BMX Action Trick Team founder, one of the first freestylers ever, and Redline, General, and Bully pro, R.L. Osborn. AFA Masters, Columbus, Ohio, 1986.
In the middle of August of 1985, Idaho freestyler Jay Bickel and I were the Critical Condition Stunt Team, the only BMX freestyle team in the state of Idaho. I was the 1985, 17 & Over flatland champion of Idaho (there were two of us in the comp). We lived for the day that FREESTYLIN' magazine would show up in the mail, and we'd each read the whole thing, even the ads, that night. Sometimes we'd read the whole thing twice, then Jay and I would meet up the next day and talk about all the new stuff in the mag. That was life for a BMX freestyler outside of California in 1985. No matter what state or country you lived in, besides California, it was the same thing, waiting all month for that issue of FREESTYLIN' to show up, because that was the only info we got about freestyle,
Eleven and a half months later, I walked into an office against the back wall of Wizard Publications, located at 3162 Kashiwa Street, in Torrance, California (I still remember that address). It was my office. Lew's was next door, Gork's was 30 feet away, and R.L.'s office was maybe 40 feet away. In less than a year I went from a goofball biker in B.F. Idaho, to an editorial assistant, and the official proofreader of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. It still blows me away that that happened. The next night, I followed my new roommate/co-worker, Mark "Lew" Lewman down to The Spot, the local flatland session area by the Redondo Beach Pier.
I've just finished a Club Homeboy-style goodie pack, the start of the Freestyle BMX Tales zine series, featuring two handmade zines, each 48 pages. That's 96 freakin' zine pages of stories about riding at The Spot in Redondo, and thoughts on how what was then the tiny little sport of BMX freestyle has spread worldwide since. You can order the two-zine pack, which comes with some cheap ass, homemade, custom stickers, at the bottom of this post. Here's one of the stories featured in zine #2:
Teaching R.L. Osborn a Trick
I've met a lot of people who say that "famous people are just people, to me they're the same as everyone else." There's a lot of truth to that. But not completely. Famous people became famous for a reason. Sure, it might not be a good reason. The Kardashians are mostly "famous for being famous." But to get there, they learned how to play the internet/social media game better than most. I have no interest in them. But a large number of people in pre-internet days were famous because they actually did something. Actors acted classic roles in major movies that millions of people saw. Musicians sang or played on albums millions listened to, and on and on. Professional athletes developed skill and talent to compete at a very high level.
A lot of people who are famous worked really hard to get good at something, and then became famous for that skill at some point. They moved beyond the realm of "normal" people. In my younger years, I wanted to know what made those people different from everyone else. Later on, I wanted to meet and hang out with famous people to learn what they did that I wasn't doing.
When I got into freestyle, and learned there was a hardcore entrepreneurial side to it, R.L. Osborn became the guy I most looked up to as a model of what I wanted to try and become. I wanted to be a clean cut, professional BMX freestyler, a guy who could get business people and city leaders to take our weird little sport seriously. Then, suddenly, I went form making 57 pizzas in four hours at Pizza Hut to having an office 40 feet away from R.L.'s office, and riding with him at The Spot a couple of nights a week. It took me quite a while to just see him as R.L., the guy, and not R.L. the famous pro freestyler entrepreneur.
One night while riding, most everyone had taken off back home. I think Chris Day was whipping boomerangs at one end of The Spot, and R.L. and I were practicing, each doing our own thing, near the other end. At the time, I had a weird little tailwhip variation I was working on. I was starting to do tailwhips differently. The original, Brian Blyther tailwhip started with crossing a leg over the top tube to the other side of the bike, and jamming that foot behind the front wheel, then kicking the frame around with the other foot.
I think I was trying to learn Pinky squeaks, a Switzerland squeaker and tailwhips together, created by Gary "Pinky" Pollak. So I would do a brake endo, jump up to my feet on the top tube, and push the frame around counter-clockwise with my right foot, and drop my left foot down to the back of the tire. I'd figured out this cool little variation. I crossed my right foot behind my left leg as the frame was coming around, I'd hit my back brake, and catch the right pedal with my right foot, then lift my left foot, cross it over the frame, and set it on the left pedal. So I did a flatland tailwhip, but ended smoothly back in an endo posistion with my feet on the pedals. This would be the ideal way to do a nosepick tailwhip, but those weren't invented yet.
So I was practicing those, what I called a "back can tailwhip." The term "Nac-Nac," a can-can behind the other leg off a jump, hadn't been invented yet, either. From behind me I heard, "Hey, what was that?" It was R.L.. I didn't realize what I had done. It was just a new thing I'd been doing about a week, and it never occurred to me that it was a cool trick. But R.L. liked the look of it. He rolled over to where I was.
Suddenly, I found myself teaching a trick to R.L.Osborn, whose how-to's I'd read in magazines, and the guy I most wanted to emulate in freestyle. My self-esteem was low enough back then that I never really felt like I was "really" part of the Golden Gate Park scene the year I rode with those guys. I wasn't good enough, but dreamed of getting there someday. All of the sudden, I'm teaching one of my variations to one of the top pros, and a pioneer of freestyle. It was totally surreal for me.
I went through the trick a couple of times, showed R.L. the moves, and then coached him as he tried it two or three times, figured out the weird leg movement, and landed it. This is what was so cool about freestyle back then, and still is to this day, through maybe not quite as much. You couldn't be a kid today at the local basketball court and have Lebron or Curry come down and say, "Hey, what was the move you just did?" It's just not going to happen, or maybe it could happen to one high school superstar in a million. But never to a mediocre kid who's a bit creative. But in BMX freestyle, and other always-progressing action sports, this kind of thing happens all the time.
So that's one little piece of the 96 pages worth of zines that I've just come out with. Many of you remember my Freestyle BMX Tales blog, now I'm starting a series of zines by that name. I want actual, physical, tangible copies of some of my best old school freestyle stories out there in the world. And I'm homeless right now, so I don't have the resources to put out an actual book right now. I'm a zine guy, going back 33 years now, so that's what I'm doing. You all know that zines, by their very nature, are collector's items. People keep zines. OK, I lost all of mine in a move, which really sucked. But most people keep zines.
So I'm charging a fair amount of money for this, and trying to make it worthwhile for all of you, and for me. These are huge zines, as zines go, and each will be signed and numbered in the order people order them, because I plan to become as famous as J.K. Rowling someday, just so you can sell these zines on Ebay for $1,000 each. OK, not really. But they will be signed and numbered anyway.
If you would like these first two zines full of stories about The Spot in Redondo Beach, you can Paypal me $15 to: stevenemig13@gmail.com . ("steven" not steve, there's a "v" in there). Add your mailing address in the info. Or email or Facebook it to me.
That includes shipping in the continental U.S.. If you're outside the "48" but in North America, make it $20. If you're in the U.K., Australia, or New Zealand, make it $25 U.S.. OK? Order one today. Or ten. If you're really brave, you can paypal me $35 and get The Spot zine pack, AND a one year membership to Club White Bear. I'm not sure what that includes yet, except you'll get 6 CWB zines each year, and discounts on my art. And more. But you'd have to be kinda crazy to send that much money to a homeless dude. But it you're the adventurous type, go for it...
These zines are pretty cool, and sleeping in an open doorway of an abandoned building in the winter is getting old. When I get a room, I'll have more time to write and draw more cool shit.
I'm going to be sharing most of my old school BMX stories on the new Block Bikes Blog from now on, check it out...
