Kobe Bryant's top 50 plays

Last Sunday, longtime L.A. Lakers star Kobe Bryant, and 8 other people, were killed in a helicopter crash, during a morning of thick marine layer fog, just northwest of L.A..  It' s Friday now, and I've watched several videos of Kobe playing, and interviews with him.  I was never a huge mainstream sports fan, and I never saw a Lakers game live, but I watched a lot of them on TV.  Kobe was my favorite basketball player, with the possible exception of Harlem Globetrotter, Meadowlark Lemon.  Anyhow, here's a 20 minute video to remind us just how freakin' good Kobe was on the court.  He was, by and large, a class act off the court, as well.  R.I.P. Kobe, his daughter, and the others, mostly from here in Orange County, who died tragically in that chopper crash. 

Predictions: As we head blindly into 2020

What do I see coming in the financial world in 2020?  I see a bunch of dominoes all lined up, the big dominoes are the biggest levels of debt in human history.  Government debt, corporate debt, student debt, mortgage debt, credit card debt, auto loan debt.  The seizing up in the Repo market back in September was the beginning of the dominoes falling, and now many forces are trying to hold back the inevitable.  I don't bet on sailing ships, I bet on the tide, it's always there, and when it turns, everything else begins to change.  You can swim against the tide for a while, but it always wins in the long run.  Shit's gonna get crazy(ier) this year.  Some people say I'm a doomsayer, but really I'm just sharing the news that a storm is coming, a big one, like I did in this blog post on January 2, 2018, when I said this:

"Something, maybe Trump's looming impeachment and leaving office, (and Pence might get the boot, too), will trigger a collapse like 2008." 

-Me (Steve Emig), January 2, 2018

I have a history of being a bit early on predictions.  But I wrote that one a few days after President Trump signed the huge tax cut bill into law.  If you listen to the news clip embedded, former CNBC show host, and current presidential advisor, Larry Kudlow, says, "I believe we're on the front end of an investment boom."  He also went on to say that the GOP (Republicans) had nothing to worry about in the 2018 mid-term elections.  We know how that turned out. In this same blog post, I predicted that  the stock market would go a bit higher, then we'd head into a recession.  Everybody in the financial world, at that time, seemed to think Dow 30,000 was just around the corner, and all assets would surge higher for 3 or 4 more years.  My opinion was ridiculous to anyone involved in the financial world.

In reality, Larry and I were both wrong.  The stock market, as you can see in this Dow Jones Industrial Average chart (click to "5 year" chart), the Dow peaked less than a month after this clip, January 26th, 2018, at 26, 616.71.  By Christmas 2018, all the main stock averages were down 10% to 20%.  They climbed back, spurred by The Fed's lowering of interest rates.  The Dow did not get back above 26, 616, and stay above it, for another 19 months, until last September, when the Liquidity Now Known as QE4, began.  Larry Kudlow was getting high on his own supply, so to speak, in in January 2018.  On my side, we didn't go into a recession in 2018.  The Dow, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 went a bit higher for about three weeks, then started heading down, as I predicted.  The Nasdaq surged until September, then headed down hard.  I completely underestimated The Fed's drive to prop up the economy through November 2020, to get Trump into another 4 year term.

That said, here are my much more specific predictions for the financial world in 2020:

I predict Donald Trump will be forced out of office before the 2020 election in November.  This may not be from the impeachment "trial," it may come from some other reason later on.  I also predict that Vice President Mike Pence will not be able to step into the role of president, for some reason.

In the financial markets, I see us hitting or passing these numbers before December 31st, 2020:

Dow Jones Industrial Average:  It will go below 19,000
Nasdaq: It will go below 5,600
S&P 500: It will go below 2,250
Russell 2000: It will go below 1,125

Gold:  It will surpass $2,750 per troy ounce
Silver:  It will surpass $60 per troy ounce

Bitcoin:  I have no fucking idea, that's shit's crazy.  But it will likely be higher than it is now.  Young people will throw money in Bitcoin and other cryptos as things head downhill, most likely.

I predict Deutsche Bank will go into some form of bankruptcy this year.

I predict GE (General Electric) will also go into some form of bankruptcy this year.

I predict that Warren Buffet, despite losing several billion in net worth, will be one happy camper.  He and Charlie Munger finally be able to start putting Berkshire Hathaway's $120 cash pile to work into really good investments.

OK there are my predictions for 2020.  As of this writing on January 26, 2020, all but the two bankruptcies seem very unlikely, to just plain ridiculous, to pretty much every intelligent person.  Those two seem pretty unlikely, at this point, but possible to a few people.  In 11 months and a few days, you can call me out for being wrong, trolls.  If I am wrong.  Time will tell.

Remember... a recession is when the whole world goes on sale, and almost no one wants to buy.

I think we are entering one of the greatest times for financial opportunity in human history.  The trick is to weather this storm, and not end human history in some stupid way.  I'm calling this coming decade "The Phoenix Great Depession."  A big crash, with some really cool things rising from the ashes... eventually.

Blogger's note- About 12:00 noon, PDT, Monday, March 9, 2020- I have not edited a word of this post since originally writing it on January 26th, 2020.  But today, after a couple of tumultuous weeks, the Dow is down 1,813 points at the moment, after being down over 2,000 earlier today.  This 6-7% one day drop is due to a collapse in oil prices, brought on by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.  To be honest, the stock market started dropping sooner than I expected this spring, but this is largely what I saw coming this year, at some point. 

But looking back at this post, I didn't write the levels the stock markets, and gold and silver, were at, at the time I wrote this post.  So I'm adding that information now, using internet price charts.  When I wrote this post on Sunday, January 26th, the Dow was at 28,989 the previous Friday, and expected to soon reach 30,000 by nearly everyone.  My predictions seemed ludicrous to most, and went completely against prevailing wisdom.  So here are the approximate stock index levels when I wrote this post on January 26th, 2020:

Dow Jones Industrial Average- 28, 989.
Nasdaq 100-  9,314.91
S & P 500- 3,296.47
Russell 2000- 1,662.23

Gold- $1,571.10 per troy ounce
Silver- $18.06 per troy ounce

The gold and silver prices I predicted seem crazy to me, but we have over 9 1/2 months left in 2020, and things are already crazy this year.  I'm sticking by all of my predictions above. We'll see how close I am on each of these at the end of the year.  Then you can wonder how a broke, homeless man in L.A. made these predictions when nearly everyone else saw a much different future in the markets, back in January.

Blogger's note- 3/18/2023- Just for the record, I have not changed anything in the original text of this post, or the first Blogger's note, above.  I have a new blog now called Adaptive Reuse SoCal, about finding new uses for old, abandoned, and unused buildings, as well as the economy, and commerical real estate in general.  Check it out!

Adaptive Reuse SoCal

H.B. Tuesdays - Weekly Old School BMX freestyle- 1/7/2020

The main guy spearheading H.B. Tuesdays every week, longtime GT pro back in the day, Martin Aparijo.  Backwards wheelie in a circle.  I still haven't learned everybody's names, so just enjoy the remaining photos.

 The Huntington Beach Pier area is a skateboarding spot going back the the late 1970's.  BMX freestylers started riding there regularly, on the weekends, in the mid-1980's.  I was one of the locals there, nearly every weekend, from 1987 through about 1992.  SoCal flatlander, Mike Sarrail, though living in Covina, far inland, was the main local then, and Randy Lawrence rode there a lot for a while.  The Lakewood crew, Ron Camero, Nathan Shimizu, Jeff Cotter, Ron McCoy and a couple more, came by once or twice a month.  Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson, and other flatlanders, came by when in the area.  The current H.B, Tuesdays jam goes back 7 years (maybe more).  Because it's a known scene, and gets covered in social media and websites (like my blog, now), people from all over the world may show up on any given Tuesday.  If you're an Old School freestyler, stop by and session when you're in the area. 

Check out my new mash-up book/blog thing about the future:
Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now

I have a couple of new blogs I'm getting off the ground.  Check them out:

Crazy California

H.B. Tuesdays- Weekly Old School freestyle jam - 1/7/2020 Post #2

H.B. Tuesdays is a weekly Old School flatland jam, spearheaded by Martin Aparijo and Eddie Fiola.  I snapped these photos two weeks ago yesterday.  Here are the "chamber of commerce" style beauty pics.  "Come visit beautiful vacation spot, Huntington Beach, California.  Business people love our thriving economy and relaxing on our wide sand beaches.  Tourists travel here from worldwide to see Martin Aparijo do backwards wheelies with palm trees in the background."

 Martin, with a Captain Morgan framestand.

 H.B. Tuesdays scene from up on the Huntington Beach Pier, just north of the pier, on the wide part of the bike path, in front of the amphitheater.

Forkwheelie, backwards, I think, out of a fire hydrant?  Can't remember, I was just trying to get the photos in frame while we had that cool golden light just before sunset.

Check out my new blog:

The Phoenix Great Depression

One Love Jam 2020

A kid.  A BMX freestyle bike.  And a parking lot.  That's how freestyle started for so many of us across the U.S., U.K., and other parts of the world, in the 1980's.

The crazy series of events that led me to wind up staying within walking distance of this year's One Love Jam in Newport Beach kind of blows my mind.  But the Universe is weird like that some times.  From 1982, to 2003, I spent a couple hours or more, every day, on a BMX bike, learning tricks or street riding.  The exception in that period was late 1999 and early 2000, the beginning of my taxi driving career.  I stopped riding in 2003, when driving a taxi driving became a 7 days a week thing, and left no time for anything else.  For me, BMX began in Boise, Idaho, in a trailer park, in 1982, sitting almost exactly at 43 degrees of latitude.  Really.  Before the whole 43 thing happened.

We had BMX magazines for inspiration.  A lot of the early riders from outside Southern California were inspired by seeing the BMX Action Trick Team, or the Haro ot GT factory teams do a show.  We didn't have Pipeline Skatepark or Del Mar.  But we had parking lots.  We all had a parking lot somewhere.  So those early magazine trick how-to's from Bob Haro, R.L. Osborn, Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson, and a few others, gave us a starting point.  The AFA Masters constests gave us a justification, a reason.  We needed that, because in 1984, or there-abouts, you couldn't tell your friends and parents, "I'm spending three hours a day learning tricks on a BMX bike, just because it's really fun."  But we could say, "I'm practicing for a national contest," people could understand that.

At the early AFA contests at the Velodrome, in Carson, California, this weird morning ritual would take place.  A few of us would get there long before the contest, and we'd walk into the Velodrome, and sit on the first few bleachers.  There would end up being 15 or 20 people, from all over, just looking forward to the days events.  And we'd see someone we hadn't seen in a few months, and ask, "You still riding?"  Because it kind of surprised all of us that we were still doing tricks on "little kids' bikes" then.  There was always a couple guys who said, "I got a car, and stopped riding a month ago," or "I got a new girlfriend, and haven't ridden in a couple months," but I wanted to come see the new tricks."  The rest of us would say, "Yeah, I'm still riding."  It kind of surprised us.  None of us really believed then that we'd be riding for more than a year or two.  There was this feeling of, "OK, let's do this freestyle thing for a year or so," then we'll all go back to college, get some job we don't like, and do "adult life."

But BMX freestyle started growing.  The Californian guys were super entrepreneurial, and little businesses began to pop up to make frames or components, or something else needed.  Bob Haro came out with a freestyle bike.  Bob Morales started putting on contests.  R.L. and Mike Buff toured doing trick shows, as did the Haro and GT guys.  Nearly all of us had local trick teams in our town.  Some of us produced zines.  Some started shooting photos.  A couple years later, some people started producing our own videos.  For a few of us, actual jobs in the industry came along.  For the rest, freestyle never stopped being fun.  It just kept going.  And going. 

Being a dork among the dorks, I spent more time thinking about the future than most of us early riders.  But I never imagined a day when BMX freestyle would be in the Olympics (like it or not), or a day when 100 or more riders, ages 40 to about 55, would show up next to the ocean and session all day.  There were a handful of the SoCal riders who got us other guys across the country stoked on freestyle in the early 80's.  We all, collectively, rode the first big wave of popularity in the late 80's, and a new crew came up in the 90's.  We didn't know what the fuck we were doing, we just knew it needed to be done.  We had ideas, tricks needed to be invented, and that meant time in the parking lot day after day.

As things progressed, we needed better bike parts.  We needed better frames.  We needed better places to ride.  We absorbed the punk rock/D.I.Y ethos (thanks Dave Vanderspek and the Curb Dogs), and just began to start doing the things that needed to be done to keep progressing.  When the bicycle industry at large said, "BMX is dead, mountain bikes are the new thing," in early 1989, we saw the money drain from the BMX world and leave us in the lurch.  That sucked at first.  We had to get real jobs and learn to cook ramen.  But it also freed us, nobody gave shit about BMX freestyle except the most hardcore riders at that point.  So we just took it over.  The progression on the bikes progressed at hyper speed, and riders took over the industry.  It was a lifestyle to so many of us at that point, and we forged ahead, each in our own directions, and built an industry.

BMX splintered into flatland, ramps, dirt, street, and park riding.  By that time we all had some models for doing our own thing, and making things happen.  We had other people to look up to.  Collectively, we built a group of sports, and culture and industries to support those sports.  That's pretty fucking cool when you stop and think about it.  It wasn't a 35 year plan.  Bob Haro didn't sit down in 1981 and say, "OK, here's the 40 year plan to take BMX freestyle worldwide."  It happened organically, bit by bit, day by day, session by session.

Ultimately, we set the stage for guys in tight jeans, who hate brake,s to make $50,000 for winning a single contest, by doing a quad tailwhip double backflip to fakie over jumps the size of a small mountain range.  Yeah, not what we had in mind, but the riding has progressed far beyond most of us now.  But all of us who rode back in the day, played a roll in making that happen, some to big degrees, most of us to much smaller degrees.

Now, 35 years after those first AFA flatland and ramps contests, we are still leading in a way.  We're showing the younger generations how long it can go on.  OK, not me, I got sidetracked for years.  But the group of the riders at the One Love Jam yesterday is still pushing boundaries.  They're showing younger people, a few in person, and many more in videos and various posts, like this one, that BMX freestyle is a lifestyle.  None of us knows how long you can keep doing it, because we're the group that is figuring that out.  The oldest of us is about 55, and we're not there yet.  A bunch of guys are still riding hard in their 50's.  Many in their 40's.  Where does freestyle end?  65?  70?  103?  We don't know, but we'll let you know when we get there.

The One Love Jam was an epic day.  I had no bike, but Kid Fruhmann let me borrow one of the Fiola Former Pro bikes (like the ProFormer, but dsylexic), which rode great, I must say.  I managed a lame infinity roll right off the bat, and three other tricks over the course of a couple hours.  Lame as it was, I got my nearly 300 pounds and a bike to bunnyhop.  Barely.  It's been a LONG time since that happened.  I scraped my calf, got a little blood to the surface, and called it a session.

I also spent time talking to Martin Aparijo, Ron Camero, Gardo and their crew (thanks for the spaghetti and egg rolls), Bill Nitschke, Rick Coronado, Dave Nourie, Ruben Castillo, Todd Lyons, Dave Voelker, Brian Blyther, Edgar Plascencia, Ivan from New York, James who I just met, and several more guys.  It was an epic day all around.  Thanks to the promoters, I don't even know your names, but it's was a great jam.  The weather was perfect.  Much stoke was manufactured and consumed.  I can't wait until next year's jam.

Here's Sean Ewing's drone footage of the event, and links to a couple other early edits.  Check Facebook and Insta for more.




I told you Pete Brandt is an animal.  Jeez...

Edit by The Drain Dude

More drone footage and some good stills by James Allender

If you were a freestyler in the 1980's, I can only think of one thing missing from the One Love Jam yesterday, this.  

One Love Jam - photos #2- 1/18/2020

Straight outta Indiana, lifelong rider, man who invented the Whopper (the bunnyhop tailwhip, not the burger), and still doing shows and showing people how much fun BMX freestyle is, Bill Nitschke.

Pete Brandt is a freakin' beast.  He's in the midst of a hyperfast pedaling spin here.  He was just riding at an insane level, all day long.  If the Pacific Ocean was fresh water, he probably drank half of it, just to stay hydrated.

 

Another rider I don't know the name of, 90's era combo that's freakin' impossible.

Pete Brandt again, forwards rolling circle, no hands, bars spinning, physical laws of the universe temporarily suspended.  This is not possible. 

Guys. bikes. Asphalt.  Ride some.  Talk some.  Ride some more.  Somehow it turned into a lifestyle.

Looking down the groups of people on the periphery of the riding area.  I didn't think there were this many old school flatlanders left in the world, let alone so many who are still riding at a really serious level.

Vert legends hanging at the flatland jam.  Brian Blyther and Dave Voelker.  Dave's got a big ride in San Diego coming up on the 25th, check his Facebook for info. 

One Love Jam- photos #3- 1/18/2020

The Chairman at a board meeting.  Martin Aparijo, drinking a coffee to make his Pepsi jealous.  Don't tell anyone, but Martin's actually a really cool guy, helping all kinds of people step up their game in and out of riding.  He also has a million great stories of the days before most of us started riding.  If you ever get the chance, ask him some old school question and just sit back and listen.

San Diego flatland legend, big influence to most of us guys, longtime touring pro at Haro, Dave Nourie.  He's still ripping it up and laving fun with it all.

Nourie, doing his thing.

Close-up, mid trick.  Dave Nourie again.

Cru Jones was in the house.  Some of the guys at One Love Jam were riding hard when the movie Rad was released in 1986.  But many of the young bucks, you know, those guys in their 40's now, got into BMX because of the movie Rad.  Here's a little clip of Bill from 2014, talking about how he ended up starring in Rad, and his life since. 

One of my most popular blog posts ever was "Why I hated the movie Rad when it came out."  I had nothing against Bill, Eddie Fiola, Martin Aparijo, and the riders, I just hated that the plot was so goofy, for the vert first American movie to have BMX freestyle in it.  I was so invested in freestyle in 1986, and such an uptight dork in general, that when I saw Rad in the theater, I was just completely bummed.  Except for the credits, that was "real riding" in my book.  I actually liked Quicksilver, the bicycle messenger movie, a lot better.  The jam session in Quicksilver was actually a lot closer to an actual BMX session, just on different bikes.  And it had Martin and Woody in it.  In the early 90's, when I heard the Sheep Hills guys talking about how much they liked Rad, like Sean Butler, I began to realize how many people wound up getting interested in BMX because of Rad's popularity on home video.

I liked BMX Bandits a lot, too, which was on HBO all the time in 1987.  That movie had that cute redhead, Nicole something...  Whatever happened to her?  

One Love Jam- photos #4- 1/18/2020

Someone washed Regis in hot water, then threw him in the dryer and shrunk him.  Wait, that's a 24 inch Haro with a bashguard he's on, that's why he looks so small.  When Rome, do as the Romans do, when in Newport, surf at the beach.  Regis G. blending in the locals.

We're old now.  Remember back in the 70's when "Look ma, no hands" was a thing?  Just riding without hands was probably the first actual bike trick many of us learned.  Or maybe a skid.  As the early BMX freestylers, we collectively took no hands to many new levels.  Another example of that progression here.

The other way to do a double decade, two guys, sychro single decades.

Ruben Castillo, no smoke, but I think there was a fire hydrant somewhere in this combo.

Austin R-Dog, Texas For Life, Ruben Castillo.  I haven't seen Ruben in many years, wasn't sure he'd remember me.  He totally did, "I see your art online," he said, right off the bat.  Bash it if you want, but I'm stoked we have Facebook and the internet these days, to keep in touch with all our old friends at a distance.  Internet connecting is good, but it was awesome to hang out, ride (a little), and just talk with so many people from the old school flatland world, in person.  One Love Jam is a great thing.  I also met Ivan, standing right behind Ruben, at HB Tuesdays this week, cool guy from New York.

One Love Jam- photos #5- 1/18/2020

Backpacker.  Not the kind on the Pacific Crest Trail or the kind that's college age and travels Europe.  The BMX flatland kind.  I'm glad I was old when these tricks came along, this shit's way too hard.

  Far away, but I'm pretty sure this is Martin Aparijo, coming out of a megaspin.

Backwards infinity roll variation, in a straight line.  Back in the day, I used to do standard infinity rolls in a straight line, and call them definitive rolls.  So is this a backwards definitive roll?  I'll let you decide.

Spinning.

He was hauling ass into these things.  After my flatland era, fast gliding something or other. 

Bikes looks so different today.  Some in classic 80's styles, with vintage graphics, but most unique to the riders.  This was one of the coolest looking bikes, and the rider, name unknown to me, was ripping all day.

One Love Jam- photos #6-1/18/2020

Top: Scurfer.  Bar ride... BUT.. one foot on a grip and one foot on the crossbar.  WTF?  He stepped into it from a surfer, after doing a Scurfer.  Skills.

That moment when you know its lost, but you try to save it anyhow.

Back in the day, we often broke into bad breakdancing after we bailed.  This guy decided to dance a jig instead.

I didn't know there were this many old flatlanders left in the world, let alone so many who still rip.  Half of the crowd around the school playground, on the sand in Newport Beach.

Seriously, though it wasn't an actual parking lot, this is one of the coolest spots for flatland I've ever seen.  Bars and seat gut lever.

One Love Jam Photos- #7- 1/18/2020

Sunset over Catalina island, from the One Love Jam.  The end of a great day of flatland.

And now let's paint some happy little hitchhikers and hang 5's.  Cool jacket spotted.

Can't have an 80's flatland posse without a Vision Street Wear shirt.  None of the horrible Vision shoes, though.

Two cool shirts.  Thanks Kid for letting me borrow a Former Pro bike and get a bit of riding in myself it felt good to get back on a bike for a while. 

World Tour T-shirt, Dave Nourie between tricks.

What up dawg?  Entourage member, just chillin'.

Decompression from the streets...

Like many Generation X people, as a kid, I was a huge fan of Jacques Cousteau, inventor of the SCUBA tank, legendary underwater explorer, and producer of many great documentaries about the ocean.  The idea of decompression is from the diving world.  If you come up too fast, gases can build up in your blood stream, and give you decompression sickness, also known as the bends.  In my experiences struggling with homelessness, I've found there's a "decompression" period needed when coming off the streets, which makes SCUBA diving a good metaphor for exiting homelessness.  If you "come up" too fast, it can freak you out.

On December 26th, I got a message from Kerry Getz, who I met because I used to go watch her perform, singing locally a lot, starting back in 2002 or 2003.  We became friends along the way.  She'd been keeping an eye on my blog and Facebook posts, and had helped me out while I was living homeless in the Hollywood area.  She's known me long enough to know I don't do drugs, and I'm a reasonably intelligent and OK guy, in normal circumstances.  I also stopped drinking many years ago.  I'm not an alcoholic who had to stop.  I was a very sporadic social drinker, but as a taxi driver for several years, I dealt with overly drunk people nearly every night.  As a professional driver, I couldn't get caught with any level of alcohol in my blood, and I worked 7 days a week for years.  So I rarely drank on my time off when driving the cab.  When I stopped driving, I just decided I didn't want to drink anymore.  So I just stopped.  I'm not a big fan of beer or wine, and hard liquor mostly just makes me sick the next day.  So quitting was easy.

Anyhow, Kerry just messaged me the day after Christmas, and said she had a spare bedroom I could stay in for a while.  It was too late to make the long bus/train trip down to Orange County that day, so I spent one last night out on the streets of Studio City, which is just over the hill from Hollywood, in the San Fernando valley.  I headed down to Kerry's place the next day, and I've been staying there as a guest for 2 1/2 weeks now.  So I owe Kerry a huge thanks for this opportunity.  Thanks Kerry!

One of the many things most people don't understand about being homeless is just how different it is from "normal" life.  It's like being in a parallel universe in a way.  I went to places and interacted with regular people every day.  But the necessities of life mean there's a whole different set of rules and level of stress on the streets.  In this article from October, I learned that 1,000 people died on the streets of L.A. last year.  I already knew that I went to sleep every single night, knowing I could die in a whole bunch of horrible ways, before morning.  You never take the next day for granted on the streets, if you're smart.  But I had no idea that many people actually died on the streets of L.A., just form homelessness.  If it was any other population of people, that would be a moral outrage.  But homeless people don't really count in most people's opinion, so it's not a well know number.  To put that in context, there were 252 homicides in 2019 in L.A., through December 21st. 

In addition to knowing you could die quite easily each and every night, you get sick on the streets, you don't sleep anywhere near enough, or as well as you should.  You eat a sketchy diet, whether you hit the free food circuit, or buy your own food.  You have to be suspicious of everyone, particularly people who say they want to help you, there are all kinds of shady characters out there, some in official positions.  Day to day life is simply about survival, there is no mid term or long term future.  It just takes a whole different mentality to stay alive on the streets for any length of time.

In addition to that, I was basically trying to get a viable business off the ground, selling my Sharpie artwork, the one thing I could do that consistently made me some income.  Here's one of my drawings, below.  You can't "just get a job," without a phone, decent clothes, a place to shower, money for transportation and food, a good work history, and a whole bunch of other things average people don't realize.  I showed up in Hollywood in early September with 81 cents in my pocket, a few clothes, and my art supplies.  I was making $600 or more a month by December, and sold artwork on five continents in that time.  Seriously.  Gotta love the internet age.  But a few hundred dollars a month is a long way from enough to make the jump to renting a room full time, and getting going with "normal" life again.

From previous experience, I knew that it takes at least a couple of weeks to even begin to settle down and get in some kind of rhythm of "normal" life again.  That's just the psychological aspect.  IN addition, there's the physical recovery needed.  On the streets, my feet got super dry and I get this bad psoriasis-type thing happening.  I intentionally dehydrated myself, and I was eating mostly fast food.  I did that for a few reasons, the main reason is that I didn't have a place to use the restroom from about 9 pm until 7 or 8 am.  I could take a leak in the bushes, but nothing more.  Clogging up my gut with fast food helped keep me from needing a bathroom at night.  You have to think of things like that while homeless.

Then, as soon as I get a stable environment, I not only needed to "decompress" mentally, but there's a long, physical healing process needed.  I started eating a ton of fiber and some fruit and fresh orange juice to clean my gut out.  Being able to shower regularly, and the better nutrition, helped my feet to begin healing up.  I also found that I had swimmer's ear-type infections in both ears, so I'm using a white vinegar wash to heal those up.  Basically, there's a major physical physical detoxification and healing process needed, that will take a year or more of stable life to fully achieve.

Having done this before, I knew what to expect, and I've been eating better, mixed with binging on way too much ice cream, and a few other things I couldn't eat on the streets.  Now I'm through the initial part of the mental decompression, and the physical part is happening.

Now it's time to get serious about turning my art, and my other talents, into a viable living income, REAL QUICK, so I can keep a roof over my head and earn my way in this world again.  I've been working long hours nearly every day, though there were a few days of 12 hours of sleep at first.  I'm walking 3 to 5 miles nearly every day, and beginning to think farther into the future.  Now it's time to make my freelance level art work into a legit business.

So that's where I'm at, for anyone interested.  A huge thank you to everyone who has helped me over the last 2 1/2 completely crazy years.  I've got a lot of cool ideas in my head; art, art shows, zines, books, and other projects, so it's time to make them start happening.

Looking back at Krys Dauchy... the first factory sponsored girl in freestyle

 Less than a year after exploding onto the national scene in 1986, here's GT factory sponsored Krys Dauchy, showing some serious tricks at the Wayne, New Jersey AFA Masters contest.  There was no female division then, she competed against the amateur guys, and held her own.  If you know China (Krys' name today) you know why I'm listening to the Tank Girl movie soundtrack while writing this blog post. 

With a single letter to FREESTYLIN' magazine, and a single photo of her doing the most contorted Nourie stomach stand anyone had ever seen, a teenage girl from Ohio let the freestyle industry know she existed.  The letter was printed in the October 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine, and Krys Dauchy exploded onto the national BMX freestyle scene.

As fate would have it, I got hired at Wizard Publications, publishers of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, at the beginning of August that year.  In those old days of magazines, there was a 3 month lag time between when a magazine's photos were taken and stories were written, until it appeared in mailboxes and on newsstands.  When I started at Wizard in August, they were pretty much done with the October issue, and working on the November issue of FREESTYLIN'.  Editor Andy Jenkins and assistant editor Lew showed me the photo of the amazing girl from Ohio doing the contortionist level stomach stand.  It blew my mind.  The October issue of FREESTYLIN' hit subscribers' mailboxes and newsstands at the end of September.  The onslaught of fan mail for Krys hit us immediately.

As the new guy on the editorial staff, I got to read all the reader mail first and sort through it.  As I recall, we got something like 600 letters that month, more than three times normal.  Two thirds of all that mail was from guys who wanted to meet... and date... Krys Dauchy.  Just from that one photo in the readers mail in the magazine.  Some of the letters got pretty graphic, after all, it was a sport full of teenage guys.  But most letter writers were stoked and blown away by this cute blond who obviously had some real freestyle skills.

GT Bikes soon picked up Krys, and, as you can see above, she way rocking a full factory GT sponsorship by the middle of 1987, at the New Jersey AFA Masters contest.  She also rode for General and Vision Street Wear in her years in freestyle.  You can also see Krys doing some SERIOUS tricks.  Only a handful of riders at the time, most notably pioneer pro R.L. Osborn, did backwards infinity rolls, and backwards grip rides.  Krys wasn't just some rider's girlfriend that had learned a couple of tricks.  She had SKILLS.  Add that to her ridiculous level of flexibility, and she added a few tricks no guy could match to the freestyle mix.  Here she is a year later, riding for General, from the Vision Street Wear video Freestylin' Fanatics.



Krys showed up in the magazines, went to Camp Woodward in Pennsylvania, and did her share of shows in the late 1980's, along with competing in the AFA Masters contests around the U.S..  All along the way she hung out with the guys, in our completely male dominated sport.  That's no easy task, since, let's face it, guys can be assholes sometimes.  The only other woman riding seriously then was Alma Jo Barrera down in the Austin, Texas area.  Krys was a pioneer, not only inventing some entirely new tricks, but being a female at a time when there were only a handful of girls even trying freestyle tricks, and very few in the entire action sports world.

BMX freestyle's first wave of popularity crashed in 1989, and Krys went on to other things in life.  She went through some incredibly tough times in the 1990's, long after she'd left the radar of us other riders.  With some help, and her own tough spirit, she made an incredible comeback, and along the way changed her name to China Krys Darrington.  She's now a very successful single mom and homeowner in northern Ohio.  She works with groups of specialists, managing and coordinating teams that help other women in tough situations rebound from addiction, abuse, and other really serious issues.

When my life hit bottom, after moving to North Carolina in 2008, China was one of the first people to find my Freestylin Mag Tales blog, and email me.  I'd only met her once, briefly, back in the freestyle days.  As I struggled, right after losing all my BMX video masters, magazines, and video footage collection, she kept in contact, and was a huge help to me through a really tough time.  She's done the same for others in the riding community as well.  Thank you for that, China.

BMX racing and BMX freestyle has come a long way in the 30+ years (gulp!) since Krys was out there, outriding most of us guys.  Women compete in their own class, and shred, BMX racing is in the Olympics,  BMX park will be soon, and there are women blasting nothings and backflips and lofting over big doubles.  But before them all was Krys Dauchy, the girl from Ohio who showed other girls that BMX freestyle wasn't just a guys' thing.

 A few weeks ago, she gave me the OK to draw a picture of her to sell, and here's my drawing of Krys/China, one of her classic photos, which I drew in my Sharpie scribble style.  This is the 5th drawing in my series of Old School BMX freestyler drawings.  

A limited run of prints of this drawing, signed and numbered by me, are available for sale, 11" X 14", hit me up on Facebook, or email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com ,if you're interested.  If you're an old school collector, you know your collection isn't complete without one of these.  Remember, I read that letter you wrote FREESTYLIN' about Krys back in 1986.  I know how many fans she had.

Check out my new mash-up book/blog about the future:

Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now

I have a couple of new blogs I'm getting off the ground.  Check them out:

Crazy California

The Big Freakin' Transition

 

 Full Circle

World War III is a bad idea... just sayin'

Bruce Springsteen, from when I was a teenager, covering a song from years before.  Do we really need to keep making this mistake?

"War.  What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing.  Say it again..."

-Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, 1969

When the world gets crazy, step up to meet it.  It's getting crazy...

My Sharpie drawing from thinking about the time we find ourselves in.  #sharpiescribblestyle