As a kid coming of age in the 1980s, when I was as bewildered as I was impressionable, one of the rebel groups I looked up to was skaters. Riding a skateboard made you a bit of a suspect—a kid adrift, parented by the wild, skipping out on the roll call of conformity. Skating was still a newish pastime for the independent minded, and today it still shrugs off the idea that it’s a sport. While the brands and broadcasters have come for it and people can make a living doing it, skating remains unsullied by authority, with creative freedom and authenticity at the heart of the enterprise. If you had access to an emptied out pool or a quarter pipe, great, but there wasn’t a prescribed place to do it, no lined field or hushed studio to learn the strokes. Skating is art outside the school, and I am of no school, certainly not America’s. There’s just way more out there, outside what has become a giant actor’s studio.
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