It's been 36 years since the first little shot of me doing BMX freestyle (sort of) in this Maurice Meyer segment from a local San Francisco TV show. That's me chasing my Skyway T/A with hoopty parts at 5:07. When this was shot at Golden Gate Park, I was just getting ready to move to Southern California to take the job my little BMX zine led to, at Wizard Publications.
I started my first zine in September of 1985, right after moving to San Jose, from Boise, Idaho. I had just turned 20. The clip above was shot in late June or July of 1986, when I was one of the Bay Area BMX freestyles that rode in Golden Gate Park, when I could get up to The City on the weekends. My self-publishing career started with my San Jose Stylin' zine, and continues today, December 2022, as I write this. My self-publishing includes about 40 zines, staff writer/editorial assistant/or proofreader at three BMX magazines, nearly a year as the editor/photographer of the AFA newsletter, American Freestyle, over 400 poems written (and nearly all lost), and somewhere over 2,500 total blog posts written (2007 to present), which have dragged in over 450,000 total page views. I call myself a writer, you're free to disagree, if you like.
Since my incredibly bad taxi driver blog in 2007, I've tried over 50 blog ideas, I think. My big 5 blogs, in popularity, have been FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales (2008-2009), Freestyle BMX Tales (Original version- 2009-2012), Make Money Panhandling (2010-2012), Freestyle BMX Tales (3rd version- 2015-2017), and Steve Emig: The White Bear (2017-present). Those four have pulled in over 397,000 page views. Not bad for personal blogs, mostly about Old School BMX Freestyle, art, and a little economics. I deleted the first four of those blogs when I got stupid one night, during a dark time in my life, shortly after my dad's death in 2012.
This blog, Steve Emig's Street Life, filled a spot when I had retired Steve Emig: The White Bear for a while, and tired of the four blogs I replaced it with. Eventually, I decided to go back to "White Bear," since I didn't really want to write about homelessness, which I've become far to experienced at.
One post on "White Bear," about some guys talking about fucking with me while I slept homeless, got ALL my blogs banned from linking on Facebook and Instagram, for some reason. Even the blogs I started later on got banned. One post.
So I decided to end this blog with links to a bunch of my main blogs, if you want to check out more of my stuff, after stumbling into this blog.
The Damn Team, street performing dancers, Hollywood and Highland, where I used to sell artwork, or try to. One of my many photos taken on the streets.
In this TEDMed talk from a few years ago, Lloyd Pendlton explains how Salt Lake City, and the state of Utah, used the Housing First and Harm Reduction models, to reduce its chronic homeless population by 91% over ten years. He also explains how his understanding of the homeless issue, and homeless people, changed during that time. Most importantly, he explains the importance of trust in dealing with homeless people. This is the best video I've seen on dealing with homelessness in today's world.
Part of the change in thinking about homelessness in the last 25 years or so came from a Malcolm Gladwell article called "Million Dollar Murray." Here's a quick video explaining that idea.
"Million Dollar Murray" was first an article by Malcolm Gladwell that appeared in the New Yorker (February 13, 2006), and later was repreinted in his book, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. That's a collection of Gladwell's articles from the New Yorker, that was published in 2009. I read the story in that book several years ago.
Since the 2nd post of my Steve Emig: The White Bear blog, way back in June of 2017, I have been blogging about the loss of jobs to new technology, and other big, long term issues with our economy and fianncial and social world. I've blogged about a lot of other things, as well, mostly BMX freestyle and my Sharpie artwork. Since sometime in 2018, I've talked about the major recession, perhaps a full blown great depression, that I saw coming within a couple of years. I thought the major market downturn in December of 2018 was the start of it, but back in the Trump era, The Fed bailed things out, and propped the economy back up. In August of 2019, they had to lower interest rates, a sure sign that a recession was coming soon. I wrote a post in the "White Bear" blog, in August of 2019, called "The Beginner's Guide to the Next Great Recession." The Repo Market crisis happened about a month later, and the flock of black swans that was Covid-19, with its business shutdowns, hit six months after that post. Then came The Fed's helicopter money era, which was much bigger than I ever imagined, and turned Americans into a bunch of Stimulus Ballers, Robinhood stock traders, and dramtically overpriced home buyers.
Basically, from my own weird take on things, using theories no one else puts much faith in, I saw a huge economic downturn coming down the pike, about four years ago, and tried to warn people in the ways I could. But being broke, homeless. and having to fight the American Free Speech suppression forces at work in the social media world, I didn't get my ideas out to to many people. And hardly anyone cared to hear the "bad news" anyhow. Personally, I see recessions and depressions as good news, because that's when the best deals on big ticket items and investments happen, if you have some cash or resources to invest.
But I'm still homeless, I have no money to invest, and The Phoenix Great Depression, as I've come to call this 5 to 7 year (or more) economic downturn, is here. We're heading into the craziest part of this economic mess right now. Finally, everyone in the financial world sees it as well. So I'm going to stop writing about it. Everyone and there uncle is writing, blogging, talking on YouTube or TV about the economic recession or collapse that's happening. These are the exact same people, (with about 5 exceptions) that told you that we might have a mild recession in 2020, back in late 2019. They were wrong then, and will mostly be wrong again. If you want to jump on the Ark and go down like the Titanic, go for it. That's your choice.
So, I'm done on that subject. I've written a 20 chapter book/blog about The Tumultuous 2020's, as I call them, Welcome to Dystopia, The Future is Now, and a few dozen blog posts, over the last three years or so. You can find them if you want. My thoughts on where things are heading, and why they're heading that way, are out there, for anyone interested.
I'm done with this blog, I'm focusing on my new idea, The Spot Finder, writing about, and documenting BMX, skateboarding, action sports, and art spots, locations, that have become known in those worlds.
It's been swell... but the swelling's gone down. I'm out.
-Steve Emig
September 26th, 2022
P.S. If you're not sure what to invest in, may I suggest ranch dressing in containers that will last a long time. If the overhyped Apocalypse actually does happen, ranch dressing will be a great barering item. Everything's better with ranch! OK, almost everything.
Tony Hawk, during the best trick jam at the 1999 X-Games in San Francisco. I think it was on the 11th attempt he landed the first 900 on a skateboard ever on a skateboard. He'd been trying the trick for nearly ten years.
Ride a bike, it will take you places. SE Bikes brand manager Todd Lyons says that a lot these days, and he's right. There were about 5,000 stories of Tony Hawk landing this 900, the first ever on a skateboard, that night on a pier in San Francisco, a different story for each person in that crowd. This is my version. I was standing behind the pro skaters, less than 20 feet from the side of the ramp, talking to San Francisco BMX freestyle legend Maurice Meyer. My Sony Digital8 video camera was in my hand... with a dead battery. I'm glad actually, that was a moment I was happy to just stand there and witness, without trying to capture it on video, and keep him well framed during each try. More than a decade later, in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Sean Penn's character sums up that feeling better than I've ever heard it described.
I had finagled a press pass to the X-Games that year, planning to write an article or two for Dig Magazine in the U.K. about the contest. Maurice had nabbed a VIP pass, too. I rode with him and the other Golden Gate Park locals, most weekends, during the one year I lived there, in 1985-86. We ran into each other near the end of the BMX vert practice, and started talking about "the old days" and how much BMX and action sports had changed over 12 or 13 years' time.
While we were talking at the bike halfpipe, a red helicopter with a World Industries logo on the side of it, hovered near the ramps, and started dropping stickers. The handful of kids around the area ran around picking them up. Then we realized that something else was getting thrown out of the chopper, little wadded up pieces of paper. Because of the breeze, most were falling on the empty BMX ramp area, where we were, not on the skateboard crowd. Someone grabbed one of the pieces of paper, and unraveled it. "It's money" they said. Suddenly all of us jaded Old School guys were picking them up, too. Mike Dominguez Jr., amped up after an afternoon of free Mountain Dew, sprinted around and grabbed 30 or 40 of the wadded up dollar bills, I think. I wound up with four of them, each with a World Industries skateboard character, like Flame Boy or Wet Willie, rubber stamped on them. We laughed at yet another example of Steve Rocco's crazy promotion methods. When in doubt, just throw money on the crowd. I literally had real helicopter money in my pocket when Maurice and I decided to walk over and watch the skate best trick jam, which had just started.
Dusk was descending on the huge pier that housed the 1999 X-Games, next to San Francisco Bay. With our passes, we just walked over and stood behind the rows of chairs there for pro skaters and their girlfriends, wives, and a few kids. In some of the wide shots in the clip above, you can see two really bright lights, that look lke stars on the video. We were right below, and maybe 20 feet in front of those lights, they were shining over our heads, lighting up the skate halfpipe for the TV cameras.
Maurice and I kept talking, as the world's best skaters tried their newest and best tricks. As I recall, Pierre Luc Gagnon was trying to land a heeflip Caballerial, as Steve Caballero himself sat 10 feet in front of me. Bob Burnquist was trying a one footed Smith Grind to revert, I believe. Other skaters were trying their "Merry Christmas" tricks, the things they could land once in a while. For Tony Hawk, that was the varial 720. About 12 or 15 minutes into the half hour jam, he landed one. Then he went back up, and just stood on deck a few minutes.
Skaters dropped in, sometimes snaking each other, to try to pull that one big trick. It was the closest thing I'd seen to "real," everyday skateboarding in a contest environment. The best trick jam was a concession to the vert skaters, who still weren't really happy with ESPN's take on skateboarding, in their 4th year of the putting on the X-Games. The big TV contest idea for action sports was evolving, as skaters got more involved and vocal about how they were portrayed to millions of viewers.
It was obvious the bigwigs at ESPN didn't give a shit about the best trick jam, but they had a big crowd, around 5,000 people in the stands on the other side of the ramp, so they kept the cameras rolling. It would make for soem good highlight clips, I think that's how they saw it. Old School skater and announcer, Dave Duncan, called the action out live from the deck. Maurice and I watched and talked.
Then Tony Hawk dropped in again, and no one paid that much attention. Until he opened up out of what looked like a over-rotated 540. We stopped talking, "Did he just try a 900?" one of us asked the other. I can't remember who said it. Tony walked back up to the top of the ramp, and did the same thing a couple of more times. The second rotation got tighter and tighter. After the 3rd or 4th try, he walked off the side of the ramp, facing us, He was 15 or 20 feet away, and we could totally see his eyes, he had the stare, the "thousand yard stare," as I've heard some call it. He was looking right towards us, but saw nothing. Pure focus. I asked Maurice, "Did you see his eyes? He's serious. He's either going to land it or go to the hospital trying." Maurice agreed.
The whole aura of the place shifted. Other skaters stopped dropping in. The skaters on the deck knew Tony really wanted the 900, and stepped back in respect. It wasn't planned. No color commentary guy had to spew stats and percentages to hype people up. The energy in the whole area changed. This was real skateboarding at it's best.
A top skater just got a taste that tonight was the night to land the unlandable trick, and Tony just laser focused on it. Everyone stopped skating after a couple more attempts. It wasn't about trophies or prize money anymore. We all wanted to see Tony Hawk progress vert skating to the next level. Tony kept trying, getting more and more determined, and closer to landing it. Dave Duncan kept talking into the mike like only a hardcore skateboarder could. This was a moment, one way or the other.
I think it was on the 7th attempt that Tony landed on the board, made it a few feet, then washed out on the flatbottom. I jumped up in the air screaming, I gave that one to him. But he didn't ride away, it wasn't clean, he wanted it 100%. He kept trying. On the 11th attempt, I believe, is when Tony Hawk landed the first skateboard 900 air, totally solid. Everyone went nuts.
If you freeze that video above at about 6;03, you'll see Maurice right behind Tony, in a white hoodie, with sunglasses. He ran up there with all the skaters to congratulate Tony. I, for some reason, stayed right where I was, 30 feet away, watching the pandemonium. The place went nuts. But I had seen that happen before, 10 years earlier, up in Canada.
Mat Hoffman's first 900, at 14:43 in this clip, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, in the spring of 1989. After the intro with Eddie Roman's girlfriend, this is the footage that I shot from that contest, with Eddie and friends doing their funny color commentary over it. This is from the 1990-2-Hip video, Ride Like a Man, edited by Eddie Roman.
Riding a bike did take me places. I was a dorky, unathletic kid who grew up in Ohio, spent 9th grade living in New Mexico, and then lived in Boise, Idaho through high school. The summer after my sophomore year, I got into BMX riding, then BMX racing, and then new sport of BMX freestyle, in 1983. A year after I graduated high school, my family moved to San Jose, California. I worked at Pizza Hut, started publishing a freestyle zine, and met the Bay areas freestylers, like Maurice, Dave Vanderspek, Robert Peterson, Hugo Gonzalez, and a couple dozen more. My zine led me to a magazine job in Southern California. I wasn't punk rock enough for that place, and I got laid off. I got a job editing a newsletter, which led to working at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company, in late 1987. I was out riding three hours a night like everyone else, but didn't have the balls to make it to pro caliber as a BMX freestyler. By 1989, I was Unreel's camerman, traveling to all the 2-Hip vert and street contests to shoot video, because Vision Street Wear sponsored the contests.
While I was bouncing around the BMX and industries, the early skatepark riders inspired a bunch of great quarterpipe riders around the U.S. and Europe. In 1987, Haro pro Ron Wilkerson started putting on halfpipe contests. Riders like Todd Anderson, Josh White, Joe Johnson, and this kid from Oklahoma, named Mat Hoffman, moved up the amateur ranks and into pro. They pushed the older guys like Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, as vert riding progressed.
The first 2-Hip King of Vert of 1989 was in Kitchener, Ontario Canada. The less than epic 2-Hip halfpipe was set up in a college gymnasium for the weekend, and the riders, amateur and pro, gave it their best. The talk of the weekend was that this crazy, unknown guy from Canada, called The Terminator, was going to do a backflip abubaca or fakie or something. No one except lake jumper Jose Yanez had done flips on a BMX bike then. No one had even tried them on vert. The Terminator was an amateur, and when his final run came up, he did a high fakie, leaned back a little, and crashed hard. The weekend up hype fizzled.
The rest of the amateurs rode their runs, blasting high and pulling their best tricks. Joe Johnson landed the first double tailwhip air, which was amazing. I was on the deck, with a $50,000, 35 pound, rented Ikegami Betacam, shoulder checking photographer John Ker for a good angle to shoot from. I was doing my best to get good footage of the days events.
Then came Mat Hoffman, in what I believe was his second pro contest. He won his first pro contest. At the end of his final run, with about 300 people watching, mostly Canadians, he nearly landed a 900. Mat got up, and went for it again, landing the first BMX 900 in a contest, and the first recorded 900 in any action sport. Even snowboarders hadn't pulled a 900 air at that point. I caught it on video from the deck, and Eddie Roman and another guy caught it from two angles below. Mat Hoffman, new pro vert rider and wonderkid, broke the 900 barrier in action sports, with video and photos to prove it. Word was the Mike Dominguez had landed a 900 or two on his own ramp. But there were no photos or video. Mat made it official, the 900 was possible.
By some weird quirk of fate, me, the goofy kid from Ohio and Idaho, was there to get video. And by an even crazier quirk of fate, I was in San Francisco a decade later to watch Tony Hawk do it, live, on a skateboard. The only other two people that I know were in both places were Mat and his buddy Steve Swope. But they were running the bike contest in 1999, and I don't think they were watching the skate best trick jam. I'm not sure. There may have been a couple of people who saw both happen live.
We live in a weird Universe, and really crazy coincidences happen now and then. It still trips me out that I somehow saw both of these happen live, right in front of me. Riding a bike did take me places, for the first 20 years of my adult life. I met alot of cool people, traveled around the U.S., and into Canada a couple of times.
Then I got injured, became a taxi driver, and things went into a downhill spiral. I think life wanted to kick my ass for a couple of decades to teach me some other lessons. One of the things I've learned is that there are a lot of ways to spend your time in life, and goofing around on bikes is one of the best ways. You never know where it will lead you. Ride on!
Emmett Crooms, nothing at Sheep Hills, 1999, I think.
In 2000, after 5 years of riding on my own nearly every day, but being away from the BMX business, I bought a Hi-8 editiing system, and made a super low budget, fast paced, bike video. I had been going to contests, and shooting random "lurktographer" footage, as well as going down to Sheep Hills once in a while. The idea was to make a practice video out of footage I had shot over the past few years, plus a bit from 1991. Then get a bunch of the hot young riders of the day to want to go out and shoot some new footage for a much better video, to get back into the game.
Chris Duncan, one handed tailwhip at a Core Tour event in Huntington Beach, 2000, I think.
That idea didn't work. Just before Christmas, 2000, my driver's license got suspended, which turned out to be a clerical error at the DMV. But since I was a taxi driver who had just gone Christmas shopping, that left me broke and unable to earn money. No driver's license, notaxi driving, no income. Plans screeched to a halt, and I wound up working a sketchy telemarketing job for a while. I edited this video, Animals, in 2001, and it sold about 10 VHS copies. Most of those I sold to to A-1 Bike Shop in Westminster, the old POW House local shop. I handed a few copies out. The follow-up video never got made, and I wound up homeless for a while, and finally got my license, permit, and got back into taxi driving on Labor Day weekend 2003. The taxi industry was going down the tubes, and so was my life. So my return to making BMX videos failed.
Alex Leech, wallride off the stage at Huntington Beach High, 1991.
In 2008, fate forced me out of Southern California, and to North Carolina, where my family wound up living after I moved out. I grew up in Ohio and Idaho, so I had no connection to NC, except my parents and sister's family. What little I owned then was in a tiny, 5 foot by 5 foot storage unit. I lost everything, including all my BMX master tapes, 18 years worth of raw footage, my bike (Dyno race bike), my whole BMX magazine collection going back to 1982, (including complete collection of FREESTYLIN' magazines), and all my videos and DVD's. I went into a deep depression as soon as I landed in NC, which was November 2008, as the economy was collapsing. Bad time to find a job anywhere.
The Animals video was totally lost, until Alex Leech posted a couple of stills from it a year or so ago. Somehow, one of the few copies wound up on BMX Movie Database, where you can watch today- link above (if you're really bored).
Dave Mirra, one handed toothpick over the spine at speed. X-Games qualifying comp in Anaheim, 2000.
While things didn't go as planned 22 years ago, they never really do. I was really stoked that this, my "lost" video, resurfaced. A bunch of my lost footage was in this video, though there was about 35 more hours, shot from 1990 to 2008, that was never seen by anyone. Through the rough years of the 2000's, I planned to someday make a BMX documentary from that footage.
Two or three weeks after landing in North Carolina, after losing everything from my BMX days (except my Haro brake lever keychain), I started blogging about BMX. All I had left was memories, so I started writing them down online, not sure if anyone would ever read them. That's how my BMX memoir blogging career began. At the time, there wasn't really any media in the Old School BMX community, just a lot of chatting on that new thing called social media. Luckily for all of us who rode in the 1980's and 1990's, sonce then the OSBMXR, books, and podcasts sprang up, allowing a lot more people to tell their stories from those days, which I think is awesome.
Bill Nitschke, one of the first Whoppers (bunnyhop tailwhip) to be captured on video. The Spot in Redondo Beach, 1991.
I captured all these stills, and a bunch more, several months ago, to do something with them on Pinterest, I think. They've been sitting on my hard drive. While they don't have the photo quality, or the age, of Bill Batchelor's great photos in his new book (Concrete and Smog), they are a few snippets of the BMX that happened in front of my video lense over the years.
Big Island Mike, drawing on Mat Hoffman's arm with a Sharpie, with Steve Swope checking it out. A hint at things to come, perhaps. The X-Games in San Francisco, 1999. Mat's bike and uniform got lost by the airlines, so he borrowed Rick Thorne's bike and gear. With no sleeves, Mat decided he need some ink to do Rick's jersey justice. So Mike grabbed a Sharpie and gave him some right before riding.
Dave Clymer, AA pro racer, dirt jumping pioneer, P.O.W. House O.G., and street rider with white boy dreads. Huntington High in 1991.
John Tesh on piano, and a whole bunch of musicians, jamming in the ballroom, on the fourth floor of the classic Casino building in Avalon, on the island of Catalina. Sitting 20-some miles off the coast of L.A. and Orange Counties, Santa Catalina island is a popular boating destination, and the only place where wild buffalo (OK, American bison) roam in Southern California. This show was taped live and aired on PBS in the 1990's. Skip to 29:00 in the show, that's a pretty jamming section, where several musicians do solos.
One day in the mid-90's, I got a call from the grip company who worked on American Gladiators, and a couple of other shows I worked on. Steve, the crew chief, said something like, "You live in Huntington Beach, right?" I said, "Yeah." He continued, "You want to go work out on Catalina for a couple of days?" I said I would. I was on the B-list of crew guys for that grip company, when their normal 8 or 10 guys needed help now and then. I got called to work for a day here and there, after working with them tearing down the Gladiators set for the four years I worked on that crew.
I was told we would take the ferry out early in the morning, help unload and set up for a concert, come back, then go back three days later to tear down. I made their base rate of $150 a day, which was good money for me back then. But knowing how production work can change, I took a small backpack with a change of clothes and stuff needed for a couple of days, just in case.
The show wound up being the John Tesh concert you see above. self produced to air on PBS. John Tesh was best known as the long time host of Entertainment Tonight, but also loved playing piano and keyboards. So this show was a self-financed, self-produced on his part, to show off his musical talent, and play with some really high caliber musicians. The lead guitarist was the house guitarist on Saturday Night Live, that's the only one I recognized. His name is G.E. Smith, which I didn't know until just now.
As things worked out, I go tasked to stay over, along with a few other guys, who had never done grip/roadie work before, and help more the next day. We all pitched in on a room, which came to about $15 each or something. Then we got asked to work the spotlights during rehearsal. Then we were told we were the spotlight guys for the show. We had al lfigured there were "real" lighting guys coming over that night. Then we tore down the set that night and the next day.
During the concert itself, I was 25 feet up on a platform, stage right, audience left, and my job was to keep a back spot on Charlie the lead violin player, the guy in the green pirate captain jacket. He ran all over the stage, so keeping a light on him kept me busy in the fast songs. Three of the spotlight guys were actually hanging above the audience on a 20" wide piece of truss, you can see them in a few shots. I said "no way," to that. I was up on the tower with sodas and snacks during the show, munching out when we weren't busy.
It turned out to be a fun gig to work. I wound up working six ten hour shifts in 3 1/2 days, three of them back to back to back. I caught a couple hours sleep halfway through. I came home with $600 cash in my pocket, and another $300 coming in a check. It wa also the only time I've ever been to Catalina. I need to get back out there at some point, it's a cool place. It seems like you're a million miles from anywhere, but it's 30 or so miles from downtown Los Angeles. It was a fun three days, followed by a solid day of sleep back at home.
Natas Kaupas in Santa Cruz Skateboards' "Streets on Fire," from 1987, I think.
OK, I was working at Unreel/Vision when this came out, fierce competitors of Santa Cruz Skateboards. But this segment blew everybody's mind at the time. The three biggest pioneers of street skateboarding were spread among the Big Three skateboard companies as the mid 1980's turned into the late 1980's. Mark Gonzales was on Vision, Tommy Guerrero was a Bones Brigade member on Powell-Peralta, and Natas Kaupas skated for Santa Cruz. Freestyle skaters like Rodney Mullen, Per Welinder, Pierre Andre' and Don Brown did the technical flatland tricks, and didn't make much money. Vert still ruled skateboarding, with Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, Steve Caballero, Chris Miller, Mark "Gator" Rogowski, and a dozen more living large in the late 80's skate boom by blasting in the remaining skateparks and on halfpipes.
But bubbling under the surface, Gonz, Tommy, and Natas were showing kids everywhere that any urban environment was its own skatepark. All it took was a creative mind to figure out how to use street obstacles. At the same time, fading freestyle skater Steve Rocco threw his life savings into a little start-up company, and named it World Industries, as a joke. Within a couple of years, the 1980's skate explosion died off, skateboarding went back underground, and street skating emerged as the new main form of skating.
This segment of Natas was one of the epic pieces of video that inspired thousands of kids to see what their local curbs had to offer, just as street skating was becoming its own thing. For the time, Natas' tricks were ground breaking, the rail slides were bigger than anyone had seen, and the roll bar slide at the end seemed unthinkable. Combined with the incredible Firehose song, "Brave Captain," and with Natas wearing Etnies shoes in their skate video debut, this video segment was a sign of changing times. I still watch this video once a month or more, just for the spirit and vibe of it.
If The Fed was a BMX jumper, this photo sums up how they're doing right now at their mandates... #steveemigphotos
This Tuesday and Wednesday The Fed governors meet (officially Federal Open Market Committee- FOMC), to decide exactly how much they want to fuck up our lives further. I mean, to decide how much to raise interest rates by raising the Fed Funds Rate, to "fight inflation." The big money is betting on a .5% to .75% hike (50 or 75 basis points). Their next meeting after that is November 1st & 2nd.
Here's the problem, The Fed has pretty much lost all credibility with the stock market traders. Traders know The Fed will have to lower rates again, to bail out Wall Street and corporate America, probably within 6 to 12 months. The Fed is trying to convince Wall Street traders that they really mean business, and that interest rates will stay high at least through then end of 2023. Then stocks and real estate will drop, and overall consumer sales will drop, what they call "demand destruction." If we go into a serious recession, people buy less stuff, prices drop, and that makes inflation go back down. The Fed wants some inflation, but only about 2% per year. Right now were officially at 8.3%. Big difference. The problem is, the stock markets keep rallying after each rate hike, believing The Fed will drop rates back down in 6 months or so. In the past 3-4 months, the market falls the week or so before the rate hikes, then rallies back up on the announcment day, and keeps going up. We might see another market drop on Monday, then Tuesday the markets will most likely be flat. Then Wednesday, Fed governor Jay Powell makes his official announcement of their decision. Here's what I see as the most likely reactions by the stock market on Wednesday.
.25% rate hike- Not going to happen, we're way beyond the traditional level of interest rate hikes at this point.
.5% rate hike- Stocks soar several hundred points on Dow and Nasdaq- probably a 1% to 3% rise, and continuing rally in coming days and weeks, until October inflation number comes in above 8%, when things drop back some, like they did last week.
.75% rate hike (most expected outcome right now)- stocks rise, maybe 200-400 points on the Dow, and 100 or more points on the Nasdaq. Another false hope rally comtinues until October inflation number comes in at 7.8% or higher.
1% rate hike- (Possible, but unlikely action)- The Fed actually, sort of, kind of, looks like they're serious about fighting inflation. Markets drop a bit Wednesday through Friday, and then another false hope rally begins slowly.
1.25% rate hike- (Nobody expects this)- The Wall Street traders go "Oh shit, maybe The Fed IS actually serious," and the markets drop a couple hundred points, or more, and The Fed actually gets the results it wants, slowing down the economy enough to actually have some effect on asset prices, and therefore on people's mindsets, and inflation cools off a little faster than it's gradual slowing pace it's doing right now.
1.5% rate hike- Absolutely no chance whatsoever of this happening, but this is how much The Fed would have to raise rates to actually cool things off as much as they say they want to, to actually bring down asset prices quickly, slow down consumer spending, and then slow down inflation, since they are so fucking far behind the curve now.
That's my view on the possible scenarios possible this next week. Remember, I'm just a crazy homeless guy (who has been predicting this current recesson since 2019), and this post is for entertainment and education purposes only, and should not be taken as advice. Click the "Disclaimer" link above for the full disclaimer for this blog and all my financial oriented posts.
Blogger's note- Wednesday 9/21/2022- 4:11 pm Pacific- after The Fed announcement- So... I was right and I was wrong. Yes, as expected, The Fed raised rates by .75% or 75 basis points. The immediate reaction was that stocks went down. I figured that was likely, but I thought that the markets would rise by the end of the day, as they have on (I believe) the last three Fed rate hike days.
A hour after the announcement, stock markets bounced up, and the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 were all positive. I've been calling these "false hope" rallies, with the markets believing The Fed will have to lower rates in 4-6-8 months because of the recession or some major crisis (like the Lehman Bros. collapse in 2008). Then, the markets dropped back down, which is what would normally happen on a huge interest rate hike day. But financial markets have been anything but normal since 2008, and particularly since 2020. The Dow closed the day down over 500 points, about -1.7% lower, with a similar percentage drop in the Nasdaq and S&P.
Is the reality of dark times ahead finally setting in on Wall Street? Perhaps. As I said back on March 22, in my old blog. This year, 2022, feels like another 2008, and we've had a bumpy downhill ride in stocks since, along with a huge rise in interest rates, both of which I predicted. We're still a ways from the numbers I forecast in that post (Dow below 27,000, Nasdaq below 10,000, and S&P below 3,500), but those numbers look possible now, by the end of 2022.
I expect some Black Swan event, or perhaps, at this point, just reality setting in of a severe recession, which will drive markets down A LOT in the end of September or October, and then they'll hit bottom between October and next spring. That's where it appeared we were heading back in March, and that's where it still appars we are heading, until inflation (official CPI) gets close to 2%-3%. And that's a long way off.
I think the recession period experience, for everyday people, will last years. There will be ups and downs, but we have years of tough economic conditions ahead, for most of the U.S. (and world) population. That part reminds me of the early 1990's. Officially, we had two recessions then, a "double dip." But for most people, the economy was slow from early 1990 through most of 1996. The 2020's will feel a lot like that. But the policiy makers live in a bubble far removed from the day to day experience of most Americans. At their financial level, the recession is a minor inconvenience, and zeros in their investment values. It's much different for everyday working people trying to feed families during layoffs and rising food and gas prices.
There's a whole lot of change across society that needs to take place, which I've written about in my Big Freakin' Transition idea, several places. There's a lot of change in how businesses and organizations operate to take place (out of old Industrial Age models, and into Information Age native models), as well as a massive populist movement, because most jobs today can't sustain a decent standard of living. There's just a ton of issues that need to get worked out, throughout society, in my opinion. That will take years, no matter what The Fed does.
I also believe The Fed will overcompensate, again, flooding us with liquidity, new money, in 2023, maybe 2024, which will slow this whole shake out process down, and lengthen the overall economic mess. Things may move towards some kind of stable new normal by 2026 or 2027, and probably a bit later. This whole decade will be pretty crazy, and that's if we avoid more major wars. As I've been saying for quite a while, we are just beginning the craziest couple of years of the 2020's. Buckle up, now it's about to get REALLY interesting.
In 1953, a woman started walking from Pasadena, California, to spread peace. She carried no coat, no backpack or supplies, and had no team helping her. Only a blue tunic announced her purpose. She walked until given shelter, sleeping in a busstop, truck stop, or outside, wherever she was, if no one offered her a place to stay. She fasted until given food. She did this, using the name Peace Pilgrim, until her death in 1981. She walked over 50,000 miles, often 50 miles per day, to spread and teach people about peace.
Street life? You can't get much more in touch with the real streets of North America, than actually walking them for 27 years, every day, well over 50,000 total miles total. She walked as a pilgrim, to help people across the U.S. and Canada find inner peace, peace among individuals, peace among groups and nations, and world peace. Many of her sayings, along with an interview by KPFK radio, are in a small booklet titled "Steps Towards Inner Peace." You can see it online at this link.
In 1991, I got a job duplicating videos in a small, family owned business, in North Hollywood, California. I had put myself about $7,000 in debt the year before, self-producing a BMX freestyle video, and living off my credit cards for a while. BMX freestyle, which had been my life for about 8 years at the time, had pretty much died. Money left the BMX industry, and poured into a new thing called mountain bikes.
While I had managed to stumble into the BMX and skateboard industries, the video company I worked at, Unreel Productions, had been shutdown in 1990. I was kept on at the parent company, Vision Skateboards, but had almost no work to do. Bored out of my skull, I quit after six months, and found some freelance work at a surf video distributor for a few months, while I spent $5,000 of my own money producing my own video, The Ultimate Weekend. It sold about 500 copies, through that surf distributor, and I got about $3 per sale. Being a young guy, I didn't pay off my credit cards, so I was in what seemed like a ton of debt for that time, and found video work sporadically.
I got hired in the office of a TV production company, my first "real" TV production job, a production assistant at a company manking supercross and monster truck shows. That gig lasted for about 3 months, and one of the producers helped me find the duplication job. I moved to a sketchy apartment in the hood of North Hollywood, where I rented a bed, not a room, week to week. There were about 12 total roommates, some of then kind of sketchy. But it was cheap, and about a mile from my new job. So I would go in at 5:00 pm, and run two systems, with 45 total VHS machines, making copies of all kinds of videos, until 1:00 am. The first night I made copies of an automatic bowling lane sweeping machine. It would sweep one lane, and then "walk" to the next lane, and sweep it. Boring.
As the nights went on, I dubbed videos about different kinds of corn for farmers to grow, about marine navigation, and all kinds of promo videos for different businesses and products. One guy wanted copies of all the old "Blaxploitation" movies, so I made copies of Dolomite similar movies for a few days. We dubbed a few martial arts training videos, and a whole bunch of really boring business videos, like meetings and in house business conferences for different companies. Sometimes I would be busy making 500 five minute videos in a night. But most nights I had longer videos, where I didn't have much to do while they were running. So I had a lot of time to think, to read, and to be depressed.
I was depressed, not making much headway paying off my debt, making $7.00 an hour, and rethinking everything about life. Working that job for several months, I started reading a bunch of self-help books, and trying to figure out what life itself, and my life, were all about. I wound up reading well over 150 books in the next several years, looking for answers, and seeking a life that made sense. That year working at the video duplicator was a big turning point for me, the beginning of a search for meaning, and my own inner peace, that lasted about 14 years.
Among the videos I dubbed, were three or four videos with this crazy sounding lady with white hair, Peace Pilgrim. We duplicated her videos for a group of her supports, called Friends of Peace Pilgrim. That's when I first her of this woman who walked alone, until offered a bed, and fasted until offered food, for nearly 30 years. While much of what she said didn't make sense to my 25-year-old self, there was no getting around how tough her pilgrimage was, and her incredible faith. Her ideas stuck somewhere in the back of my head, and made more and more sense as time passed.
About seven years later, living in downtown Huntington Beach, I walked over to the laundromat on 17th street to wash clothes one day. Someone had left several copies of her little blue pamphlet, Steps Towards Inner Peace (link above), on a counter. I picked one up, read it, and read it many more times over the next several years. I finally lost it in a move, I think.
As my own thinking about life, and why we're here on Earth, expanded over the years, I realized Peace Pilgrim's thoughts were true, and I just wasn't ready to accept them. It was well over 20 years after I first heard about Peace Pilgrim, that I found this documentary above on YouTube, which shared a lot more background about Peace Pilgrim, who's ideas began to influence me 31 years ago. She is one of many people who have had a positive influence on my weird path through life. So that's how I came to know about Peace Pilgrim.
You can read, or download and print out her pamphlet, "Steps Towards Inner Peace," at this link. There is also a book you can get, for free, about her life and teachings. The Friends of Peace Pilgrim do accept donations to help this work continue, at this website: Peace Pilgrim Now you, too, know about a woman who called herself Peace Pilgrim, and walked over 50,000 miles to teach and share peace. Perhaps her life and thoughts will help you as well.
This is a meme I made, poking a little fun at today's crazy rent prices, which is part of the whole issue of homelessness. #steveemigphotos
For well over 20 years now, there's been a repetitive series of P.R. campaigns promoting the idea that homelessness boils down to two main issues, drug addiction and mental illness. Yes, a huge number of people on the streets have those issues. But here's the problem with that argument as a fundamental cause of homelessness. MOST drug addicts (prescription and illegal) have a place to live. MOST alcoholics have a place to live. MOST mentally ill people have a place to live. Ever notice we have never had "supply chain issues" with psych drugs, like Xanax, Zoloft, Celexa, Prozac, and all the rest? There'd be a revolution in about a week if that happened. More people in the U.S. are on Xanax than on Food Stamps. The number on Zoloft is just below the number on Food Stamps. Over 48 million Americans on Xanax, over 41 million Americans on Food Stamps (EBT-food), and an estimated 552,000 homeless people in the U.S. right now. That's 95 mentally ill housed people for every homeless person. Hmmmmm...
MOST people with some level of mental illness, and MOST people with addiction issues, ARE NOT homeless. Those are not the primary causes of people winding up on the streets. They are contributing factors in lots of cases, but not sole causes. Homelessness is complex, and there are lots of reasons people wind up without a place to live for some period of time.
The single most universal issue I've seen among the homeless people is that most people on the streets do not have the social networks of people to help them through a serious crisis. Speaking from 15 years of homeless experience myself (over half of that while working full time), it's a lack of a strong family or friends network that lets people fall through the cracks and into some level of homeless living. That type of living maybe be in "cheap" weekly motels, living in a car or van, living in a shelter, or fully on the streets.
So what do all these people NEED? Here are some of the most universal, basic, daily needs among the homeless:
-Access to clean, working bathrooms
-A place to plug in and charge phones and other devices
(you need a smart phone to get government services, which means you need to charge it daily)
-Money- actual income, IN CASH, to buy bus passes, food, medicine co-pays, personal items, to go to restaurants (heat/air conditioning, bathrooms/wifi), do laundry, women's needs, and other everyday expenses
-A safe place to store their personal belongings
-A place to store food items
(So they don't waste so much money buying single servings of food items)
-Access to showers and basic toiletry items
-A safe place to sleep
AND THEN...
Help with housing, counseling, help with addiction issues, help with mental health issues, help with physical health issues, learning 21st century job skills (think Linked-in, computer skills, today's work skills, not working part time for minimum wage as a janitor, while having their rent and food paid for by tax dollars).
This is the basics of homelessness. Did you notice that "conforming to someone else's religious beliefs" is nowhere on this list? Yeah, because that's not necessary to house people. It may help some people, but also drives tens of thousands of people away from programs.
I wrote a big blog on panhandling and homelessness in 2009-2010, that pulled in over 60,000 page views. It was actually the #1 blog on homelessness in the world, at that point. It was one of the blogs I deleted in the Fall of 2012 (which I regret doing). I have a lot more to say on this subject. But this is a good starting point.
So... The backpack I bought in Palmdale in May of 2019 was getting pretty worn out. OK, that's the understatement of the year. It was pretty much obliterated, but still getting me by day to day. I definitely got my $7 worth out of this pack. I bought it used in Palmdale at a Goodwill, over three years ago. By the time Covid hit in early 2020, zippers were beginning to pop, but it was still usable. This was it today, as I finally retired it. I seriously wanted to burn it in a little ceremony, but lighting fires on the streets tends to be frowned upon.
Both straps were hand knotted to keep them working, all zippers were broken, but it was still functioning day to day. The buckle straps on the outside kept it going.
It wasn't like I didn't try to get a new one. But I'm cheap AF, and I usually try to find a good quality backpack at either a swap meet, Goodwill, or Salvation Army. There are no good swap meets in The Valley that I know of. Every time I had some money to buy a new pack, I couldn't find a decent one in a thrift store. So this old pack just kept getting sketchier and sketchier. I had resigned myself to saving up $70-$80 and buying a good quality one at a camping store when I could.
While being homeless is a situation where people always think cheap products are fine, in reality, backpacks, coats, and sleeping bags really get a workout. Having basic items you can rely on means a lot. I mean, when's the last time you went camping for 1,200 days straight? Honestly, outdoor equipment companies really should give some product to homeless people for R&D and testing purposes. We put that stuff through hell.
In any case, I started talking to a couple women from one of the homeless organizations, and they told me they had a backpack I could have today. I told them I'm REAL picky on backpacks, and I blow through backpacks like a NASCAR driver blows through fenders. I carry a lot of stuff daily, I needed an outside strap for my blanket (strapped to side, in trash bag), and I need lots of pockets to keep different things handy. A few people have offered me packs, but none that would do what I needed. So I always politetly declined. These ladies today had a pack that fit the bill, so I'm stylin' again in the backpack department. Thanks a ton ladies. I'm stoked on the new pack, and hope it's up to the challenge. While my old pack seems like a champ for its durability, it's not my personal record holder. In 2007, I bought a backpack for $4 at Orange Coast College swap meet, and used that crazy little pack until the summer of 2018. This old pack above ranks #2 in my backpack durability archives.
The new pack looks and feels good, so I hope it lasts until I can get a roof over my head, and work on making an actual living again. Onward!
A couple of the drawings I put up at Gallery 5043 in North Hollywood in 2020.
It all started with some daydreaming, in early 2020, I think. One day I looked up industrial properties for sale, here in The San Fernando Valley. The dream was that I'd be able to get a legit business going, start making som edecent money, and then buy a industrial or old retail property, when the prices dropped in the recession. Yeah, big dream for my situation, but it led to me finding this old, legendary music studio that was for sale. I found that The Alley music studio building was for sale. Here's a news report about it from a couple years ago.
It was, and still is, a very plain looking place in North Hollywood. But it's a place where Michael Jackson had recorded four albums, Prince recorded two, and dozens of other legendary music groups had practiced, written music, and recorded albums over 43 years. Still daydreaming, I went to check out the property. I wound up meeting a neighbor who had rented rooms to many of the musicians, while they were practicing there, and it was a really cool day. Obviously I didn't get a business together, the recession got put on hold by tons of stimulus money, and a cabinet making business later bought the property.
At the time, I was selling some of my drawings on Hollywood Boulevard, and thinking about putting a few up somewhere outdoors, just for people to check out. Call it low intensity street art. I walked across Lankershim to a bus stop that day, and there was an abandoned building there, three or four small units in one building. The door closest to the bus stop had the address 5043 on it. You BMXers know that 43 is the lucky number of BMX. The little light went on, "I should put some drawings up there." It was an old nail salon, and the glass door was recessed, giving it a little cover from any weather. A couple weeks later, I made some copies of my drawings, and put several up on the glass door. "Gallery 5043" was born.
The first time I put a few drawings up, I took an orange traffic cone that was sitting on the sidewalk, and made a carboard sign that said, "Art Show," to get people's attention. It was just an experiment to see if anyone actually stopped to check the drawings out. I sat at the bus stop nearby, and watched people walk by. Most didn't even notice the drawings, but a handful stopped and checked them out. That's all I was hoping for. Get a few people to look away from their phones for a moment and go, "Hey, what's that?"
That was my first pop-up art show at Gallery 5043. Total cost, Maybe $4 for copies at FedEx Office and a little shipping tape to tape them to the door.
As time went on, as people began to emerge after the initial Covid shutdown, I put more art up at Gallery 5043, from time to time. I even taped up original drawings 3 or 4 times, just to see how long it would take for someone to snag them and take them home. Sometimes I would put a post on Facebook, "New art show at Gallery 5043, show runs until all art is stolen." I did this now and then there, and at a couple other locations, so people could just randomly check out my Sharpie Scribble Style drawings, through 2020, and much of 2021.
This is a black & white test print, full size, 18" X 24", of the Notorious RBG, aka Ruth Bader Ginsberg, drawing I did shortly after her death. While I've drawn a few BMX and skaters, and dozens of rock star drawings, this one was, by far, the most popular drawing I've done. The original ended up in Wisconsin, I think, and there's a full size print up in a lawyer's office in Colorado, and a handful more spread other places. Someone scored this print after a couple of weeks. This was the only large black & white print made. #sharpiescribblestyle
Then came 2022, and I caught Covid myself in January, and moved farther west in The Valley. Being homeless, as I healed up, I just stayed in the same area, where I camped out while sick. It was just a good spot with the basic necessities I needed to get by, day to day. There were a couple other people who crashed out at the same place at the time, who were pretty cool to get along with. I would eat breakfast in the area, then take a bus quite a ways to a library, and write, blog, draw pictures, and do my social media stuff, during the day, then come back to sleep.
Recently, I decided to take a break from drawing the Sharpie pictures for a while, I just need to find work that pays better. After 10 years unable to find any job in North Carolina, I have no official work history. I've been doing creative work the whole time, but didn't have a "real" job. So a traditional job is out of the question at this point, for that and a few other reasons. So I've been working on trying a couple of new ideas to begin earning day to day money soon, hopefully, and then work from there.
I've also started to think about all these weird photos of homeless life I've been taking since 2018. I have 200 or 300, or more, photos. Some of them are of weird stuff I've seen, some are just artsy pics of sunsets, buildings, or other things. So I printed out a few of the photos on paper, and decided to put them up in an outdoor location or two, so random people could check them out. It's pretty non-destructive street art, just photos on plain paper, taped to walls. I put the first group of photos up in Hollywood, in a little, out of the way nook. For the second group, I trekked back over to my original spot, Gallery 5043.
Cannabis dispensary Budega, now in the site of my former Gallery 5043.
I hadn't been there in a few months, and a lot has changed. The building was leased or purchased by a cannabis dispensary, a weed shop, and the door where I hung my art in 2020 and 2021, is now the main door of their store, Budega. Like "bodega" but for buds. Clever.
So now my personal art show spot, Gallery 5043, is now just an idea in my head. So wherever I put art up outside, it's "Gallery 5043" to me. They even changed the number on the door, to 5041, which is the main address number of the whole building. So if you need some weed in the NoHo Arts District area, check out Budega, at 5041 Lankershim. And if you want to see my photos or Sharpie art in an outdoor location, check my twitter feed (@steveemig43), I put the locations up there... sometimes.
So that's the story of my personal art gallery, Gallery 5043. It started with a daydream of owning a cool building, led to the discovery of a legendary and little known music studio, then became my little "outdoor art gallery" for a while. If I ever do get a building and open my own art gallery, it will probably be named Gallery 5043.
The CPI inflation rate came in at 8.3% (YoY) this morning (Sept 13, 2022), .2% higher than the markets expected, which led to a much needed dose of reality in asset prices, which is why stocks are tanking.
Welcome to Recessionary Wave #2 of what I call The Phoenix Great Depression. I've been blogging about a prolonged period of economic downturn since 2018. This is it, I believe we're now heading into what will be the worst part of the 2020's now. That's the bad news, a gnarly recession that will be comparable to the Great Recession. If you lose your job, or have an absurd amount of debt, things will get tough. But we'll get through it. We all made it through 2020, and that was an actual economic depression AND a 100 year pandemic, at the same time.
What does all this mumbo jumbo mean for you, an average working American?
(One) Prices on every day things, will keep rising, in general. Gas prices have back off, but food, household items, and utilities will probably keep rising for a while.
(Two) Home prices are beginning to come down in many cites, particularly in the West, Southwest, and the South. They will probably drop quite a bit more, particularly in cities with lots of high tech, like the San Francisco Bay Area, L.A., Seattle, and Austin. The smaller cities that saw huge home price increases during the pandemic (Boise, Denver, Salt Lake City/Provo, Nashville, etc.) will see really big price drops. The Northeast, Midwest, and plains states will see mild real estate declines.
(Three) Rent prices MIGHT actually decline in some of the higher priced cities, over the next year. This is iffy, but the potential is there. We'll see.
(Four) Interest rates will go up more next week, after The Fed's meeting, by .5% to .75%, and will most likely go up .5% more later this year. Loans of any kind will be harder to get, and charge more interest for a year or more. Credit cards, new student loans, car/truck loans, business loans, and home loans. So 30 year fixed mortgage rates should be around 7.5% to 8.5% by the end of 2022. The Fed can't lower interest rates, even if we fall into a deep recession, until the inflation rate (CPI) is down below 3% or so. That will probably be LATE 2023.
(Five) The GOOD NEWS- If you have some money set aside to invest. Asset prices should drop dramtically over the next 6 months to a year. We will see some of the best prices for stocks, real estate, crypto, and collectibles in this coming year. If you're in a position to buy any of these, and you do your homework and proper due diligence and search for great deals, there will be many amazing deals to take advantage of. I'm talking of long term investments, not day trading gambling. Some of the best deals of the next couple of decades will happen in the next year, in my opinion.
Recessions are when everything goes on sale, and almost nobody wants to buy
Here's where we're at right now. Inflation is historically high, it's been over 8% (annual average) since March, and it was 7.9% in February. It's been over 6% since last October. Today's numbers came in at 8.3%. That means The Fed (Federal Reserve) will keep raising interest rates to slow down inflation. If they figured inflation that same way they did in the 1970's, today's inflation would be higher today than it was in 1979-1981. (Check Shadow Stats for details)
A good "yardstick" for watching interest rates is the U.S. 10 year treasury rate (chart here). It was about 1.77% at the beginning of 2020, and is 3.43% today. That's a HUGE jump in interest rates. Most people pay more attention to the 30 year fixed mortgage rate, the interest you pay to buy a home. Using the Google calulator, that's now just over 7% (20% down, $500K loan, 698 FICA score- the US average score). Those mortgages were about 3% in January. Home mortgage rates have more than doubled this year, and they WILL go higher.
Next week, The Fed (F.O.M.C.) meets, and they are expected to raise interest rates another .5% at least, and likely .75%, after today's inflation numbers. So we know most interest rates will follow that lead, and rise as well.
Inflation should slowly calm down, and will likely be around 6% to 7% by the end of this year. But The Fed wants 2% inflation, and that's a long ways away.
Overall, we're heading into another gnarly recession. It's always smart to pay down your highest interest debt as much as possible. It's smart to keep learning new job skills for your current job, to avoid layoffs. If you do get laid off, figure out what job skills you may need to learn to get a new job, or find a new career. A LOT of people, MILLIONS, will have to find new careers in the next few years, that's just the nature of these crazy times we are in, something I've written a lot about.
Most people, generally, will have to cut back on spending, and just buckle down and work through this, like every other recession we've all lived through. It's not the end of the world, though it may feel like it at times, for some people.
I know this is not what everyone wants to hear. But I'm a futurist thinker looking at what's really happening. Like I said, there will be a lot of great deals on big assets, and there will be a lot of cool news businesses that start in the next 2-4 years, and grow after that. So that's my take on things. If you don't know whether you should listen to me, here are a couple of blog posts from months or years ago.
Curb Dogs leader and all around innovative guy, Dave Vanderspek, showing the roots of street riding, a flatland trick in a really precarious spot. 1985, I believe, this photo was in Bill Batchelor's print zine Shreddin', and has been one of my faovrite photos of his for 35 years. Photo by Bill Batchelor
The man who invented BMX freestyle, Bob Haro. Close-up mug shot at Pipleline Skatepark. Photo by Bill Batchelor.
A year and a half ago, a middle aged guy walked out into the garage and pulled out a box that had been buried behind other stuff for decades. He says his life was far from stellar at the time, and he's not sure why he decided to pull the box out that day. In the intro to Concrete and Smog, Bill Batchelor says opening that box "transported him to the before times, 1984..." when he was 13 and carried a camera everywhere. Lots of kids, even in the 1980's, shot a lot of photos. But Bill Batchelor was an really skilled photographer at 13, and he grew up near the legendary Pipeline Skatepark. His box of photos was a time capsule, to the early days of BMX skatepark and freestyle competitions, the first wave of BMX freestyle. Bill's BMX history was all of our BMX history. That box was a treasure trove of great photos of the guys who formed BMX freestyle into a sport in the mid 1980's, the guys created this thing that drew the rest of us in.
English invader who came across the pond to give the California riders a run for their money, Craig Campbell. Footplant on the face wall of the Pipe Bowl. Just a reminder, there's 8 feet of hard concrete transition below him, and four feet of vert. This was no small task in 1985. Photo by Bill Batchelor
As a diehard blogger, BMX and otherwise, now, who's online a lot, I commented on the first few photos Bill tentatively dropped on Facebook over a year ago. We messaged a bit, and I shared the good and bad side of sharing your own photos online. I also told him, as did pretty much everyone else, how epic these photos of his were. I remember saying something like, "Yeah, people will steal and share your photos, but if you ever do anything like an art show or maybe a book, that sharing is also promotion." Bill wasn't sure what to do with all these photos then, and I was one of many people who just kept seeing his photos and commenting, "These are fucking AWESOME!" or something close to that.
Obviously, Bill decided to compile the photographic treasure from that old box into a book. But not just any book. This is the guy who self-published an amazing print zine, Shreddin', when he was only 13. He spent the last year and a half making one hell of an amazing coffee table book, with this amazing collection of photos,as well as writing his own personal story of getting into BMX, and becoming that kid with the camera hanging around Pipeline, and other contests, snapping magazine quality shots, but ones we DIDN'T have on our walls 35 years ago.
Two very influential people in the early days of BMX freestyle, seen here at the AFA Masters comp in Huntington Beach, in 1984, I believe. In the front, BMX freestyler/entrepreneur Bob Morales, the guy who turned BMX freestyle into a sport, with the ASPA and then the AFA. He also founded Dyno, Auburn, and created many more projects. In the back, Don Hoffman, skateboarder turned video guy. Don's parents, Stan and Jean, owned Pipeline Skatepark, and Don was the first guy to produce multiple BMX videos, Wayne's World-style, by "borrowing" PBS TV equipment. Before Eddie Roman, Mark Eaton, and myself even thought about making a BMX video, Don had produced 7 or 8, all of which aired on local cable TV, and some became home videos, and then he headed Unreel Productions at Vision. I wound up working for both of these guys later on, and I'm proud to say that I did. Photo by Bill Batchelor.
Over the last few days, I've had a copy of Concrete and Smog to check out, thanks to Bill. I've been reading part of the text every day. Then flipping through the seemingly endless pages of new old photos. Everyone looks so young, that's what strikes me the most. I was also a zine publisher, a few years older than Bill, back in the mid-80's. But his zine blew mine away, and I honestly thought maybe I could work for him someday, back in 1985. I never dreamed I'd work at the magazines, but contributing to future issues of Shreddin' seemed possible. Maybe. Much to my, and everyone else's surpirse, I landed a job at Wizard Publications. Somehow, I never met Bill back in the day, though I had several issues of Shreddin', and I think we traded letters and zines. So I wound up hanging out, riding with, and shooting a few photos of the pros, as well. But my memories are strongest from a few years later, 1987-90.
In Conrete and Smog, Bill catches all the big names, Bob Haro, Bob Morales, Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, Jeff Carroll, Woody and Martin, and many more, in 1984 and 1985. the whole sport was a bunch of teenagers and a few kids in their early 20's then. Kids having fun on bikes, not one of them thinking middle aged guys would be drooling over these photos more than 35 years later. Concrete and Smog is one of, maybe THE coolest Old School BMX freestyle product I've seen in the last few years. If you rode in the 1980's, at any serious level, you NEED this book. It's as simple as that. They're not sold out yet, but it's getting there. If you don't have your own copy enroute, hit that link above and order one.
This is just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a call for another run of these books, once the first copies hit Europe, the U.K., Scandinavia, Australia, and other foreign lands. I know there's a HUGE Old School BMX freestyle community across the ponds, from my own blogging and art, and once a couple guys get this book in hand, A LOT more Old School riders will want one. So order yours now, if you haven't yet.
Waaaaaay up in the Pipeline's 20 foot diameter full pipe, Pipeline local Jeff Carroll clocking in at about 10:30, pushing 11:00. Although inspired by nearby Balldy Pipe, that was 16 feet diameter. Pipeline's full pipe was four feet larger in diameter, and scary as can be to ride. Photo by Bill Batchelor.
With Bill's permission, I pulled four photos from the book that haven't made the rounds on social media, for this blog post, and in these captions, I tell you why I picked these few (plus the Dave Vanderspek shot from Shreddin' at the top). These aren't the absolute best, close-up photos, of which there are plenty in the book. These photos show the scene back then, in 1984-85, the small group of people making BMX freestyle happen as the first wave of popularity was just taking off.
Just to be clear, I mentioned above messaging Bill, and talking about ideas of what to do with all these photos when he first started sharing them. I didn't give him the idea for the book, he'd already thought of that. We were just talking about how photos get shared, "stolen" as some people see it, and the issues of creative work spreading around the web, whether you want it to or not. I just shared what I'd learned over years of BMX blogging, mostly that there was a big and really hardcore Old School BMX/freestyle community out there, online and off. I knew his photos would be a hit, whatever he decided to do with them. Having lived away from social media, he didn't realize then just how big the Old School community was, and that's what I told him about, just how stoked people would be seeing this incredible collection of photos none of us had seen before. Bill looked at his options, and did the publishing equivalent of blasting a ten foot air in the Pipe Bowl. Great job on Concrete and Smog, all the way around.
I can't write about Bill Batchelor's photos of the early days of Pipeline without a photo of the original King of the Skateparks, Eddie Fiola. The Pipe Bowl's face wall had 8 feet of transition, four feet of vert, and Eddie's about three feet above a five foot high fence above the lip. 8' 2" officially, this is from the high air contest. Bill Batchelor's photo captures the scene at Pipeline in the era that inspired so many of us other kids around the country to get into BMX freestyle. If you rode in the 1980's, just buy the book. You need it.
The Damn Team, street performing dancers, Hollywood and Highland, where I used to sell artwork, or try to. One of my many photos taken on the streets.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
