gonna do it.

Yeah,

you want to win a gold fingerboard help us get to 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, Spotify and all the places that you get your podcast. ⁓

Speaker 1 (40:50)
Exactly. Till next time.

Speaker 2 (41:00)
You can look right in the sky

Speaker 1 (41:05)
every sliding crime don't chase and die

See the board and let's steal the show! I'm fighting free with every flick. I'll write my story In the skate park I found my home

Take tight, I'm soaring like a bird Every trick or story, every slide or word Climbing on the edge, I'm pretty old Fingerboardin' In this thinkerboardin' dream I'm fighting free

Speaker 2 (41:51)
in the mall with the waiting call they scream

as they

Speaker 1 (42:48)
Escape from my home, you're and feel the thrill, chasing feelings and never ending the will.