The Beeple Story... Why you should GIVE away as much of your creative work as possible

In September of 2020, my Sharpie drawings were selling for more than Beeple had ever sold a piece of his art for.  Really.  And I'm a homeless, goofball, Sharpie artist, known only in the Old School BMX freestyle world.  I'm not dissing him, just putting his insane NFT sales from 2021 in perspective.  But Mike Winkleman, aka Beeple, had been putting one piece of digital art up on the web and social media, free to everyone to check out, every single day, for nearly 13 years.  The collection of those works, "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days," was sold by Christie's, as an NFT, in March of 2021. That single sale raked in $69,346, 250, during a 14 day auction.  Five months earlier, he'd never sold a piece of art for over $100.  We live in interesting times, people.  Really interesting times if you're a creative person.  The video above is NSFW, Beeple cusses.

This post is about why you should give away as much of your creative work as possible.  Mike Winkleman, best known as digital/NFT artist Beeple these days, is the one of the best examples of how giving away free creative work can pay off in multiple ways.  He's not the only guy out there that gives creative work away.  Every graffiti and street artist gives work away, for example, that's the whole idea.  They put there work in public places, free for anyone there to check out.  Banksy and Shephard Fairey (Obey Giant), are two of the best known examples from those worlds.  Both sell art in major galleries now, by the way.  

The video clip above is a good watch, and only about 20 minutes.  For those who haven't watched it, Here's a synopsis of Beeple's story.  He always liked to draw as a kid, and got into computers, and eventually brought the two together, getting into digital art.  He's a family man, and has been making a living, and supporting his family, by doing freelance graphic design work, for many years now.  He wasn't striving to be known as an "artist" or "digital artist."  There's a clip on YouTube where he says calling yourself an "artist" sounds douchey to him.  He just likes making cool digital images and videos.

What made Beeple into the guy I'm writing about today?  His $69 million dollar sale of "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" is what thrust him into worldwide recognition in the mainstream art and business worlds.  How that happened is in the title.  Way back in 2007, May 1st, I believe, Mike Winkleman decided to push himself.  He decided to start putting an image up, every day, on the internet and social media (Instagram: @beeple_crap and Twitter: @beeple).  If you watch the video above, you'll see the first images were pretty simple.  But he just kept going, he kept improving his skills, and he kept putting up an image every day.  "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days," happened because Beeple just put something out, some digital image, for free, every day, for over 13 years now (He has a couple of great Elon Musk pictures up in the last couple of days, BTW).  

Much like a high caliber athletes, Beeple put the work in, day after day after day before is big financial and prestigious win came.  He strips the magic out of the artistic process," and he repeatedly says, "I just need to get shit done every day."  As I'm writing this post, I'm listening to a great podcast with Beeple, from 2018, I think, long before his multi-million dollars sales and recent fame.  This podcast is hilarious, and a great listen, here's the link:

The Futur: The Importance of Being Creative Every Single Day- Beeple livestream

He just said, in the podcast, that doing "Everydays" is "what brings in the freelance work, and that's what puts food on the table for the wife and kids."  He didn't even have a demo reel of client work back then.  People saw his "Everydays" images, and thought, ""Hey, let's get this guy to do our next project," then contacted him  Those are two of the great reasons to put out creative work for free, 1) it's a great way to build a following for your work, and 2) putting out cool work for free is a great way to get people to approach you for paid freelance work, and sometimes long term jobs.  

So... will doing a piece or art, music, or writing every day help you score millions of dollars in one big sale?  Probably not.  But these days, as crazy as the world is, I can't say, "that will NEVER happen."  It's unlikely you'll ever sell a piece for millions, but it is possible.  

Here's what will definitely happen if you start putting creative work out for free on a regular basis.  1) You will get better at whatever you do.  It sounds stupid, but if you practice something consistently, you will improve, you will progress.  2)You will get more in tune with your creative process.  You'll figure out how you work creatively, and what it takes for you to sit down and actually get something done, consistently.  For some of you, it may take a specific cup of coffee, a quiet room, and specific tools to work with.  For me, A Diet Coke, a couple of donuts, my laptop and art supplies, and a plug and wifi are what's needed. 

Now, I am not Beeple, he's a millionaire, and world renowned digital artist now.  But, we do have three things in common.  1) We've both put out a lot of content for free in the last 13 years,  2) We both put are really prolific creative people, and put a lot of creative work out, and 3) we both say "fuck" nearly as much as Jay and Silent Bob.  

I put out my first zine (self-published booklet) about BMX freestyle, way back in 1985.  I started it to find, and get to know, other BMX freestylers in the San Francisco Bay area. when I moved there.  Within in a month, I'd met most of the pros and top amateurs in the region.  I liked being the "zine guy" of our scene, So I kept putting my zine out monthly.  By the next summer, 1986, I was making about $450 a month working at Pizza Hut, and spending $200 of that publishing my zine.  That sounds ridiculous, and like a real waste of time to most people.  But that little Xerox zine landed me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, at age 20.  That job changed the course of my life, and set me off on a path I couldn't have imagined before.  

That's another thing that doing consistent creative work, and putting it out, for free, does.  There's an idea called the "corridor" or "hallway" concept. When you get busy doing something, it heads you down a different path than if you just sat around doing nothing.  As you move forward down that "hallway," doors may open, opportunities may come along, that never would have happened on your previous path.  You can decide to take, to not take, a particular opportunity.  But if you keep working, in this case putting out some of your creative work, for free, more opportunities will come along.  Some may seem like little things.  For example, two of my drawings are up on walls of the library I'm working in right now.  That's cool.  The staff here knows me as that "Sharpie artist guy," or something like that.  That could lead to bigger opportunities down the road.  I'm scheduled to do an art workshop here in a couple of months.  That could lead to other opportunities as well, who knows?

These days, my main output of free creative work is my blogs, this one, and 25 or so other ones I've tried.  I started blogging about my days in the 1980's BMX freestyle world in 2008, when I was broke, out of work, majorly depressed, and living with my parents, in a small town in North Carolina.  I've written over 2,400 blog posts since then.  I'm not kidding, check out this post.  

I built a following over the years, mostly from my BMX blogs.  When I decided to try and sell my Sharpie drawings in late 2015, I put word out to my blog followers. and I sold a drawing for $20.  Then another.  Then another.  While I don't make a decent living selling my drawings (yet!), I've now sold over 100 originals, and 150 or so prints, and they're spread across 12 or 15 states, and more than a dozen countries on 6 of the 7 continents.  Now, six years later, I'm known mostly as a Sharpie artist.  Nearly all of my drawings are on my blogs and social media, free for everyone to check out, or even print out a free copy of.  I'm about to start a new direction with my drawings, and already have a couple people inquiring about it, just from a few sketches I posted.  

We have all these amazing platforms to share creative work for free in today's world.  Trust me kids, it a million times easier to get exposure for your creative work than it was back in the zine days.  So USE those platforms.  Blogs, websites, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Tik Tok, Snapchat, podcasts, YouTube channels, whatever makes sense for you.  Seriously, if you want to sell your creative work, maybe make a living at it some day, and you're not putting free stuff out consistently, you're a fucking idiot.  OK, maybe not an idiot, but you're not serious.  Get your work out there.  Let people see it.  Then do more.  Consistency.  That's the main way you build a following as a creative person, in today's world.  So put something out!  You may never have the insane financial success Beeple had.  But you'll be in a much better place creatively in a few years, whatever level of success you find.

This is the David Bowie drawing I did for a friend in 2018, and then accidentally left at a bus stop in Richmond, Virginia.  But you can see the progression in my drawing skills in 3 1/2 years.  #sharpiescribblestyle

 

This is the first Sharpie Scribble Style drawing I tried to sell in 2015, a drawing, of a stencil, of Bruce Lee.  I think I sold this for $20.

I started a new personal blog, check it out:

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Pinterest for guys - April 2022

I'm a dude,  And I love Pinterest.  That's right bitches, I just said that out loud.  OK, I typed it in a blog post caption, but I also said it out loud, which got some weird looks, since I'm at the library right now.  Oh, and this video is pretty funny.  

I haven't used Instagram in 8 months or so.  Don't care.  I'd rather spend time on Pinterest.  It's a MONSTER for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  If you have a business, website, or blog to promote, Pinterest can totally help you do that online.  It's its own search engine, focused on visuals, photos and now videos.  I often chill out by just "collecting" pics to my Pinterest boards, while listening to cool music,  a podcast, or the like.  Just about everyone one of my #sharpiescribblestyle drawings, that I have a photo of, is on my Pinterest board, 183 of them right now.  You know how all my main blogs are locked in the #1 spot on Google if you search the title of them?  Yeah, I did that with Pinterest, and solid blogging.  

Stats

Pinterest is the 14th largest social media network, beating out Twitter and Reddit, among others.  It has 431 million active monthly users.  Only 60% of Pinterest users are women now, down from about 80% pre-pandemic.  A lot of guys started using Pinterest during the lockdowns and time since.  People watch close to 1 billion videos a day on Pinterest.  85% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to plan new projects.   Advertisers can reach more then 200 people on Pinterest.  These and other Pinterest stats here.

Why Pinterest?

On Pinterest you create "boards," like an old time cork or bulletin board on your wall.  Then you collect photos or videos, and "pin" them to your boards.  Anything (OK, almost anything) you want.  Cool cars.  Motorcycles.  80's BMX bikes.  DIY projects.  art/design ideas.  Whatever.  To see all my stuff, you have to join, which takes about three minutes.  That's it.  That's all the sales pitch you're going to get.  Pinterest is the "bucket" for your bucket list.  Here's my page.

Here are a few of my Pinterest boards. You can see the top 10-20 pics without joining.  

Freestyle BMX Tales- 625 pins

Epic Old School skate photos- 690 pins

Sheep Hills- My photos- 256 pins

The Nude Bowl- 80 pins

Punk rock flyers- 453 pins

I love street art and urban murals- 1,113 pins

The Big Freakin' Transition- 466 pins (My theory on why the 2020's are so crazy)

Cool Vintage Stuff- 541 pins

Funny signs- 480 pins

Cool looking cars- 345 pins

My Sharpie Scribble Style art- 183 pins

NSFW quotes- 248 pins

Bruce Lee- 132 pins

Because Pizza- 67 pins

Hollywood- My photos- 66 pins

Want to get started on Pinterest?  Watch this video to learn the basics.  If you want to start learning how to use Pinterest to promote your website, blog, or even your brick and mortar business, watch this video.

I started a new personal blog, check it out:

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New Geoff Rowley skate clips- 2022

,Flip Skateboard's video, Sorry. is one of my favorite skate videos of all time, and Geoff Rowley was a major force in that video.  But that came out in 2002, twenty years ago.  Can Geoff still skate at a high level.  Uh... yeah.  Not sorry.  

I started a new blog, check it out:

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"M.C. Escher Skatepark" drawings

A recent "M.C. Escher Skatepark" drawing I did.  I did a couple of these, just trying an idea I did back in the 80's, and posted a couple online.  Much to my surprise, A couple people wanted to buy them, so I drew a couple more. 

My dad, Tom Emig,  was a draftsman/engineer, which means that he spent most of his working life sitting in front of a giant tilted table, drawing huge pictures of machine parts.  As you can see in this ancient video, before computer use was widespread, every product of any kind was designed and drawn by hand, with pencil, on a drafting board.  Those drawings were then used by the people who actually manufactured the products.  So I grew up with my dad bringing drawings home now and then, and teaching me what I was looking at, and how to understand them.  

My dad, Tom Emig, the draftsman, in about 1972, with my little sister Cheri and me.  Photo by Kathy Emig

As a draftsman's kid, my dad saw me drawing one day, when I  was about 8 or 9, and taught me how to do the three standard drafting views of an item, the top, front, and side views.  Then he showed me how to draw 3D drawings, called oblique and isometric drawings.  An example of an isometric is when you draw a cube where you can see two sides and the top.  So along with drawing Army jeeps and tanks, Speed Racer's Mach 5, and the other stuff cool to us 70's kids, I practiced drawing isometric shapes once in a while.  

Years later, when I landed a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, in 1986, I actually didn't have much to do at first.  My main job was to proofread both magazines, which kept me busy one week out of the month.  For my first couple months, I didn't have much to do for the other three weeks.  I spent a lot of time digging into the magazines archives, and reading back issues.  When I got tired of that, I started drawing a bit.  I went back to my basic drafting techniques my dad, and a couple years of drafting classes in high school, taught me.  I started drawing ramp designs.  At the time, ramps were either basic quarterpipes or halfpipes.  A halfpipe might have a roll-in, but there wasn't much more too them.  There were none of the crazy set ups we see at contests or skateparks today.   

I started drawing weird combos of ramps, and then sat there looking at the drawings, pretending I was riding those ramps.  Then one day, I got a little weird with the drawing.  My dad and I were both fans of the work of M.C. Escher.  Every trip to a book store, we'd flip through one of the books of his drawings.  My dad never bought one, but as a draftsman, engineer, and solver of mechanical puzzles, he loved Escher's intricate and impossible designs.  

One day, bored at my desk in my little office in Wizard Publications, I drew my first "M.C. Escher Skatepark."  I just pencil sketched a cubist world of ramps, but with the transitions going in different directions.  I did maybe 10 or 15 of these, I think, over the course of a couple of months.  As my job continued, I found other work to do, and stayed busy all month at the magazines.  Those early drawings got lost, probably during one of the times I lost a storage unit, with boxes of my stuff in side.  

So a few months ago, after losing yet another storage unit, along with all my artwork and art supplies, I had a small sketchpad and a black pen.  I did a little sketching, and drew a few more "M.C. Escher  Skateparks."  These are two of them in this post.  

This one's a bit more chaotic.  I sketched these, and 2 or 3 more, in pen, which is why you can see several of the cube lines, where I sketched the cube, then cut away parts to make the ramps.  

 

Here's my dad, Tom Emig, in about 2010, a couple years before his death in 2012.  The place I first remember my dad taking me to see his factory was a company called Fate, Root, Heath when he started there, that changed its name to Plymouth Locomotive Works.  The designed and built custom locomotives, usually smaller than the freight train locomotives we see on railroads.  Plymouths were often small locomotives for switching, special uses, or odd gauge railroads tracks.  They also made low slung mining locomotives, like this one, and my dad worked on the design of several of these.  My dad worked there, in Plymouth, Ohio, from about 1976 to 1980.  Word got around that the company was going to be bought out, and maybe move or shut down, so my dad found a new job in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and we left Ohio in 1980.  The Plymouth factory shut down in about 1983.  My mom and I visited it 2010, and it is just another decaying rust belt factory complex now, like thousands of others.  But Plymouth locomotives were built to last, and now, about 40 years after going out of business, there are still a few Plymouth locomotives in operation.  

I started a new blog, check it out:

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4/20- What's up with cannabis legalization in the US?

The CEO of Curaleaf, the biggest cannabis company, talks about where the industry and legalization in the U.S. is now.  Unlike most of the new reports on YouTube, this one is recent, from March 2022.  At 2:34 there's a map of the U.S., showing the legalization status, state by state.  

"It's time for legislators to catch up with the American public."

-Joe Byron, Curaleaf, in the clip above.

My weed smoking days only lasted about a year and a half, starting when I graduated high school in 1984.  As I got more serious into BMX freestyle, and I quit smoking, thinking that being sober would help me ride better.  Yeah, I know how funny that sounds, about half the pro freestylers I got to know later were stoners.  I smoked a bit when visiting my Idaho friends again in 1987, and took a couple hits at a Cirque du Soleil party in 1997.  So I haven't smoked in decades, but I've been pro legalization this whole time.  

I think it's real funny that the state I first smoked weed in, Idaho, is one of the few holdouts where it's still completely illegal.  When I lived there in the 80's it was openly reported on the news that the state's three biggest crops, by sales, were potatoes, sugar beets, and weed.  What's up Idaho?  You were ahead of the game 35 years ago, and now you're laggin'.

Anyhow, what I still call marijuana or weed, now known mostly as cannabis, is recreationally legal in 18 states, and partially legal in 38, I believe.  In total money taken in, the revenue for the cannabis industry was over $25 billion in 2021.  To put that in perspective, the entire revenue for the NFL was around $18 billion last year, and the whole porn industry is estimated to rake in about $15 billion a year in the U.S. .  Weed selling $25 billion... legally.  Not bad for an industry that's fully legal in only 18 states.  California's share of the cannabis market was about $5 billion last year.  Yet another reason for the "West Coast Best Coast slogan," especially since it's legal recreationally in Washington, Oregon, and Nevada, too.  So even when it's only partially legal, weed is legally serious business in the United States.  They also cite a 68% nationwide legalization approval poll in the country, in the video above.  

So while I don't smoke myself, because I'm weird enough without THC, cheers to all my stoner friends out there.  Happy 4/20!  

The Waldos and the real story of how "420" became tied to marijuana/weed/cannabis culture 

Greer Barnes- Weed comedy

420 Comedy compilation

Bob Marley "Smoke Two Joints"

Afroman- "Because I Got High"

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For all of you who are trading stocks because your friend made money on Gamestop or AMC...

So, you or your friends made some "easy money" on Gamestop or AMC on the Robinhood app.  You saw how easy this stock trading game is, and you're planning to make bank, like "make it rain all weekend at the strip club" type money.  You're trying to decide which Lambo to buy next year, and what $6,000 watch will look best with it.  Watch this video.  

Every year Forbes magazine lists the 400 richest people in the United States.  The guy talking in this video, Warren Buffet, and the guy sitting next to him on the stage, Charlie Munger, are both on that list.  Of the 400 wealthiest people in the country, they are the only two who made their fortunes actually investing in stocks.  The only two.  When it comes to stock investing, these guys are Yoda and Obi-Wan.

Warren Buffet is 91 years old now, and he has a net worth of around $125 billion.  Charlie Munger is 98 years old, and has a net worth of $2.6 billion.  When they buy stocks, they plan to hold them forever, if possible.  They are what is called "value investors."  The study hundreds of businesses, figure out which ones they really like for the long term, Then the figure out what a really good price would be to buy stock in those companies.  Then they wait for the stock market to lose interest in those companies, and the price to drop to a price they want to pay.  Then they buy the stock... and hold it.  These two old guys know the game of stocks, they've been in it longer than pretty much anyone alive.  They are, arguably, the two best investors in the United States.  

If you are interest in making money in the stock markets, watch this video.  This is some incredibly solid advice from the best investors in the world.  Warren Buffet shows a list of the 30 biggest companies in the world from 2022.  Then he shows the same list from 1989.  NONE of the 30 biggest companies in 1989 made the 2022 list.  Things change.  So do businesses and the world of business and stocks.  That's his point.  

I started a new blog, check it out:

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The 9Acres clan at The Wheel Mill- This place looks so fun

This place look SO fun!  This video just popped up on YouTube, when I was looking for a new BMX video to check out.  The bikepark is The Wheel Mill in Pittsburgh, and the young riders are the Halahan Clan, who put out #9acres videos.  Just a cool video of indoor jumping in the Midwest.  Special appearance by Chris Doyle.  

I have a new blog, check it out:

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Blog milestones: 800 posts and 135,000 page views

Homer, will you kindly do the honors?  Thanks.

Three years and 11 months ago, in mid May of 2018, around dusk, a group of men with baseball bats and assorted clubs went into a patch of woods in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  The were out there to surround my tent, and threaten to "kick the tent in and teach me a lesson I should have learned a long time ago."  I was in the tent where I lived alone.  I had no weapon, no phone, and no way to record what was happening.  They knew that.  My tent had been searched a few times, and a wall slashed open once.  

The group, of at least 8-10 men, likely more, stomped around outside, hit nearby trees, and the walls of my tent with their clubs, and told me I needed to stop blogging.  The blog that had pissed them off was this one.  Steve Emig: The White Bear blog was about 10 1/2 months old, and had 26 to 28,000 pageviews at the time.  Something like that.  I had started the blog three weeks after moving into the tent, in June of 2017.

When they threatened to beat the shit out of me, my reply was, "Hoka hey, it's a good day to die.  Go for it."  The quote fro mCrazy Horse just popped into my head.  Apparently the guys weren't used to people standing up to them.  After all, this was how The South had been run for over 300 years.  They wound up having a discussion for 15 minutes or so, trying to figure out what to do.  One guy, in a really thick Southern accent, helpfully offered to break all of my fingers so I couldn't type anymore.  

I sat in my large tent, all windows and flaps closed, listening to their conversation, and waiting to see how things would play out.  There was a thunderstorm rolling in, and Carolina storms are the most intense I've ever experienced.  Ultimately, the guys just wandered back to their cars, parked in nearby Bolton Park, I presume.  I hunkered down through another thunderstorm in the tent, and kept on blogging, and drawing my #sharpiescribblestyle drawings for food money.  

There are people in the United States, right now, going to great lengths these days to suppress the free speech of some writers, journalists, artists, film makers, You Tube channel producers, and all kinds of other creative people.  There are thousands of individual creative people, and businesses that produce and promote creative work, fighting for all of our free speech rights every day.  Me?  I just keep drawing pictures, blogging, and trying to make people laugh on social media.  

Thanks for checking out this blog, reading posts, sharing and buying my #sharpiescribblestyle artwork, and supporting me in general.  You guys and gals rock!  

OK, enough celebrating these two little milestones.  Time to go create some more shit...

I have a new blog now, check it out:

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Even more recent Sharpie Scribble Style drawings- 4/16/2022

The Thrasher drawing.  I decided it was time to share my #sharpiescribblestyle with some more people, outside the Old School BMX world.  So I picked an old Thrasher magazine cover, and some pics from Thrasher from the 80's.  The idea was to try and capture the vibe of Thrasher from it's first decade or so, the 1980's and 1990's.  That's Chuck Treece with a layback, my colorization of a black and white photo. I didn't make a copy or scan, and just sent the original to Thrasher.  They also put out Juxtapoz, the coolest art magazine out there.  I had no idea what they would think of my style.  Is it art?  Is it dog shit?  I figured the folks at Thrasher would give me their honest opinion, one way or the other.  This drawing, 18" X 24", got to their office about three weeks ago.  I haven't heard anything yet.  Guess it's time to follow up.  

Sean at H.B. Tuesdays asked me to do this one.  It's the original American motocross legend, Malcom Smith, hauling ass in a panning shot from the late 1960's or early 1970's, I think.  I wasn't sure if I could get the motion to come through in a drawing.  But it turned out pretty well, in my opinion.  These large drawing take me 40-45 hours to draw, on average.  18" X 24".

This is a portrait I just finished and sent out a couple of days ago.  "Papa Jack," for Alma Jo in Texas.  She was one of the first people to buy several drawings from me when I first started selling them, in 2016.  18" X 24".  

Here's a different angle of the Thrasher drawing, showing the layback a bit better.  

 I drew this one, 9" X 12", I think, back in 2019, and sold it to a stand up comic I met while selling my art on Hollywood Boulevard.  "Grind away at ignorance- read, watch, learn, share.  

A couple milestones for this blog.  This is my 800th blog post on this blog, and I'm within a couple dozen page views of hitting 135,000 total page views for this blog.  Cool.  

I have a new blog, check it out:

The Spot Finder      #thespotfinder

More recent Sharpie Scribble Style drawings- 4/16/2022

OK, one Sharpie drawing and another weird skatepark sketch.  Ken from NorCal liked the two "M.C. Escher Skatepark" drawings, and snapped those up.  Then he asked me to draw this drawing of him on a golf course.  The photo was taken on a trip that had a great personal meaning to him, and he was waiting for other golfers to play through.  I loved this huge pine tree in the foreground.  The yellow areas in the grass really pop in the photo, but are blended in better in the actual drawing.  Sometimes certain colors pop really hard in photos with my Sharpie drawings.  Below is a close-up of the tree bark, which took many hours to draw.  This one is 18" X 24", #sharpiescribblestyle.

Another "M.C. Escher Skatepark drawing.  Freehand isometric pen and ink, 9" X 12".  
 

Sharpie Scribble Style drawings from the last year... 4/16/2022

For quite a while, I wanted to draw a set of eyes real big, just to see how it would look in my style.  I asked a Facebook friend if I could draw her eyes, since she had beautiful green ones.  She knew me well enough to not get creeped out, and sent me a few selfies to work from.   To help her green eyes pop, I looked for a way to make the background red or near red.  My idea was that she was peeking through an a hole created by a missing brick, in an old brick wall at her boyfriend, in a broken down part of the city.  But nearly everyone who saw this finish drawing thought it was creepy.  It wasn't meant to be.  

The words in the background in the bricks are a bunch of quotes from music and literature about eyes.  I was actually stoked on the final drawing.  But this is one of the ones I lost when I couldn't afford to keep paying my storage unit rent last year.  Bummer.  I drew this in 2020, or early 2021.  I planed to save this for an art show.  But I lost the original, and never got a copy to my eye model.  18" X 24", #sharpiescribblestyle

This taxi driver drawing was one I did just for myself, to remind me of my 6 1/2 crazy years driving all kinds of people, from homeless people, to a billionaire, from proper church ladies, to porn stars, from stone cold sober, to drunk maniacs.  I lived in my taxi for 5 1/2 of those years, and I have hundreds of pretty crazy stories form those days.  I actually got into a cab one day, and another driver had written "Drive, Die, Cash" behind the visor, on the roof, in pen.  Those three words seemed to sum up taxi driving better than anything else.  Unfortunately, this is another one I lost when I lost my storage unit last fall (2021).  Again... bummer.  But shit happens.  18" X 24"

I did this drawing, and put the original on a skateboard deck, for the 2020 Boozer Jam.  That's an annual BMX jam at Sheep Hills in Costa Mesa, which started as a fundraiser for Mike "Boozer" Brown, who was paralyzed at a race in 2011, I think.  Mike died in 2019, and so the 2020 jam became the first memorial Boozer Jam.  This deck was raffled off, and someone later mounted a small clock in the top of it.  

Not a Sharpie drawing.  This is one of my "M.C. Escher Skatepark" drawings.  It's a freehand pen and ink drawing, blending my high school drafting isometric skills, with a little absurdity.  I started drawing these while working at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, way back in 1986.  I hadn't done any in years, and drew a couple a few months ago.  They were quickly snapped up by a Facebook friend, after I posted them.  9" X 12"

I first drew a Grey alien in about 1998, and started drawing them smoking cigarettes in 2009, I think.  Sparked by learning about NFT's, and all the generated art series, I started drawing a bunch of my aliens small, all with funny sayings.  I even came up with a little backstory on them, and I call them Grey Trash, like trailer park aliens.  These are 5 1/2" by 8 1/2", and done freehand, in my #sharpiescribblestyle.  I've done about 35 of this latest series of these, and I post them on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, from time to time.  

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A very intelligent look at why IQ scores are over-hyped and used so often for oppression

Tash here does a great job of describing where IQ scores came from, how complex intelligence is, and how IQ scores have been used for oppression for over 100 years now.  Great job on this, Tash!  

History of the I.Q. test by Professor Patrick Grim 

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Swampfest 2022 edits... Southern Fried BMXin'

Swampfest 2022 just happened in Florideah again, brought to the world by Trey Jones and his posse.  The weather drove the festivities inside for much of the weekend, but didn't dampen the enthusiasm for BMX.  Here's the Our BMX edit of the weekend.  

Dig BMX Edit of Swampfest 2022

Be Weird edit of Swampfest 2022

Dern Skateboarding edit of Swampfest 2022

Tunnel Challenge- Our BMX edit

Tire Ride Challenge- Our BMX edit

Fast and Loose Bowl Jam- Our BMX Edit

The Daily Woo edit of Swampfest 2022 - This guy does a YouTube channel of all kinds of weird and unusual places and events, and is not from the BMX world and doesn't have a BMX background.  He had no idea what the event was all about, other than BMX riding, I think.  He got about half BMX in this edit, of a couple events,  The other half is redneckpalooza-type craziness with fireworks, motorcycles, and impromptu mud bogging with the John Deere side by side.  He even takes a firework hit to the arm.  While there's a lot less BMX than the other edits, this one is pretty entertaining, and shows what the rest of us already knew, BMXers are a pretty fucked up tribe.  That's why events like Swampfest exist.  

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Things that are going to happen in the 2020's...

The decade of the 2020's started much like any other.  It kind of crept in quietly.  Most people thought things would go on as they always had.  And then...

We are now 27 months into the Tumultuous 2020's, probably the craziest decade any of us alive now will ever see.  On August 9, 2019, I wrote the blog post below, explaining trends playing out that I thought would turn the 2020's into a really crazy decade.  Check out the second to last paragraph in that post:

A Beginner's Guide to the Next Great Recession

When I wrote that post, the business media was saying that we might have a mild recession in 2020.  Nothing to really worry about.  As a lifelong student of long term trends, cycles, and futurist thinking, I knew they were wrong.  I just wasn't sure how wrong.  In September 2019, the Repo Market crisis happened, and the U.S. banking system seized up, and a continuous, low key bailout of the banking system began.  It's still going on now.  But everyday life didn't change much, most people barely noticed the Repo Market crisis.  Then Covid happened six months later.  As we all know, everyday life changed dramatically, for almost everyone.  2020 seemed like the craziest year ever... until 2021 happened.  

One of the big, underlying trends, is what the futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler called The Third Wave.  Very simply, we are making the long, sticky, messy transition from the Industrial Age into the Information Age.  Many of our businesses and institutions have made the transition, like high tech and much of the media.  Many other parts of society are still working from an Industrial Age mindset and business models.  Like the difference between shopping at Sear's 30 years ago, and shopping online or on phone today.  Old school businesses and parts of our world are breaking down, and new versions, usually using lots of tech, are being created, and growing.  This is happening all around us, in schools, colleges, banking, government, political parties, and organizations of all kinds.  It's really stressful to all of us.  I call this The Big Freakin' Transitition.  With this concept as a background, I see a lot of trends headed our way before they become really obvious.

2020 and 2021 have been nuts.  So where do things go now?  Here are some of the main things I believe will happen in the 7 years and 9 months left of this decade:

Prices on most things keep going up, though slower- For a whole bunch of reasons, it appears that prices on much of what we buy will keep going up for many more months.  The money supply has been greatly increased, that's the big reason.  I think inflation will stay pretty high, but slow down as we head into another recessionary wave.  Stocks and real estate should drop quite a bit later this year.  But I think consumer goods will keep rising.  I wrote this yesterday, and the inflation rate came in at 8.5%, highest since 1981, this morning.  Figure out how to earn more money people, because prices will keep rising for quite a while to come.  

Another, bigger, "recession"- Simply put, we didn't let the 2020 recession (actually a depression, by definition) do its job.  Recessions generally weed out poorly run businesses, small and large, and lead to more innovation and new business and social models.  Instead, everyone, EVERY PERSON, EVERY BUSINESS, got bailed out, in some way, in 2020 and 2021.  Because the entire banking system has been continually bailed out (and still is), we all got bailed out, in addition to stimulus checks, PUA, PPP, and other money the federal government handed out.  So another recession was inevitable, and we're heading into it now (April 2022).  This one won't be as deep, but it will be much longer, and harder to crawl out of.

Real estate slowdown- Instead of crashing during the 2020 downturn, the trillions in newly created dollars fueled the real estate market to go completely nuts.  A low inventory of houses, millennial FOMO, and corporate/high tech home buying threw it into hyper drive.  In early 2022, that is slowing down, and as interest rates keep going up (already up 1.5% from 6 months ago) I believe we'll see a dramatic slowing down in real estate, and price drops in most areas, in late 2022 and into 2023.  

The College Apocalypse- After a conversation about colleges, with a couple friends in 2017, I looked into why student loan debt has soared so much since the Great Recession.  The reason is because since 2009, student loans have been sold and repackaged as investments (called SLABS), just like the infamous "sub prime" home loans in the 2000's.  Those sparked the Great Recession.  Right now, banks and institutional investors are sitting on over $1 trillion in student loan SLABS (investments), which are pretty much worthless, because hardly anyone is paying their loans back right now.  The system is in crisis already.  This isn't something in the future, this is where we are at now.  This will eventually lead to some colleges and universities going out of business, or closing smaller branch campuses.  This has happened already happened to dozens of small colleges.  Ultimately, I think we'll see 20% to 40% of today's colleges and universities close down in the 2020's and early 2030's, much like what already happened in the Retail Apocalypse. 

Student Loan Debt Crisis/restructuring- Student loan debt is crushing Millennials, and older generations, too.  It is one of the biggest, possibly the biggest drag, on the consumer economy.  We will have to find a better way to pay for college, if we want people to keep attending colleges in large numbers.  In addition, college itself will have to restructure into a model that works in today's high tech based, hyper-communication enabled world, where most information is available for free.  A complete restructuring of the higher education financing system simply must happen.  This will take 10-15 years to play, I believe.  It's just getting started now.

Eds and Meds ghost towns of the 2020's- When colleges and universities do start closing down in numbers, this will have a major effect on the cities where these schools are located.  These days, years after the loss of high paying factory jobs, a lot of small and mid-sized cities are known as "Eds and Meds" towns.  That means the local college or university, as well as the hospitals, are the main employers in town.  There are probably 100-150 cities in this category across the U.S..  When colleges get shut down, many of these cities, will shrink dramatically.  I believe most of these will be the second and third tier cities, far from the major cities and large metro areas.  Put it this way, if your mall and your discount store have shut down, check to see how strong your local college is.  There will be a lot of ghost towns ten years from now.  

Blockchain/crypto goes mainstream- The global banking system crashed in 2008, and hasn't been truly functional since. We've basically been in continual bailout mode, since, living on the government's credit card, so to speak.  While the central bank centered, worldwide banking system uses a ton of high technology, the basic structure of banks goes back to the Medici days of the 1400's.  Crypto, smart contracts, decentralized finance models (DeFi), NFT's and all kinds of new fintech have been invented and implemented since.  Since the banking system doesn't work well for MOST people at this point, we will all keep trying to models, until we find a system, using many of these building blocks, that works in today's world.  It will be pretty chaotic for a while, as some of these things go mainstream, and others fall by the wayside.  10-15 years from now, we will have a completely different worldwide monetary system, and it WILL NOT be based on central bank digital currencies.  We probably won't have central banks at all.  

What will this system look like?  I have no idea.  But many of the technologies, like crypto, phone based payment systems, and other pieces of today's world, will be parts of it.  Again, the old system is breaking down, and a new system is being built, like in every other industry that hasn't made the transition already.  

A new standard money- Warren Buffet, one of the world's best investors, recently said that the U.S. dollar has lost 94% of its value, in his lifetime (he's 91).  The Fed is testing a "digital dollar" it will try to force on us soon.  That's fact, you can google it.  But a central bank digital currency, any of them, will be an even more fiat form of fiat currency,  They ARE NOT cryptos.  And they won't work for the long term.  They'll just lead to hyper inflation and more problems, most likely.  We will have some new form of currency in the coming years, but we don't know what it will actually be.  Or we may have many private-based currencies, because right now, a lot of people have more faith in things like Bitcoin and Ethereum than central bank digital currencies.  Basically, the world will figure out some new kind of currency that will actually work in today's hyper connected world.  We just don't know what it will be... yet.

  

A heck of a lot of protests, marches, and a few riots- The U.S. Constitution acknowledged that all people have certain inalienable rights, rights which CAN NOT be taken away by legislation or the government.  But, in practice, many groups are harassed or have been victims of all kinds of prejudice for decades.  We've seen Black, gay, and trans rights groups rising up a lot in the last couple of years.  We will see many more groups fight for rights that have been stripped of them in previous decades.  Simply said, I believe there will be a lot more protests, and fights for legal rights for many more minority groups in society.  These may include immigrants, the homeless and poverty stricken, old people, young people, artists, thinkers, and creative people, and several small ethnic minorities.  This will be a big decade for social movements and social change, in general.

Change.  If there is one word to sum up what I call the Tumultuous 2020's, that word is change.  

These are not the only things that will happen in the next 8 or 9 years.  But these are some of the biggest trends I see headed our way, ones that will affect a large number of people.  These are my thoughts.  If they makes sense to you plan accordingly going into our weird and wild future.

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What this blog is about these days...

The emerging sport of BMX freestyle is what took my life in a different direction as I hit adulthood.  This is me, doing a Robert Peterson inspired balance trick on my Skyway T/A, at the Boise Fun Spot, in Boise Idaho, in the Summer of 1985.  While other kids my age were going to college, I spent 2-3 or more hours a day as a dork, learning to do tricks on a "little kid's bike." The road less taken.  Photo by Vaughn Kidwell.

Getting into BMX riding, and racing in 1982, and then the weird, new, little sport of BMX freestyle in 1983-84, was what took my life in a totally different direction.  That set me on a much different trajectory than my friends in Boise.  I wound up spending my 20's around a bunch of highly creative, highly entrepreneurial weirdos, who wound up being founding fathers and mothers of the action sports revolution.  Fueled by punk rock music, the need to ride and skate, cheap beer, and the Do It Yourself ethic, we forged new paths in the world.  Collectively, we created entire new sports, took them global, and built industries to support them.  Some people played major roles, some people smaller roles.  But everyone who rode, skated, or did action sports in the 80's and 90's, and since, it part of that revolution.  As we grew older, action sports became lifestyle sports, and many people are still doing them, in their 50's and 60's.  

While I unfortunately got sidetracked from riding and skating for the last 20 years, BMX freestyle and a bit of skateboarding, and hanging out and working with people those worlds, set the course of my adult life.  At 20 years old, I was writing articles and proofreading two worldwide magazines, rather than learning about writing in a class.  Rather than the classroom learning of most 20-somethings in Gen X, I learned by doing, as well as reading 250 or 300 books along the way.  I've also listened to a couple hundred more books and courses on audio cassettes.  In more recent years, my learning has come mostly from YouTube and Google searches, looking up whatever I needed to learn to do my next project or idea.  

Me in front of the Brady Bunch House, in 2021, with my Covid mask.  I finally went to find this iconic house, and wrote a couple of blog posts about it.

Now, 37 years after that photo at the top, I'm now a homeless guy in Southern California who does a unique form of Sharpie art, writes more blogs posts than just about anyone, except Seth Godin, and predicts major stock market trends before they happen, on occasion.  These days, here's what interests me most, and the main themes of this blog.

Old School BMX freestyle- I've written over 1,000 posts about BMX freestyle, and I still write some now and then.  I also write about skateboarding now and then, and action sports in general.

Sharpie Scribble Style art- I scribble with Sharpie markers, creating drawings that may or may not be cool.  It depends who you ask.  But they take a long time, and usually look pretty cool.   #sharpiescribblestyle

Futurist thinking- I've always been someone who looked at the Big Picture, and far off into the future, trying to figure out where things are going, and economics,  We are in a major transition period for society as a whole, and I write about these themes a lot.  

Writing- I'm more of a writer than anything else.  It's been over 36 years since I published my first zine, and I've written more in total, and had much of my writing actually read, than many published novelists.  So I have thoughts to share on writing and creativity.

Creativity and its role in society- New stuff, from weird art, to economic growth, comes from people who create new things.  The importance of creativity in today's society is a big interest of mine.

NFT's and crypto- These technologies, as over-hyped as they are, are making huge changes in what is possible, and how our world functions.  I'm new to these worlds, but very interested in what's happening, and learning more and more about them.  

Those are my main themes in this blog these days.   I bounce around between them.  And I go off on tangents to write a post on other stuff, now and then.  If none of these things interest you, you're reading the wrong blog.  I'm banned from linking any of my posts on Facebook and Instagram, because of "community standards" whiners.  Fuckin' bitches.  But I link all my posts on Twitter, @steveemig43 . Thanks for reading.  This blog is creeping up on 800 blog posts, and 135,000 page views, so thank you for checking it out.

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The Number 43 and BMX... what I know...

I don't know who Dick Cheeseburger is, but a 43 foot jump is a 43 foot jump.  So how did the number 43 wind up tied to BMX?  Here's what I know.  

For any of you new to my blog, when I write about the old days of BMX freestyle and skateboarding, I write my own personal memories and ideas.  I never intend my blog posts to be "the official word" on any subject.  So these thoughts on how the number 43 became the official lucky number of BMX freestyle are my thoughts, and the part of the story I know something about.  

43 in an address in Hollywood.  #steveemigphotos

For me, personally, I had an affinity for the number 43 before it became a thing in BMX.  I was a 5-year-old living in some low income duplexes in about 1971.  We lived in Jackson Township, just outside of Massillon, Ohio.  One day a neighbor lady told us the number 13 was an "unlucky number."  Being little kids, we asked her, "Why?"  Like most adults, when asked "why?" she didn't have an answer.  So us little kids spent some time talking about lucky and unlucky numbers.  Being a contrarian, even at ae 5, I decided that 13 would be my lucky number.  So we decided to pick some other lucky numbers.  43 was our first pick, because that was the sketchy UHF TV channel in our area that played scary monster movies, old time B movies.  "43 just sounds like a cool number," we thought.  We also picked 27, and 57.  So 13, 43, 27, and 57 seemed like the best "lucky numbers" to us 5-year-olds in Ohio back then.  For my childhood years, 43 was my back-up lucky number, behind 13.  We even noticed that odd numbers just seemed cooler than even numbers, for some reason, a pretty cool insight for kindergarten kids.  

My family moved nearly every year as I grew up, and we wound up in Boise, Idaho, when I started high school, several years later.  We lived in the Centennial subdivision of Boise for my sophomore year, then moved to a mobile home park outside of town the next year.  The plan was for my parents to save a bunch of money for a year or two, and then buy a house in Boise.  Unlike most of my parents' financial plans, that one actually worked.  After a year out in the boonies in the trailer park, they bought a really cool house in town.  

This one's for Drob, aka Maurice Meyer, who's kind of become the Godfather of 43.  He also likes building models.  #steveemigphotos

But that year living in the "desert," in Blue Valley trailer park, is where I got into BMX.  There were a bunch of us teenage guys, only about 4 teen girls, and not much to do, and we all had crappy BMX bikes.  Since we were isolated outside of town, we just started pushing each other to get better riding our bikes on our little jumps.  By late 1982, we got into BMX racing, and I was a serious 17 novice racer when we moved back into town in the summer of 1983.  I never made it out of the novice class, because I was usually racing intermediates, and even experts, at times.  Boise may seem like an unlikely place for a serious racing scene in the early 80's,   But Shannon Gillette, now working at USA BMX, was one of the guys a couple years younger than me, in the local Boise racing scene, at the time.  Clint Davies and Darwin Hansen, also Boise locals, did well in national races back then.   

So what does Boise have to do with the number 43?  By some weird coincidence, Boise sits just above 43 degrees of northern latitude.  Without realizing it until a couple of years ago, I got into BMX while living at 43 degrees of latitude.  That's also why there is now a Hotel 43 in Boise.  That's just another weird little 43 thing in my personal life.  Us Boise locals, and a bunch of riders across the top of the U.S., from New Hampshire to Oregon, started riding at, or around, 43 degrees of northern latitude.  Some of you reading this may be in that group.

Is an angel approving of my sausage biscuit and Diet Coke breakfast?  Probably not.  #steveemigphotos

By late 1983, I got more into freestyle, though I raced a lot of indoor races over the winter of 1983-84.  I joined the local trick team with Jay Bickel, in the Spring of 1984, and was all freestyle after that.  A year later, my dad got laid off, and found a new job in San Jose, California.  By late August in 1985, I was living in San Jose with my family.  I started a BMX freestyle zine, and found the local riders around the San Francisco Bay Area.  I rode mostly by myself during the week, and met up with other riders at Golden Gate Park in The City, and Beach Park Ramp Jams, on the weekends, when I could. 

At that time, The Curb Dogs, led by Dave Vanderspek, was a San Francisco bike/skate team that was as famous in the BMX world as the Haro, GT, and Skyway factory teams.  Skyway was the main NorCal based freestyle team.  Robert Peterson, Hugo Gonzalez, and Oleg Konings were on Skyway in 1986, and Maurice Meyer was both a Curb Dog, and a Skyway team member.  The number 43 became an inside joke among the Curb Dogs in 1986, and it began growing from there.  

In the summer of 1986, Maurice Meyer was profiled for a local TV show, called Pacific Currents.  The segment focused on the always underrated Maurice, which is way cool.  In the Golden Gate Park footage, Karl Rothe, Chris Rothe, Mark McKee, Darcy Langlois, Tim Treacy, and myself (chasing bike at 5:07), are in there as well.  This piece was shot in June or July of 1986, and the 43 thing had not happened yet.  Shortly after this piece was shot, in late July 1986, I moved to Southern California, to work at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  

I asked Maurice Meyer to check out this post, and he retold me the origin story.  A San Francisco skater named Rob's dad came home from the corner store and said, with a thick Persian accent, "How come every thing I buy there ends up in 43 cents?"  It was funny the way he said it, and stuck in Rob's head.  He started noticing the number 43 around, as well, and share the story with skater friends, and the Curb Dogs and other locals.  So it began as a weird inside joke in 1986, in the S.F. skate/BMX freestyle scene.  Maurice turned shared an article in a Scandinavian mag, here and here, that recounts the original story.  

One weird little inside joke turned into a worldwide thing in the BMX freestyle and skate subcultures.  #steveemigphotos

A couple of months later, in September or October '86, the NorCal crew came to SoCal, and stopped by Wizard Publications, where I worked.  Out in the parking lot, after work, the Wizard crew talked with the NorCal posse, about 15 or so riders.  Karl Rothe asked me how my new job, as a magazine guy, was going.  I told him that I had just transcribed a super long interview with Skyway pro, and NorCal local, Robert Peterson, "It was like 43 pages when I typed it all up."  Karl, said, "Whoa, 43!"  I had no idea what he was talking about.  The interview was 41 1/2 or 42 1/2 pages when transcribed, but I rounded up to 43 when Karl asked, for some reason.  

The 43 origin story, from a Scandinavian magazine

Karl dragged me over to the rest of the guys, and had me tell them that Bert's interview was about 43 pages long when transcribed.  I asked what the big deal about 43 was, and they said that the number had been popping up all over for them, so it was like this inside joke among 20 or 30 NorCal BMXers and skaters at that point.  In the course of riding and hanging out, the word of the 43 thing slowly spread, like it did to me and the Wizard staff, that night in the parking lot.

As time passed in the late 80's, the affinity for the number 43 spread from the Curb Dogs to the Skyway team (including Eddie Roman and Mat Hoffman), and to other freestylers.  In 1990, I put a big 43 on the back of my video box for The Ultimate Weekend.  It said, "43 reasons to buy or rent this video." and listed the names of the riders in it, and the big tricks in the video.  While my video wasn't a BMX blockbuster by any means, pretty much all the serious riders of the day saw it at some point.  There were very few videos out then.  By then seeing the number 43 randomly was seen as a bit of good luck by a lot of freestylers.  

Tom Green skates, and he's knows what's up.

I think what really got the number 43 in more people's heads was Eddie Roman's 1991 video Headfirst, starring Mat Hoffman.  At 20:38 in the video, Eddie asks Mat how much money he makes a week,  Mat says, "A million, billion, quadrillion dollars, and 43.  Aaaagh 43!"  That little clip, in the most influential BMX video of all time, probably did more to promote the number 43 in BMX freestyle than anything else.  Suddenly 43 was pretty much every rider's lucky number.  And the 43 thing just kept on growing.  

The 43 story in BMX is a lot like the 420 story in marijuana/cannabis/weed culture.  Something that started as a weird, little inside joke among a few friends, slowly grew into this worldwide thing in the subculture.  I love the idea of that, how a little inside joke can organically grow, spread widely, and become a part of the subculture.  So that's my take, with thanks to Maurice Meyer, on how the number 43 became the official lucky number of BMX freestylers worldwide.

A few people, including Drob, reminded me that John Malkovich lives in apartment number 43, in the movie, Being John Malkovich.  That movie, of course, was directed by Spike Jonze, who took my old job at Wizard Publications, and knew the 43 thing well from his years as a rider and BMX photographer.  I couldn't find a shot of the actual door, though.  Just watch the movie again.

Mat Hoffman lands his first 900 at 14:43 in this video.  This is my footage, shot at the 2-Hip King of Vert in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in the Spring of 1989.  I shot the raw footage, and Eddie Roman edited it, and did the funny commentary, with some friends for the 2-Hip video, Ride Like a Man.

Brian Tunney- 43 Tricks for my 43rd  birthday

Area 43 BMX Park

Area 43 snowboarding

OFG (Old Fat Guys) BMX podcast #43 - Scotty Zabielski and friend.  

Flatopia 43

The Big Bang Theory- "The 43 Peculiarity"

Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion (April 2022)

Movie 43- This looks horrible, but has a bunch of big stars, including Johnny Knoxville, who's part of the Jackass posse, which includes Spike Jonze.  

Angel Number 43 - According to this video, 43 is a number sent to you by angels.  So angels must love BMX freestyle and skating.  Cool.

Learn the number 43

43 card- Manipulator of Souls in Yu-Gi-Oh!

43 decimal stuff- If you like the number 43, are a math geek, and speak Hindi, this might make sense to you.

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie) says the meaning of life is 42.  But it began as a comedy radio broadcast in 1978.  BMX freestyle had not officially become a thing then.  It was in its embryonic stage.  So the guy who wrote it couldn't possibly have known that the real meaning of life is 43, unless he had been hanging out with Bob Haro, which he wasn't.

Hip Hop Mix 43

Is 43 always a luck number?  No.  George W. Bush was the 43rd President of the United States.

The Hollywood American Legion sign.  I'm still trying to figure out how to steal this thing and put it in Drob's backyard.  Heh, heh, heh.  43.  Now go ride.

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