This is me doing a double peg grind, on a little ledge in Huntington Beach, in 1990. This pic is a video still from my 1990, self-produced BMX freestyle video, The Ultimate Weekend. This is actually the 2nd or 3rd double peg grind on street to ever show up in a BMX video. Street riding on BMX bikes was just turning into its own genre' then, and I happened to be one of the first guys to learndouble peg, or 50/50 grinds on ledges. For the Old School BMXers out there, I was running screw on, GT knurled pegs when I did this grind. All of us riding then were trying to find new ideas, new tricks, and I learned these on a ledge behind a gas station, about 3:00 am, while on a skateboard tour in Texas.
When I set up my RCA, full size, S-VHS video camera to shoot the shot above, 32 years ago, the BMX industry had all but died, but the riding itself was progressing as fast as ever. This picture was a part of something new happening in the world of BMX bikes and of action sports. Both street grinds on bikes, and riders making our own videos, were new things then. We weren't trying to start new trends, we were just taking the next steps of progression in our paths, that had begun years before.
Now, in the Spring of 2022, there are a whole bunch of new things happening in our world. Things are changing in every direction we look, and some changes seem good, some seem bad. This blog is about me, and all of us moving in new directions, finding our way, and figuring out how to build something cool, and make a decent living, in this chaotic, crazy, and rapidly changing time period. It's about building a new life, and a new world, from the streets up. Much like in this picture, way back in 1990, I think we're at the start of something new and cool and crazy and exciting in the world.
As a kid who grew up mostly in small Ohio towns as a kid, and then in Boise, Idaho during my high school years, "the streets" of big cities were something that scared the shit out of me. When my family moved to San Jose, California in 1985, I started exploring the streets on my BMX freestyle bike, a Skyway T/A. I wandered all over that area, mostly just looking for cool things to ride, little jumps, banks, and things like that. But I began to run into all kinds of people, a few other riders and skaters, and the expansive urban environment of concrete, bricks, and asphalt, that humans have created over the decades and centuries. I began to see graffiti and the good and bad sides of life on the streets of a huge urban area.
A year later, the freestyle zine I published in San Jose landed me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, in Torrance, California. That job changed the whole course of my life, for the better. I became roommates with two of my co-workers in Redondo Beach, Craig "Gork" Barrette, and Mark "Lew" Lewman. On weeknights I practiced flatland with them, and a couple other locals, Craig Grasso and Chris Day, at a place called The Spot, by the Redondo Beach Pier. Some nights we'd go roaming the streets of the South Bay area, and I saw a much bigger world. I sometimes rode with pro freestylers, like R.L. Osborn and Pete Augustin, I first met skateboarders Rodney Mullen and Mark Gonzales at The Spot. I was part of a weird subculture of BMXers and skaters exploring and having fun on whatever urban obstacles we could find and ride.
On the weekends I often roamed for miles around on my own, just heading off in one direction on my bike, after eating a huge plate of pancakes for breakfast, then watching Powell Peralta's Bones Brigade II skate video. I was a future primitive in search of weird pieces of urban architecture that could be used in a way they were not designed for, to have fun and push myself, on my bike. At the time, I had been riding my bike nearly every day for about four years. I kept riding nearly every day for another 16 years, until I became a taxi driver, and had to sit in my cab, waiting for fares all day.
In the two decades since, I've spent 6 1/2 years driving a taxi, most of that in the Huntington Beach area of Orange County, California, often seeing the dark side of human nature that happens overnight. At the same time, someone decided to put a lot of pressure on my life, for reasons that still aren't clear. Becoming financially successful was simply not an option, the last 20 years of my life have been a struggle to simply survive, most of the time. I've now spent about 15 years homeless, in one form or another. I wasn't doing drugs, not even smoking weed. In the early 2000's, I'd have a couple beers now and then, but I stopped drinking completely when I was a taxi driver. I just don't like drinking, and driving a bunch of drunk people home night after night re-enforced that.
I was working most of the 15 years of living homeless, in one way or another. I spent 5 1/2 years living in my taxi, working 7 days, and 70 to 110 hours a week. I got really fat during that time. When you're a taxi driver, you either eat or smoke too much, and i don't smoke. I spent 9 or 10 months living in the bushes and working at a restaurant in Fashion Island Mall. I've now spent another nearly five years living in a tent, and outside, several cities, in three states, on the streets, while doing my unique, Sharpie Scribble Style artwork, and selling drawings to scrape by. I was starving to become a famous artist, I started selling my drawings because I couldn't find any "real" job while in North Carolina. Art wasn't some airy fairy dream, it was literally the only way I could find to earn any money while there.
A friend helped me get back to Southern California, planning to have me help promote a website he was getting built. That project didn't pan out, and I headed back to the streets. After a summer back in Orange County, I landed in Hollywood in September of 2019, with 85 cents in my pocket. I survived completely by selling art on Hollywood Boulevard, and the internet, for four months. I was planning to squeak through the winter rainy season, then go hog wild promoting my art in the Spring of 2020. But as we all know, 2020 had other plans for all of us.
I spent the whole Covid-19 period on the streets, except for about 10 weeks, where I rented a room with money from the pandemic unemployment program. In those ten weeks, I wrote, laid out, and published a 263 page ebook about my early days in BMX, and built an online store to sell it. But I couldn't get a "real" bank account to tie to the store, and had to shut it down. While my Sharpie art has helped me survive, and has turned me into a "working artist," it doesn't earn me enough money to support myself. As we began to come out of the Covid era, I've been brainstorming other options to help get myself back on track financially.
I woke up this morning at about 3:45 am, when it was still dark. I gazed up at three planets in the morning sky, Mars, Venus, and I think Jupiter, as the first light slowly crept into the San Fernando Valley. I just sat there thinking about doing the long awaited sequel to my 1990 BMX video, The Ultimate Weekend. I'm really fat and don't even have a bike now, but I still have all these cool ideas to do another BMX video project. One part of me is the Old School BMXer who just wants to lose weight and start riding again every day. One part of me is the guy who has to survive on the streets day to day, where there is no future, only one day at a time, to make it through.
Another part of me is the geeky futurist, who has been reading, observing, and geeking out on economics, social, and future trends for over 30 years. That part of me predicted the 2020 stock crash, and how deep it would be, before the markets started to fall (here's the blog post). I've also been predicting another, longer, recessionary period for a year and a half now. Six months ago I predicted (in an economic report for friends with businesses), that interest rates would rise 1-2 % in by late 2022, which would crash the stock markets again, and cool off the insane real estate market. all of that is beginning to happen.
Most "futurists" online say that "good futurists don't make predictions." I guess that makes me a "bad futurist," because I'm not afraid to make hard number predictions, when I feel the trends are strong enough to warrant it. I've been writing about the long period of economic turmoil we are in now, for about four years, in my previous blog, Steve Emig: The White Bear.
In addition to the Old School BMX guy, the homeless street guy, and the futurist geek, there's my entrepreneurial side, that wants to write books, make cool stickers and T-shirts, and keep selling my Sharpie artwork. My #sharpiescribblestyle artwork comes from my creative side, which also does some doodle art, and likes to take photos of street life and action sports.
So as I sat there against a wall this morning, all the facets of who I am, watching the sunrise over The Valley, I decided a new start, and a new blog, were in order. It was only when I got into my local fast food place here, and started building this blog, that I realized that it's Friday the 13th, as well. Since I was about 5 years old, I've considered 13 a lucky number, and have since learned it has ties to transitions, to times of change, over the centuries. So that's perfect, I'm starting a new blog, and a whole new series of projects, under the hashtag #SEstreetlife, on Friday the 13th. Cool. Now let's go create some shit. That's been my motto for the last few months, as I get up and get going each morning.
My view at first light this morning, Friday, May 13th, as I sat against a wall, watching the dawn roll in and thinking about a new direction in life. The light on the left is a security light, but you can see Mars by the electric pole, and Venus up and to the right.
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