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.<\/p>\n
Waiting for Felice at the bottom of Broadway Express, I started counting snowboarders and skiers.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 A fifty-fifty split.\u00c2\u00a0 In Aspen and Vail the numbers are nowhere near equal.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe thirty percent snowboarders at most.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can snowboard, whereas to learn to ski takes years of lessons.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that explains the plethora of slope-owning boarding newbies I’m constantly avoiding on the hill.<\/p>\n
And, like the oldster I am, I’m getting pissed at the skateboarders right outside our window.\u00c2\u00a0 Is there anything worse than the intermittent grinding, hopping and slapping sound of skateboarders perfecting their tricks?\u00c2\u00a0 When were their parents going to be done with dinner, so they’d get the hell out of there!<\/p>\n
But then I realized I was fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 These weren’t the progeny of Slocum diners, they were denizens of the shop next door, across the parking lot, Wave Rave.<\/p>\n
I’d like to tell you there’s a ski shop with the vibe of Wave Rave.\u00c2\u00a0 A sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0 Where those not of the religion want to join.\u00c2\u00a0 But no two-planked shop has been able to capture the essence, that this is where it’s at.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because no ski emporium wants all these kids hanging out.\u00c2\u00a0 But these kids are the future of your business.\u00c2\u00a0 They look and look and look and then one day they come back with their saved allowance and blow it all!<\/p>\n
I’d like to tell you this home of the younger generation was playing the screechy modern music of today.\u00c2\u00a0 Those alternative bands you barely recognize the name of.\u00c2\u00a0 But no faux renegades for Wave Rave.\u00c2\u00a0 Wave Rave was playing Skynyrd.\u00c2\u00a0 The whole forty minutes we were there.<\/p>\n
Felice couldn’t believe they were still open.\u00c2\u00a0 Long after 9 p.m.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
As "Tuesday’s Gone" wafts through the speakers, we start ascending the stairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Where I find an unrecognizable brand name emblazoned on all these bags that I can’t figure out.\u00c2\u00a0 I got up my gumption and asked the person who looked like an employee.\u00c2\u00a0 They were kites!\u00c2\u00a0 For kiteboarding.\u00c2\u00a0 On either snow or water!<\/p>\n
Yeah, right.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I could have stared at those packages for an hour and never figured it out.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, I was slightly intrigued.\u00c2\u00a0 Was kiteboarding really that close to snowboarding?\u00c2\u00a0 Was it really not that exotic?\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, could I do it?<\/p>\n
Contemplating this, we wound through the gear.\u00c2\u00a0 The boards I’d seen, but the boots…\u00c2\u00a0 There obviously were performance features I didn’t understand.\u00c2\u00a0 And, unlike ski boots, based on my squeezing of the material, they didn’t seem like they’d hurt.<\/p>\n
Then we were accosted by the beanie rack.\u00c2\u00a0 Hundreds of beanies.\u00c2\u00a0 If you couldn’t find one that befit your style, you desired to go topless.<\/p>\n
And speaking of building your own identity, the endless racks of specialized clothing, at 50% off, were both daunting and exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 There were outfits in patterns that you’d think that nobody would wear, but I’ve seen these monstrosities on the slopes.\u00c2\u00a0 How come this stuff is cool?<\/p>\n
And the pants, in all kinds of newfangled materials.\u00c2\u00a0 I was having trouble keeping my credit card in my wallet.<\/p>\n
And I knew Burton, but so many of the brands were new to me.<\/p>\n
Downstairs there was an endless rack of flip-flops.\u00c2\u00a0 And a row of backpacks that had to be explained as being for tools, that you put atop your bindings.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean there’s a company making tiny backpacks for your boards?\u00c2\u00a0 How much money is in this industry!<\/p>\n
And there was enough eyewear to compete with Sunglass Hut.\u00c2\u00a0 And DVDs of action sports.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt I was on a spinning carousel.<\/p>\n
But then we were confronted with the hat rack.\u00c2\u00a0 Not of beanies, but baseball caps.\u00c2\u00a0 And I realized I only knew two of the logos.\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal with the t-shirts.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I was taught what Hurley was a couple of years back, but VOL?\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s one I saw on the slopes.\u00c2\u00a0 The others were completely new to me…\u00c2\u00a0 Did they mean anything?\u00c2\u00a0 Or were they just made up, insider deals?<\/p>\n
And that’s when I realized there’s a generation gap.\u00c2\u00a0 My knee-jerk reaction was nobody could know what all this stuff was.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I realized there were teenagers studying this stuff in their bedrooms.\u00c2\u00a0 And that I needed one of them to explain it all to me.<\/p>\n
We’re under the illusion that we’re still hip.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re as out of it as our parents were.\u00c2\u00a0 Fortysomething plus executives purveying music to youngsters.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, how can we sell it when we don’t even know how to download it?\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t even know how our customers use it!\u00c2\u00a0 We need house hippies just like they had in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 To explain it all to us.<\/p>\n
Just because mothers wear Seven jeans and fathers wear Tevas they shouldn’t get the idea they’re hip.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re actually a joke, to be made fun of by the younger generation, for being so out of it.<\/p>\n
Technology has enabled this division.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Something is happening here, and we don’t know what it is, we Mr. Joneses.<\/p>\n
But we did have the best music.<\/p>\n
Whiskey bottles and brand new cars Ronnie Van Zant was not like an American Idol.\u00c2\u00a0 He was not the kind of guy you could have on the "Today Show".\u00c2\u00a0 He would not be featured in "Us" or the "Enquirer".\u00c2\u00a0 He marched to the beat of his own drummer and didn’t seem to care about all that shit.\u00c2\u00a0 He was about getting high and having good times.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like today’s kids.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why they probably revere him.<\/p>\n Yes, as "That Smell" was building to a conclusion, our heads swimming, we exited Wave Rave.<\/p>\n And as we were walking to the car, Felice asked me if it was a chain.\u00c2\u00a0 No, you can’t clone and franchise perfection, you can’t replicate religion, you just can’t import soul.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to grow it.\u00c2\u00a0 And then everybody is drawn to it.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Oak tree you’re in my way<\/em><\/p>\n\n