Homeless person passed out on Hollywood Boulevard,on the world famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 2019. I shot this photo while I was homeless last year. This is the kind of guy we'd do bummyhops over in San Francisco back in 1985-86.
Often after a few hours of riding at Golden Gate Park, a bunch of us would head to the Embarcadero to ride. That was a spot in downtown S.F., with big concrete ledges and other cool stuff to ride. At that point, in 1985-86, street riding was about bunnyhopping up, or jumping off things, doing footplants, launching off curb jumps, and things like that. Wall rides and ped grinds on street hadn't been invented yet. At some point, while riding the Embarcadero with Dave Vanderspek, Maurice Meyer, and others from the Golden Gate Park crew, someone mentioned the term vollie. When I asked what that was, they explained that it was an ollie over any homeless person, usually one laying down, or maybe over their legs while sitting. A "vollie" was the San Francisco skateboarder term for a "vagrant ollie," ollying over a homeless person.
As an inquisitive dork, and the zine guy of the scene, I asked what a BMX bunnyhop over a homeless person was called. I got about five different answers. I realized that there was no actual, "official" term for bunnyhopping over a bum. WE did actually do that once in a while, usually when Vander and Drob would head off through the streets, and we'd follow them, hopping over or footplanting any obstacle we found.
Being the zine guy of NorCal, I decided this issue needed a resolution, so I took a poll among all the Golden Gate Park riders, to get their ideas. Out of the 5 or 6 initial ideas, two terms led the pack, vunnyhop, for vagrant bunnyhop, or bummyhop, a bunnyhop over a bum. There was some serious discussion (well, sort of serious), and a bit of arguing. The poll was close. But in the end, the term "bummyhop" was officially sanctioned as the term for bunnyhopping over a homeless person in an urban setting. I put the results in my zine, and we all got a laugh out of it.
Now, as a person who has been homeless for extended periods, one just ending a month ago, I'd like to say that it's really lame to harass homeless people, they have more than enough to worry about, and get shit from all kinds of people all the time. Homelessness is also an industry, and several groups and many people make a living off the homelessness industry. And that sucks. That's why I avoided nearly all non-profits and programs for homeless people.
But as a longtime BMX rider, if there's a bum crashed out on the sidewalk, and you're in a hurry, and can do it safely, bunnyhop the fucker. I've done a few bummyhops in my time. Looking for a good, old school video of someone bunnyhopping a bunch of people just now, like maybe Mike Buff's 15 person bunnyhops back in the day, I ran into a video of a news clip of some kids in L.A. getting in trouble for bummyhopping homeless guys and putting the videos on YouTube.
I'm an old BMXer, I've done this in San Francisco, 30-some years ago, but not for video or photos. I think the people in the video that I found, acting all uptight, are pretty hypocritical. I doubt they think twice about the homeless normally, until a camera was thrust in their face, and someone showed them a bummyhop video and asked their opinion. They said it was terrible.
Here's my thoughts, if you're out shooting video, and you want to bunnyhop a homeless person and shoot video of it, talk to them first. Stage it, let them know what you want to do, and show them you have the skills to do it without injuring the person. Then, after you shoot your footage, hook the person or people up for helping you get some cool footage. Give them $5 or $10, buy them a pizza, a beer, or some cigarettes. If you're really cool, give them money to get a cheap motel room for the night. Whatever. Make it worth the homeless person's while. Then shoot some bonus footage showing that you set it up, and the people were cool with it. You'll probably get some cool interview footage, as well, homeless people make for great interviews.
But do not go around looking for passed out homeless people, and bunnyhopping them just for your video. Obviously, you could seriously injure someone, if they sit up suddenly. Ideally, just leave homeless people alone, they have enough problems. But I can't say "Never bunnyhop a bum," because we did it, once in a while, back in the 80's. So I'd be a hypocrite to tell riders to never do it if you're hauling ass down a street and there's a person passed out on the sidewalk. But now you know there's an official name for it, the bummyhop.
One more thought about homelessness in general, as someone who understands it far more than I ever wanted to.
There are more empty buildings and spare bedrooms in this country than there are homeless people.
We could house everyone indoors , and then address the issues that got them there. We, as a society, simply choose not to. Hopefully we'll get better at dealing with this issue in the coming years, as more and more people have to struggle to pay rent in our current, crazy, economic times.
All of us stereotype people to some extent. But the absurd number of people who stereotype Californians in North Carolina, and Virginia continued to amaze me when I was back there. Even funnier was the level of stereotyping there was. Most of North Carolinians seemed to think this classic movie from the 80's was a documentary, not a dramatic comedy. So yeah, people back East, this is why I moved back to Cali, so Mr. Hand could steal my pizza.
Random fact, seriously, actual fact, then unknown actor Sean Penn wore his personal black & white checked Van's to the set, and pulled one off and banged it on his head while playing the really stoned scene in the movie. Van's didn't know their shoes were in the movie, yet, Van's shoes dales doubled that year because of that scene, from about $20 million to $40 million. If that isn't weird enough, I'm typing at a McDonald's, and some kid just walked up to the drink fountain next to me... wearing checkered Van's. Seriously.
All shoe synchronicity aside, this past Thursday marked one month that I've been back in Southern California. I flew out of LAX in November 2008, with the clothes on my back, and a small, bookbag sized backpack. I had some stuff in a small storage unit, which I lost, including all my BMX stuff and video footage. A month ago, I rolled into L.A.'s Greyhound bus terminal, with the clothes on my back, and a small backpack. Both times I was leaving several months of straight homelessness.
But I came back this time with my Sharpie "scribble style" are honed to a point that nearly everyone calls "art." I've sold about 100 major drawings in the last 3 1/2 years. I've also got a decade of blogging, several of those blogs successful in readership, if not money, though the last blog reallyhelped sell my artwork. I've also got a pretty good grasp on the underlying principles of internet and social media marketing, but there are plenty of technical aspects I need to work on, but that's an ever-changing world. Those blogging and marketing chops are what got me back here.
I'm working a fair chunk of my time doing a new blog and social media stuff for Block Bikes new online BMX store... driving traffic, as it's called. Big thanks to Rich Bartlett for this opportunity. With my SEO skills, I moved Block Bikes to the #1 spot in a Google search, where another Block Bikes shop had been anchored. We didn't have to buy links, spam anyone, or advertise, I didn't it with daily blogging and social media work. I also started the Block Bikes Blog, and it has about 3,600 page views in two months, about six times what this blog had in its first two months.
I've also built a huge Pnterest page for Block, which may seem counter-intuitive to a lot of people in marketing, but I learned the power of Pinterest for SEO and brand awareness while promoting my art. The month old Block Pinterest page is getting about 30,000 views a month already, so that's off to a good start. We haven't had a huge sales surge yet on the website, but people don't buy complete bikes all that often, and it will take a little while to build up awareness to really get the online sotre up to full steam. It's like a big ship, it takes a while to get up to full steam, but then it should cruise well.
I had the good luck to make it to an old school BMX freestyle weekend, and see a whole bunch of pro riders and industry people from BITD. That trip was thanks to Maurice Meyer, Chris Rothe, and Marc McKee, so big thanks to those guys for letting me tag along. Thanks also to Dominic Phipps for hosting his signing party, for the 2nd edition of The Birth of the Freestyle Movement," and to Mat Hoffman for putting on the contest that morning, both events were a blast.
Antoher aspect to coming back to Southern California is the food checklist. There are certain places a former Californian has to eat at upon returning to the state, it's in our contract. In-N-Out, check. A family owned Mexican restaurant, check. A Famous Star a Carl's Jr., check. Something gut busting at Del Taco, check. There's a Tommy's Chili Burger a block from me right now, but that will have to wait. Also on my list is Papa Joe's pizza and Las Barcas Mexican in Huntington Beach, along with about 5 donut shops where I once had "Local" status. And as a former TV industry guy, I have to hit Jerry's Famous Deli and Carney's at some point. Then there's Knowlwood's down in Orange County, and...
Shit, I need to walk about 7-10 miles a day to handle all those. I am walking about 2 1/2 miles nearly every day, though. My body, beaten to hell by the 9 most intense months of homelessness I ever faces, is slowly healing. I've lost about 7-9 pounds in the last month, I'm kind of bouncing right now. I've also been riding an old mountain bike they tuned up for me at Block, every now and then. I'm still trying to get into a steady rhythm on a day to day basis, and start building my life back. So that's where I'm at right now. More random ideas and old BMX stories to come...
I'll end this post with one of my favorite Californians, and the only musician I've seen play live more than Social Distortion and The Dickies combined, Kerry Getz. I'm pretty sure she never ordered a pizza in history class.
I put this on Facebook last week, when I drew it, but I forgot to post it here on the blog. I'm going and busy now from 4-5 am every morning until 9 or so every night, doing blogging and social media for Block Bikes, my personal blog, and and a new project, and like everyone else, I need 48 more hours every day to get everything done I want to do. So I just spaced on posting this here. It's 11" X 14," about 12 hours of drawing, or so, and is the first scribble style drawing I've done in about a month, because of the move from Richmond, VA to Lancaster, CA. That's my longest gap in drawing since late 2015.
I've been wanting to draw John "Dizz" Hicks for quite a while. He was a cool guy, totally unique rider, and great character in BMX freestyle in the 1980's. I did this one small, so I could sell some copies, and I have two orders. On all the musician drawings I do, I put lyrics or song titles in the background, which gives it a texture that looks kind of cool. For this one, I wanted to try a bombed out building, post apocalyptic sky background, to see how that looked.
It's pretty cool, and I want to do a full size (18" X 24") drawing of John for an art show some day. Anyhow, I like the basic idea, the test worked, and I'm going to send this original to John (Dizz) for him to hang on to. Because I'm working so many hours doing other blogging/social media now, I'm going to stop doing drawings for hire, and focus on doing some really good ones so I can put on a solo art show in a few months. #sharpiescribblestyle
According to this CNBC article (June 5, 2019), discount stores like Costco, Walmart, and Target are doing well, while 7,150 retail store closings have already been announced for 2019, to add to the 5,524 in 2018, and 8,139 in 2017. That's 20,813 stores already shuttered or planned to this year. I've heard much higher numbers from 2017-18, so I think this just counts major national chain department and retail stores, but it isn't clear in the article. In addition to these 20,000+ closings, there were at least 5,000 to 10,000 more closings in 2010-2016.
Multiple sources over the last 2 or 3 years have reported that 400 of the 1,100 to 1,200 shopping malls in the U.S. were expected to close between about 2016 and 2021 or so. Some have closed, I haven't heard an exact number, but probably a few dozen in the past ten years. The website Dead Malls.com has stories and reports from many still open dead malls, which means they're either closed, or below 70% occupancy.
My thinking is that this is the collapse of the Industrial Age distribution system, as the Information age distribution system takes over, like Amazon, Ebay, tens of thousands of small online stores, and online sales/in store distribution through major stores like Walmart and Target. I call this decades long transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age "The Big Transition." Here's my latest blog post explaining this idea.
At least 25,000 to 30,000 stores closed this decade, and we haven't hit a recession... yet.
For some reason, this video popped in my mind to go along with the nebulous, partially formed idea for today's blog post. I've learned enough in my (almost) 53 years on this planet, to know that intuitive spark means my post, though not yet fully thought out, not yet written, will tie in with the message Peter Dinklage gives in this short, but incredibly powerful video. That's how the Universe works. It's cool like that.
"The greatest words on written page, only come to life when you're on stage."
- Me, line from "Actress," a poem a wrote for my sister's best friend in about 1995. That talented woman, a serious actor at heart, is now mom of two kids who happen to have some of the most successful channels on YouTube
The job, the real job, of writers, is to find new ideas that society needs at a particular point in time, and present those ideas in some form of text, so that the ideas are drawn out into society, and acted on... hopefully. That can be done in many ways, in straight forward non-fiction, in personal blogs or zines or self-published ebooks. Or those ideas can be woven into fictional stories and published as novels, plays or TV shows or movies. The hardest part of writing, I've found, is to simply be able to survive, preferably with a roof over my head and enough food, while doing the time consuming work of thinking, and then writing.
Yesterday was four weeks that I've been back in Southern California, and tomorrow will be 30 days, a month. For a month I've had a roof over my head, thanks to Rich at Block Bikes. I can take showers, I have a room nearby, where I can sleep inside, I'm not out in the elements, like I was for most of the last two years. I have a refrigerator and cupboards to store food. I'm doing work to promote the new Block online bike store website. But Block is a high caliber bike shop, it's not some huge corporation that can throw me a huge salary while building a brand new division. So I'm living on a very small income, as we build up the online store into a successful business. The Block Bikes online store, is a big, broad, major website, and it's going to take a solid year or year and a half to build something that large into a well known, popular, and profitable business. It's a long term thing.
So while I have a stable, but temporary, place to stay for now, I still have to build an income on my own, if I'm going to build my life back into something close to a typical life. I need to do that while helping Block get to where it needs to be. I've spent most of the the last two years homeless, to be able to focus on my main talents. I needed to live as cheap as possible, since there was no one willing to invest in me, to really build my art and writing into a business. Homelessness was the best option, as crazy as that sounds.
Most people think that homelessness ends when a homeless person gets a roof over their head. Actually, that's not the case. Homelessness, and the struggling mentaility that helps a person survive it, ends when a homeless person gets a room to rent, or an apartment, AND they have a stable income, high enough to keep that place indefinitely, barring an unexpected tragedy. Homelessness really ends when a homeless person is confident they won't be homeless again, unless something really crazy happens. I'm now at the top level of homelessness, similar to someone who's found a job, but is staying in a weekly motel or halfway house, working towards their own place, their own space. I'm almost there, but I need to build a big enough, stable income, that will allow me to get my own apartment, a car, the basic stuff needed, and finally (hopefully) stabilize.
The one thing that hasn't changed over the last month is my frantic, dawn to dusk work, to build a foundation, to build my own income, as well as building the awareness and online presence of the Block Bikes online store. This blog hit the 70,000 page view threshold about a week ago, making it my second most popular blog, trailing only Freestyle BMX Tales. Meanwhile, the Block Bikes Blog will be 2 months old tomorrow, and it has over 3,000 page views, more than 5 times what this blog saw in its first two months. I'm off to a really good start on those things.
I've also been building the Block Bikes Pinterest page. I got interested in Pinterest when I started seriously promoting my Sharpie art. I googled "Sharpie art," and saw that half of the pictures that came up were from Pinterest. I've since learned that Pinterest has 250 million viewers a month, and they are largely higher income, and they actually buy stuff. So while everyone is stroking their egos by posting B.S. on Instagram, the people who want to actually sell things online are learning the ins and outs of Pinterest, and putting it to work.
Once I started building a personal Pinterest page, which included my art, I found I just like sitting down in the evenings, and looking through cool photos, and adding to my collections, my Pinterest boards. Google my main hashtag, #sharpiescribblestyle, and you'll be drowned in images of my artwork. My Sharpie art now has a bigger online presence than most successful, mid-sized businesses, and I built that while living homeless, sitting in the libraries or at a McDonald's, on my old, hand-me-down laptop. In the course of promoting, and actually selling, about 100 major drawings, I got pretty good at social media marketing. There are a ton of things I still need to learn, and it's a continual process, but I understand the big picture of it now. This has become another skill set that I can use to make money. This is the skill set that Rich at Block tapped into, making it worth his while to get me back to California, and get a roof over my head. This skill set will help me earn more money, as I use it to build up the Block online business.
So, the night before last, I was able to finally do something I haven't been able to do for a couple of years. I took the bus to the big shopping area near here, where there's a Barnes & Noble, among other things. I was able to just relax, take some time off, and "catch my breath," so to speak. I didn't have to worry about where I was going to sleep that night, or if my clothes and art supplies would be stolen, like they were in Richmond. I've been an avid reader my whole life, and simply wandering around a book store and browsing magazines and books, is a thing I love to do now and then. For the first time in several years, I had enough money to actually buy a new book, if I wanted. As simple as it sounds, it was wonderful. I browsed through magazines for maybe 45 minutes, and then wandered the store for another hour or so. It was wonderful.
But I didn't really find anything I wanted to read. That spoke to the writer in me. After wandering for a while, I started to ask myself, "What do I want to read these days?" There are a couple of business oriented books I do want to read soon, but they're both $20 or more, and I didn't really want to spend that much. The store didn't have either one, anyhow. In fiction, the last novels I really got into were the original Lisbeth Salander books, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and the two follow-ups. The original author died, and the two new books with her character didn't interest me. I was a big fan of Michael Crichton, and there are a couple of his novels I never read. But those didn't seem right, right now. Neither did any of Clive Cussler's novels, though I always find them a good read. Dean Koontz' books have some of the greatest characters, but I wasn't feeling his vibe right then, either. Maybe re-read Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? They didn't have that either, which was fine.
I ended up buying the $8 version of Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That was the only book that called to me, and was a price I didn't feel bad paying. I've read that book 4 or 5 times, and I knew the new, 20th anniversary, updated version would refresh his ideas to me, helping with my work at Block on with my own stuff. But still, I asked, "What to I REALLY want to read right now?" That basic question is why BMXers started their own companies 30 years ago, and began to completely re-design the classic, double diamond hardtail, BMX bike, into the new, modern, much stronger versions. That basic question is why people like me made zines in the 80's (and 90's and 2000's, and even today), and while people blog, and why we started making our own BMX freestyle videos in the late 80's and early 90's.
That basic question, "Why doesn't somebody make (do, write, produce, build, film...) ______________?" That's the question that leads to creative progression. I realized that the book I REALLY wanted to read, was an idea I had in my head, to write, for a long time. So I headed back home, and the next morning, I began writing it. It'll be a big, fat zine soon. I'll let you know.
So that's where I'm at. I was finally able to let go of the frantic struggle to survive, the homelessness survival mentality, to some extent, and relax a little. That's a good thing. And mixed in with all the other stuff I spend 15 hours a day doing, I'm writing a new idea, one I've had in the back of my head for maybe 15 years. It may be a really cool zine. Or it may completely suck and fail. I'm OK with that. If writing it didn't scare me, it wouldn't be worth the trouble. That's the nature of creative projects. You gotta take chances. Now go do something you think needs doing. And light up the night.
This article above is from Bloomberg business news, yesterday, 6/2/2019.The article says we could face a looming global recession due to the trade wars in 9 months. We could face a global recession due to the trades wars in 9 days. That's really where we are right now. It'll probably be a couple more months or so, but I don't think our horribly manipulated economy can be propped much longer.
Before I left Richmond, nearly a month ago, I started thinking of the Big Picture of where things are headed as "The Unraveling." I've been writing about the looming recession for a couple of years now. I predicted that the stock markets would start dropping soon after the Corporate Welfare plan, aka the Trump Tax Cuts, were passed. The Tax bill was signed by President Trump on December 22, 2017, and went into effect January 1, 2018. The stock markets continued to rise early in Trumps presidency because major corporations knew that huge windfall was coming. The NYSE markets peaked on January 26, 2018, and began to drop. That's what I predicted, and that came true. The tech heavy Nasdaq went up a while longer.
Here's where I screwed up. I didn't realize just how much our economy was being rigged, I completely underestimated the corruption at the top levels in our world. A relatively small number of major investors soon began to buy a small number of key stocks, and the market averages climbed again, as the huge windfall major corporations got in the tax cuts were used mostly to buy back their own stocks. There was no much-needed infrastructure plan, that both parties promoted in the 2016 election. There was very little major capital investment. We didn't hear of dozens of new factories opening in the last year. The tax cuts did exactly what all major tax plans are designed to do, they made the super rich richer.
But even that focused investment to buoy up the stock averages, aided by a decade of super cheap money due to artificially low interest rates, couldn't raise the markets much past the January 26th high point. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked again on September 21st, then began dropping again when the Federal Reserve did exactly what the Fed should have been doing, they began to raise interest rates back to a reasonable level. Some of the markets dropped 20%, some individual stocks were down 40% or more, and that led to the huge market drop last Christmas Eve. The stock market, according to one analyst, was actually halted 40 times, that day, to try and negate the carnage.
Ultimately, Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell completely flip-flopped, to such a degree that many people watching wondered just what he had been threatened with. So the Fed stopped doing its job, it cut plans to hike up interest rates further. And that bought the stock markets some more time, which was the whole point, to prop up the economy until after the 2020 election. Stupidity came back in vogue, and the markets climbed back near the two previous peaks. But stocks, by and large, are priced high right now. Even the best investor in the U.S., Warren Buffet, said he was sitting on $112 billion to invest, and had no good place to put it, in an interview this past spring.
So now our President Trump has stoked the Trade War fires, at the time when he's under threat of an impeachment, has been named a co-conspirator in the case that put his lawyer in Federal prison, and has about 16 major investigations into corruption, financial issues, and obstruction of justice, some of which could turn to be outright treason, if proven.
Things have gone off the rails. It's not going to get any better for the President and the establishment Republicans anytime soon. And now a potential trade war with Mexico, which we are completely intertwined with, business-wise and financially, is escalating. A trade war with Mexico would be taking a metaphorical baseball bat to the knees of many of our major corporations, they have operations on both sides of the border. A report last night said about a billion dollars in trade, A DAY, goes back and forth over the Mexican border. It's just a really bad idea. Even worse, it threatens our guacamole supply. We can't have that.
So this is what I kind of anticipated, we will see an unraveling in President Trump as he tries to cope with bad news from all sides. This will lead to some really bad decisions, like a trade war threat with Mexico, and many others. This will put the brakes on the wobbly stock markets, which we've seen happen over the last 5 weeks. I just don't see any other rabbits to be pulled out of this economic hat. I think we will finally slide, slowly at first, then increasingly faster, into the recession that's been held off for a couple of years now. That's hard, but not entirely bad. We NEED a recession, they sort out the well run businesses and weed out the poorly run ones.
I've only been talking about the stock markets so far, which are largely the wealth of the financial elites. The stock market over the last few years has basically detached itself from "Main Street" America. Most Americans are already struggling. Around 60% of workers struggle with low wage service jobs, and at least another 25%, that make good salaries in tech and other fields, are struggling with massive student loan debt. That student loan debt will be the thing to watch when things really head South in the stock markets. Because much of the $1.5 TRILLION in student loan debt, has been repackaged and resold, just like sub prime mortgages were in 2007-2008.
Maybe, someone, somewhere, behind the scenes, will find another form of manipulation to stave off the recession (actually, we're likely looking at a full blown, decade long, Great Depression at this point), for a few more months, but I really doubt it.
As I've said before, buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride. But for the three of you who read this far, there is hope. Remember, a recession is when the whole world goes on sale, but nobody wants to buy. There will be incredible opportunities in the next few years, whatever happens. but few people will take advantage of them. Hopefully you are one of them.
This outlook on the future, depressing as it seems, is why I believe that helping workers learn to become functional small business people, is a key to our future. The major corporations, like today's tech giants, don't hire tens of thousands of people like major manufacturing companies once did. Not until they get to an Amazon size, anyhow. Somebody needs to create lots of jobs, and tens of thousands of tiny businesses, aided by today's technology, is the best bet I see to do that.
Hey, it's Monday. I guess that's as good a time as any to hit you with the "bad news." Whatever happens, Friday's still on its way.
