The first time the S&M guys and P.O.W. House were in a video

Next weekend in Riverside, California is the annual Boozer Jam, combined with the 30th anniversary party for S&M Bikes.  I won't be there, and I doubt anyone really cares.  I've told many BMX stories over the years, but few about my interactions with Chris Moeller, S&M Bikes, and the P.O.W. House.  This seems like the perfect time to throw some of those stories out into the blogosphere.

I first heard of Chris Moeller from Gork, the editor of BMX Action.  He and Windy went to shoot photos of some pro racer at some jumps on Brookhurst by a grocery store in Huntington Beach.  Gork came back freaking out about this 16-year-old kid doing all these insane jumps while they were there.  That kid, of course, was Chris Moeller.

I've learned over the years that just when you think you have Chris figured out, he surprises you.  So here's a story that will surprise many of you.  I first met Moeller when I rode with Gork to a national in Lake Elsinore.  On the way, we picked up Chris who'd ask Gork to hitch a ride to the race.  Gork and I were in the front seats of the Wizard Publications Astro van, and Chris sat on the floor in the back with his bike.  I don't think Chris said two words for the whole trip, which was about an hour.  My first impression of Chris Moeller was that he might be a great jumper, but he was really shy.

Sometime after that, Gork showed us at Wizard this amazing series of photos of Chris doing a no-footer, head high, for about 25 feet, on a downhill jump at Hidden Valley in Huntington Beach.  Without a doubt, it was the craziest jump I'd ever seen photos of at that point.  Gork took the photos, Xeroxed them (ask you dad what a Xerox is, kids), and made this amazing, multi-image sequence... totally by hand.  It was awesome.  I met a slew of amazing riders in 1986, Mat Hoffman, Joe Johnson, Josh White, and Chris Moeller, among others.

After getting booted from Wizard, I landed as newsletter editor at the American Freestyle Association in Huntington Beach.  I was in the area, but as a freestyler hanging out at the pier, I rarely ran into Moeller then.  I went on to work at Unreel Productions, the Vision video company.  In early 1990, Unreel was dissolved, and I moved to the Vision main office.  it was there one day that Vision BMX team manager, Mike Miranda, told me about four riders that rented an apartment in H.B..  They called themselves the HBP's, or Huntington Beach Pros.  Some months later, I learned that several more riders had joined the pack and rented a house in Westminster, the much more affordable city inland of Huntington Beach.  They renamed themselves the Pros of Westminster, or P.O.W.'s.  It was the first serious rider house in BMX. 

That same year, I decided to shoot and produce my own video.  I'd produced six videos for the AFA, one for 2-Hip, and worked at Unreel when they made a bunch of really hokey videos, like Freestylin' Fanatics.  I decided to make a video that showed real riding, and CURRENT riding, which only Eddie Roman and Mark Eaton were doing then. And to be honest, those were really sketchy at the time, though the riding was insane.  So I shot video most every weekend through 1990, and edited the video in October of that year.

I wanted good jumping in the video, not just freestylers doing flyout jumps.  The best doubles jumpers in the sport then were the S&M and P.O.W.'s.  So I called them up, and I went to shoot at the P.O.W. House, and then later at Edison, some jumps squeezed in a little area behind the high school.  The clip above is what I came up with for the video.  It's short, but it was insane jumping for that time.  Here's a list of most of the guys in this segment:

John Paul Rogers- :17, :26 (S&M rider, P.O.W.)
Alan Foster- :29, :46 (P.O.W., I didn't know he had a little brother who rode then)
Chris Moeller- :31, 1:06, 2:00 (The "M" in S&M Bikes, and the guy who built the company into what it is today)
McGoo- :33 (Official comedian of the BMX industry)
Dave Clymer- :40, :56, 1:09, 1:24 (S&M rider and P.O.W.)
Eric Milman- :50, 1:11 (P.O.W.)
Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson- 1:02, 1:22, 1:28, 1:32, 1:36, 1:45, 1:45, 1:50, 2:04 (S&M Rider)
Greg Scott- 1:30 (The "S" in S&M Bikes originally)

Also in the clip are Dave Cullinan, Kim Boyle, Josh White, and Mike, a local kid.  The toe -dragger tailwhip that Crazy Red does at the end is the first tailwhip over doubles in a BMX video ever.  The 360 that Moeller does at the end was the biggest 360 I'd ever seen at that point.  The music is two live tracks by The Stain, a Toledo punk band.  Someone has to be pioneers in everything, and the S&M/P.O.W. guys were the main pioneers when dirt jumping was starting to turn into its own sport.

I've got four new blogs now:

The Big Freakin' Transition- about the future and economics

Crazy California 43- Cool and weird locations in California

Full Circle- about writing and the writer's life

And a fiction blog- 

Stench: Homeless Superhero

 

The Birth of S&M in the BMX world 30 years ago

This clip is well worth watching for the old school trickery by Drob and and Golden Gate Park crew in 1986.  But at 5:07 in the clip, you can see me chasing my bike.  That was a stupid trick I did in parades in Idaho, but it got me in this TV clip.  In the time between when this clip was shot, and when it aired, my goofy little freestyle zine landed me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  My life changed forever. 

After five months as a magazine gofer/proofreader, I got laid off, mostly because I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy.  They hired some kid named Spike a couple of months later.  Cool kid, wonder what happened to him.  Anyhow,  I rode every day with Craig Grasso for a month (which I highly advise, he's hilarious), called around the industry, then landed a job as the newsletter editor for the American Freestyle Association.  That job moved me from Hermosa Beach a bit south to Huntington Beach, a working class surf town at the time. 

In my stint at FREESTYLIN', I did drove Windy Osborn to a photo shoot at the Huntington Beach Pier once, where she shot pics of freestyle skaters Henry Candioti and Don Brown.  So I knew both skaters and some bike freestylers hung out there on the weekends.  When I moved there, I headed down to the pier every weekend to session.  I met a tall, lanky rider named Mike Sarrail.  He was a master of Miami Hop hops, and invented the Undertaker, among other things.  We hit it off, and rode together every weekend with skaters Pierre Andre, Don Brown, and whoever else wandered by on bikes and boards. 

That summer, I had this cool idea.  Like most "cool ideas," it seemed awesome at the time.  I wanted to blow off the dinky AFA newsletter and do a newsletter/newspaper thing covering bikes, skates, surf, and whatever else seemed cool.  I threw the idea at Mike, and we started planning it out.  In those days before the internet, it could have been cool.  Probably not.  But maybe.

After dreaming about it for a while that summer of 1987, Mike and I decided to make some T-shirts to sell to raise a little money.  I took a photo of a rider doing a lookdown, and we made iron-on transfer T-shirts that said,  "S&M Productions... We're coming" with the pic of the lookdown in the middle.  "S&M" stood for Steve & Mike.  We sold the T-shirts around Huntington Beach, and didn't make much money.  I think if you look real hard at my Facebook pics, you'll find a pic of me doing a Shingle Shuffle under the HB Pier wearing one of those shirts with the sleeves cut off. 

Anyhow... like most of my "cool" ideas back then, it was mostly dream and little action.  We never made the multi-sport newsletter (or videos) and S&M Productions fizzled out.  So that's the story of how S&M started 30 years ago in the BMX freestyle world. 

Oh yeah, one guy who bought one of our shirts said, "Hey, there's some BMX racing guys doing a company called S&M, too."  Turns out he was right.

I've got two new blogs I'm doing now:

Crazy California 43- This blog's about weird, cool, odd, and historic locations in California.

WPOS Kreative Ideas- This blog's about creativity, writing, art, blogging, promoting creative work, and whatever else I feel like blogging about.

Early video of Eddie Fiola at Pipeline Skatepark

This past Monday, Memorial Day, was also the 40th anniversary of the opening of Pipeline Skatepark in Upland, California.  It opened with the namesake full pipe attached to a bowl that was amazing for BMX bikes.  Pipeline wasn't far from the already legendary Baldy Pipe, which had already been skated for a while.  Baldy was a 16 foot diameter pipe, Pipeline's was 20 feet.

 Here's Eddie Fiola, the original King of the Skateparks, being interviewed by Don Hoffman.  Don's parents, Stan and Jean, owned Pipeline, which took both skating and BMX vert to a whole different level.  Eddie is rocking the MF jersey, which stood for Morales (as in Bob) and Fiola.

A Kickstarter campaign for a Pipeline/Badlands documentary is getting going.  More on all that later.  I'm moving this week, so I'll be adding more posts in 2 or 3 days.

I've got two new blogs now:

Crazy California 43

WPOS Kreative Ideas

Support the creative people who stoke you

At fifty years old, I'm way overweight after years of taxi driving and bad eating habits.  I'm starting to lost the weight.  As an old BMXer, I went looking online for a good bike to get me riding again.  I kept seeing Todd Lyon's posts on Facebook, he's the SE Bikes brand manager now.  I checked out his video for the SE Fat Ripper, and that's when I found this clip by Seth's Bike Hacks YouTube channel.  This video is the reason I decided to start saving up for a Fat Ripper.  I've become a fan of Seth's YouTube channel.

As most of you reading this know, I've been telling old school BMX stories in my blogs since I moved to North Carolina in November 2008.  Moving here,  I lost all my bike videos and DVD's, I lost all the master tapes to videos I produced, and I lost dozens of hours of raw footage ranging from 1989 to 2007.  I had been planning to make my own documentary of BMX freestyle at some point.  Because I couldn't borrow money to get my stuffed shipped from California, I lost one of the best raw footage collections in the freestyle world.  All I had left were memories.  So I started blogging.

In the last nine years, I've written about 800 posts about the early days of BMX freestyle, and I have lots more to tell.  I'd like to thank all of you who've read and enjoyed my bike tales over the years. 

When I came to NC, I couldn't find a decent job.  It was late 2008 and the bottom was dropping out of the economy, so I wasn't alone.  I eventually drove a taxi here for a while, and spent a year struggling to survive while living in my taxi.  I've also been selling my Sharpie artwork here and there to make a little money.  I'm too old to get hired at entry level jobs here, and my "eclectic"work history seems to keep me from getting a good paying job in some other area.  But I spent most of my life in highly entrepreneurial Southern California.  When I couldn't find a decent job, I thought, "OK, I'll create my own job."

But the truth is, I wrote most of 800 or so posts on the different versions of Freestyle BMX Tales while I was homeless and looking for work.  At the same time, I've been educating myself on how writing and art works in today's world.  It's a completely different industry than when my zine landed me a job at Wizard Publications in 1986.  In today's world, many magazines have died, websites have taken over, and most make money from ads and links.  But something else has happened thanks to the web and today's crazy technology.  Millions of people have started websites, blogs, YouTube channels about things they are actually passionate about.  This blog is one of those things, and so is Seth's You Tube channel above.  Today's tech let's creative people in little niches create all kinds of stuff to share with the world.  But there's been one huge problem.  Money.

Either creative people need to finance their creative work from their job, and do it as a hobby.  Or they need to dumb it down for a mass audience and try to be one of the small number of people who makes a ton of money on YouTube from ads or through affiliate links on blogs and websites.

But there's another option.  With a service called Patreon, you can support creative people doing cool stuff in a way that doesn't require us to dumb stuff down or sell our souls just for advertising dollars.  You can now support people just because you're stoked on what we do. 

I've done a lot of things over the years.  Telling stories about the early days of BMX freestyle is not my main focus now.  My main focus is writing zines, blogs, and doing artwork to encourage people to build creative scenes.  After reading lots of books that would bore most of you, I've learned that "creative scenes," like local bike scenes, skate scenes, art scenes, music scenes, actually play a huge role in creating jobs in today's world.  We got into BMX freestyle in the 80's because we liked this weird, new, creative sport-type thing.  Along the way, we formed little local scenes.  We also discovered the DIY ethic and started shooting photos, putting on shows, making zines, videos, magazines, and bike companies.  Because we liked riding, we created an entire industry that created a ton of jobs.  The same thing happened in skateboarding, snowboarding, high tech, and dozens of other creative areas. 

But now we're in a world where tech is taking over human jobs by the millions.  One industry after another has lost jobs to new forms of technology.  The high paying factory jobs of our childhood are gone, and no one is replacing them.  People looking into the future are really worried about jobs for humans in the next few decades.  I see one viable solution.  Millions of people will have to create their own jobs, in new businesses in dozens of new industries.

I'm taking what I've learned from being a part of many creative scenes, and taking those ideas to a new generation of creative people.  Some will be middle-aged geezers like myself, but most will be younger people who create stuff, but haven't experienced how a creative activity, like BMX freestyle, can turn into a whole new industry.  This is my work.  Writing and drawing IS MY JOB NOW.  If you want to support my work, you can do it on my Patreon page.  You get goodies, by the way, for different levels of support. 

You can also support Seth's YouTube channel on the link at the end of the video above.  Welcome to the world where you can directly support and communicate with the creative people who do stuff you're stoked on.  You now have the power to support the people doing the things you think are good in the world.  Go for it.

I've got two new blogs now:

Crazy California 43

WPOS Kreative Ideas

"No one got hurt, no one got arrested" How early NorCal freestylers changed EVERYTHING

The late Dave Vanderspek  schools the cops and the news media on the difference between a skate contest, a sticker toss, and a riot.  Normal people just didn't get it back then. And we liked it that way.

On Facebook recently there was a promo for an upcoming book about BMX freestyle, and it listed the names of riders that would be featured in the book.  There were a lot of great names on the list.  But I noticed one glaring omission, there was no one from NorCal.  You just can't tell the story of BMX freestyle without the San Francisco Bay Area riders.  They didn't invent freestyle, but they left an lasting imprint on the whole freestyle scene.  I'm not just saying that because I was part of the scene for a while.  I'm saying that because BMX freestyle wouldn't be BMX freestyle without Golden Gate Park, the Curb Dogs, the Skyway team, the Ground Control crew, and the attitude that rose from the crazy streets of San Francisco.  Here's a look at the NorCal influence through the videos of NorCal riders.

Blogger's note:  I just saw the link to Dom Phipps' book, and on the website and it DOES mention the Curb Dogs and Maurice Meyer.  It was the Facebook post that didn't have any NorCal reference that was my spark to create this post, which I've been working on for a few days now.  

Many of you have been reading my blogs for nearly a decade.  For as little as $1 a month, you can help support my work here.

The Pro Riders
Dave Vanderspek was unquestionably the charismatic leader of both the Curb Dogs and the Golden Gate Park Freestyle scene.  He was also a good skater, and was the first person to really bring the skateboard and punk rock influence into freestyle.
Maurice Meyer, aka "Drob" was a solid, always underrated rider BITD, but not the outgoing promoter that Dave was.  I always thought of Drob as the "assistant manager of NorCal freestyle."  He was kind of the second in command guy in the Curb Dogs, the Skyway factory team, and Golden Gate Park scene during my time there.  His brother was freestyle skater Ray Meyer.
Ron Wilkerson was one of the most influential riders of the 80's, and ever since.  He started as part of the Golden Gate Park scene and with his 2-Hip Trick Team, and got the very first cover photo on FREESTYLIN' magazine riding there.  He soon landed on the Haro Bikes team as a pro rider, and moved to Southern California.  He brought lip tricks into the vert world, started the first series of halfpipe and street contests, and went on to own Wilkerson Airlines and now 2-Hip Bikes.
Robert Peterson became known as the Mater of Balance for his array of stationary balance tricks.  He was also team manager of the Skyway Factory team for quite a while and a mad scientist inventing freestyle tech.
Rick Allison added a showman style to early freestyle riding.  The thing that sticks out in my mind about Rick is that he could do the fastest surfers I've ever seen anyone do.
Oleg Konings (1:01 in this clip) was a freak among the freaks.  At a time when nearly every rider had a original tricks, Oleg came up with tricks that were totally unique and weird.  He invented the first scuffing trick, too.  Really.  That's it in the clip.  "Oleg, put your helmet on!"
Hugo Gonzalez is last, but definitely not least.  Hugo was the craziest ramp and skatepark rider in the early days, bar none.  Before anyone even used the term "Huck it," that's what Hugo was doing.  If there was a crazy jump to be attempted, Hugo was the guy to try it.  He constantly was pushing the limits of what was possible with a BMX freestyle bike in the air.  And landing was always optional to Hugo.

NorCal rider contributions to BMX freestyle
-Golden Gate Park Scene was the most cohesive scene I ever saw in freestyle.  There was no other scene like it.  It had a totally different vibe than any other.
-The Curb Dogs bike/skate team was the most popular non-factory trick team of the 80's.  They routinely placed above most factory teams in magazine polls.
-The terrain of San Francisco, combined with punk rock and skateboard influences promoted by Vander and the Curb Dogs was the main, initial thrust of BMX street riding.  The San Diego riders soon followed suit.

-Vander showed us that motocross style uniforms were stupid.
-First scuff trick ever was invented by Oleg Konings (see Oleg clip above).
BMX freestyle balance tricks were made popular by Robert Peterson, who invented most of the early balance tricks.
-First wall ride-type trick was Hugo Gonzalez' fence ride at Pipeline Skatepark.
-First BMX halfpipe contest was put on by Dave Vanderspek
-First BMX street contest was put on by Dave Vanderspek
-First BMX halfpipe series, 2-Hip King of Vert, was put on by Ron Wilkerson.
-Second BMX street contest, and first BMX street contest series, 2-Hip Meet the Street, was put on by Ron Wilkerson.
-The first made-for-TV BMX street contest, the Huntington Beach Street Scene, was put on by Scot Breithaupt and myself (Steve Emig) in 1989, and aired on ESPN, six years before the X-Games.

NorCal and Golden Gate Park influence on video:
Hugo Gonzales and the NorCal trick team- 1982
Robert Peterson and his hovercraft on Super Kids- 1982
BMX freestyle in Golden Gate Park- Just Kidding- 1983 (sorry, no audio)- Dave Vanderspek :49, 1:20, 1:44, 2:06, 2:38; Maurice Meyer 1:17, 1:50; Rick Allison 1:27, 4:05, 4:49; Darcy Langlois 2:30
Curb Dogs/Skyway demo with English riders, Brighton, England- 1984
2-Hip Trick Team- Evening Magazine- 1984
Curb Dogs/Skway demo in Brighton, U.K.- 1984
Maurice Meyer flatland- AFA Venice Beach, CA 1985
Skyway Promotional video- Part 1- 1985
Skyway Promotional video- Part 2- 1985
Hugo Gonzalez AFA ramp run- 1985
Skyway Team freestyle demo- Redding, CA, 1985
TG14 segment - 1985-  3:33- Darcy Langlois, 3:45- Marc McKee
Tommy Guerrero- Bones Brigade Future Primitive- 1985- Curb Dogs member
Hugo Gonzalez flatland run in the U.K.- 1986
Hugo Gozalez' endo drop-in bail at Pipeline- 1985
Dave Vanderspek's Curb Dogs- Evening Magazine- 1985
BMX freestyle at Beach Park Bikes- 1986
BMX freestyle in Golden Gate Park- Pacific Currents- 1986- Maurice "Drob" Meyer 1:43, 4:50, 5:09; Karl Rothe 4:04, 4:22, 4:37; Chris Rothe 1:31, 4:33; Marc McKee :58, 1:16, 4:43, 5:05; Darcy Langlois 1:10, 4:06, 4:48; Mike Perkins 4:26; Me (Steve Emig) 5:07.
BMX Freestyle with the Curb Dogs- Part 1- 1986
BMX Freestyle with the Curb Dogs- Part 2- 1986
BMX Freestyle with the Curb Dogs- Part 3- 1986
Ray Meyer freestyle skate run- Oceanside, CA 1986- Curb Dog- Drob's brother
Interbike Trade Show Freestyle Demo- 1986 featuring Robert Peterson, Maurice Meyer, Dave Vanderspek.  (I know the tag says 1987, but I was riding at interbike in '87, this is from '86, the video was released in 1987).
Robert Peterson on Merv Griffin Show promoting the movie RAD- 1986 
Hugo Gonzalez on KNTV news- 1986
Chris Rothe flatland run- AFA Masters in New Jersey- 1987
Karl Rothe flatland run- AFA Masters in New Jersey- 1987 
Tommy Guerrero and the Bones Brigade in San Francisco- The Search for Animal Chin- 1987
Fisher-Price video camera commercial- 1987- featuring Norman Chuck's radio
Vision Street Wear's Freestylin' Fanatics- 1987- at 11:19 Dave "Marius Q." Vanderspek does a bike/skate flatland in an AFA contest.  I apologize for the horrible voice-over, I wrote most of it, but they fucked it up when recording it.  Dave's followed by Ron Wilkerson messing with a Brian Blyther interview.  I worked at Unreel Productions, and hated this video when it came out because it was all old footage and it was pretty goofy.  But they gave me two credits at the end, so I couldn't escape responsibility for helping to make it- Steve Emig.
Karl Rothe flatland run- AFA Masters, Arizona- 1988
Marc McKee flatland run- AFA Masters- 1988 
TV News report on Dave Vanderspek's death- 1988- Dave was a influence on the whole BMX freestyle world, as well as many riders (myself included) individually.  Addiction can kill.  Do your best to avoid it people, and help your friends the best you can if they get caught up in it.  Many times the most amazing and talented spirits that come into this world are the ones who struggle the most.  R.I.P. Vander
Marc McKee flatland at Venice Beach- 88 or 89???
Tommy Guerrero- Ban This- 1989
The Man Who Souled The World- Steve Rocco/World Industries documentary- 2007- Marc McKee- 22:32, 37:23, 37:40- Steve Rocco talking about Marc's art, 53:11, 1:13:53, 1:14:52
Censorship is weak as F##K- Art show- featuring Marc McKee's work- 2009?
Censorship is weak as F##K art show- Marc McKee (and Sean Cliver) mini-interview- 2009?
Tommy Guerrero- Transworld Skateboarding Legends- 2013  
Tribute to Hugo Gonzalez- 2015
Tommy Guerrero at the Golden Gate Park casting ponds- 2015
Robert Peterson- San Diego- 2016 
Vince Torres at Old School BMX Reunion 2016- Woodward West

NorCal freestylers in FREESTYLIN' magazine in the early days...
The Premiere- Issue # 1 of FREESTYLIN', Cover: Ron Wilkerson at Golden Gate Park (in San Francisco)- Summer 1984
 FREESTYLIN' #2- Hugo Gonzalez pull out poster- fall '84
FREESTYLIN' #3- Robert Peterson interview- winter '84-'85
FREESTYLIN'#5- The Great NorCal ramp series- May '85
FREESTYLIN' #6- Cover: Hugo Gonzalez (and fellow Skyway rider Scott Freeman)- July 1985
BMX Action- Cover: Dave Vanderspek- November 1985
FREESTYLIN' # 12- Cover: Dave Vanderspek, Maurice & Ray Meyer interview- May 1986
FREESTYLIN' #13- Interview with Dave Vanderspek, Robert Peterson's bar extender- June '86
FREESTYLIN' #15- San Jose Stylin' (my zine) named top freestyle zine in the country- August '86
FREESTYLIN' #16- Photos of Maurice Meyer, Dave Vanderspek, & Oleg Konings- September '86
FREESTYLIN' #19- My mini interview with some skater named Rodney Mullen- December '86
FREESTYLIN' #21- Robert Peterson interview (which had a 43 page transcription)- February '87
FREESTYLIN' #24- Golden Gate Park Flatland- May '87
FREESTYLIN' #26- Marc McKee undergrounder, tricks by Robert Peterson and Karl Rothe
FREESTYLIN' #31- Ron Wilkerson interview (lived in SoCal then)
FREESTYLIN' #46- Cover: Ron Wilkerson (SoCal guy then), R.I.P. Vander piece- March 1989
FREESTYLIN' #47- Vander Memorial Jam- April '89
Go: The Rider's Manual- Vol.2 #4- Ron Wilkerson- February 1991

Vander would ride it.  "Slam, bang, crash 'em up, do it again."
43. 

I have four new blogs I'm focusing on now- 

The Big Freakin' Transition- about the future and economics

Crazy California 43 - Weird, cool, and historic locations in California.

Full Circle- about writing and the writer's life

Stench: Homeless Super Hero - I'm writing a fiction blog now about the world's first homeless super hero, Stench.

BMXers who rode in my taxi

I'm working on a big zine telling my crazy taxi driver stories, which is why this blog is on hold this month.  You can read the post about the well known BMXers and other reasonably famous people I gave taxi rides to here:

The White Bear's Stuff

OK, I gave up on that blog, here's my new blogs:

Crazy California 43

WPOS Kreative Ideas

Journey of The White Bear...

I'm at a transition point right now, I'm moving out of the apartment I've been living in at the end of May.  Not sure where I'm moving to yet, I'll likely be "floating" for a while.  I'm also spending the month of May 2017 to tell a bunch of my stories of unusual adventures I've had.  This is a lead up to publishing my first big zine of crazy taxi stories and opening an online store to sell my writing and artwork.  So I won't be posting in this blog for the rest of May.  I'll have a new story nearly every day, some from the BMX world, in this blog:

The White Bear's Stuff

I'll come back to Freestyle BMX Tales in June...

I gave up on that blog, here are my new ones (October 2021):

The Big Freakin' Transition- about the future and economics

Crazy California 43

Full Circle- about writing and the writer's life 

And a fiction blog...

Stench: Homeless Superhero