What This Blog is About

I'm including this clip from Senator Bernie Sanders because he clearly tells us that real unemployment (July 2015) is 10.5%.  That includes the people in the regular "unemployed" category, the people who have given up looking for jobs, and the chronically underemployed people in the U.S.  Ten percent of the population adds up to around 30 MILLION PEOPLE.

"We're going through something historic and people don't recognize it."  -Alvin Toffler



Now people in the political world blame the other party for this.  That makes people cheer at rallies, but what's really going on is much bigger than that.  The three best futurists, thinkers, and researchers I've found, all say that the U.S. is in a chaotic period of transition right now.  They use different terms for it, but basically we've left the Industrial Age, and we're on our way towards the Information Age (or Digital Age, or Creative Age, whatever you want to call it).  This is a long transition, it's already gone on for decades, and it will go on for decades to come (unless civilization collapses).  So the Republicans can blame the Democrats and vice-versa, but they're missing the point, and wasting energy and resources.  The research has been out there for decades.  America's premiere futurists, the husband and wife team of Alvin and Heidi Toffler, wrote about this in their 1980 book, The Third Wave.  They've spoken to business and political leaders around the world, but many have ignored them because their ideas don't fit into the world of short term, political race focused thinking. 

One one hand we now have the internet, "new media, social media, mobile technology and connectivity, and all kinds of  amazing ways to communicate, interact, and do business with people around the world.  On the other hand, we still have the U.S. public education system that was designed specifically to turn kids from farms into factory workers 130 years ago.  We have traditional business people and politicians working from the Industrial Age mentality running most of the country.  We're in a weird neverland made up of the old and the new, all jumbled together.  Basically, nearly everything in society is being re-invented.  That's creating incredible opportunities for some people, like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk.  But it's completely baffling lots of the people in our country, and the world.  The job market and work world are changing quickly and dramatically, and millions of people just don't know how to deal with that. 

This blog is about our changing world.  First we need to come to grips with the fact we're in this crazy transition period, and most people simply aren't aware of that.  Most people don't read books by the Tofflers, Richard Florida, or economist Ravi Batra, my three favorite pioneers who have been writing about these issues for years, even decades.  Once people understand that we're in this crazy transition, and that's why it's so hard to find a job, or do the same kind of work they got a degree for ten years ago, then we can move on to the next issue.  If you can't find a good paying job, you might have to create your own.  That's scary.  We didn't learn how to do that in school.  That uses the creativity that school beat out of us. 

In this blog, I'll be writing about what's going on and the issues so many people are facing.  I'll also be doing posts about people who are working in new ways, starting new types of businesses, finding new forms of education, and creating jobs in the world.  In my lifetime of experience, the people who tend to break new ground and create new industries tend to be the freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos of the world.  From the crazy fringes of society come the people with new ideas who spark innovation and ultimately whole new businesses, sports, organizations, and industries.  So if any of this applies to you, this blog will hopefully give you some insights and ideas to help you find your place in the world.   

The World's First Sneaker Pawn Shop

Being a middle-aged guy, it would be easy to say that I just don't get the whole sneaker culture thing.  But I actually customized a pair of my own shoes years before this kid Chase Reed was even born.  In 1991, I was sleeping on the floor of the tiny, one bedroom apartment best known as the World Headquarters of S&M Bikes.   The bikes lived in the garage, Chris Moeller had the bedroom, and BMX industry guy Bill Grad claimed the couch.  One weekend I got hired by someone to work at the Action Sports trade show in San Diego for the weekend.  Sunday afternoon, as people were starting to pack up, I wandered around the show one last time.  The Etnies shoes booth was pretty small then, and Pierre Andre himself was packing up.  Since we were long time friends from the years spent hanging at the Huntington Beach Pier, we started talking.  Out of nowhere, Pierre looked down at whatever pair of worn-out shoes I had on.  "What size are you?" He asked.  I told him 9, and he literally walked over to the display wall and grabbed a shoe.  "You like this style?"  It was an all white shoe, semi-high top, or whatever you call those.  I said said, "Yeah."  Pierre took the shoe into the little curtained off area, found the match, and handed me the shoes.  I was stoked, that was my first pair of Etnies.  I wore them on the trip back to Huntington Beach.

I was pretty stoked, they were brand new, yet already felt broken in, a hallmark of Etnies at the time.  No ski boot feel like the Vision DV8's I got free while working there.  Anyhow, I was stoked on my new shoes... until I walked into the tiny apartment.  Both guys immediately noticed the bright white shoes.  "What the hell are those?"  "They're Etnies, Pierre hooked me up," I replied, stoked on them.  "They look like nurse's shoes... they are sooooo white."  In that apartment, someone became the DBV or "Designated Bag Victim" every night.  That night, it was me... again. 

A day or two later, I went somewhere, out riding, I think, and I wore my old shoes, wanting to keep the Etnies looking good as long as possible.  I got back that night and found my ultra white Etnies covered in swastikas and the zig-zag Nazi "SS" symbols.  The guys had destroyed my shoes with a marker.  I was fucking pissed.  But I also needed shoes, that was back in the ramen days.  So I pulled out my trusty black, ballpoint pen and turned all the swastikas into four-squares, and turned the "SS's" into KISS, like the band.  Then I drew designs all over my new shoes.  It was actually pretty fun.  That was a while before I really started hearing about sneaker culture and customizing shoes as an offshoot of the whole hip hop scene. 

Fast forward 25 years, and sneaker culture is HUGE.  Young people today spend ridiculous amounts of money on Air Jordan's and other high end shoes.  We are also living in a time when the computer/mobile phone connected world continues to encourage new business ideas.  I first heard about Chase's Sneaker Pawn Shop on CNBC.  Collecting shoes isn't my thing, but a lot of people do it.  I think the whole sneaker pawn shop idea is brilliant, and that's why I'm sharing it. 

We're at a point in time when millions of people need to either find better jobs or create their own jobs.  Here's a young guy who saw an opportunity, and even sold his personal collection of shoes to get the business started.  When the shoes are up for sale, he puts a pic on Instagram or Twitter.  Now his dad works for him.  The world needs good business ideas, and it looks like Chase Reed has found a really good one. 

The Legacy of a Big Thinking Street Performer

I stood near the huge blue and yellow big top.  Nearly 20 feet above me was a stocky guy with a big beard.  "Ready?" he asked.  The first flag pole came sailing down at me like a spear.  I caught it and quickly leaned it against the yellow picket fence.  As soon as I turned back around, the next flag was already mid-air.  I had a quick vision of some Greek god throwing thunderbolts down from Mount Olympus.  But only for a fraction of a second, because the bearded man was walking quickly along the edge of the big top's roof, pulling a flag from its mounting pole, rolling it up quickly, and throwing it at me.  It was all I could do to keep up.  Once the flags were on the ground, Mike, the Cirque du Soleil tentmaster, came quickly down the huge ladder and we picked up all the flags to put them away.  "Are you coming up to Santa Monica?" he asked me, "we could use you."  I was helping tear down after Cirque du Soleil's third tour in Orange County, California.  The show Quidam was leaving the O.C. fairgrounds and going back up to the parking lot on the sand in Santa Monica, the city where the revolutionary new form of circus had its all-or-nothing run in 1987 that sparked a whole new form of traveling show. 

I did go help them set up again in Santa Monica.  I actually slept on the streets three or four nights, becaue I didn't have a car to commute up from Huntington Beach each morning, and wasn't making enough to get a motel room each night.  They would hire 50 or so laborers to set up and tear down each show.  At that time, there was still a group of workers that followed the Cirque around city to city, setting up, working one of the jobs during the run, and then tearing down.  Those people camped in vans and busses in the parking lot while the show was in each town.  I wound up being one of the last two temp people working in Santa Monica, which I consider an honor.  I finished up the day the show opened, then went by the box office, where I had worked three tours in Orange County.  My former bosses there knew I loved the show, and went to watch it any chance I got.  "Do you want to see the show tonight?" one asked.  She knew my answer would be "Yes."  The other laborer working with me also wanted to go.  "I'll get you guys the Guy (pronounced gee, hard G) seats.  I was stoked.  I'd watched the show from the "Guy seats" twice before, and it was amazing.  At every Cirque Du Soleil show then, the four best seats, dead center, on the aisle at the front of the second section, were held back in case Guy Laliberte', the founder of Cirque du Soleil, showed up, or had special guest there. 

The best thing I can say about Cirque du Soleil is that at that time, every single person on the crew was as good at their job as the performers were at theirs.  If I had to be an employee and work one job my whole life, it would be on the tent crew of Cirque du Soleil. 

This amazing creative enterprise began in the mind of a few street performers in Canada.  One person, Guy Laliberte', took that idea and ran with it.  I've never actually shook his hand, but I've been standing there as he talked with other crew people a couple of times.  His story is probably the most amazing of anyone I've ever come in contact with. 




 

Skater Rodney Mullen in 2016

Rodney Mullen in 2016.  Man... doesn't he EVER learn anything new?  Heh, heh, heh.  Vogue.  This artsy fartsy (and pretty cool) video was published by Vogue.  WTF?

One night in 1986, I finished riding at The Spot, a brick area just north of the Redondo Beach Pier.  Rodney was practicing on the smooth concrete nearby, like he did every night while in SoCal.  I rode up to the pier to grab a Coke at one of the food stands.  Cruising back down the bike path, I heard a skateboarder coming through the parking garage on my right.   Then came the familiar snap of an ollie.  A dark haried street skater popped a frontside 180 ollie over the four foot wide concrete
island... at speed.  I'd never seen anything like it then.  "That must be that Gonz kid," I thought to myself.  Mark Gonzales skated straight over to Rodney Mullen, and they started talking.

I sat down on on one of the concrete benches and sipped my Coke.  For the next half hour or so, I watched Rodney and Mark compare tricks, try different things, and joke and laugh.  Even at the time, I sensed that was a pretty cool moment.  Looking back now, it was epic.  Rodney's basic flat ground tricks laid a foundation that Mark took into the paved world.  He helped everyone realize that cities were one big park waiting to be skated.  Yeah, there was that C.R. Stecyk quote in the Bones 2 video that said that.  But Mark Gonzales lived it.  And he'll probably make fun of me for making such a big deal out of that one night now.

But that's the point of this whole blog.  To the "normal" people walking by that night in 1986, there was a BMX guy sitting on a bench and a couple of those crazy skateboard kids goofing around nearby.  Yet what those guys did just for personal progression went on to spread around the world.  That's the point of this blog.  Doing what you're passionate about can lead places you could never imagine.  Everything in our world started out as an idea in a single mind.  Even the ollie impossible that Rodney got Mark to try on his street board that night long ago.

Freestyle Skater Rodney Mullen in 1986

The first pro skateboarder I really got to know was Rodney Mullen in August 1986.  We both practiced near the Redondo Beach Pier then.   This is what it took to be 8 (or 9?) time freestyle world champion back then.  At that point, he had already invented the flat ground ollie, the kick flip, the 360 flip, the ollie impossible, and a whole bunch of other tricks that laid the foundation for the street skating boom that was just getting started.

This Blog Isn't About Circus Sideshows

When someone says the phrase, "freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos," a lot of people may think of the circus sideshow acts of years gone by.  Some may think of the more extreme tattoo and piercing examples they've seen online.  This blog isn't about people with physical deformities.  This blog is about the people who grew up feeling like they didn't quite fit in "normal" life, and went on to excel at something, create something new, build a business that had a major impact, or come up with some idea that is drastically needed in today's world.

We're in a long, strange, crazy period of transition right now.  I'll go into more detail about that in future posts and other writings.  But the bottom line is, pretty much every aspect of our world is going to go through some kind of revolution, some kind of re-imagining, or drastic change.  This blog is  going to seek out the people breaking new ground in all kinds of areas, coming up with new ideas, and working to make positive change.  Maybe this blog is for you.  Maybe it's not.  As the saying goes, "If you don't like change, you're going to like being obsolete even less." 

Black Ink

If you're old enough to remember 1989, imagine yourself back there for a minute.  Reaganonmics.  Guys in short shorts.  Humans still had visible pubic hair.  Doctors and drug dealers had pagers.  Steve Jobs just got kicked out of Apple. 

OK, now imagine going into a financial planner's office and asking for the best advice to plan your retirement in 1989.  They would have recommended a diversified portfolio mutual funds and "blue chip" stocks like General Motors.  If they were really edgy, they'd get you into real estate.  Right?

Stocks crashed in 1990, 2001, and bigtime in 2008.  Real estate crashed in 1990 and 2008.  Remember when the term "upside down" still referred to carnival rides and not mortgages? 

In the last 25 years, one of the best investments you could have made would have been a good quality tattoo and piercing shop.  Hell, the clerk at my local Hardee's (that's an East Coast Carl's Jr.) has about 8 visible piercings, neck tats and onion ring ears.  Cool chick, by the way.  And I live in an ultra-conservative small town in the Bible Belt!  Even here I think you have to get a behind the ear tattoo to graduate from high school. 

The next 25 years will most likely be A LOT crazier than the last 25 years.  Think about that the next time you start working on a retirement plan. 

Full disclosure:  I don't have a single tattoo.  I can't verify the hourly rates in the video above.  But I do have a really bad brand I gave myself with a bag sealer when I was bored one night working at a porn shop in '97.

Lincoln Bridge

This blog is about finding the people breaking new ground in the world.  Out of some of the toughest projects in the Midwest comes this music group, Lincoln Bridge.  They've kept each other out of trouble over the years by making music.  Great story, great music.  Just listen.  They made it to the America's Got Talent live shows.  Hopefully that's just the beginning for these guys.

Not a Chinaman's Chance

Have you ever told someone your dream or idea and been shut down immediately?  "You can't do that!"  "That's impossible."  "Do you know how hard that is?"  You don't have a Chinaman's chance of pulling that off."  The phrase, "not a Chinaman's chance," comes from the 1800's when they were building the railroad across the United States.  On the western end of the country, thousands of Chinese immigrants were hired as laborers to help build the railroad.  One of the jobs they got was to rappel down cliffs and place dynamite in holes to blast away the rock.  On many occasions, their co-workers didn't pull them back up quick enough, and the laborers were killed by the explosion or falling rocks.  The phrase grew out of the misfortune of those laborers who were said to have "not a Chinaman's chance" of surviving that job.

I was born in the mid 1960's, at a time when most workers were "company men."  Like most children in the early 70's, I was taught that I would finish high school, possibly go to college, and then work for the same company my whole life.  Workers were mostly men then, and I could either wear a white shirt, tie, and pocket protector, like my dad, a design engineer.  Or I could be a blue collar worker, becoming a welder, machinist, or factory floor worker.  Us 70's kids were taught to respect and look up to businessmen, usually fat, bloated guys who wore nice suits and drank a lot.  This was an era when it wasn't uncommon to see your doctor smoking.  We were taught to respect authority figures, even if those people were complete fucking assholes.

Into that world came two people who became heroes to us kids.  The first was Evel Knievel, the motorcycle daredevil who always flew the "Fuck it" flag and whose motto seemed to be, "Huck it and hope for the best."  In his early years, he was not well liked by parents.  But his televised motorcycle jumps left a lasting impression on us kids.

Around the same time came another, even more unlikely hero.  Bruce Lee was a young man who was born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, but raised in Hong Kong.  He was a talented dancer as a kid.  Really, he was, look it up.  He also trained under Wing Chun master Yip Man.  With his martial arts skills, he became quite a street fighter in Hong Kong.  But Bruce had ambition.  He emigrated to the U.S., and studied philosophy in college.  He also opened up his own dojo to teach Chinese Gung Fu to anyone interested.  At the time, this Chinese martial art was only to be taught to other Chinese.  Bruce literally had to fight the best gung fu guy around to earn the right to teach anyone of any race.  He went on to teach teach whites, blacks, and others, including several film and TV stars.  He felt stifled by the forms he had learned as a kid.  Ultimately, he took what was most effective from gung fu, Western boxing, fencing, and any other fighting form that had something to offer.  He called his new way of fighting Jeet Kune Do, or The Way of the Intercepting Fist.  In effect, he created the first mixed martial art, a couple decades before that became popular.

As if that wasn't enough, young Bruce decided to go into acting.  At the time, the only roles for Chinese were really bad caricatures of the Chinese culture, which infuriated Bruce.  He not only wanted to act, he wanted to completely blow away the stereotype of the goofy Chinaman he saw on the big screen.  Now if he had told anyone in the movie business this, they would have told him, "You don't have a Chinaman's chance."

But Bruce Lee didn't quit.  He became a movie star, and changed the way fighting was portrayed on film.  He wrote, directed, and starred in his own movies, at a time when that was unheard of.  Against all odds, Bruce Lee not only made it on screen, but he became a hero to millions of kids of all races in the U.S. and around the world.  Decades after his death, the skinny Chinese kid who had a hard time putting on weight is often written about in body building magazines.  The Chinese martial artist who bucked all trends is still a legend in the martial arts world for his super human speed, power, and contributions to the fighting arts.

This blog is about the people who dream big dreams, and then work their asses off to accomplish them.  I could think of no better person than Bruce Lee to write this first post about.  If you have ambitions, ideas, and dreams that you have chased, or intend to chase, this blog may be for you.