Cool BMX videos- 3/6/20

Since my personal blog link got banned on Facebook by some whiny bitch, you can follow one of the links below to see the video I mentioned:

Van's Shimmer BMX video

The Ripples...What comes next in the economic world...

No, this headline and interview above isn't from January 17th, 2020, this interview with Robert Kiyosaki is dated January 17th, 2018, two full years ago.  Robert Kiyosaki is best known for writing the financial bestseller,  Rich Dad, Poor Dad (not a paid link), and several other books.  This clip was taped less than a month after President Trump signed the massive tax cut bill, which most people at the time thought would send the stock markets soaring.  In reality, the Dow, S&P 500, and Russell 2000 all peaked a few days later, after this interview, on January 26th, 2018, and then headed slowly downward.  The Nasdaq went higher for a few months, and then it, too, headed south.

Here's what I see coming soon, after last week's stock market slide:

-One or two up days in the stock market this next week, but another major downhill slide for 2-3-4 days.  There will inevitably, and very unfortunately, be a "community spread" of the virus we're all worried about, in some major city.  This will let us all know this virus issue will be playing out for longer than any of us want it to, and will cause far more trouble that we're hoping it will right now.  That news will have another huge negative effect on the financial markets. 

-Some major investment/lending business goes bankrupt/closes permanently... soon.  In 2008 it was Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers investment banks that closed suddenly, sending shock waves through markets and business people.  This time, my educated guess is that we'll see a collapse somewhere in the "shadow banking" world... within days or a few weeks from now.  Some business, like a mortgage lender or auto loan lender, but not an "Official" bank, there have been a lot of rumors of businesses in that world struggling recently.  This one will ripple through the markets in a massive way.

-Large scale layoff announcements at one or more major companies, over the next several weeks and months.

-Some major, established, well known corporation will file for bankruptcy soon, within a month or two.  Yes, we've had several bankruptcies in retail already, once colossal department store, Sears, is in bankruptcy already, for example.  Will it be another major retailer, or some other corporate giant?

-Major downgrading of many businesses' BBB rated corporate bonds into the junk category.  Institutional investors will then be forced to sell a lot of these bonds, which will cause another negative ripple in the markets.

-Farther into the future ( a few weeks, 1-2 months)- Visible signs of a pull back in home sales and commercial real estate, sales and prices will begin dropping in most places.

-At some point, there will be some kind of meltdown in student loan debt.  According to this Nerd Wallet article, nearly 40% of federal student loan debt wasn't being back on time in early 2019.  If that number hasn't increased, it will soon.  We saw a sub prime mortgage loan meltdown in 2008, that was a major trigger of all the other issues.  Student loan debt could be one of several debt meltdowns this time around.  If that happens, then we have to start watching colleges and universities for signs of financial distress.


Why do I think these things will happen?  Because these are the kinds of things that happen when we have underlying financial system issues like we do right now, and then a "black swan" event triggers a downturn.  

The clip above, after last week's horrific stock market crash, seems quite prophetic.  Robert Kiyosaki isn't a mystic, and he wasn't staring into a crystal ball two years ago.  He has just spent his life gaining financial intelligence, learning, building businesses, buying properties, and investing in many things.  He understands money and the financial world at a level few people do.  So he was in a position to call a coming crash "in the next two or three years," in that clip.  He also talks about both "equity bubbles" and "debt bubbles" in this clip.  Right now, we have huge examples of both.  It appears one of the equity bubbles, the stock markets, are popping.  Time will tell, but this looks like a lot more than a market correction.  So here are the main financial bubbles in place right now:

The Asset Bubbles:

The stock markets- The Dow Jones Industrial Average went from about 7,224 in March 2009, after the 2008 crash, up to 29,551 on February 12th, 2020.  That's a rise of over 400% in just under 11 years.  We're definitely in bubble territory.  Source: DIJA chart (Max)

Residential real estate-  We went from a median U.S. home price of about $171,000 in January 2012 ($193K inflation adjusted), to nearly $272,000 in July 2019.  As we all know, real estate hasn't moved much in some areas of the U.S., and has soared in areas like San Francisco, New York City, and other tech hub cities.  Another bubble.  Source: Historical median home price chart.

Commercial real estate- According to the chart linked, major categories of commercial properties, like apartments, core commercial, retail, and industrial, all surged after the 2009-2010 market bottom.  This chart only goes to 2016, and retail was leveling off some then, but we get the idea.  Source: Commercial real estate trends.

And now, the Debt Bubbles: (Source: U.S. National Debt clock, unless another source is given)

U.S. national (government) debt- $23,394,536,000,000 ($23.3 trillion)
U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product- everything bought an sold in the U.S. in a year)- $21,845,407,000,000 ($23.84 trillion)
U.S. corporate debt- $15,500,000,000,000+ one year ago, ($15.5+ trillion)- Source: "US Corporate Debt Continues to Rise..."/Forbes, January 2019
U.S. credit card debt- $1,123,222,000,000 ($1.1 trillion)
U.S. mortgage debt- $16,155, 222, 000000 ($16.15 trillion)
U.S. student loan debt- $1,655,530,000,000 ($1.65 trillion)
U.S. car loan debt- $1,200,000,000,000 ($1.2 trillion) - Source: Investopedia article

These huge debt loads, the stock market euphoria, and the other parts of the big financial world picture have been building for over a decade now.  On top of that, interest rates have been kept historically low, and are even negative in some countries.  We're in a weird financial world Never Never Land, and no one is really sure exactly how things will shake out, ultimately.  But we have multiple tends and soaring debt levels that just can't go on forever.  And that's why we're seeing what appears ot be the beginning of a serious shake-out in the financial world.

These are the things I see happening in the next few weeks or months.  We'll see how things actually play out in the real world. 

The End of the World as We Know It... and I feel fine... recession time is here

REM's 1987 hit threw more lyrics at us then most of us could handle.  Doing a BMX freestyle at my sister's 1989 high school graduation after party (Del Mar High in San Jose), I remember this song getting played, and groups of kids singing every word while dancing like maniacs.  Now, 31 years later, this song sums up our U.S. economy, at the moment.  Things are changing in massive ways.  It's the end of the world as we know it... and I feel fine.  But a whole lot of people don't.  It appears "the next recession" is here to stay.

As I write this on February 27, 2020, the U.S. stock market has been plummeting for the last five days.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for over 100 years considered a sort of pulse for the U.S. economy, was down 3,542 points this morning, from it's February 12th record high of 29,551.  It's rebounded about 500 points this morning, from today's early drop, but at this moment, at about 26,766, it's still only about 100 points above the high it reached on January 26, 2018... two years ago.  The much hyped U.S. stock market hasn't moved much at all in two years, as of right now.  That's reality.  This recent slide is due to fears of that illness happening in China, and now several other countries.  This disease is having catastrophic effects on business in China, and now supply chains for other businesses worldwide.

(Blogger's note: 1:21 pm Pacific Time, Feb. 27, 2020- I just came back to proofread this post.  The Dow Jones Industrial average closed at 25,766.64 today, down nearly 1200 points on the day, far worse than it was this morning.  By comparison, that's a point it first hit about January 12th, 2018, about two weeks after the Trump Tax Cuts were signed, and about two weeks before the January 26th 2018 peak at 26,616.  The Nasdaq ended today at 8566.48, down from it's all time high, 8 days ago, of 9,817.18.)  

In reality, the U.S. went into a severe financial crisis last September, when a little mentioned part of the economy, the Repo Markets, froze up.  The same thing happened in 2008, while we were already in a recession that hadn't been acknowledged yet, and 100+ year old investment banks Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers went out of business suddenly.  That was when the 2007-2009 recession became apparent to most people.

This time, in September 2019, the Federal Reserve started "injecting liquidity into the financial system."  In plain English, that means they basically made money of thin air, and handed it to major banks to prop up the economy (Ok, that's an over-simplification, but close to how things work).  The Fed started pumping 40-50-60 BILLION dollars A DAY into the financial system.  That has happened nearly every day, for 5 months now.  That emergency program was supposed to last a week or two at first, at most.  But the system was so shaky, they had to keep doing it, to keep the stock market from going down hill, which would cause other markets to fall.  So Wall Street took all that money, and they borrowed more, and pumped it into stocks.  Since The Fed's repo market program started, the stock market has surged significantly higher.  But it was already at crazy high levels, and some veteran investors started wondering (and commenting online), about what "black swan" event would come along and pop the stock bubble.  It seems we have our answer.  

So what does this mean for the average person?  To start, it means your 401K, or retirement mutual funds are losing ground.  This econmic downturn will also mean lots more layoffs from major, and smaller companies, in the coming months.  We will see major, well known businesses go bankrupt, and many will go completely out of business.  Good jobs will get harder to find.  Lame jobs will get harder to find.  People with lots of student loan debt, credit card debt, and car debt will really be in tough times, especially if they lose a good job.  For the majority of people, it's a time to buckle down, live more within their means, and struggle through. We appear to be in the early stages of a serious economic downturn, which is already about three years overdue, by historical standards. 

 As the illness effects ripple through countries outside China, including ours, it means we may see some stores shut down temporarily, possibly people quarantined, and some people will get sick.  It will be pretty gnarly, some people will lose their lives, and loved ones to the illness, which is terrible, of course.  But our nation, as a whole will survive this disease. 

But something else has happened, this illness, the one all over the news these days, appears to be the "black swan" that was a tipping point for our stock markets, and that will send a domino effect through the U.S. (and other nations') economies.  A "black swan" is a very unlikely event that most people think won't happen, but has very large consequences if it does happen.  Imagine if actual aliens, from another planet, landed at the Super Bowl with hundreds of millions of people watching, for instance.  Yes, that's ridiculous, but that's the point.  That's something most people think would never happen.  But if it did, in a few minutes, it would change the way we look at outer space, and our planet,and life itself,  forever.  That's a crazy example of  a "black swan event."  That term, "black swan," comes from the 2007 book, The Black Swan (not a paid link), by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, looking at how these low probability events affect our world.

This economic downturn, though, will be different from previous ones.  There are several ultra-long term cycles and trends that are all converging right now, and this economic downturn will see far more change, and far more different kinds of change, than any in modern history.  I'm a weird sort of dork that is fascinated by this kind of thing, and I've been reading and learning about these long term trends for 30 years now.  I've been putting my thoughts on this subject into a free online book, of sorts, published as a blog, called, Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now. 

I'm thinking of this economic downturn, which we appear to be visibly entering now, as "The Phoenix Great Depression."  It will be crazy, it will be scary, like all economic downturns.  We will see fundamental parts of our society change dramatically, more than we've already seen.  But... this next few years, this next decade, will also offer more opportunity to build amazing new things, more than any time in modern history.  So while the economic downturn will cause a lot of chaos and destruction, we will also have the opportunity to have a better form of human society rise from the ashes. 

Gary Vaynerchuk on why Content Creation is so important (December 2019)

Potentially NSFW.  This is Gary Vaynerchuk.  He's from Jersey.  He cusses.  A lot.  Or curses, as he calls it.  So this may not play well in your office blasting on speakers. That said, Gary is an entrepreneur since childhood, beginning shortly after his family immigrated here from Belarus.  When he was 12 or 13 years old, he says he was making $2,000 to $3,000 a weekend selling baseball cards at mall card shows.  I believe him. 

In the early 2000's, he grew his dad's New Jersey liquor store from $3 million a year to $60 million in revenue a year, in 5-6 years, primarily using Google Adwords and later YouTube.  He started a YouTube channel called Wine Library TV, which sold a ton of wine through the store, and accidentally made Gary an "internet marketing expert."  That eventually led to public speaking, and he now gives keynote speeches around the world, for all kinds of different business oriented events. 

In 2009, Gary and his brother went their own direction and started VaynerMedia, a digital agency (aka new school advertising agency), which focuses on working for Fortune 1000 companies.  VaynerMedia is now doing over $131 million in annual revenue, and Vayner X is home to at least six other businesses. 

Gary Vaynerchuk plans to buy the New York Jets some day, and win a bunch of Super Bowls.  Gary puts out more "content" than nearly any individual out there, and most major businesses.  He has a ginormous personal following, like 2.1 million followers on Twitter, for example, though he doesn't make his living as an influencer.  In his spare time, this multi-millionaire likes to hit New Jersey garage sales, and buy toys, mugs, stuffed animals, and anything else he cam flip for a few buck on eBay.  If that coffee mug has a $1 price tag, and he knows it sell for $9 on eBay, he'll weasel you down to 50 cents.  Maybe a quarter. 

When it comes to creating content for a business, and attracting attention to your business or other project, Gary is one of the main people to watch for tips, hints, and inspiration.

Recession Repurposing: These guys bought a race track

These are the guys behind the Cleetus McFarland YouTube channel.  They bought this abandoned racetrack last month.

Who?  Yeah, that's what I said, I'd never heard of this channel, or these guys.  But that's no big deal, there are thousands of YouTube channels out there I've never heard of.  Here's what caught my attentionm the title, "We bought and abandoned racetrack!!!" 

If any of you have read my personal blog (Steve Emig: The White Bear), you know I tell old school BMX stories, I show my Sharpie art sometimes, and I write about  the economy, the future, and big picture societal issues.  You know, really boring shit no one cares about.  I'm actually most of the way through writing a whole, 20 chapter, mash-up book/blog thing about  the future, and all the crazy shit I see going on.  You can look at all the words you don't want to read here (Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now), and then click back here.  I'm into weird stuff, like futuristic thinking, that almost nobody cares about (until it happens). 

Here's why this clip caught my eye, when it popped up on the side of YouTube.  We're going through a whole slew of changes as a society.  A lot of things that once rocked, like this racetrack above, are going out of business.  A lot of amazing properties, even entire shopping malls, are going bankrupt, and winding up abandoned.  When we drop into the next recession, which should be before too long, that process will accelerate.  Yes, a lot of people get into trouble in recessions, and a lot of bad stuff happens, financially, and otherwise.  But the other side of that coin is that there are a lot of really incredible deals on pretty much everything, cars, ATV's, real estate, stocks, businesses, whatever you're into.  So there are a lot of abandoned buildings, bankrupt businesses, and other things that can be had for insane bargains during recessions.  Like this racetrack above.

That's what caught my attention, these guys from a successful YouTube channel were able to buy their own freakin' racetrack.  That's freakin' cool.  Sure, you can blow these guys off as a bunch of crazy, gearhead rednecks... mostly because they are... a bunch of crazy, gearhead rednecks.  But this was a cool and entertaining little video.  AND THEY BOUGHT THEIR OWN RACETRACK!

This is a cool example of things that have faded in popularity, and gone out of business (a local stock car track), and sat abandoned for a while.  Meanwhile, some guys who followed their passion, and build crazy vehicles for a YouTube channel that became financially successful, were able to ante up, and buy a property that's like a dream come true to them, and make it their own.  That's amazing.

If you have some money right now, or can put a cool deal together with people who have the money and other parts of the deal needed, there are a lot of cool opportunities out there.  When the next recession sets in, there will be all kinds of crazy deals, and hardly anybody in a position to take advantage of all the deals.  So keep that in mind, if you have some big dream, like buying your own racetrack.  Or whatever your dream is.  It just might be more possible than ever, in the next few years. 

Just something to think about...

 

A talk about original thinkers that's actually interesting to original thinkers

I was taking a break from a writing project this morning, and wanted to listen to "something smart."  So I searched Ted Talks.  Plenty of  "smart" in TED talks, and a fair amount of dumb, too, in some cases.  This was the first one that popped up, the algorithm's pick from my recent searches.  Actually the first one that popped up was a TED Talk called, "Let's Talk About Porn."  I'm like, "I haven't looked up any porn recently, this algorithm must be female, she's bringing up shit from a while back."  But Porn didn't sound like a topic I wanted to hear a Ted Talk about right now.  So I looked at  the videos in the side bar, and this one was first. 

Initially, I wanted to skip it, thinking, "I'm already an original thinker."  I spent my childhood thinking up all kinds of amazing ideas, and then not acting on any of them.  Classic daydreamer with low self-esteem.  Then, I got into BMX freestyle at age 16, and a couple of years later, had this idea to start a zine.  It seemed an interesting enough idea, that I stuck with it, and actually published my first BMX freestyle zine.  It really sucked.  But I met a bunch of really good freestylers in the San Francisco Bay Area because of it.  They thought it was halfway decent.  So I made another one the next month.  And the next month.  M zines got better, I did 11 issues, got written up in FREESTYLIN' magazine, and then hired to work at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  The first zine, one of the first ideas I actually stuck with, changed the course of my life... for the better. 

I became a part of the BMX industry, and was suddenly surrounded by guys who had lots of cool ideas, and then acted on some of those ideas.  BMX, and especially BMX freestyle, was super entrepreneurial in those early days.  I met Bob Osborn, Scot Breithaupt, R.L. Osborn, Bob Morales, Bob Haro, Don Hoffman, Chris Moeller, Rick Moliterno, Spike Jonze, Brad McDonald, Steve Crandall, and many others.  Being around people like that, acting on my ideas became a natural thing after a while.

My point is, despite my lack of financial success, I've done a lot of cool shit over the years.  A TED Talk about "original thinkers," didn't seem all that interesting at first.  But I gave it a shot.  This is actually a really great talk, and this guy's really funny, and a good speaker, as well.  Check it out. 

Why Content Creation is important these days

The land rush scene from the 1992 movie Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. 

In 1889, the United States opened up a huge chunk of land, what is now much of Oklahoma, to homesteaders.  By the order of President Benjamin Harrison, on April 22, 1889, about 50,000 people lined up on the borders of this huge area, ready to grab a free piece of land.  At noon, cannons and guns fired, and trumpets sounded, that was the start signal, and people raced into the region, which is what this movie scene is about.  The deal was,  people would find a piece of land they wanted, and plant their flag.  By doing that, and then registering the claim soon after, these people could claim 160 acres of land.  They had to live on that land, and make improvements on it, for five years.  If the homesteaders did that, they would receive the title of that 160 acres of land, for no money.  This is one way that the U.S. got people to claim the former Indian lands, and encouraged settlement of those lands.  You can learn more about the Land Rush here.

If you own a small business, do some kind of creative work, or maybe are an athlete who makes money from some kind of sponsorship deals, you're ignoring "free land" and free promotion for your business, work, or ideas, if you don't create content on many of the platforms available in today's world.

So what does this Oklahoma land rush of 1889 have to do with the internet and social media?  It's a pretty good analogy.  When you open an account on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, or create a blog or website somewhere on the internet, you're claiming your own piece of the cyber world.  Like the Oklahoma land rush, you're staking your claim and saying "This area is mine." 

Once you have your little piece of the cyber world, you can share your ideas through text, photos, audio, and video.  You can also share other people's ideas and content, drawing attention to that content and those ideas.  When you do that, you're "creating content," as it's now known. 

Why create content?  There are a whole bunch of reasons.  Getting Likes is one of the worst reasons, but a popular one.  Some people just want attention.  Some people want others to like them and validate them.  Everyone has their own viewpoints on many different subjects.  A lot of people have specific info, or some skill or experience in some area, that can help other people learn a new skill, entertain people, expose people to something new, or share ideas. 

For most of human history, there were very few ways for an average person to share their knowledge and ideas with very many people.  But the internet and social media have democratized media, and now, nearly everyone can get their ideas out and make then available to a huge chunk of the people, in the entire world.  For centuries, there were "gatekeepers" who let only certain people have a voice to large groups of people.  The gatekeepers may have been a TV producer, a magazine publisher, a newspaper editor, or someone like that.  Now, in today's world, there are no gatekeepers.  Virtually everyone can put stuff out on the web, or on social media. 

Because of this, there's a ton of crap out there to look at, and there's a lot of really good stuff, too.  By creating content, the best stuff you can put out, you can take advantage of one of the greatest opportunities in all of human history.  But hardly anyone really does it well, or puts much effort into it.  Nearly everyone shares stuff on the internet's websites, and social media platforms, today.  Most people go through their days spitting out mostly lame and crappy content.  But very few, even those people who are trying to promote something, take the time to learn to do this well, and work at creating good content on a consistent basis.  All kinds of business are in trouble, or going out of business these days, because they don't create good content regularly.  With the rise of the internet, social media platforms, and smartphones, people of all kinds now expect businesses and organizations of all kinds to put out good content. 

This has changed the business and social game.  In effect, if you own a business, creating content has been part of your job since about 2000-2005.  Before then it was helpful.  But since about 2005, you're leaving a great deal of money on the table, if you're not consistently creating good content, and a lot of it.  If you want to promote anything; your artwork, your business, yourself as an athlete, your favorite political candidate, your band, whatever, content creation is simply a necessary part of the game now.  If you don't get good at it, the person who takes your place, or puts you out of business eventually, will get good at it.  So that's why it's important in today's world. 

How I sold 80 major pieces of art, starting without a dime, while homeless

Sumatran tiger I drew in late 2018, for my first First Friday Art Walk in Richmond, Virginia.  18" X 24", I sold it last spring.  I love this one, I need to draw more animals at some point.  #sharpiescribblestyle

by Steve Emig, #sharpiescribblestyle

My life up until late 2015 is a really long, and ridiculously crazy story.  It may or may not involve aliens, sasquatch, government conspiracies, taxi driving, time travel, the American Gladiators, BMX freestylers, pro skateboarders, porn stars, and circus clowns.  Whatever the true story, by late 2015, I was 49 years old, and living with my mom, in a small two bedroom apartment, in Kernersville, North Carolina.  I couldn't find a "real job," despite three big pushes to do so, and filling out over 140 applications in the area.  That was something I'd never had happen, so I was pretty baffled by the complete shut-out on the job front.  I got hired for every single job I ever applied for, up until age 28, and most of those I  applied for after that.  Whatever the case, another means of making money was in order.

My mom and I didn't get along when I was a kid, and 40-some years later, the living environment still had a Chernobyl level of toxicity.  I was pretty miserable, and needed to find some way to make some kind of money.  I did the guy things around the apartment, and drove her to doctor's appointments and on six hour shopping expeditions regularly.  But the only thing that made me any money was doing an occasional Sharpie scribble style drawing of a kid's name, usually for a mom at our church, or sometimes drawing a cartoon character for a friend of of friend's kid.  Here's one of those you'll recognize.

Cowabunga dude!

Now, like a lot of moms out there, my mom has issues.  We're talking more issues than the  magazine rack at Barnes & Noble.  She also has a wall of denial when it comes to admitting those.  I'm not talking about a brick wall, more like a ten foot thick wall of steel reinforced concrete, covered by a foot of chromoly steel, covered by Teflon.  Nothing penetrates that wall.  Yes, that's a horrible thing to say about my mom.  But it's true.  And yes, I have plenty of my own issues.  The main difference is that I spent 25+ years of my adult life working through most of my issues.  My mom never saw the point in that.

The other thing to note is that my mom got progressively worse at handling money as she aged.  She spent her Social Security check, more than enough to live comfortably on, within three days of getting it, each month.  When she needed money the other 27 or 28 days, she came up with really bad ideas to come up with some.  Those ideas usually started with selling some overpriced kitchen machine she bought on QVC 2 or 3 months earlier.  The ideas quickly went downhill from there.  It was ridiculous. 

If I made any money in any way, my mom would nag me until I confessed the exact amount.  The next day some "crisis" would come up that desperately needed that exact amount of money.  If I had $23, a crisis popped up that needed exactly $23.  If my mom knew I had $1.76, a crisis popped up, usually involving chocolate, that needed exactly $1.76.  As if living in Kernersville, North Carolina, as a long time Californian actions sports guy, wasn't bad enough, living in those conditions made it ultra-miserable.  But my mom's a good cook, so I tolerated it.  It was a classic case of justifying staying in a toxic situation that already had put me on depression meds.  I had to find a way to make my own money, and get out of that situation.

The first Bruce Lee drawing I did, my Sharpie scribble style take on a Bruce Lee stencil.  Drawing this changed the course of my life.

One night, in November 2015, I decided to focus on trying to make money with my Sharpie art.  I put a few of my earlier drawings in that last post, and as you can tell, they were alright, maybe, but a long way from great.  I knew I needed to step up my art game.  Step 1 was simply to ask myself, "What would I want to put on my wall?"  I sat down at my mom's computer, it was faster than my $65 refurbished HP laptop, which was still running Windows XP.  For 2 1/2 hours, I looked at all kinds of art online.  I started with some classics, like Monet, Renoir, Degas, daVinci, Michelangelo (the artist, not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), and others.  Great painters, but they don't do much for me.  I looked at some 20th century people, like Picasso, M.C. Escher, Georgia O'Keefe, Frida Kahlo, and such.  Pretty cool, buy not what I wanted on my wall.

I spent most of the time that night looking at graffiti and street art, because that's the stuff that gets me psyched.  I checked out Banksy, Shephard Fairey, the early New York graff writers, big wall bombs, urban murals, and much more.  Being a BMX/skateboard guy, I also looked Bob Haro's BMX drawings, sticker and T-shirt designs, at skateboard graphics, like Marc McKee's epic World Industries deck art.  I also looked up my former FREESTYLIN' magazine boss, Andy Jenkins, I love his old Wrench Pilot comics.  Finally,  I found a simple stencil of Bruce Lee.  He was my first hero as a 5-year-old kid in Ohio, shortly before his untimely death.  Yeah, I wanted to draw my version of that Bruce Lee stencil, and put that on my wall, so I did.  That's it above.

Cam Newton's infamous Superman pose, done in my Sharpie scribble style.  One of my first paid drawings, from early 2016.

That's how it started, drawing a Bruce Lee drawing, in my style, for my own wall.  Since that night night in late 2015.  I've drawn over 100 original drawings, most of  them were 18" X 24", and took 30 to 45 hours each, to draw.  I've sold over 80 of those originals, and over 120 smaller copies of drawings in the four years since. Most of the other 20 drawings were given away, a few were lost in my travels.  My Sharpie scribble style artwork is now hanging on walls in 10 or more U.S. states, several countries in Europe and Scandinavia, Australia, Taiwan, and even Russia.  In the last six months, while homeless, my art has sold on 5 of the 7 continents.  That's crazy.  I wondered if I could even sell one drawing, when I first started back then.  I'm currently looking for buyers in Africa and Antarctica, so if you know any, email me.  I need to get art on those other two continents.

I started in November 2015 with a bunch of Sharpies, a dollar store pad of sketch paper, my crappy, slow laptop, and a little card table in my bedroom, to work on.  I literally didn't have a dime to my name.  Not even a penny, actually, because of the mom situation.  I had no reputation as a visual artist at all.  Hell, I didn't think of myself as a visual artist for about two more years.

So how did I manage to sell 80 major pieces of art, starting with nothing, while homeless most of the time, in four years?  Here are the steps I took to make that happen.

- In 2008, after some really tough times, I was unemployed and living with my parents in Kernersville.  The taxi industry went downhill until I could no longer make money, and I was homeless for a year in SoCal, before I took up my family's offer, to go live with them a while.  As fate would have it, I went to North Carolina in November 2008, right when the economy was collapsing, and jobs were nearly impossible to find.

Once there, I started blogging about my times in the 1980's BMX freestyle world.  I had no intention of ever becoming a working artist at that point.  I was depressed, had time on my hands, and started writing little stories about things that happened as a rider, and an industry guy, in that world.  Within a few weeks, I began to re-connect with a lot of old school BMX friends, and met new ones online.  I became a part of the Old School BMX freestyle community online.  At the time, I was such a Luddite, I didn't even know there was an old school BMX community online.

-I blogged consistently, mostly because I liked doing it, and partly because I was bored and had lots of time.  I had no one with similar interests to talk to in NC, so it was also good connecting with old friends online.  I also had a computer (my parents' desktop) with the internet, for the first time in my life.  Because no one else in the world was really blogging about Old School BMX stuff, I wound up with the two top Old School BMX blogs in the world.  I became #1 in my niche, worldwide, without trying to.  I was just writing about things that were interesting to me.  I gained a steady following, with my main blog getting 3,000 or so page views a month. That's not stellar in the blogosphere, but it my little niche, it was really good.

-One day in 2009, someone, I can't remember who, emailed me and said, "You know, people actually make money with blogs, right?"  I didn't know that.  I was in my own little world, my only social life in NC was online, and I didn't know anything about the larger blogging world.  I did know, from working doing zines, and working at magazines and a newsletter, that I'm a writer at heart.  But I had no idea how to be a writer in the 2009, 21st century, internet enabled world.

-So I started learning, self-educating.  That's how the vast majority of practical, real world, viable learning takes place in today's world.  Over the 10+ years since, I watched thousands of YouTube videos, how-to's, TED Talks, and keynote speeches by guys like Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, Gary Vaynerchuk, and many others.  I signed up for email lists to get free ebooks about internet marketing.  I couldn't afford to buy the brand new ebooks, but many internet marketers would give away their old ones for free, to get you on their mailing list.  I read a bunch of those.  I began to learn about the larger blogging world, building/serving online communities, search engine optimization (SEO), why tags matter, and all the basic ins and outs of blogging, and later various forms of social media.

-Years later, when I sat down to look at all the art on the computer in November 2015, as I mentioned above, I asked myself one simple question, "What drawing would I want to put up on my own wall?"  It turned out to be that simple Bruce Lee drawing above.

Kurt Cobain drawing, which was used as an online flyer, which I did for my first little art show at Earshot Music, a great, old school record/music shop in Winston-Salem, NC,in November 2017.  This drawing sold a hour after being put up on the wall, the night before the show.  I stepped up my game with this drawing, and it led to selling dozens of musician drawings, nearly all commissions, since.

-I made a commitment, that night in November 2015, to focus on making money with my Sharpie art, no matter what.  Full commitment.  This is probably the most important step on this list.  While art seems like a lame way to try to make a living when you're already broke, I had no other option that seemed to give me more hope.  It wasn't that I said, "Hey, I want to be a famous artist,"  it was simply the only thing I did then that made me a little bit of money now and then.  So I doubled down on that.

-I put a photo of that Bruce Lee drawing on my Facebook page, where I interacted with a bunch of my blog followers from my BMX blogs.  I asked if anyone would like me to draw them something.  In internet marketing terms, I had already become a well known, and reasonably respected member of an online community, and I offered my service to that community.  This is the game in the 21st century.  Create a community, or become a known member of one that already exists, and serve that community.

-I offered to draw pictures CHEAP.  Another key.  When you're just starting, make it worth someone taking a shot on you.  I originally did 12" X 18 drawings for $20 I think.  Maybe $25.  Those drawings took me 12 to 15 hours to do then.  So I was drawing for $1-$2 an hour.  That sounds horrible, I know.  But...1) I was unemployed, couldn't get hired for any job in my area (for whatever reasons), so I would be sitting around watching TV, and getting nagged by my mom, if I was not drawing.  2) I was getting paid something to draw pictures.  That's an improvement.

Me with a Jimi Hendrix drawing I did for a couple who wound up buying 9 drawings from me.  In the photo, I'm in the Gallery at 625, part of Winston-Salem's cool Trade Street art scene.

-I drew the one or two pictures people ordered, and I put photos of them on my blog, and on Facebook, the main social media platform I used then.  I showed my readers/friends I was doing art.  If I didn't have a paid drawing to do, I drew something else I wanted to draw, and put photos of that drawing up on my blog and Facebook, and asked for more orders.  They began to trickle in.

-In early 2016, I did a Go Fund Me campaign to raise $1,000.  I didn't have Paypal then, people were actually sending me checks by snail mail for drawings.  I offered drawings to everyone on Go Fund Me.  I wasn't really asking for donations, I was asking to draw picture for people for a slightly higher price, and telling them I was working on turning my Sharpie art into a business.  My plan was to get $1,000 in a couple weeks, buy the basic supplies I needed, get a business bank account, and become a legit little art business.  What actually happened is that the Go Fund Me campaign helped encouraged people to let me draw them something.  It also worked as an order taking and payment website.  Two people had me do several drawings for them, one old school BMX friend, and one new Facebook friend, also an Old School BMXer.  The drawings I did then were 18" X 24" drawings, that took 20 to 25 hours, for $50 each.

In effect, Go Fund Me became my art business website for a while.  I started getting consistent orders, and I got enough work so that I was drawing, every single day, for four months.  I was also making a little money while doing it.  It was far from a real living, but I became a "working artist" during those four months.  One big problem with artists is that they think, "my piece took me 20 hours, it MUST be worth $250."  Or whatever price.  News flash, Your art is worth what someone will pay for it, right now.  Period.  Every product, especially art by an unknown artist, needs to be marketed to find an audience.  I knew this, and I knew I was in it for the long haul.  So I was more interested in actually selling art, even if I sold it cheap, then drawing something that looked cool, but sat in my bedroom for a year.  One more thing...

Not one single person that bought a drawing from me, for $50 in 2016, has complained that I now charge $400 for the same size drawing.  People like it when their artwork goes up in value, even if that had nothing to do with why they bought it.

-Because of the sketchy money situation with my mom, which I wrote about above, I could not re-invest the little bit of money I made, to give me any chance of actually getting ahead.  Every dime I made was needed for some "emergency."  So I left my mom's house, and moved into a patch of woods in nearby Winston-Salem.  I simply had no other housing options, no friends with spare rooms to rent cheap, or couches to surf.  That's a really extreme measure, and it sucked, but in my particular case, it was the only way I could get off on my own, and earn some money for myself.  The job market was so terrible there, that there was no chance at all of me getting a good paying "real job."  So I slept in a tent in the woods, scrounged money for food and bus fare, and kept drawing at libraries or McDonald's, all day, every day... for months. Three weeks after moving into the woods, I started a brand new blog, bringing my BMX stories, my Sharpie art, and my thoughts on the economy and the future (longtime geeky hobby of mine), into one blog.  

-One day a couple of hippy guys were stoned and eating at McDonald's, while I drew one of my pictures at a nearby table.  They told me I should show my drawings to the guys at a record shop across the street.  I knew the shop existed, but hadn't been in there.  "Your drawing is way better than the art on their walls right now," the one guy said.  So I took their advice.  I went to the shop, and showed my work to the manager.  He said to come back the next day to see the owner, so I did.  He liked my drawings, and called up the woman who handled art displays for the shop, they showed off work by local artists.  They put two of my drawings up before long, which got a good response.  That led to me doing a small show at Earshot music a couple months later, as soon as I could draw 8 big pieces.  That little show led to six drawings selling quickly, for $120 each.  It also led to many commissions, and I was suddenly drawing all day, nearly every day, one paid drawing right after another.  I also got an artist's profile in the local newspaper.

Dr Maya Angelou lived the last 30 or 40 years of her life in Winston-Salem. So when I was asked to do a drawing for the front window of a gallery, for Black History month(even though I'm a white guy), she was the obvious choice.  Dr. Angelou's only niece, and archivist, now has a print of this drawing in the Maya Angelou collection.

-In the winter of 2017-2018, I managed to finally make it down to the First Friday Art Walk in Winston-Salem's Trade Street art district.  It's a great little creative scene, and I met a few people and showed them my drawings.  One woman was really excited by my stuff, and I soon had drawings on the walls of her studio in the art scene, as well as at the record shop.  She priced me stuff higher, and they didn't sell often, but I kept busy with commissions from the record shop and personal contacts, and occasionally online. While I built my name as an artist online, having works hanging locally in the studio and the music shop, got attention from local people.  One guy became a collector of my works, buying four drawings.  Another couple bought one, then went on to commission eight more.  Return customers are big in selling art, I learned.

 -Unfortunately, my blog posts about the economy and managed to piss off some of the good ol' boys in that area.  The people who run North Carolina really don't believe in the whole freedom of speech idea, you know, that right that  all Americans have because we simply exist.  Hey, The South is still The South in many ways, so I got a lot of pressure put on me, and wound up leaving Winston-Salem and catching a bus as far as I could afford to, which happened to be Richmond, Virginia. Richmond has a ton of murals, and a larger, and more  spread out, group of art scenes, than Winston-Salem.  I had to really struggle to survive while in Richmond, still homeless, but I kept drawing daily, and sold most of my drawings on Facebook, though 3 or 4 wound up in Richmond galleries.

This "Tainted Love/Harley Quinn/Joker drawing is my personal favorite of the 100+ original drawings I've done from 2015-2020.  I did it for the Earshot Music show, but it it didn't sell.  I planned to keep it for myself, but wound up having to sell it cheap, in Richmond, to get a motel room, after a 7 day hospital stay, due mostly to being given a medicine I turned out to be really allergic to. 

In April of 2019, an old friend from the BMX world paid my way back to California, and gave me a room to stay in.  The plan was to help him promote, and drive traffic to, a new online business he had started.  Ultimately, that turned into a job that really needed a full scale digital marketing firm to accomplish.  I wasn't the right guy for that job, and we didn't have the budget needed for the quick and big results required.  With no real income, I went back out to the streets, this time "back home," in the L.A./Orange County area.  I lived in SoCal, mostly in and around Huntington Beach, for 21 years, most of my adult life.  I still making some money drawing, but not enough to rent a room full time, and really get a business off the ground.  Being homeless through most of this time period, I just wasn't able to raise money to actually start a business, stabilize my life, and get on to more and better work.  I've done drawings mostly for other people, while doing an idea of mine when I could find the time.  This drawing of Biggie was a photo I wanted to draw for quite a while, and finally did.  It sold in a few days.

 Biggie Smalls, The Notorious B.I.G., lookin' Brooklyn, in this famous shot that I drew.  This is another of my personal favorites of all the drawings I've done.

Four years after I committed to do whatever it took to start making money with my Sharpie art, I'm still not actually making a living.  On the other hand, I'm back in California, I have this huge body of work that I've done, nearly all online where anyone can check it out, and friend from years past has let me stay in a spare bedroom for a while, giving me a chance to take things to the next level.  I haven't even begun promote my work in Southern California, I'm still unknown here, outside the old School BMX world.  Along the way, I got really good at content creation, and pretty good at marketing online and on social media platforms.

 Four years ago, I would never have imagined selling as many drawings as I actually have. 

On one hand, you can write me off and say, "Hey, Steve's just some loser who draws other people's photos, and is too lazy to get a "real job."  You can say that because these last four years have not been financially successful for me, and I've spent most of the time homeless.  Keep in mind, I started without a dime, in a small town in rural North Carolina.  It wasn't a hotbed of the art world.  

Or, you can check out nearly all of my drawings in these 23 posts ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 the later ones are best) on my personal blog, and you can see why I am now known for being a Sharpie artist.  You can search "Steve Emig Sharpie art" or my main hashtag, "#sharpiescribblestyle" on Google images.  Or search the hashtag on Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter.  Over four years, I slowly, but steadily, built a new reputation as a pretty good, and completely unique Sharpie artist.  I didn't build that reputation by drawing 100 Sharpie pictures.  I built that reputation through content creation, in blogs and using social media.  AND... I actually sold over 80 original pieces, and over 100 copies of my work.  Not a lot of artists can say that.  I managed to make that happen, even in ridiculous conditions.

When it comes down to it, I sold 80 major pieces of art, most that took a week or more, each, to draw.  I did that because I made a commitment to do it, and every day I did the work needed to survive that situation I was in, focus most of my time on creating something, and then promoted myself and my work in my blog, and on other platforms.  I created content, day after day, to show what I could do, and I asked people if I could draw them something.

My situation is still super sketchy (no pun intended) financially.  But now I have a huge body of work.  It's online, and on social platforms, where people can easily see it and check it out.  I've sold the majority of the pieces I've created, including most of the ones I originally did for myself.  I'm a much better artist, technically, then I was four years ago.  I'm in a much better physical location, for me, Southern California compared to Kernersville, North Carolina, than I was four years ago.

Four years ago, I started drawing pictures, without a dime to my name, living in an absolutely horrible situation, in a place I couldn't stand to live, and these 100+ drawings are what I have to show for four crazy years.  I can live with that.

It's safe to say, nearly everyone reading this is in a better situation, with more resources, than I was in back in late 2015.  My question to you is, what can you do in four years, if you focus on what's really important to you?

I'm looking for places to workshops to teach how I managed to sell 80 pieces of art, and how you can use my ideas to help you sell your artwork.  If you're interested in a workshop, or know a good (and super cheap) place I could do a workshop, email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com , or hit me up on Facebook (Steve Emig).

My lame Sharpie art from before 2015

Tyler was a baby that my mom babysat for in about 2012-13 in North Carolina.  At the time, unable to find a "real job" in Kernersville, North Carolina, while living with my mom, I occasionally drew kids' names, like this, and sold them for $20 each.  This was the first thing I made money drawing in my Sharpie "scribble style."  These took me 4 to 5 hours to draw.  Yeah, it's a long way from what I draw now, but I had to start somewhere.

The Birth of my Sharpie Scribble Style
A few days before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the gulf coast in 2005, I was sitting in my taxi one morning, near the entrance of the Huntington Beach Hyatt hotel, a block form thre Picific ocean.  A taxi driver I knew walked up to my cab, from where he parked at the back of the line.  Richard was a weird dude, in a good way.  He was a long time taxi driver, which was a crazy way to make a living, even in good times.  He was also an old punk rock influenced guy, and a highly creative and controversial artist.  He owned and ran a small indie art gallery called AAA Electra 99.  Here's a taste of Richard at the Anaheim location of Electra.

I knew Richard from the taxi company, and I had drawn some stuff for a couple of taxi driver art shows he had, and was an occasional visitor to the gallery.  So Richard walked up, hopped in the back of my taxi, and said he had a deal for me.  The deal was I could live in the art gallery for $50 a week, and then drive his taxi (he owned his cab, within the company we worked for) on the weekends.

When he offered me this deal,  I was working 7 days a week, homeless, and living in my cab.  I worked 16-18 hours a day Tuesday through Saturday.  Sundays I'd work from about 7 am to about 2 or 3pm.  Then I'd go rent a motel room for the night.  I'd get a pizza, watch some TV, and sleep for 10 to 12 hours.  I'd wake up at 5 am, go catch a couple of Monday morning airport runs in the taxi, go back to the motel room, and chill and watch TV until checkout at 11 am.  Then I'd work in the cab from 11 am Monday until after bar close at 2 am.  I had been doing this, week after week, for two years straight, as the taxi industry went down the tubes due to computer dispatching.

That adds up to about 100 to 120 hours a week of work.  Yeah, it wasn't physical work, "working" in a taxi mostly meant sitting and waiting to hit a button on the computer when a call popped up.  We couldn't leave the cab, or we might miss that $40 ride that would make the day profitable.  Not hard "work" but monotonous.

In two years, I had about five days off.  I don't mean that I had weekends off like normal people, and then took five more days off.  I mean I literally had five days off in two years.  To say I was burned out is a huge understatement.  In the year 2000, I could rent a taxi on the weekends, work 40 hours in three long days, and pocket about $350.  I rented a cheap room, lived in a beach city, and had four days off.

But in 2003, the taxi company took the old CB radios out of the cabs, and put in dispatch computers.  Overnight, the industry completely changed.  That's when technology really began to disrupt the taxi business, years before Uber and Lyft entered the picture.  We all had to either quit, or work 7 days a week.  Meanwhile, the computer dispatching let the companies put more and more cabs on the road, so there was less business per driver.  So it got harder and harder to make money, and we all worked more and more hours.  AND I was homeless, living in my taxi, and sleeping in parking lots six nights a week.  I'd bulked up to about 370 pounds, did nothing but work and sleep, and I was burned out, fat, pissed off, and miserable. 

I took Richard's offer, and I moved into the Electra gallery, the small industrial unit in Anaheim you see in the link above.  I've always been a highly creative guy, but had done nothing creative in two years.  Suddenly I had 4 1/2 days off, and was surrounded on all sides by art from some of Orange County's most weird, fun, and creative people.  I started drawing with markers huge pieces of paper, cut from a roll of banner paper.

I was never was much into painting.  I got into drawing with markers in 2003, when I saw a thing on MTV's House of Style about putting butcher paper up on your walls, and drawing on it to make "doodle art" walls.  I lived in the little room, and tried to make a mural with markers.  It sucked.  So I wound up making big collages with the paper instead, cutting photos from my old BMX, skateboard, snowboard, and rock climbing magazines.  In between photos, I doodled, trying to find a cool ways to shade with markers.

Back in 2005 at the art gallery, I drew a little drawing in pen my second night there, just a doodle.  My creative floodgates opened, and I began drawing all day, every day.  I went back to experimenting with markers.  A couple of months later, while drawing a tree, I scribbled with one color.  Then scribbled over it with another.  Then another.  I wound up with these cool shades of brown that actually looked like tree roots.  That's when my Sharpie "scribble style" was born, October or November of 2005.  I had finally found a way to shade with Sharpie markers.  I soon found the smaller, ultra fine Sharpies worked much better for this.  So I had a cool and unique way to color and draw with markers.  I just wasn't sure what to do with it.

I lived in the gallery for about 7 months, playing with the Sharpie scribble style idea most of that time.  When I went back to full time taxi driving, I got a sketch pad, and would spend many of the hours sitting in my taxi drawing.  I wound up losing all those earliest drawings, dozens of them.  But here are some of my drawings from 2008 to 2015.  They're a long way from the kind of drawings I do now.  But you have to start somewhere.

 Something about aliens smoking cigarettes just makes me laugh.  I started thinking one day, what if there really were aliens in some underground base.  In effect, they'd basically be prisoners, it'd be kind of like a prison mentality, so maybe they'd evolve into gangsta aliens.  Then I thought, no, they would be living off government money, and they wouldn't have to work.  It'd be like a trailer park, everyone getting a Disability check, playing video games and doing drugs all day.  You know, like West Virginia.  The aliens would turn into white trash, but they're aliens, they'd be Grey Trash.  So I draw a whole bunch of these aliens smoking cigarettes and wearing wife beater T-shirts.  Not great art, but it was amusing.  This one is for the skateboarders.

 Here's my dad's drafting/engineer influence, mixed with my early influence by M.C. Escher's work coming through.

 The "tile drawing" phase.  Lame, just an idea to try for a while.

The "Georgia O'Keefe" phase.  Getting a little closer to something kind of cool. 
 

World War III is a bad idea... just sayin'

Bruce Srpingsteen, in a performance from my teenage years, covering a song that was written when he was 20, and I'm sharing it for today's teenagers, as a madman in the White House puts everybody's lives in the world at stake.  Do we really need to play out this stupid scenario yet again?  #nowariniran

"War.  What it is good for?  Absolutely nothing.  Say it again..."

-Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, 1969

When the world gets crazy, step up to meet it.  It's getting crazy...

 My Sharpie drawing I did recently, as I watched the stupidity of our world build.  #sharpiescribblestyle

My photos of Street Art 1/6/2020 #1

 I'm pretty sure this is a real Banksy, it's on the side of the legendary Amoeba Records shop in Hollywood, and when the wall was last painted, they actually painted around this piece. 

 To the best of my knowledge, this is the first photo ever of BMXers doing an over/under double wall ride.  That's Randy Lawrence going opposite up high, and me down below.  The wall was long known as the Blues Brothers Wall.  It's one of the beach retaining walls below the bike path, across from 14th Street, in Huntington Beach, California.  Still from my 1990 self-produced BMX freestyle video, The Ultimate Weekend. 

 One of my shortest poems, which I scrawled with kids' sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk at the garden party in a Winston-Salem, NC park, celebrating the 90th birthday of Dr. Maya Angelou.  "It's one great play, go find your part, someday you'll realize, the world is art." 

 Another shot of the Blues Brothers wall, with a bit of the Three Stooges painting, also a still from my BMX video.  Wall ride over my sister Cheri's head.  Huntington Beach 1990.

Wildman graffiti in the Shockhoe Bottom district of Richmond, Virginia.  2019.

Not street art, but art on the streets, drawn by me, a homeless guy living in a tent at the time.  Me posing with the Sharpie drawing of Dr. Maya Angelou at the 90th birthday party for her, four years after her death.  Winston-Salem, NC, 2018.  

Weird painting, Shockhoe Bottom district, Richmond, Virginia, 2019.

Be weird... it's fun

"Most progress in the world comes from the freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos."

- Me.

As I was drawing my Sharpie art pictures for other people to try and earn a living, over the past four years, I did one just for myself, now and then.  Two of these drawings I did from old, weird, public domain photos I found in some archives.  While all the cool people are living and dying by their Instagram posts and likes, I find Insta pretty damn boring.  Yeah, I 'm on it, throw some photos up there, because some people look there for my drawings.  But personally, I like Pinterest a lot more. 

Collecting photos on Pinterest tonight, I happened to run across the source photos I used for these two drawings, which are a bit different for everything else I've drawn.  So I decided to do a quick blog post of these two drawings.

"Do the impossible, it really pisses off normal people."

- Me.

I did both of these drawings just to try an idea out, just for myself.  But, as I tend to do, I wound up giving these to a friend in Ohio.  Last I heard, they were on the wall of her office at work.  That's cool.  If you go to my WPOS Kreative Pinterest page, you can find these next to the source photos.    #sharpiescribblestyle

The Universe understands...

I've had an incredible amount of outside influence on my life for about 20 years.  It's a long story, I can't really go into it, just some stupid shit that happened because there are a lot of douchebags in this world.  About three weeks ago, thinking hard about all of this crazy stuff, I wrote this piece.

The Universe understands...

Sometimes the plans and actions of others come down on you so hard, that the very best you can do is simply survive.  It takes a super human effort just to keep going.

Sometimes, the obstacles are so big, and you're so outnumbered that survival IS the win.  No matter how hard you try, no matter what level of effort you put in, the very best result is to simply survive.  There are circumstances where nothing more is possible.  In those circumstances you do your very best just to survive.

The cruel trick of fate is that once you've made it through hell, once you've survived the unsurvivable, there will be people, very average people often, who can't understand why you're in such sorry shape.  And there's no way to explain to them just how tough your path has been, just how lucky you are to still be alive at all.

Then you have to march past all those people, and slowly rebuild, and slowly accumulate the things needed for a simple, average life.  And you can never tell them, all of them, just what you've been through, and how hard it was, and how many times you just wanted to lie down and give up.  But you didn't give up.  You hung in there and wrestled the forces of evil into submission.

You just have to march on, moment by moment, step by step, and keep rebuilding, from the streets, back up.

They'll never know.  They'd never understand anyway.  But you know what you've been through.  You know...  and the Universe knows.  And once in a great while, when no one's looking, the Universe will give you a wink.  And it will reach down and give you a hand up, a little ways, as far as is needed.  The Universe has struggled, it has been there, too.  Even if no one understands, the Universe does. 

Photos from the L.A. Blue Line Train- part#2

 Palm trees over the hood.  Near Watts, I think.

 Not straight outta it, just passing through.  There are brand new, quite nice looking, apartments in Compton, right next to the train.  Looks a lot different than old rap videos from the train.

 Tiled mural at the Compton train station.

 Used to be a church.  Apparently God moved out a while back.  Downtown L.A..

 High end condo tower in the background, homeless person tarped domecile in the foreground.  Both end of the spectrum.

 The new towers going up in downtown.

I got a better shot of the  Kawhi Leonard mural on the way back up there New Year's Eve.  Photos by me, Steve Emig