ORANCE-CRUSH
WORDS BY SALBA
PHOTOS BY DAVE MALENFANT
RANGE COUNTY
IS
"a mid '50s knockout-
Jayne Mansfield
KNOWN worldwide for its
contributions to society at
large, namely the surf cultures and corre-
sponding subcultures that go along with the
cities of Costa Mesa, San Clemente, San
Juan Capistrano, Newport and Huntington
Beaches, and probably the most recognized
pop icon monument of the last 50 years,
Disneyland. In truth, the places and homes
behind the Orange Curtain are filled to the
brim with yuppies, corporate giants dressed
in their $1000 suits, defense contractors,
wanna-be porn stars, rock stars, greasers
born 40 years too late, punks of all types and
varieties, famous athletes, and regular mom
and pop families. There is more affluence in
OC than in the whole state of Alaska. But
underneath the rolled-out red carpet lies
another aspect of OC life that the heads of all
92 THRASHER
if she were a pool."
the city governments don't want you to see:
poverty, crime, chemical fallout, toxic waste,
and interracial disharmony that is weakening
the social fabric of life and bringing down the
standard of living along with prices of real
estate the most highly valued commodity
of Southern California.
With recent crime statistics up by 89% in
the Latino enclaves, families are thrown into
the volatile mix trying to better their lives for
their kids. Like everywhere in the world, the
lower classes are downtrodden and take the
shit jobs working for peanuts, something the
teenagers of today won't even do. Most of
the time they live in utter squalor where most
of OC's proper citizens wouldn't even let
their beloved pets sleep. The slumlords profit
with lots of cash, and the poor can't duck all
the punches that life throws. The kids don't
have heroes to look up to except kids they
see at school or the park or the local hang-
out, where respect is won not by being on a
winning sports team or doing well in school,
but by jacking somebody for money or deal-
ing drugs and joining gangs-which in the
county of Orange is in epidemic proportions.
Is this really happening behind the Orange
Curtain? You'd better believe it.
This is '90s corporate gluttony, where it
takes money to make money, so why not
invest now and spend less money than we
will in 20 more years? So they buy up more
property around the land of Disney, old
hotels and motels, trailer and
mobile-home parks,
empty lots and vacant
fields, thus expanding
their ever-growing
empire another ten
square miles, pushing
out the unwanted and
unworthy victims.
Another perfect exam-
ple is the old Orange
Mall, which was aban-
doned for years but
has recently been retro-
fitted and renamed "The Block"
to bring in the new customer of
the decade: the teenager. Clever
marketing or corporate greed?
It's not just the gangs and vio-
lence that are worrying some
folks behind the Orange Curtain.
It seems that the defense industry
has been dumping toxic waste
into the ocean and the low-lying
wetlands, and somehow this dan-
gerous plume is seeping into the
drinking water, making the local
inhabitants sicker than dogs-not
to mention what it is going to do
and has already done to the
marine life associated with the area
beaches and environment. What
does this mean to you and me?
People moving away, leaving behind
a suburban nightmare come true. As
the defense industries and big busi-
ness get into trouble with environ-
mental groups trying to cover their
tracks, they just purchase more land
surrounding the wet marshlands
near the testing grounds and kill off
all the native habitants who have
been living there for several hun-
dreds of years. This is another
tragedy, imagined to some, that to a
skater leads only to prosperity in the
form of vertical enlightenment and
dreams of sloped madness.
LEFT: Overview to a kill.
RIGHT: Not a slob grab,
but a bronto boardslide
In the shallow end from
Kale Sandridge.
93