Dogtown and the Z-boys

Dogtown and Z-Boys
“we live in the moment”
Started in a place that looked like California
Related it to being a rock star
Girls and guys both had long hair
Route 66
Dogtown was dirty, filthy, had to have eyes in the back of your head…”paradise”
Run down surfer resort
Surfers used to be looked at as drop outs, it wasn’t the thing to be doing back then
Jeff Ho was a big designer of surf boards
His surf boards reflected dog town- gang graffiti
Zephyr Surf Team created by Jeff Ho [from Venice]
Venice, California became an amusement park in the water and later became no man’s land
Zephyr Team did not let other surfers in on “their water” [old amusement park] they had to earn their way in
The kids on the zephyr surf team were mostly kids from a broken home. Jeff Ho was like a parent to them.
Soon skating became popular “sidewalk surfboards”
1963 skateboarding became a sport and teams began to form- crashed in 1965
Larry Birdleman made a lot of new moves on a surfboard kids wanted to copy on their skate boards [cut back, touching the wave]
California’s drought served as a revolution for skate boarders- using dried up pools
Spontaneous

Questions
1. I think this ethnographic study is more towards entertainment rather than a study.

2. The individuals interviewed in this documentary are the boys that were a part of the skate and surf teams in California. It was important to interview them because they had the best insider perspective compared to anyone else. They helped the viewers to understand not only the sports they were doing but why it happened and the kind of people that were involved with it.

3. The documentary made me believe that the people involved in surfing and skating were spontaneous kids from a rundown household looking for something better in life. They were crazy and their plan for their future relied on one word…”fun”

4. The organization is in chorological order and it helps to understand how one even evolved from another and how things end up where they did and where they are today.

5. I had the stereotype that the majority of skateboarders were kids that skated instead of doing homework, joined skate teams instead of colleges. I never thought they were “bad” kids, they just had a different outlook on life. I think that the movie somewhat agreed with my belief that skaters were spontaneous and did not plan out their future.

6. I think the writer/speakers are very credible because they are the ones that were a part of the whole skater/surf scene.