Princess Leia from the original Star Wars movie

 After I did the Yoda drawing in the last post, I got the urge to draw a pic of Princess Leia.  So I got started on it.  As fate would have it, Carrie Fisher went to the hospital, and then died, while I was drawing this picture.  Sometimes things just happen like that.  Below you can see some of the great Leia quotes I put in the background.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper.

Yoda

"Hmmmm... many Sharpies you do have... pictures you will draw."  I had this little pic of Yoda on my wall collage for months, and I wanted to draw it.  I finally drew this one for myself, with lots of Yoda's quotes in the background.  No sooner had I put it on Facebook, then Scotty Z. from Illinois wanted it.  So this Yoda now resides in the remodeled house on the shores of Lake Michigan.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper. 

"Hmmmm... old song I do like... Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is is."

Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon

About a year and a half ago, I knew that to start making some money, I would need to step up my artwork to make my drawings something that myself and other people would actually want buy and put on their walls.  I got on the computer and just looked at all kinds of art, especially graffiti and street art, trying to figure out what I would want to put on my wall.  I found a stencil-like face shot of Bruce Lee, and drew that.  That drawing took my artwork into a whole new realm. 

A few months ago, I drew this one, the classic photo from the movie Enter the Dragon.  This was the poster of Bruce Lee I first saw as a kid, and how I pictured him, years before I actually saw his movies.  Old school BMX freestyler, zine publisher, and current entertainment industry rigger Brian Reed grabbed this one.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper.  #shadowsandsharpies

Cam Newton and a Carolina Panther

 I've never been a huge football fan.  But the Carolina Panthers are a gnarly team and perpetual underdogs, except for last year, after their Super Bowl appearance.  I've done a few football drawings for people around here.  Above is Carolina quarterback Cam Newton doing his "Superman" thing.  Below is a Carolina panther drawing of a pic I found online.  Both drawings are 18" X 24", Sharpies on paper in my unique scribble style.

Willow and Taffy

When I was a real little kid, my grandparents had a golden cocker spaniel named Taffy.  I think it was my mom's dog just before she moved out of their house.  She couldn't take it with her when she married my dad and moved out, so her parents took care of Taffy.  In the early 1970's, my mom got into ceramics, and made a ceramic tribute to Taffy.  Somehow, the ceramic Taffy has survived about 50 moves, and her it is in a great pic with my sister's dog Willow, and Aussie Doodle.  Willow doesn't stand still for long, so I was stoked this photo came out this well.

Journey of the White Bear #10: Passengers I gave rides to in my taxi

In my days as a taxi driver, mostly in and around Huntington Beach, California, I gave rides to thousands of people.  Here are a few of the most famous ones.  I could think of no one better to start this post off with than pro surfer Karina Petroni.  She's beautiful, she's dedicated to keeping our oceans as healthy as possible, and this woman can SURF.

As a taxi driver, I never knew who was going to climb in the back seat of my cab.  In life, we never know what life will throw at us next.  I've chased and achieved a few dreams, I've done lots of weird jobs, and I've survived a year on the streets of Southern California.  I'm 50 now and still chugging along. Failing doesn't make you a failure, not getting up and trying again after you fail makes you a failure.  

My zine of crazy taxi stories, launching my online store, is coming in a matter of days.

 Life Lesson:  NEVER QUIT

Skaters
Arto Saari
Stefan Janowski 
Dave Duncan

Surfers
 Christian Fletcher
Samba Mann
Karina Petroni 

Billionaire
 Larry Ellison -Oracle founder (It was 2003, he was only worth $9 Billion then)

Musicians
Ignite
Kerry Getz

Brawl/UFC/MMA fighters
Tank Abbot
Ken Shamrock

Tattoo Artist/BMXer 
"Big Island" Mike Castillo

BMXers
Barspinner Ryan Brennan
Keith Treanor
Chase Hawk
Ryan "Biz" Jordan
Todd Lyons
Cory Nastazio 
Adam Pope & Shaun Butler 
Chris Moeller 
"Midget" Cory Walters
Freddie Chulo 
Marvin Lotterle
Troy McMurray

There were others, but I lost the official list years ago, and these are the people I remember.   

I'm starting a new stage of my life now, focusing on writing and art.  You can help me get it going here.





 

Journey of The White Bear #5: A Kid from Ohio

This isn't me, but spillway sliding with my friend Robert was probably the most exciting thing I did as a kid in Ohio.  I was always a weird kid, really shy, pretty smart, horrible at sports, and I liked to draw.  My family moved nearly every year.  I was born in Barberton, Ohio, right outside Akron.  By the time I finished 8th grade, I'd lived in 12 houses and apartments, and gone to nine different schools.  My family was more dysfunctional than most and less dysfunctional than some.  Thick, oozing psychological tension was the overwhelming force at play in our home sprinkled with continuous drama.  I spent my life crying, saying "I'm sorry," and walking on eggshells trying to stay out of trouble.  It never worked.  So I ran off to the woods and wandered around whenever possible to escape.

My dad was a draftsman, a guy who drew pictures of machine parts on huge sheets of paper.  Although he didn't have a college degree, he worked his way up to being an engineer.  The last place he worked in Ohio, Plymouth Locomotive Works, made custom locomotives, lift trucks, and ceramic extruding machines.  By 1979, the company was in trouble, and my dad found another job.  Even 35 years after the company went out of business, Plymouth locomotives are going strong all over the world.

My childhood was a series of small towns and rural areas in Ohio when there were still lots of fmaily farms and most other people worked in factories, or the office next to the factory, like my dad.  My mom was active in my school, Cub Scouts, and church.  Like most other kids in the 70's, I was expected to do a job much like my dad did for my whole life.

My last 2 1/2 years in Ohio were spent living here, in Holiday Lakes, outside Willard in northwest Ohio.  We lived in a small cottage on the very end of the main lake, and there was a dock that no one else ever used where I would hang out for hours, if I wasn't hiking around the nearby woods and creek.  My friends an I went fishing on a pretty regular basis, hoping to catch huge bass, but catching bluegill, crappie, and the occasional pumpkinseed sunfish instead.  My freind Robert found this hidden little pool below the Holiday Lakes spillway, with three big bass in it.  We tried for months, but could never get those bass, the biggest about 18" long, to bite.  But I did hook a huge bluegill that broke my  little kid's rod and got away.

One day, the spillway was pumping hard.  There was a big square hole in the spillway, and usually a small stream of water flowing out of it.  But on that day, it was blasting water.  We forgot about fishing and took turns running across the spillway ramp and jumping into the water and sliding down the algae slicked ramp.  We both wore holes through our jeans, but it was a blast.

I was a Midwest kid who had John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" as my anthem.  Fate stepped in, and right after finishing 8th grade, my family moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  Culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it.  

Journey of The White Bear #4: The night I got hit by a Tank

This is why you don't pick a fight in Huntington Beach.  O.G. HB bad boy and early UFC powerhouse, Tank Abbot, flat out levels Wesley "Cabbage" Correira in this match.

Life Lessons: You are not your childhood and humor is a great martial art

I grew up as a smart, pudgy, dorky kid who was always small for my age.  I got picked on at home, I got picked on and bullied at school, after school, and I was always a wimp.  I sucked at sports all through my childhood, and was one of the last kids picked for most every game.  Except dodge ball.  I kicked ass at dodge ball.  The reason I was so good at dodge ball was because I was so freakin' scared of getting hit by one of those red balls thrown by a kid who was six inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than me, that I became really good at dodging.

But in all other cases, I ran from any kind of fight.  I lived my childhood in fear.  I was deathly afraid of pain, and did everything I could to avoid it.  Then, in high school, I got into BMX riding.  I started falling on a regular basis, and getting my hit in my shins by the pedals.  I slowly got better at dealing with small amounts of pain.  Later, in Southern California, my friend Mike started taking me to punk rock shows, where I soon got into bouncing around slam pits and bashing into other people for fun.  Over the years, my tolerance of pain grew, and so did my personal confidence.  In my mid-20's, I was practicing games with the American Gladiators.  I worked as a furniture mover for years, which made me stronger and more able to deal with scary situations, like helping to push a 500 pound piano up a flight of 26 stairs.

Years of different adventures led to me working as a taxi driver in downtown Huntington Beach, California in the 2000's.  One night, I got a call to the back door of Perq's, a bar on the first block of Main street in HB.  After waiting a few minutes, three really big, burly guys walked out and got into my cab.  One guy had a thick mustache and big goatee.  He sat behind me.  I asked the guys where they wanted to go, and they said they weren't sure.  They had just got into a scuffle in the bar with some guy, and had to leave.  I headed out of the parking lot, turned right on Walnut, and then took another right on Main, which put me in a line of traffic as we crawled past the front door of Perq's.

"That's him!" one of the guys in the taxi screamed.  The guy they'd just scrapped with in the bar ran in front of my cab.  "Run him over!" yelled the big guy with the goatee behind me.  I turned to look at him, thinking he was joking.  "Run him over or I'll throw you out of the cab and run him over myself!"  Now, I knew the guys had a few beers in them, but he seemed pretty serious about me running the guy over.

As a taxi driver, I'd learned to deal with all different kinds of drunk people, and aggressive people, and drunk, aggressive people.  Another thing about taxi driving is that I usually had two to four people in the cab, so I was always outnumbered.  If a physical fight broke out, I would be toast.  I learned to deal with crazy situations using a combination of intelligence and humor, mostly humor.  It kicked in automatically that night in front of Perq's.

"Man..." I began, "if I run that guy over, then I'll get blood all over the front of my cab.  It's Saturday night!  This is when I make my money!  I'd have stop for half an hour, wash off all the blood and body parts, and then go dump his body somewhere..."  For a couple seconds it was REAL tense.  Then they three burly guys started laughing.  The big guy behind me with the goatee slapped me on the back, so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of me.  "I like you taxi driver," he said, "you're alright."  With a little humor, the tension was broken and the anger fizzled away.  The guy they fought disappeared into the crowd on the sidewalk.  I drove them to another bar, and went on with my night.

The next day I was telling one of my friends about the incident, and he said, "That big guy with the goatee sounds like Tank Abbot.  Was it him?"  At that time, everybody in Huntington Beach knew who Tank was, the UFC was still pretty knew, and Tank was a standout fighter.  But I didn't know exactly what he looked like.  The next weekend I was telling some other guys in my cab about the incident, and I happened to see the guy with the goatee on Main street, walking down the sidewalk with some friends.  I pointed him out.  "Dude... That IS Tank.  You had Tank Abbot try to throw you out of your own cab last weekend... that's AWESOME!"  Sure, it seemed awesome to them as a story, but it scared the crap out when it happened.

In his day, even though he was ten or fifteen years older than many he fought, Tank Abbot was one of the kings of the Octagon.  I would not want to be on his bad side.  But my taxi was my domain, and by joking, I managed to make Tank and his friends laugh.  In everyday life, there are very few situations where you really have to physically fight.  A crazy sense of humor can de-escalate many situations.  I learned the martial art of humor from my dad, a high degree black belt in joke telling.  I've been into a few scuffles, but the martial art of humor has served me well over the years, and kept away from the hospital on more than one occasion.

 I'm at a transition point in my life.  I plan to focus on writing what needs to be written and drawing cool pictures to earn a living from now on.  I could use a little help to get started.  If you like this tale and want to hear more in the future, you can help me out here.

Journey of The White Bear #3: The Gold Watch Plan

To a Generation X kid from the 70's, nothing sums up a boring factory job like the intro to Laverne & Shirley.

Life Lesson:  The people around you have a life all planned out for you, and that life probably sucks.

I was a nine-year-old in the small Ohio town of Willard when I first heard of the Gold Watch Plan.  My best friend and I had been outside playing all morning, and we wandered into his kitchen for some Kool-Aid.  His mom, aunt, and grandma happened to be having tea at the kitchen table when we went in.  As we were drinking our Kool-Aid, his aunt told the other women that her husband just got his gold watch.  She pulled the watch out of her purse and showed them.

"What did he get the watch for?" my friend asked.  His aunt explained, "Your uncle worked at the factory for 40 years, and he just retired.  When you retire, the company gives you a big party, a gold watch, and a pension." 

"Wait," my friend asked, "he worked for the factory for 40 years... and all they gave him was a watch?"  The concept seemed ludicrous to our young ears.

"It's a gold watch," his aunt replied sternly.

"If you work for a company for 40 years, they should give you a... a... a Cadillac!" my friend exclaimed.
"And I bass boat!" I added.
"And a really great 12 gauge." He added.
"And..." I never got the sentence out.
His aunt was getting upset, and my friend's mom shooed us out of the kitchen.

We took our Kool-Aid to the picnic table on the patio, and he a serious discussion (for 9-year-olds) about the fact that we just realized our lives were all planned out for us.  We talked about all the things we pretended to be when we would play, like soldiers, spies, pirates, or mountain men.  But we never pretended to be factory workers.  It just seemed awful.  We discussed the fact that none of the adults we knew seemed to like their jobs.  My dad, a draftsman, liked his work, he liked figuring out mechanical problems and then drawing the parts he designed.  But he usually had a boss or coworker who made his job annoying.  So even he didn't really like his job much of the time.

So my friend and I, as 9-year-olds in a small town in Ohio, made a pact with each other that we would live lives of adventure.  We wouldn't work lame, boring jobs for our whole lives.

I soon moved a block away, and didn't see my friend quite as much.  Then we moved outside of town, and eventually to another state.  I don't know if he went on to live a life of adventure, or if our childhood pact was just something that faded away.  But I did take "the road less traveled" in life, and I've had a bunch of crazy adventures along the way.  I didn't end up flying a bush plane in Alaska or trekking through the Canadian wilderness hunting grizzly bears, but I didn't stare at beer bottles like Laverne and Shirley either.

We all get to decide whether to live the life those around us expect, or to live life as an adventure.  It's not a one-time decision.  It's a moment to moment decision.  To be clear, I'm not saying everyone should blow off their responsibilities and go backpack through Europe for a year.  But we can look for, and find, little adventures on a daily basis.  We can push our limits in our free time and our work, rather than letting the monotony beat us into submission.

As fate would have it, by the time my friend and I were in high school, those high paying, but mostly boring factory jobs were disappearing.  The peoplewho planned to work 40 years for the gold watch and the pension mostly got laid off and had to find new careers.

Here's a little secret, kids...  Life throws adventures at you no matter what.  The people who avoid adventures on a day to day basis are the people who struggle the most with the big adventures life throws at them.  It's your choice.  How are you going to live today?

Journey of The White Bear #2: The day I had lunch with Superman

Here's actor and former college football star Dean Cain, who played Superman on the TV show Lois and Clark at the time.  This was about 1994, I believe.

Life Lesson:  You never know who life will bring into your path... even Superman

It's a long story, but my obsession with BMX freestyle riding in the early 1980's led me from Idaho to Southern California, and later into the TV business.  One weird job or project led to another, and I wound up as a spotter on the crew of the hit TV show American Gladiators.  For you younger people today, Gladiators was something like American Ninja Warrior with a touch of wrestling thrown in.  The costumes were red, white, blue, and small, the Gladiators were big, and the contests were all real.  There was no show like it at the time, and it lasted eight seasons, which is a long run for a TV show.  I worked on the crew for the last four seasons, starting as a spotter, and moving up to head spotter and leading the crew the last two years.

 In the clip above, you can see three of the spotters in black shorts and shirts with big AG logos, holding the white, shield-like karate pads as Dean crosses the finish line.  We also hooked the Gladiators and contenders into the bungee cords and belay ropes on other games, we coached them, we helped the grips change sets, and we did one other important job on the show.  We were the guinea pigs and practice dummies.  Every time there was a new game, us spotters played it first, and we played against both the Gladiators and contenders in the couple of weeks of practice before we taped the shows.  I happened to be the very first person to run through the gauntlet the first time we set it up.  Fun stuff.  So... literally... I used to get beat up by the American Gladiators for a living.  At least for six or seven weeks each summer.  The show was kind of corny, but it was a blast to work on. 

Most of the show's season was a elimination contest of people who made it into the show through a series of tryouts.  We had all kinds of athletes, martial artists, gymnasts, cheerleaders, cops firefighters, and even a few soldiers make it on the show.  On any given day, there were some serious battles on the show.  A few of the male American Gladiators, including Hawk, played college football.  Any time a football player was a contender on the show, the testosterone levels were through the roof.  So when actor Dean Cain came on, former college football rival Hawk was gunning for him.

The funny thing was, Dean was one of our celebrity contestants.  Every year, they would shoot two or three shows with celebrities going against the Gladiators.  We had actors, Olympic athletes, Playboy Playmates, and others during those shows.  Most were no match for the huge and very athletic Gladiators.  Dean Cain was one of the few exceptions.  He literally would have done well against the regular show contestants, and he did not hold back.  He gave it his all, which earned him a lot of props from both the Gladiators and the crew.

The day before each celebrity show taping, we'd have all the celebrities come in for a practice day and learn the games.  As a spotter, me and my crew did triple duty, although those days were still much easier than normal days.  We would change the big sets and set up the games, we would help coach the celebs on how to compete in each game, and we would practice the games against them, playing the role of Gladiators.  Like I said, it was a fun job.

Halfway through the practice day, we'd all break for lunch, and walk to another stage where the catered lunch was set up.  I happened to sit down by myself that day, most of my crew were at another table.  Then Dean Cain walked up and said, "Mind if I sit here?"  "Sure," I replied.

Now here's the thing about celebrities on athletic shows.  They get a pretty big check just for showing up and going through the motions.  Most of them don't want to risk a serious injury.  Most definitely don't want to get their expensive face messed up, even if there's extra money for the winner.

 But Dean Cain wasn't most celebrities.  Even at lunch he was asking me about the games, and I gave him my knowledge on how to best compete in each one, since I not only watched all the practice and actual events, but I played most of the games myself to help train the on air contestants.  It turned out to be a really cool conversation, and I walked back to the stage with an even bigger respect for Dean Cain.  He did so well on the show, that he came back the next year and competed again.  Even more, he was just a down-to-earth, hard working guy.  He's definitely one of the coolest celebrities I met in my years working on TV crews.  Here's a few more clips of him BITD.

Here's Dean's on air moments from American Gladiators
(If you pause it at 9:51, there's a guy in black, under the silver tower, left of Dean's head.  That's me.)

Highlights of Dean as Superman on Lois and Clark

Bloopers from Lois and Clark

Dean at Comic Con NE in 2017 (see how long a Superman gig-or 4- will get you event appearances)

I'm at a big transition in my life right now.  You can help me move on to the next stage here.

Crazy Taxi Stories: Cop a Squat

I was driving a couple of young women home from downtown Huntington Beach in my cab late one night.  We were somewhere in the subdivisions off Magnolia, maybe a mile from the beach.  I dropped the first woman off, and was driving out of the subdivision, back to one of the main roads.  Suddenly, the chick still in the car told me to stop in the middle of the street.  She hopped out, and ran to the back of the cab.  I could feel her sit on the back bumper.  I thought she was lighting a joint or something.  I could see the back of her head in the rear view mirror, but no one had ever jumped out of the cab to light a joint before.  Usually they just lit up, passed it around, and then asked me if they could smoke. 

After a minute or two, the woman ran back around and jumped back in the cab.  "I had to cop a squat," she said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to pee in the middle of a street at 2 am.  Then she gave me directions to her house, and we headed there. 

It got me wondering.  Why is it that men piss, or take a leak, but women "cop a squat."  OK, I get the squat part, but where did the word "cop" enter that phrase?  It's like suddenly, when a woman has to pee, the police have to be involved.  Do you need a cop to direct traffic or something?  "Move along, move along people, there's nothing to see here."  I never could figure that out. 

Cash Paid Daily, my first zine full of my crazy taxi stories is coming soon, for sale in the Club White Bear online store.  Details soon...

Big Wheel Drifting: Another possible use for dying malls

Since I recently learned about how many shopping malls are slowly dying and that 3,500 retail stores are closed or closing soon, I've been looking for ways to use all those empty buildings.  Here's one.  Adult Big Wheel drifting courses.  I never have a Big Wheel as a kid, but I thrashed several friends Big Wheels doing front wheel and back wheel slides.  Now that idea is all grown up.  This just looks like a blast. 

My Recent Stuff

In an upcoming post, I'm going to link a bunch of the stuff I did back in my BMX/skateboard industry guy days.  But for those of you who've never heard of me, here's what I've been doing the past couple of years, along with not really making a living.

Freestyle BMX Tales blog- This is the reborn version of a blog I started in about 2009.  After living a year on the streets of Southern California (which followed years of taxi driving as the industry tanked), my family flew me to North Carolina.  I'd never lived there, and I lost all my video footage, video masters, poems I'd written, and everything else.  I was deeply depressed, unable to find a job in NC, and started blogging just to vent.  My first blog was called FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales, and I wrote over 200 posts about my short stint at FREESTYLIN' magazine, the bible 80's BMX freestyle, in 1986.  I was laid off there, mostly because I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy.  Then they replaced me with some East Coast biker/skater kid named Spike Jonze.  He fared much better there.

Writing the FREESTYLIN' blog, I reconnected with many of my old friends from BMX freestyle in the 80's, and I started another blog, Freestyle BMX Tales, to continue telling my stories from those early days in the BMX freestyle world.  I wrote over 700 posts on that blog.

Shortly after my dad died in 2012, I went into a real dark period in my life, and I took down all my blogs, the two freestyle memoir blogs, Make Money Panhandling, my blog about homeless and panhandling that got over 60,000 page views, and several other blogs where I tried out different ideas.

Later I started Freestyle BMX Tales again in a somewhat nicer version on blogpress, but I faded on that one.  I finally re-started Freestyle BMX Tales on blogger again, and that's the version I'm still adding to today.  This is the blog I'm best know for.  I still have several years worth of stories that I haven't shared.

Steve Emig Art blog- It's a long story, but in 2005 I came up with a unique way to draw using markers, Sharpie markers in particular.  I draw an outline of the picture in black marker, and then color and shade using scribbles of several colors of ultra-fine Sharpies over each other.  So every color in my drawings is actually 3 to 8 colors scribbles over each other.  Now, 12 years after coming up with the technique, I'm still the only one I know using this style, and I've found drawing athletes and musicians from photographs is a great way to use my technique.  I've been selling my drawings (cheap!) for over a year now, but it's nowhere near a full time living.  I started this blog as a place to house my work online.  But not I've decided to being my drawing, blogging, writing, and everything (except the old BMX stories) into a single blog.  So I'll be putting my newer drawings in this blog from now on, as well as on Facebook.

Dan Bell- the Dead Malls video guy- Ted Talk

For any of you who are fans of Ted Talks or Dead Malls, this is worth your time.  On one hand, we have Dan, a filmmaker who lost his desire to film.  On the other hand, we have a weird and huge trend in the U.S., the "dead malls."  For those who don't know, dead malls are malls that have either closed and are in some state of deterioration, or malls that are struggling to stay alive with few stores left in them. 

As I mentioned in the last post, my walk through a dead mall a month ago got me really looking into the issue of America's retail shop collapse.  This is happening all over the country and the world.  Dan gives his impressions above.  I have just written a 24 page, self-published, funny zine about ways to use all that empty space in dead malls and abandoned buildings.  You can get a copy here:

43 Ideas To Reuse Dead Malls zine

3,500 + retail stores closed or closing

Normally I don't embed videos from You Tube channels like this, but this guy sums up what's happening in a few minutes.  There are now over 3,500 retail stores closed or closing in the U.S. soon.  When I started looking into this issue a month ago, the number was just over 3,000.  This is a big deal.  Is this the end pf the world that religious nut jobs have been predicting for the last 20 years or so?  No.  Is this the end of the world?  But it IS a real big deal.

MALLPOCALYPSE.  Malls across the U.S. have been dying a slow death for years.  The Oak Hollow Mall in Highpoint, North Carolina, about 15 miles from where I live, just closed down a month ago.  Walking through that mall a week before it closed is what got me looking into this issue.  No one has exact numbers, but generally speaking, 400 of the 1,200 enclosed malls in the U.S. have either closed, or are expected to close in the next few years.  And that's if we DON'T go into a recession.

What does this mean to you?  1) If you work in retail, look up your employer and see how they look long term.  It might be time for a career change.  Thousands are already losing their jobs.  Personally, I think we're teetering on the edge of a recession, and it could be a serious one.  Get your act together financially as best you can.  We still don't know what this massive amount of store closings will lead to.

My latest zine: 43 Ways to Reuse Dead Malls and Abandoned Buildings

Here's a clip of some guys exploring the abandoned Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio.  This is just one of many of the "dead malls" in the U.S. right now.  When I looked this mall up, after seeing Rick McCrank explore it in his Viceland show Abandoned, I got a surprise.  I was born about five miles 13from where this mall was built.  We moved away when I was about 2 1/2, but my grandma lived ten miles away.  So I know this was one of the malls I spent time in as a kid.

Then, just over a month ago, I happened to walk through Oak Hollow Mall in Highpoint, North Carolina, a week before it totally closed down.  As I looked into why entire malls were closing down, I found that 400 of the 1200 enclosed malls in the U.S. are either closed, or expected to close in the next five years.  In addition, well over 3,000 major chain store locations have closed in the last couple of years or are scheduled to in 2017.  We are witnessing Mallpocalypse.

So I made a zine about different ways we could take these dead malls, empty factory buildings, and other vacant buildings, and put them to use.  Here are three of my ideas from the zine:

#2  Adult Big Wheel Drifting Course.  You've seen those things on You Tube.  Build some downhill ramps, or maybe use the multi-level parking garage to let people drift those adult sized big wheels.

#9  Vintage shops that sell real old people.  Seriously, there are way too many elderly people in the world.  We all know of one or two we'd like to sell.  Here's a place to find them a good home.  

# 13 Boy band shooting gallery.  Real boy bands, live ammunition.  They perform, you shoot, society wins.

Those are just three of the 43 ideas in my zine for putting the thousands of empty buildings we have back to use.  To see three more ideas and order a signed and numbered zine, check out my Go Fund Me page for this project:

43 Ideas on how to reuse dead malls and abandoned buildings

Slash and Janis Joplin drawings

 If you're a Facebook friend of mine, you know I draw pictures in a weird, unique way with Sharpie markers.  These are my latest two, both by request.  The photos are kind of sketchy because our 10 year old camera is dying.  And I don't have a phone right now.  ANYHOW...  both drawings were done from photos, I transfer the outline is pencil, ink with with a typical black Sharpie fine point, and then color with Sharpie ultra fine points and sometimes highlighters.  Every color is scribbles of 3 to 8 colors over each other.  I developed this technique in 2005, and I've been doing different styles of drawings ever since.  Both are 18" X 24" and take 22 to 25 hours each, on average.  I also like to listen to the person's music and interviews while drawing to try and get a better feel of their personality.  Contact me on Facebook if interested in a drawing.

The SE Fat Ripper: A big man needs a big bike

The first time I saw a fat bike, I thought it was stupid.  What's the point? I asked myself.  At the same time, I'm still carrying an absurd amount of weight from my third go at taxi driving.  It was a fun job at times, but sitting in a car all day and eating too much fast food doesn't work well with my metabolism.  So now I'm a guy the size of a novice sumo wrestler who's jonesin' to get back out riding a bike again.  Luckily, I have old P.O.W. House co-habitator Todd Lyons as a Facebook friend.  For a couple of years I've been watching his posts doing wheelies around the world on different SE bikes. 

Several years ago, Nick Zielger and friends put their efforts together to send me a great Schwinn cruiser for free.  It was great to get back riding again, at least as much as my big body would allow.  But I was under pressure almost immediately to sell the bike since I wasn't working at the time.  I wound up pawning the bike, and I'd just pay the interest every month.  With the bike out of site, it was out of mind, and the pressure to sell it died down.  Then I wound up in the hospital for several days, and I wasn't able to make that little interest payment to the pawn shop.  Bye bye Schwinn.  That really bummed me out.  I think it bummed Nick out even more. 

As the time passed since then, I've hovered at a ridiculous weight, and I know I need to start exercising A LOT to take the pounds off again.  I lost 130 pounds at one point, but I gained much of it back during my last tour as a taxi driver.

In any case, being a fat guy may qualify me for the Bubbalympics here in North Carolina (there really is one), but that doesn't interest me.  I need to get my big butt riding again.  Over the last month or so, I've been watching SE's Fat Ripper video with Todd Lyons doing the riding (above).  I want one of those bikes.  My income is sketchy, but I'm gonna get myself on a Fat Ripper as soon as I can.  Let the savings begin...

It'll be a long time before I lose enough to ride a 20 inch again, and this bike just fits the bill for me.  Check out the SE video above, as well as this bike test of it on Seth's Bike Hacks. 

Alex Leech and Rob Lawrence on holiday in 1991

 This is Alex Leech, English BMX freestyler, when I first met him in 1991.  Like many riders from the U.K., he and skater friend Rob Lawrence saved money for months to com to the U.S. on holiday and ride for a month.  I ended up shooting video of him for the first S&M Bikes video, Feel My Leg Muscles, I'm a Racer.  these are stills from that footage.  Above, Alex rocking braids held tight with Super Glue 4.

 Alex, in a epic T-shirt, and Rob, chilling at the H-Ramp in Santa Ana, CA.

 On a trip to a San Pedro high school known for its banks, Alex knocks off a bench abubaca.

 In 1991, a barpsin drop-in on a five foot ramp was a big deal.  Keith Treanor, watching nearby, freaked when Alex did this.

 Downside footplant on coping gone wrong.  These looked great, until his toe slipped on this one.

Alex hitting the ejection button at the H-Ramp.  I lost the footage.  But Alex and Rob borrowed this sketchy ass old van with about 220,000 miles, and used it to tool around Southern California during their trip.  We took it out to the Nude Bowl in the middle of the desert on day for an epic session.  Good times.

Three days with Christian Hosoi and his crew

 Few people, even in the skate world, remember, but 80's vert legend Christian Hosoi teamed up with Vision for a short time in 1990 with a company called Tuff Skts.  Unreel Productions, Vision's video company, had just shut down.  I was the only guy kept on full time, because I was the lowest paid and could work most of the equipment.  So I was pretty stoked to get the gig of hanging out with Christian Hosoi and his crew for three days shooting video.  I ended up editing a 7 minute promo video, which Vision said looked "too gangster."  So I cut it down to 4 minutes.  I lost my copy, but a 1 1/2 minute version that appeared on Sk8-TV is around, with lame ass music.

 In those days it was Christian with the big, high, stylish airs, and Tony Hawk with the tech tricks.  Christian with a tailgrab frontside on his ramp, in W.C. Fields old house, on top of a hill, in Echo Park. 

 Day number two we went to an abandoned pool in Van Nuys next to a crack house.  I was scared walking in there with a $50,000 video camera.  It was a great session, and I got some great footage, and Block shot photos. 

 Day three of shooting, a big, rectangle pool high on a hill off the 14 freeway, north of L.A.  Christian did so many freakin' tricks in this pool, but its hard to beat this hand behind the back grind for style.

 We met this kid, John Swope, at the Van Nuys pool.  He was doing the most amazing Smith grinds I've EVER seen in a backyard pool.  Even's Christian's Smiths were this good in that pool.  Was Hosoi jealous?  Hell no, he invited John, who he nicknamed "Johnny Grind," to our shoot the next day.  John wound up in the video and I think got a short sponsorship. 

Joey Tran with a backside Smith on Christian's ramp. 

We all stopped for dinner on the last night of shooting.  After eating, Christian gave his young guys prime skating advice for contests.  It was something like this, "Eat a big plate of pasta the night before, get up, take a big shit, smoke a joint, and skate all day."  Ah...... the things that don't make it into skate videos.