150 DAYS, 150 STORIES TO CANADA DAY
Tales tell unique, rich history of our vibrant, quirky home
At Charlie Bowins Skate Park, Bronson and Gladstone. Aug. 20, 2016
“We’ve done this video contest for King Shit, this skateboarding magazine out of Toronto, for like three years now, and we’ve always done pretty well. So this is our fourth year doing it.
“This year we’re addressing the fact that skateboarding is in the 2020 Olympics, and it’s kind of funny because skateboarding has always been a way for a lot of people to kind of get away from organized sports and the competitive aspect of organized sports. The fact that it’s bunched in there with hockey or whatever is kind of what we were trying to get away from.
“It’s always been a rebellious, punk rock thing — it’s whatever you make it. It’s a bunch of f----kooks, it’s the outcasts, it’s the island of f------ misfit toys. We’ve always been kind of on our own, and now we’re lumped in with all these f------ athletes. I mean, who’s even going to be able to pass a f------ drug test? Like every skater drinks beer and smokes pot. It’s just funny. It’s stupid.
“So this is our way of making fun of that. If you added the competitive edge that a lot of sports have, that ‘Go for gold! Give it 110 per cent!’ … If you attribute that to skateboarding, the whole things just seems stupid. It makes skateboarding stagnant and not fun and not a creative thing. So we’re just making fun of that because, for us, it’s always been a creative getaway from normalized f-----sports.
“I mean, we all work our 9-to-5, but afterwards it’s like Fight Club; we come here and get hurt and wind up sweaty and dirty and our f------ girlfriends hate it, but …”