Wave Rave
They were performing skateboard tricks I’d seen on ESPN but didn’t know the name of in the driveway right next to our table inside Slocum’s.
Waiting for Felice at the bottom of Broadway Express, I started counting snowboarders and skiers. It looked to me like skiing was making a comeback, but when I stopped my survey the count was dead even, thirteen skiers and thirteen snowboarders. A fifty-fifty split. In Aspen and Vail the numbers are nowhere near equal. Maybe thirty percent snowboarders at most. But California is the home of skateboarding, and as a twentysomething explained to me on the lift later in the day, snowboarding is a natural outgrowth. Anybody can snowboard, whereas to learn to ski takes years of lessons. Maybe that explains the plethora of slope-owning boarding newbies I’m constantly avoiding on the hill.
And, like the oldster I am, I’m getting pissed at the skateboarders right outside our window. Is there anything worse than the intermittent grinding, hopping and slapping sound of skateboarders perfecting their tricks? When were their parents going to be done with dinner, so they’d get the hell out of there!
But then I realized I was fucked. These weren’t the progeny of Slocum diners, they were denizens of the shop next door, across the parking lot, Wave Rave.
I’d like to tell you there’s a ski shop with the vibe of Wave Rave. A sanctuary. Where those not of the religion want to join. But no two-planked shop has been able to capture the essence, that this is where it’s at. Maybe because no ski emporium wants all these kids hanging out. But these kids are the future of your business. They look and look and look and then one day they come back with their saved allowance and blow it all!
I’d like to tell you this home of the younger generation was playing the screechy modern music of today. Those alternative bands you barely recognize the name of. But no faux renegades for Wave Rave. Wave Rave was playing Skynyrd. The whole forty minutes we were there.
Felice couldn’t believe they were still open. Long after 9 p.m. But while shops catering to oldsters with plastic shut down early, the new era shrine needs to stay open, just in case an acolyte needs a trinket, or his board waxed, or the one accessory integral to a productive next day on the slopes.
As "Tuesday’s Gone" wafts through the speakers, we start ascending the stairs. Where I find an unrecognizable brand name emblazoned on all these bags that I can’t figure out. I got up my gumption and asked the person who looked like an employee. They were kites! For kiteboarding. On either snow or water!
Yeah, right. Shit, I could have stared at those packages for an hour and never figured it out. Still, I was slightly intrigued. Was kiteboarding really that close to snowboarding? Was it really not that exotic? In other words, could I do it?
Contemplating this, we wound through the gear. The boards I’d seen, but the boots… There obviously were performance features I didn’t understand. And, unlike ski boots, based on my squeezing of the material, they didn’t seem like they’d hurt.
Then we were accosted by the beanie rack. Hundreds of beanies. If you couldn’t find one that befit your style, you desired to go topless.
And speaking of building your own identity, the endless racks of specialized clothing, at 50% off, were both daunting and exciting. There were outfits in patterns that you’d think that nobody would wear, but I’ve seen these monstrosities on the slopes. How come this stuff is cool?
And the pants, in all kinds of newfangled materials. I was having trouble keeping my credit card in my wallet.
And I knew Burton, but so many of the brands were new to me.
Downstairs there was an endless rack of flip-flops. And a row of backpacks that had to be explained as being for tools, that you put atop your bindings. I mean there’s a company making tiny backpacks for your boards? How much money is in this industry!
And there was enough eyewear to compete with Sunglass Hut. And DVDs of action sports. I felt I was on a spinning carousel.
But then we were confronted with the hat rack. Not of beanies, but baseball caps. And I realized I only knew two of the logos. Same deal with the t-shirts. Oh, I was taught what Hurley was a couple of years back, but VOL? And that’s one I saw on the slopes. The others were completely new to me… Did they mean anything? Or were they just made up, insider deals?
And that’s when I realized there’s a generation gap. My knee-jerk reaction was nobody could know what all this stuff was. Then I realized there were teenagers studying this stuff in their bedrooms. And that I needed one of them to explain it all to me.
We’re under the illusion that we’re still hip. But we’re as out of it as our parents were. Fortysomething plus executives purveying music to youngsters. Shit, how can we sell it when we don’t even know how to download it? We don’t even know how our customers use it! We need house hippies just like they had in the sixties. To explain it all to us.
Just because mothers wear Seven jeans and fathers wear Tevas they shouldn’t get the idea they’re hip. They’re actually a joke, to be made fun of by the younger generation, for being so out of it.
Technology has enabled this division. Kids at home on computers all afternoon are digesting a plethora of information while their elders are out lunching at fancy restaurants discussing their golf games. Something is happening here, and we don’t know what it is, we Mr. Joneses.
But we did have the best music.
Whiskey bottles and brand new cars
Oak tree you’re in my way
Ronnie Van Zant was not like an American Idol. He was not the kind of guy you could have on the "Today Show". He would not be featured in "Us" or the "Enquirer". He marched to the beat of his own drummer and didn’t seem to care about all that shit. He was about getting high and having good times. Just like today’s kids. And that’s why they probably revere him.
Yes, as "That Smell" was building to a conclusion, our heads swimming, we exited Wave Rave.
And as we were walking to the car, Felice asked me if it was a chain. No, you can’t clone and franchise perfection, you can’t replicate religion, you just can’t import soul. You’ve got to grow it. And then everybody is drawn to it. Mammoth Mountain may be far to the left of the country and ultimately in the middle of nowhere, but boarders from all over the world make the trek, because they need to get just that close.
