Duane PetersMark your calendars lovers of anarchy, skateboarding, and vice. The long-awaited documentary, “Who Cares” is going to premiere at Beerland June 1st. This is the same film that has been advertised in all the skate mags as “coming soon” for the past four years or so. Although I try to avoid obsessing on the past of skateboarding, I really enjoyed what Stacy Peralta did with “Dogtown & Z-Boys.” I’m looking forward to the dramatization of that saga in the forthcoming “Lords of Dogtown,” too. But man, I’m hungry for this Duane Peters documentary.

Remember how in the Z-Boys movie, Skip Engblom and his Zephyr team turned that silly contest upside down? Those kooks were doing like handstand tick-tacks and other gymnastics while guys like Jay Adams were so full of energy, they expressed themselves with cannonball hops across the flat. They were out to wreck the anemia that had defined skateboarding up to that point. And they did.

Fast forward a few years, and skateboarding once again had gone commercially lame. Groups like the National Skateboard Association and the California Amateur Skateboard League pushed skateboarding as a wholesome sport, devoid of the revolutionary soul that fired up those articles written by Craig Stecyck years earlier. “Radical!” was defined by Mike McGill. Fortunately, there was Duane Peters headbutting the world of skateboarding. I’m not going to try to claim that DP singlehandedly injected punk rock into skateboarding. But I will say that Duane stands as a strong representation of punk rock and skateboarding merging in the late seventies / early eighties. Besides that, he’s an astonishing testimony to the human body’s durability.

Here are the details–

WHERE: Beerland (711 Red River)
WHEN: June 1st, 2005. Doors open at 7:00pm. Documentary screens at 10:00pm. Skate videos before. Bands afterwards.
WHAT: Who Cares?!? Austin Premiere, Free Pizza by Slices and Ices (2530 Guadalupe St.), Volcom Raffle
WHO: Music by the Ape Shits and the Kodiaks.
WHY: Benefit for the DIY concrete bowl project under the bridge
COST: $5 — all of the money raised goes to buy concrete.

Because of zoning restrictions, Beerland is limited to admission by those 21-and-up, only. Here is a trailer for Who Cares?!?