Don't Hate the Man, Hate the man that Tele's
Would Chevy ever say “if you were pussy whipped you’d be driving a Lumina?” Not likely. Then why is giant who’s made boards since the onset, putting us down with this irrevocable comment, posing quite the conundrum, as well as humiliating and degrading themselves? An obvious response is, “K2 Telemarking has nothing to do with K2 Snowboarding and its only a sticker.” Perhaps, but anyone who has been around pre-ghetto fabulous era or grew up riding Fat Bobs, Eldorados, and Ju-Ju’s should deem it unacceptable.
In this day, it’s a somewhat accepted reality that ski companies produce boards, skis, and tele skis. Business is business, but do not take us for morons. Did ya think we’d forgotten there’s a K2 ad on every third page of every snowboard mag? Are we being over run by companies who in one hand take our money and with the other declass us? What’s happening to our sport (sport, not a sport, call it what you will, no one gives a shit)?
I’ll tell you, ski/snowboard conglomerates are taking over. They’re a shit sandwich, and as riding continues to grow, K2 and the like are stacking them full, if not careful we eventually take a bite. K2 you sell out, or is the word sell out too cliché? Nowadays companies don’t sell out, they just become lame.
The Animal Chin of snowboarding has been found some time ago when riding was still real and fun, but we are now killing him slowly, with “shey-whitey” claiming “thug life,” K2 denouncing their stepchild, ESPN poisoning the minds of our youth with false images of what we are about, and to top it off we have “pinners” claiming mountains as their own, refusing to share. This is a fucking outrage, lets take ‘em back and then lets bring it back to ‘92.
Since the topic of “pinners” is already in the air I’m taking this opportunity to criticize them as they do us with their cowardly sticker.
“Mad River Glen is the “Mecca” for Telemark skiing in New England. Visitors to Vermont’s skier owned mountain will notice a greater concentration of “free-heelers” than almost any other ski area in North America. Mad River Glen’s uncrowded, natural snow trails, and award winning terrain offer some of the finest lift serviced Telemark skiing available anywhere. “It’s a market segment we target aggressively, especially in light of our ban on snowboarding” explains Marketing director, Eric Friedmanin in a MRG brochure a.k.a. 'commi pinko rag.'
“If it were pointless it’d be called telemarking,” a God-awful pastime, whose participants find it so necessary to demean our sport by calling it simple. Crouching hippie, hidden agenda is more like it. These “pinners” are the same incumbents maintaining a prominent effort to keep riders out of their sanctuaries such that “Mad River Glen the only eastern area, is joined by Alta, Deer Valley, and Taos. Not too bad a company to keep,” says one shit head. Unless we are comfortable accepting the fascist four Teli/Ski Nazi Regime and it was circa 1938, lets do nothing at all.
The “skier vs. snowboarder war,” an antiquated notion maybe, but “pinners” vs. riders is clearer than ever. Never have I witnessed such animosity towards riders from those whose pastime is easily comparable to weeding the garden, or running a marathon in flip flops. We have no unnecessary reasons to bend over, as do you in a pointless activity, which I liked better when it was called cross-country skiing. The way I see it “pinners” fall into one of the following categories:
1. The “shit wigged” wearing 'trustafarian pinner' who denounces capitalism, but fails to recognize it’s a necessary evil, which builds his skis and ski lifts. Look at his K2 “Work Stinx,' skis. Yeah work stinks, for them not you. Does his wannabe humanitarian ass know they are from a sweatshop in China, put together by children with little fingers? Then he preaches I don’t eat animal hospitalities, while buckling his leather Berks. Talk about being a monkey to the man and not even knowing it. “Free your heel” I say “free this.” Rather then mocking us put more effort towards getting a job so you can feed your malnourished hippie mutts and then maybe you can afford a more advanced body fragrance then petruli. If you fit the above description and just read this, I hope you have an anxiety attack followed by a mental break down just because you’ve finally figured out that being a hippie is being a hypocrite. You are part of a trend rebelling adamantly against nothing, while living a life of lies, and you have to face the fact that you cross country ski down hill.
2. The 'techi gear head pinner' who sports the Face or Patagonia, drives an X terra, and talks about how super breathable their gear is, followed by what skis should be taken out tomorrow. The steak heads of the snow world. They almost always link their turns and love slapping on skins to go for an uphill death march after a red bull. These type make constant claims that riders scrape snow off the trail, we are deemed reckless and seen as some sort of lesser being engaging in a simple minded sport. It’s as if every morning they walk out their door, step in dog shit and blame us. Get over yourselves. Yeah, telemarking may be difficult, but so is knitting a sweater and Dungeons and Dragons, but you don’t see me participating in these pastimes either.
3. The “pinner” who considers themselves in with everyone. “I telemark as well as alpine ski, and on powder days I take out my snowboard,” says jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But if ever confronted with the issue of riding being banned from certain mountains they say “I hear what you are saying, and believe me from a riders point of view there are some mountains whose trails are to steep and narrow for us to manipulate, they just shouldn’t be allowed in some resorts. But in actuality I don’t have anything against riders, don’t forget I also ride.” Fucking hypocrite.
4. “I ski but telemarketing looks fun, I’d like to learn,” says the would-be “pinner” yearning to free his heel. No, No, No, don’t ever, ever say those words. Every time a skier makes that statement, God kills a kitten. If you take pleasure in killing kittens while being associated with a bunch of fascist, no good, snowboard hating free-heeled Nazis, who have fruit flaring out of their pockets, go ahead. I guess stupidity is contagious, so fuck you to.
Is all this animosity really necessary, or did I just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Probably, but the sad reality is we’re all free heelers until we strap in. Maybe we should be a little more considerate to each other’s feelings and listen to the words of a man, who took a few too many blows from, uhm… “The Man” but once said “Can’t we all just get along” followed by “Take out your aggressions on a common enemy, like the police, uh, I mean snowlerbladers.” ‘Nuff said.
So if you are reading this and saying to yourself, man this guy has his shit dialed, he’s right, we are being oppressed. Tell your friends, start a hate group, and put a flag up in your sheltered mountain community, where there is nothing to do but ski, ride and bitch about pointless crap that no one in the “Real World” gives a shit about because they actually have real problems to deal with. Sorry pal, these are just words and stereotypes. African Americans, Jews, Native Americans, Mexicans, etc… were (are) oppressed, not upper middle class white boys, a category which most of us fall into. Let’s face it our lifestyles are selfish and no one cares. There’re more important things going on today which we seem to constantly ignore because we have to ride, slide, or squat, but that’s okay, because everything in our backyard is all white, I mean right. We should look upon our lives and recognize how lucky we are to be living the way we do. Hey does any one remember those two buildings that were knocked down in September, and does any one care that the world is going to shit. Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt your perfect world, and what a world of bullshit it can be.
-Greg Saladino
