Skateboarders are fascinated with curation and being “tasteful.” The bag of ten or so tricks, done incredibly well. Not looking like you’re trying too hard. The masterful assembly of an outfit for each clip. The perfect song that flows with each cut. Saying just enough without over-explaining or becoming a recluse.
But everything is curated now. People claim to be an expert after one chatbot prompt. Style can be faked. Inspirations abound from all corners of the globe. “Tastefulness” runs the risk of becoming a hegemonic blob. So what does one do when you arrive to the session — only for all your curative efforts to feel like the ending of American Psycho where nobody notices and nobody cares?
The minds at Satan’s Drano, the hot sauce outfit based in the city that has been the set of more skate clips than anywhere on earth, don’t have any fucking time for any of that cuffed pants and steezy front crook below a Mies van der Rohe building shit.
They have knights in shining armor falling off the sides of bridges mid-5050 and continuing on like nothing happened. The grabs they do involve an intentional bash of the nose into their goddamn skulls. A Monday morning spot for them is a 25-flat-30 hubba ledge. They skate ditches while a motocross guy hopped up on some scalding peppers ripping through his digestive tract backflips above. A spot that was insane enough for an Eddie Cernicky ender? Yeah, let’s just wait until the one day a year that it rains in Los Angeles to skate that.
That’s tasteful alright. It tastes like Satan’s Drano.
Part II goes live next week. Diego Todd part!