I started skateboarding when I was 15 years old, in Yokosuka, Japan. It was in skating that I had first developed a desire for self-expression and a personal identity, and it also encouraged something I had lacked growing up: making social connections. So to say I had “fallen in love” or had become “addicted” would be a crude understatement. I had found something in my life that fulfilled me, challenged me to grow, and gave me a sense of uniqueness. I thought about it every day, and I did it as often as I could.
Fast forward a couple years and we’re ready to leave our island, half the world away and considerably isolated, to land in San Diego, CA! I still remember the outside-in-perspective feeling watching my own mind get blown when I picked up my first issue of Transworld Skateboarding Magazine. I then realized the most exciting element of this thing called “skateboarding” that I hadn’t quite understood up to that point: CULTURE. It all flooded my young teenage mind, and at that moment I’d made a decision – I was a full-blown skate rat.
After years of obsession and grinding (pun not intended but certainly not avoided), by 2009 I was loving my life in El Paso, Texas. I was skating every park and bowl in the city, had met some amazing friends that kept me inspired and motivated, and had even a couple sponsors! I always stuck with the guys riding the pools, the always dapper and well cultured gnar-shredders and concrete-surfers (someone out there’s gotta feel me) because they knew how to have a good time. It was all about hyping each other up, being there for your friends no matter what, and knowing how to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’!
Oh, and we drank BEER. One time, me and the boys(in the photo above) took a trip to Silver City, NM, and spent the day absolutely destroying the skatepark, AND more than a couple grocery store deli bagged rotisserie chickens. It was probably one of the best days of my life, and through the years I’ve carried this memory, there is a remarkable lucidity when I recall our beverages of choice: good ol’ tall boys of Coors Banquet! The experience itself is akin to hearing the best part of your favorite song. I’ll always visit that day in my mind and hear the crack of a fresh can as clearly as wood slapping on some pool coping…the taste of chicken, sweat, and beer out of an aluminum can. We were just a bunch of guys hanging out and doing what we loved, enjoying life and sharing all of that together with each other…in the SUN. Sitting down to take this picture and light my cigarette, I was gifted an epiphany. “These are my people”…I was immersed in culture.
The exposition might sound silly but it reflects how we as people get so emotionally tied to what we drink and that says something about our nature as humans, and it teaches us how we truly enjoy alcohol: together. Our experiences shape our reality, making it so critical that we see what is right in front of us!
It is and probably always has been about community. Its about what we do together, what we’ve made it through, the plans we have for the future…its about celebrating people and being present in the moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always enjoy the nice cocktail or brew alone just fine…but you have to remember where you come from. So what are some experiences you have that you say would have left a strong, lasting impression on you and what you drink? As for me…there will never be a day when I don’t walk into a bar, and see a can of Coors, and remember those fine summer days of skating bowls sweaty, dirty, and bleeding, with a case of beer.
Cheers,
Deme
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