Old school racer/jumper/street rider and shameless self-promoter Todd Lyons and I go back to the P.O.W. House days of the early 90's. I don't think we actually lived in the house at the same time, but everyone would congregate there either to go riding or to go out at night. So we shared some fun times in those days of stealing $7 beers in clubs and taking over unused beer taps.
These days Todd's a family man, and brand manager for SE Bikes, which happened to be the company that sponsored my Idaho freestyle teammate Jay Bickel back in 1984. Todd's been spearheading the design of a bunch of big BMX bikes aimed at us old guys, as well as the traditional SE classics like the Quadangle and the PK Ripper.
I stumbled across this classic photo yesterday, looking for something else. This amazing photo is the cover of FREESTYLIN' magazine issue #3, the first issue I got as a kid in Idaho. I thought, with all the old school flavored stuff Todd's been doing at SE, like getting Mike Buff and Stu Thomsen bikes out, it would be cool if he did a new version of this classic photo. It's Todd Anderson jumping over the convertible bug, with Perry Kramer, Dino Deluca, Toby Henderson, McGoo (?) Fred Blood, and a couple others in the car.
If any of you out there think Todd should make this happen, leave a comment on the facebook page where you see this. Oh, and to make it difficult for you Todd, you absolutely need to get a Ford Pinto in the background. OK, who thinks this is a cool idea?
Update: 354 page views on this post in about three hours, AND Todd Anderson said on Facebook that he's up for it. Freakin' Cool. No word from Todd Lyons yet, but he might still be in China, in a far different time zone.
50 degrees last night, after about 24 hours straight rain. Everything, including my bedding, was soaked. Spent a chilly night under an overhang. Not much sleep. Rough night.
Everything is drying out now. Sunny and a balmy 45 degrees right now. Some rain expected tonight. I'd prefer no rain.
At an Action Sports Retailer trade show in the early 90's, I walked in the door of the convention center one evening with the J' Lofty clothing crew. I edited a little promo video for them for the show. Some long haired guy walked up and handed me a Xeroxed, hand cut sticker. "Check out my band tonight," he said, "we're playing the after party with Mary's Danish." "OK," I said. He bounced off and handed out more stickers. The sticker, as you have now guessed, said, "Blind Melon." It was the first time I heard of the band. Good band, cool vibe, and it was a fun show that night with them and Mary's Danish. I could use a danish right now. And no rain tonight. I crashed in the J'Lofty room that night, on a small patch of floor, next to an open patio door and a pit bull named Marley. Marley and I spent the whole night scooting each other back, trying to get a bit more of the crowded floor space. Ah, the good ol' days...
I started this post to simply link to this Washington Post article about why it costs so much to be poor in the U.S.. It popped up on my home page, and I just read the whole thing. It goes into detail about many of the ways that people get screwed with fees and higher interest rates because they don't have an excess of money. As a veteran blogger, I know that adding a video makes a post look more interesting. I quickly found the video clip above. There's a reason I picked it.
So... I woke up in my own tent this morning, after a night of rain. I was given the tent a few days after coming to this city by a personal trainer I met while filling up my water bottle in a park. He guessed that I was homeless, and told me he'd had to live in his car for a couple of months while getting his training business going. Personal drama from an ex led to his situation, and he told me about his battle to get going again financially. I told him I'd applied for a whole bunch of jobs, and only got one call back, from a fast food place. Once the manager met me, she changed her mind.
I told him the only thing that was making me any money was my weird and unique style of artwork with Sharpie markers. After talking for ten minutes or so, the guy said, "You want a tent?" It was several years old, but was big and roomy. I thanked him, and hiked into a patch of woods to put it up. I've been living in that tent for about six of the last eight months. In that time, I've been able to get an art show at a local music shop, and next week I'll have one or more drawings up in a gallery downtown, for our city's First Friday art walk. I've been making steady money from my artwork, just not enough to get me out of the tent and into one of the "cheap" motel rooms they talk about in the article. I'm at the point where I'm going to step up my art and writing, again, to the next level, which should get me out of my wet tent and into a room.
But let's go back to the video above. I picked it for a reason. Way back in 2002, I was living in a small room that a Mexican-American family built on the side of their house. My rent was $200 a month, and I was reading voraciously then, and looking for a way to get back into a better job, but I didn't have a car. If I had a car then, I could have started working freelance on TV shows or movies for $100 to $200 a day. But my car got towed a couple years before.
After taxi driving for a while, and other odd jobs, I wound up living in Garden Grove, California, a couple miles from Disneyland. Out of desperation, I started going to the nearest Labor Ready day labor office. I woke up about 4:00 am, took a cold shower (they didn't have hot water hooked up for my bathroom), and then I walked a couple of miles to Labor Ready. I walked up the bike path next to the Santa Ana River, which is a big ditch most of the time, but fills up with water during the winter rainy season. The part of the bike path I walked is the exact same part that is filled with homeless people's tents in the video above. There was no tent city there in 2002, although there were homeless people living nearby.
I would make it to Labor Ready about 5:00 am, and get in the line of people looking for work. At 5:30 am, the office opened, and we'd walk in, sign the list in order, and most people would get a cup of coffee. Then we'd all sit there, half-asleep, for the next three or four hours. I did this, for nine days, before I got sent out to work for the first time. That job was two hours, I made about $15. I soon learned that most days, there wasn't much work, and there were a few ass-kissers who got those jobs. But that particular office also hired workers for the Anaheim Angels baseball games because the stadium was close by. So I started just showing up on game days.
Here's how those days went. Wake up a 4am, walk 2+ miles to Labor Ready. Sit there for three hours or so, and then several of us would be told we could work the baseball game. We all worked in one of the many food stands in the stadium. Then I would walk the two miles home, and take a nap. Then I would take a cold shower, and walk the two miles, again, back to the office, where I had to have my white T-shirt, black slacks, and black shoes approved. I didn't have all-black shoes, so I took a black marker and colored the white parts of my shoes. Then we'd all walk the 3/4 mile to the stadium worker door, where we'd hang out for a while until they let us in and assigned us to a specific food stand.
Then I would do a basic fast food type job for 6 or 7 hours during the baseball game. Then I'd walk back to Labor Ready after the game, get my ticket, punch my code into and ATM-type machine, and get the $43 or so that I earned that day. Then I'd walk the 2+ miles home, and get home around 11pm or so. So I had to screw around from 5am to about 11pm to make $40-$45, two or three days a week. It sucked. Pure and simple, it fucking sucked. The only good part was that I usually got something to eat at the food stand.
After a few days at this, I learned the trick from another worker. Because I could actually count change, which most of those idiots couldn't do well, I managed to get assigned to a beer stand. There, I was allowed to put out a tip cup. I usually made $30 to $50 in tips, in addition to my $40 or so in pay. Even then, I it was ten miles of walking and an 18 hour day to make $80-$90. All that did was prove to me that day labor places should be avoided at all cost, and that you could never make a an actual living working for one. Working at the baseball games kept me alive for three or four months, but just barely. The Mexican/American family eventually kicked me out, with only two days notice, and let two illegal Mexican immigrants move into my room. They made $100 more a month that way. I wound up homeless (not the first time), and soon got a restaurant job at Fashion Island, an upscale mall in Newport Beach, California. I lived in the bushes and worked that job for nine months, and finally saved up enough to get my driver's license back and get another taxi driver permit. Then I went back to taxi driving, and lived in my cab for most of the next four years.
I'm one of the people that the Washington Post article talks about. I was back in 2002, when I walked the bike path that is now home to a huge tent city. Then I would work a few hours in the baseball stadium in the background of the video above. I'm still struggling 16 years later, but now I'm doing something original, and creating my own job. A big part of what I'll be writing about this year, and in coming years, will be ideas about how to get people like me, and all those the article above and video above, back to making a good living again.
I've been asked for many, many years where I get the random knowledge I spout all the time. The answer is simple, I read books by really smart people who do lots of research, and I listen to talks and speeches, like this one. As I've been drawing pictures a lot this past week, I've been listening to a bunch of the panel discussions from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Every year, a big conference of leaders of governments and business get together to talk about what's happening in the world, what the challenges are, and what they may be able to do about them. I've never paid much attention to WEF, or "Davos" as the business news channels call it.
This year, I happened to have a lot of time to listen, and several of the panel discussions sounded interesting to me. This was one of the best. If you listen to the first 20 minutes of this talk, you'll get an amazing look at what's actually happening in the world, and the general direction we're heading. Here are some of the trends and other things we're all heading towards:
- Russia and China are flexing their muscle in their regions.
- The U.S., under the Trump administration, is backing away from our long time role was world leader. This has a lot of world leaders nervous, and Russia and especially China are stepping into that role.
- The developing countries of Nigeria, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, and Mexico are growing and evolving at a tremendous pace. These will be major economic countries in a decade.
- The world population, now 7.6 billion, will likely be 8.6 billion by 2030.
- There will be 2 billion more people in the middle class globally by 2030.
- Global renewable energy (like solar, wind, etc) is expected to grow by 43% between 2017 and 2022.
- China has a plan called "One Belt- One Road," to build a trade route, over land, from China across several countries, including Iran, to Europe. This will allow China to transport goods and resources between them and Europe without having to use ships that take a long time.
- As the world weans itself off oil and gas, there will be a huge demand for the minerals needed to make Lithium ion batteries for phones, electric cars and other uses. The U.S. doesn't have big quantities of any of these minerals, so we'll have to get them from other countries. That could get really sketchy if political things change much. Here's where most of these minerals are mined: Lithium- Republic of Congo (Africa), Cobalt- Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia (South America); and graphite- China.
- Global warming is melting ice in the arctic, making new shipping routes possible, and there's also natural gas up there. There will be a struggles to control these trade routes and resources up there. Look out Santa.
- Over the next several years, the population of India will surpass the population of China to become the most populous country on Earth. Wow, China has over a BILLION people.
- Most developed nations now have older, aging populations, and not enough young people. Most developing countries are just the opposite, they have much younger populations. This will lead to a host of issues in the future.
That's just part of what's in this discussion. Oh, and the woman talking about Dubai, She will knock your socks off with the way they are embracing new technology and planning for the future. I literally feel like where I live is 40 years behind. Nobody's talking about this stuff around here. And that, my friends, is why I blog about it. Huge chunks of the Unites States have already been left behind by changing technology, and it's only going to get worse.
Just a little personal stoke here. I started this blog, bringing all my various blogs and ideas together, from art to old school BMX stories to economics and my personal journey from homelessness to a legit business. I don't live and die by the numbers of people checking out my blog. But the number of page views tells me that people actually are checking out what I'm doing. It took six months to get the first 10,000 page views on this blog. It took another six weeks to get to 15,000 total page views. Thanks everyone for checking out what I'm drawing and what I'm writing about. I'm always glad to hear comments, though people very rarely leave comments on blogs these days. I get some comments on Facebook, so keep those coming. Let me know what you think, and share FB posts or your own stories that tie in. OK, back to work for me.
When I first moved to Southern California, I soon learned an annual tradition there. Even though hardly anyone I knew skied, everyone seemed to look forward to the new Warren Miller ski movie that came out every fall. I never managed to see one actually projected on a screen, but I was shown the video by somebody every year for my first several years there. Ski and snowboard film making legend Warren Miller died yesterday, at the age of 93.
Decades before "action sports" were called action sports, before S-VHS and Hi-8 video cameras were affordable to average people, even before surf movies were really a thing, Warren Miller was making one, totally kick ass, ski film each year. He started way back in 1949. He shot real film on real movie cameras. He produced and edited the movies. But there were few, if any, theaters who wanted to show a skiing movie back then. So he started "four walling" his films. He'd rent a room, set up the projector and a screen and a bunch of chairs, and charge admission to watch them. Long, LONG before the Do It Yourself idea became popular, he was doing it himself, with the help of some friends.
As a video producer, and one of the first BMXers to make our own videos, I often forget that Warren Miller was one of my big influences when I started producing videos in 1987. In tribute to his legacy, I'll be binge watching some of his films this weekend. Maybe you want to as well. Hats off to you Warren Miller.
As a homeless guy working on building a business from my art and writing, 2018 started out rough. I currently qualify for food stamps, but I let my mom a big chunk of them last month when I was staying with her for a while. Because of that, I ran out way early, and was waiting for them to come in early this month.
I did three drawing projects over the holidays, and expected to get paid quick for two of the drawings early in the month. That money didn't come through. So I was super tight financially. Running a super small (soon-yo-be) business, that means waiting to take action on one thing or another. But since I'm homeless as well, running out of money means running out of food money. I didn't quite get there, but it was close.
On top of that, we got hit by the crazy cold polar vortex for a week and a half. It was like a perfect storm of misery for my circumstances. So instead of getting a decent sized chunk of money, and starting new projects, I was thrown back into a moment by moment, day by day, struggle just to survive. My thoughts were like, "Really? Isn't the other stuff going on enough?"
My food stamps came in, and I made a bit of money from other things, and I squeaked by. THEN we got hit by six inches of snow last week. A friend let me crash on his couch on the cold night before the snow, so that really helped. Then I got some money for one of the drawings the next day, so I was able to get a warm, cozy, sketchy-ass motel room (and a $5 Little Caesar's Pepperoni pizza), and sit out the snow storm watching TV and skate videos online. That was a much needed break.
But after those two nights, I had no idea how my tent had handled the snow. I hiked out to it the next night... and couldn't find it. At that point, I realized I shouldn't have waited until after dark to go there. Eventually I found my tent, about 80% collapsed. Not good. I managed to get the frozen zipper open, and crawled into the one spot that was still standing. I curled up under my bedding, with my head facing downhill, and managed to get a little bit of sleep. It was a rough night.
Then the weather warmed up the next day. For most people in North Carolina, who hate snow, that was a good thing. But for me, it was a mixed blessing. Melting snow means water. Water, water everywhere. The next night, my bedding was wet around the edges, my tent was still mostly collapsed and frozen under six inches of snow, and the temperature was around 25 degrees. It wasn't near as bad as the night before, but it was still pretty rough. The water slowly soaked through to me as the night progressed. Lame.
The day after that, I shoveled the snow off my tent with a big stick, and got it mostly standing again. I also bought some clothesline, tied it between a few trees, and let all my bedding dry out. That night, thought still hitting about 28 degrees, was WONDERFUL. Since then, things are have been going better.
Yesterday, while I was doing a little drawing at a fast food place, a guy came in and started talking about conspiracies and bunch of other stuff. The "I've got earbuds in which means leave me the fuck alone" memo hasn't made it to North Carolina, apparently. I kept trying to get back to drawing, but he kept talking. He wanted my take on all sorts of conspiracy ideas. This is a standard under cover cop/agent questioning technique. Find where someone hangs out, strike up a conversation as in a casual way by talking about something you know already that the person is interested in. But this guy wasn't near as good at it as people I had question me in California years ago. Maybe he was just some nutcase. It doesn't really matter. The vast majority of "conspiracy theories" now are just propaganda to distract people from what may really be going on. He went through the list, The Illuminati (total BS), chem trails, other random things, and the crazy idea du jour, targeted individuals. There are some conspiracy ideas that you simply shouldn't talk about at any given time, and targeted individuals are in that category these days. If it's not real, then lots of people are psychotic with the same symptoms. If it actually is some black ops program being done by some group, then the truth won't come out for 20 or 30 years, and the anyone caught in it is just fucked. Kinda like Alex Jones is. He may have made some sense 20 years ago, but now he might as well be Breitbart, getting fed propaganda and spoon feeding it to the masses of idiots out there.
I've got another drawing order to work on right now, and I'm going to have at least one of my drawings in a front window, on Trade Street in Winston-Salem, for the February First Friday Art Walk. That will be the first time one of my original drawings will be up in the Trade Street art district here. More on that later. So that's what I've been up to. Oh, I'm writing a small book on building creative scenes, as well. I'm just working day after day, and things are slowly improving on the lifestyle level. I'm thinking about the last few weeks as just a "darkest before the dawn" period. I'm doing better now. Onward...
People have a lot of different reactions to protest signs. Partly because of that very fact, I see protest signs as a form of folk art. Here's a video of some of the best signs from the Women's March(es) 2018 that happened in at least 250 places around the world.
I screwed up when I wrote this post earlier. By mistake, I embedded a clip from last year's Women's March. I apologize. That said, I've heard there were at least 250 different Women's Marches over the weekend, with hundreds of thousands of total women marching. That's lots of pink hats. And lots of power. So what is this all about? It's not just about reproductive rights or our current president talking about grabbing the the pussies of women on a tape years ago. There's a lot more going on here. I picked this clip because AM Joy on MSNBC always has a great take on things like this.
Twenty-eight years ago, I picked up a book about economics, and I read it. The book was called The Great Depression of 1990, by Ravi Batra. Now I know we didn't have a great depression in 1990. What we did have was a six year long economic lull, officially called a "double-dip recession" at the time. I watched most of what Ravi Batra predicted happen, it just didn't happen to the depth and intensity he predicted.
In that book, Batra shared the basic ideas of a social theory by a thinker from India. That concept is called the Law of Social Cycle by P.R. Sarkar. It's a deep and involved theory on how societies evolve and change. Sarkar said there are four basic mentalities in every society, the Intellectuals, the Acquisitors, the Laborers, and the Warriors. At any given time, one of these mentalities dominates a society, and that way of thinking shapes all of that society. The ages that each mentality dominate can last for hundreds of years. There's no set time period. But the mentalities dominate in a certain order, the order listed above. Ravi Batra applied Sarkar;s theory to the United States, and concluded that we have been in the Acquisitor, or businessmen's age, since we were English colonies.
Over time, the business people dominating society become more and more corrupt. At the end of the Acquisitor Age, the average, working class people, the Laborers, rise up in a series of populist movements. Things get really chaotic and crazy. Sound familiar? The rise of the Laborers leads to the end of the Acquisitor Age. Unfortunately, the Laborers aren't capable of actually running society for long. So one of two things happen. Either the society collapses (not a good outcome), or the Warriors rise to power. Where the Acquisitors earn their living in the world with success in business and finances (and often corruption), the Warriors earn their way using courage and physical ability. In earlier societies, soldiers, police, firefighters, professional athletes are all examples of the Warrior mentality. Action sports athletse, stuntmen, the more dangerous construction jobs, and entertainment industry roadies are other aspects of the Warrior mentality in today's world. But it's not their time... not yet.
Now is the time of the people. Average, everyday, working people. After reading Batra's book in late 1989/early 1990, and watching most of what he predicted actually happen, I started looking for a populist movement in the U.S. It was a long wait, but now we're seeing it happen. The very, very beginning of the Tea Party Movement might have been populist, but it was quickly taken over by evangelicals and Republicans within weeks. The Occupy Wall Street movement was the first real look at the populist uprising in my opinion. The reason that took off like wildfire was because many people across the U.S. were ready for something like that to come along. When it did, it struck a chord.
Then came two HUGE populist movements in the 2016 election cycle. As we all know, Billionaire Donald Trump tapped into latent anger in working class people who'd lost their manufacturing jobs years before. He also tapped into the racist, sexist, and just plain xenophobic fears of a lot of people, mostly on the Right side of the political spectrum. But don't forget, the Bernie Sanders' populist movement garnered just as big, often bigger, live crowds, and tremendous energy on the Left side of the political spectrum. The 70-something social Democrat tapped into the intellectuals and the rising Millennial generation. I keep reminding people in here in North Carolina, all those Bernie people are still out there. We'll hear from them again. I saw a sign in the women's march photos today that said, "Grab 'em by the midterms." We'll see what happens this fall's election. We might see big political changes even before that.
But the populist movement isn't just a political thing. It's a "we average Americans are tired of being screwed over by those ruling the world" thing. A year ago, in conjunction with Donald Trump's inauguration, we saw the massive Women's March. In the crazy year since that movement, we've seen the #metoo Movement and the #timesup Movement both primarily female, rise. We've also seen a huge number of young people, particularly in the Democratic party, start running for public offices up and down the ballots. This weekend, we've seen another HUGE series of Women's Marches. One source said there were at least 250 organized marches around the world, and it appears millions of women marched in them. All of you women, and everyone else in these different populist movements, are part of the Laborer mentality uprising in the U.S. and much of the world.
There will be other # movements, there will be other groups rising up, and there will ultimately be a complete change in who runs our world. And THAT really has the powers at be worried. Personally, I've caught A LOT of shit for simply sharing these ideas. And I've been sharing this basic idea since a zine I wrote in 1998.
This is big. It is crazy. And it will be chaotic. And yes, the Trump followers AND the Sanders followers, AND the Women's March are all aspects of the larger populist uprising. It will be chaotic for quite a while to come. And it could all end really badly if all these aspects of populist movements continue to fight among each other. This is a time for our highest selves and our highest ideals. It's a time to find what common ground there is with people who may oppose much of what you believe. It's a time to let our best selves shine.
Now you know what we're all a part of. Where will it go from here? That's up to us. Let's make something amazing out of the mess we've inherited.
On this cover of BMX Plus!, we have freestyle pro Rick Allison sitting on the Hutch HPV. The rise of BMX racing in about 1970 led to a bunch of other 20 inch bikes over the years. As most of you know, Bob Haro created the first bike made for freestyle in about 1983, which sparked dozens of other freestyle bikes since. In the mid-1980's, riders started building GPV's, Gravity Powered without chains, to bomb down big hills. Most of these were originally built from spare parts. A few GPV races were promoted, and fairings were added to increase speed. The guy behind most of the fairings was an engineer name Dan Hannebrink.
When I worked for the American Freestyle Association in 1987, a couple other 20 inch bikes came into being. One idea was F-1 (or Formula 1) racing. Basically, it was BMX racing, but without jumps. So it was racing weird little 20 inch bikes around a hay-bail-lined course in a parking lot. Bob Morales, AFA founder and my boss, and I helped put set up one of these races in the parking lot of Irvine Meadows amphitheater. Most of the BMX bike companies were represented there. It was kind of fun to ride the bikes around the course for the first lap or two. Then it just got dumb. You can see the cover blurb and small photo of "Formula 1 Challenge" on the right side of the magazine cover above. Despite a lot of hype by industry people, F-1 racing was lame, and died a quick death.
But out of that same time period, came the Hutch HPV (Human Powered Vehicle). One of the cool things about working for Bob Morales was that he was always doing ads for other companies, and had a ton of side projects, like Auburn Bikes, that I helped out with from time to time. As luck would have it, we got custody of the prototype Hannebrink HPV, built for Hutch. Bob was getting photos shot to do ad ad for it, I think. So I got to ride it. At the time, the gearing was still be worked out, and the smaller front sprockets didn't work. So Bob and I tried it out on the road near the AFA, starting off in the super high top gears. It was tough to get rolling, but the thing flat hauled ass once we got going. That night, as Bob was working on something in the shop, I rode the HPV down to the beach, where the big, wide, Bolsa Chica Beach bike path was.
I rode down that path every weekend on my freestyle bike, and I could usually keep pace with most mountain bikers. I rode a lot of miles back then. But the cyclists on the road bikes would blow past me. Not on the HPV. I had to pretty much stand on the pedal to start off in that high front gear. But then I got going, and upshifted to the top rear gear. I was blowing past the handful of mountain bike riders like they were standing still. I even easily passed a couple of road bike cyclists. I don't know how fast I was going, but I'm pretty damn sure I was pedaling 40-45 mph on flat ground. People would literally jump as I road past them, then do a double take. Some thought I was riding a motorcycle on the bike path. It was a lot of fun.
But I was exhausted after riding a couple miles out and back on the HPV. The idea never took off, and I don't know if any of them ever sold. But as a BMX guy used to getting dirty looks by cyclists, it was great to blow past them on the HPV. I was looking for a photo of the HPV recently, and I just found this cover on Pinterest today, so I decided it was a good blog post for today.
Found this on You Tube. Here's a look at the end of the snowstorm we had here yesterday. Since I grew up in Ohio and Idaho as a kid, it normally wouldn't be a big deal. To be honest, I really miss driving in snowy weather. I don't have a car right now, and was taking the buses around yesterday. But in my current living situation, snowy weather is definitely not a good thing. Luckily, I got some money for a drawing I did recently, and was able to get a nice, warm room for the night. I love it when a plan comes together.
The weird thing about weather here in Central North Carolina is that we get major high and low pressure fronts from every direction. We had cold coming down from Canada last week, and the last couple of days. We get weather from the West. We get weather from the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes, we even get weather from the East.
Tiny changes in the Gulf Stream, or the timing of how different fronts interact, make it almost impossible to get a decent 7 day forecast here. A few days ago, yesterday was supposed to be a dusting of snow, then the forecast went up to maybe 1" to 2". And the temperature was supposed to be in the mid-20's last night. We turned out getting 6"-7" of snow, and the temperature dropped into the teens, with the wind chill below ten and dropping as I ventured out for a $5 pizza last night. As a homeless guy (at the moment), weather plays a huge role in my life. So I'm stoked I was able to get out of the mess last night. Tonight will be chilly, but then things warm up. Can't wait.
This is how a lot of people WANT to drive in snow. But you don't have the trucks and the spiked tires these guys have. I grew up in Ohio as a kid, cheering as my dad did donuts in the car (when my mom wasn't in it). I started driving myself in Boise, Idaho, and I LOVE driving in snow. Since we're getting 3" to 4" of it today here in Central North Carolina, here are my tips on how to drive in snow SAFELY.
1. Put a bunch of weight in your trunk or back of your truck or SUV. The absolute best thing you can do to help your driving in snow is to add weight over the rear wheels. My dad used to put two or three 50 pound bags of rock salt in the trunk in the winter. The extra weight over your rear wheels (if they're the drive wheels) gives you more traction and control. Here in NC, get two or three 50 pound bags of dog food or kitty litter and put them in the back of your truck or SUV. When winter is over, donate them to an animal shelter. If you have a front wheel drive car, you can't put weight right over the front wheels. But extra weight, in the back seat or trunk, will still help some. Or ask your fat friends to ride along for the day.
2. Keep a BIG gap (5 to 8 seconds) between you and the vehicle in front of you. This is CRITICAL. If they do something stupid or slide, this gives you time to react and stop or avoid them.
3. Hit the gas and brake pedals SOFTLY. My dad used to tell my mom to pretend there was an egg under the pedals. Unfortunately, my mom would make "scrambled eggs." Hit the gas slowly and steadily, and accelerate slowly. Same thing with the gas, hit it slowly and steady.
4. Don't touch your phone. Don't even look at it. Put it in the glove box or something. Pay attention to your driving.
5. Practice driving in snow. Every car or truck handles differently in snowy conditions. You learn how your car handles in snowy conditions by trying it out IN A SAFE AREA. Go out into an empty, snowy parking lot. Drive straight at 10 to 15 mph, and SLAM on the brakes. See what happens. Then to it again and turn the wheels one way or the other. Then do it again, and let go of the steering wheel when you hit the brakes. Of course, make sure there is nothing nearby to hit. Once you got the idea of what happens when you slam on the brakes, try doing some donuts. Turn the wheel and gas it for a moment. If things get dicey, ease off the gas. Practice starting out from a dead stop and accelerating slowly. See what works best. Every time you turn or slide the car, stop and look around. Make sure there are no people or obstacles nearby before you try another thing. By doing this, your learn how your car or truck handles, and you build your confidence in snowy conditions.
6. Avoid icy roads. You can drive in snow, and on snow over ice if you're careful. But it's almost impossible to handle a car on pure ice. Unless you have spiked tires like the trucks in the video above. I imagine you don't. So avoid ice.
After my three days in jail a couple months ago, I wound up staying at my mom's apartment for a while. When the money crunch hit, as it always does there, she wanted me to put some stuff on Craigslist to sell. I know posting on Craigslist isn't hard, but it had been a while, so I did a test post, advertising my artwork, just to make sure my account was still active. Then I put my mom's items on as well.
Much to my surprise, I got an email right away, asking if I could do a drawing of Jerry Garcia. I've never been a serious Dead head, but I do like their music. We traded a few emails, and settled on the photo for me to draw. Like I usually do, I listened to a whole bunch of The Grateful Dead's music while drawing this one. I wasn't sure what to do for the background. I was thinking about the dancing teddy bears, but didn't have enough space. I've never done hallucinogenics, no acid or mushrooms back in the day. But my brain's pretty weird naturally, so I just hand drew designs to make a trippy background. I channeled an old friend I worked with on the American Gladiators crew named Lico. Lico was a 300 pound vegetarian Mexican American with a huge afro, and a diehard Deadhead. He's one of the greatest characters I've ever met. One night while hanging with his family, he decided I needed to see The Grateful Dead play. So Lico, his wife, two kids, and me piled into his little car about 2 am and drove to Las Vegas. The dead were playing there, but we couldn't find a room or tickets. So we drove back to L.A. about noon. And I never got to see The Dead play live. While drawing the background, I asked myself what Lico would see while trippin' at one of their shows. All in all, it came out pretty good.
Coming from Generation X, my introduction to The Grateful Dead was their music video for "Touch of Gray." But listening to a bunch of singles, and several live shows on You Tube, "Scarlet Begonias" is now my favorite Dead song. This drawing is done in my unique scribble style, Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24". None of my mom's stuff on Craigslist sold.
I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan. But this was a fun drawing to do. This one was a request from a guy who's bought three other drawing recently. I wanted to capture MJ both singing and dancing, and I liked the way these two images worked together. The background is titles of songs from his six, solo, studio albums recorded while he was alive. It's done in my unique scribble style with Sharpie markers. 18" X 24", Sharpies on paper. With every musician drawing, I listen to a lot of that artist's music while drawing it, and I always come across songs I didn't know about. My favorite Michael Jackson song I found doing this drawing is "They Don't Care About Us."
In this article today on CNBC, they detail the retail stores that are closing, but not announcing it. With all the negative hype around the Retail Apocalypse, some stores are closing quietly to avoid bad PR, or just letting their leases expire and ghosting away. This is putting even more strain on the "B" and "C" grade malls across the country who are already struggling. The retail saga continues...
Today is the warmest it's been in weeks here, in the 60's. But last night it was drizzling rain as I walked "home." It had been drizzling rain all day. On one hand, it's much warmer than the teen and single digit low temperatures of last week. On the other hand, rain sucks when you're homeless. Then, when I got to my tent, the flap was open and someone had rummaged through it. When you have an actual house, it's a crime when someone breaks in, and you call the cops. But when you're homeless, the most likely people to "break-in" are the cops. Or other homeless people. Nothing appeared to be stolen. There were no blue latex gloves laying outside, like when my tent got searched last year. There was also no three foot long slash in the tent, like when it got searched last year. A bunch of stuff got wet. My stocking cap was laying, soaking wet, in a rain-soaked corner of the tent. Let's face it, there are a lot of assholes out there who like to fuck with someone they think can't do anything about it. I don't know who got into my stuff, but they're lame.
More rain, even possible thunderstorms, tonight. Wonderful.
I was almost 20 years old in 1986, when Eddie Fiola walked up to me and started talking at the AFA Masters contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My little San Jose' Stylin' zine somehow got me the job of writing about that contest for FREESTYLIN' magazine. It was the biggest weekend of my life up to that point, and I couldn't believe it when Eddie just came up and started talking. It was a fanboy moment, talking to the best know pro in freestyle like it was no big deal. Then a curly headed kid and his buddy rode up and interrupted us. Damn little grommets. That kid was asking Eddie if he'd ever seen a trick, he did the motions of a switch-handed air. Eddie had never seen that trick. Neither had I. The kid smiled and him and the buddy rode off.
In the 1980's, a really weird, mostly screwed up, group of kids were attracted by the obscure, new, little sport of BMX freestyle. Most of us were hardcore riders, if never really great riders. Some guys excelled at riding. I found my niche as one of the guys recording parts of our weird little world, first with a 110 camera and a typewriter, then at magazines, then a newsletter, then with video. I wasn't one of the pro riders. But I wound up part of the scene, sessioning with the best in the nightime jam circles and street rides, and then documenting them at the contest the next day. Because of that, I just happened to be standing there when I lot of really cool stuff went down. On good days, I had a camera of some kind with me. On the bad days, I waited for Windy or John Ker's magazine photos to come out.
The spring of 1986 in Tulsa was one of those good days. Without realizing it at the time, vert legend Eddie Fiola and I happened to meet an unsponsored Mat Hoffman and Steve Swope, before the national scene had heard of them. Three years later, in a school gym in Ontario, Canada, was another good day. I was the Unreel Productions (Vision) cameraman that day, the only person in the gym with a broadcast quality video camera on my shoulder. The talk of the weekend was about some Canadian kid called the Terminator doing an abubaca backflip, or maybe a fakie backflip, no one was sure. Both of those tricks seemed completely insane then. He tried it earlier that day, but didn't commit, and it was underwhelming. After that, there were no big expectations. As usual, several riders hucked 900 attempts. Then something amazing happened. Go to 14:43 to see it. Mat wound up having a good day that day, as well. Happy Birthday Mat Hoffman. Hope today's another good day, as well.
Remember everyone... you never know who that goofy looking kid who rides up to you at the skatepark may turn out to be. Eddie and I had no idea what that curly headed kid would unleash into the bike world. So don't be too quick to discount those crazy kids you run into out riding.
At a time when the Washington D.C. quivers in lunacy and cowardice, a true leader rises to the occasion, once again. Oprah Winfrey survived a horrific childhood, and went on to a level of success unheard of for a woman, let alone a black woman, in her time. She had no obligation at the Golden Globes to do anything else than speak about her body of work and say "thank you" to the Hollywood Foreign Press. But... she's Oprah. She chose to lead. Not ACT like a leader. Not throw her weight as a businesswoman around. But to stand up and lead a room of some of the most amazing and creative women (and men) on the planet. AND the millions of people, including all those young girls, watching at home. Look out world. The times they are a changin'.
A toast to the stories that are finally being told, the secrets that are finally coming out, and to millions of women finding spirit in each others struggles and stories, and standing up. But abuse of power is not just something just women have to deal with. It's something nearly everyone has to deal with. When the people rise because they've finally had enough, no force can deter them. Much good will come from this movement. Let it come.
But I also want to say a prayer of strength and guidance for those who will still endure abuse, here and around the world. Those who will not find "justice" anytime soon, but may find the will to carry on as young Oprah, and millions of others, have done. I wish courage and understanding to those who's stories cannot yet be told, to those caught in a similar struggle that this huge female uprising won't solve. There's hope. But the hope is not only in the punishment we call "justice," but in understanding that those who abuse are also the blacksmiths pounding the soft metal, actually forging the steel that tomorrow's great leaders will be forged from.
Oprah is Oprah, in part, because of the abuse she suffered. She is Oprah, in part, because of the strength that those horrible experiences helped her find. Even if your abusers go to their graves without punishment by other humans, it does not mean you have lost. To all of US who have survived abuse, WE have the ability to become strong and courageous people in the world. Whether your abusers are punished in this lifetime or not, they can never take away the person you become.When you survive the abuse, and struggle on to finally find your own courage, you have won, no matter what happens to them. Never forget that.
In this Biz Women journal article, commercial real estate brokers Cushman & Wakefield expect up to 12,000 more retail stores to close in 2018. That's quite a bit more than the 9,000 stores that closed in 2017, by their count. No one has made a really good map of all of these store closings yet, but most are in rural areas or small towns and cities as far as I've been able to tell. Yikes.
NSFW NSFNC I was able to watch way too much of yesterday's media blitz about President Trump's "bigger nuclear button" tweet. It totally reminded me of this bit by the late, great George Carlin. There have been few people in the world that can simplify subjects, like war, in such a brilliant and funny way. The main part I thought of is about 5 minutes into this clip. But the whole thing is great. If you remember George Carlin, you know that he was known for combining comedy, intelligence, and profanity in an incredible way. So if you don't like cuss words, give your kid the earphones, he or she will like this.
CNBC advisor, and former news hour anchor, Larry Kudlow says we're at the beginning of a huge economic boom thanks largely to the new Tax Cuts just passed. I disagree. Of course, he's a longtime financial journalist, and I'm a bum. But I'm a bum who remembers the 80's, when we tried the whole "supply side economics/trickle down" thing. Spoiler Alert: The money you're told will trickle down will actually gush up.
We also were in a completely different world technologically and financially in the 1980's. The recent Tax Bill, is really just a massive corporate welfare plan for the industries that don't have what it takes to compete in today's high tech world. It's a last ditch effort to rig the game in favor of Industrial Age companies who can't hang on a level playing field.
I see the stock market going a bit higher, while most of the mid-sized cities, small towns, and rural areas, most of America, continues to struggle. We may even see the stock market go up as most of the country slides into a recession in a few months. Something, maybe Trump's looming impeachment and leaving office (and Pence might get the boot, too), will trigger a collapse much like 2008. Except this time it's the $1.4 trillion in student loan debt that will turn into an anchor on global markets.
So who are you going to believe? The Republican financial news hero, or the bum? I'm posting this clip mostly because I know I'll be able to refer back to it in a few months when Larry is saying something quite different and the world looks even crazier than it does today.
The one point I do agree with is that the GOP will now target programs like food stamps and Social Security Disability, because killing "entitlement" programs is needed to fund their huge corporate tax cuts they just passed. "Starve the beast," as they say.
You know what's funny, though? Most of the disability scammers are in diehard Trump voting districts. Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy (but exciting) ride this year.
I just spent a night in my tent in the woods in 11 degree weather. That's a record for me. I never came close to that cold of a night camping in Boy Scouts as a kid. I'm still here, and obviously homeless is not where I planned to be. The bad part about "urban camping" is not having a campfire in the morning to warm up. But it's better than the other available options at the moment. I guess I'm living up to my nickname as The White Bear.
I'm drawing all day every day right now, with a bit of blogging thrown in. Both are going well, and it's just a matter of time before my ventures turn into a small business capable of supporting me. I'm glad the holidaze are over, they suck when you're homeless because everything is closed and there's nowhere to go. I'm going to do some brainstorming of my plans for this year today, and a bunch of drawing on the current project. I'm expecting some good stuff to happen this year. Like publishing some zine books, losing a bunch of weight, getting a new bike, and sitting back with a cold drink to watch the impeachment on TV. Onward!
