Much time has been spent stretching—reaching out toward relevance for what we’ve been doing all these hours, days, weeks, and the rest. Such large blocks of wasted time must surely be worth something more than just spun-out clocks and rotating planets.
Surely John Cardiel knows what time it is—any time and all the time. Photo: Luke Ogden
All that lopsided pushing and surely we’re great placekickers, right? All that balancing and surely we’re adequate accountants. All those dealings with irate neighbors, store owners, security guards, and law enforcement and surely we’re skilled negotiators. All that time spent healing from self-inflicted battles with our ghosts and surely we’re wonderful advisors to those who’ve also been injured. Surely there’s got to be something, somewhere a skateboarder can apply his self-spun education in time killing.
Dr. Steve Claar extends himself to the nth degree, earning himself an Andrecht doctorate. Photo: Grant Brittain
But as it turns out, we’re just skateboarders. Reluctant to admit to what we know—which is a lot more than many of us even realize. Mainly: The crossover doesn’t work. Skateboarding experience can’t be extended into an undergraduate degree. It can’t be pushed into a position at a law firm. It can’t be molded into anything that fits nicely inside an everyday application.
Grant Taylor’s forecast: cloudy with a chance of footfalls. 70s roll-in stomper. Photo: Ryan Flynn
A curse as well as a blessing, it’s not gonna go the way of bowling night, varsity basketball, or your old drinking buddies, either. You’re fucking stuck with skateboarding—get used to it. The agents and the producers and the directors and the marketers and the inventors and the opportunists who’ve come calling, all waving statistics and demographics and scores to beat the band, will grow frustrated with our wasted talents, wasted timelines, and wasted tendencies, which will send them packing—onto the next forecasted movement—leaving us to obsessively jump down double-sets, pile mistakes upon mistakes, and debate the finer positions of woodshops, wheel size, pivot points, and duty-free stupidity.
Dane Brady cuts it close. Stretchy slappy. Photo: Matt Price
We’re skaters and we’ll always be skaters. Taking care of ourselves, shrugging off real time, real life, real responsibilities, real deals, and happily getting stuck are all really just fine with us.
There’s need to stretch for that—you’re soaking in it.
Listen to John Cardiel’s playlist: Get-Back-Up Hits
