One silver lining in the California drought of the mid-1970's--a cloudless silver lining, to be sure--was that swimming pools were empty, skateboarders took advantage, and the modern skate board movement was born:
[Steve Alba], Salba (as he’s known), now 57, was among the second wave of pioneering skateboarders after the Z-Boys, so named for the Zephyr surfboard shop in Santa Monica that they frequented. He helped popularize vertical, or “vert,” skateboarding during the 1970s, when a severe drought in Southern California kept many residents from filling their swimming pools.
The deep bowls in today’s custom-designed skate parks are modeled after the private pools that Salba and his gang used to sneak into, merrily launching their daredevil sky-bound tricks before the police came.
Now an Olympic sport, skateboarding is on the verge of breaking out:
The skate parks of Southern California—now influencing public spaces all over the world—are themselves copies of denuded urban thoroughfares. They emulate the outlaw tradition of skateboarding as a reimagination of staid, orderly cityscapes. Staircases, park benches, guardrails—they’re all there to be skated on.
Your humble blogger has never skateboarded--and will never do so now that aging knees make walking downhill a challenge--but as cities are being re-imagined the boarders' "scruffy DIY ethos" has become pervasive among the influential under-30 crowd.
Skateboarders sandbagged in Venice, CA (laist.com)
A couple of months ago a brief controversy ensued when authorities filled the Venice Beach Skate park with sand, and enthusiasts tried to remove the obstacle by hand. The health officials won, but as more becomes known about transmission of the coronavirus in the sunny outdoors they are looking sillier by the day. I don't think they'll try this again the next time.
Below: Steve Salba and the next generation hang out by the pool.
No comments:
Post a Comment