My recent Sharpie art, part 5

 This is the last of my Sharpie "scribble style" drawings I've finished.  This drawing of Tupac Shakur was supposed to be for the current Earshot Music show, but it sold before it made it up on the wall.  I'm working on a replacement right now.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

 This is the Kurt Cobain drawing I did, in the online flyer version, because it's way better than the photo I took.  Photo by Phred at Earshot.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

 This is the first order for a drawing I got form the Earshot Music show.  "Bob Marley: One Love."  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

This is my personal favorite of the drawings up right now at the Earshot Music show.  "Tainted Love" is a great song, and I was looking for an excuse to draw Harley Quinn from the Suicide Squad movie, inspired by this fan video using Marilyn Manson's cover of the song.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Available. 

For anyone who's curious, these drawings take about 25 to 35 hours each to draw.

My recent Sharpie art, part 4

 My first hero as a 5-year-old kid was Bruce Lee.  It was all because my friend Cliff's older brother had this poster in his room.  My take on the epic Enter the Dragon still of one of the most badass guys of all time.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

 Janis Joplin, blues legend and inspiration to generations of female singers.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

My second tribute to Prince, which was part of the current Earshot Music show in Winston-Salem, NC.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

My recent Sharpie art, part 3 BMX drawings

 My take on Vic Murphy's classic (black and white) photo doing a one footed tabletop off a curb.  My unique scribble style.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

 This is my drawing take on my own B &W photo of the legendary Dave Vanderspek on his GPV at the Palm Springs Tramway race in 1987.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

This is one of my earlier BMX drawings.  Ron Wilkerson with a stretched one hand one footer.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Available.

My recent Sharpie art, part 2

 I met pro surfer Karina Petroni, and a couple of her good friends, when I gave them rides in my taxi in Huntington Beach, CA in 2008.  When I wanted to try a surf picture, she came to mind.  This drawing of Karina duck diving under a wave was my first surf themed drawing in my Sharpie scribble style.  Sharpies on paper.  18" X 24".  Sold.

 This drawing of surfer Kelly Slater is done from an old photo, and is the first actual surfing drawing I tried.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Available.  Below is a drawing, "Johnny Cash, The Man in Black," is in the show right now at Earshot Music in Winston-Salem, NC.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Available.

My recent Sharpie Art, part 1

 These are not the greatest photos, but that's what I have.  For 12 years now, I've been drawing different types of drawings in my unique 'scribble style."  Two years ago this month, unable to find ANY job in this area, I stepped my art game, and started working to turn my art and writing into a living.  I didn't have a dime, literally not a dime, when I started.  Now things are gaining momentum.  So here's look at some of my drawings from the last few months.  Above is Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton doing his Superman thing.  Hey, if you don't want him to to do this, don't let him score.  Heh, heh, heh.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Gave this to a friend.

 "Do the impossible, it really pisses off normal people."  Sharpies on paper, 11" X 17".  Gave this to a friend.

Princess Leia.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".  Sold.

Times have changed in Boise

Several times I've written about how I got into BMX in Blue Valley trailer park, outside Boise, Idaho, in 1982.  We all know that the data mining programs are paying attention to what we look up and search online, and the algorithms put ads and other stuff in front of us using that info.  Today, on the new Mozilla front page, this came up, "The King of Boise."  I started to click past it, then decided to take a look.  The article is about some dumbass kid who rode BMX and was the biggest Oxycodone dealer in Boise, apparently.

I stopped reading.  It's lame that they had to add BMX riding to a drug dealer article.  I wondered how the hell this popped up #1 on my feed, then remembered writing about BMX riding and Boise. 
Unlike the skate artist Pushead, who lived in Boise when I did, I actually really liked Boise.  There was actually a good BMX racing scene in the 80's, and I was one of the first few freestylers to help promote that in the area.  I haven't been there since 1987, but you can see from the clip above they have a great skatepark there now.  It'd be cool if someone would write a big article about that, and not about some stupid drug dealer.

A forgotten Woody Itson trick

If you started riding in the first wide wave of BMX freestyle in the mid 1980's, you remember Woody Itson as a pioneer of flatland.  If you were in the Southern California scene in the early 80's, you might remember Woody riding skateparks or getting an occasional magazine photo jumping.

But here's one even Woody might not remember.  In 1990 Woody's Diamond Back deal was over, and he was riding just for himself, according to a interview bit I just found on 23mag.com .  During that year, I was riding the amazing flyout jump at Oceanview High School in Huntingtin Beach often.  I was also shooting video for my first self-produced bike video, The Ultimate Weekend.

I just came across this still I made from the video a while back.  Woody Itson, unsponsored, throwing a switch handed jump.  In 1986, a 14-year-old Mat Hoffman debuted that trick to the freestyle world.  Four years later, Woody was pulling it off.  Heck, I made the video and I forgot this shot was in there.  You can find it at 23:52 in the video.

Detroit Bike City

"I've always found the best way to read a city's mood in is on a bicycle." 

In today's world of media coming at us from a million different directions, I rarely take the time to read a long newspaper article.  I can't remember ever looking at the Travel section of the New York Times.  But when that line above popped up in my view, I said, "You had me at bicycle."  I just read this whole article, and it was a great read.

It starts as a great bike rider piece, but morphs into a look at the incredible and varied ways community activism, and investment by one rich guy, are rebuilding Detroit.  If you remember the heyday of America's Industrial Age, you remember Detroit as Motor City, the car manufacturing powerhouse city.  Then it became one of the cities hardest hit by the collapse of our manufacturing economy.  For a decade or more, Detroit's been best known for urban decay and "ruin porn."  In this article I read not only about the rebuilding of the former Motor City, but a look at how this whole country is going to rebuild itself while our elected representatives argue in Washington argue with each other in public and joke of free drinks in private.  This article is a look at the D.I.Y. spirit that will spread rapidly when we tumble into our next recession and realize the future is up to us, not the "experts" or the power brokers behind the scenes of our world.

If there's anything about your town or city that you think needs improvement or a new start, read this article.  Then make something cool happen.

Meet Leticia Bufoni... THIS WOMAN CAN SKATE

NSFW (Not Safe For WIFE)  OK old school BMXers, are you ready to feel old, lame, AND creepy?
Meet new school skater Leticia Bufoni, a 24-year-old pro skater from Brazil.  She manages to combine the looks of a model, the body of an aerobics instructor, and the street skating skills of a hardcore pro skater.  In this clip above you can see Leticia playing the model role.  If you only watch this clip, it's safe to assume that I'm just some creepy old HAS BEEN guy.



This clip shows Leticia proving that she could beat you in a game of SKATE, unless you routinely take out guys like Nyjah Huston Chris Cole or Ryan Sheckler.  Seriously, watch this clip, it's nuts.  So what does this have to do with BMX?  In this clip, she learns how to backflip a BMX bike into a foam pit... in four tries.  Really.  OK, Daniel Dhers is coaching her, but still.  Look out world.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

One of my favorite theme songs for Thanksgiving.

"We were all a bunch of dirtbags"

This is a drawing of Bob Marley I just finished a few days ago.  What can I say, I've been doing creative things my whole life.  I've been drawing since somebody put a crayon in my hand before I can remember, like many of you.  But I'm a late bloomer.  So now, in my 50's, my drawings in my unique "scribble style" technique with Sharpies.  My first solo show at indie music shop, Earshot Music in Winston-Salem, NC, opened a couple weeks ago.  Here's the Winston-Salem Journal artist profile that came out just before the show, written by Lisa O'Donnell.  I gave props to my BMX and action sports roots, and named a handful of the creative people who inspired me.  There was no way to list everyone, but a few of you are named in the article.  Thanks to all of you other former "dirtbags" of the action sports world for showing me that getting art out to the world is actually possible. 

I'm on a couch right now, not fully homeless.  I'm looking to sell enough drawings to get a cheap room as soon as I can.

Earshot Music Show: Take 1

 

 Top: Gene Simmons/KISS, Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24"
Above:  "Tainted Love" featuring Harley Quinn and Joker from Suicide Squad, Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

This is my first solo art show.  I had my early Sharpie art up in an indie gallery in California in 2005-2006, but not in any shows since.  It's a small show, but I'm stoked a handful of people came out, and two drawings have sold and I have an order for a third.  I've been doing my unique thing with Sharpies for a long time, but never really considered myself a visual artist. 

It was a crazy summer that led to this show happening, which you can read more about in the previous post.  I've been drawing in my "scribble style" with Sharpie markers since 2005.  It all started when I tried to draw a mural on the wall of my jail cell sized bedroom in 2002.  It sucked, and I started doing huge collages on big rolls of paper, and shading in between photos with markers in different doodle-type designs.  Over 15 years, its evolved into this, and it's still evolving drawing by drawing.

 "Gwen and Now," Gwen Stefani in 1995 and 2017, Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24"

When this show opened, I was trying to do what I could to promote it on the ground. Jane, Earshot art director, lined up this Winston-Salem Journal  artist profile of me, which I was really stoked on.  It didn't show the music related drawings I'm focusing on now, but told my background well.  When the show opened, I was broke, and didn't even have a camera to take photos of the show, and forgot to ask someone else to.  In these three posts you can see the drawings at Earshot Music.  It's a great music shop with rare and hard to find CD's, DVD's and vinyl records.  So if you're in the Triad area, stop by and take a look in person. I work from photos, and would love to draw your favorite musician (or athlete)...if they don't suck.  I have a Facebook fan page at "Steve Emig The White Bear."

Pick one:  "L"  or "F"
______ame ass arteest
Me outside Earshot

Earshot Music Art Show: Take 2

Earshot Music, in the shopping center with Marshall's and A.C. Moore, across form Hanes Mall

 So here's how it happened.  I wound up broke last summer and wound up camping out in the woods of Winston-Salem.  After three days, I ran into a guy who asked about my situation, and he gave me a tent, a big dome one.  That became my headquarters.  Every night I slept alone in the woods, which is sketchy.  Every morning I'd wake up, walk about a 3/4 of a mile to McDonald's, and order a sausage biscuit and a large drink.  Then I'd pull my laptop (a gift form my niece Katherine, after she got a new one for college), and get word out about my artwork.  Two garbage bags inside my backpack kept it dry through months of Carolina rain ans thunderstorms. 

Johnny Cash: The Man in Black.  18" X 24", Sharpies on paper.

Then I'd pull out my big art pad, also double wrapped in trash bags, to keep it dry.  I had a good sized plastic box with my art supplies.  I spread out my stuff on a table at McD's, and I'd draw for a while.  Other times I'd take a bus across town to a library, and draw there.  I sold a 2 or 3 drawings over the summer, and scraped up money when I had to for food and bus fare.  Most days I had two sausage biscuits and a drink to eat all day long.  I got a lot a ton of drawing done, and lost 65 pounds, to boot.  Not the ideal lifestyle of an artist.  But I was determined.

The wall with my drawings up at Earshot Music, 1254 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, NC

One day, a couple of hippie looking guys at McDonald's said they liked my drawing.  It was one of the musician drawings, Johnny Cash, I think.  One guy said, "You should show your stuff to that music shop across the street.  They like music themed art, and your drawing is way better then what they have on the wall right now."  I doubted the comparison, but I took the guy's advice.  I walked Earshot Music, completely scummy and smelly from my homeless life.  I showed my work to the manager working that day.  He was stoked on it.  A couple days later, I showed it to Phred the owner, and he said they'd be interested in putting a couple of drawings up on the wall for sale.  Things progressed, and Jane the art director contacted me.  Next thing I knew, they were asking me when I could have enough drawings to do a full show.  So I wandered around Winston all summer, scraping up money for food, living through thunderstorms in a tent, and getting helped out by my friends Rick and Ben in times of need.  Eight of my drawings went up on the wall, two have sold, and I'm busy doing more to replace those.  I'm also working on one for Ben, which I promise to get done soon.  Really, Ben.  I've been putting his drawing off all summer, trying to get the others done.  All the drawings are for sale, $120 each, through Earshot Music.  I will also be glad to do one of your favorite musician (or athlete), IF I can find a good photo to work from. 

Earshot Music Art Show: Drawings sold already

 It's been about ten days since the opening of my art show on the wall of Earshot Music in Winston-Salem (North Carolina).  Living in a tent all summer, meting lots of new people, and drawing like crazy helped make this happen.  The Kurt Cobain/Nirvana drawing, used as the online flyer above, sold the day before the show.  The Prince drawing below sold a couple of days ago.  Getting an artist profile in the Winston-Salem Journal, promotion by Earshot art coordinator Jane Buck and shop owner Phred got word out.  I also pounded the pavement and passed out a bunch of flyers in the Trade Street art district here. 

I'm totally stoked that lots of people seem to be psyched on my work, and that a couple have sold.  I'm not in this to be any kind of famous artist.  I just want to draw things that people dig and are psyched to hang on their wall.  Both drawings are Sharpies on paper, in my unique "scribble style," and 18" X 24". 

Desert Treasure...The Nude Bowl: then and now

Here's old school BMXer Rick Thorne with even older school skate legend Steve Alba at one of my favorite places in the world, The Nude Bowl.  Way out in the SoCal desert, on a hillside past Palm Springs and overlooking Desert Hot Springs, there lies the remains of a nudist colony.  Sometime in the late 1970's or early 80's, the naked people abandoned it.  Somehow, skaters found it.

I started working on an old school BMX project today, and looked up some riders from BITD on You Tube.  Much to my surprise, I found Rick Thorne's Pool Hunters.  The bald guy in this clip looks vaguely familiar.  Anyhow, I watched four different clips tonight, and this one at the Nude Bowl with pool skating legend Steve Alba reminded me of my sessions there.  A blog post was inevitable.  I even learned a few things about the pool I didn't know in this clip. 

I first heard of the Nude Bowl in 1988, in my little cubby hole of a room at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company.  The biggest part of my job then was dubbing copies of videos for people throughout the Vision world.  People of all different jobs needed videos, mostly VHS copies, of different things, and I made those copies.  I was also the tape librarian, so I made window dubs of all the raw footage that got shot, labeled the tapes, and organized them in the tape vault.  One of the best parts of that job was that I got to watch raw footage that the skaters shot, usually a day or two after it happened.  In those tapes, I first saw footage of this crazy pool out in the desert called the Nude Bowl, and several other skate spots.  This was at a time when Del Mar skatepark closed, and the sole surviving skatepark in Southern California was Pipeline in Upland.

While I always sucked at riding ramps, and never could air much above coping, but I loved riding pools.  Figuring out lines and carving pools was a blast, just pumping around at speed seemed one of the best things to do on a bike.  I finally bought Mike Sarrail's old truck in '88, and managed to ride Pipeline five or six times right before it closed.  Since I happened to work for Don Hoffman, whose parents owned Pipeline, I was able to ride Pipeline a bunch more times after it closed.  I loved riding pools from then on, even though I never rose above coping.

Sometime in late '88 or early '89, I got the job of taking a couple of the Vision skaters out to the Nude Bowl for a session and a low key video shoot.  I can't remember which skaters, though Kele Rosecrans comes to mind.  So we made the trip inland, and I bounced the little Unreel Toyota van off road and got about 100 yards from the pool.  The road was too gnarly at the time to get the van to the top.  We hiked the last little bit, and when I first saw the pool, it seemed like the best thing in the world.  In those days, we had to worry about police or security guards nearly every spot we rode.  But at the Nude Bowl, nobody gave a fuck.  That was awesome.

I went out to the Nude Bowl two or three more times in '89, to shoot video of skaters, and I made sure to take my bike and carve some lines when I could.  In those days, when there were no concrete skateparks at all, it was amazing to ride a pool, hour after hour, and not worry about anybody shutting the session down.

When I started working on my self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend, in 1990, a session at the Nude Bowl was one of the first places I thought of.  It was sometime in the summer when I finally got it to happen.  Somehow, I was able to talk skatepark legend Brian Blyther to make the trip out there, though he wasn't riding vert all the time then.  He brought Xavier Mendez, another skatepark rider from the 80's.  I got the then unknown ripper Keith Treanor, English vert rider John Povah, and flatlander/photographer Mike Sarrail, and we headed out.  Despite it being 105 degrees out, we had a great little session.  I got footage for my video, and it was a good day all around, despite the heat.  You can watch it at 25:54 in this video.

As luck would have it, that session at the Nude Bowl wound up being the first time the pool showed up in a bike video.  To make it even better, I used music from Toledo punk band, The Stain, and they had recorded a song called "Pool Party" for some skater friends.  It was the perfect song, and I had these crazy dreams of making it a music video and getting it played on MTV.  That never happened, but it was a cool video section anyway.  In these two clips, you can see a 27 year span of one of the most legendary skate/bike pools ever.  Props to Rick Thorne for doing a great series on real life pool riding and skating.

Rick's Nude Bowl clip had 2,605 views when I wrote this post.  I'm just curious how many views this post may help it get.

I'm doing most of my new writing on Substack now, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

Scotty Z flatland jam and chest waxing

This video is hilarious! 

Somewhere in the last couple years, I met Scotty Zabielski on Facebook.  When I couldn't find a "real job" here in NC, I decided to focus on turning my writing and art into a small business.  Scotty Z ordered a drawing, then another, then a few more, then even more.  Doing drawings for him was huge help in me progressing in my art, and getting the art thing heading towards a business. Thanks Scotty!

In this clip, OFG (Old Fat Guy) BMX interviews Scotty at a flatland jam he organized near his home in Indiana.  The highlight is Scotty getting shaved and then having his chest waxed to raise money for St. Baldrick's ti help childhood cancer.  Near the end of the clip, he gives me a shout out for doing a bunch of drawings.  Thanks Scotty, I'm hoping to make it up there for one of these old school BMX events one of these days.

Here are some of the drawings now hanging on walls in Scotty's beach house:

The Student Debt Ball and Chain

"Take away, take away, take away this ball and chain.  I'm lonely and I'm tired, and I can't take any more pain."  -Social Distortion

Mike Ness of Social Distortion wasn't singing about student loan debt in about 1989, when this song came out.  But millions of college students and struggling graduates can relate to the lyrics above.  The promise of a college degree to insure you make a great living throughout your life has become just the opposite for millions of people. 

I just read "The Great College Loan Swindle" in the print edition of Rolling Stone magazine (November 16, 2017).  If you're in college you NEED to read this.  If you have kids in college, you NEED to read this.  It's not a super long article, and it pulls together the big picture of the debt trap student loans have become.  Student debt is one of the biggest drags on our economy these days, and one of the main factors keeping millions from leading better lives. 

A Funny Look at Economic Development

  DEFINITELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Especially if you work in economic development for your city or region.  This clip explains how cities recruited new businesses in the Industrial Age.  Basically it comes down to massive bribes and bullshit.  Then high tech businesses emerged, and changed the game.  In 2002, Professor Richard Florida's book, The Rise of Creative Class explained that things now work much different in today's tech hub cities.  Hundreds of towns and cities worldwide sought to become "The Next Silicon Valley."  Nearly all of them of them failed, because Silicon Valley already happened.  It's like trying to become the next Lebron James.  You can't be Lebron.  What you can be is the best version of yourself.  That's what towns and cities nationwide are struggling with, shaking off Industrial Age thinking (like in the clip above), and figuring out how to become competitive in the Information Age were going into.  It's a whole different game.

Earshot Music Art Opening

 It feels like the start of something really amazing.  I came up with my unique "scribble style" with Sharpie markers 12 years ago, and really started trying to sell drawings two years ago.  I started with literally no money, so it's been slow progress for quite a while.  But the opening at Earshot Music last night felt like a big milestone, one where things shift into a higher gear. 

Earshot Music (3254 Silas Creek Pkwy) in Winston-Salem is a classic record store like all us middle-aged people wandered through as kids.  Life's been pretty crazy for years now, and I spent the summer literally living in a tent in the woods, and drawing every moment I could.  That allowed me to get a lot of artwork done, even though I was homeless.  Phred, the owner of Earshot, and Jane Buck, who handles the art there, liked my stuff, and gave me a great opportunity to get my drawings in front of more people.  Thanks guys!

It was a quiet little show, only a handful of people came by, but we had a good time.  My friend Rick, who's really helped me out over the summer, hung out and listened to me tell stories he'd already heard.  My sister Cheri, a teacher in Greensboro, came by with a friend, and we went through all my older drawings, sharing memories with the others there.  Luba, a Winston-Salem artist I met at the First Friday art walk last month, came by, as did a young couple I gave a flyer to last Friday.  I also met long time artist Lee Tompkins, and he gave me lots of ideas on how to proceed with my work. 

 The Kurt Cobain drawing sold, and I have a couple people interested in other drawings in the near future.  I handed out copies of the flyer I made, along with copies of another small drawing.  I had a great time, and am looking forward to getting back to work on another bunch of drawings.  My drawings will be up at Earshot Music until the end of the year, and I would love to do one of your favorite musician or athlete.  Maybe even your dog.  You can email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com  . 

Artist Profile in the Winston-Salem Journal

I'm stoked to have an artist profile in today's Winston-Salem Journal.  In the profile, I give props to artistic influences ranging from my parents to Bob Haro, Andy Jenkins, and old BMXer/skater friends like Eddie Roman and Ed Templeton.  I haven't been able to shake the homeless thing, though I'm couch surfing at my mom's place after my recent trouble for trespassing.  Hopefully this show will lead to enough orders for drawings so I can rent a cheap motel room, and eventually become an actual human in society again.  Thanks to journalist Lisa O'Donnell at the Journal for a cool write-up.  I also want to thank my friends Rick and Ben, who've helped me a ton over this past summer.  Major thanks also to old school BMXers Alma Jo Barrera and Scotty Zabielski, who have bought several drawings each, and everyone else who's bought a drawing and helped me get here.

Eight of my Sharpie drawings, in my unique "scribble style," including the one of The Ramones above, will be up at Earshot Music, Winston-Salem's premier record shop.  Yeah, they carry vinyl records, CD's, DVD's, analog stereos, and hard to find music.  The opening of the show is this Saturday, November 4th, 2017, from 7-9 pm.  Earshot is next to Marhall's at 3254 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  If you're anywhere near here, I'd love to see you drop by.

Winston-Salem Journal article featuring my art tomorrow

As part of the lead up to the opening of my art at Earshot Music this weekend, I was profiled by the Winston-Salem Journal over the last few days.  The profile will be in the entertainment section of the Journal tomorrow (Thursday, November 2nd, 2017).  Check the link if you want to check it out.

Winston-Salem homeless man dies

This Winston-Salem Journal article reports the death of Bill Bloxham, a homeless man in Winston-Mr. Salem who was found dead in a Hardee's bathroom yesterday.  It's the same Hardee's I used to go to nearly every day when I drove a tax in Winston-Salem back in 2011-2012.  I know I've seen him around, but never talked to him.  I didn't realize he was the guy who was beaten so bad months before.

Mr. Bloxham became known to many last January when he was beaten nearly to death last January when some young guys found him sleeping under a bridge.  He wound up in intensive care, and I never heard what happened to him after the first couple of reports.

There are a lot of reasons people wind up homeless.  The stereotype is that all every homeless person is either an addict or mentally ill.  Yet the vast majority of addicts and mentally ill people have decent places to live.  As a taxi driver who worked Orange County, California for years, I've found that most wealthy people are heavy drinkers, and sometimes full-on raging alcoholics.  The biggest common thread among homeless people is lack of a strong social network.  Sometimes homelessness is better than whatever toxic situation the person was in before becoming homeless.   

Sorry to hear about Mr. Bloxham's death.  What happened to him in January doesn't happen often, but every homeless person knows that it's a possibility when they fall asleep somewhere.  I've said it many times before, the streets are no joke.

Jimmy Levan film coming next year

I just saw this trailer on Facebook.  I haven't seen Jimmy in person in about 20 years, but I've watched videos of him.  It's weird to hear someone I actually know talking about a near death experience.  I can't wait to see this Go Fast Pull Up.

Below is the Jimmy Levan I met in '91.  He was a young up and comer then, and he still cleared the Santa Ana Civic Center pyramid, which is a good 30-35 foot jump off a mellow bank.  That was a taste of the riding he would do in the years after.