Jason Dill
wwwww
www
male viewers per household] watch the X Games than the
Superbowl." (TV Guide, 1998) Skating's primary beauty is that
it's so completely opposite to the slick, rock star glamour of
mainstream sports. Skating is illegal, it's wantonly destructive
of private property, it's do-it-yourself, it's jury-rigged, it's
stolen, and it's ours. The presence of immature, uncontributing
kooks, via the X Games, squatting in the house that skaters
built with their own hands is no wonder if this watered-down
alternajock image portrayed on ESPN-that any kid at all can
wrap his brain-mitts around-is generally perceived as skat-
ing's true form.
The final fucko of all this is when you hear skaters themselves
ignorantly utter a self-negating term like "frontside Indy." It's as if
they're one of the clueless, strapped-in, imitating sheep-mon-
keys that the vacant-brained, lazy masses can relate to. The
infestation has spread so far into our realm that the citizens
Dave Nelson
themselves are sick. It is indeed a sad state of affairs.
Nonetheless, in the end this train of thought is relatively point-
less because you always reach the point where you don't give a
fuck what anyone else is copying or taking a free ride on because
you just want to get the fuck out there and skate. What does it.
matter what the blader maggots call their shit, right? As long as
they stay out of the way, they don't exist. Then you realize that to
feel anything but indifference to the whole complex ant-farm-
maze of the action sports industry fiasco is silly. And at last the
realization comes to you that your previous indignance and pas-
sion over all this shit is more of an ill thought-out Nazi-type fas-
cism or something. There is no time to waste festering over peo-
ple and things you don't like; you're gonna die soon. But a word
to the wise: keep your mouth shut if you don't know what the
fuck you're talking about.
-Jacques Strappe
74 THRASHER
Mike Crabtree
Chris Jones
Colby Carter