Allen Valek, street abubaca at the Santa Ana Civic Center in 1990. Still from my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend.
This one happened in the early fall of 1986, when the Haro team got back from their summer tour. Actually, there were two Haro touring teams then, this one was Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, and Dave Nourie, the other with the remaining Haro riders. I was working at Wizard Publications, home of FREESTYLIN', magazine, and editor Andy Jenkins came over my intercom, and asked me to come down to his office. That was 50 feet away, across the little warehouse area in the Wizard building. Andy said there was a photo shoot later that day. Ron Wilkerson had some new trick called," and Andy made a funny face as he said it, "the abubaca." I looked perplexed, "A -boob-a-what?" I asked. Andy said, "I don't know, that's Ron's name for some new trick. We're going to a shoot a how-to of it."
Andy gave me the info, I had to drive Windy Osborn, the Wizard photographer, and Ron, in the Wizard Astro van, to the alley behind a well known bike shop in Redondo Beach, where they had a quarterpipe.
I headed back to my office, and looked up the address in the Thomas Guide, a big, phone book sized map book of Southern California, so I could find the place. I made sure there was some gas in the van, and headed back into my office to work on other stuff until it was time for the shoot.
Ron showed up later that afternoon, and I saw him talking to Andy and Windy. Windy swung by my office, and said she was taking Ron out to the T.O.L. Ramp in the parking lot, to shoot some pics there, and they'd be ready to head to the bike shop in 15 minutes or so. I headed down to Andy's office, and he and Lew told gave me a microcassette recorder, and told me to wedge it by my leg, out of sight, and try to get Ron talking about tour and saying some crazy stuff. I was baffled. "Ron's crazy, we all know that, I'm pretty sure he'll say some crazy stuff anyhow." The whole sneaky recording bit bothered me, and seemed kind of pointless. But I just nodded, and took the recorder.
Meanwhile, Ron Wilkerson was outside, completely wrecking himself for Windy's camera. He was doing a no footed backwards drop-in on the T.O.L. ramp. Stand the bike on the edge of the deck, backwards, step up into an endo, sit on the seat, take both feet off and stretch the legs wide, then bring the feet back to the pedals, as he dropped backwards into the 8 foot ramp, landing fakie. He could do the trick, but not consistently, and he got the seat jammed into his ass on 3 out of 4 tries. But it made for a great photo, I remember it ran at some point. Despite the painful bails on the backwards drop-ins, Ron was ready to head to the bike shop, and show us this new trick, the a-boob-a-something...
Windy hopped in the white Astro van, sitting shotgun, and Ron sat right behind us, on the floor. I pulled out the micro recorder, in full view, and said something like, "Let's hear some crazy tour stories..." I set the recorder on the floor in front of Ron. I can't remember what he talked about, but it was funny shit. Windy, of course, knew Ron well, so they pretty much talked the whole way to the shop, maybe 15 minutes away. I rolled up this alley, and saw the quarterpipe in the back, and parked nearby.
One thing a lot of people don't know, or forget, from those early days of freestyle, is that there was no standard quarterpipe size until about 1987. The original Bob Haro designs, printed in the magazine, for riders around the country to see, was for a six foot high, eight foot wide ramp, that came just under vert. That's what my Boise teammate Justin Bickel had, and what a lot of us kids then rode in our local shows or in our driveways. Those ramps would be considered a mini-ramp today.
When the factory teams built ramps on trailers to go on tour, the sizes ranged widely. The Skyway team had a 9 foot high, 8 foot wide quarterpipe, with 2 or 3 inches of vert, I believe. The Haro ramp was 8 foot high, and 8 foot wide, just up to vert. The GT ramp was 9 feet high, 9 foot transition, and 5 feet wide ramp (seriously, ask Eddie Fiola about drifting a little to the side on that toothpick). Everybody had slightly different ramps then, and it took some getting used to when you rode some new one somewhere, or at a contest.
The bike shop quarterpipe, best I can recall, was seven feet high, with an elliptical transition, and about a foot of vert. It was one seriously fucked up transition. By elliptical, I mean that it hit vert six feet up, but it wasn't a six foot radius, it got steep real quick. Take an egg out of the fridge, and hold it vertical on a table, with the small end down. Now imagine a quarterpipe with the transition like one side of that egg. It was rideable, but really weird and steep.
Ron Wilkerson, already known as a master of lip tricks, wasn't phased. He did a couple of small airs to get the feel of the ramp, and let Windy get set up for the shot. Then he went for the new trick, the abubaca. He went fairly slow, like he was going to do a fakie air. But then he landed the back wheel on the edge of the deck, the bike leaned forward, and then Ron hopped backwards, trying to land back on the transition. But the ramp was so steep, he landed at the very bottom of the ramp... hard... and shot backwards, landing on his back on the ground. It had to hurt.
But the trick dumbfounded me. It just seemed too gnarly to land right on the edge of the ramp, 7 feet up, and then hop backwards into the ramp, blind. I'd seen Eddie Fiola, earlier that summer, do a trick he called the Expo, that also dropped in backwards. Eddie would flyout, doing a 90 degree turn, landing sideways on the deck of the ramp, balance a second, then hop back in fakie. Both tricks were insane at the time. But the abubaca depended on landing right on the edge of the ramp, any mistake, and a painful would result.
At the time, the abubaca seemed completely insane. Ron got up, dusted himself off, sore after that crash, and the other bails at Wizard. Then he tried again, as Windy's Nikon's motordrive clicked and whirred. Same thing, Ron caught a tiny bit of the bottom of the ramp, but ate shit hard again. He ended up doing the trick about 7 times, I think, and ate shit hard on 3 or 4 of them. But he landed the first abubaca Windy Osborn and I had ever seen, and then a couple more. That sequence that got printed, and changed vert riding, and later street riding, forever. While Ron played it off as no big deal, I know he was hurtin' when we headed back to the shop. With Windy confident she had the sequence on film, we thanked the bike shop owner, who walked out to watch, and loaded up for the short trip back to 3162 Kashiwa Street in Torrance, the Wizard warehouse.
I turned the recorder on again, and Ron told us some more funny stories about tour. I gave the micro-recorder back to Andy, and him and Lew were both stoked on Ron Wilkerson's stories. Windy got the sequence, but I don't know what issue it came out in. I checked Old School Mags.com, but they're missing issues around this time. It was probably in the January 1987 issue of FREESTYLIN'. So that's the story of how Ron Wilkerson's foundational vert and street trick, the abubaca, got into FREESTYLIN' magazine, for the first time.
Here's Windy Osborn speaking, with a great intro by racing legend Cheri Elliot, after being inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame in 2012. You can check out (and buy) Windy's classic, fine art, freestyle and other prints at windyosborn.com .
On on Thursday evening, the last day of July 1986, I flew from San Jose, California to LAX airport in Los Angeles with my bike, a Skyway T/A, a suitcase, and $80 in my wallet. I got picked up there by Andy Jenkins, Mark "Lew" Lewman, and Craig "Gork" Barrette. Officially, I started work the next day, Friday August 1st. I was starting the job that changed the entire course of my life, working at Wizard Publications. Wizard was the long time publisher of BMX Action magazine, and for two years then, the first BMX freestyle magazine, FREESTYLIN'. Somehow my zine, San Jose Stylin', got me the job there. That still amazes me. I was 20 years old, and so nervous that I actually got the hives a couple days before leaving the Bay Area. I wore long sleeve shirts to work for two weeks to hide the hives, and the guys made fun of me for that a little.
Although my start date was Friday, Gork drove us all in his van straight back the the office from LAX. As luck would have it, that Saturday was the ten year anniversary party for BMX Action. At the small warehouse building that housed Wizard, I followed Gork up onto the big industrial shelving racks in the back. Our job for the night was to go through a bike box full of little yellow boxes, each close to the size of a cigarette pack. Those boxes held color slides of photos shot by Bob "Oz" Osborn, his daughter Windy, and probably a few other contributors over the ten years. Gork and I were to find 100 of the best photos for a slide show ot play at the party. At his core, Oz was a photographer, and Windy grew up going to BMX races with Oz and her BMX racing brother, R.L.. She picked up a camera, following in her father's footsteps, and Windy began as a girl with a camera in a boy's sport, and worked her way up to legendary photographer in the BMX and freestyle worlds.
When I started at Wizard, Windy was the staff photographer for both magazines. Oz had moved on to spending most of his time out in the wild somewhere shooting fine art photos. As Andy Jenkins explained it to me then, "Oz is here (at the office) about one week a month, and the rest of the time he's out in his van taking Ansel Adam-type pictures of trees and flowers." The van was a highly decked out 4WD van, made for getting to out of the way places and camping for days while shooting nature photos.
Officially, my job was "editorial assistant" for both magazines, meaning Andy, Lew, and Gork could all boss me around. They were all cool, by and large, though we had our different views on things. In reality, my main job was to proofread both magazines, and fix every single little spelling and grammatical mistake. At 20 years old, armed only with my Boise High School diploma, I was taking over for Don-Boy, a guy with an English degree. Hey, no pressure. Andy, Lew, and Gork waited until a couple of days before deadline to start writing most of their articles, and so I ended up proofreading every single word of both magazines over about four days, right before, and after, deadline.
The rest of the month, driving Windy to photo shoots was one of my consistent jobs. Sure, Windy could driver herself, obviously. But having me deal with getting directions, keeping the Astro van gassed up, picking up film, (remember film?) and around to help out when needed on shoots, allowed Windy to focus more on her job, taking great photos. While Andy, Gork, and Lew were officially my bosses, Windy was more like a veteran co-worker. Once we had photo shoots scheduled, she expected me to handle the logistics, to get her to the right place to shoot the right rider or skater, and she was ready to find the best angles and backdrops to snap killer shots. Working with Windy was the biggest thing I was looking forward to when I found out I got the job in July of '86.
Epic Windy photo of Brian Blyther high above the Enchanted Ramp, 1987. For pure ego reasons, this is a favorite of mine, because on the deck, left to right, are Steve Broderson, Mike Golden, Todd Anderson, Me (standing), and Mat Hoffman. Prestige by proximity. This photo just makes me look way cooler than I ever was. I did judge that contest, though, which is why I was up there. Again, you can buy her prints at windyosborn.com.
But working with Windy wasn't like working with just some random person at another job. First of all, Windy was hot (and still is, of course). Second, she was a handful of years older than me, and I was a 20-year-old, deathly shy guy, still a virgin, and completely inept at talking to women, let alone hot women. I always kind of felt like a high school freshman who somehow got the job of driving the head cheerleader around, and I never knew what to say. Since I was always afraid of saying or doing something stupid around Windy, I did exactly that on a pretty frequent basis. So for a while, it seemed the only thing I was good at was pissing Windy off. On more than one occasion, I took a wrong freeway ramp, which instantly costs you 15-20 minutes in Southern California traffic. It's a huge and confusing area, I was new to it, and wasting time driving really bugged Windy. She traveled most weekends for work, and, unlike me, actually had a social life. She took as long as necessary to shoot photos, but didn't like wasting time traveling to and from shoots. She wanted to get back to the office and then head home at a reasonable time. In addition, I'd forget something once in a while, or made some little mistake that bugged her. I also learned, the hard way, of course, that riders who don't have cars tend to give really shitty directions to places. Following those directions often wasted more time. But in time, I got my shit together more, and things went smoother.
I landed at Wizard fresh from 11 months working at a Pizza Hut. It was typical restaurant work, if you do the job well, you're busy every minute, and there is no down time. There's a list of things to get done to clean and close, as well as lots of pizzas that had to be made. I was the shift supervisor, and in charge of closing every night, with a couple workers to boss around. The summer before that, I managed the Boise Fun Spot, a tiny amusement park (carnie street cred!) where I had 12 employees under me, and had to make sure everything got done day to day. I was used to being in charge, having a bunch of responsibility, and a ton of things to do, and planning and organizing things. I'd been doing low level management at pretty traditional jobs. I was used to cracking the whip on other people, being in charge, not doing much creatively, and feeling that if I wasn't constantly busy, I wasn't earning my money.
Then came Wizard. It was a highly successful family business, all about creativity and making an amazing, visually stimulating product, I was the new guy,and not the boss of anything. Even Cosmo, the Factory Watch Cat, could boss me around, but he was chill and never did. There was a lot of down time. As cool as it was, I struggled with not being busy all the time.
Looking back from 33 years later, and lots of personal and creative growth since, I realize that I was both a Blocked Artist, and a Shadow Artist. Both of those terms I learned of in Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, which I highly recommend for anyone creative. A Blocked Artist is someone who has a strong creative drive, but also has deep seeded beliefs that it's bad or arrogant to do art. Blocked artists routinely put down other artists, and sabotage their own creative work. There's a continuous inner struggle between the part of them that wants to do creative work, and the part that honestly believes it's bad or wrong to be creative. Those negative beliefs are usually instilled in them as children, and sometimes by religious beliefs, or both.
A Shadow Artist is a highly creative person, often blocked as well, who somehow works themselves into proximity of other "officially" creative people. A Shadow artist might paint cool pictures, but downplay their creativity, and talk up their older brother, a talented musician, the family member everybody knows is highly creative. Hiding in the shadows of another artist lets you off the hook for not really producing what you're capable of. The TV and film production world is filled with Shadow Artists working around the famous actors, directors, and writers, but with dreams of their own. When I worked in the box office of Cirque du Soleil, there were a lot of Shadow Artists there, as well.
So I was a young guy, incredibly afraid of actually using my own creativity, suddenly driving Windy Osborn to photo shoots. She was a professional, seasoned, published monthly, veteran photographer by then.
Looking back from today's knowledge, the biggest thing I really learned from Windy was that it's actually OK, and possible, to be a professional creative person.
I grew up as a kid in rural and small town Ohio, very conservative in the old school, and non-political, sense of that word. People did things they way they'd always been done, and change happened very slowly. The adults in my childhood mostly worked factory jobs they didn't really like. People didn't have "passions," they had hobbies done in their spare time. It was simply known that it was impossible to make a living as an artist, of any kind, so it didn't even need to be said. "Artists" were those weird, crazy, lazy (and usually gay, it was believed) people in New York City and L.A. No one wanted their kid to ever be one. It was simply something that was not done. Period. Coming from there, I didn't take "art" seriously, and that's something I struggled with for years, and still struggle with, even after 35 years of doing many kinds of creative work. (Here's my "creative resume'.")
While I also worked with Andy, Lew, and Gork, we all did most of our creative work alone, in our offices. Windy was the first real working artist I ever worked with, and got to watch in action. Once we got to a photo shoot, I mostly just hung out and watched. What I was watching, I realize now, was a real, functional, professional artist, for the first time. The creative process is something completely different than the list of things to clean that I had in my head as Pizza Hut employee, or the timed world of running carnival rides.
Creative work is largely fun, often playful. It doesn't seem like work, which really makes a Blocked Artist feel guilty. You try different things. Some work, some don't. Ideas pop up out of nowhere, and you give them a shot. You're not on a time clock. You take the time necessary to get a good angle, work with the lighting available, and find cool backdrops to make the photo look even better, when possible. Andy, Gork, Lew, and I used to joke that we knew every weird colored wall within ten miles of the Wizard offices. "Got a photo shoot with Martin Aparijo in his yellow GT uniform?" There's that blue tile wall over on (whatever)street." That'll make the yellow really pop. That was a normal thing.
Windy was always in charge, she knew the technical aspects of photography, and she had her vision and ideas for each shoot, and the riders, and me, collaborated with her to make it happen. That was a huge difference from my mindset, and while it was fun, it wasn't really "work" in my mind, and I was always struggling with the idea that I really wasn't "doing things right," because of my inner battle with doing art and creative work. So I was about as uptight as could be back then, which is probably the main reason I didn't last long working there. Well, that and I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy. Plus let's face it, Spike Jonze wound up permanently replacing me, and Spike meeting up and working with Andy, Lew, Gork, and Windy was destined to be. I'm pretty sure the Universe had that planned eons ago.
While I never did learn to actually work a light meter (I didn't need to with my Pentax ME Super), my photography definitely improved by working with Windy. For the year after leaving Wizard, I was the writer and photographer for the AFA Newsletter. My shots never equaled Windy's (though my panning Vander GPV shot was in the ball park), I went on to do my own photo shoots, and lots and lots of good video shoots, in the next several years. From Windy Osborn, I learned what a working artist, a photographer in her case, looks like, and how they go about things, and how they collaborate, and strive to create something great. So thanks a lot for that Windy.
While Windy grew up in a creative family, in highly creative Southern California, and in a new and growing and evolving sport, BMX racing and freestyle, I came from a part of the country that bought art, but hated the people who made it. I always found that amazing. Most small town people go to church on Sunday to worship God, The Creator. But those same people hate highly creative people. That's one of those weird paradoxes of religion. The struggle to undo those early years of prejudice against artists has led to many years of finding and working with my own creative process. Working with Windy back in 1986, and having to write for real magazines, I now realize, was a big part of getting that process started.
My memories of those shoots I went on with Windy are spotty. I remember little pieces. Windy on her stomach to shoot Don Brown's shove-it, on the Huntington Beach Pier. Joking around with Ron Wilkerson and Windy on the short drive to shoot the original abubaca sequence. Watching Windy shoot a few angles of a cool looking lawnmower variation Frank Garrido did, on a side street, in front of this gnarly, industrial looking building. Taking Martin Aparijo to "the gray wall" for a Miami hop-hops shoot, only to find the shadow was perfect on the wall, shading the wall but not the sidewalk. Windy was super excited about that shadow, which I didn't think was too big of a deal at the time. Now it makes more sense, it was a bit of synchronicity. Then, on the concrete area next to The Spot at the Redondo Beach Pier, she shot Rodney Mullen, and I did a mini-interview of him (December 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'), and I talked both of them into shooting a sequence of Rodney's one footed rocket ollie trick. Neither of them thought it was worth shooting, but I had the feeling that day. The sequence made the magazine.
Then there's the time we did a shoot with Chris Day, just before dusk, on a big, slippery, concrete circle thing in Huntington Beach. I was goofing around on the Wizard shop scooter, doing power slides, while Windy snapped pics of Chris. After the shots of him, Windy said, "Hey, let me see that again," talking about my slides. It was a scooter, but it was also the only time I got to ride something in front of Windy's lens. She got this great shot of me doing a one footed, sideways power slide, back foot off the ground, totally leaned into it, with the back peg on the scooter scraping on the ground. That shot almost made it into FREESTYLIN', in an 80's scooter article. I was stoked, even though it was on a scooter. Then Andy J. called me into his office. "Steve, that shot of you on the scooter makes scooters look cool... and we just can't have that." Andy, Lew, and I laughed. But I was bummed. I really wanted a shot of me riding... something... in FREESTYLIN'. It didn't happen. But I did manage to get to do one little spontaneous photo shoot with Windy, and that's a great notch on the BMX life belt.
Everyone who has a creative drive, also has a long journey in front of them, to discover their own creative process, and what mediums work best for them. There are a lot of ups and downs on that journey, but those ups and downs are where the art comes from. So follow your intuition, find your own path, and keep creating and keep learning.
Here's another great photo by Windy, from the era when I worked there. Who else could make a lawnmower look this fucking cool. Windy snap of Ceppie Maes. Again, you can check out and buy her prints at windyosborn.com.
Wow, I made it through a big, long post without mentioning Windy's
boobs... which happened to be the title of the first blog post of mine
that went viral in the Old School BMX world, way back in 2008. It was a
good little story, but I hadn't learned the limits of what you can and
cannot write about, concerning other people's lives. Sorry about that
one Windy. But I've managed to write close to 1,000 other BMX stories in
the last ten years, that didn't piss Windy off, like the "boobs" post did. So that's good.
Check out my new mash-up "book/blog thing" about the future:
Dennis McCoy shralping in pro flatland in New York in 1986. At one of the velodrome contests that year, I thought Dennis, who had the freshest, new style in pro flatland at the time, should have beat Woody Itson, the veteran icon of the day. I wrote that in my zine. It was my honest opinion at the time. Dennis, of course, was stoked when he saw the zine, and Woody was a bit bummed. Both of them rode great at that contest, and, like always, it came down to a subjective call by the five judges. Were Woody's well known tricks, executed flawlessly, better than McCoy's new style and flair and energy? No matter what the call, someone always gets pissed off.
When I got into BMX racing in 1982, it was usually easy to see who won. It was a race, after all, first guy (or girl) across the line was the winner. But even at the local BMX track there were issues. It had become a custom to stop pedaling about 30 feet before the finish line, and coast over the last little set of doubles and the finish line just beyond. No one even tried to actually race the last 30 feet. It was kind of like a gentleman's agreement, your place coming out of the third turn at the Fort Boise track was your place in the race, forget racing the last straight. I think it was much the same at other tracks, and at the national level, as well.
Us kids from Blue Valley trailer park, brand new to BMX racing, hungry to win a trophy in anything, decided to pedal to the finish, and pass the points chasers who were coasting. Then people got mad when we said, "Hey, I beat those two guys who were coasting." So even in the black and white world of a race with a distinct finish line, there were sometimes issues. For a couple of races, we made the lazy kids pedal those last 30 feet. Other riders gave us crap, then we eventually stopped pedaling at the end, and we too, and joined the program.
But when BMX freestyle came along, and it was a brand new sport in 1984, we all soon learned the problems of subjective judging. Subjective judging is simply anytime that a group of judges judge an event, score the contestants based on their person opinion of the performance, and the winner is the person with the highest total score. There's no absolute winner by objective facts, like being the first over the finish line. With subjective judging, you have a few personal opinions that find the winner. And personal opinions can be affected in a whole bunch of ways, as we all soon learned.
This was one of the reasons that pro freestyler R.L. Osborn, and a few others, at first, didn't like the idea of even having BMX freestyle competitions. It's hard to believe now, but for maybe a year, that was actually an issue. Up until then, flatland and quarterpipe riding had been a demonstration sport. Riders performed in shows, and people clapped and cheered, or they didn't. But eventually competitions were accepted as a necessary, if kind of annoying, part of freestyle.
Since a flatland or ramp routine was a performance, like music or dance or figure skating in that respect, that meant a group of people had to judge the performance, and score each contestant against the others, and the high overall score would win. This opened up several cans of worms, and suddenly half of the riders, or more, were mad at the judges at the end of the day at every contest. Ultimately, over the course of those first 3 or 4 big years of AFA contests, we all learned the basic truth of subjective judging.
Subjective judging sucks. Sometimes it works in your favor. Sometimes it works against you. Deal with it!
One of the first issues was, who do we get to judge? Since BMX freestyle was a new sport, there were no old pros, who had ridden for years, to judge. So industry guys, usually former BMX racers, originally judged freestyle pros, and the current freestyle pros were tapped to judge the amateurs. This didn't work too well, though it seemed to make sense at the time.
It turned out that veteran racers, while great BMX riders, didn't know the nuances of the ever evolving world of freestyle tricks. Having never done most of the tricks, they just didn't know which tricks looked hard, and which tricks were hard. At the same time, when the sport was so new, there might be 40 different riders, at every contest, doing tricks that were completely new. Those were tricks that no one had seen before, outside of that rider's group of friends. So no one knew if the tricks were actually hard. Some easy tricks look great, like Dennis McCoy's fancy footwork back then. It looked amazing, but wasn't really hard at all. I'm not dissing Dennis, he did plenty of really hard moves, but the footwork that blew people's minds at first, was flashy, but technically not that difficult.
Another issue was that pro freestylers made lousy judges, by and large. Judging a freestyle contest (or any event with lots of participants), takes concentration, among other things. We soon found that the last thing pro riders wanted to do at a big competition was to watch dozens of younger, mediocre riders, and try to place their routines in the precise order of who was better than who. Pros wanted to hang out, talk to old friends, meet girls, and have fun. They didn't want to watch goofy kids from Idaho balance on their bike and juggle tennis balls. That was what I did my first contest, by the away. Nothing blows your concentration like starting your first routine at a major contest and having the announcer say, "And here's Steve Emig, from Boise, Idaho, with his balls in his hands."
In time, and especially as competitions grew, and the AFA had to deal with huge groups of 50 or more riders in a single class, we learned that parents of riders made the best judges. The parents were less distracted, they were older, more mature (usually) and they were much better at concentrating and trying to fairly judge a large group of riders, many of whom were very close in talent level. From a purely functional level, the parents that volunteered at contests made good judges.
Having parents judge the large amateur classes, of course, led to the most obvious problem with judging, bias towards, or against, certain riders. If a parent was judging their own kid in a contest, everyone expected them to judge their kid above the other riders. That did happen on occasion, and the AFA tried to get other judges to fill in for the classes when a judge's kid was riding. With a limited number of parents to judge, and lots of riders, that wasn't always possible.
There were other issues with parent's judging. As hard as it is to believe, sometimes a rider's parent would judge their own kid harder, just to make sure that everyone thought they were being fair. Then the kid actually placed lower. It didn't happen often, but it actually did happen. Another issue with parents judging contests is that they don't know all the tricks, especially the new ones, which leads to new tricks getting judged at lower scores than older, better known tricks. Another issue with parents judging was that the tricks they were most familiar with were the tricks their kids did, or were working on. So if Timmy was good at boomerangs and decades, but never did tailwhips, then boomerangs and decades got judged higher, usually without the parent doing it intentionally. Another weird aspect of parents judging their kids is that sometimes they would judge their own kid on how good they usually did the trick, not how they actually performed it in the contest. At times, and again this was largely unintentional, a parent would watch their kid ride and think, "Bill dabbed his foot on that decade, but usually he can pull it every time," so they wouldn't count it against them.
All of those things were issues we had with parents judging at those AFA local and AFA Masters contests in the mid to late 1980's. While their were issues, mostly the parents did a better job judging than anyone else would have. I know. I worked for the AFA in 1987, and I got stuck judging a few classes at the big Masters comps. Seriously, watching 50 kids, especially like 14-15 novice or intermediate flatland, just plain sucked. I tried to be fair, like all the judges, but most of the kids were boring as fuck to watch, and it was easy to get distracted for a few seconds, and miss that one good trick they did. Then, trying to get the 30 middle riders in a reasonably correct order, though they all were pretty much the same, was pretty much impossible. To make it even worse, we judged knowing at least 5 or 10 kids would be bitching at us the rest of the weekend because they got 27th in 14-15 intermediate, and they thought they were better than the kid who got 14th. We just wanted to scream sometimes, "Go practice more so you'll stand out, kid!"
Another issue was just the dynamics of actually judging. What score do you give the first kid? If he's awesome, do you give him a 98? What if three more guys are better later on? We soon took to giving the very first rider a 75, which gave us room to judge both up and down from there. If the first kid was really good, then most of the riders would score below 75. If the kid sucked, most of the other riders would score above 75. Then kids in one class would say to their friends, "Hey, I got an 82 and you got a 72 in your class, so I'm better than you. But the scores didn't transfer from class to class. Also, the riders that rode last pretty much always scored better. It just always worked out that way, even though we tried to score fairly. But it was impossible to explain that to kids. So those were some of the issues we dealt with for the masses of riders in the amateur classes. No matter what, some kids were always mad, that's just the nature of subjective judging. The top few riders always stood out, but even getting them in the correct order was still hard.
Judging the pro classes was a different story, for several reasons. First of all, there was money on the line. OK, it was the AFA in the late 80's, the first wave of BMX freestyle popularity, and there wasn't much money. But a little change in judging could mean a couple of places, and several hundred dollars more or less in prize money. Another thing was that the pros, mostly, were all pretty close in riding skills (Fred Blood excepted, of course ; ) ), and so the judging was always tighter. Then there were titles on the line, winning the contest looked a lot better to the rider's sponsors than getting third. The pros also did harder tricks, and had different styles, so the judges were often judging one rider's style against another. That was the issue at the Velodrome contest where Woody Itson beat newcomer Dennis McCoy, but I thought Dennis should have won. Was Dennis' style and showmanship really better than Woody's classic, known to be hard, tricks. Flip a coin, on any given day it could go either way. Because the class had far fewer people, we often had either pro flatlanders judge the ramp riders, and vice versa, or top amateurs judge the pros. That worked pretty well. It's much easier to pay close attention to 8 pro riders than to 50 novices.
Then we finally get to the issue most people think about with subjective judging, personal bias. Did that amateur rider from Hutch score Mike Dominguez higher than Eddie Fiola because Mike rode for Hutch? Did someone pay a certain judge to throw the contest? Did someone score a pro higher because they were a fan of that pro years earlier, when they were just getting into riding? Did a rider get scored higher because their style was just the trendy style at the time, and there were, and still are always trendy styles. Did the technical rider doing harder tricks score higher than the rider doing less hard tricks, but with more style? That was the classic issue in skateboarding at the time, with Tony Hawk's tech tricks versus Christian Hosoi's high air and style. Did a certain rider have an off day, but still score high just because of their name recognition? All of these things happened at some level. Overall, most of the judges, most of the time, tried to do the best job they could. But there were problems.
And that's my whole point with subjective judging. IT'S NEVER FAIR. Period. Sometimes you get screwed as a competitor. Sometimes things worked in your favor. Over the long run, the best riders score well on a consistent basis. But it's never fair, whether it's a local contest with five kids, or it's figure skating in the Olympics. And the more that is at stake, the harder it is to judge accurately, the more likely it is to be contested, and the more pissed off someone will be.
This is my big problem with BMX freestyle and skateboarding being in the Olympics. Those huge, once every 4 years, contests are about "crowning champions." Those champions are then used in all kinds of money making and sponsorship ventures and commercials. The drive to rig the system is incredibly high, because there can literally be millions of dollars at stake. And as freestylers, and I was a hardcore, if not great freestyler, for 20 years, we know that one placing at one contest really doesn't mean all that much. It's nice. But it doesn't make you the "best rider ever." It doesn't make you the most progressive rider, or the most influential rider. Winning one contest, ANY CONTEST, doesn't make you THE CHAMPION. That's kind of the whole point of action sports. Lots of different styles, lots of different riders, and no one's really the best ever, until you get to a long term innovator like a Mat Hoffman or Kevin Jones.
Winning at any major contest means that a certain group of judges, who may or may not have tried to do a legit job, who all had their personal biases, judged you to be the best, on that day, in that location, at that time. You won the day. Maybe you deserved it, maybe you didn't. And that's just the way it goes with subjective judging. Again, it's never completely fair. So should you make $3 million for getting on the Wheaties box and in the TV commercials, and the rider who came in second on that day be completely forgotten? Most of us who've put time into learning an action sport at some point say, "No." But that's how it goes with the Olympics, or even the X-Games.
One more thought. Subjective judging seriously stifles creativity and innovation. Ever see a figure skater do a SWITCH triple Lutz? No. Never. You haven't. Do you know why? Because there is no pre-figured out score for doing anything switch, or opposite direction, in figure skating. Yes, it would be much harder, but they don't do it, because they wouldn't get scored for it if they did.
Figure skating has been a competitive, subjectively judged sport for at least 160 years. The origins of the sport go back to at least 1772. But no one does the high level tricks in the opposite direction in the Olympics. In skateboarding and BMX freestyle, people started doing switch tricks in the late 1980's, only a few years into BMX freestyle or street skating competitions. In a few years those sports evolved more than figure skating did in 160 years. Why? Because riders and skaters progress naturally, organically, and without certain number scores being given to particular tricks. The creativity in figure skating (or gymnastics, or any older judged sport), has been dramatically reduced to turn it into a sport. The same is true of BMX vert, park, and street today. Imagine a top rider in a comp today doing a major contest routine WITHOUT a single flip, barspin, or tailwhip. Boom, they're not even in contention for a top placing, no matter what they do. Does that mean the riders who don't do those tricks are worse riders? Think of a run by Brian Foster, Chris Doyle, or Gary Young. Oh, those guys are/were as good as the top contest riders, and they can blow your mind in a contest setting, without the "standard" tricks. But they're not going to win a contest in nearly any case, because they don't do the current trendy tricks like 25 barspins, tailwhips, and flip tricks.
I'm not against contests in actions sports, they provide a good reason to push harder, to progress in some areas of riding (but not necessarily creativity except for best trick comps), and to travel different places, which gives riders and excuse to ride with new people. But it would be really cool to simply acknowledge BMX freestyle (or flatland, park, street, vert, whatever) contests, with subjective judging, for what they do. They tell you that on this day, in this place, this group of judges thought this person was the best. That doesn't make that person the best ever, it makes them a really good rider who won that day.
I know that's a lot to ask. But a few of us got into a big Facebook discussion on this the other day, starting with the question of whether BMX freestyle (park, street, and maybe vert) should be in the Olympics. I say they should not be in the Olympics. Anyhow, that online discussion gave me the idea to write down some of my ideas about subjective judging, and it's role in action sports, and other sports, in today's world. If you have comments, let them fly in the Facebook groups, or wherever. I'll read them, and reply when needed.
I just started a new blog for Marvin Davits, to promote Marvin's business, installing dinghy davits on boats and yachts. Check it out.
When I was writing that last post about the non-existent Socko Rocket Car and the old AFA trailer, I looked up to see if there were any old Socko drink commercials from 1987, or there abouts. I knew there were a couple online, but I couldn't remember if they made any BMX freestyle Socko commercials. In that search, I ran across this funny ass shit. It's funny enough, but for some reason this guy is rockin' the big "43," the official lucky number of NorCal BMX and now all BMX freestyle. This shit is hilarious.
Oh, and here's the Super Socco/Socko commercials I did find. Man, do these suck. Funny, though.
At the time we made the trip to Reno in 1987, this Budweiser rocket car, the first land vehicle to go supersonic, was the kind of thing people imagined, when you said "rocket car."
After a few months starting at the American Freestyle Association in 1987, under AFA owner Bob Morales, I got the job of driving the AFA van, pulling our new, 30 foot box trailer, up to Reno, Nevada. There was a bike industry trade show up there for a few days, and Bob bought a booth to promote the AFA, and one of his side businesses with Todd Huffman, Mor Distributing, also had a booth. The best, and most importantly, the cheapest, way of getting the booths to Reno, was to have me drive them up in the new box trailer.
Bob had just bought the old 30 foot trailer from Gary Turner, the founder, and the "G.T." in GT Bikes. Gary got into dragsters a few years earlier, when money started rolling in from GT. He had started in his garage in the late 1970's, welding a BMX racing bike for his son. Other people wanted bikes welded too, and GT Bikes was born. The company grew, with business guy Rich Long handling that business side of things, while Gary led the shop and crew.
When the company took off, Gary put money into drag racing, buying a top fuel dragster, I believe, like the ones you see at 15:40 in this clip. Gary hired a driver, and bought a really stock looking, 30 foot long box trailer, to haul his car to the races. After about three years, it was time to upgrade to a better trailer. Gary asked around the BMX world, and Bob Morales was looking for a trailer to haul the AFA ramps and sound system to local contests at the time. So we got Gary's old trailer for a good price.
That same year, 1987, Bob went looking for a larger sponsor for the AFA Masters series of national BMX freestyle contests. Freestyle was growing in leaps and bounds, though there was little in the way of TV coverage then, there were six BMX racing and BMX freestyle magazines on newsstands nationwide. That was 8 years before ESPN jumped on the action sports bandwagon with the X-Games.
Somewhere, Bob ran into a couple of marketing guys looking to upgrade the name and image of a Gatorade-like sports drink called Super Socco. It was marketed to little kids in soccer and traditional sports, and wasn't selling all that well. They wanted find people to make Super Socco hip and cool, and popular. But somehow they found the AFA and us freestylers instead. Over a steak dinner at the exclusive Maxwell's restaurant at the Huntington Beach Pier, the two marketing guys, Bob, and me, threw potential new names for the drink around. Somehow the name Socko got picked, and the drink was rebranded, and reformulated a bit. I think it was all supposed to be incredibly cool, like this commercial for alcohol.
Instead we got cases and cases of quart bottles of Socko, in three flavors, and my cute roommate (and manager of Bob and his mom's tanning salon) Jill, and her hotter friend Christine, became the Socko Girls, and handed out cups to anyone and everyone at AFA events all year. Jill wound up in a phone sex ad in the back of Hustler magazine, buck naked and spread eagle, a few years later. But that's another story.
Anyhow, Bob had these huge Socko logo stickers made somewhere, 3 foot high by 4 feet wide, and we expertly applied them to the sides of the non-descript box trailer. I had never towed a trailer for any distance before, but I learned quick, manning the classic, white AFA Ford van with the big trailer behind. I pulled that long trailer around Orange, L.A., and San Deigo counties, picking up ramps, taking them to get the Socko paint job, and driving to a couple local contests.
For the trip up to Reno, Bob said he'd pay for a motel room, and a small food per diem, for me and whoever I wanted to go along to help drive. The cool part was, we didn't really have anything to do all week, just wait, ride our bikes around Reno, and then drive the rig and trade show booths back.
I got my riding buddy, and H.B. pier local, Mike Sarrail, and fellow freestyler Scott Robinson, to go on the trip. They showed up one afternoon, and we got ready to load the trailer, and head out. But in typical AFA fashion, Bob was busy doing something at the last minute, and we left Huntington Beach at about 4 pm. We drove out, heading through L.A., right into rush hour traffic. We drove into evening, got through the grapevine, and finally got moving at a decent pace. The big trailer made the back end of the van sway back and forth. I was really nervous driving it, but then I was really nervous doing just about everything back then.
We headed up the 395, through Sacramento, and up the 80 into the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was just about dusk when I pulled off in the city of Auburn to get gas. By that time, I was pretty used to pulling the big trailer. But the gas station was packed with cars. So I was trying to get the van close to the pump, without hitting anyone or anything with the trailer. Some redneck in a big black pick-up cut in front of us, and I was pissed off. I told Mike to jump in the driver's seat, and pull up the last ten feet- carefully- and I'd go pay for the gas inside. The redneck gave me a dirty look as I walked in, because I had yelled something when he cut us off.
I paid for the gas when I saw Mike pull the rig up to the pump, and I grabbed some drinks and snacks. When I walked out a couple of minutes later, Mike was pumping gas, and the red neck had moved out of the way, around to the other side of the pump. The same guy who mad-dogged me just minutes before, walked up and put his hand out. "Hey man," he said, "I'm sorry about cutting you off, I didn't know what you guys were hauling in there. Good luck, man, I hope you guys break the record." He jumped in his truck and took off. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I looked over at Mike, and he just smiled. I set the drinks in the van, took over from Mike, and finished pumping the gas. Scott came out with some more snacks, and hopped in, and I pulled the rig carefully out of the cramped gas station.
"What was that redneck guy talking about," I asked Mike, "he was like a whole different person when I walked out." Mike smiled, "I told him that inside the trailer was the brand new Socko rocket car, and we were heading up to the Bonneville Salt Flats to try to break the world land speed record. I also told him we had 750 gallons of jet fuel in drums, and if I hit his truck while trying to pull up, it might create a spark inside, ignite the jet fuel, and blow this whole gas station, and his pick-up, off the face of the Earth. Suddenly he was cool as could be, and he pulled his truck around to the other pump." Scott and I just started laughing.
Good thinking on Mike's part. For the next several months, every time I stopped for gas, someone always asked, "What you got in that big ol' trailer?" The answer was the same, "I've got the Socko rocket car, and I'm heading up to Bonneville, where they're going to try and get that thing to 800 miles an hour." I got into to some funny conversations, and I'm sure a few people checked the news later that week to see if we got the record. The legend kept growing, and we added that the first car blew up, and this was the second (hand over my heart, "Rest in Peace Jim Bob for giving your life on that first attempt") and we kept adding to that story when hanging out and riding. Old gas station owners would tell me they were going to say a prayer for Jim Bob, and stuff like, that as I walked out. We had a whole long mythology of the history of the Socko rocket car by that fall.
So that's the legend of the AFA box trailer and the Socko rocket car. Now, as for Jill the Socko girl... she started hanging out with Tommy, the Huntington Beach coke dealer who lived near Beach and Ellis, and drove a black Corvette. She started doing blow, partying too hard, "borrowing" a little money from the tanning salon, and...
I just started doing a blog for Marvin Davits, to help promote Marvin's dinghy davit business. Check it out.
"Art is not what you see, it's what you make others see."
-Edgar Degas
This story was written yesterday. I am a homeless man, and I slept in a
parking lot last night, after writing this. You never know what
potential is lying hidden in the people you see each day...
The Gift of Inspiration
"There's a story that has been lost to time," the old man doing chalk drawings on the sidewalk said. He went on, I just listened, as he drew a big yellow box, with a red ribbon, with his chalk. "It's the best gift of all in here," he continued, "the gift of inspiration."
The chalk artist talked as he continued to draw...
"It happened back in the days of old, medieval times when knights and castles and walled cities were the way of things. A stranger walked through the gates of a city one afternoon, he had only a small satchel, an odd bag over his shoulder, and a sleeping roll of blankets was tied to a strap slung over the other shoulder. He stopped in the city center, and bought some food from the merchants there."
"He began to talk to the people of the city, and told them he had traveled far and wide, and had seen many things. A few people were fascinated by his stories. One thing led to another, and he was invited to the king's court that night, by a nobleman. The stranger accepted, and met the nobleman later, and was escorted to the dinner. By the end of the meal itself, before the dancing commenced, the nobleman began to feel a bit uneasy. It was customary in that city to offer a gift to the king, as a token of appreciation for the privilege of dining in the great hall. The nobleman pulled the stranger aside, and told him of the custom, offering to have a servant go to his house and find a suitable gift. The stranger simply said, 'Don't worry, I have something to give.'"
"As the king and queen took to their thrones, and the fine people of the city offered lavish gifts of silks, spices, gold, and other treasures, the stranger finally was presented to the king. 'Your majesty, I am a humble traveler, I have been to many lands, and I bring you something no other king even knows exists.' The stranger reached into his satchel and pulled out a small earthenware jar. 'In a land, far, far to the East, on an island only a few have set foot upon, there lives a lone wizard. Having heard of this wise one, I traveled to his island, and spent many days searching for the cave he calls home. I finally found him, and spent many weeks learning from him.'"
"'When it came time for me to leave, the wizard gave me this jar. He told me that I would find the city that was ready for the greatest of all gifts. I believe I have found that city, your majesty, and it is your city the wise wizard spoke of. You see, in this jar is a fine dust, like very fine sand, which the wizard spent many many years creating. This magic dust... is the gift of inspiration itself.'"
The chalk artist finished drawing the big yellow box with a red ribbon, and he began to draw a huge castle, in the middle of a walled city. Without looking up, he continued his story.
"The king looked dubious, but intrigued. 'The wizard told me that when I found the right city, which I would know in my heart, that I was to sprinkle a tiny bit of this magic dust, on the head of each of its residents, with each new moon, such as we have tonight. The wizard said the dust would inspire the people of that town to new ideas, to create works of art, new delicacies to be eaten, and new forms of music and dance, incredible plays will be performed, and great architecture will arise, and other crafts such as the world has never seen. This gift of inspiration would make the city the most prosperous in the land.'"
"'I am a humble traveler, your majesty, I have little in physical goods to offer, but I can offer your city this gift of inspiration, if you will accept it.' The king did not think long, and quickly ordered his subjects to form a line to have the odd stranger administer a pinch of dust onto the head of each person. Then the drinking and dancing began, and first the king and queen, and then the others, talked with the mysterious stranger, listening to his tales of far off places, of strange people and odd customs. Before long a few people began sharing ideas that had long been kept to themselves."
"The next day, after hearing several nobles felt "quite inspired," the king had all the townsfolk line up in the city square, and had the stranger tell of the magic dust, and sprinkle a pinch on each person, even the children. The stranger was given a house to live in, and the job of wandering the city to see how the inspiration was taking hold. He began to talk to the people of the town every day, listening to new ideas of all kinds, and encouraging them, helping them gather supplies, or begin a project they'd imagined long before, but never had the nerve to try. A new kind of energy, not one that can be seen, but can definitely be felt and experienced, arose in the city."
"It began the second day when a woman brought a new cake to the town square, a flavor she had never baked before, and with exquisitely decorated icing. Several townspeople tried it, marveled at the new taste, and went home to try new ideas of their own. By the time the next new moon came around, many new sweets, a couple of new beers, and several new stews had been created. The tanner had crafted some amazing bags of leather, finely tooled designs upon them, designs he'd thought of years before. Much to the surprise of everyone, the town mortician, known mostly for his very quiet demeanor, and for carving tombstones and preparing the dead for funerals, began to carve into the stone of the city's outer wall. In a month, in the time not devoted to his normal duties, he had carved most of a relief of the city's founding king on a horse. The carving was incredible in its detail and nuance, and was on the wall next to the city's gate. Travelers and townsfolk alike remarked at its beauty."
The old man with the chalk expertly drew a relief of a mounted rider, on the wall of the city he was drawing on the sidewalk in front of me. Still never looking up, he continued his story.
"On the evening of the second new moon, the king held a great party for the nobles, and again the mysterious traveler was invited. The king lifted his bejeweled cup and spoke, 'A toast, to our new friend and hopefully longtime resident, the great traveler, who has been drawn to our fine city to bestow the great gift of inspiration itself.' Cups rose and clinked around the great hall. Sips were taken. The king told of new delicacies he had tried, of his pleasure seeing the great carving on the city wall, and the new works of beauty the city's craftsmen and women had created. The king ordered the noblemen and noblewomen to line up once again, to receive a pinch of the magic dust on the top of their heads from the jar the mysterious stranger held, and kept safe in his new home. The next day, again, the king and his court had the townspeople line up in the town square, even the children, to receive a pinch of the magic dust upon their heads by the traveler."
"That month two new cheeses of exquisite flavor were created by the cheese maker, and sweet rolls, and more leather works, and a fine sword by the blacksmith. The carvings by the quiet mortician continued on the outer wall. More people had more ideas, and shared them with others, and began to encourage each other. The king and queen, their court, and all the townspeople still managed their to do their normal duties. But each found time to do other, more creative activities, as well. The mysterious traveler was now a cherished friend to all, and wandered the town each day, lending a helping hand here and there, encouraging those trying one new thing or another, and laughing, eating, and drinking with the townspeople."
"A few days later, a wagon drawn by two horses entered the city gates. It was the wide ranging home to a traveling merchant who came to the area every two or three months. He parked his wagon, and, with his wife, walked into the town square to find the local craftspeople he had known for many years. He immediately noticed something was different. The people seemed more friendly, and their was more laughter in the air and less bitterness. As he wandered the local shops, he was amazed by all the new items, beautiful items, wonderful beers, and tasty new treats, the town had to offer. A small stage had been erected in the town square, for performing plays and music. The king had ordered the people not to talk of the precious gift of inspiration, for their city was the chosen one, and they wanted to keep it that way. So the craftspeople of the own simply said, "Oh, I had this idea for a long time, and just decided to give it a try," when asked about a new creation. The wandering merchant bought and traded many wonderful things to carry with him and sell in other towns. A couple weeks later, the same thing happened with another of the wandering merchants of the region."
"And so it went, day after day, week after week, month after month, in the walled city that once seemed no different than any of the other walled cities throughout the land. But bit by bit, traveler by traveler, word began to spread about the one city with the carving on its protective wall, and the wonderful and interesting things the people of that city produced. People from cities close by began to travel there more often, to listen to the music, to buy the delicacies, and to trade. As time passed, people from across the region, then people from across the country visited the city with the growing stone carving and the exquisite works of crafts and arts and culinary delights. Within a few years, even back in those times when people and news traveled rather slow, people from far away lands sought out the city, now famous in many, many lands for its creativity and great works. The city prospered in good times and in bad, and people far and wide wondered what its great secret was. That secret, of course, was that on each new moon, each new beginning of that cycle in the night sky, the mysterious traveler sprinkled a tiny bit of dust on the top of the head of each of the townspeople, even all the children. He bestowed on them the concoction of the great wizard, on that small island, far away. The traveler gave them inspiration."
The old man doing the chalk drawing on the sidewalk had drawn the walled city, with many towers, next to his chalk drawing of the big yellow box, wrapped with a red ribbon. The detail in the quickly drawn picture was amazing. Without raising his head, his story continued.
"In time the walled city grew to be the dominant city in the whole region. The city grew. The great outer wall, now completely covered with incredible relief sculptures, was expanded. Brave and incredible new architecture was built in the new area, and huge beautiful gardens were planted and tended to. The most talented people from many other lands flocked to the city, to learn from its people, now masters of many types of art and craft, and always innovators of new things. Each new person was taken aside, and told quietly about the mysterious stranger, and asked to keep the magic dust, the gift of inspiration, quiet. Since the small earthenware jar holding the gift of inspiration was a great secret, eventually everyone knew about it. The magic dust became a legend, and like most legends that travel from their source, it wasn't believed, it became a joke to tell in other cities. The joke protected the small jar that never seemed to run out of magic dust."
"The king of the city, a sturdy and noble middle aged man when the mysterious traveler first arrived, grew old as his city expanded and flourished. Some thirty years after the arrival of the traveler, the now old and wise king grew ill. The townspeople new his time as there king was nearing an end. One night, knowing he had only a few days of breath left in him, the king called for the mysterious traveler, now and old friend and counselor, to visit him. The king told his servants to leave them alone to talk."
"The weak king smiled, 'My city has flourished since your arrival, my friend, and I am very grateful for that.' The traveler nodded. 'My days are now few, and I must ask you the question I have wished to ask all these years. What is the magic dust, the gift of inspiration, actually made of?' The traveler smiled, and sat on the chair next to the king's bed.
"The traveler began, 'As a young man, I got in a lot of trouble. I lived on a small farm outside a walled town, much like any other. I was a precocious child with far too much energy, and lots of ideas I thought were wonderful. But no one wanted to hear them. No one encouraged me to try out my ideas. In fact family and friends alike told me to shut up, keep my ideas to myself, and do what I was told, and to do no more than I was told. They were not bad people, but people raised to work hard, and to focus on the simple things, and to live as their ancestors had lived. They did not like new ideas, they liked things to remain they way they were."
"But something inside of me told me there must be more to life. I sensed there must be some reason I had all these ideas. In my little bit of free time from doing my chores, I went to a bend in the nearby river, where there was a big sandbar, and a fallen tree on the edge of the sandbar. I sat there and I dreamed of going to a place, a place I imagined was far, far away, a place where ideas were welcomed and appreciated. A place where new things were tried, and great things were created. I knew that place must exist somewhere."
"In those years as a growing child, yearning to roam far beyond my town's walls, I found myself drawn to the merchants, the roaming minstrels, and the travelers of all kinds, telling tales of other places, different people, and far off lands. Finally, shortly after my 14th birthday, I packed a few things, and I ran away from my town. I set out to find that far off land I dreamed of, that land where new ideas were welcomed, and innovation was an everyday thing. I sought that place with great buildings, and works of art, and beautiful music, and even more beautiful women dancing each night."
"But I was a young man with no money, so I began to work for a traveling merchant, and then another, and then another. With him and his wife, I traveled from town to town, city to city, and began to meet many people. One day we came to a great port city, and I saw a huge ship in the harbor, like nothing I had every seen before. I asked one of the workers about the great ship, and in talking with him, he told me the captain needed a new cabin boy. So I left the merchant life, and I took to the seas, working under a wise old salt, a great ship captain, and I traveled the world."
"In each port, I went ashore with the older men, and I drank ale and danced with women, and learned different customs and different languages. I learned the ways of the sailors, and I moved up in jobs on the crew of the ship. I worked my way around the world as a sailor. Some told me I might make a great captain some day. But in my heart, I knew I was looking for that one place. I was looking for that place where ideas flowed like wine at a wedding party, and everyone did great and wonderful things as a matter of course."
The old man with the chalk, drawing on the wide city sidewalk in front of me, deftly drew a great three masted sailing ship. Without looking up, he continued his story.
"The stranger continued telling the king his story. 'But I never found that place. I saw great buildings, fine paintings, sculptures created by master artists. I ate great foods at times, and meager sea rations at others. I worked hard, always ready to head up to the crow's nest of the ship, so I would be the first to see the place I dreamed of as a child. But the more lands I visited, the more I realized that people are nearly the same everywhere. They look a bit different, they eat different foods, and have different cultures. But they all sound nearly they same when they laugh, they all look much the same when dancing, and tell very similar stories over a pint of ale. The all make similar gibberish when playing with a small baby. The all ache much the same over a broken heart, or grieve the same over a lost loved one.'"
"'I also noticed, everywhere I went, the people all had ideas that they told me, a stranger, a traveler, but were afraid to tell their family and friends. Many of these ideas were really good ones, but they were afraid to fail, afraid to look like a fool around the people they grew up with. Like me, as a child, everyone had good ideas they were afraid to try. One night, thinking about this common thing I'd noticed in people around the world, I bought a small earthenware jar from a street merchant, it was filled with a sweet custard that was baked into a velvety crust in the jar. I walked with my jar out along the waterfront, to a quiet, secluded beach, made of the most fine sand I'd ever seen. As I sat on the beach, watching the sun slowly drop towards the horizon, a local craftsman wandered by, collecting pieces of driftwood and shells. I'd seen his work, he made these amazing little sculptures of mythical creatures, dragons and sea serpents, in the marketplace. Throughout that city, I saw his works on shelves and in window ledges. He was a favorite artist of the city, but I had seen his creations in other cities, and even on the desk of the great sea captain I first sailed with. Everyone talked about how he took ordinary objects, a piece of old fishing net, a branch from some driftwood, a bit of seashell, and a few other cast off objects, and made something incredibly beautiful out of those things."
"'As he walked by, I asked him how he learned to make his amazing little sculptures. The man smiled, he sat down on the beach beside me, as the sun sank a bit above the horizon. He told me that his uncle gave him a small knife as a kid, and taught him how to whittle little figures out of scraps of wood. So he began to whittle in all of his spare time. A couple of years later, still a very young boy, there was a girl he had a crush on who got very ill. He'd always been afraid to tell her how he felt. The word got around that she might die. Not knowing what else to do, he found a scrap of wood, and he began to carve a dove out of it, the little girl's favorite bird. He found some scraps of cloth, a bit of wax, and other odds and ends, and melted the wax, and added on here and there, and he made her a dove. Then, sheepishly, he went to her house, into her room, where the family was gathered around, and he silently handed her his homemade dove. The sculptor said her eyes lit up, and she smiled a glowing smile. It was the first time she'd smiled in days. He said he felt a feeling, a true, good, incredible feeling, that he'd never know before. The girl weakly waved him towards her, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. The sculptor's eyes teared up as he told me.'"
The old man with the chalk outlined a beautiful dove with a few masterful strokes, and then set to color it in. Eyes still to his work, continued his story.
"'What happened then?' The traveler asked the sculptor. The sculptor took a breath, trying to hold back his tears, 'Then she took a shallow, coughing breath, and she died. She died smiling, holding my dove. I started crying, and I ran from the room,' the sculptor said. After a couple of minutes, still crying outside the house, I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. I turned to see the girl's grandmother. She said, "I know you liked her for quite a while, why did you never tell her, or give her a gift before now?" The sculptor said, "I was afraid. I was afraid she would laugh at me, or make fun of me, or tell me to never talk to her again." The grandmother continued, "What you did for my sick granddaughter was wonderful, and you little dove you made was beautiful. You should never feel bad for creating a gift to help someone. That was the first time she's smiled in many days." The grandmother grabbed his chin, pulled his face to look at hers, and said, "From now on, whenever you feel the need to make something beautiful, for any reason, I give you permission to go ahead and do it, to go ahead and make it, whatever it is. My granddaughter has passed on, but her spirit, and that smile, will be with you always. I think you will go on to make many other people smile with the things you create." The sculptor could no longer hold back the tears, they streamed down his cheeks. "The girl's grandmother gave me permission to make the things I think need to be made, and I've been making them ever since." He got up, picked up his driftwood and shells, and walked off down the beach, wiping his eyes.'"
"The traveler continued his story to the king. 'At that moment, the setting sun just touched the horizon, and suddenly I knew why I never found the city where new thoughts and ideas were welcomed, and where everyone made incredible things. I never found that city,' the mysterious traveler told the king, 'because in every town and city everywhere, there were people with ideas, but most of them were afraid to try. No one ever gave them permission. I realized it was the same everywhere.'"
"The traveler continued. 'I wiped my eyes and watched the most beautiful sunset, sitting on an incredible beach of fine sand, eating a rich, custard dish, in my little earthenware jar. I didn't think life could be much more pleasurable than that moment. It was inspiring. I knew what I must do. I washed out my jar when I was done eating, and I filled it with the fine sand from the beach that inspired me. I got hired on the next ship leaving the port. I began traveling again. Eventually I made my way here.'"
"The mysterious traveler turned to the king. The king smiled, and in a weak voice, he spoke, 'I had a feeling there was no wizard, but the magic you created with that sand and your little jar, it worked. My city... our city... has thrived, I thank you for that." The king reached out and took the traveler's hand and shook it in deep appreciation. They were both silent for a few moments."
The old man drawing with the chalk began to draw a fire, and I thought maybe he was drawing the fire of creative energy itself. Still facing his work, he continued his story
"Then the king spoke again. "I have another question, one that's bothered me these many years. How is it that your little jar never ran out of the sand from that beach that inspired you?" The traveler got up, and walked to the window, the kings room was high in the castle, and looked out over the city, and the lands beyond the wall. The traveler looked out the window for a moment, then he spoke, 'There's a small beach, a sandbar really, about a mile down the river, I've been going there to sit and think now and then, since I came here. It's quiet and beautiful, and it reminds me of that beach far away, where I talked to the sculptor. When the sand in the jar got a little bit low, I picked up a handful on the sandbar by the river, put it in my pocket, and filled the jar back up when no one was looking, so it never ran out.'"
"'You fooled me and my people for thirty years now,' the king laughed. 'I didn't really fool them,' the traveler said, still looking out the window, towards the sandbar down the river, 'I simply told them an engaging story, and I gave them permission to be who they had always been capable of being, who they always wanted to be, that's all.' 'What wonderful magic,' the king laughed, 'It is you who is reallt the great wizard. Again, I thank you.' The traveler turned towards his friend, the king, and nodded.'"
"There was a small farm right by that sandbar on the river,' the king began again, "long, long ago, when I was a young prince, and my father was king.' I knew the farmer well, he had a peach tree there that seemed to grow the juiciest peaches anywhere, and he always gave me plenty when they were in season.' The traveler continued to stare out the river as the king spoke. 'The farmer was a good man, I talked to him often when he came to town, when had more time for such things. One night, during a fierce thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning struck the big, old oak tree outside his cottage, and the tree fell on the house, catching it on fire. It burned all night. Since the farm was set apart from the others, we didn't realize what happened until a hunter walked by the next morning, and found the smoldering ruins. The house burned to the ground in an intense fire. The man and his wife were both inside, but we found very little of them. The farmer had a young boy, too, about 12 years old. He must have completely burned up in the fire, we found no trace of him. It was a terrible tragedy. For years afterwards, I would go to that place when the peach tree was full of ripe fruit, and I would say a prayer for that farmer.'"
The mysterious traveler smiled, and turned back towards the king. He walked across the room to the bedside, and once again sat in the chair. 'Yes, that was a terrible tragedy. The boy was 14, by the way, not 12, and he didn't die in the fire. I ran away. There was something I needed to find. When I finally found it, I came back home and shared it.' The king's mouth dropped open in surprise, and then he smiled. The mysterious traveler smiled back."
The man doing the chalk drawing on the city sidewalk stopped drawing, finishing his drawing of the huge castle, the great walled city, and the cottage on fire, exactly when his story finished. He turned, looked up to me and smiled. "You, like everyone, have ideas you think need to become reality. You have my permission, go make them happen."
-Steve Emig
The White Bear
8/10/2019
This basic story, in one form or another, has been in my head for 20 years or so. The time finally came to write it down. Creativity is like that. The best works have a way of coming into existence just when they are most needed. We don't really create the art. We artists and writers are really a sort of midwives, we shepherd the work from the unseen world into the tangible world, where it can be shared.
What's in store for the world's economy in the next year or two? Here's a pretty good series of visual metaphors for what I see coming...
People watch weather reports. Why? So you can be prepared for the rain, snow, wind, lightning, possible tornadoes, and on a really bad day, a hurricane, in some regions. We watch the reports, and adjust our plans to work around the lame stuff that's going to inevitably happen.
Yet in the financial world, it's just the opposite. Home prices go up and down. Stock prices go up and down. Bull markets happen. Recessions happen. But almost everyone ignores you when you say, "Hey, there's a recession coming pretty soon, I think it's going to get really gnarly." For some reason, the people who would want to prepare for a hurricane, or close all the windows before a bad thunderstorm, don't want to even hear about an economic storm. In my opinion, there's a Category 9 hurricane 100 miles offshore right now.
I say this because I've been writing about the serious recession I've seen coming, for a couple of years now. Hardly anyone takes me seriously. OK, I'm homeless and broke, so those are legit reasons to be skeptical. But Robert Kiyosaki is rich, and he's been saying the same thing. Gary Vaynerchuk is rich, and he's ready to pounce on good deals during the next collapse. Jim Rogers is rich, and he's been saying the same thing. Warren Buffet doesn't talk about it, but he's sitting on $120 billion, waiting for the next downturn to find good deals to invest in.
Most people don't even listen to those guys, guys who have been through this before and have made fortunes from the downturns. Most people just jog along with the other lemmings, completely ignoring all the red flags and warnings, from people who look ahead and watch the economic world. Remember, lemmings are basically hamsters that follow the crowd and go BASE jumping... without a parachute. Then they die. For obvious reasons, I never wanted to be a lemming.
Here are the basic trends I've been watching, many for years, or decades in some cases, that lead me to believe we're in for the financial equivalent to a Category 9 hurricane, and we're just heading into it now. It will be apparent to everyone within six months, I think.
-Alvin and Heidi Toffler'sThird Wave idea- This idea says that we, as a society, began to leave the Industrial Age society in 1956, and are transitioning into an Information-based society. This transition will affect every level of society, and is as big as the change from hunter/gatherer societies to agricultural societies (about 10,000 years ago), or the change from an agricultural society to an industrial society (beginning about 350 years ago). Except this time, this massive change is happening in the span of a human lifetime, not over hundreds or thousands of years. No humans, in known human history, have had to deal with a societal change this big.
-P.R. Sarkar's idea of the transition from a society led by the "Acquisitor" (business person's) mentality to a "Warrior" (those who prize courage and physical ability most) mentality. Only economist Ravi Batra speaks of this, and his 1989 book is where I first heard of this. It takes a while to explain, but Batra's take on this theory from India is why I was predicting a future populist uprising, back in the mid to late 1990's.
-The Populist Uprising in the U.S. (and western society) actually happening- It's kicking into high gear now, and it's far from its peak. While the Trump following racists, xenophobes, and business people got the head start, this Populist movement greatly favors the political Left and the Progressive/Socialist side of the equation, over the long term. Hey, I'm a capitalist, I'm not stoked on this, but that's where the momentum is, and will be for some time, like it or not.
-Demographic shifts- Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert Kiyosaki, predicted a 2017 recession back in about 2003. Why? Because 2016-2017 is when the huge Baby Boom generation was mandated to start taking their money out of the stock market, as the first of that group hit age 70 1/2 years old. This trend of pulling money out of stocks by the Baby Boom will continue for about 20-25 years.
-The Big Transition- This is my personal term for the transition that the Toffler's spoke of in The Third Wave, the change from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. I don't think we're in either age right now, but the chaotic and messy transition between the two.
During this period, The Big Transition, with the continuing and accelerating rise of new technology, comes Disruption. Think of the music industry a month before, and a month after, Napster went online. The whole industry was suddenly toast, thanks to a click of a mouse by a kid we'd never heard of. A new technology can literally cause a disruption that makes an entire business model obsolete, practically overnight. Major disruption has happened in music, TV, movies, publishing, and marketing. But Disruption hasn't really hit many other areas. I believe that every business, industry, organization, or institution, will either intentionally re-invent itself from an Industrial Age model to an Information Age model, or more likely, it will collapse and an Information Age model will be created by someone else. There's A LOT of Disruption still to happen.
Both main U.S. political parties right now, for example, are in the middle of their disruption. Trump and Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere in 2016, buoyed by the simmering populist sentiment on both sides, and garnered huge support, because the traditional power structures in the parties had completely lost touch with average Americans. That will continue, in political parties, and EVERYWHERE ELSE. I see this period of transition lasting from 1956 (the Toffler's starting date) to about 2040 (my guestimate of when it's all shaken out, and begins to settle, providing humans are still here then).
-The Student Debt bubble- Student debt is now over $1.6 TRILLION in the U.S.. Why is it so high? That's $300 billion more than the sub prime mortgage bubble that helped spark the 2008 crisis. Student debt is so high because Wall Street took the sub prime model, and simply applied it to student debt. The student loans are bought, repackaged as Student Loan Asset Backed Securities (SLABS), and resold in pieces to other investors. To keep making the wonderfully high fees on all of this, Wall Street needed more and more student loans. So the student loan bubble is the new sub prime. Here's a fun fact, according to this recent Nerd Wallet article, about 40% of current student loans, over 10 million loans, are not being actively paid back. Right now, 5.2 million federal student loans are in default, about 5 million other loans are deferred in one way or another. Tick, tick, tick...
-What a student loan bubble pop would do to real world ("Main Street") America- Let's say the student loan bubble doesn't crash like sub prime in 2008, but just has a major correction period, and this causes student loan income to colleges and universities to be cut back by 20%. Where are colleges? They're in 150 or so cities and towns around the U.S., all over the place. After the loss of manufacturing plants and jobs, a huge number of those towns and cities are now referred to as "Eds and Meds" cities. The colleges and the hospitals (often associated with the colleges) are the primary employers in town. So if student loan income drops by just 20%, what happens to those 150 or so towns and cities? MASSIVE economic slow down, everywhere. Now, what happens to those towns and cities, most of America by area, if the student loan bubble actually does burst, and student loan and tuition income drops 40%-50%-80%? The financial crisis becomes catastrophic, REAL QUICK. So there's that...
-The Geographic Recession- Most of the United States, by area, is rural area, small towns, and small to mid size cities. Most of of those regions simply have not recovered from The Great Recession. Real estate hasn't surged. Large numbers of people work two or three low paying service jobs to survive. High tech companies avoid these areas, and entire regions, like the plague. There are a handful of people who describe the U.S. as actually having been in a Great Depression for the last 10 years. We've had growth well below the long term trendline that whole time. Sure, there's money in the big tech companies in the big cities, but the vast majority of the U.S. is ALREADY struggling. In the next economic downturn, that will intensify.
-Richard Florida's Creative Class and the rise of Tech Hub cities- This is a very complex set of ideas, but here it is in a nutshell. In a high tech enabled, information-based society, creativity is a main (probably THE main) driver of innovation and building wealth. Creative people like to be around, actually physically near, other creative people. Creative people cluster. So the emerging tech world is now largely clustered in Silicon Valley/The San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Seattle, Southern California, New York City, Washington D.C., the Raleigh Reserach Triangle, and Austin, Texas, by and large. In effect, and for a whole range or reasons Richard Florida has laid out in his books and articles, much of the U.S. is a kind of wasteland with little or no large scale high tech businesses. We have the tech hubs with lots of wealth and one set of urban issues to deal with. Then we have the vast majority of the country's small cities, towns, and rural areas, trying desperately, and largely unsuccessfully, to attract high tech companies and viable start ups. The map of these different areas is also the map of our political divide. We have tech hubs and tech wastelands. Since his first book on these ideas, The Rise of the Creative Class, in 2002, Florida has been looking for ways to level this playing field out, but the clustering has actually increased in the 17 years since. This geographic sorting is a major root, but not the only one, in my opinion, to our current political polarization.
-The Retail Apocalypse- In 2017, 2018, and so far in 2019,a total of 20,000 retail stores have closed, or are scheduled to. Another 20,000 or so closed from 2009 to 2016. Toy-R-Us is gone. Radio Shack is gone. Sears and J.C. Penney's, once the 800 pound retail gorillas of retail, are now circling the drain. This is the technology rooted Disruption of the Industrial Age retail industry. Amazon didn't cause this. The leaders of all those dead and dying companies, who didn't see the future potential of the internet that Jeff Bezos of Amazon saw, caused this. The Industrial Age goods distribution system of mass marketing, mass manufacturing, U.S. based factories, and hundreds of department stores, malls, and shopping centers, is collapsing, because most of it is not viable in the Information Age. A new system, including Amazon, but also platforms like eBay, and millions of small, online, niche stores, is growing to replace it. By watching how the Retail Apocalypse has taken shape, I (and you, hopefully) can get an idea of what's going to happen to colleges, and to every other major industry where it hasn't happened already. Technology has changed the game. If you're still playing the mass market Industrial Age game, you're toast. Or soon will be.
-And now... we get to the actual current economy. Historically, we have a recession every 4 to 10 years in the U.S.. We're in year 11, so we're due, simply looking at the timing.
-The everyday person, traditional American economy, has decoupled from Wall Street and the Tech world. Most of America never left, or barely left, the last recession, even as stocks have soared. A bull market in stocks, in today's world, barely effects most of the everyday economy. This is the Geographic Recession I mentioned above. The Wall Street euphoria died a couple months after the Trump tax cuts, and stocks headed down, but that hype has risen again the last couple of months. The recent cut in the Fed Funds rate shows that The Fed is getting desperate, and doesn't have much left to keep Wall Street growing.
-The ultra low interest rate and quantitative easing economy- The Fed lowered interest rates just over a week ago, in what was already a historically low interest rate economy. The interest rates were lowered dramatically, and quantitative easing (buying our own debt and pulling money out of America's ass, basically) was instituted to help bring the economy back after The Great Recession. It didn't work. The Fed was never able to raise interest rates back up to traditional, historic levels. Yes, we've had a 10 year bull market in the stock markets, but it's been absolutely feeble economic growth the whole time. There's been very little major infrastructure or capital investments. But there's been a ton of stock buybacks. We're in this weird financial Never Never Land, a place the economic world has never been, best described by former Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers quant, Nomi Prins, in this talk, and her book Collusion. No one knows a good way out of this mess.
-The Orange County/Southern California real estate market- When I lived here in Orange County from 1986 to 2008, it was pretty easy to see economic downturns coming, because the real estate market here soars up, tops out, and then heads down fast. When you see housing inventories rising, and then prices begin to decline, things are getting ready to drop, and that's happening now. In this blog post, we see the housing inventory growing here, which happens right before prices begin dropping. Also Chinese buyers are pulling out of the U.S. market, which has helped it soar to the current point.
These factors (and many others) are all coming together in a huge convergence. Some of these factors only happen once in hundreds of years, or once ever. In addition, all forms of debt; government, business, and consumer, are at or near all time high levels. All this situation needs to turn into a big financial downturn is a spark. It looks like Trump's trade war with China is turning into that spark.
So that's why I'm predicting an economic collapse in excess of what we saw in 2008, and a 5-6-7 or more year hangover of little, if any growth, and stagnation all over the place. We're in new territory in many ways, we've never been here before, and there is no roadmap (or GPS directions for you youngin's) to lead us out of it. If it's not a textbook Great Depression in the next decade, it will definitely feel like one to most Americans.
But with this dismal economic outlook comes opportunities at a never before seen level, as well. Warren Buffet, Robert Kiyosaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jim Rogers, and other business people, are ready to pounce on all the good deals that will happen soon. You can do that as well, if you're not crushed by your own debt right now. A new world will be built in this next economic downturn, if we survive it, that is.
