There are easier ways to spend your life than skateboarding. You could become an accountant. You could sell luxury wellness products.
You could float through life in a transparent bubble, heavily medicated and discussing quarterly growth projections.
Which brings us directly to Maik Grüner’s latest graphic for Nightwood Skateboards.
High above the desert, two citizens of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World drift through the heavens in their pleasure capsule. One dreams of laybacks. The other desperately needs another gram of Soma. Neither appears burdened by reality.
Below them stretches a wasteland of comfort, convenience and civilized decay.
And somewhere in the middle of all this madness stands a swimming pool.
Not a luxury resort.
Not a wellness retreat.
A DIY pool.
Built for one purpose.
Skateboarding.
The last remaining temple of useless freedom.
Inside lurks the savage.
The skateboarder.
Wild-eyed.
Sunburned.
Suspicious of authority.
While civilization floats overhead discussing trends, efficiency and market forecasts, the savage continues practicing an ancient and largely unprofitable ritual:
Rolling around in circles because it feels incredible.
No shareholders.
No algorithms.
No productivity targets.
Just concrete, speed and the eternal search for the perfect line.
The pool walls whisper their own stories.
Scratched messages from the reservation.
Declarations from the underground.
A few hidden clues.
A few subliminal messages.
One in particular might look strangely familiar to readers of a certain photocopied publication that has spent decades surviving in the cracks of civilization. If you know, you know.
Like every DIY spot.
Like every road trip.
Like every backyard ramp.
Like every zine assembled at 3 a.m. with glue, coffee and questionable life choices.
Some things survive precisely because nobody figured out how to turn them into a proper business.
Manufactured at the Locals Skateboards factory in Poland, this latest Nightwood release is available in the beloved NON old-school 9.25″ shape and, by overwhelming demand from the street barbarians, popsicle shapes ranging from 7.75″ to 9″.
Different outlines.
Same disease.
The bubble people continue floating overhead.
Half asleep.
Half sedated.
Dreaming of comfort.
The savage has other plans.
He drops in.
He carves.
He slashes.
He survives.
And somewhere beneath the coping, scratched into the concrete for those paying attention, remains the true message of the graphic:
Civilization had its chance.
Now it’s skateboarding’s turn.
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