The low budget action sports videos I produced, directed, and/or edited- from 1987-2001

This is one of the craziest pieces of video I shot and edited.  It's from the 2-Hip King of Vert at Mission Trails, outside of San Diego, in 1991, featuring Death Jump.  Death Jump was about the craziest jump anywhere at the time.  Personally, I think Death Jump was the beginning of the mega ramp era in BMX, it had the basic shape of a mega ramp, and was HUGE fo rthat time.  This segment features Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, Keith Treanor, Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson, Mat Hoffman, Dennis McCoy, Bill Nitschke, and Vic Murphy.  This footage was in S&M Bikes' Feel my Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer in 1991.  It also led to Mat Hoffman getting a gig with the Stuntmaster's TV show a year or so later, when I shared about 15 minutes of this raw footage with motorcycle jumper Johnny Airtime, who worked at the same production company I did.  

In the spring of 1987, Bob Morales, founder and owner of the American Freestyle Association (AFA), where I worked, walked into the back room of the little AFA office, and asked, "Steve, you want to make a TV commercial to show on MTV for the Austin contest?"  Since I had absolutely no idea how to make a TV commercial, and I knew Bob wouldn't take "No" for an answer, I said, "Sure."  That's how my video production career began.  Here are the low budget videos I produced, directed, edited, and/or shot footage for, between 1987 and 2001.  

1987

Oregon Pro Flatland- American Freestyle Association (AFA)- produced and directed

Oregon Pro Ramps- AFA- produced and directed

Texas Pro Flatland- AFA- produced and directed

Texas Pro Ramps- AFA- produced and directed

Ohio Pro Flatland-AFA- produced and directed

Ohio Pro Ramps-AFA- produced and directed

1989

2-Hip: The '88 Adventure, aka 2-Hip BHIP- 2-Hip/Ron Wilkerson- directed and edited

Part 1, Part 2 (Santee Meet the Street contest), Part 3 , Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

1990 

Tuff Skts promo- Producer/director/editor/cameraman- Originally a 7 minute promo for the Christian Hosoi/Vision skateboard company, Tuff Skts.  The company lasted less than a year.  This is the only surviving version of this promo is this re-edited clip from Sk8-TV in 1990, with lame music (I used Muddy Waters and Bad Brains)

Ride Like a Man- 2-Hip- directed and edited by Eddie Roman- I was cameraman for most of the vert contest footage in the last half of the video

Mat Hoffman's first 900 at 14:43 (From Ride Like a Man)- This is all my footage, after the intro part with Eddie's girlfriend.  Also has Joe Johnson's first double tailwhip air in a contest.

Skater's Quarterly Video Magazine #2- NSI Video- editor/cameraman for original footage/intros

The Ultimate Weekend- Producer/editor/cameraman- My first completely self-produced BMX video 

Skater's Quarterly Video Magazine #3- NSI Video- editor/cameraman

Snowboarder's Quarterly Video Magazine #1- NSI Video- editor/cameraman

1991

Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer- (full 1 hour, weird ass version)- S&M Bikes- camerman/editor

"Leg Muscles" segments, Perry Mervar, Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, Keith Treanor, Alex Leech, Jimmy Levan, Pistol Pete Loncarevich

1992 

H.B. Video Zine #1- camerman/editor- Cheap "video magazine" of chunks of raw footage I shot at contests and of SoCal locals riding

H.B. Video Zine #2- cameraman/editor

1993

44 Something- S&M Bikes- director/editor/cameraman

2001

Animals- My second self-produced BMX video- producer/director/editor/cameraman- 100% my footage.

This list doesn't include the videos that I kind of worked on, mostly as a production assistant, while working at Unreel Productions/Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear in 1987-1990, or the 300 or so TV episodes I worked on as a crew guy from 1989-1995.

Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer- the first S&M Bikes video- 1991

When "Leg Muscles" came out, in late 1991.  Riders who ordered it opened the package, and shoved the video in their VCR, looking for footage of the craziest BMX jumpers in the world.  And the video started with bad acting from John Holmes porn videos, the intro, and then this... Perry Mervar, on an S&M (Dirtbike, I think), tearing it up on flatland for 5 1/2 minutes.  This whole video was a low budget practical joke, Chris Moeller style, and having flatland first was Moeller's idea.  Pretty funny.  And Perry was one of the best flatlanders around at the time.  

So... I was living in a sketchy apartment in North Hollywood in 1991, working 2nd shift dubbing videos at a video duplication company.  Chris Moeller, who was running S&M Bikes out of a garage, called me up.  "Steve, I want to make a video for S&M.  Here's the idea, we take a John Holmes porn movie.  We show the bad acting, and then when they cut to sex, we cut to bike riding."  That's how this video began.  

I shot the footage with my full size, S-VHS camera, on the weekends.  Chris bought an S-VHS prosumer deck, a high quality VCR, which cost about $2,000.  I wired my camera to that, and edited on the floor of his tiny living room, Play-Record-Pause style, camera to VCR.  I was drinking a 40 of Old English as I edited, and hit peak drunkeness around John Paul's part.  I finished the rest the next day.  Other than than the S-VHS VCR, total production costs for this video were about $250, including beer.  The whole rider-made video movement was just beginning, and Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer, was one of the first of those videos.  The title came from a pick-up line Dave Clymer used to pick up his girlfriend in a bar.  

I just learned yesterday that Snakebite BMX put up most of the clips a month ago.  The fast-forward porn parts, and a John Holmes fight scene, have been lost to history.  But here are the segments.  Enjoy.  

Jimmy Levan

Mike Priest

"Pistol" Pete Loncarevich (riding an S&M Holmes with GT stickers on it)

Alex Leech

John Paul Rogers and Kim Boyle

Mission Trails 2-Hip King of Dirt- 1991 (Outside San Diego- Home of Death Jump)

Keith Treanor

Dave Clymer

Chris Moeller

I lied...  Actually, I didn't know.  BMX Movie Database now has the full version of Leg Muscles, with the bad porn acting and everything, it's an hour long.  Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer.

"...I'm just a spoke in the wheel, Johnny."

"And who's the hub?  Chief Harris?"

Sponsored by S&M Bikes, Super Glue 4, chain wallets, and sideburns.

The Club White Bear logo... still no stickers yet...

 The black, downward pointing triangle was the Nazi concentration camp symbol and insignia for lesbians, prostitutes, pacifists, vagrants and beggars (aka Germany's homeless at the time), alcoholics, drug addicts, asocial/antisocial types, and the mentally ill.  I'm re-appropriating the downward pointing black triangle, as someone who has now spent 15-16 years homeless.  I worked as a taxi driver and restaurant worker for about 7 years while fully homeless (and living in my taxi).  The other years I've been blogging like crazy, and doing my Sharpie artwork, trying to turn that into viable living.  I'm taking a negative symbol, and now using it as a symbol for promoting art, creativity, and making cool shit in today's world.  

A few years back, while writing a blog post, I think, it occurred to me that "most progress in the world comes from the freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos."  They make the art, the music, come up with new ideas and inventions, and create new businesses.  Those are the people I most readily identify with.  

The White Bear, is my nickname, which comes from a poem I wrote after getting dumped by my girlfriend in 1988.  I published the poem in my first zine of poetry, called We're on the same Mental Plane... and it's Crashing, in 1992.  I was living in Chris Moeller's tiny "Winnebago" apartment on Alabama Street, in Huntington Beach, at the time.  S&M Bikes was run out of the single car garage at the back of the apartment then.  Chris started making fun of me, calling me The White Bear, and the nickname stuck as my nickname among BMXers (except in the P.O.W. House, where they called me Sluggo).  So I took The White Bear as my poetry pen name, and now use it on my main blog and my Substack site.  

The lighter black square around the bear's head is there because I hand drew the bear, and the black didn't match the black of the triangle, because I suck at graphic design.  So I just left it.  

So that's what my logo is, and how I cam up with it.  Stickers and a zine coming... some day.