Some time ago I heard a rumour about new kids skating in my old hometown. I moved out of my the place five or six years ago and the scene sort of collapsed, flamingo guy kept on doing flamingos at the park, one-upper kept one-upping people, that’s how I figured life in my ex-hometown was going to be. And then, maybe a year and a half ago at the very best, my hometown spy told me about the new kids. He didn’t know them very well, but they were good. Apparently they had skills and were not just skating the local park, but moved their basecamp to the city square. They fled the skatepark curse and managed to get out! No drinking beers in the park all day, no smoking weed until the grass feels like a better skatepark than the skatepark itself, no, they skate the perfect curbs and drops at the square. Wow.
Of course, this specific square is home to the standard youth you find in any place where there’s nothing better to do around. The kind of place where drinking energy drinks, warm Klok beer, and listening to absurdly shitty rap music on your expensive JBL boombox (with shoulder strap!), counts as an activity. Some people would call it sidelining, I would simply call it Lelypaal chilling, as this is the official term around. Somehow these Lelypaal chillers always think they’re older than they really are. There is always one specimen that wins the who-grows-facial-hair-first-competition and is promptly promoted to leader of the pack. Throw in a body that is not strong but instead big and unhealthy thanks to all the liters of Monster or Red Bull, and you’ve found your alpha. This is the one carrying the JBL over his shoulders, this is the one talking about drugs dealers and payments like he spent seven years on a pirate ship, when in reality, the guy has only seen a few dark corners of his shitty, boring hometown. No, the electric scooter does not make you cooler either and putting the volume up to 150% after I asked you to stop playing autotune rap when I film a clip is definitely a bad move.
These kids share the same bench as the new skate kids. There is a certain overlap between the two groups, as you would expect. Zoom in on this overlap and we find one way traffic. It’s always the skaters that turn into chillers as soon as they’ve had enough weed and energy beverages, it’s never the chillers that turn into skaters. Why? Well, maybe because drinking energy and Klok instead of water slowly kills your inner balance, destroys any useful muscles you have and turns it into fat, until one day you find yourself in a scootmobiel rolling around the square, beeping at your mates who have resorted to the lowest steps of the Lelypaal, because they simply cannot climb up the higher ones anymore.
Fuck, I was going to talk about the skate kids and here we are. To sum it up, one of the kids is called Bam and that’s all you should know about him. Then there’s the kid we can classify as a standard small town prodigy: he’s good, but will most likely go unnoticed for a while, as long as nobody points their eyes at small town scenes like this. There must be so many kids scattered around the country like this. And let’s not forget the other talented kid who supplied me with ice tea while we were filming a line in the sun. A skater giving the filmer food or drinks is a rarity in my book, especially while out on the mission. Signs like this give me faith, maybe and hopefully these are the kids who can say no to the mass indulging of weed and Monster long enough. Would they be able to flee the Lelypaal to find a new square with a more promising and inspiring culture around it. We can only wait and see.
Anyway, Quick boys #4 is here.