More and more often—if you’re listening for it—you can hear people say these exact words: “I don’t really want to leave [Chicago, Tempe, Minneapolis, Portland, New Jersey, etc.].”
Hearing this is not bad for your ears.
Grant Taylor backside noseblunts where he hangs his hat—Atlanta, Georgia. Photo: Ryan Flynn
My own hometown anti-exile, away from the shaky epicenters and epic enders of skateboarding’s warmer coast, is one borne of a few of life’s very real realities, but also one I’ve come to hold close and cuddle. So much so, that when the tympanic membranes receive rhythmic echoes of my own inner anchor, it means more to me than the decades’ old urge of the entire culture to move west. And though I know I couldn’t have gotten back here without leaving first, I also try hard not to dismiss the need to move on to whatever’s coming next—a stronger root burrowing in here or a jaunt to the Northwest; years on the road in a leased vehicle or periodic visits to the idyllic environs of my beloved Cali—because that’s just how it goes. Scared of shit, can’t make none. And we all know how painful holding back a movement can be.
As lifelong human beings, it’s been suggested that we’re mostly working with leftovers—instincts that are hardwired deep inside our collective consciousness, reacting to the picked-over resources that we currently graze upon. Urges to hunt and gather, plus the messages we receive from those who’ve just arrived in new and fertile lands are often so powerful that only the very strong, the very lazy, or the very comfortable can resist their ever-present tugs.
John Motta Smiths out of a hometown tube. Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Matt Price
We think we need something, I guess, but it turns out we may really not. Instead, we may have “need” confused with “want.” We want the sun, we want the spots, we want the impossible professional vista. But beneath that sweet-tasting exterior are the real reasons Julien and Tommy and Mik-e are in SF; the real reasons Eric and Paul and Christian are in LA; the real reasons Danny and Tony and Peter are in SD.
Those happy, shiny places—first and foremost—are people’s real hometowns, and the locals have either been born into their Edenistic kingdoms or they’ve labored relentlessly to make them as such (i.e., Red, Monk, or Kent in Portland).
So to hear more and more people utter, “I think I’d rather stay in Bethesda or Springfield or Louisville or Des Moines or Detroit of Buffalo or Kansas City or Milwaukee or Norman or wherever,” is to bear witness to the prophecy of skateboarding’s viral takeover. Far from threatening for us, though, it does signal the joyous crumpling of other well-known, adult-driven sporting establishments and the leveling of grassy playing fields (so to speak) everywhere.
KC masterpiece, Sean Malto, reps his hometown by living there and then skating everywhere else. Photo: Atiba Jefferson
It also shines a bright light on what’s always been hard for us to see, namely that LA, SF, SD weren’t always LA, SF, SD. For an easier-to-grasp model, look at Tampa, Florida, which until twelve years ago was just another Florida city but with a question mark after it (Tampa?). But now, thanks to a few strong and proud who’ve decided to soak in their own juices, it’s now Tampa Am, Tampa Pro, The Skatepark of Tampa [and more recently, The Boardr], and the question mark has been replaced with an exclamation point (Tampa!).
So when the myth pulls you to California (and it will, sooner or later), but the native anchor also drags, you should know what more and more of our hometown heroes are coming to terms with—you do have options other than just going west, young man. Not to say that you shouldn’t feel very free to answer the sirens and lay your bones on those alabaster stones, but staying put and starting to build a newer legacy in your own streets, your own backyards, your own public spaces isn’t such a bad idea, either.