Where I want to be.

One summer day back in 1998, I snuck into a rollerskater's paradise known as Venice Beach and slowly absorbed, as if by osmosis, the art of dancing on skates from its resident icons who, like me, had found there a place to escape their everyday lives.   Within a small thirty foot circle of energy, we were surrounded on all sides by crowds of visitors from around the world-- yet we remained insulated inside a seemingly impenetrable protected space.  The courage it took most to merely step inside was testament to its notoriety-- a notoriety which was clearly embedded in my memory as a child strolling the Venice boardwalk, witnessing a badass dude in Dolfin shorts performing crazy legs to a background of 70's funk classics.  I wanted to be that dude.  

Well, thanks to movies like Roller Boogie and Xanadu-- movies that changed many an 8 year old's life but were probably unwatchable to the average adult, Venice has been considered by thousands who have made the pilgrimage, the roller skating mecca of the world. More important than mere film credits, though, the Venice Beach skate subculture maintains a mysterious dichotomy that is both freak and fantasy.  There is absolutely no protesting that Venice is a landing pad for some of the world's most bizarre exhibitionists-- from the Swedish dominatrix on skates to the cocky urban Casanova collecting phone numbers after each breathless skate routine, there is no shortage of characters looking to be the center of something.  And pretty much any group of people volunteering to spend every weekend roller skating to music in an outdoor space could potentially be misdiagnosed as freaks.  

Which leads observers to ask, "Who are these people?" " Why are they here?" "Do they all know each other?"  "Do they hold down jobs?"  "How do they all know to do the same moves?"  "Who brings out the music?"  The questions never cease... and explanations are meaningless. Hence a fantasy world emerges in each spectator's mind, where the imagination is left to run its course. Through this simple civic invitation to observe people expressing their unique selves with the assistance of the universal language of music-- a beat, a bass line, rhythm and eight wheels turns one stretch of cement into a magical space. So, call it what you will, but in my opinion.... a freakshow is just a freakshow.  But if someone brings down some music and that freak happens to have the flyest moves on skates you've ever seen... well then, that my friends is the Venice Beach skate area.  

This amazing photo captured at Venice Beach in 1980 by my friend Larry Gassan is just one of many contained in his book LA1980-- a collection of real photos taken between 1979 and 1982 of the people and places we natives remember as our Los Angeles"youth". A great find for the nostalgia collection!   http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/555505