The other night, I was freezing my ass off in the little spot where I sleep, because one of my sleeping bags got wet in the rain that day. That's just one of the things I deal with being homeless for the time being. But during that rough night, I started thinking about a lot of things. Like a fireplace. But also, about my life in the BMX world way back when, and how many people commented on my blog post about vert rider Joe Johnson. Joe himself heard about the post, and commented on it as well, which was really cool.
The simple truth is, BMX bikes completely changed the course of my life, and with a bunch of hard work, gave me some early success in life, far beyond what I thought was possible. It continues to blow me away how many people, literally hundreds, sometimes well over a thousand, read my posts about BMX freestyle in its early days. I tossed out the idea of doing some zines about this stuff, and immediately, like withing a few minutes, I got a couple of excited responses. And that's just from people reading my stories of little events. I haven't really gone into more depth, of how BMX freestyle changed all of our lives, why action sports all developed with Generation X so much, and how these sports changed us, and society as a whole.
As I thought of all the things I would put in a book about BMX, I realized that it really would be a book worth reading. My inner critic, what musician Amanda Palmer calls "The Fraud Police," has been telling me otherwise for years. But there's a lot there. But I don't have the resources to write and publish an actual book, or even an ebook, right now. But I can start publishing a series of zines about different aspects of riding, and those early days in the freestyle world. So I'm going to get started on that today. The first zine in the Freestyle BMX Tales series (the title of my former blog where I wrote over 500 posts about freestyle), will be about The Spot in Redondo Beach. When I asked about what people wanted to read in those comments, Facebook friend Bill Bunting said, "Craig Grasso!" So that's a good place to start. I don't know how long it will take to write and publish, I'm doing a lot of art and social media work as well right now. But it might be a week or two, but not more than that. So that is coming soon, Zine #1 in the Freestyle BMX Tales zine series, "The Spot in Redondo Beach." Every zine will be handmade by me, signed, and numbered. Zines, by their nature, are collector's items. So I'm just making that a little more official.
Club White Bear members, you're getting this one free, the first copies. Everyone else, if you trust my sketchy ass enough to pre-order, you can send me $6 by paypal to stevenemig13@gmail,com . It's "steven" not steve. Can't remember why I did that. Anyhow, if you pre-order, you will get a numbered zine starting at #5, in the order your order comes in. Otherwise, I'll let everyone know when it's coming out, and you can order then if you're interested.
I'm still doing a ton of my Sharpie art, in my original and unique #sharpiescribblestyle. But I'm shifting gears a bit. Doing original drawings that take me 35 to 45 hours to draw, and selling the originals for $120-$250, like I've been doing, is part of the reason I'm still homeless. It was a way to get my art going, but won't make me a living. So I'm going to be doing some smaller drawings, some more BMX and skateboard drawings, and making "prints," to sell at much more reasonable prices. The initial "prints" will be good quality color copies on card stock, which makes for a good quality picture to frame and hang.
So that's where I'm at right now, lots more stuff coming in the near future. Providing I don't die from hypothermia or whatever, that is.
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