Last summer I had some free time in Santa Barbara and hung out at the skate park near the pier. I took maybe 200 shots and really didn’t like 99% of them. I think it was my vantage point and the skaters weren’t that good so I didn’t have much to go on.
I often hear skaters cruzing down the street in New York. In Manhattan, most of the skaters I see use the boards more for utility than sport or fun, often using long boards as their vehicle of choice to shorten their trip to the grocery store or post office. I skated when I was younger, however, to say that now, is to say I owned a board and I practiced maybe a handful of times a month. There was one summer in college I rode half pipe enough to complete clean transitions, rail slides or small pop out but there wasn’t much encouragement at the secluded pipe. I may still have my first Steve Caballero board in storage but I would never consider skating for errands in this city. When I’m nearly hit by bike messengers and reckless taxis on a weakly basis, how would I survive rolling unprotected in the streets with this chaos to contend with.
I’m sure it’s only a matter of a few decades before skating is in the Olympics, like snowboarding will be this winter. I’m looking forward to the 2010 games next month.
Face to Face – Disconnected
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Disconnected.mp3]