Editor’s Note: The Joy of Skateboarding is a new column by Abe Dubin, aka Orange Man, of Fancy Lad fame. Skateboarding is, as we constantly tell ourselves, about having fun, and Orange Man has a whole lot of fun on his skateboard, so we enlisted him to tell us his secrets. As a bonus, he’s throwing in images of his bizarre, beautiful art every week. His first column is about an experience that usually isn’t fun—getting kicked out—but the indubitable Dubin finds the joy in it anyway.
Words by Abe Dubin
Fret not. There is joy in the kick out.
Getting the boot is as much a part of street skateboarding as street skateboarding itself. It is in the essence of lawlessness and rebellion, in ignorance to the rules without immunity. Society’s answer to the problem of skateboarding. The eternal ebb and flow of skater to spot, to inevitable exile to migration to another parking lot and so on. The constantly spinning cycle of a property’s temporarily reappropriation and liberation, until its freedom fighters are driven on once more.
Seen as destructive, disrespectful and possibly somewhat political, skating is about the pursuit of pure joy. Pure joy without ill intent. Pure joy without boundaries. Pure joy without borders and without words. Without signage. Without law.
The kick out is a reality check. Skateboarding does not exist in a vacuum. Street skating is directly correlated to society at large. It is a response to the junk, pollution and disfigurement of our natural landscape. They made us, and yet they reject us. And everything we stand for.
We are pitted against the minds and forces and authorities that are disgusted by what skateboarding, and more importantly, what skateboarders, represent. That is, the glitch in the matrix. Traces of the old ways. Evidence of humans as animals. Nonsensical, erratic, rolling face down in the dirt, laughter of the infinite child, screaming from the soul of anguish, playing and tinkering…thinking.
Often times they have a point. It is destructive. It is damaging. It is dangerous. That’s why the perfect location for skating is analogous to the ability to practice unimpeded. So we rove on, aimlessly, in search of the hassle-free frontier.
And we can giggle and run away when, in time, they return to chase us out!
We can only learn from the kick out.
We learn how to sharpen our ability to sense their approaching footsteps. We learn their thought patterns and whey their culture of material stuff and status has so much disdain for us. We learn that we might be on to something.
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