This is the Fort Boise BMX track in 1983, footage courtesy of Shannon Gillette, now a USA BMX marketing guy. He was a 12X or 13X racer when I first showed up at this track, as a dorky high school junior. Back in my day we didn't have video, somebody's dad had Super 8 movie cameras. We had to carve our bikes, by hand, out of birch logs. When us early freestylers did a lawnmower, we did it on an actual lawnmower... OK not really. But things have changed a lot since then. I guess that's why I wrote an ebook about the first few years of my BMX life.
In June of 1982, I got into BMX. I was the worst rider in a trailer park... outside Boise... in freakin' Idaho. The desert outside Boise isn't the Middle of Nowhere. It's where the people from the Middle of Nowhere go when they want to be alone. In July of 1986, I got offered a job at FREESTYLIN', the bible of BMX freestyle. I saw a lot of cool freestyle moments happen firsthand. I went street riding with Dave Vanderspek, Maurice Meyer, and the Curb Dogs/Golden Gate crew in San Francisco. I know what the official word is for it when you bunnyhop a homeless person. I was at the photo shoot where Ron Wilkerson debuted the abubaca. I found the Jinx Bank, long forgotten, and took Lew from FREESTYLIN' there. Eddie Roman did the first wall ride photo shoot there later on. I was riding at the first King of Dirt Jam that Gork and Rich Bartlett put on. I rode in the first 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee, and also the MTS Brooklyn Banks contest in '89. I sessioned at The Spot in Redondo Beach with Lew, Gork, Chris Day, Craig Grasso, R.L. Osborn, skater Rodney Mullen, and others. I was shooting video when Joe Johnson landed the first double tailwhip on vert, and Mat Hoffman landed the first 900 in a contest. I was watching Tony Hawk's first 900 from the side of the ramp, too, ten years later at the X-Games. I kind of feel like a Jerry Maguire of BMX, that guy next to the guys making stuff happen.
Somehow, I managed to go from that trailer park dork, to a mediocre rider and BMX/freestyle/skateboard industry guy. I've got a lot of pretty cool stories from the 80's and 90's BMX freestyle world. Most of you have read some of my 1,200 or so blog posts about these tales, across 5 or 6 blogs in the last 12 years. A couple of months ago, I decided it was time to write book of these stories. I can't swing a "real," dead tree, paper book right now. But I was able to make an ebook happen.
Yesterday I put a post on Facebook that said, "I just wrote a 263 book about BMX freestyle, for people who don't like to read. I do stupid things like that sometimes." I was kind of joking. Most of the BMXers I know can read. But there are not a lot of hardcore book readers in the BMX world. We all read magazines back in the day, and many read posts about BMX online. But not a lot of BMX guys (or gals) read 3 or 4 Stephen King or Tom Clancy novels a month. Old School BMX guys would rather be out riding, posting about BMX on Facebook, or paying $43,000 on eBay for a set of 1984 Redline Flight cranks, rather than settling in to read Atlas Shrugged (which I read while living at the P.O.W. House in '92, BTW).
So after I got unemployment a couple months ago, and was able to get an expensive "cheap motel room" and upgrade my living condition, I decided to compile a bunch of my Old School BMX freestyle blog posts into an ebook. Like everyone, Covid put a damper on my main way of making money, selling my Sharpie artwork. So I wanted to get my online store up and running, and I needed a product to put in it. I bought some ebook compiling software, and put about 15 of my blog posts into an ebook. Then I read it... and it sucked.
A few things were repeated in several posts, and there were gaps between the blog posts that I thought should be filled in. Plus I've written somewhere around 1,200 to 1,500 BMX blog posts since 2008. So I had to go through the few hundred that are still online, and see which ones would be good to gather into a book. Then I rewrote every single post. I also wrote about 15 new posts, to fill in the gaps in my personal story. I decided to focus on writing about how I got into BMX in a trailer park in Idaho, raced a bit (at the track in the clip above), then got into freestyle, moved to NorCal, and managed to stumble into a magazine job thanks to my zine.
When I compiled all those posts into the ebook software, it was over 300 pages. But the software put my posts into a blender, and some things got repeated 10 times, paragraphs got mixed up, and I had to go through the whole book, again, cutting out pieces, re-organizing, and rewriting a few bits, and adding a few photos. The final ebook wound up being 263 pages. There are probably a few typos in it, but all in all, I felt pretty good about it.
But it's my story, and the insecure creative part of me kept wondering, "Does anyone really want to read my story?" But hundreds, sometimes over 1,000 people, have read my BMX blog posts. So that kept me going. Also, by telling my struggles in my early BMX and freestyle days, I was telling everybody's story a little bit. I was a fucking trainwreck when I got into BMX. I had more issues that the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble. I had more hang-ups than Kim Kardhasian's walk-in closet. I looked pretty normal, but I was weird. BMX, and particularly freestyle, gave me a place to ride out my frustration and anger, and to focus my creativity and intense drive. That's true of most riders in the 1980's, to some degree. 1980's BMX freestyle was not for "normal" people. Hopefully BMX never will be.
This morning, I woke up about 4:30 am, and worked on a picture I'm drawing for Craig Grasso, one of my favorite guys to ride with BITD. While drawing, I listened to the documentary A Wicked Ride. If you haven't watched it, check it out. It's about the BMX freestyle scene in New England in the 1980's and beyond. Even though it's about New England, all the guys in the first part of it totally remind me of being that kid riding alone in Boise. I was so removed from the Southern California center of freestyle, that it seemed like Oz to me, a place I'd never see or be a part of. A Wicked Ride really captures that feeling of being the kid who lived to ride, but only had the magazines, and maybe a trick show now and then, to connect us to this thing happening in Southern California.
Yet somehow, I wound up moving to Northern California with my family. Then I started a zine, and a year later, I wound up working at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. So I totally remember being that kid in the middle of nowhere, living to freestyle when everyone around thought it was stupid. But I somehow became one of a handful of guys who wound up working in the freestyle industry in the 80's. There were a handful of others. Andy Jenkins came from Wyoming. Gork came from Sacremento. Lew and Scott Towne came from Michigan. Spike Jonze came from Maryland.
My ebook, Freestyle BMX Tales: Idaho Dork to Industry Guy, is my best stories from that era, from 1982-1986. Like A Wicked Ride, I was hoping that, by writing my experiences in that time, I could remind Old Schoolers of their adventures and struggles back then. I was hoping I could tell a part of all of our stories, by going deep into my own story. If you read my ebook, you can decided if I pulled that off.
Then, yesterday it dawned on me. I just wrote a book for guys who don't generally read too many books. Time will tell if that was a good idea. Then, right after I wrote that post, seriously, like fifteen minutes later, I checked my bank account. The online store platform isn't cool with my online bank account. I don't have a "real" account, mostly because I was homeless a long time, and haven't had a physical address. I have a P.O. box for mail, but usually you need proof of residence as well. So my recent sketchy life came back to bite me. I had to shut down sales in the online store until I get the banking issue worked out.
I jumped back on Facebook, and I had guys commenting, "Hey, I READ, can I get your ebook? Where's the link?" So I wound up talking to a bunch of guys, messaging one to one, and getting paid by Paypal, then sending them the ebook direct, one person at a time. It was a weird, but cool, day.
So here's the deal. If you're interested in my Freestyle BMX Tales ebook, I'm asking $3.43 for it. You can pay that by Paypal to: stevenemig13@ gmail.com . (steven, not steve, don't forget the "n"). Put your email address in the info on paypal, and I'll send you the ebook file directly, as soon as I can. Until the online store is worked out, that's the only way to get it. Or your friends could make you a copy for free. But if you do that, you'll probably have bad karma and crash really hard the next time you ride. Maybe. Hospital bills cost a lot more than $3.43. Just sayin'.
Seriously, the 263 page ebook is only $3.43. Several people have thrown me a little extra for it. That's not necessary. But I did use to be a taxi driver, and I never argue with tips. You won't get a free copy by showing me your boobs, though, just like in the taxi. Thank you to everyone who has bought one, and anyone who decided to. I figured with a low price I'd get a decent amount of people to check it out, and see how the whole ebook idea works for BMXers. Hey, the zine worked out for me 34 years ago, you never know 'til you try. If you check it out, let me know what you think. Otherwise, I'll see you all on Facebook.
To order a copy of this ebook, you can send me $3.43 by paypal to: stevenemig13@gmail.com , and add your email address.
As soon as I see the payment, I'll send the ebook to your email. Until I get the online store issues worked out, I'm selling these direct, one by one. It helps to message me on Facebook if to let me know you ordered. I'm not using Instagram right now, so don't DM me. A couple of people have read the whole book already, and the feedback's been good. Thanks everyone!
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