everywhere, and so we are still living through this backlash against the 1960s. I think that’s really the roots of it. OK here’s another important thing… Did you read the thing I wrote about skateboard parks? I wrote a thing about skateboard parks; it was actually the first thing I published in a peer review journal. It was about progressive era playgrounds. I published it in the Journal of Urban History… WH: OK I don’t think I’ve seen that, but I’d love to... It was about progressive era playgrounds. Why did we first get playgrounds? It’s a really interesting story. What I say there is, it’s all about property value, it wasn’t about the ideology that people had. And what I wrote about skateboard parks is the same, it’s sort of following that up for the present era, ‘Public Skateboard Parks are the Neo Liberal Playground’ that was the title of my piece. Which again was a critical thing I think might have pissed skaters off, but people really responded positively to it. I was like great yeah… But it’s all about property values. That’s another reason in the American context. And here (in the UK), for one thing, it’s harder to own anywhere… It’s much more of a socialised economy. It’s all about private property there. So that has an absolutely material literal expression where, ‘you’re on my piece of property’ like, ‘you cross that line you’re now on my piece of property’, but it also has a mind-set. When people are in public spaces or people are walking through public space… They conceive it as a kind of as a private property. Do you understand what I mean? So it’s like, ‘this is for this… Look there’s a bench here and it’s clearly meant for people who have shopped in that store to come here and eat this kind of fucking sandwich’… They have a certain kind of possessive sense of everything. Even when things are actually public, their conception of publicness is a very privatised
version of it I think. So yeah all of that big fucking frothy mix of stuff contributes to the fact that people look at skateboarding that way in the US as opposed to here. And you’re right, that’s gross and it’s maddening. Like that’s where it fucking came from. WH: It’s interesting, I never thought about it like that. OK so Malmö is a very forward thinking city and that’s helped skateboarding thrive there, at the same time as Daphne (Greca) said in the talk yesterday... Athens is quite a chaotic city with lots of problems plus a very anarchic attitude, and that has also benefited the skateboard scene. But I feel like most cities are somewhere in between that. They aren’t as forward thinking as Malmö, but not complete chaos like Athens... In your opinion, what are some of the best things an average skater can do to convince his or her city council that skateboarding benefits public spaces and city life? Well, I mean that’s really a question for Gustav… Also it depends on the context. Talking to Eugene, Oregon is not the same as talking to Malmö, not the same as talking to Athens, not the same as talking to London. Actually I really appreciate all the stuff Stu (Maclure) was saying… Learn your local council, learn their language, learn who the people are, learn their concerns… I’m just saying because they are all incredibly different. So the main thing I would have to say is understand where you are, understand what the local politics are, understand who’s involved. And learn about it. Again I’m so impressed with European cities. Like dirt bag skaters, who are just fucking pounding beers and smoking blunts show up and go, ‘OK there’s an issue that I think is important’, and then they fucking get it together go to the city council. AD: That was
definitely the case for the Long Live Southbank campaign. WH: It’s incredible. You’re like ‘these fucking dudes?’ AD: Fucking heroes man, it was unbelievable. WH: You’re like ‘ok there’s a 10% chance that they can make a change.’ And they did it. They saved Southbank. To me that is incredible. It brought people together. I mean that’s it… Understand the local scene and organise. And learn to speak that other language. And I appreciated some of the stuff that Gustav was saying, you know, ‘when you’re young and you’re super into your culture, it’s really easy to dismiss everything else and to feel like you’re selling out when you’re doing this stuff ’. But you’re not. ‘Oh, you’re doing property damage… No, I’m activating this space’. And it’s not learning how to bullshit: it’s telling the truth. People speak different languages, and there’s nothing wrong with being able to speak in different registers, you know what I mean? You don’t curse in front of your mum… WH: It’s the way you talk to people that confront you as well. That’s another thing you can do. ’I’m not trying to damage this; I’m trying to use this dead space.’ Right, so learn to speak in the appropriate registers. You know, you speak a different way at work than you do when you’re with your friends drinking beers… or with your wife, or with your kids… My god I have kids now, boy do I have to speak in a different way than I’m inclined to… And my students… And the older you get and the more responsibilities and worlds you move into, the more you learn to speak different languages and the more you realise that’s fine. Young people tend to have an issue with that. They think that they’re not being true to themselves. WH: Selling out or something. Selling out yeah, just by