At over 70 years old, José Antonio Muñoz no longer does the tricks he used to try out on a skateboard when he was a teenager, but every time he goes to a competition, his children ask him to slow down a bit and accept the limits that age imposes on him. He remembers going down Madrid’s Calle de la Academia – which runs from the Retiro to the Prado Museum – doing a handstand on his board and dodging cones. “Now I have to go down with my feet on the board and I get a little scared. My body reacts differently now,” he says. Of course, back then, he would arrive on a Sunday at nine in the morning and start stretching and doing preparatory exercises. Now he gets straight on the skate. The shop took up a lot of training time. Because in 1975 Muñoz opened Caribbean, a pioneering shop selling skateboards in Spain and surfboards in Madrid, which also became a first stop in the country for new brands and clothing and has even developed its own line of products.
Doc Caribbean(Colectivo Bruxista) is the book in which Hugo Clemente simultaneously portrays the figure of Muñoz —the Doc Caribbean comes from the film Return to the futureabout a Halloween night when she appeared to skate with her hair teased and a white coat—, reconstructs the history of skateboarding in Spain and draws the lines to understand the essence of that culture on wheels.
Muñoz’s is a life story linked to a passion that he transmits orally – reading his memories is like sliding alongside him – and effectively – it spreads with equal intensity to those around him. A path of audacity in which he has dared to launch himself first down the ramps before which the doubts of the rest loomed. A journey with unique moments. The return home on a skateboard on the night of the coup d’état in 1981, for example. Or every second he has enjoyed riding a skateboard. Also those that are yet to come.
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