The other day, I was having one of those rare real-life conversations about skateboarding — the type of conversation that usually only exists within the confines of the Slap message board, where people are capable of debating who has the best wallie or no comply with a straight face. But granted that street skateboarding has existed for about twenty years at this point, and set certain precedents, made certain cities synonymous with skateboarding to many people born after 1980, and above all, given all of us an immeasurable amount of stories about what we have seen growing up skating our favorite spot, it seems appropriate to make a book solely about spots. Not as mere footnotes in a biography (which seems the most common way skateboarding winds up on a bookshelf), but a biography about certain spots themselves.
Earlier this month, Thrasher released with Epic Spots: Places You Must Skate Before You Die. The book itself takes a survey approach towards the more famous locations that you may have caught in videos. It’s broken up into thirteen sections: Great Skate Towns (New York has a photo of a Boston spot here. Thanks, Thrasher), Epic Skateparks, Gnar Zone, Private Facilities, Legendary Pools, Sick Street Spots, Infamous Mini Ramps, Ditch Destinations, Fullpipes, Unique Spots, Build Your Own (you know, like Burnside, not your local quick-creted barrier), Worldwide Ride, and The Ultimate Skate Destination (Apparently its Australia, as an entire continent).
The survey format itself is ultimately the book’s greatest flaw. Although it is worth owning if you want to have a 200+ page book of some iconic (and some forgettable) photos from some of the more famous spots around the globe, or if you want by-name knowledge of those ever-so-talked-about northwestern skateparks, the content, outside of imagery is relatively slim. It is pretty unlikely that Hollywood High or the Wallos ditch in Hawaii could be summed up in three lines.
There are also a handfull of omissions here that make no sense. Although they tend to leave out more 52mm wheel favorable locations than they do pools, ditches or parks, there is no reason why Pulaski, Milan, or even Love should be left out (Pier 7 is included, and Pier 7 is about as skateable as Love is right now). New York has one entry, where the Banks are called “the most recognizable street spot,” but otherwise, we are largely unaccounted for.
If anything, this book should spark an idea or maybe serve as a rough, bloated template for a spot biography book. Perhaps it would be best limited to the obvious: Embarcadero, The Banks, Love Park, Pulaski, and maybe several others that are debatable. Although the research and work in getting an archive of old photos, interviews, and stories would inevitably fall short of the revenue it creates, at least it appeals to a demographic of older people, you know, those who actually read something besides the “15 Things You Didn’t Know About…” section in Skateboarder. Skateboarding has been around for a little while now, its about time that they put out some writing that accommodates our ability to read something longer than a photo caption.
