I honestly don't know what's going on with the page views on this blog... as it creeps towards 500,000

 AI?  Bots?  Thousands of people finding this blog while using VPN's?  I don't know.  Steve Emig: The White Bear blog has about 200,000 "normal" page views, and now nearly 300,000 in huge chunks from all over.  I spend most of my time and effort on my Substack now, and just put up blog posts here once in a while.  If anyone knows what's going, let me know.  

People living in commercial buildings and alternative scenarios to save money or create dream homes

When it comes to alternative living spaces, there's one that goes way back.  Ever wonder just exactly what it was like down in Oscar's trash can on Sesame Street?  Of course you did.  It turns out Elmo got a quick peak at it once.  

As a grubby little kid who didn't care much about cleanliness, I definitely could relate to Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street a bit.  When the drama was high in my house, there seemed times when living in a trash can like Oscar might be a good idea.  I'm only half joking.  Alternative housing, when you live in a tense household, was appealing as a kid.  I couldn't wait to grow up, make money, and have my own place to live.  OK, things didn't play out quite like I expected.  As a result, I have lived in a wide range of "non-normal" living situations, as well as several cool apartments and houses, in my adult life.

It was the late 1970's TV detective, Dan Tanna, who really turned me on to the idea of living in a commercial building.  In the TV private detective show, Vegas (See 20:06, 30:38, 38:14). Tanna lived in a warehouse/industrial building in Las Vegas, and drove a classic, red, 1957 Ford Thunderbird into his living room.  When I was 12 or 13 years old, that seemed like the coolest bachelor pad ever.  Tanna, being a TV detective, was always surrounded by beautiful women, which added to the idea.  My dad, a serious car guy in his younger years, owned a red, 1955 Ford T-bird, and two 1957 T-Birds, which was another reason Dan Tanna seemed super cool to me, as a kid.    

A few years later, and about 1,500 miles west, in Boise, I got into BMX bike racing and freestyle while I was in high school.  A year after I graduated high school, in 1985, my family moved to San Jose, California.  With no money for college, and with BMX freestyle being the driving force in my life then, I started publishing a BMX freestyle zine, financed by my low wage job at Pizza Hut.  Old School BMXers remember that the BMX movie Rad came out in 1986.  The whole plot of Rad seemed pretty hokey to me, but it was cool that BMX made it onto movie screens.  

Another bicycle movie came out about the same time, the Kevin Bacon movie Quicksilver.  It was about a stock broker who loses big, goes broke, and becomes a bicycle messenger in San Francisco.  Personally, I liked Quicksilver better than Rad.  In that movie, Jack and his girlfriend lived in a big, industrial loft turned into an apartment.  Again, that just seemed like a really cool place to live.  I thought, "if I lived there, I could freestyle in my living room."  It wasn't like I suddenly started dreaming of living in an industrial building, it was just something that seemed cool, and the idea stuck in the back of my head.  

Years later, as I lived in a bunch of different places with BMXers, and backyard ramps became a thing, the idea grew.  In addition, I was living cheap all through the 1990's.  During that era, I was working odd jobs, reading dozens of books, and just trying to work through my shyness and personal issues.  Then, after an injury in 1999, I wound up living in a taxi, and in a whole lot of unusual places, in the early 2000's, and beyond.  In high school, I had expected to live a pretty typical life.  But BMX took me off in another direction, and I'm glad it did.  Over my adult years, I've lived in two houses with 10 or more roommates at a time, in an office, in RV's, in an indie art gallery, in an industrial building, in my personal car and several taxis, and a whole bunch of different homeless scenarios, ranging from shelters, to a tent in the woods for several months.  It definitely wasn't the plan, but I became very experienced at cheap and "alternative" living situations.  

Now it's 2025, and nearly everybody, at every income level, is complaining about how high rent and mortgage payments are.  And they are right.  Mortgage and rent affordability is worse than it has been for most of your lives.  For a while now, I've been writing a series on my Substack site about the tens of thousands of vacant and abandoned buildings in the United States.  I call this issue the "Simulpocalypse."  You can check my Substack posts, to learn more about that idea.  At this point, after many years in and out of homelessness, I just want to find a decent place to live and work.  But that old idea has grown.  Getting an industrial or warehouse building large enough to create a live/work/art studio place, one big enough to put a mini ramp inside, sounds really, really cool.  It will probably never happen, but the dream is still there.  

In any case, housing affordability is a huge issue for millions of people now, not just me.  At the same time, there are more and more warehouses, industrial buildings, stores of different sizes, and now entire office buildings, becoming vacant.  One possible option to save money on housing, or to build a dream house scenario, is to look to these vacant and abandoned commercial buildings, sitting empty around the country.  

It turns out YouTubers seem to be leading the charge with this idea.  I think we're heading into a long, pretty gnarly, recession. I think people finding cool ways to live in vacant urban and commercial buildings will grow into a decent sized trend.  It's not the only option to save money on housing, but it's one interesting option that's out there today.  As traditional homes and apartments have become more and more expensive, a huge number of commercial buildings have become vacant, even totally abandoned.  Many are much cheaper to lease than apartments in the same area.  Sure, you're not supposed to live in commercial buildings.  But building owners need tenants, and some may let a decent tenant live in the building, and not sweat it, so they have some rent coming in.  

So here are a bunch of different people who are, or have lived in, commercial buildings, in one way or another.  Check out the ones that sound interesting.  

YouTuber Marianne and her boyfriend live in an old bank in Montreal that they remodeled 

Stacie and her family live in a remodeled, 100-year-old school building in Indiana

An old train car turned into an Airbnb in rural Idaho

Sheila bought an abandoned lighthouse in Ohio and turned it into her home

Abandoned missile silo turned into a home in New York

OK, enough of the crazy places, here are some much more down to Earth homes in commercial buildings and other alternative living spaces.  

This couple, who run an online business and a YouTube channel, were building a home in part of their warehouse out in the country in Florida

Performer/YouTuber and his girlfriend live in an industrial building in Orange County, California

An architect bought an abandoned auto repair shop, and rebuilt into his work/live space in Atlanta

Another guy who lives with roommates in a warehouse in California

This real estate investor "became homeless," and lived in his office to save money, after the real estate market crashed, during the Great Recession.  He credits the time spent living in the office with helping him to get his business going strong again.  

This former patent attorney bought an abandoned building and spent four years building it into his dream live/work space

Another guy who lived in an office in the Los Angeles area, to help his friend who was getting a small online business going.  He paid low rent, which would help his friend pay the lease on the office, and he helped work on the business, as well.  

A 1940's era gas station turned into a home in Lousiana

A retired couple built a luxury home inside of an old factory building

This former Catholic church was turned into a home in Boston

This YouTuber and her 4 kids live in a former thrift store turned into apartment

This guy lives in a converted commercial property

I do most of my writing on Substack these days, a platform designed specifically for writers.  Check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack  

Post #1 of my Simulpocalypse Series on Substack (it links to the later posts)

Inflection Point Weekend- June 13th-June 15th, 2025

Generation X was grew up under the threat of a potential, worldwide, nuclear Holocaust at any time.  A holocaust that never happened.  Not yet, anyhow.  What can I say, it made us a bit jaded.

Generation X, of which I'm one of the older members, was the last generation to be raised in the Industrial Age, when the factories of America were still thriving.  By the time we hit our teens, and the first Millennials were being born, the factories were closing down, and we were visibly in the long transition into the emerging Information Age.  

By the time the Millennials started hitting their teen years, the internet came along, and democratized communication around the world, in a way that had never happened before in human history.  At that time, the earliest Gen Z kids were being born.  Gen Z was born into a fully digital world, with Web 2.0 in full effect from childhood, and social media and smartphones coming along in their childhood years.  Through all these last few decades, the pace of social and technological change has been steadily increasing.  The power brokers of the Industrial Age world have been desperately clinging to what power they could, while the paradigm shifted around them.  

There come times when the slow grind of change builds up pressure, and a major, sudden shift happens.  An earthquake in society, you might say.  A major inflection point.  

The pace of changes becomes social inflection points when a great deal of change happens in the mentality of large numbers of people.  Or changes in mentality that have already happened make themselves known.  It looks like this weekend, June 13th through June 15th, 2025, will be one of those major inflection points in human society in the United States, and perhaps around the world.  Pay attention kids, we are all living history this weekend, however things play out.  I'm simply calling attention to the importance this weekend will play in society overall.  And somehow, it all starts with a Friday the 13th.  Crazy.  

Here are a few songs to set the mood for what looks to be a pretty crazy weekend, one way or the other.  

"We didn't start the fire" - Fallout Boy, cover of Billy Joel 

"We didn't start the fire" - Bill Joel original

"American Idiot" - Green Day, live in Berlin

"Take back the power" - The Interrupters

"Worker's song" - Dropkick Murphys

"The times they are a-changein'" - Brandi Carlile, cover of Bob Dylan

"Killing in the name of" - Rage Against The Machine

"Punk rock song" - Bad Religion

"End of the world as we know it" - REM

"Get up, stand up" - Bob Marley & The Wailers

"One day" - Matisyahu

Blogger's Note- Monday, June 16th, 2025- It turns out that all those AR-15's owned by 2nd Amendment activists have been completely useless in preventing the drive toward authoritarianism in the United States of America.*  The push by the American Right away from a constitutional democratic republic, and towards an authoritarian state, continues.  Guns are useless in a war of ideas and culture.  The NRA is MIA in the fight to preserve democracy.  But we all knew that already.  

Here are some new reports from today (6/16/2025):

Democracy Now- Headlines- Monday morning, June 16th, 2025

Democracy Now- "No Kings" report- Monday morning, June 16th, 2025 - The pro-democracy majority in the United States of America now has a face.

Rachel Maddow report about President Trump's fading popularity- June 16th, 2025

BBC report comparing the relative military strengths between Israel and Iran

Medias Touch You Tube channel video with Fox News clips included in it

Economic analyst/former Fed economist-  Lacy Hunt interviewed by Adam Taggart- "I think recession risks are better than 50/50..."  (NSFSASP- Not Safe For Short Attention Span People)

And on the lighter side, here's a parody music video: 

"No Kings" music video  by Scared Ketchup art club

Was this weekend, June 13th-June 15th, 2025 an actual inflection point in the United States, or society as a whole?  Time will tell if democracy or authoritarianism wins in the U.S., and elsewhere...

* Just for the record, I am 100% for legal gun ownership.  If you own guns, you need to be a responsible gun owner.  

 

Rumble in Richmond 2025

Here's the Dig BMX edit of the Rumble in Richmond BMX day O' fun, put on by Steve Crandall and posse.  If you like BMX, and you ever get the chance to go to one of Steve Crandall's events, do it.  It's as simple as that.  Check out RAD Share, and help them out if you can.  Bikes to kids who need them.  

Just for the record, I was not at the Rumble in Richmond.  But I lived there a while back in 2018-2019.  I went to the DIY World Championships event in October of 2018, and it was epic, even as an old guy with no bike.  That's why I recommend checking out any event Steve Crandall puts on.

The "Lost Cities" of the Amazon

Have you ever heard about the "Legend of El Dorado," the city in South America that was made entirely of gold?  The very first European explorers in the Amazon in the 1500's reported huge cities.  When more explorers made it into the Amazon area about 100 years later, those cities couldn't be found.  Over centuries, a legend was born that there was a Lost city, built entirely of gold, somewhere in the Amazon basin.

An explorer in the early 1900's, named Percy Fawcett, became obsessed with a lost city in the Amazon he called "Z."  A few months ago, I read the book, The Lost City of Z, about Fawcett.  On his 8th expedition into the Amazon, looking for the lost city of Z, Fawcett disappeared, in 1925.  Dozens of other explorers later went into the Amazon, looking for both Fawcett, and "Z," and disappeared themselves.  Fawcett never found the Lost city of Z, but he did report finding earthen mounds, and ancient pottery in places.  In reality, he actually did find parts of the "Lost Cities of the Amazon," but they weren't built with stone, with huge temples, like the cities of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas.  Fawcett didn't recognize the earthen mounds and bits of pottery as remains of the cities he was looking for.  

But now, partly because of the massive deforestation for cattle ranching, and LIDAR scans showing huge, shaped, earthen mounds under the jungle cover still remaining, there is a lot of evidence that large villages and cities once existed there.  More and more signs of these societies are being found on a regular basis.  

If you're interested in the lost cities of the Amazon, the 7 minute video above gives a good overview of what has been found.  There are many more videos that go into more depth on the subject, as well as interviews and talks with Graham Hancock, who has written a book on this subject.  

I'm doing most of my writing on a platform called Substack now, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

There are no paid links in this post.

Top Ten Reasons The White Bear Sucks

Op cord short shorts for guys.  Izod ankle socks, yeah, they actually had the little fucking alligators on them.  Nike Pegasus running shoes because I sucked at running cross country before I sucked at BMX.  The Vuarnets are cool, I found them in a field.  This is me as manager of the tiny Boise Fun Spot amusement park, balancing on my Skyway T/A, in the summer of 1985.  Yep, a lame freestyler (one of three in Boise then), running racing frame pads while doing balance tricks.  Let's face it, it was all downhill after this photo was taken.  Photo by Vaughn K., my co-worker at the Fun Spot.  

Top Ten Reasons The White Bear Sucks

(One) He looks gay as fuck in that photo from Boise in 1985 (above), he must be a fag.  (Actually I'm just a lame straight guy who's been fat, ugly, broke, and had bad teeth for the last 20-25 years, so it's not like women have been beating down my door or anything).  

(Two) He had terrible, shaky camera work in this video, although the ending is cool.  "Somebody fire that cameraman right now."  Heh, heh, heh...

(Three)  He spent way too much time writing about trying to do bunnyhop tailwhips in his blog, and never, EVER, pulled one.  Bill Nitschke invented that trick, let him enjoy the props for being the first guy to land it.  

(Four) He's a loser... anybody who can manage to be homeless for 17 or 18 years must be smoking crack or meth or something.  How could anyone not get a job for 17 years?  (Actually no alcohol, no drugs, I even kicked my Diet Coke habit a couple of years ago.  I do have a serious 7-11 pepperoni pizza habit though, after my years driving a taxi, and then being unable to find any job in NC for ten years, I actually have no work history to even put on a resume' at this point).  Either I manage to get a little, one man publishing/content creating business going, or I'll do the work for free.  Time will tell which way it ultimately works out.   

(Five) He hasn't been able to jump anything at Sheep Hills since about 1992, when The Bowl was still a thing.  And he had the audacity to write a "History of Sheep Hills" post on his Substack.  What the fuck is a Substack, anyhow?  

(Six) He writes like he's still a BMX guy, but he hasn't ridden a bike since like 1995 or something.  (Actually I rode nearly every day from June of 1982 until August of 2003.  The last trick I learned was nollie 180's on a speed bump, in a parking lot in Garden Grove, across the freeway from the Van's Skatepark and The Block of Orange.  I started gaining weight working as a taxi driver in late 2003, got really fat, and haven't ridden hardly at all since, that's true).  

(Seven) He's fat, ugly, and he smells bad.  I know you're homeless, but damn dude, jump in the ocean once in a while or something.

(Eight) He wrote FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales blog and totally pissed off everyone at Wizard Publications.  (Yep, I wrote that blog in 2008-2009 (over 100 posts).  Then I wrote the original Freestyle BMX Tales blog from 2009-2012 (over 500 posts).  I deleted both of those blogs completely from the internet in the fall of 2012).  

(Nine) He actually admits that he used to work in a porn store.  He must be a perv.  I bet he has sex with goats, aardvarks, and transgender pygmies or something.  (Sorry to disappoint everyone, but a little free lesbian porn when I get a motel room keeps me away from the goats, pygmies, and such.  I do find aardvarks cute, though, but in a purely platonic way).  

(Ten) The guy made like three low-budget BMX videos, waaaaay back when, and they all sucked.  And he acts like he's some big Hollywood producer or something.  What an arrogant prick!  Here's the Steve Emig: The White Bear's Film Festival.  You can decide how much they all suck.  Feel free to go off on Facebook to make it official.  

(Bonus) The guy is 58-years-old, and he still calls himself "The White Bear," a nickname from 1992.  Who the fuck does that?  He writes blog posts making fun of himself, in the third person.  Who does that?  Besides, the guy is so damn sarcastic that I can never tell if he's kidding or he's serious.  What a fucking kook!  He's a fucking NEVER WAS sell out.  And he draws pictures of other people's photos and calls it "art."  What a loser.

Blogger's note- June 9- 2025- Everything on the list above is a reference to things that have been said to my face, said about me in social media comments, or said behind my back that I heard about later.  My life has been really weird for about 25 years now, and I've been plugging through a whole lot of bullshit, sometimes my own, but also a lot that came at me from outside sources.  It's a crazy world, shit happens.  I'm still plugging away at trying to create pretty cool stuff, to the extent I'm able, every single day.  I will continue to do that, as long as I can.  In this post, I just decided to address a bit of the mud that's been slung at me, in my usual, sarcastic way.  

When not writing self-deprecating posts while Old School BMX events are happening elsewhere, I do most of my writing on Substack these days.  It's an online platform designed specifically for writers.  To find more reasons to hate me, click the link below:

Steve Emig: The White Bear's Substack 

Which was weirder: the year 2024 or "A Boy and His Dog" - set in 2024?

In 1975, before cell phones, personal computers, the internet, social media, Miami Vice, and most video games, a sort of kinky, weird, post-apocalyptic movie set in 2024 came out.  It was called A Boy and His Dog, and starred a young Don Johnson.  Working on an unrelated substance post, I just learned that movie was set in 2024.  Well... we didn't have World War III, or World War IV.  Civilization is still around, we didn't live through the end of the world.  But the real world in 2024 was something they couldn't possibly have imagined back in 1975.  Which was crazier?  A Boy and His Dog or real life 2024?  You decide, and let me know on Facebook.  

The year 2024 in review by NBC News.  I'd say the real 2024 was a hell of a lot crazier than a talking dog helping a guy get laid.  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  

I'm doing most of my writing on Substack these days, a platform designed specifically for writers.  Check it out sometime:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

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