On the Edge of Enlightenment
Out of all the videos on this page, this one's not the rockinest. It's also not the toughest, the most
intellectual, or the most talked about. It is, however, the best (at least in my opinion). I say this
because it's the most complete of the videos. It's got everything. It isn't just tough; it isn't just
intellectual; it isn't just rockin and rollin; it isn't just raw...but it does have some of all of these
things. There's nothing missing from this video. Everything came out just as it should have. The skating
and riding is right where it should be. The parts capture everyone's skating. The 'friends' section is at
the end because the real motivation of any skating is friends. The wreck section is hard without being too
serious. The intro is thought-provoking without being boring to watch. Everything in this video fits in.
Now that I've gotten my raving out of the way, I can get down to talking about the video. Hmmm...I'm having
some trouble deciding where to start with this one--just dive in I guess. The name says exactly what I saw
and felt in myself and in everyone else at the time. I felt like every one of us was, in more than one way,
on the edge of enlightenment. I felt like we were all poised on the edge of some sort of significant changes
or realizations or epiphanies. I had been reading a lot of theory and had just written my first research
paper on skateboarding (and by doing that brought The Outlaw Collective into existence). I felt like my
mind, life, and body were exploding with possibility. I felt like I was on the edge of some...thing. I felt
in everyone else too. Derek seemed to be coming out of himself and changing really quickly...moving toward
something; his riding felt like it was getting ready for a big--I don't know the right word--jump(?). Dan's
skating was going in really cool new directions, and he seemed to be in the midst of changes in his personality,
interests, lifestyle, music, and a whole host of other thing. Craig's skating was growing and changing as
fast as he was. The Outlaw Collective and all the theory I had been reading made it feel like we were all
simultaneously working together and separately toward something (it still feels this way, as a matter of fact).
We were part of something that was greater than what we were right then, but it was also nothing more than
us as people. We were all on the edge of enlightenment...feeling our power and getting ready to learn how to
use it, flex it, focus it, take advantage of it. It was so exciting to feel and I think the video catches
the sense of readiness, the sense of 'being on the cusp', the sense of potential.
The captions in the introduction had a lot to do with my interest in Melville (the dude who wrote Moby Dick),
who incidentally became one of my two favorite authors ever. I liked Moby Dick and "Bartleby" the best
out of all the stuff he did. Both of these things had to do with the ability that naming something has
to cement and control things. Because I thought this idea was fuckin' sweet and quite true, I changed the
captions I had initially wrote, which all started with "Skateboarding is...," to ones that started with
"Skateboarding's not...," or something to that effect. I wanted to avoid naming and setting down what we do.
I also, however, wanted to set some parameters because I feel like what we do is distinct and does have a
cohesiveness. That's why I just said what it's not. I didn't want to name it, but I did want it to be clear
that it wasn't everyone or for everyone. Just because people do the same things we do (skate/bike) doesn't
mean that they're doing the same thing. This feeling of being on the edge of something combined with the
desire to avoid naming it. In the beginning of my section, the quote talks about walking toward a cliff and
standing momentarily in some sort of hesitation, then....I jump. You'll know it when you see it. I set it up
so that in the quote I jump without knowing why or to where because I didn't feel like any of us had went over
the edge yet. We didn't know where exactly we were going, we were just going. All of this also corresponds to
the title screen. The words On the Edge of Enlightenment are not going down the stairs, they are at
the top...and if you look real close you'll see that they're just falling over the edge. Much like us, they
haven't gone over the edge yet...the cliff stands before them, spiralling slightly down and out of sight
(like I said, I don't feel like any of us knew exactly where we were headed). Oh, and yes, this was all planned.
I picked that spot and wrote it that way because I wanted it to all express the feeling of being on the edge
of enlightenment. For those of you who're like, "Dude, that's way too fuckin' specific and deep for a skate
video," you might be right, but I'm really into it. I feel like each person's section reflects the places
that each of them were on the edge of and struggling with. I have my own ideas as to what those are (and what
my own are), but you can watch it and get your own ideas...if you even agree with me.
As far as new shit in this one, the intro. was a lot more calm (but, to me, somehow more intense) than the
others because of the small number of tricks and the way that they were each bookended by such strong statements
and the black screen. HCS is starting to come together more and more. The halfpipe grew, and if you watch
close, there's a little bit of footage from the setup that HCS had when it officially opened. This video had
mixed music and skate sounds for the whole video...which was a long time coming. I was so excited to finally
do a full video with mixed sound. It makes it so much more engaging to watch. The music for this video was
significantly more varied than the ones before it without losing the intensity or cohesion of the other videos.
This was the first (and only) video that I had enough footage to put together a separate section with Dave and
Seth's footage. I was real glad I could finally do that. I love skating with those two kids and I was psyched
as shit that I could put a whole section of them in there. This is the first video to have some references
(even if one of them is very vague) to the now stock "Kill Yourself" mantra. The vague reference would be
the skit at the end where Joe makes himself an early grave. The more obvious one being the beginning of the wreck
section. Actually, if I remember correctly, this video was originally going to be called Kill Yourself for
Skateboarding. We were going to have each person make a skit for the beginning of their section where
they were killed or killed themselves. It ended up not being that because we never got the motivation to
do all those skits...it just didn't seem worth it. For mine, I was going to say something about having to pee,
then go around a corner. Once out of view I would pour out some gasoline and have it run into view like it
was my piss. Someone would light it and we'd have some sort of fake explosion. It never went over exactly
because we never felt like making all the preparations for one sketch...to say nothing of four. I guess that's it
for this video. It's my favorite. Sorry if this explanation is a lot longer than the others, but I just find
this video so much more compelling than the others.