Trip to Vail and Breckenridge: Snowboarding Culture
So–I am pleased to report that my trip to Colorado was great. We must have gotten over 24 inches of snow while I was out there. My dashing girlfriend, Jenny, was there the first half of the trip and then my good friends Noah and Alexis came out for the second half. Nothing terribly eventful went down when while we were out there other than my friend Noah taking a nasty ski crash and getting himself a gnarly canned oxygen huffing habit (if smoking opium is chasing the dragon then huffin’ 02 is sucking heaven). So what else is there to talk about? How about how downhill snowboarding culture has gone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do the photographic documentation of this phenomenon that I should have been doing while I was in Breckenridge and Vail so you’ll have to trust my tirade presented in the form of a predicted-to-exist snowboarder credo.
Snowboard Slob/Slut/Sloven Credo
1. If I weigh under 170 lbs. or am female I will not have a nickname, people will call me by my last name. If I do weigh over 170 lbs. I will have a nickname; clams, bones, junks or anything in that vein will do.
2. I am going to wear gigantic clothing; I mean I am going to wear shit that puts my high school hip-hop phase shit to shame. It may be difficult to procure this stuff because no one outside of the insular snowboard hobo world wears it, but I’ll find it.
3. If I’m not genuinely dumb I am going to like I am. Also, my goggle tan makes me seem ten times stupider than I already am–bonus!
4. I will listen to as much bad rap and reaggae as is humanly possible.
5. I will not. Repeat. I will not leave my domestic residence without a skully, nor will my friends, and if they do, I will not be seen with them.
6. I will have no self respect.
7. When I am photographed I will put my arms out like a self-concerned jackass, or, flash a stupid and meaningless gang sign like this:
There, that ought to get you started if you are a functioning citizen and thinking about moving out west to become a snowboard slob. You better get it down pat before you go out there, though, because those cretins can smell a poser from a mile away. Good Luck.
2 Comments
Interesting. I wonder, does this mean that surfers have moved up in the world? It seems that they have taken a kind of spiritual position in our culture and the snowboarders have taken up the slacker cause for their own. I think I like surfers. Ed Vedder is a surfer. So is Jack Johnson. I’m not a huge fan of Jack’s music, but I do like the whole kind of laid-back attitude, maybe.
Good observation, Joe. In fact, I know someone who has first hand experience with the surfers and the snowboarders and she has reported what you suspect. When she was snowboard slobbing she said the guys were all impotent, dirty, stoners and now that she’s living in Hawaii she says that the surf guys are a healthy meditative bunch.
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[...] is a photo from the ski crash that I referenced in a post last week. My friend Noah was skiing off the T-Bar at Breckenridge and hit some really variable conditions, [...]
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