The Eternal Variable

When considering what to write about for the Monday's post, part of me wanted to assume that there were going to be hoards of skate bloggers out there who were no doubt going to recap this weekend's X-Games, and that perhaps ESPN's annual Hawk and pony show would, by the time this post goes live, be flogged to death worse than crailslides were in the mid 2000s. Then, of course, the thought occurred to me that "wait a minute, this is the X-Games... No one is going to blog about them because no one cares enough to watch them anymore!" To be fair, I stopped watching the X-Games on TV probably about five or six years ago. When I was younger, I remember being upset because TSN (Canada's equivalent to ESPN, for those of you not living here) would never show the street contests on TV. I mean, yes, vert was cool to watch, but at that point I didn't skate transitions, and street was my deal. Eventually, I got tired of being disappointed by one of the two or three Canadian simulcasts of the contest being motocross, BMX, or Rally Racing, and truth be

"Street" Obstacle, 2010.

told, even if I had the opportunity to watch skating, I found the vert and big air contests had become formulaic (whoever does the most rotations wins), and the street contests were predicable and boring, with horrendous layouts that looked like neither street nor skatepark, but rather some manner of oversized modern art gallery. Like most skaters, I scoffed at the redundancy of the contest, and if I really wanted to watch the footage, I knew it would be online in a matter of days.

Street obstacle, 2011.

Oddly enough, something broke me this year. Something within me compelled me to set me PVR to record whatever X-Games coverage was being simulcast up north, without having any knowledge of what said coverage would be, and proceed to watch it at my nearest possible convenience. Truth be told, I think a large part of it had to do with this year's frankly astonishing street course, though I believe a lot of it could be attributed to the fact that in the last few years, someone slapped ESPN good and hard. Perhaps it was on account of the whole cancelling vert debacle a few years back, though I can only really speculate. Point is, it seems as if the coordinators of the X-Games may have finally realized that, in spite of their admittedly impressive seventeen year tenure as an annual multi-discipline contest, and in spite of making for a good payday for the competitors, the contest had become the butt of ninety-eight percent of the jokes told by its bread and butter, skateboarders (the other two percent consisting of Jeremey Rogers jokes).

Of the four days and plethora of different events that made up this year's contest, for some reason TSN only allotted two hours of coverage on Friday and two on Sunday, meaning that of the four days and plethora of events, Canadian TV coverage was made up of two hours of skate street preliminaries, and two hours of rally racing finals. Needless to say I forwent the rally cars. The street prelims were held on the Friday, though in a house with six people and fewer TVs, the PVR proved to be a godsend.

Saturday morning I made a point to wake up early enough to watch the street prelims before the TV would be commandeered in the name of sports to which I hold no interest, only to have something very interesting happen. As I was in the midst of watching the end of the third of four heats, my dad walks into the room to take care of a few things for work. As I was preparing myself to turn over the remote control, I hear a comment from my dad about Ryan Decenzo:

"Hey, he looks kinda like you!"

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe it's because he's Canadian. He's in first right now."

"No kidding! Good for him!"

As the fourth and final heat carried out on TV, I found my dad making more and more comments about what he saw:

"Aw, man, that was cool." (In response to a number of David Gravette's more unconventional tricks).

"Huh. So he is human." (After seeing Nyjah Huston miss a trick).

Being the only person in my immediate family to ever have any real interest in skateboarding, it was strange to be sitting, having that kind of a moment with the same man who, as I was a young teenager, assured me that I would eventually stop skating. I talked about the whole experience with Deanna over the weekend, and it got me thinking; maybe there's a reason that, even though the X-Games have had a history of being maligned by skateboarders, they have managed to persevere for nearly two decades now. Maybe the secret to the X-Games' success lies in their ability to make the sports it covers relative to those who don't actually participate in them.

Tony Hawk RIDE tried, but couldn't hack it...

I can understand why most skaters would rally against such a thing, and I may take a modicum of flack for saying this, but I, for one, see no problem in being able to try and share skateboarding with non-skaters. If the coordinators of the X-Games have somehow figured out a way to make a televised skateboarding event that people who don't skate can watch, and relate to, than I, for one, am all for the idea of skaters being able to sit down in front of the TV for four days in July with their families, friends, and significant others, and have a moment in which the joys of the activity they love can, to a degree, be shared with the people around them. Provided the contest coordinators continue their recent trend of listening to actual skateboarders before making decisions (cancellation of women's vert notwithstanding), the future looks surprisingly bright, and I will set my PVR to record the contest next year, in the hopes that I will be treated to some more actual skateboarding, anyway.

Parents, Birthdays, and the Rise of "Real Street"

First off, a belated Happy Father's Day to any readers who possess both a Y chromosome and at least one child, I hope you enjoyed your day.
Second, a very happy birthday to my girlfriend Deanna, who, aside from making the amazing new banner for the site, is just an amazing person in general. I love you, honey.
Now, on with the post:

It seems as though mainstream society has stopped trying with skateboarding...

...again.

It's the same as it ever was, and is about due. Anyone who has been alive and cognizant for the last twenty years or more can testify to the cyclical nature of skateboarding's popularity, which is usually symbolized by a gradual increase over the first half of a decade, followed by a three or four year span of mainstream frenzy, and a subsequent meteoric plummet into a kind of near-death torpor over the course of the next decade's inaugural months. It happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, although the advent of the internet, as well as skateboarding video games caused a funny thing to happen during the 2000s; that is to say, from 2000 to now, the cycle reversed.

 

Another funny thing happened in the 2000s: The Osiris D3

Rather than suddenly plummeting back to Earth with enough force to drive it back underground, skateboarding experienced a solid wave of mainstream fame, and fortune up until around 2005 or so, when it seemed as though, rather than mainstream media dropping us like a dried up cash cow, as they are prone to do, skateboarding gradually backed away, leading us to today, in a society in which skateboarding is ever-present enough that skaters can make a decent living without the help of corporate non-skating puppet masters, leaving said puppeteers to look for more gullible pawns tacit investment opportunities. It seems to be working out alright for us skateboarders. Who wants to see skateboarding on TV every Saturday, anyway?

...Actually, I do kind of miss that part.

Okay, not all of it, but hear me out...

Now, I'll be the first to admit that my high-school years were filled with a supersaturation of "eXtreme!" television programming, and yes, much of it was unbelievably trying-too-hard cheesy, lumping skateboarding in with whatever fringe adventure-seeking activities execs could get their cocaine-dusted hands on, but there was, of course, the trade-off of knowing that every weekend from about April to October there was an excellent chance that there was some contest or another being broadcast on basic cable. To a teenage skate rat with no friends who skated themselves, this was a gift.

Thankfully, I started skating in 2000, so the gift wasn't painted stupid colours.

These days, it has become increasingly rare to see skateboarding on TV, so much so that I have my PVR set to record the Seattle stop of the Street League contest series. I can't remember the last time I watched a televised street contest, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know that I'll enjoy watching Street League as much as I enjoyed watching the X-Games, Gravity Games, Vans Triple Crown, and other such televised street contests of yore, largely due to the fact that I don't particularly care for the layout of modern street courses.

Maloof 2011 Las Vegas

I understand that skateboarding changes, and that said change has to be facilitated. I also realize that course layouts such as those built for the Maloof and Street League contests are more enticing to the more "hardcore" street guys who would otherwise scoff at the idea of skating contests. This does not, however, mean that I think that said street courses are either the most entertaining, or the best venues upon which to have pro skaters compete. Rather, it is my belief that courses such as are used in the Maloof and Street League contests are quite the opposite.

2011 Street League Seattle

In terms of the entertainment factor, these kinds of linear, spot-by-spot based street courses make for some of the least-fun-to-watch skateboarding. Does anybody know why ninety percent of a skater's video part is made up of tricks they landed? Because people watching the video don't want to watch forty-five minutes of ten guys trying one or two tricks apiece on a twelve-stair handrail. These courses are meant to replicate the experience of going to a street spot with a bunch of friends and sessioning, which is great if that's the kind of skating that you're into, and if you are the one skating. For the viewer, however, it becomes stale far too quickly, leaving one inclined to just wait for the video edits to come out online.

Slam City Jam 2001, Vancouver

In terms of whether or not these are the best venues in which to have pro skaters compete? I would not only disagree, but would also offer that such street courses are unbalanced and detrimental to contemporary skateboarding. The funny thing about street contests from seven to ten years ago compared to today, is that the street courses then incorporated elements of all kinds of skateboarding. While this kind of skatepark-centric course design wasn't indicative of the tech-gnar gap and handrail craze during the time, it favoured well-rounded skateboarding. Conversely, the street courses of today, while catering to the small contingent Chris Coles, Greg Lutzkas, and Nyjah Houstons who still make their careers out of spending more time traveling to a spot than riding a skateboard at it, completely ignore the fact that there has been a shift in skateboarding towards the all-terrain rider, who would have fared far better in street contests of days passed than they would in the modern all-day best trick carcass-tosses.

Me, personally? I say bring back the pyramids, bring back, the quarter pipes, bring back the masonite, and bring back the non-linear layouts. A skateboard contest should be judged on how well you ride a skateboard, not how well you repeatedly jump down a set of stairs on one. Besides, at least watching the old courses get torn down wasn't this painful...






Oh, the humanity....