Journey of the White Bear 2024

In the Fall of 1987, when I was working at the AFA as the newsletter editor and photographer, a woman walked in one day.  She was there to interview to be our new receptionist.  She was tall, voluptuous, beautiful, the singer in a rock band, 25 -years old, and experienced in many ways.  I was a shorter, 21-year-old BMX freestyle dork, really naive, and still a virgin.  She got the job, we started dating, and she broke me in and taught me many things.  I decided to write her a hit song, and I started writing all kinds of "song lyrics," which eventually turned into poetry.  

About nine months later she dumped me, because I was a clingy dork, and too hung up on her, after our relationship had run its course.  I was crushed.  The night she dumped me, I listened to Don McClean's "American Pie" over and over and over, and I wrote a poem called "Journey of the White Bear."  It was, by far, the best poem I had written.  Even she liked it, and the poem scored me a couple weeks worth of post break-up sex.  The chorus of the poem/song went:

Nothing's right or wrong

In this world today

Nothing's black or white

It's all shades of grey

She shattered my semi-autistic world, where everything was black and white, right or wrong, and showed me at least a dozen shades of grey.  We soon went our separate ways, and I kept writing poems, and not telling anyone about them.  By then I figured out poetry is the cheapest form of therapy.

In 1992, living on the floor of Chris Moeller's tiny "Winnebago" apartment in Huntington Beach, Chris showed me a book of Henry Rollins' poetry.  It was called Black Coffee Blues.  I read it and thought, "Shit, I can do this.  Hell, I already have done this."  I started going through the notebooks of poems I'd written, that no one knew existed.  

Over the course of about three months, I took my 200+ poems, read through them, and picked the best ones.  I typed them up on my typewriter, and made a HUGE zine.  It was 80 zine pages thick or so.  I had to bind it together with duct tape, it was so thick.  I published around 90 of my poems, written from 1987 to 1992.  

The zine was called We're on the Same Mental Plane... and it's Crashing.  The first poem in it was "Journey of the White Bear."  In the poem I called myself the White Bear (naive goofy oaf), and that girlfriend from 1987-88 was the Black Leopard (experienced older woman).  The term "cougar" for an older woman dating younger men hadn't been coined yet.  She wasn't black, she was white, the poem had nothing to do with race.  It was about a naive dork meeting a woman who schooled him in the ways of life and love.  

All copies of that original zine, and the original poem, that I know of, have been lost.  Last month I started working on a writing project that I hope will be a "real," printed book, someday.  I'm calling it "The Poet."  That first poem, once Chris Moeller read it, led to him calling me The White Bear.  Soon nearly everyone else called me that, too.  So I took that as my poetry pen name, on the next two poetry zines I published.  

A couple weeks ago, after digging into memories, I wrote a new version, a 2024 version, of "Journey of The White Bear."  Here it is.  You are the first to see it.

Journey of The White Bear 2024

A long time ago

In a northern land

A white bear left

For the place of man

He went to seek fame

He sought fortune and truth

High standards and intentions

He wouldn't be uncouth

It was two little wheels

That set him on his quest

In BMX freestyle

He wanted to be the best

That's how it starts

These travels through time

Bright lights catch our eyes

But we really seek the sublime

Doing tricks on a bike

The Universe's ruse

That drew me into

Some crazy poet's shoes

A woman more experienced

A singer of songs

Made me question the answers

And experience rights and wrongs

Black Leopard, White Bear

Found passion and lust

I gained a poet's pen

And learned when not to trust

Hundreds of hours

In parking lots I rode

Seeking out the stoke

Struggling with my emotional load

The baggage of childhood

Of times bad and worse

Began to trickle out

In verse after verse

The Black Leopard faded

Into memory's twilight

The songs turned to poems

And I continued to write

In time I did share them

Which scared me to death

My pen name got christened

Another step on my path

The mysteries of life

I dug into deep

One by one, little insights

Into my poems, they did creep

I worked jobs, rode my bike

Read books, fasted at times

When twenty years had passed

I'd written hundreds of rhymes

The path of a poet

Screaming into God's ears

Dives into the depths

And swims among all fears

I wrestled with my demons

Sometimes with success

To all of those watching

My life sure looked a mess

It took 40 years

From the first haiku I wrote

Until the Universe gave in

And let me cross the moat

From high on a spire

In wisdom's castle seldom seen

I glimpsed the Great Story

Playing out, scene after scene

A short, but timeless moment

The answer to my quest's call

I was shown the inner workings

There's an order to it all

And then everything was different

Yet the same, just as intense

Precious things lost all worth

But life, it now made sense

The seeker's rebirth

Catapulted back to my life

It was just another day

There was no end to strife

My troubles still existed

But fear held far less sway

I began to rebuild my life

Moment by moment, day by day

The Great Play goes on

And still I play my part

But now I know why

I must write and I must make art

-The White Bear

New poem: "Exploring"

 Exploring

I can't remember

When it began

Wandering and wondering

Across the land

Many early memories

Are me, exploring the woods

Meandering along creeks

As every kid should

Through cornfields and wheat fields

On a bike, through city streets

I explored each new town

Seeking kid-sized treasures and treats

One place led to another

A peripheral glimmer, then full stare

Always asking the same question

I wonder what's over there?

-The White Bear

A seeker into the mystery...

This 3 minute clip, in Spanish, shows a lot of the visuals of the coolest comic book series I ever read, Seekers into the Mystery.  It was written by longtime comic book writer, J.M. DeMatteis.  This fifteen issue series was published by Vertigo way back in 1996-1997.  

"It's raining grace..."

Seekers into the Mystery - 1996-1997 (read the whole 15 issue comic series online)

There are some crazy anime ads on this link that you need to ignore, just to warn you, and usually a kaptcha or two to get to each issue.  But you can read Seekers into the Mystery, start to finish, issue by issue.

Either you're a seeker in life, or you're not.  If you're someone who went to church as a kid, and found that a lot of people seemed really hypocritical, but thought there must be some deep truths somewhere buried in the religion somewhere, you're probably a seeker.  Or if you had an interest in the supernatural as a kid, if you wondered about ghosts, psychic abilities, mystical ideas, UFO's, Atlantis, and similar weird stuff, you're probably a seeker.  Or if you felt like an outsider, and just seemed to look at the world differently, and more intensely, than other people around you, you are probably a seeker.  If most people around when you were a kid seemed kind of shallow, and didn't think about life near as deeply as you, you know what I'm talking about. If this paragraph sounds completely corny and stupid to you, then you are not one.  

Whatever else went on in my life as a kid, I was a seeker from early on.  My childhood home was always a place of unnecessary drama and thick psychological tension.  Living in that world, I spent a lot of time really depressed and scared as a kid.  My home was a place I didn't want to be most of the time.  Due to this I wound up really shy, and afraid to make decisions in general, because pretty much everything I did seemed to land me in trouble.  I was a pretty good kid, I didn't go out looking for trouble, I tried to avoid it.  But I always seemed to be in trouble anyway.  Because of this, I questioned life itself from a really young age.  I wondered what might happen in the future that would make the emotional pain of childhood worthwhile.  I was a seeker from the earliest age I can remember.  I sensed that there had to be something that made life make sense, some underlying reason that so many people had to endure all kinds of hardships, particularly as kids.  

Basically, I wondered, "What is the point to life?  Why is there so much pain and fear and darkness in the world?  Is there some underlying thing, some secret knowledge, that helps make sense of it all?   I spent my life looking for answers to these basic questions.  My 20 years riding a BMX bike every day helped me evolve in some sense, and learn a lot about myself and the world.  But I also read at least 250 or 300 books over the years, mostly non-fiction, seeking answers.  

In 1996, I was a furniture mover in Huntington Beach, working for a local company called Happy Movers.  Our office was in the old Seacliff shopping center, at the corner of Main and Yorktown.  Our boss had an office in the back of the center, and our trucks were parked in the lot out back.  Close to our office was a small comic book shop run by a middle aged woman.  I started wandering in there and checking out the comics, when we got finished with our jobs early.  I was never a comic book guy, and not a fan of superheroes in general.  But I liked a lot of the art, so I wandered around, checking out the comics coming out in that era, 1996.  Soon I started talking to the owner, and she began to turn me on to different comics, beyond the standard superhero stuff.  She suggested Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which was pretty cool.  I also bought a couple of issues of Sin City, because I liked the pure black and white style of the art.  

Then one day I saw a comic called Seekers into the Mystery, I think issue #3 had just come out.  The title caught my attention first, and then the artwork.  I bought the first three issues and read them.  As someone who had already been seeking a deeper meaning of life, Seekers was right up my alley.  I followed it, issue by issue, as it came out, and collected and read all 15 issues.  I loved this comic series.  

I've only read four complete comic series in my life, Sandman, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and Seekers into the Mystery.  Seekers is the only one I actually followed, issue by issue, as it came out.  The others I read as full graphic novels, years later.  

Seekers into the Mystery is the story of Lucas Hart, a mostly washed up Hollywood screenwriter, who likes to hike in Griffith Park.  He runs into this weird homeless guy named Charlie Limbo, and things begin to get weird.  If you're a seeker, someone who needs to find out what the point to life itself is, I highly recommend reading Seekers into the Mystery.  It's a beautifully crafted, well written, and very enlightening story, combined with great art as a graphic novel.  

This comic series popped into my mind a little over a month ago, and I looked it up, to see if anyone had the full series.  I wanted to buy the issues on eBay or somewhere, and read them again.  Since it's such an obscure comic series, it never occurred to me that it might all be readable online.  But it is.  When I found it, I read the whole thing in two days, and it really inspired me (again), creatively.  

Almost three weeks ago, after re-reading Seekers, I got the idea to write a book called The Poet, featuring a guy named Thomas, a character that's been slowly evolving in my head for 25 years or so.  In 17 days, I hand wrote 78 pages of this idea for a novel.  Then I realized that Thomas is me, but if I was cool.  The whole story was just too much of my life, very thinly veiled.  About three days ago, I realized that I just needed to write my own story of how I became a poet in my early 20's, and a writer overall.  So I just began writing that book, my own story called The Poet.  

Along with some black and white doodle drawings incorporating the female form, that's what I'm up to these days.  

I've been just been scraping by since my backpack got stolen a couple of months ago, and I lost my phone, laptop, and most of my art supplies.  I can't upload photos, I still haven't got a new phone or laptop, and I've just been scraping by money wise.  I'm not hinting or asking for more help, simply describing the current situation.  I should be able to order a "new," refurbished laptop soon.  

I've been really busy creatively, although a lot of it has been offline.  So that's where I'm at right now.    I'm going to use this blog to write about what I'm up to, for my one Club White Bear member, and my 5 Patreon supporters, and a handful of other people.  

AFA Austin Pro Flatland- AFA Masters Round 3- 1987

This is the third video I produced for the AFA in 1987.  AFA Masters Round 3, Austin Texas, late spring of 1987.  

Three things that actually happened in my life

 I've had a lot of weird stuff happen in my life, particularly in the last 23 years or so.  While I've been living my odd life, and trying to make a living, here are three weird things that actually happened.  

Late September 2001- I went into my bank one day, Union Bank, then on the corner of Bolsa Chica and Heil in Huntington Beach.  It was two to three weeks after the 9/11 attacks happened, and people were pretty freaked out and paranoid about other events potentially happening.  I was about $4 overdrawn in my checking account, an account I'd had for 12 or 13 years, since I worked at Vision/Unreel Productions in the late 1980's.  The bank teller didn't take my money, and went to talk to a supervisor.  After several minutes, she directed me to another area, saying the bank manager needed to talk to me.  The bank manager, a woman I'd never talked to before, said I couldn't add money to my account.  She gave me a check for $18, seemed visibly afraid of me, and said I couldn't have an account at that bank anymore.  I was confused, and couldn't figure out what was going on.  Over the next couple months, it seemed some group somewhere was putting pressure on my life.  Things have been weird since.    

Spring of 2008- The weekend after Thanksgiving in 2007, I dropped off my taxi for the last time.  The company had flooded the county with cabs, and I just wasn't able to make any money any more.  My weekly taxi lease was about $550 per week, and I had to spend about $300 per week on gas.  So I had to make over $850 in fares just to break even, and then make money for myself beyond that.  I just couldn't do it any more.  I'd also gotten sick, because I'd been working 80 to 110 hours a week, living in my taxi, and not eating healthy because I was always stressed out.  So, after living in my taxi for most of the time between 2002 and 2007, I went from working more than 80 hours a week to fully homeless and living on the streets LITERALLY overnight.  I WORKED my way into homelessness.  Yes, that sucked.  

Within a couple of days, while living on the streets of Orange County, California, I started panhandling to scrape up money to live day to day.  Within a few weeks, I found an obscure freeway off ramp in south Orange County where I could usually get a decent amount of money, which helped me to get a motel room for a night about once every two weeks.  The local police that covered that ramp rolled by at times, but I dodged them by hiding in the bushes every half an hour or so, while they rolled by.  After several weeks, the officer eventually drove several miles out of the way, parked on the opposite side of the freeway, and walked up on me, catching me panhandling on the ramp.  Instead of yelling, or trying to arrest me, he walked up quietly, and asked, "Who ARE you?  I've never seen them come down on anyone the way they're coming down on you."  At that point, I'd been experiencing weird, behind the scenes pressure on my life for several years.  I asked the officer, "So there IS a them?"  He just nodded.  He didn't explain who "THEM" was, but said he'd never seen anything like it in his 20+ years as a cop.  He didn't ticket me, he just said I had to leave the off ramp, which I did.  

September 18th or 19th, 2008- I lived homeless on the streets of Orange County, California from late 2007 until November 15th, 2008, when my family flew me to North Carolina, where both my parents, and my sister and brother-in-law wound up living.  I wound up living in my parents' tiny, two bedroom apartment, and I never did find a real job in NC, I worked for a taxi company for close to a year.  I got stuck in NC for ten years, and I don't want to set foot in that entire state for the rest of my life.  

All that aside, before I went to NC, while homeless in Orange County, California, I often rode a couple of the all night buses, end to end, to get some sleep.  Lehman Brothers Investment Bank went bust, and closed down on Monday, September 15, 2008, sparking the visible start of the 2008 Great Recession crash.  

One of those nights, either the Wednesday night or Thursday night after the Lehman Bros. collapse, I got off the Katella Avenue bus about 1:30 in the morning.  That bus stop was at the corner of State College Blvd. and Katella in Anaheim.  I walked over to the 57 bus stop, in front of an AM/PM gas station, to wait of that bus.  There were five or six other homeless people who were also waiting at that bus stop.  I sat on a  boulder in the lawn there.  There was a closed (for the night) McDonald's across the street, and a Denny's, that was open, caddy corner to where I was.  

A young guy, maybe 24-27 years old, in a dark suit, cross the street from near Denny's, and walked right up to me.  OK, people rarely wear suits in Southern California, unless they work in banking, finance, or are going to a funeral.  Nobody wears a well-fitting suit at 1:30 in the morning.  I knew something was up.  

As I said, the guy ignored everyone else, and walked right up to me.  After standing there awkwardly for a few seconds, he asked, "Have you seen the  news about the economy?"  I told him I had, saw the headlines on the newspapers in the newspaper machines.  Then, in an almost pleading voice, he asked, "What's going to happen?"  Keep in mind, I was an overweight, disheveled homeless guy, and if was 1:30 in the fucking morning, on a weeknight!  I had talked to dozens and dozens of people, usually in pairs, in my taxi over the previous 6 or 7 years, as well as some who walked up to me at bus stops while I was homeless.  

I gave him a disgusted look, because I really didn't want to talk to anyone about that shit.  Obviously, any knowledge I had of an economic or financial markets nature WAS NOT helping my life out.  I wasn't mad at the young guy in the suit, but mad at whomever sent him, and dozens, probably hundreds, of others people like him, before that.  After pausing a bit, I told him my thoughts.  "A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money," I began.  I told him I thought it was a good time to buy gold and wait out the chaos.  Stocks were dropping, and I thought there was a much bigger drop coming.  I told him I thought there would be a major bailout.  "Buy gold, sit on it for 6 -18 months, as things crashed, and look for good buys when values dropped, on stocks, on real estate, on vintage collectible cars, whatever.  People sell all kinds of things at big discounts during recessions.  The young guy in the sharp suit asked a few more questions, then walked away, back across the streets, and disappeared into the parking lot behind Denny's.  Fucker didn't even give me a dollar or two for breakfast in the morning.  They never do.  

So now, as it looks like we're about to see a replay of September 2008 in the economy, I just wanted to put these three weird things out there.  Looking back, these were three inflection points in the weird shit happening in my life over the past 23 years or so.  

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.