Skart Beach 4

The location changes, but the dilemma remains the same while on a skate trip. When night falls, do you go out and have a few drinks and enjoy some local music in celebration of a full day of skating? Or do you keep on pushing the skate session because you realize you have only filmed one trick all trip? The ever-committed Pleasant team decided on the latter, after much debate.

Santa Cruz is not an urban skate playground like your NYs or your SFs so the whole night mission thing was not as productive as we imagined. Wes did one of his patented steel grate lily pad lines, but that type of thing can happen anywhere across this decaying country. The bench spot that we went to was too sandy and there was a car parked in front of the manual pad nearby. This is typical of Santa Cruz street skating. There are only a handful of interesting spots to skate but they are usually unskatable for the most mundane reasons. It's hard to remember what we did next.

It would be easy to say that things took a turn for the worse on the last day of the trip. In hindsight though, the trajectory of the weekend is clear. Things got off to a slow and strange start the first night, warmed up the next day, and peaked that afternoon at Derby. From there, spirits had nowhere to go but down, and continued this way into the morning and carried the crew out of Santa Cruz. Which makes this trip exactly like every other skate trip ever made.

The next morning started off with a trip down to the shoreline for some low-key skarting. Nobody really knew what to do with themselves as we sat around and laughed at nothing in particular, soaking up the rays. Skateboarding had to happen eventually but the group was beginning to fracture as the gung-ho tour vibes inevitably declined.


Wes and Peter headed to the skatepark for a sure session. The rest of us chanced it on the streets. The streets did not pan out all that well filming-wise, Pat focused his board, but it was a good time nonetheless at the now defunct Safeway ledge.

We convened back at the skatepark and the "over it"ness of the group was clear. I think the irony was lost on everyone but me when the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" pulsed through the speakers as the car started. Maybe they were just happy Rhianna's "What's My Name" had not been recorded yet. We got back to the house, gathered up the stuff, snapped a quick group photo, and they were off... oh, na, na, na, na.