This blog is no more

For reasons I won't go into, I took down this blog in late 2012, and I won't be rewriting it. Here's one clip of the BMX Action Trick Team performing at an early AFA contest in Huntington Beach, California in 1984. That's pro roller skater turned pro freestyler Fred Blood announcing, by the way.

 I worked at Wizard Publications, publisher of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines August thru December 1986.  Getting that job changed the course of my life, and I'd like to thank Andy Jenkins and Bob Osborn for giving me the opportunity.  I was laid off because I didn't really fit in, and because I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy.  They hired a photographer named Mark Snavely who lasted a couple of weeks soon after, but didn't work out.  Then, a couple months after I left they hired this 18-year-old biker/skater kid from the East Coast, a kid named Spike Jonze. 

In 2008, the core group for most of FREESTYLIN's life; Andy Jenkins, Mark "Lew" Lewman, and Spike Jonze put out a limited edition book.  The way FREESTYLIN' magazine ended, they never really got to say goodbye the way they wanted to, so they put out a really cool, limited edition book in 2008.  I wasn't mentioned in the book, and neither were a few others I thought should be, so I started this blog originally just to say, "Hey, I worked there for a while, too," and to tell a few of my stories from working there.  This blog soon went viral in the old school BMX freestyle online community, which I didn't even realize existed at the time.  Having spent many years working long hours as a taxi driver, I'd never really delved into the internet until 2008, and was completely clueless when I started this blog.  I ended up writing over 200 posts on this blog, and pissing off most of my former co-workers from Wizard.  That really wasn't my intention, it just kind of happened.  In any case, the blog is gone now for a variety of reasons, but here's the link to the online version of the book put out by Andy, Lew and Spike:

The FREESTYLIN' book

For more of my stories on the early days of BMX freestyle, check out my other BMX blog, Freestyle BMX Tales.