Homeless Artist/blogger/entrepreneur life 9/17/18

The Synchronicity Trifecta

Last Saturday, after the incident below, I went to the library to work.  I'm writing a zine about a bunch of thoughts on creative work from the things I've done over the last 33 years.  I took a break, and grabbed the local entertainment weekly, called Style.  Flipping pages, I saw a little write-up for an event that was happening that day.  There was an art festival, at a place called 43rd Street Gallery, and, among other things, they were going to raise money for an organization that helps the homeless.  I thought, "Shit, that's the synchronicity trifecta for me right now.  I'm an artist, 43 is my lucky number (and the lucky number for the whole sport of BMX, that I come from), and I'm currently homeless."  So I knew I had to make it to that event.  That's just too much of a coincidence to ignore.

 So I looked up the location, then figured out what bus route would get me there, then picked up my stuff and headed out.  With Hurricane Florence wreaking havoc one state below us, I knew there was a good chance of rain.  But it was sporadic, and I figured I could dodge it.

It took the bus forever to get to the stop I waited at, it happened to be a route that ran every hour on the weekends.  As I got off at the stop at about 45th street, it was starting to rain.  I pulled the hidden hood out of my jacket, and headed up the sidewalk.  I walked under a magnolia tree about 50 feet from the front door of the gallery, and the rain just let loose.  With lots of those big leaves above me, I didn't get very wet, but I watched a few people dash in and out of their cars through it.  I also noticed that the street wasn't closed off, and there were no artist or vendor canopies.

The rain slowed down, and I headed in to a small, but very crowded gallery.  I asked one of the women if I could put my bags out of the way (I have to carry everything I have, everywhere I go, for the time being), and she led me into the pottery studio.  After that, I looked around at the art.  There were maybe 10 to 12 artists represented, and everyone's work was really high quality.  There were several different types of pottery, some paintings, and many other things.  After browsing it all, I waited for the line at the register to finish, and then I talked to two of the women from from the gallery.  Robin Cage, owner and the primary potter, was one, and I didn't catch the name of the other.  I told them about reading about the festival, and being an artist, 43 influenced, and homeless.

As it turned out, after Style wrote the promo piece, Hurricane Florence came along, and was headed straight for this area, before she decided to make that left turn and destroy South Carolina instead.  So the festival had been cancelled, but they were still having a "no hurricane" sale, and a raffle for the homeless-helping group.  So I got to talk to a couple professional, established artists, showed Robin my Sharpie work, and got some kind words, and a bit of help to continue on my weird, artistic journey.  So even though it wasn't the full festival, it was definitely worth going.  If you're here in the Richmond area, I definitely say you should check out 43rd Street Gallery.  It's small, but packed with great, local made, creative works.  Functional pieces of handmade pottery make really good gifts.  Just sayin'.

I'm Hatin' It

As a wandering artist/blogger guy in a new city, I've been spending a lot of time in McDonald's.  They have drink refills, dollar drinks, dollar-ish food items, and wifi.  It's funny, most actual McDonald's managers now don't realize that McDonald's made a brilliant move by going into the cheap side of the trendy coffee drinks, upscaling their restaurants, and adding wifi.  The whole point to doing that was to basically become a less expensive version of Starbuck's.  Another reason was to distance Mickey D's from Carl's Jr./Hardee's, Burger King, and the rest of the old school,"fast food" burger joints.

If you've ever been in a McD's in the morning, you know that they sell a ton of coffee drinks.  Sure, you don't have the too-cool-for-school hipster vibe, and $17 scones like a Starbucks or a trendy local coffee place, but it serves the same purpose for a lot of working class people, and a lot of small business people use Micky D's as a part time office.  That's what I've been doing.

I know the whole McDonald's coffee/wifi strategy because I had a regional manager explain it to me in Huntington Beach, CA many years ago.  I just happened to be eating breakfast there when they were measuring the place for the re-model, and he was explaining the concept to the store manager.  I know that having people hang out and work in McDonald's, and doing away with the babysitting aspect of the kiddie lands, was the whole point.  So I've been making good use of that idea, drawing and working on my laptop to promote my artwork.

But I happened to start hanging out in what is- honestly- the worst run McDonald's I've ever seen in my life.  On top of that, it was at a location where a bunch of homeless people congregated.  So they had the "30 minutes then leave" signs that some restaurants have.  I, of course, ignored those signs, as did everyone else, and made the best us of my wifi time that I could.

But since I was obviously homeless, the incredibly incompetent staff often gave me some attitude for sitting there morning and evening.  Unlike many of the bums hanging out there, I always bought something, I didn't bring used cups in for refills, I didn't trash the bathroom, I didn't complain that it took 10 to 15 minutes to get my order taken when there were only three people in line, and I didn't complain that the biscuits were always hard.  They didn't even taste like the amazing biscuits I love at McDonald's.

But some guy I didn't recognize walked into the back section last Saturday morning, where I was eating and another homeless couple was hanging out after buying drinks.  He yelled at us both and said we were staying to long, and we had to leave.  They weren't going to put up with our crap anymore.  The funny thing was, I looked at my receipt, I had my order taken 14 minutes earlier, and I had just got my food and sat down.  I had 16 minutes left.  The guy turned around and I said, "Fuck you."  He didn't hear me, I guess, and went back into the kitchen.

Another woman kicked the couple near me out a few minutes later, but not me.  But the point had been made.  In the time I sat there, I figured out that I had spent $200 to $225 in that McDonald's in that last five weeks, and I had been in the hospital one of those weeks.  So after getting yelled at by that asshole, I decided, "You know what, I will GLADLY take my $200 a month in business from your store, and go to another one.  Fuck you idiots.  Oh, and if anyone from McDonald's corporate wants to make a video of how NOT to run a McDonald's, store #21,666 in Richmond is your place.  There's a somewhat effeminate, dark skinned guy who works evenings as a assistant manager, I think, He kicks ass.  He's really good at his job.  Everyone else at that store, including the owner, who I have talked to, should be fired on the spot.

Tornadoes in Richmond today

This happened in the last couple of hours, about 9 miles from where I am.  There's one person confirmed dead, in this building you see getting destroyed.  I'm in the main Library in downtown Richmond. 

We were asked to go down into the basement a couple hours ago because of a tornado warning.  I've done that many times as a kid in Ohio, and sheltered in place (no basement) ready to go into the apartment bathroom in North Carolina.  One tornado touched down about 10-15 miles from us in Ohio once, and one about 20 miles away in North Carolina once.  I didn't expect much.  The library staff put the local news up on a big screen downstairs. 

Last I heard, 8 confirmed tornadoes in the Richmond area today, at least a dozen more radar indicated, possible tornadoes.  Three confirmed tornado touchdowns in Richmond area.  One known fatality.  One car on its roof.  At least three or four cases of serious roof/structure damage.  Crazy day.  Even crazier seeing as I'm homeless and sleeping outside tonight.  Homelessness, it's not just pathetic, it's an adventure. 

Oh, and the local news station, CBS News 6, got struck by lightning while I was watching a little while ago.  Crazy.  These storms are the remnants of Hurricane Florence.  Guess Richmond didn't totally escape he wrath.

Recent drawings 9/16, 2018

 Just did this one a week and a half ago, sold cheap to a gallery here in Richmond, VA.  This is the second Notorious B.I.G. drawing I've done.  The owner bought a couple other of the drawings I brought with me from NC.  I just got out of the hospital then, and I was hatin' it, and needed to get a room to recover.  So I sold a couple cheap, and then  did this one.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24

 This Robert Plant drawing is the first one I did when I first got to Richmond.  Some of my two month backlog of drawings to do bailed out when I left NC.  So this one was next on  the list.  I actually learned quite a bit about Led Zeppelin, listening to documentaries as I drew this one.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

I decided to draw some smaller, 8 1/2" X 11" pictures, and make a few prints to sell.  I started with Johnny Cash, The Man in Black.  Then I just did the Bob Marley last week.  I haven't sold any of the prints yet, but several people commented that they like the Johnny Cash pic.  I'm not sure why Bob is sideways.  Maybe he's stoned and just fell over.  Sharpies on paper, 8 1/2" X 11".

Recessions are rehab for Wall Street

Amy Winehouse on Letterman singing "Rehab."  Just like Amy, at some point in the next year or so, the economy will be dead.

So... back in April, I called the beginning of the Next Great Recession.  I was wrong.  Truth is, we should have had a recession start back in about 2017.  It had been 9 years since the Great Recession of 2008 (which actually started in 2007).  The amount of student debt in the U.S. ($1.4-$1.5 trillion) is higher than the amount of subprime loans that triggered the 2008 collapse ($1.3 trillion).  The Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index peaked in late January, though it's trying to get back up there again lately.  The Federal Reserve said they were going to start raising interest rates back towards a more normal rate, which would slow down the sluggish economy.  Trump started prattling on about a trade war with China, then actually started signing off on tariffs. 

All of those things were signs that we're on the brink of a stock market slide and then the collapse into another "Great" recession, likely to be worse than 2008.  It was just a matter of what the trigger would be to set things off down the slope.

The stock market, as a whole, has been heading up since March 2009.  When Trump "won" the presidency, it immediately dropped 800 points the next morning, as the world freaked out.  But then it started heading up, and it went up at a steeper rate than it did during the Obama years.  Why?  Because the Republican establishment and the corporate world were sure that they could get the massive "tax cuts" package passed with Trump in the White House.  It took a year, while nearly all of Trump's other promises collapsed, but the tax cut bill got passed in January.  That tax cut package was basically welfare for major corporations and the super wealthy.  It didn't do much of anything for average Americans.  That's what "tax cut" plans are for.  And that bill passing, with nothing else big to look forward to, is another reason the Next Great Recession should have started. 

One possible trigger after another came and went, the Dow Jones index dropped, but there was no big collapse.  In fact, the Nasdaq, the tech centered stock index, kept going up.  It finally seems to have peaked about a month ago, when people ganged up on Facebook and their stock dropped about 20%.  But still, no recession.

It was obvious that there was an incredible upward pressure keeping the stock market, and our whole economy, afloat.  But I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.  Then I ran into a talk by former quant (Wall Street numbers super brainiac) Nomi Prins.  I think it was this speech.  She's a former Wall Street insider at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs.  Her new book, Collusion, (no relation to Trump/White House) explains why the inevitable recession hasn't started.  The Fed has basically been creating money out of nothing (they can actually do that, that's pretty much their whole schtick), and they've been pumping it back into the economy.  But instead of going into building new businesses, roads and bridges, or things that help average folk, it's been mostly just going into the hands of the wealthy and  into the stock market. 

Think of it this way.  A hardcore gambling addict goes to Las Vegas, and every time he runs out of money, somebody gives him a credit card with $100,000 cash advance on it... that he doesn't have to pay back.  He should be dragged out of the casinos and sent to rehab for his addiction, but new money keeps coming, and life seems good to him. 

Or a crack addict finds herself waking up one morning on the side of the 5 freeway, naked, and surrounded by mule hoof prints and chocolate sprinkles.*  It must have been quite an evening.  When shit gets that crazy, it's definitely time to head to rehab and get straightened out.  But a pimped out Escalade rolls up, gives her clothes to put on, a ride back to her house, and a bunch more crack.  No need for rehab when the crack just keeps flowing. 

That's a simple, but pretty realistic, way of looking at our economy right now.  Wall Street is on a neverending binder because they just keep getting more drugs (cheap money from The Fed.)  So the very necessary trip to rehab (the next recession), hasn't started yet. 

So that's where we are.  But the the game can't go on forever.  And the longer we are artificially kept from the recession that should have already happened, the worse the next recession will actually be.

At this point, I'm basically sure that this next recession, which could happen any time, but may be delayed for a year or so, will be worse than 2008.  It's gonna hurt, and it's gonna leave some marks.  If it doesn't end up happening until 2020, it probably won't be a recession at all, but will likely be a full blown Great Depression like in the 1930's.  Depressions aren't necessarily deeper economic pits than recessions, but they last longer. 

The reality is, we're in for a very serious, and very long economic downturn.  It could happen at any point, like tomorrow, or in a year.  All kinds of means, mostly The Fed pulling money out of its ass, is keeping it from happening at the moment.  But it will come, probably late this year or spring of next year, possibly later. 

At this point, taking into account Nomi Prins' research, and the Mueller investigation, I think President Donald Trump being taken into federal custody for a whole series of treasonous crimes will most likely be the trigger.  And yes, I think he actually will be the first president actually indicted, and even taken into custody, because the charges against him will be so serious.  The crazy part will be that the Republican/Religious Right Establishment will want Mike Pence, and their people, to take over.  But it seems very likely at this point that there will be legitimate proof that Trump's actions and the Russian interference in the 2016 election, was enough to sway the election away from Hillary Clinton. 

If that is how things turn out, then both Trump AND Pence were illegitimately in office, and Pence would not be the next in line as president.  Technically, Hillary would.  Maybe.  We'd be in brand new territory at that point.  Just for the record, I'm no Hillary fan at all.  She'd be better than Pence, but I don't want either of them in charge, personally. 

Personal thoughts aside, if things do turn out this way, or in some similar way, when Mueller's investigation is complete, it would create so much turmoil, that there's no way the stock market, and the economy as a whole, could be buoyed up much longer. 

In any case, the recession that doesn't want to be will eventually come.  The political turbulence from the Mueller investigation, and any similar investigations that start after November, will make things even crazier.  Like Amy Winehouse, Wall Street is doing everything they can to avoid going to rehab.  We know how that worked out for Amy.

Nutty time ahead people.  Not sure exactly when, but they're coming.  Plan accordingly. 

By the way, my interest in these things, and my thoughts and writings along these lines, are why some people within the political arm of the Religious Right and evangelical world have gone to great lengths to keep me from expressing my ideas, and from making a living for the last 17 years or so.  You didn't think I was homeless so much because I like sleeping under the stars, did you?   

My drawing of Brian Foster

Here's my first drawing of one of the most stylish and amazing riders of all time, a guy who got inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame a few days ago, and my one time roommate at the P.O.W. house in about 1993, Brian Foster.  He's blasting a one foot table 360 over some huge ass jumps, in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, I think.

I was asked to draw this by Chad, at Powers Bike Shop, who I met recently after landing here in Richmond, VA a few weeks ago.  Thanks Chad for the order, it totally helped me as I struggle first to survive at the moment, and then to turn my drawings into a legit little business.  I was also stoked to draw Brian, since he's been one of my favorite guys to watch ride since I met him at the P.O.W. House 25 years ago.  When Chad first mentioned Brian, the first thought in my mind was a weird little moment at the P.O.W. House.

The whole point of that house was to put a bunch of guys in a house, everybody sharing bedrooms, to make California rent as cheap as possible.  We were in the long recession of the early 1990's, and everyone in the bike and skate industry learned how to make about ten different meals out of of packet of ramen.  At any given time at the House, there were 3 or 4 guys totally scraping by money-wise, which we called the Roaches.  I was working as a furniture mover at the time, and we were moving government offices, but the government was two months behind paying the moving company, which couldn't pay us workers.  So I was in ramen mode one day when a few guys got back from a race.  They had made some money, so they ordered pizzas from What A Lot of Pizza, the original $5 pizza place in SoCal.  I sat there salivating, holding off on making the evening's double ramen pack dinner.  Brian ate his pizza, but left the crusts, and held the box up, "Who wants pizza bones?"  I jumped up, lept across the guys on the couch, and grabbed the box.  I was stoked to have some pizza crusts to take the depression out of a couple days of straight ramen.  That was life at the P.O.W. House, we all scraped by in our own way, some guys chowing pizza while other guys were condemned to ramen at times.

Brian Foster has been riding BMX bikes seriously for about 40 years.  And out of all the amazing riding he's done in all those years, my first memory when he was mentioned was the weird little pizza incident at the P.O.W. House.  Memory is a weird thing, which is probably why I'm the guy writing old school BMX stories these days.

Brian's older brother Alan was also a great rider, AA pro racer, and really good jumper.  In fact Alan was in my first self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend, in the first video coverage of the S&M Bikes posse and P.O.W. House.  You can see him in this clip, bailing 360 attempts, at :29 and :46.  Alan moved out to California from the East coast, to race, and younger brother Brian worked for the folks at Cyclecraft in Tennessee for a while, then followed big bro Alan out West to live in about '93. Although I was a year or two older, Alan was called "Dad" at the P.O.W. House, because he was the most responsible guy overall.  Dave Clymer was kind of the mascot, the guy everyone thought of first when the House was mentioned, but Alan was the guy making sure the rent actually got paid, utilities stayed on, and the guy who climbed up on the roof in the rain to tack up plastic sheeting when a roof leak led to a drywall ceiling collapse inside.  Our cheap rent was made possible by Alan keeping important details of our house under control, so the rest of us could be mindless BMX drunks most of the time.  Thank Alan.

In those days, Alan and Brian were just two of my roommates, and we'd all hop in a truck to go ride a ditch, or Sheep Hills, or the local street spots around Westminster, or just session the backyard ramps.  Everyone was a damn good rider, except me, I was the token goofy freestyler.  But where Brian did stand out back then was in style.  Brian's 1 hand 360 tables and other tricks were amazing things to watch, even back then.  The jumps weren't near as big then, but when it came to stylish 360's, only Shaun Butler could rival Brian's style at the time. 

In the BMX world  of the early 1990's, most AA pro racers were gym rats, training like crazy, and not spending much time at the trails, and definitely not doing much street riding.  But at the P.O.W. House, we had Dave Clymer, Todd Lyons, Alan Foster, and Brian Foster, all of which could hang in races, and shred on trails and street.  Brian fit right in to our weird group.  But his style, and soon his ability to hit REALLY BIG jumps of the day, started to build his rep as one of the best dirt jumpers out there.

The one absolutely INSANE jump where I shot footage of Brian was at the Dover Cliff Jump.  You can see Brian on the jump in 44 Something at 21:57 and 22:25.  (You can also see Alan Foster with a sweet one foot tabletop in the previous section at 21:07) This monstrosity at Dover was built by "jump builders to the stars," Hippy Jay and Hippy Sean, on the dirt bluffs over the harbor of super-rich Newport Beach, California.  There were several jumps up there, some doubles, and a couple cool flyout jumps.  But the Dover Cliff Jump, was a beast.  It started with a full on, first straight speed, racer sprint towards a big crevasse.  Then there was a near vertical drop in, at high speed, about 14 feet down, then right back up to a 7 foot high lip.  The gap was a huge, 35 foot deep ravine, filled with brush, maybe a few cacti, and probably a rattlesnake or two.  The landing was flat.  But the landing was 8 feet HIGHER than the lip.  People estimated the distance at 25 to 35 feet.  I stepped it off the day we shot the footage that's in 44 Something, and it was a solid 25 feet.  So, to recaptthat's a full sprint, gnarly ass vert drop in, down 14 feet then up a 7 foot lip, jumping 8 feet up while crossing a 25 foot gap.  Even in today's insane jumping world, the Dover Cliff jump would be a serious jump.  In 1993, it was like Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump for BMX.  Only the craziest jumpers in the Huntington Beach/Sheep Hills scene even tried it.  Brian Foster lofted a stylish tabletop and a no footed can-can over it.  By the way, that's English bloke Paul Roberts who slammed his nose into his cross bar by casing the landing.  GNARLY.  This clip in 44 Something was short, but it was noticed around the BMX world for years, as 44 Something wound up one of, if not THE, top selling BMX video of the 1990's.  The Brian Foster legend of insane riding in videos began.

As for me these days, my drawings take around 35 to 45 hours each to draw.  They are 18" X 24".  Since my first art show was in a music shop, I've been asked to draw musicians and rap stars mostly, so I listen to their music, interviews, and documentaries about them while I draw.  I've learned a lot about these people, and I get a vibe about them that often gives me ideas as  I draw.  For this drawing of BF, I watched most of the video segments available, listened to a podcast of Brian from a few weeks ago.  I haven't seen Brian since, probably since one of the Core Tour events in the mid 2000's.  I had no idea he was going to medical school, and actually working towards a doctorate in physical therapy.  He's as low key as usual, but sounds like he's going to be a damn good therapist.  If you read this Brian, I'm proud of you once again surprising us with an cool new phase of life.  After 20-some years of surprising BMXers, mostly by finding...and landing...the craziest gap lines at events, now the Blue Falcon is going to be helping physically broken people recover and get back to life.  Never under-estimate the P.O.W. House guys.  Clymer's an iron worker now, Moeller, of course, owns S&M and Fit Bikes, Sal is a high school history teacher in a tough school in Philly, and Alan a Kris run a Day Care.  I guarantee that Miss Iroquois (P.O.W. House angry neighbor) never expected any of that from us drunk punks back in the day. 

For those of you reading this, I'm working on turning my art and riding into a business to support me.  Original drawings, like the one of Brian above, now cost $120, and take 35-45 hours.  Yeah, that's like  $4 an hour, and that's part of the reason I'm temporarily homeless (again.)  I started focusing on the drawing about 2 1/2 years ago,  when I was unable to find ANY  "real" job, and I've been selling drawings (fairly cheap) ever since.  I started without a dime, and I've survived, but haven't been able to get up to the level of becoming a legit business.  You can check out my body of work on Instagram now (Steve Emig 43), Pinterest (Steve Emig), Facebook (Steve Emig in Winston-Salem, NC).  I finally just got on Instagram, but I've loaded up photos of over 60 of my drawings.  Check 'em out and let me know what you think.

If you'd like one of my original drawings, email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com, or message me on Facebook. It's $120 for an 18" X 24" original right now.  The prices WILL rise before too long, and I had a 2 month backlog right before leaving NC.  Local drama and not getting paid, and the small size of the scene there, led me to move on.  I'm also starting to do some smaller drawings, I'm selling copies of those.  The drama in North Carolina jacked up my bank account, and I cannot take paypal at the moment.  I'm working on getting that issue fixed.  If you want something drawn, we'll work out the details.  Despite my sketchy lifestyle, I've built a reputation of getting drawings done and shipped promptly, and satisfaction is guaranteed.  So far that hasn't been an issue.  I'm always nervous when I show someone their drawing, but they've all been stoked, so far. 

I'll end up this post with one embedded clip and links to several great Brian Foster video segments and a podcast.  Also, Congratulations Brian on being inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame last week.   That's definitely well deserved, as was the induction of my former boss at the AFA, Bob Morales.

2018 BMX Hall of Fame induction video and Brian's speech.

The Blue Falcon - Go get'em BF!

Brian Foster at the Incline Club

Brian Foster BMX Dirt Session

Brian Foster- Winter Escape

Anthem II- Brian Foster: declassified

Stay Fit- Brian Foster

Merritt BMX- Brian Foster at Cranx

Fit: Brian Foster signature stem

Brian Foster Bike Check 

BF-it: The Story of Brian Foster

Brian Foster: The BMX in our Blood podcast (August 26th, 2018)

Synchronicity

Just for the record, that recent post about the AFA Oregon Pro Ramps video I produced came up as a consequence of the two rider-made video posts I did just before it.  I wrote those two posts to kind of set the stage for going through my 1990 bike video, The Ultimate Weekend, section by section, telling the stories of how it came to be.  So that's coming soon in this blog.

In a complete bit of synchronicity, last night happened to be the 2018 induction ceremony for the BMX Hall of Fame.  In the industry category, my boss at the AFA, and the guy who started me making videos, Bob Morales, got inducted.  He totally deserves it, his story goes through the entire early history of BMX freestyle.  Not only that, he's the guy who made BMX freestyle an actual sport, he put on the first skatepark contests and then the flatland and quarterpipe contests. 

Months ago, I heard Bob, and my one time P.O.W. House roommate, Brian Foster, were both getting into the HOF this year.  I did a congratulatory Facebook post  for them, and then went on with my life.  I've had more than enough to deal with the last few weeks to pay any attention to today's official BMX world.  So it was a complete surprise when Bob's sister Riki, my co-worker and friend from the AFA days, told me Bob gave me a shout-out in his acceptance speech.  If you go to the USA BMX facebook page, a couple of posts down, you can watch the entire 2018 BMX Hall Of Fame induction ceremony and speeches.  I watched those by both Bob and Brian Foster.  To be honest, it's kind of surreal for me.

On one hand, I'm simply struggling to survive day to day in a new city.  My life, in the financial and material sense, is sketchy as hell.  But since landing very unexpectedly in Richmond, I've been reconnecting to the BMX scene in a real world way.  It's like I'm coming full circle in a sense, with BMX, and I'm now an old guy who some younger people actually want to hear stories from.  When I worked in the bike/skate industries in the 1980's and 1990's, the idea of us being in our 50's and someone actually having a Hall Of Fame, and a big event, seemed ludicrous.   But now it's real.  And I got a personal shout out from Bob Morales as an AFA worker who helped him, and from Brian Foster, who shouted out the P.O.W. House posse as a group.  Both of those bring back a ton of good memories.  I don't waste time on the not-so-good memories any more.

I don't know where things are headed in my life.  But I'm getting back in touch with the BMX world, and it's not me trying to, it's just happening.  In the last crazy couple of decades where I went through some really crazy shit, and was focused mostly on trying to figure out the whole point of life itself, I've learned that life is like that.  For those of us who've spent a fair amount of time following our intuition, and doing things that seemed stupid to most people around us, we know about following a strong hunch, the gut feeling, the "still small voice," that draws us in weird directions.  Sometimes it seems the whole world is against us, and we get tested to our core, to see if we're serious about following our dreams.  At other times, things just start happening, fast forwarding us into the next level and place we seemed needed in, by the world.  Since my leg infection and major allergic reaction to the medicine a couple of weeks ago, I seem to have reached a turning point.  I'm getting drawn back to the world of BMX, and that's just fine with me.  We'll see where it takes me.  It took me some really cool places 30+ years ago. 

But right now, I want to congratulate Bob Morales and (future physical therapy doctor) Brian Foster on getting much deserved props from the BMX establishment.  I'd like to thank them both for the shout outs as one of many people in their lives along the way.  As for me, I have a BMX rider drawing to get back to work on, which is another piece of synchronicity, as you'll soon see on social media.  Props to all the BMX people who got recognized last night, now, back to work.

Powers to the (BMX) People

This is the kind of thing I imagine when I think BMX comp.  Yeah, I'll watch the X-Games on TV sometimes, and it shows a lot of young kids the competitive side of riding, and gets them interested in BMX, but back lot contests on homemade and sketchy ass obstacles are always more fun. 

When I walked into a Greyhound bus station to leave North Carolina a month ago, having been stiffed on a $120 payment for a drawing that day, I asked the 16-year-old looking clerk, "How close to Chicago can I get for about $60."  It took her 20 minutes of typing to tell me I could get to Richmond, Virginia... if I slept in the bus station and left the next morning.  For some reason, no buses headed northwest, towards Scotty Z.'s house near Chicago, where I had an invitation to chill for a week or so, before heading West to Cali.  So I slept fairly well on a hardwood bus station bench, and made it to Richmond the next afternoon.  I had never been to Richmond, and didn't know a damn thing about it.

I had seen photos of the contest above, you can't forget the eyeball and tongue ramp, but since it was FBM, I thought it was up in Ithaca, NY.  I didn't know a thing about Richmond when I landed here, all I knew is that I spent 10 horrible years trapped in North Carolina, I never could find any "real" job there, and the year of taxi driving I did left me broke.  There was no BMX scene near me, and definitely no old school BMXers or skaters to talk to.  Winston-Salem had a really cool art scene for a mid-sized city, but not big enough for me to make a living drawing my Sharpie art. 

Within a couple days of being landing in Richmond with about $3 in my pocket, I started noticing murals, lots of really cool murals, all over this city.  That's freakin' cool.  Then I started talking to people in the Art District.  Then old BMX friend Steve Crandall randomly sends me a message to meet him at a shop here.  Much to my surprise, Powers Bike Shop, hidden away in the back of an old industrial complex, was the place I'd seen in photos, where the tongue ramp contest happened. But Chad, the owners of Powers Bike Shop wasn't there the day I met up with Crandall. 

We connected on Facebook, and I went by the day before yesterday to meet him at the shop.  Even though I looked, and smelled, like the homeless bum I am at the moment, he was totally cool.  We started talking BMX, and I told him a bunch of stories from random events back in the day.  Then he mentioned that he not only has a huge vintage bike collection, but BMX magazine collection as well.  He dug out the August 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN', which had the zine article, where my zine, San Jose Stylin', was ranked number one in the country at the time.  That issue also had the first freelance article I wrote for FREESTYLIN', covering the Tulsa, Oklahoma AFA Masters contest that spring. 

Much to my surprise, Chad asked me to autograph the page with that article.  So I signed my first autograph while being homeless, not counting the autographs on my arrest paperwork when I got arrested for buying donuts in NC last year. Even funnier, that's the 10th autograph I've signed in the 35 years since I got into BMX.  The other 9 autographs?  I signed them at the Tulsa, Oklahoma contest in 1986.  We all even signed some girl's arm at that contest.  When we asked why those kids wanted our autographs there, the arm girl replied,"You guys are the closest thing we ever see to famous people."  What really funny is that 14-year-old Mathew Hoffman was at that contest, his first AFA Masters, and flew under the radar.  By the  next contest, everyone in the industry knew who the Oklahoma kid throwing no-footed can-can's was, and he got sponsored.  He was not only on the BMX scene radar after that, he probably showed up on air traffic control radar at times.

Anyhow, while it's been rough living since I got here to Richmond (or RVA as locals refer to it), it's also been really cool.  I'm hanging with BMXers a bit again, I've lost ten pounds (homelessness or hospital stay, not sure), and I'm selling art now.  I'm even working on the first BMX drawing I've done in over a year and a half, and can't wait to see how it turns out. 

So thanks to Chad at Powers Bikes here for his hospitality, and for stoking out a Has Been BMX industry guy-turned art bum.  Not sure how long I'll be here, but it's a pretty cool city.  Who knows?