Why I started Crazy California 43 blog

Pro skater, rapper, and the guy behind Pro Rider's Org., Chris Gentry, rappin' about the 2014 Boozer Jam at Sheep Hills.  

In January of 1990, we had a meeting at Unreel Productions, where I worked.  Unreel had about 12 employees, and I was the lowest guy on the list, The Dub Guy, I spent most of my time making copies of different videos for people across Vision Skateboards, Vision Street Wear, Sims Snowboards, and the rest of the Vision empire.  But skating had peaked in 1988-early 1989, and things had been going downhill for close to a year.  So at that meeting, we were told.  Unreel was being dissolved, all the producers were getting the boot, and the two lowest level employees, myself and a woman named Laura, would be moved to the main Vision building in Santa Ana (a block away from where S&M Bikes is located now).  Laura found a "real" TV job in about a month in "Hollywood."  And I sat there for about five more months, and got a call to shoot video of something once every week or so.  Meanwhile, every Friday, major people at Vision were getting laid off, or quitting.  We had "going away parties" every other week for someone.  

I was literally getting paid for doing almost nothing, but it was driving me crazy.  So I quit in July of 1990.  On my last day, one of the women from the Vision promotions department came up to me.  "What are you planning on doing for the next couple weeks, Steve?"  I told her not much, I had money saved to pay rent for a little while.  I was planning on riding my bike a lot, and work on my own video (which became The Ultimate Weekend.)  She said, "Would you like to drive the ramp rig across country, on a little tour with some skaters?"  I said, "Sure."  A little road trip sounded fun, and a good time to think about what to do next.  Plus it was a couple more weeks pay, while I figured things out.  I wound up driving Gale Webb's old dually pick-up, which Vision bought, and the trailer mounted mini ramp, best known for its appearance in this music video.  A skater I'd never heard of, Mark Oblow, rode out from Santa Ana with me.  

We left on a Tuesday morning, and had to be in Atlanta, Georgia by Friday afternoon to set up at Stone Mountain park.  What nobody realized was that the dually was geared super low to pull a trailer.  It would only go 55 mph, no matter what.  I was planning on cruising at 65-70 the whole way.  So we got way behind schedule quick.  By the end of night one, we were barely on the other side of Arizona, on I-10.  Day 2 got us to about 200 miles west of San Antonio.  We were running way late.  Day 3 melded with Day 4, and turned into a 30 hour straight drive.  We picked up young buck vert skaters, Mike Crum and Chris Gentry in Houston on Day 3.  I wound up driving the rig 24 hours straight, which is a really bad idea.  But we didn't die.  I let Mark drive for 3 hours after that, so I could get some sleep.  But he'd never pulled a trailer, much less a 24 foot one, and his driving freaked me out.  I got maybe half an hour sleep.  Then I drove the final three hours, setting a record I never want to break, of driving 27 hours in a 30 hour period.  Don't try that kids.  Then we hit Atlanta at Friday evening rush hour, and I was doing head nods in stop-and-go traffic, on the freeway.  But we made it to Stone Mountain and set up the ramp by dark on Friday.  The skaters did a week of demos there, then we did a few more demos in Texas, on the way back to California.  And that's how I met Chris Gentry, the rapper in the video above.  

So what does that have to do with my new blog?  Weird shit happens in California.  Like getting asked to be the driver/manager of a cross country skateboard tour the day I quit a job.  But more like the fact that surfing first hit the mainland shores here, and later the SoCal surf scene took surfing mainstream in the 1960's.  Skateboarding was born here.  BMX racing and BMX freestyle were born here.  Snowboarding, arguably, was born here, thanks to the late Tom Sims.  Mountain biking was born here, in Marin County, above San Francisco.  And that's just some of the Action Sports world.  

There's that little brown boxy thing, what was it called?  Oh yeah, the Apple Macintosh computer, that changed civilization, was born in California. Steve's Jobs and Wozniak weren't smart enough to look up how to spell McIntosh apples, but they were smart enough to start what's now a $2 billion (or so) company.  

When I got stuck in North Carolina for a decade, from 2008 to 2018, I missed hanging out with BMX and skate friends.  I realized how freakin' cool the SoCal music scene was.  Things like, "Do we want to see The Dickies in a bar tonight, or Social Distortion?"  Those were normal questions in the 90's here.  California is fucking huge, it has the ocean, hundreds of miles of beaches, big cities, deserts, mountains, farmlands, and every kind of people imaginable.  More than anything, California has a lot of weird freaking people.   Some are just weird.  I mean, the guy who was on the Wheaties box when we were kids is a chick now.  That's weird to think about.  But there are also a lot of weird people, who work hard, and try new ideas.  Like computers, actions sports, and all kinds of other stuff.  California has a huge number of people trying new things, and a culture of bringing weird, crazy, and bringing new ideas into fruition.  It's just not like that in most other places.  And the weather is pretty awesome.  The video of Chris Gentry rapping about the Boozer Jam (2014) at Sheep Hills is a good example of that California crazy inventiveness to me, from my friends and my world.

All of that makes for a lot of interesting stories.  And after telling hundreds of weird little BMX industry stories, and being away from Cali for a decade, I just want to go explore all the stuff I never did in my first 22 years here (1985-2008).  So the new blog, Crazy California 43, is about places, spots, locations, that have some kind of story I find interesting.  The general idea is that people who read the blog, and check out the social media tied to it, will find a place or two worth going to check out in person once in a while. 

The other part of the equation is that I was really bored in NC, and I spent a TON of time blogging, and learning how to promote ideas and my art (#sharpiescribblestyle), with blogs and social media.  As I looked around, I realized that hardly any small businesses, and many medium and large businesses, don't use blogs and social to anywhere near their full potential.  So I started looking for ways to help small business people get better at new media promotion.  But most of them don't really want to change, or take the time to learn when they're so busy already just running their business. 

So I said, "Fuck it," I'll just take this drive I have to go explore, find a cool name, and promote the fuck out of my own idea."  In three months, Crazy California 43 has over 1,900 page views.  That's a record for me, for a new blog.  Even Steve Emig: The White Bear, which has over 125,000 page views now, started off much, much slower.  So that's why I'm doing this new thing called Crazy California 43.  

Hey, it's a holiday weekend, maybe there's some place on the blog you might want to go check out this weekend.  Check it out.  

 

Me riding bikes...

Balancing on my first quality BMX bike, a Skyway T/A, rocking red Z-Rims.  Boise Fun Spot, where I was the manager, summer of 1985.  Photo by Vaughn Kidwell

My name is Steve Emig, if you don't know, and I'm the guy who publishes this blog.  Like many kids of Generation X, I learned to ride a bike at age 5 1/2, in 1971, it was a Schwinn Scrambler clone that my dad pieced together from garage sale bought parts.  In today's world, we'd call it a rat bike.  My first new bike was a red, white and blue banana seat bike, which cost $50.  That was the first bike I jumped, brick and piece of wood jumps.  Then I had a 26 inch ten speed, as we called road bikes back then, I jumped that bike, too, on little vacant lot jumps.  

 When the bike thing changed for me was in the summer of 1982, when my family moved to a trailer park outside Boise, Idaho.  There wasn't much to do there, several miles outside of town, out in the desert.  So us teenage boys got more and more into jumping our BMX bikes.  Jumping turned into BMX racing, and then into the brand new, emerging sport of BMX freestyle.  That became the driving force in my life for the next 20 years.  BMX freestyle gave me a place to focus my energy, and my creativity, which shaped my whole life.  

As pathetic as it sounds, I've been fighting to just get back to where I can go out and ride a little daily, for several years now.  Life's been really weird for a long time, but I'll get there eventually.  Here's most of the few photos I have of me riding over the last 35 years.

Shingle shuffle during a flatland session under the Huntington Beach Pier, 1987.  I'm on my Raleigh Ultra Shok, technically I was "factory sponsored" for about a year. 

Carving tile in the Nude Bowl, 1990, on my Aurburn.

One of the weird little tricks I invented, footplant to 180 on flat, in a 2-hip Meet the Street contest in Lo Jolla, CA, 1989 or 1990.  This was a trick the skaters did in H.B., called a no comply, that I took to BMX.

Wall ride over my sister's head, 1990, at the Blues Brothers Wall in Huntington Beach.

Riding backwards on my Schwinn BMX cruiser, 2009, trying to get back riding again.

Trying to get my infinity rolls back, on a borrowed Eddie Fiola Former Pro, One Love Flatland Jam in Newport Beach, 2020 (right before the craziness shut life down). 

 

Finding the new "normal" as we open back up

 

So... we're finally coming out of shutdown mode after about 15 months of shutdowns, but things are still pretty weird...

Blogger's disclaimer:  I'm an economics and futurist geek, I've spent most of my life studying these subjects.  But I AM NOT a financial planner, CPA, accountant, or investment professional.  The ideas in this blog, and in this post in particular, are my own thoughts and beliefs, and are for educational and entertainment purposes only.  They should not be taken as advice or recommendations.  When making financial or legal decisions, talk to a professional in those areas, and please do the necessary due diligence to make informed decisions on investments.     

 A year ago, about 35%-45% of Americans weren't working.  Others began working from home due to the unexpected shutdowns.  A hundred year pandemic hit, and the Presidential administration at the time completely blew it by not responding seriously.  The health issue led to business shutdowns, and social distancing protocols, as we all know.  At one point, 30 million people were on the verge of being evicted from their houses of apartments.  The eviction moratoriums set in place are coming to an end. The added unemployment programs are coming to an end. Will most people be able to catch up on back rent?  Or will we have a huge wave of new homeless people?  We don't know.

A lot of upscale people fled New York City, and other big cities, a year ago, heading into the suburbs, and to Florida and other locations.  Will most of them move back to the big cities?  We don't know.  Most office-type workers became adept at working by Zoom calls, and using other tech, to work from home.  Will there be a mass migration back to office buildings to work?  Or will huge chunks of office buildings remain empty.  We don't know.  In the past few months, roughly 1/3 of U.S. adults were getting some kind of "official," direct payment from the federal government (myself included). Will most of those people be able to find decent paying work again?  We don't know.  My educated guess is that we'll see 3-8 million people stop working, and get Social Security Disability, or some other form of assistance, to keep from working.  There were already 7-10 million people in this group, former workers who dropped out of the workforce.  This is one of many major societal issues not really being addressed.

There are "help wanted" signs on restaurants everywhere right now.  There are at least an estimated 8-10 million people still out of work , and probably quite a few more.  But they're not rushing to those low wage jobs.  Will restaurants be able to find all the new (or returning) workers they need?  Can people who've survived without a regular, low wage job, for the last year, even afford to work for minimum wage again?  We don't know.  Will low wages jobs have to start paying more money to find enough workers?  Maybe.  We don't know, yet.

The Federal Reserve, the non-government entity that has printed our unconstitutional U.S. dollars since 1913 (look it up, that's a fact), created more new money in the last year, than at any time in U.S. history.  The M2 money supply went from under $15 trillion, to over $19 1/2 trillion, in about a year.  That's like your $600 paycheck getting upped to $800.  Would that help?  Sure it would.  That's what The Fed did for banks, Wall Street, and major corporations.  This huge amount of new dollars, some printed, but most digital, has flooded the banking and investment industry, but largely avoided the real world, every day economy.  This is THE reason stocks rebounded to new highs after the 2020 crash, and that real estate never crashed, like it does in a normal recession.  

Very simply, every single person AND every single business in the U.S. (and most of the world), are "on welfare."  Every person.  Every business.  The whole system is getting unearned financial aid.

The Fed has propped up a weak economy for the last 19 months, by creating huge amounts of new money.  Without all that new money, the crash would have been much deeper.  But that new money comes at a cost.

The problem is, when a government, or central banks like The Fed, create excessive amounts of new money, the value of every dollar (or euro, yen, pound mark, yuan, etc.) goes down.  With more money around, it takes more dollars to buy the same amount of stuff.  Prices begin to rise.  That's what inflation is.  

If a government or central bank prints way to much money, the country gets really high inflation (10%-30% a year or so), or maybe hyper-inflation (10% rise in prices a month, a week, maybe every day, or more).  Every time a country has done this, EVERY SINGLE TIME IN HISTORY, the currency collapsed.  There's a lag time of 1-2 years after they create the new money, until it really starts circulating, and prices start to take off and really rise.  That's where we are right now.  The people in charge don't want you to know that.

So, as we're all trying to find a new normal, and decide whether we work from home (OK, I don't have a home, but that's a different issue), whether we go back to the old job, or stick with the government checks, side gigs, small business, or stock trading, or whatever got us through this last year.  As we're all trying to do that, prices are just starting to go up on many items.  They won't all go up in unison, the price on one item will spike over here, and something else over there, sporadically.  But a year from now, pretty much everything will cost you more, probably 10% to 30% more on average, that's a really safe bet. So take that into account.  

Food, gas, electricity, water, insurance, clothes, everything, will go up in price a fair amount, and WILL KEEP going up in price, for the next 2-3 years.  At the same time, the huge speculative bubbles in stocks, real estate, and other investments (baseball cards, exotic cars, Star Wars toys, grandma's Elvis plate collection) will crash.  Boom.  Downhill.  Pretty much everything is a speculative bubble right now, and bubbles pop.  Prices on most investments will drop dramatically in the next year, as prices are going up on day to day stuff.  The real solid investments items will begin to go up again, once they hit bottom.  Shadier investment items may just not be worth much anymore.  That's what recessions and depressions do, they shake out the poorly run businesses (except the huge ones, they get bailed out), and shady investments. 

So what can we, as average people, do?  Get the day to day life stuff figured out.  The old job?  Or the side gigs?  Work from home still, or back to the office?  Keep sleeping in mom & dad's spare bedroom, sharing the bathroom with Grandpa, or get an apartment?  Just keep in mind, prices will keep rising for a while, so YOUR INCOME WILL HAVE TO KEEP RISING, TOO.  That's just the place we're at in the long term cycle of things. 

Once you get that figured out, it's not a bad idea to stock up on basic, everyday supplies.  I'm not saying to hoard 150  big, 24-packs of toilet paper.  But buying a couple extra makes sense.  Whatever food you buy that can keep for long periods, canned food, packaged foods, stuff like that, buying a little bit extra makes sense.  It's a good time to full stock the pantry (and the bar, if you drink much). All of those things will probably cost more 3-6 months from now.  There you go drunks, I just saved you a bunch of money.  Send your "Thank you" checks to...

As for investments...  there's a reason that, throughout human history, smart people have bought gold and silver, particularly in turbulent times.  As dollars (yen, euros, yuan, etc) go down in value, gold and silver tend to hold their value... over time.  

For example, a 1964 U.S. quarter, that was 90% silver, would buy my dad a gallon of gas for his Ford T-Bird (coolest car ever), in 1964.  One of those 1964 quarters today, because it's made with 90% real silver, is worth about $4.68 now.  Fifty-six years later, the silver in one of those average quarters, will still buy a gallon of gas.  Think of how much the world has changed since 1964.  The silver in that 1964 quarter will still buy about the same amount of gas.  That's what I mean by "holding value."  

So gold and silver, in today's weird world, are good things to look at, and see if it makes sense for you.  An ounce of .999 silver is $28 or so right now, and you'll pay, $3-$10 premium on top of that.  Most of you reading this can afford a $31 investment.  So that's one thing to consider. (I've been encouraging friends and relatives to buy silver since it was $14 an ounce, BTW).

Another thing specific to really crazy, high inflation times like these, is debt.  Long term debt makes sense, IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS.  Yeah, I know, debt sucks.  But the people who buy something with LONG TERM debt right now, will pay it back with dollars that are worth less.  Maybe a little bit less, maybe A LOT less.  That's what the government, and many mega-investors, are doing right now.  Robert Kiyosaki, (the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy) writes and speaks a lot about this.  

The basic idea is, find a rental property that is already a good deal (NOT totally overpriced, like most properties are now).  Buy that property, so the rent covers all your expenses, and buy it with a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage, because interest rates are still (for now) historically low.  As your renters pay you rent, and you pay that mortgage, and as the value of the dollar goes down, you pay off that loan with dollars that are worth less.  You'll probably be able to raise rents as prices rise, and you use cheaper dollars in the future, to pay off that long term debt.  In effect, it's a way to "short" the dollar, as it drops.  It's like you're buying a bunch of dollars for 50 cents each, and then using them to pay your bills.  That's basically what is possible in these next 2-3 years.

You'll need to do some serious research and due diligence, find the right property, and all that. But that's one of the best ways to use this crazy dollar devaluation period to YOUR benefit.  Look up Robert Kiyosaki's videos, and You Tube videos on "hyperinflation," to learn the basics.  And always do the necessary due diligence on any investment.  

The years from 2020-2024 will provide many of the best investment opportunities that we will ever see in our lifetimes.  And most people won't take advantage of them.  That's a bummer.  If you made it this far in this blog post, you're ahead of the curve.  

I'm totally dialing back writing about economics and stuff.  But we're at another one of those huge inflection points in history.  March 2020 was on big inflection point, and I wrote about what was coming (the economics, not the pandemic), for 2-3 years before hand.  We're at another big inflection point right now.  Some of my old friends, despite my current sketchy situation, have realized that much of what I've predicted has happened.  There are big opportunities in this craziness.  I hope many of you will take advantage of the ones that make sense for you.  

Meanwhile, I'm dialing back doing artwork (I'll just do less), and focusing on this new blog:

Crazy California 43  

Check it out. 

Creative Life: June 16, 2021

OK, so it wasn't THIS much of a lock down...  But let's face it, we all feel a little bit like Jake right now.  It's time to get the band back together.  Hell, it's time to see a band play live again. A LOT of live bands...

The pandemic lock down in California is now officially over.  The pandemic is not over, but we can start opening back up fully again.  In theory, everything will open back up, we'll get back to "normal," but it will definitely be a new normal.  Over 34 million Americans got sick, over 615,000 Americans, and over 62,000 Californians, died in the pandemic.  The smart people are pretty much vaccinated now, but there's still hope more stupid people will die from it.  

In addition, over 400,000 small businesses went out of business in the last 15 months.  Millions of Americans are losing the unemployment that helped keep them alive soon.  Millions more will be affected by the ending of eviction moratoriums, and we could see a huge new wave of homelessness nationwide over the next few months.  It's been a rough 15 months for everybody. But on the bright side, the super rich are now much more superricher than they were a year and a half ago.  Doesn't that make you feel better?  Yeah, me neither.

I was homeless when the pandemic hit U.S. shores.  Pure and simple, we were left outside to die.  And there were definitely a lot of people hoping this pandemic would wipe out most of the homeless population.  Not all of you, I know, but there were definitely people in that mindset.  Cue Nelson.  

As it turned out, that virus doesn't travel well outdoors, and living outside, as fucked up as it is, helped keep us homeless people at less risk, much of the time.  The Universe has a weird sense of humor.  Still, last August I got sick, and wound up in a negative pressure hospital room for a couple of days.  I didn't have the virus, I had bacterial pneumonia (from a bacteria they could not identify- WTF?), and cellutitis, which I've been prone to since my taxi driving days.  I got shipped to a warehouse turned homeless shelter for sick people (decent food and Netflix for 5 days), and bailed back out to the street as soon as my medicine ran out.  The streets are better than the shelters, but that's a whole different issue.

Before that funky looking little virus attacked us, I had a general plan.  I would squeak through the chilly California rainy season, and start promoting my artwork to local galleries in the Spring of 2020.  So... that didn't quite work out.  Instead, the shutdown closed most of the bathrooms I used, it closed down the library where I could plug in and get wifi at the same time, and actuallyt work to get my life back on track.  It shtudown most of the power outlets I used to charge my laptop and phone.  I'm an artist and blogger.  I'm actually pretty damn good at those two things.  But it's hard to blog with a dead battery.  The same goes with promoting my art on social media.  Luckily, a bunch of people came through and ordered drawings, or just plain helped me out last spring, and to a lesser level since.  

I seriously was worried that I wouldn't be able to survive one month of businesses being shutdown, last March.  That's because my whole existence depended on fast food restaurants, the library, and other places that got shutdown.  For 15 months, I've actually been working more hours than at most of the jobs I've ever worked.  My life became a continuous search for useable bathrooms, power outlets to charge up (nearly all of them outside), and wifi spots, so I could communicate, blog, and keep selling some artwork online.  

For over a year, I've been taking a bus one place to use a bathroom in the morning, then another bus to another place to plug in, sit there for an hour and a half, and charge my laptop, and sometimes my phone (when I could afford to pay for service), and then take another bus (luckily the buses have been free) to another spot, where I would sit outside, on the ground, and check my social media, and blog when I had enough battery life.  There were many hours of sitting outside blogging in 50-60 degree weather, shivering.  The only times I've had 24/7 power and wifi were when I rented a motel room. 
 

I did manage to qualify for pandemic unemployment, which got me a room for about 10 weeks over the winter.  That helped a lot.  But my unemployment got frozen 5 weeks after it got approved, which was 4 1/2 months after I applied for it.  I got about half of the total I qualified for, and lost $1,500 when it got frozen.

So here I am 15 months after this all got going.  I have more drawing orders than I can handle at the moment, but I make about $2 an hour doing my drawings.  I'm now pivoting to earning money from writing, rather than art, because that's my only chance of ever making a decent living again.  To make that happen, I have to turn my little creative work into a legit business.  

What about a job?  It would take a $20 an hour job, 40 hours a week, to be able to rent a weekly motel room, the only room I could get these days.  And afford food.  There's no job anywhere near that pay scale I could get these days.  An apartment is completely out of the question.  Renting a room in someone's else's house or apartment is technically possible, but that conversation would start with, "So I'm homeless now, and I make money from Sharpie art and blogging..."  That's not likely to go very well.  If I go get a restaurant job,then I'm a fat, homeless guy with no place to wash my uniform, making less than I make from artwork, and spending more hours doing it.  You NEVER... EVER get off the streets with a low wage job, period.  The cost of living is just too high, unless someone lets you stay somewhere for free for several months.  

So that's where I'm at.  Sounds depressing.  But I'm stoked on my new ideas.  The new blog idea, Crazy California 43, is taking off, and will offer multiple ways to make money in the coming months.  Yesterday I went to three banks, looking to get a "real" bank account, the next big step to getting my life back on track.  None of them would let me open an account, without "proof of residence."  So I need an apartment to get a bank account, so I can make enough money, to afford an apartment.  Catch-22.  I need to figure that one out...  My life has been one obstacle after another for so long, that's just my normal now.  Anyhow, another day of working doing the shit I'm meant to do.  Onward!

Who the heck is Steve Emig?

Wall ride over my sister Cheri's head, Blues Brothers Wall, Huntington Beach, CA, 1990. 

For anyone who's stumbled across the blog and for some reason wants to know who I am and where I came from, this blog post I wrote in 2017 should tell you far more than you ever wanted to know.  
 

Tony Hawk sparks a cool conversation with a stranger

This is a great little bio video on Tony Hawk's life, and it shows his son Riley, who figures into this blog post.  

As a homeless guy at the moment, I take buses all the time.  City buses, are still free in L.A. county, because of the pandemic.  I got on a bus in Long Beach yesterday, and a couple of stops later, a man who appeared in his early 40's, got on with his young daughter.  Unfortunately for them, the only empty seats were right near me, the fat, sketchy looking guy in the back of the bus.  The daughter was a cute kid, maybe 5 or 6, carrying a little stuffed unicorn.  

Being a sketchy looking homeless guy, though showered and cleaner than usual at the time, I tried to ignore them, and not freak them out.  The daughter had a little tiny notebook, and when she started writing in it, she asked her dad how to spell "Riley."  I don't know who she was writing to, probably a friend, I guess.  The dad wasn't sure if it was spelled with "ly" or "ey" at the end.  Spelling is one of my strong suits, so being the dork I am, I spoke up.  "It's R-i-l-e-y" I said.  The dad thanked me politely, and repeated it, as his daughter wrote it down.  "That's Tony Hawk's son's name, that's how I know it," I added. 

The dad perked up.  "I'm from Maine, I was such a huge fan of Tony Hawk!"  As his daughter continued writing her note, we had a great conversation about skateboarding in general, and Tony Hawk in particular.  This was your typical, Yuppie looking guy, with no Van's shoes or Thrasher T-shirt or anything that would suggest a background in skating.  But he had been a pretty serious skater for at least a couple years as a teen, and it turned into a really cool conversation.  

I told him I was a BMX guy mostly, but I skated a little, made it to Southern California, and wound up working at Vision Skateboards during their heyday.  I actually got to go to Tony Hawk's Fallbrook house way back in 1989, for a video shoot with Ken Park (and also one with Joe Johnson later on).  In this clip of Ken Park, shot at Tony's Fallbrook house, I'm in the background in the all white at :16, :25, :41, and 1:34.  I was helping out Don Hoffman, my boss at Unreel Productions, and shooting the Super 8 footage that day, as Don shot 35 mm film.  Tony was off at a demo somewhere, but I had lunch with Don and Frank Hawk, Tony's dad, sitting in the bed of Frank's pick-up.  Don and Frank were talking about the "old days of skateboarding," and this was in 1989.  It was an epic conversation to just sit and listen to.  

I never did meet Tony Hawk.  I've seen him at a few contests, and actually stood next to him on the deck of a ramp at an Action Sports trade show in 1994 or so.  I was shooting photos of the BMXers on the halfpipe, and the BMX session ended, and the skaters took over the ramp.  Tony flew out right next to me, but I felt to weird to introduce myself, so I kept shooting photos.  Some skater I'd never heard of, Bucky Lasek, dropped in, and did a 360 backside ollie right in front of us, and Tony freaked, that was a brand new trick then, so that stuck out in my mind. You know it's a good trick when Tony Hawk, and all the other skaters, freak out an slam their trucks on the coping giving props.

A few years later, I scammed a press pas to the X-Games in San Francisco, in 1999.  I wanted to shoot some video footage to start getting back in the scene, and told ESPN I was writing for Dig BMX magazine in the U.K.  I did actually send an article to Dig, so it was semi-legit.  I wound up at the BMX vert ramp during practice, when Steve Rocco flew over in a helicopter, and threw money stamped with World Industries logo characters at the crowd.  I got 4 of those World dollars, most of which actually fell on the BMXers, not the skate audience, due to the wind.  

I ran into Old School Skyway pro, and friend from my time living in SanJose, Maurice Meyer.  We started talking about "the old days," in the 1980's.  I was part of the NorCal scene for a year, before I got the magazine job in 1986, and moved south to Redondo Beach.  Maurice, better known as Drob, was he pro I got to know the best while living up there.  

That evening at the X-Games, the skateboard best trick contest was starting as BMX practice ended, so Maurice and I walked over to watch it.  We were standing right behind the skater's chairs, maybe 20 feet from the side of the halfpipe.  PLG was trying heelflip Caballerials, as I recall.  Bob Burnquist was trying to land a one footed Smith grind to revert.  Tony Hawk pulled his best trick, a varial 720, with about 15 minutes left in the jam.  It was an epic skate session, "real" skateboarding, the vibe was like a backyard ramp session, only with about 5,000 people in the stands watching.  

And then this happened, something none of us expected.  I think it took Tony 11 tries to land the first 900 on a skateboard.  I was standing there, with my little Sony Digital 8 video camera... with a dead battery.  I didn't care.  I was stoked to just watch that happen.  By the time he landed the 9, we all knew we were watching skateboarding history happen.  You can get a glimpse of Maurice, in a white hoodie with sunglasses, at 6:04 in that clip, part of the crowd congratulating Tony.  For some reason, I didn't move, I just stood where I was, and watched it all happen, for once not worrying about getting the video shot.  

So what started as a pretty average bus ride yesterday, turned into one of those really cool random conversations with a stranger.  He told me about Joe Rogan's podcast with Tony, which I have never watched.  The dad and I fist bumped as we got off the bus, and headed our separate ways, both kinda stoked at reliving a bit of our teenage/20-something years, all because we were both big fans of Tony Hawk, the skateboarder.  

As I've grown older, I've realized the the things we put so much emphasis on achieving in life are rarely what we remember 10-20-30 years later.  We remember little moments, weird little interactions with other people.  Those are the things that stick in our minds, and become our most cherished memories.  

My blogs, the Old School BMX stuff, anyhow, is mostly me telling those stories about obscure moments in the early days of BMX freestyle, and sometimes skateboarding.  That's what the success of my blogs is built on, those weird little moments we remember many years later.  Yesterday's completely random bus conversation has become another one of those cool memories.  One of these maybe I'll actually have to meet Tony.  We'll see. 

Artists, writers, sponsored athletes... YOU ARE A MEDIA COMPANY... Really... You are

This is the best little video I know of on this idea.  Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, social media marketing expert, and now owner of VaynerMedia, a $130 million dollar a year digital agency that he started about a year before he made this video in 2013.  Gary now tells people to put out 100 pieces of content a day.  Really. 100 pieces a day.  

Last week, I looked up my old blogs, and surprised myself by learning that I've pulled in over 438,000 page views on my blogs over the last 12 years.  I put the details in this post.  While my physical situation is sketchy still, the blogging and social media has done well.  My main issue is that I've been selling drawings that take a ridiculously long time to draw, and sell for $150-$200.  I'd have to sell them for about $1,500 each to make a decent living.  Needless to say I'm not there yet.  I'm in the middle of pivoting back to doing more writing, and getting an online store going, and doing less Sharpie art.  I love drawing, but making an actual living is cool, too.  

So after adding up 12 years of blog stats, I went down to Costa Mesa to hang out and shoot photos at Boozer Jam 2021 at Sheep Hills.  The jam is held on honor of Mike "Boozer" Brown, a longtime BMX racer and jumper, and Sheep Hills local, who died in 2019.  

I hung out in this weird chunk of trash land that is home to some of the most famous dirt jumps in the world.  Somehow, the jumps are not only still there after 30 years, but it's an official park area now.  I talked to a bunch of old BMX friends, met a couple new ones, and shot photos of riders tearing it up, like this one.  

Tucker Smith, stretching a double seat grab Superman.  #steveemigphotos

I wasn't thinking about blogging or social media all day.  I was just having fun hanging out, and Jonesin' to get a bike and get riding again.  In the last month, I've begun to focus this blog more on blogging, writing, and creativity itself.  But I still want to go into things I've learned from my own blogging, and promoting my artwork.  There are thousands and thousands of good artists and writers out there these days.  But if you want to actually sell your art, or make a living as writer of some sort, you need to either do your own promotion, or get someone to do it for you.  

But that day hanging out at Sheep Hills, I realized that action sports athletes also need to do the same types of promotion that artists, writers, small businesses, and other creative people do.  The more I've looked into how creative people and small businesses use social media, the more I've realized how much more they could be doing.  There are so many platforms to promote yourself, your work, and your ideas these days, and yet most people don't use them to anywhere near their full potential.  

After a little research this morning, looking into the Instagram and online presence of several of the athletes there last weekend, and a few of the very top action sports names, I realized the same is true of them.  Yeah, even the very best action sports athletes could do a lot more with social media, blogs, and other online platforms and apps.  After all, your job as a sponsored athlete is to promote your sponsor's products.  If you do a really good job promoting yourself online and on social media, then you're doing a better job promoting your sponsors, and whatever it is that they sell.  That's why they sponsor you.

So now I'm going to add action sports athletes into these blog posts about promoting and marketing yourself.  Artist, writer, blogger, or athlete, in today's media environment, you can basically promote yourself as much as you want to.  And you control the content, you can do what you think is cool, and avoid things you think are lame.  Yes, I know that every athlete, and most artists and writers are on social media.  But most of them, even top action sports athletes, use it like a consumer, like everyday people who don't have anything to promote.  But just like riding or writing, it you want to be a pro, you need ot step up your game.

So here's the first concept to begin stepping up your game.  Here's the main pointGary Vaynerchuk makes in the video above:

"You are a media company." 

-Gary Vaynerchuk, 2013

You're not just a novelist, photographer, artist or blogger or BMXer or skateboarder.  You are also a media company.  With your phone or tablet or laptop, you can make several different kinds of media, any time you want to.  and you can put it on worldwide platforms where potentially millions of people can see, hear, or read it.  Let that sink it. 

 After all, look at me, I'm an old dork...  but I'm a dork whose blogs have been looked at 438,000 times in 12 years.  You all are much cooler than I am, I'm just pretty good at writing cool little stories about BMX and other weird things I've seen or done.  You can do a lot more than I can with your particular talents.  So let that idea sink in... no matter what you do, you are also a media company.  Gary V. was trying to drill this idea into corporate executives 7-8 years ago, when they didn't see the point of advertising and creating content with blogs, videos, or social media.  Seven years later, most small businesses, artists, writers, and athletes know you need to be on social, but don't use it to its full potential. 

More thoughts on this coming soon.  But for now, here's another cool photo from Boozer Jam 2021.

Mike "Hucker" Clark with a corked out 360.  #steveemigphotos

 

 

Boozer Jam 2021 at Sheep Hills

What's it like at a Boozer Jam?  This video by pro skater/rapper Chris Gentry, from Boozer Jam 2014, will give you an idea.  OK, the T&A is from downtown Huntington Beach, but the rest is all Sheep Hills.  You can see Mike "Boozer" Brown in his wheelchair at :52, real quick, at that event.  Boozer Jam 2021 was held on Saturday, May 29th, 2021, at Sheep Hills.

"Boozer" Mike Brown was a lifelong BMX racer, and a Sheep Hills local rider and jump builder from the earliest days of the 1990's.  He was paralyzed in a racing accident in 2012.  The Boozer Jam was put on as a fun day of real BMX, and a fundraiser to help out Mike and his mom, Cathy, who lived on a real tight budget.  Mike died in 2019, and that year's jam turned into the Boozer Mike Memorial Jam, held in his honor since.  A raffle at the end of the day helps out Cathy Brown, originally with funeral expenses in 2019, and just in general ever since.  This year some money also went to help get bikes for underprivileged kids, as well.

Here's Mike in his heyday, doing his favorite trick, the bowlegged X-up.  Photo loaned to me by Jason "Dogger" German, who is the driving force behind Boozer Jam each year.  

Boozer Jam is a jam, so the vibe is much different from a major contest.  It's a day for 300 or 400 people to all show up at Sheep Hills at once, ride the trails, talk to old friends, make some new ones, and just have a good time.  Jason "Dogger" German does the leg work, putting the event together, and he kicked ass as usual.  Mike's mom Cathy comes out, and hangs out all day.  A bunch of T-shirts and stickers are sold, and a ton of BMX product is donated and raffled off to help Cathy out, and it's also helping underprivileged kids as well.  

Tucker Smith (@tuckersmithbmx on Instagram) stretches a double seat grab Superman.

There are a load of guys in black T-shirts.  There's a huge S&M and Fit Bikes presence, since Sheep Hills has been S&M Bikes country since it was built in 1990.  But us geezers from the early 90's are old now, and most have families.  So Boozer Jams are family events for many.  Sometimes the parents watch the kids ride.  Sometimes the kids watch dad ride.  Sometimes the whole family rides.  

Mike "Hucker" Clark with his trademarked corked out 360.  In addition to these, Mike threw tailwhip flips, and was trying to jump this huge step-up and land in a hang-5, at one point.  That's not physically possible, but he damn near did it anyway.

Yes, I said "us" geezers above.  I was a freestyler in the 80's, doing tricks for crowds at the Huntington Beach Pier, while the racers were chasing points at races.  I actually worked on the edge of the Costa Mesa mesa, a few hundred yards from Sheep Hills, from late '87 to early '90.  I rode the jumps that used to be off of 19th street, where the condos above Sheep Hills are now.  Some people called those jumps Hollywood, because former pro racer, and Vision Street Wear BMX team manager, "Hollywood" Mike Miranda rode there a lot.  He's the one who showed me those jumps, a big hip and a ditch jump, at a Vision photo shoot.  

I also rode Sheep some the first couple of years, in the era of the three berms.  Then the racer jumpers built everything bigger, and I sucked to much to clear the jumps.  But I rode by and hung out now and then, through the early 90's.  I even helped with shovel some dirt on occasion.  Being roommates with Chris Moeller around '93-'94, the young bucks of the day often came to our apartment to play video games.  I'd be watching a rock climbing video, and Timmy Ball would come in, followed by Barspinner, Chulo, Stricker, and the Popes, and kick me off the TV so they could play video games.  So while I never could jump a decent set of doubles, I was around those guys some in the early days.  

It's always cool to go hang at Sheep, see some old friends, and shoot photos, until I can get my shit together and get a bike again.  On my end, it was cool to talk to Dogger, Randy Russell and his wife, Sean Duncan, Ricky Rat, Timmy Ball, and Brooks Manbeck, from the P.O.W. House days.  I also met Facebook friend Molly Opps for the first time in person.  It was just a fun day all around.

Cathy Brown, Mike's mom, hanging out at Boozer Jam 2021.

While these events are largely just a big jumping jam, there's a little bit of order to the chaos.  Dogger leads the pack through a skid contest, for distance and style, and a bowlegged X-up contest, Mike's favorite trick, on the Boozer line he built almost 30 years ago.  The highlight of the day is the best trick contest, which was won by Cory Nastazio this year, with a corked out 720, or 360 flip, whatever you want to call it. 

Tailwhip flip attempt.  This rider kind of came out of nowhere.  Some people said he was from Phoenix.  He said he lives near Temecula now, but moved there recently, I think.  He was hucking some serious moves.  I think his name is Topal, or something like that.  #steveemigphotos

The weather started hazy, with June gloom all morning.  But the marine layer burned off, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and not too hot, perfect for the jam.  Riders from ages 5 or 6, up to riders in their mid 50's were riding hard all day.  Others hung and watched, and most shot photos and selfies with friends throughout the day. 

It's 2021, and there are plenty of talented women riders these days.  Jesse Gregory twists one in the bowlegged X-up contest. #steveemigphotos

Dogger, handed the mike over to longtime Sheep Hills local, and current Hawaiian aquaman, Barspinner Ryan Brennan, and he kept the vibe going.  He called out Chris Hughes, offering $100 bill if Chris could land a clean body varial.  He tried a bunch of them, eating shit on several. Chris rode away, dragging a foot, on two or three.  There were tons of nac-nacs, and no handers, plenty of 360's, and a handful of guys doing flips.  Tailwhip flips and 720's were happening, and Hucker hucked a front flip that rattled him, but kept riding, of course.  It was just a solid, fun day of real BMX with friends and family.  

Cory Nastazio, talking to kids, right after getting the award for winning best trick.  #steveemigphotos

 

Check out all my photos on my Pinterest board.

I also have a post about Sheep Hills itself on my new blog:  Crazy California 43

Jason "Dogger" German, wearing one of Boozer Mike's old S&M shirts, making a great day happen.

The Best Trick trophy, won by Cory Nastazio.  #steveemigphotos

Addicted to blogs

There isn't a really cool blog song that I know of, but Harvey's Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" is cool, and mentions zines, where I got my self-publishing start.  Close enough.  

"I want to publish zines, and rage against machines..."

-Harvey Danger, 1998, When zines were resurging, and when blogs were just being invented.

I started my first blog about taxi driving in 2007, while living in my taxi in Huntington Beach.  I would go to the H.B. library and rent a computer for $5 an hour, since I didn't own one, and write about funny license plate rings or bumper stickers I saw while driving my taxi.  I think I wrote about 30 posts, and had maybe 50 page views in a year, which seemed to mostly be from my mom and the cops.  Not the greatest start to blogging, but you have to start somewhere. 

In November of 2008 I landed at my parents' tiny apartment in Kernersville, NC, after a year living on the streets in Orange County, CA.  That homeless year followed about 4 1/2 years of 7 days a week taxi driving, living in my taxi for about 4 of those years.  I lived in an indie art gallery for 6-7 months, and drove a taxi on the weekends the other part of that time.  When I got to NC, I was 325 pounds, in horrible health, 42 years old, broke, and lost everything I owned in that move.  I lost everything from my 20+ years of BMX riding, except a key chain.  I went from depressed to really depressed.  

But I had my parents computer in my room. I had never really spent any time online up until that point, I was a total Luddite, thinking "Fuck that goofy internet shit."  I knew almost nothing about the virtual world.  Within two weeks, I started a blog called FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales, about my 5 month stint working at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines in 1986.  I've been blogging pretty consistently ever since.  I've learned a few things about blogging in the 12 1/2 years since.  Here are the main blogs I've done...

FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales..... about 212 posts..... over 25,000 page views.... 2008-2009

Freestyle BMX Tales..... over 500 posts..... over 125,000 page views..... 2009-2012

Make Money Panhandling (picked stupidest title I could think of to practice search engine optimization (SEO)..... 100 posts?.....  about 65,000 page views, 2010-2012

A month or so after my dad died in August of 2012, I got seriously depressed, and deleted all my blogs (I had tried about 20 or 30 blog ideas, trying to figure out how to make money with a blog).  I immediately regretted deleting my blogs after I did it.  Lesson, DON'T delete your blogs.

Freestyle BMX Tales..... (version 2, on wordpress.com)..... can't remember how many posts..... 40-50 posts?  10-20,000 page views?  Not sure.  

Freestyle BMX Tales 43 (Version 3).....89 posts..... 40, 124 page views.... 2015-2017

Bum to Bankroll..... 51 posts..... 1,403 page views..... 2015-2016 

Become Your Own Hero (line from a poem I wrote)..... 49 posts..... 1,402 page views..... 2015-2016

Cash Poor Story Rich..... 6 posts..... 1,111 page views..... 2016

Check out downtown Kernersville (North Carolina)..... 6 posts..... 963 page views..... 2016

Create Your Own Dang Job..... 17 posts..... 1,041 page views..... 2017  (If you look up nothing else here, check out the first post on this one, my playlist for Trump's inauguration day)

Freaks, Geeks, Dorks, and Weirdos..... 42 posts..... 877 page views..... 2016

Get Weird Make Money..... 38 posts..... 839 page views..... 2017

 How to Make Your Lame City Better- Part 1..... 22 posts..... 1,808 page views..... 2016

How to Make Your Lame City Better- Part 2..... 57 posts..... 330 page views..... 2016

New Ideas for Old American Buildings..... 24 posts..... 538 page views..... 2017

Steve Emig Art..... 86 posts..... 12,364 page views.....  2017 

The White Bear's Stuff..... 35 posts..... 2,053 page views..... 2017-2018

Steve Emig: The White Bear.... 700 posts..... 124,513 page views.....2017-2020

Block Bikes Blog (for Block Bikes Shop/website)..... 96 posts..... 21,839 page views..... April-June 2019

The Phoenix Great Depression..... 47 posts..... 985 page views..... June 2020-October 2020

Small Business Blaster..... 17 posts..... 953 page views..... 2020

Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now- Book 1.....this is a book published as a blog..... 20 chapters/posts, all built December 2019..... 1962 page views..... December 2019- April 2020

Steve Emig Adventuring..... 67 posts..... 2,462 page views..... 2020-2021

 WPOS Kreative Ideas..... 89 posts..... 5,541..... April 2019-May 2021

Current blogs (revised October 8, 2021):

The Big Freakin' Transition

Crazy California 43..... 35 posts..... 765 page views..... April-May 2021

Full Circle- My new blog about writing and the writing life.

And a new fiction blog...

Stench: Homeless Superhero

 So...  Over 12 1/2 years, 25 blogs,  2,405 blog posts, 438,932 page views.  

I just found dozens of blog posts, actually a few hundred, that I totally forgot I wrote.  I've tried at least 30 more blog ideas, and stopped after a few posts.  But a lot of my same themes, like creative scenes, re-building our world, starting a small business, Sharpie Scribble Style art, and of course, BMX freestyle.  Lesson for today?  Don't be afraid to try new ideas on a blog.  When you get one that feels right, roll with it.  If you burn out on that idea for a while (or forever), leave the blog up online, and go try something else for a while.  

So... who wants to go down my rabbit hole?  Click one of those links.  I just blew my own mind.

I've been blogging since blogs were called zines... 35 years of self-publishing

Tens of thousands zines have been published in the last 45 years or so, since early punkers discovered self-publishing.  But this is one of the only, and the best, documentary on zines there is.  There should be more.  $100 and a T-shirt.

Since 2007, I've tried probably 50 different blog ideas.  Most sucked.  But some didn't.  My most successful blogs, in terms of readership, have been about Old School BMX freestyle.  Guys (and a couple women), now in our late 40's and 50's, who got really into BMX trick riding in the 1980's, when it was a new sport.  It doesn't get much more niche than that.  

Yet, somehow, my best blogs together have clocked over 380,000 page views in 12 years.  For real.  My last main personal blog, Steve Emig; The White Bear (it's a BMX nickname, not anything racial), I retired about a year ago, when it hit 100,000 page views.  Without really touching it, that blog has attracted about 24,000 more page views in the last year... just sitting there.  It's about Old School BMX freestyle, a little Sharpie art, and my thoughts on economics and the future.  

That's the power of blogs.  If you put halfway decent thoughts in a blog, consistently, over a period of time, some people will check it out.  Sometimes, A LOT of people will check it out.  That blog is also the main one that's helped sell my Sharpie Scribble Style artwork across 12 or so states, maybe 10 countries, and on 6 of the 7 continents (still working on getting art to Antarctica and the International Space Station).  And I was homeless nearly the whole 3 1/2 years that blog was being written.  

Blogs (and zines) are a place to vent.  They are a place to throw a new, or reasonably revamped, idea out into the world and see what people think.  Blogs are a place to talk or write about those things that you are really into, and to find other people out there in the world who are also into those things.  Blogs are a place to build a solid following as a writer, artist, performer, comic, or other type of creative person.  Blogs are a place to write things off the top of your head, and ramble on about really niche topics.  Blogs are a way to show the world things you think are cool, interesting, and need a little more attention.  Blogs are a lot of things.  

Best of all, blogs are one form of Constitutionally protected free speech (with a few minor limits), which I found out the hard way isn't popular in all parts of the United States.  I've literally had a group of guys threaten me with baseball bats and clubs, because they didn't like my blog.  It wasn't a particular thing I said they didn't like.  They were mad (in a conservative Southern State that will remain nameless) because I was talking about a big recession I saw coming in the future, back in 2018.  Obviously, everyone knew back in 2018 that we would never, ever  have another recession, much less a major one.  They were also mad because when people Googled that city (of about 250,000 people), a blog written by a homeless Sharpie artist came up in the top of the rankings.  I told them, "It's not my fault you guys suck at blogging and social media, you have to EARN rankings on Google.  Get on You Tube, learn how to do it, and get to work."  That didn't go over well.  But they decided not to beat me to a bloody pulp that night (about May 16th, 2018).  Why?  Because if I lived, they knew I would blog about the beating.  Isn't it ironic, don'tcha think?  

Anyhow, I love blogging.  And blogging IS writing.  It's not all writing, it's a particular type of writing, if you choose to write posts.  You could shoot videos, talk at a camera, put them on YouTube, and also upload them to a blog, which is a good idea if you have a YouTube channel, BTW.  Blogs are kinda like zines, but e-zines that the whole world can see.  That's good in some ways, and bad in some ways.  I like both blogs and zines, each in their own way.  I began self-publishing as a zine guy in 1985, and blogging was pretty much inevitable, once I had time on my hands and a computer to use.  For me, that happened in late 2008, when I was forced out of California and to North Carolina, very much to my dismay.

I first heard of zines in a FREESTYLIN' magazine article in late 1984, I think.  I was a dorky high school senior in Boise, Idaho, and one of three serious BMX freestylers in that region.  Our goofy little sport was brand new, and for some reason, the idea of publishing a zine about it appealed to me after reading that article.  So I drew up some designs of what my zine would look like.  Then, in my typical fashion at the time, I did nothing else, except talk about maybe doing a zine.  

In late August of 1985, I finished my summer job at a little amusement park, called the Boise Fun Spot, and drove my 1971 Pontiac Bonneville land yacht to San Jose, California, where my family had moved in June.  I promptly got a job at a local Pizza Hut, and tried to think of a way to find and meet all the good freestylers in the San Francisco Bay area (in the pre-internet days, meeting people you didn't know was much harder).  I decided to publish a zine about BMX freestyle, and hand it out at local bike shops.  It worked, and a month later, I was riding at a jam session with the Skyway factory team, the Curb Dogs, and the other local riders of the Bay Area.  

Eleven issues of the zine landed me a job at FREESTYLIN' magazine (and BMX Action).  At 20 years old, I was an editorial assistant, and the proofreader of, two national magazines... because I self-published a zine for a year.  For real.  That happened.  

More than anything, my first zine, San Jose Stylin', taught me the power of following through on a creative idea, and finishing it.  I've been self-publishing, on a regular basis, ever since.  Much more on blogs, zines, and self-publishing coming in this blog.  Oh, and if I die at the hands of someone in authority in the near future, it will probably be because of something I wrote in a blog.  There are still a lot of people in this country to don't like the idea of free speech.  I do.  It's worth fighting for.  If we lose free speech, we lose all other rights soon after.  So go make a zine or write a blog.  Publish something.

 BMX freestyler, manager of the Boise Fun Spot, and a dork a couple months from becoming a zine publisher.  Me, summer of 1985, at the Fun Spot.  Photo by co-worker Vaughn Kidwell.

Gen Z hits the adult world while the world is crazy

 This is my dad, with my niece Katherine and my nephew Ethan, in January 2006.  I visited them in North Carolina, seeing my niece for the second time, and my 3-year-old nephew for the first time.  It was cool being an uncle, and having Ethan keep asking me, "Uncle Steve, let's watch Dorwuh (his pronunciation of Dora the Explorer then).  I watched about 20 episodes of Dora that week, and went home saying "Oh maaan!" when people cut me off in my taxi back home in Huntington Beach.

When this photo above was taken, Katherine was 5, and Ethan was 3.  At the same time, Google was 7 1/2, Amazon was 11, Facebook was almost 2, Space X was almost 4, Tesla (the car company) was 2 1/2. You Tube was almost 1, Shopify was just starting, and Twitter would be founded two months later.  Uber, Lyft, Snapchat, Pinterest, and iPhones didn't exist yet.  Think about how big those companies are today, and how much they have changed how we live our daily lives.  The Generation Z kids, like Katherine and Ethan, grew up with these businesses.

Now, in April of 2021, my niece Katherine is graduating from college, and Ethan is graduating from high school.  Another young woman I met on the bus two days ago is in her first year of college.  These "kids" Generation Z, the post Millennial crowd, are hitting adulthood, and they're hitting the adult world at a REALLY crazy time in history.  

I saw this young woman sitting in the back of the bus with a copy of Robert Kiyosaki's book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and asked her what she thought about the book.  I read the book around the time the photo above was shot, I think, and have read most of Kiyosaki's books since.  The young woman, Diana, turned out to be super intelligent, and it was a really cool conversation.  I was wondering what a person her age, and about my niece and nephew's age, thought of Kiyosaki's ideas on money, work and investing.  She told me she was in college, on an academic scholarship, and had a 4.0+ scholarship in high school.  But she was also the daughter of a hard working single mom, and grew up where money was really tight.  She had some really good thinking on money for an 18-19 year old.  When buying clothes, or most other things, she said she'd think, "How many hours work will this shirt cost me?  Is it really worth trading that much of my time?"  That's a great way to think for a person her age.  She really impressed me, being book smart, but realizing that money was a whole different type of learning, so she picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book, to learn more on that front on her own, as well as her college studies.  

Diana also talked about the notion of working to make a living, something nearly all of us have to do, yet thinking about what she was passionate about in life, and the struggle between doing what makes you happy in life, as well as doing what's needed to make a living.  That's something we all have to struggle with our whole lives.  Overall, it was cool to see a young woman motivated in learning both her official education in college, but also about money and finances, on her own.  The world needs a lot more people like Diana coming up.  Talking to her gave me more hope for Generation Z.

As a Big Picture thinker, who has written a lot about the long term trends happening right now, I'm looking at the 2020's as probably the craziest decade anyone alive will see.  I've gone into more detail on these ideas in my online book, Welcome to Dystopia, The Future is Now.  One one hand, I think we are in the late stages of the collapse of the Industrial Age, and the rise of the incoming Information Age.  There are several ultra-long term trends, all combining, and I see the 2020's as a decade of massive change.  Old systems are breaking down as new, tech-enabled systems are being built up, and changing how we live, day to day.  So these older Gen Z people, like Katherine, Ethan, Diana, and their friends, are beginning their adult lives in the midst of great change.  I told Diana, "The world today isn't normal, it's really crazy.  It's will be crazy for a while, but what gets created in this decade will shape everyone's future for a long time to come." 

One big trend I'm watching, is the way new technology is replacing human jobs.  An Oxford University study in 2013, estimated the 47% of U.S. jobs could be lost to new technologies by 2035.  That's around 75-80 million jobs disappearing, in a 25 year period.  My personal thoughts are that the future will hold a lot less high paying "traditional" jobs, and a lot of people, of all ages, will have to either have side gigs, micro businesses (one person businesses), or small businesses to survive.  I think Gen Z will, just by necessity, have to be one of the most entrepreneurial generations in 150 years or so.  Ethan has been making some money streaming content about video games, so he's already doing that to some extent.  

As old people argue about ideas from 30 or 40 years ago, I think Millennials and Gen Z are, and will continue to, build a new world right under our noses.  It's a big job, but I'm beginning to have more faith in these "kids" hitting adulthood now.  The world needs all kinds of improvement, pick a theme that's important to you, and starting making the world better.  Us old geezers need all the help we can get.  ; )

Planting flowers in Hell: poetry, other arts, and the gift and dedication of creativity

My favorite bands are mostly punk bands, the music I listen to most often, are bands like Social Distortion, The Descendents, and Face to Face, and several others.  But when I'm in a creative mood, actually working on creative projects, I listen to this entire concert of the Lilith Fair in 1997.  I've watched and listened to this dozens and dozens of times.  This is one of the best documentaries on creativity I know.  

"Writing's so bizarre.  I think that's why it's so fulfilling.  It's like you're... you're making something out of nothing."

-Shawn Colvin, Lillith Fair, 1997 documentary (above)

To be able to reach into the void, to literally stretch your soul out into that other dimension, and bring out something new, something you think the world needs, to breathe life into it, and set that creative piece on its journey into the physical world, that is the work of an artist.  And that work requires every bit as much dedication as that of a doctor, or a soldier, to do it well, and do it consistently.  An artist, a poet of life, may not fight battles with guns, but we are always fighting battles. 

While in North Carolina, three years ago, living in a tent in the woods, and drawing my Sharpie art day after day, fighting the darkness of the deep shadows of the worst aspects of Old Southern Culture, it seemed like I was planting flowers in Hell.  I wondered if it was all worthwhile many times, like when I was hunkered down, under a tarp, inside my tent, as a Carolina thunderstorm raged around me, thinking about drawing at the library the next day.  One day I realized, if you plant enough flowers in Hell, it doesn't feel like Hell anymore.  That is our work as artists. 

To keep trying, keep creating, to build our technical skills, and learn our own creative process, to bring new things, new creative works, new ideas, into the world.  That is our job.  If you dedicate yourself to that over the long term, you eventually build up the drive to keep going no matter what forces of the evil parts of the everyday human world throw at you, or our own fears and personal demons we may be wrestling with. 

 That is our job.  We light matches in the darkness and create new lights to share and pass around and light new paths.  To do that, we must be sensitive to the creative sparks and the nuances, but also build a toughness to break past the doubters and haters.  At this point, if you put me in front of a firing squad, condemned to die a moment later by the executioners' guns, I'd write a haiku on the spot and recite it, as my last work in this world.  

You pull the trigger

Sending lead death to end me

A poem comes, I win

Sometimes it takes that level of dogged dedication to be an artist.  History would forget the names of the firing squad members, and the leader who told them to shoot.  But that poem, that haiku would be written down and remembered, I guarantee it.  

Yes, sometimes it takes that level of dedication to your creative work to be an artist.  Most of the time it does not, thankfully.  But there is a dedication to being a poet, a painter, a sculptor, a songwriter, a musician, a dancer, a content creator, a director, a producer, an inventor, a graphic designer, whatever.  You may not face the firing squad for your creative work, but you face days of creating crap, you face your insecurities, your personal bad habits, your doubts, your mom's doubts, your dad's doubts, everybody's doubts.  You face moments, even days, where it doesn't seem to be working.  

And then... that spark comes, from somewhere.  That next right idea that you need to create.  But the spark is the just that, the spark, it is not the poem, the song, the play, the finished work.  Then comes the dedication that you've built over time, the work to take that creative spark and form it with your technical skills, into the piece of art to share with others.  

Some pieces of art may be instant hits, going viral in your genre' to be admired and to inspire many people in a short amount of time.  Other pieces may not receive much initial excitement at all.  They may sit out there in the world, seemingly unnoticed, for months or years.  But in that time, in their place, those pieces inspire one person here, and another there.  And years later someone thanks you for creating that piece or work you'd long forgotten about.  It did have a purpose, it was needed in the world at the time you created it.  Maybe that "failure" ultimately inspired entire new people and new ideas while you went on, busy elsewhere.  You never know.  

There is a reason we are driven to create something.  Sometimes it's just for our own survival.  Sometimes we just need to get out of our everyday mindset and goof around, and make something to keep our own spirits up.  Sometimes we create a gift for someone dear to us, to help them through a dark time.  Sometimes we create a piece of art that speaks to many, many people.  Sometimes we may create something that seems like no big deal at the time, but it sparks a whole new genre' of creativity in other people.  Sometimes we may create a work that speaks to our times, and helps drive a major, needed,  a change in society itself.  

We never know, as artists what effect a certain piece will have.  Our job is to actually live life, and to learn and grow as artists, to dedicate ourselves to doing the best work we can, as we journey through life.  Our job is to learn our own creative process, to follow our our weird path, to build our technical skills, and to drop everything and create that next piece of work when the spark hits us.  

The world of humans needs our work, even if it may not seem like it at the time.  The world needs us, as artists, no many how many mean and seemingly evil people (most of whom are blocked artists themselves) may try to destroy us.  The world needs new creative pieces of work, new ideas, of all kinds, constantly.  The world needs you to create.  Do your best to hold up your end of the bargain.  Keep creating.

Become

You must risk

If you're to succeed

From when we grow

Sometimes we bleed

Each must climb

Over the fence

For the only cage

Is ignorance

Each Jedi Knight

And Shaolin monk

Evolved from

A lowly punk

Don't get caught

In the world's throws

We must become

Our own heroes

 

-The White Bear 

(aka me, Steve Emig)

A couple of memes I made a while back, on the idea of creativity...