After Dark: Skateboard Science at the Exploratorium

By Thrillist

Published on 4/1/2011 at 4:00 AM

Spending a night at the museum might sound cool at first, but then you realize you'll be left in the dark surrounded by creepy prehistoric animals, plus other things that aren't Dick van Dyke. For a booze-filled evening at an SF museum that won't co-star Robin Williams with a p*rnstache, check out After Dark: Skateboard Science at the Exploratorium, debuting next Thursday night

Because combining science and booze is always fun, the Exploratorium ups the ante on its cocktail-equipped After Dark series, turning the 42-year-old tourist-trapping museum museum into an actually cool impromptu skatepark, complete with two 16'x6' quarter pipes, ramps, ledges, tables, and a fun box, which'll presumably be getting railed. The night-time only event'll have seven pro shredders on hand -- like Dennis Busenitz, Tony Trujillo, and the worst character on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Elissa Steamer -- who'll demo the park while you sip on full bar offerings, then they'll instantly play back the sickest moves on a 14ft Jumbotron in slow-mo while skateboard design legend Paul Schmitt and Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty hook up science-y play-by-play parsing the skaters' tricks, though if you watched FOX back in '97, you'd know that the Masked Magician pretty much already took care of that. And to ensure you go home with more than just knowledge, San Franpsycho will be on hand to screenprint tees -- bring your own shirt or buy one from them -- plus the skate-seum will have a line of 10 limited-edition nerd-tastic decks, including a "Coefficients of Friction" joint with a bunch of chalkboard numbers, a "Newton Rules" skate-able with Isaac's mug on it, and the "Laws of Skate", which will inevitably be broken by Tonya Harding's collapsible sledgehammer

The skatepark'll also stay up over the weekend, when they'll actually open it up to the public -- bring a board and cough up the $15 museum entrance fee and you can ollie, nollie, and kickflip all you want, assuming you don't plan on acting like (a) Dick.