Over the last couple of years, Reventure Consulting founder Nick Gerli has built an amazing app to look at residential real estate all over the United States. In this video, out a few days ago, he takes a look at where prices are likely to go up, and likely to go down, around the state of California. Hint: Here in SoCal, the region from downtown L.A. west through Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Santa Monica is going one direction, and Orange County is doing the opposite. Watch the video to see his overview of the state, and then check out Reventure App to check our neighborhood.
There are no paid links in this post.
I'm doing most of my writing on a platform called Substack now, which was designed specifically for writers. Check it out:
Selfie, looking west, from my spot on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. This is where I'm selling art now, Hollywood and Highland. My selfies always look weird for a couple of reasons, 1) I'm in them, and 2) After 20 years of not being able to afford dental insurance (and eating too much sugar before that), I have a mouthful of broken teeth, so I don't smile.
All that aside, I headed to Orange County a couple months ago to find a place to sell my artwork, continue selling my stuff online (it's selling in Europe now, thanks to Sven from Norway, Thanks Sven!), and rebuild my life into something that looks like an actual life again. But my Paypal got frozen as soon as I started to make a little money, for reasons I still don't know. Like an idiot, I forgot to change my phone number to my current one months ago, and I have a thrashed ID. So I couldn't do the quick fix to get access to my Paypal account right away. So I got stuck having to sell art for cash... somewhere... while I work those issues out. I tried Laguna Beach, during their First Thursday Art Walk, and people liked my work. But no buyers. So I looked for places I could set up for no money, in my sketchy-ass situation, and hopefully make cash. Much to my surprise, Hollywood came through as the best spot. So now, 24 years after my last summer wrestling the American Gladiators (and being a crew guy), I'm on Hollywood Boulevard with the street performing dancers and rappers, a few artists/craftspeople, people in costumes taking photos with tourists, Mexican ladies selling water and bacon-wrapped hotdogs, and the pantheon of Hollywood weirdos and wandering crackheads.
Hollyweird is so weird, that things like a guy carrying a guitar while walking his baby goat (for real), barely get noticed. It may even be weirder than Venice Beach, these days. In any case, I'm selling a little bit of art each day, not really making enough to survive yet, but getting there. The people who actually stop to check out my Sharpie art (#sharpiescribblestyle) actually like it, and I get a lot of compliments. But I can't take compliments across the street and buy a slice of pizza. It's been rough week and a half, I've lost 14 pounds, but I'm used to rough. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this place. Hopefully sales will pick up, and I can get my fat, smelly butt off the streets, into a room, and work towards "real life" once again.
It doesn't get anymore iconic Hollywood than Marilyn Monroe's star, which is in front of... McDonald's. Really. Hollywood, just east of Highland.
Everyone's workplace gets a little Goofy now and then. Mine gets a little Goofy, and Minnie, too. Bootlegging a tourist pic, of the mall "tunnel" at Hollywood and Highland. The Hollywood sign is actually (though barely) visible in just below that bottom rectangle of sky in the background. When there are tourists on that bottom bridge, they block the view from this angle.
My set up right now, to get started. 11" X 14" drawing of Frida Kahlo on deck. When you're homeless and have to carry everything you own wherever you go, it's best not to own much. Hopefully a room (with a bed and nice hot shower) is in my near future... Life is weird, and sometimes you just have to start over, right where you are, with just what you've got. I'm doing just that... again. #sharpiescribblestyle
In early 2008, singer/songwriter extraordinaire, Kerry Getz, managed to get three members of the legendary Wrecking Crew and some friends to perform in the Anaheim, Marriott lobby. Why? It was during the huge NAMM music trade show. I was siting on a couch next to Jerry Cole's wife and her friend, watching this performance live, fifteen feet away. That was an epic experience. A decade later, I've been doing some California dreamin'.
About ten months ago, I came here to this city in Central North Carolina to focus on turning my artwork and writing into a small business. It's been sketchy as hell, months in a tent, a colder winter than usual here, but I'm now making a little bit of money consistently. It's time to start looking ahead to trying to get out of the tent and into a room of some sort. In my situation, the next step is usually a "cheap" motel where I can rent a room by the month. In reality, "cheap" motels are anything but cheap. No deposits, no credit check, that part's good. But the cheapest one here is $740 a month. The cheapest with wifi is $800 a month. I MIGHT be able to rent a room in a house for $450 to $600 a month. But thee are very few of those.
Just on a lark, I pulled up Craigslist for Orange County, California. There are a lot of rooms for $500 to $700 a month. Not in the hood, either, I know that area, they're in decent locations. I literally could put a roof over my head in Orange County, California for the same amount of money that I could here in the Triad area of NC. Except, there is 1,000 times more opportunity to make money out there.
On the bus back to the area where I "live," it dawned on me that I don't have a fucking single reason to stay in North Carolina at this point. OK, I have one good friend I hang out with. My family is here, but I rarely see them. There's a cool art scene here, but that's it.
I'm trapped here until mid June, when I have a court date from my trespassing arrest. I could wind up with some other kind of punishment for my actions. I'm not sure how things work here. But after that, there's literally not a fucking reason to stay here. Hmmmmmmm...
Decisions, decisions. I'll think it over as I spend another night in a tent during another Carolina thunderstorm.
Update: I managed to get a room that night and miss that particular thunderstorm. Still not sure about the future, though...
Check out my art in person or create a project of your own while here in Winston-Salem at Designs, Vines, and Wines.
I started this post to simply link to this Washington Post article about why it costs so much to be poor in the U.S.. It popped up on my home page, and I just read the whole thing. It goes into detail about many of the ways that people get screwed with fees and higher interest rates because they don't have an excess of money. As a veteran blogger, I know that adding a video makes a post look more interesting. I quickly found the video clip above. There's a reason I picked it.
So... I woke up in my own tent this morning, after a night of rain. I was given the tent a few days after coming to this city by a personal trainer I met while filling up my water bottle in a park. He guessed that I was homeless, and told me he'd had to live in his car for a couple of months while getting his training business going. Personal drama from an ex led to his situation, and he told me about his battle to get going again financially. I told him I'd applied for a whole bunch of jobs, and only got one call back, from a fast food place. Once the manager met me, she changed her mind.
I told him the only thing that was making me any money was my weird and unique style of artwork with Sharpie markers. After talking for ten minutes or so, the guy said, "You want a tent?" It was several years old, but was big and roomy. I thanked him, and hiked into a patch of woods to put it up. I've been living in that tent for about six of the last eight months. In that time, I've been able to get an art show at a local music shop, and next week I'll have one or more drawings up in a gallery downtown, for our city's First Friday art walk. I've been making steady money from my artwork, just not enough to get me out of the tent and into one of the "cheap" motel rooms they talk about in the article. I'm at the point where I'm going to step up my art and writing, again, to the next level, which should get me out of my wet tent and into a room.
But let's go back to the video above. I picked it for a reason. Way back in 2002, I was living in a small room that a Mexican-American family built on the side of their house. My rent was $200 a month, and I was reading voraciously then, and looking for a way to get back into a better job, but I didn't have a car. If I had a car then, I could have started working freelance on TV shows or movies for $100 to $200 a day. But my car got towed a couple years before.
After taxi driving for a while, and other odd jobs, I wound up living in Garden Grove, California, a couple miles from Disneyland. Out of desperation, I started going to the nearest Labor Ready day labor office. I woke up about 4:00 am, took a cold shower (they didn't have hot water hooked up for my bathroom), and then I walked a couple of miles to Labor Ready. I walked up the bike path next to the Santa Ana River, which is a big ditch most of the time, but fills up with water during the winter rainy season. The part of the bike path I walked is the exact same part that is filled with homeless people's tents in the video above. There was no tent city there in 2002, although there were homeless people living nearby.
I would make it to Labor Ready about 5:00 am, and get in the line of people looking for work. At 5:30 am, the office opened, and we'd walk in, sign the list in order, and most people would get a cup of coffee. Then we'd all sit there, half-asleep, for the next three or four hours. I did this, for nine days, before I got sent out to work for the first time. That job was two hours, I made about $15. I soon learned that most days, there wasn't much work, and there were a few ass-kissers who got those jobs. But that particular office also hired workers for the Anaheim Angels baseball games because the stadium was close by. So I started just showing up on game days.
Here's how those days went. Wake up a 4am, walk 2+ miles to Labor Ready. Sit there for three hours or so, and then several of us would be told we could work the baseball game. We all worked in one of the many food stands in the stadium. Then I would walk the two miles home, and take a nap. Then I would take a cold shower, and walk the two miles, again, back to the office, where I had to have my white T-shirt, black slacks, and black shoes approved. I didn't have all-black shoes, so I took a black marker and colored the white parts of my shoes. Then we'd all walk the 3/4 mile to the stadium worker door, where we'd hang out for a while until they let us in and assigned us to a specific food stand.
Then I would do a basic fast food type job for 6 or 7 hours during the baseball game. Then I'd walk back to Labor Ready after the game, get my ticket, punch my code into and ATM-type machine, and get the $43 or so that I earned that day. Then I'd walk the 2+ miles home, and get home around 11pm or so. So I had to screw around from 5am to about 11pm to make $40-$45, two or three days a week. It sucked. Pure and simple, it fucking sucked. The only good part was that I usually got something to eat at the food stand.
After a few days at this, I learned the trick from another worker. Because I could actually count change, which most of those idiots couldn't do well, I managed to get assigned to a beer stand. There, I was allowed to put out a tip cup. I usually made $30 to $50 in tips, in addition to my $40 or so in pay. Even then, I it was ten miles of walking and an 18 hour day to make $80-$90. All that did was prove to me that day labor places should be avoided at all cost, and that you could never make a an actual living working for one. Working at the baseball games kept me alive for three or four months, but just barely. The Mexican/American family eventually kicked me out, with only two days notice, and let two illegal Mexican immigrants move into my room. They made $100 more a month that way. I wound up homeless (not the first time), and soon got a restaurant job at Fashion Island, an upscale mall in Newport Beach, California. I lived in the bushes and worked that job for nine months, and finally saved up enough to get my driver's license back and get another taxi driver permit. Then I went back to taxi driving, and lived in my cab for most of the next four years.
I'm one of the people that the Washington Post article talks about. I was back in 2002, when I walked the bike path that is now home to a huge tent city. Then I would work a few hours in the baseball stadium in the background of the video above. I'm still struggling 16 years later, but now I'm doing something original, and creating my own job. A big part of what I'll be writing about this year, and in coming years, will be ideas about how to get people like me, and all those the article above and video above, back to making a good living again.
If you started riding in the first wide wave of BMX freestyle in the mid 1980's, you remember Woody Itson as a pioneer of flatland. If you were in the Southern California scene in the early 80's, you might remember Woody riding skateparks or getting an occasional magazine photo jumping.
But here's one even Woody might not remember. In 1990 Woody's Diamond Back deal was over, and he was riding just for himself, according to a interview bit I just found on 23mag.com . During that year, I was riding the amazing flyout jump at Oceanview High School in Huntingtin Beach often. I was also shooting video for my first self-produced bike video, The Ultimate Weekend.
I just came across this still I made from the video a while back. Woody Itson, unsponsored, throwing a switch handed jump. In 1986, a 14-year-old Mat Hoffman debuted that trick to the freestyle world. Four years later, Woody was pulling it off. Heck, I made the video and I forgot this shot was in there. You can find it at 23:52 in the video.
