Confusion is next

Thoughts on the Skateboarding Hall of Fame

It took less than a second for Google to offer me several links to the Skateboarding Hall of Fame website. I clicked a link and was welcomed by an interesting splash page filled with pictures of classic skate equipment. I love seeing old skate equipment so I was pretty stoked on what I found. Really, I'm not positive of what I was expecting, but I can admit, I wanted to hate the website. I wanted to hate it because the entire idea of skateboarding having a hall of fame seems like the antithesis of what skateboarding has meant to me over this lifetime of riding. 

As a twelve year old, skateboarding was my escape from the rules and forced teamwork of little league. As a teenager, skating partnered with punk rock as a search for self away from the judgmental eyes of parents and teachers. It was rebellion. As an adult, for me, skateboarding is a very solitary experience. It continues to be my escape. When I am skating I am nobody. I am reduced to concentration on the act of skating.  Whether I skate well or poorly is immaterial. I am lost of the act of being on my board (and often falling off of it).

Teenage me would probably not see the seeming oxymoron of a SHoF. A love for the history of skating has been deeply ingrained in me since I first saw the movie Skateboard Madness. I've always been drawn to the history of this activity, and the history of the activity (it seems to me) doesn't get nearly enough recognition. 

However, history and heroes are two different things, and the entire process of skateboarding insiders nominating other skateboarding insiders does seem a bit. . .masturbatory.  But that isn't to say that the accomplishments of Tony Alva, Rodney Mullen, Tony Hawk, Steve Olson etc. shouldn't be celebrated. I keep thinking about it in punk rock terms. A punk rock hall of fame would truly indicate that punk was dead. However, bands like The Ramones, Dead Kennedy's, and Black Flag should be celebrated for their music. Does celebrating the rebellion mean that the rebellion is now simple nostalgia?

Probably. I skate a public skate park in a town of less than 4,000 people in Arkansas. It sits next to baseball fields. We can't fool ourselves into thinking skateboarding, now an Olympic "sport," is in any way still rebellious. Sure, we still have the opportunity to break rules, skate where we're not wanted, and have issues with security guards and police. But the amount of totally legal spots paid for by city governments certainly balances out that equation.

It all becomes too confusing for me. I'm going to throw some Circle Jerks onto the car stereo, hit a couple skate spots, and not think about it anymore.