That Which is Coming

Posted by S A-M on May 18, 2010 · 2 Comments 

OK so it’s a little early for Saudi National Day this year but I couldn’t get over this video of inline skaters in Saudi on Youm alWatani.

Aside from the fact that these dudes need a serious Fish-Eye-Lens video-make-over ala Aggressive Inline it hints at the awesome and wide gap of fun-to-be-had between the synapses of acting like-an-insane-person and stuff that’s 7aram.

Then I found this article

– nevermind that skating and skating are two totally different things (I don’t know why blading & inline seem intuitively less subversive than skateboarding) but for the sake of the blog I’m making some mental leaps…some subcultural allys ok? –

I reference for you the below:

Skateboarding in Riyadh in Rem Koolhaus’ 2nd Al Manakh.

In this entry the Sk8tr Bois of alRiyadh say this:

“In Saudi Arabia Security guards do one of two things: either stand and watch or come shouting things and kick us out. While having designated skating areas might be fun, undesignated street spots will always be more challenging. Sand is always a problem. Sometimes grass is too. We would like to mention again that in Saudi Arabia there are NO public skate parks so that leaves us with no choice.”

I hope no-one goes building any sk8 parks here in the Khaleej for 3 reasons:

1. Every f*cking marble-clad parking lot at the right time of morning (skip school!) is a skate park complete with rails, stairs, ramps, naturally occurring quarter-pipes and sometimes even half-pipes! We should be pumping out the world’s most rambunctious natural-born skaters by now with all this concrete!

2. I love it when little packs of skaters get up in my way with their cans of Power Horse in the headlights.

3. If you did get a park? Then what? Congratulations. Now you have a ‘designated area’ where you can ream-the-ledges legally til you turn into a Saudi-skater-dad in thobe and ratty over-washed hoodie?

H*ll No.

As far as rebellion goes: keep invading the public spaces ya shabab!

It’s good for the country’s circulation.

Keeps the angry ones riled and the dander fresh.

Thanks for reading!

Now I leave you with the ORIGINAL Saudi Skates:

Filed under Skater Dad Saudi