DROP IN Pub date: July 16, 2024
Prologue (excerpt)
History, it is said, is written by the victors. And so it is that the male- dominated history of skateboarding has been written by men, is about men, and celebrates men, with a few delightful women popping up hither and yon.
This book is about skateboarders who identify as anything but men. Which isn’t to say that men who skateboard are bad. Many are good. Super even. Fantastic! But it’s time to tell some different stories. To set some records straight. To recognize and historicize the female, queer, bi, and nonbinary humans responsible for today’s more equitable skate culture.
Nothing exists in a vacuum; societies and political constructs are reflections of their respective eras. It’s what Olivia Laing calls the “immense entanglement of everything”— the idea that everything affects everything affects everything else. Even rebel things like skateboarding have long reflected, and been a reflection of, the world around them: In the 70s it personified the punk rock, lock-up-your-daughters, middle-finger-to-the-Man ethos. In the 80s it was fingerless gloves, parachute pants, neon graphics, and synthetic beats. In the 90s it channeled New York City—graffiti, hip- hop, and a hi/low street style personified by the Supreme shop on Lafayette, where hip-hop and incense wafted out the open doors onto the sidewalk, erasing the division between public and private space.
And in all those decades, skateboarding not only mirrored/reflected pop culture, but the sexist, homophobic framework surrounding it. Women were excluded entirely or welcomed to get paid mind-numbingly less for skating the same contests as men, just as women in corporate America got paid less than their male peers and were barred from the C-suite. Rarely did you see a woman’s name in a skate video—either on a deck or behind the lens—the same way a woman’s name rarely graced the top line of a Hollywood film under the title “producer” or “director.”
“Often, if you want to write about women in history, you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts,” said historical novelist Hilary Mantel.
This book is meant to avoid future historians having to make shit up.
Chapter 10: Your Local (excerpt)
A local bar is a port in a storm. A place where everyone knows your name, and not just your name, but where you work, what your relationship status is, and your preferred drink at various points throughout the night. A local is often synonymous with the term “dive bar,” but this isn’t always the case. The principal characteristic of any local—be it “fancy” or “divey”—is that it loves you unconditionally, so when you stand on top of the bar and proclaim yourself a golden god in the middle of Friday night service, promptly get 86’d,94 then spend the following day dressing up in disguise and returning to the scene of the crime,95 your local will slide a PBR across the bar and (begrudgingly) welcome you home.
Friends you make in your local become friends for life. Falling in love in your local is encouraged but falling in love and then breaking up and then fighting over who “gets the bar” is verboten. You might marry someone you meet in your local and that guarantees your photos being stuck on the wall behind the register. When you lose your job, your local will run a tab for you until you get back on your feet, and after hours, it will let you hang out while it counts its cash and washes its dishes, dims the lights and puts you in a cab ride home.
Reviews
“In this page-turning gem, Alperin and Stoll bring to fascinating life the ins and outs and ups and downs of building a glamorous, successful speakeasy. Part memoir, part perfectionist’s tutorial, this book will make you thirsty as hell for the perfect cocktail and even hungrier to pursue your own glittering dreams.” -- Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish
“The portrayal of cocktail culture in Unvarnished strips away the veneer of cheer that bartenders work so hard to project, revealing the chaos behind the curtain in a vocation where rapturous heights are offset by depraved depths. Cocktail geeks should be grateful that Alperin and Stoll bare as much of The Varnish’s ethos as its founder’s soul in this cinematic memoir that affirms the virtues of hospitality.” -- Jim Meehan, author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual an The PDT Cocktail Book
“A beautiful, heartbreaking, and triumphant look inside the beating heart of one of the most wonderful bars in the world. Alperin and Stoll have given us a raw, passionate, and hilarious record of exactly what it takes to achieve greatness in this business.” -- Jeffrey Morgenthaler, author of Drinking Distilled
“With the turn of every page, Alperin and Stoll have slipped off the underpinnings of our industry and provided us with the best seat in the house—a voyeur’s keyhole into the passionate yet gritty world of bar life. Brutally honest and deeply personal, Unvarnished is a cathartic bloodletting for anyone who has ever worked behind the stick. I loved it, I hated it, I couldn’t put it down.” -- Audrey Saunders, founder of Pegu Club
“Unvarnished reads like an unwavering, no-shortcuts hug from across the room, filling your soul with the most delicious pour, from the heart.” -- Roy Choi, chef and author of L.A. Son
Even teetotalers will relish the insights into this arcane world." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)