Friday, April 26

Think and Feel The DRIVE

By Mike Vallely
Special to EXPN.com

9:07 AM - Long Beach, CA

The nice thing about doing this west coast swing of tour dates is that I've gotten to see my family the past two days and sleep in my own bed for the past two nights. I was able to see my daughter Emily off to school this morning and I'll get to crawl around with my seven month old Lucinda for a few hours this morning before I'm back out on the road. The bad thing about this west coast swing is the poor turn-outs wherever I go. From the shop signings to the premiers very few people are making it out to support the tour. I guess there's a limited audience for what I'm doing and what I'm all about. Maybe if I was a shit bag druggy and smoked out and snorted with the right people or if I was some punk ass flavor of the month media darling I'd have some folks coming out to see me but I don't. I guess this video is too confrontational, it makes you think and feel and it seems there aren't enough people left in skateboarding who want anything to do with such things.

These same folks will turn out in droves and can really get behind a film like Dogtown. Of course, that's easy... that's where we came from... it's all style and attitude and that crap is trendy right now. But Drive is about what we could be and that is a bar no one seems to want to step to. Oh well, I push forward regardless, with or without an audience.

The kiddies get hyped for free swag.

Don't get me wrong, the folks that have shown up are good people and their presence means everything to me but sometimes, just sometimes it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle. Well, if so I'll gladly lose...

...I'm gonna' go hang with the family for a few before I head out to Ventura and on to Arizona to close out the tour.