Part I. Historical
Remember the damn teacher yelling, “don’t run around the pool”? I was young but I was still irritated. Logical in her assumption, but passion doesn’t wait, so throw that all aside like a Burbank starlet. There exists a place where more difficult activities than walking around a filled pool of water are the worry. How about an empty pool, 10ft deep, hard concrete with multiple obstacles high and low and now your on a board with wheels zipping around like a electron in box. Yes a place does exist that has a definitely more interesting complete guide for the disregard of all logical physical boundaries and safety. The people I am speaking of are the skate boarding practitioners. I have witnessed an edgy sub-cultural of people that over 30 plus years are still feeling the wake of the initial movement. What is this madmen referring to you may be asking? Well don’t forget about the word mad, it will be needed later to describe the feats being created by such mad people. Venice California, a slue of twisted mutations of all ages, all diseased, all artists and assholes alike woven into a stream of chaotic mad energy and allowed to run free in a mix of higher tolerance. Yes, I claim that what I witness each morning at the skate park is nothing less than a new art form, which has stretched around the world.
The rant is necessary for I must capture the spirit of this art form. It is a glorious thing when one realizes the feats these practioners are succeeding at each day. Respect must be given for certain death lies ever so close. However this does not detour any age, sex, or class from joining the ranks. There are some rules as with anything but the one I’m interested in is: if it aint’ got style – its shit. I claim that this concept is the ideological soil for the mind to cultivate its consciousness from within. The act of skateboarding frees the mind from tomorrow and yesterday. Only the now can manipulate the skateboard so gracefully over smooth glassy concrete walls waiting to sink their teeth in. Skate boarding is an art form by all rights. By the end you should support me with the new label for this continuing movement, Skating Do – The style of consciousness. If you disagree, grab a board and try for yourself – Kook!
In many eastern philosophies and or martial arts the Do finishes the label of the art. Tae Kwon Do, Karate Do, Jeet kwon Do, ect, Do is defined as Art and or way of life. When contemplating this meaning as a younger lad, I realized the significance of this back then. To accept a mental set of principles that guide ones life until the act of living expresses the art form without thought. Ones life becomes the art. The movements, gestures, everything ceases to be mechanical the actions flow as milk does to a suckling infant.
Skateboarding is highly misinterpreted art form, due to its gritty anti-establishment attitude. My response is, “no shit.” Of course it’s anti establishment, modern day skating was birthed out of the ruins of a beach ghetto. Venice California was a place forgotten and left to rot by others. Why should they give a shit about conformity? Thirty-five years ago Venice was a slum, blue rag against red, V13 tagged across neighborhood and certainly no yuppie children in sight. This became the perfect soil for the release of pent up social energy. A few young surfers looked at this environment with a new eye and let their imaginations extend over their limitations. Without realizing it they were setting the building blocks for a new art form to evolve, which is shared by thousands of all ages today. They stepped out across their fears riding on the pure ecstasy of their vision. Homage of origin must be given to the Zephyr skateboarding team of the mid 1970’s. Without these young pioneers there would be no modern day skate boarding, as we know it today.
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