Read the excerpt from "what to the slave is the fourth of july? "
to him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts
of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and , with all your
religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to
cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

The story line remains the same. the kids live in what was then one of the remaining beachfront slums, down the coast from the expensive malibu area. the beach was ruled by surfers, but in the afternoon, when the waves died down, some of the surfers, or their younger brothers, fooled around on skateboards. one day, skip engblom, the shop owner, comes up with a key breakthrough, polyurethane wheels: "they grip." with the additional traction, the z-boys try skating the sides of the big, open drainage canal that runs through the area. then comes a brainstorm: because of a drought, the area's swimming pools were drained. the kids started "borrowing" pools when the owners weren't home, to skate the curved sides.” where did “the lords of dogtown” originally practice their tricks? a. the beach c. an open drainage canal b. empty pools d. none of these