The fate of slacklining in Hermosa Beach may have been sealed with a coincidental appearance from a pair of internet comedians. At its April 3 meeting, Hermosa’s Parks, Recreation and Community Resources Advisory Board had been set to discuss a proposal for a park on the beach for slacklining, a growing but still niche sport that involves balancing on a length of webbing tied to two fixed points and suspended in the air. But several commissioners couldn’t make it, and the meeting was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of a quorum. The city announced that issues scheduled for April would be taken up at the commission’s May meeting.
Word did not reach everyone interested. On April 30, Hermosa’s City Council held a study session about the fiscal year’s capital improvement program. With an agenda heavy on data-laden presentations and no votes to be taken, it would not have been surprising for the meeting to draw zero interest from the public. But a dozen so attendees lingered near the entrance to the council chambers, many of them young and with a fresh-from-the-beach appearance, a contrast to the accumulated years and commute-harried air of most people who address South Bay city councils. Several of them were slackliners and evident newcomers to local government, who had not known to look at the meeting’s agenda and see that it contained nothing about slacklining, and that therefore no action on the sport could be taken.
Appropriate forum or not, though, they had shown up, and petitioned their government.
Slacklining is “a really cool way to move your body, and do a moving meditation,” said Hermosa resident Aiden Blood, and he hoped the council would consider a park proposal soon.
The slackliners, however, were not the only sun-kissed speakers that night. They were preceded by two people identified by the acting city clerk as Chad Kroeger and J.T. Parr. “What up, council?” Kroeger began. Wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt, he urged Hermosa to rename the “Edward C. Little Water Center” the “Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ Water Center.” (The Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility, in El Segundo, is operated by the West Basin Municipal Water District.) Parr followed with multiple verses, sung with conviction if slightly out of key, of “Toxic,” Spears’ 2003 hit about corrosive lust.
“Kroeger” and “Parr” are alter-egos for two webcomics who have gained a measure of fame by appearing at local government meetings throughout Southern California, where they provide public comment advocating for the needs of the vacuous uber-bros that they play with Colbert-esque commitment. They have spoken in Los Angeles against restrictions on house parties in the Hollywood Hills, and in Manhattan Beach in favor of creating an “extra Fourth of July.” The fact that they chose to appear in Hermosa at a public works study session, and that slackliners mistakenly thought that the same study session was the meeting when a slackline park would be addressed, was a coincidence. But, blur your eyes, and there is some resemblance between the characters of Parr and Kroeger and the real people there to talk about slacklining.
“Me and my buddy were on a road trip and out of nowhere, he’s like, ‘Let’s go to Utah, let’s stand on this Highline that’s 500 feet in the air,’” a slackliner named Jeremy told the council, his cadence, and intonation not far from that of Jeff Spicoli. “And I’m like, ‘Holy Crap, that’s insane!’ And I did it and I’m so much more stoked on everything that I do in life now.”
The coincidence was an unfortunate one for slackliners. The still-emerging sport has yet to shake off its “Far out, man” reputation, and the whiff of counterculture has slowed its integration into civic culture. In Hermosa, slackliners have struggled to prove that their passion is worthy of the attention given by the city, let alone the investment of resources that a park on the beach would require.
The slackliners eventually got their own day before the parks and rec commission: two of them, in fact. At a meeting earlier this month and another one in May, an outpouring of residents helped sink proposals for beach slackline parks in various locations throughout town. The small number of those in support of slacklining, with none at all showing up at the most recent meeting, lent the gatherings the feel of a pointless exercise, put-out property owners defending themselves against obvious lunacy.
But as it is easy to lump slackliners in with the stereotypes acted out by Kroeger and Parr, there has also been something grotesque about Hermosans’ reaction to the park proposals. Whether or not a slackline park on the beach in Hermosa is a good idea — and there are reasons to think it is not — the proposal has brought out a venomous, reactionary edge in the Best Little Beach City.
Peter Nolan said the park would attract nothing but “hipsters who want to come down here and play on the slackline and smoke dope.” Wanda Johnston said that Hermosa’s sand is already too crowded, and that currently “children can’t play on the beach for fear of whatever.” And Rob Kole said that slackliners gathered on the beach would be the latest in a stream of out-of-towners increasing the risk of criminal activity.
