The Legend of Charlie Gnarly

 The Legend of Charlie Gnarly: How BMX began...

The Godfather of BMX, Scot Breithaupt, haulin' ass and flying fast in the 1970's.

A long time ago (the late 1960's), in a land far, far away from most of you (Long Beach, California), a young man was racing his Schwinn Stingray on the bumpy Jeep trails in an area of oil fields.  The young guy also rode motorcycles, but it was really expensive to keep a dirt bike running, so he spent a lot of time on his bicycle, racing around on the bumpy trails.  A few homeless guys lived in the bushes in that area, and no one cared much about him tearing down the trails on his bicycle.  

One day at those trails, young Scot saw a scruffy looking guy with a full beard, on a dirt bike, watching him ride from a distance.  One of the homeless guys, sitting up against an old shack said, "Hey kid, I'll give you a brand new bike if you can catch that guy."  Young Scot didn't think the bum could buy him a bike, but maybe he could steal him one.  Scot was competitive as could be, and liked a challenge, so he took off down the Jeep trail, heading straight for the bearded guy on the motorcycle.  The motorcycle rider, not wearing a helmet, just shook his head, laughed, and let the kid get within about 50 feet, then hit the throttle.  

Scot, pedaling for all he was worth on his Stingray, hauled ass after the motorcycle.  He got close in the first turn, as the motocrosser stuck a leg out and carved the turn, sending up a big roost, showering Scot in dirt and rocks.  The mysterious bearded motocrosser played with the bicyclist, slowing down a bit, letting the kid close in, then carving a turn and hauling down one of the other trails, and accelerating.  In a few minutes, the bicyclist was completely winded.  He coasted to a stop, huffing and puffing, next to the homeless guy by the shack who had bet him.  The motorcyclist stopped 50 yards away, looking back at the kid.  The bearded motocrosser shook his head, hit the throttle, and hauled ass the other direction, riding out of sight down the trails.

Young Scot fought to catch his breath.  He was pissed off, he hated losing a bet.  But chasing the guy on the motorcycle, hauling ass on the bumpy oil field trails was the most fun he'd ever had on his bike.  The old homeless guy sitting by the shed laughed.  "Kid, you'll never catch him.  You know who that was?  That cat on the dirt bike was Charlie Gnarly.  He's the best motocross rider there ever was.  He won every race there was to win.  A few years ago, he up and quit, nobody knows why."  

Young Scot was beginning to catch his breath.  "Charlie Gnarly?"  he asked.

"Yep," the old bum said, "Kid, I'll get you the best bike you ever saw if you ever get Gnarly.  He's fast as the wind on a motorbike."  

Scot shook his head in frustration.  "I'll catch that motherfucker.  I'll get Gnarly someday."  

Scot kept going down to the oil field trails to ride his bike, and some of the younger local kids would show up, and race Scot, and jump off the bumps on the Jeep trails.  Every now and then, maybe once or twice a month, they'd all hear a motorcycle, and Charlie Gnarly would ride up, and sit and watch them, from 50 yards away or so.  The old bum, usually sitting by his shack with a bottle of wine, would yell at them, "Go get him!  Catch Charlie Gnarly!  C'mon kids, get Gnarly!"  Scot and the whole little pack would take off, hauling ass towards the old motocross rider. Charlie Gnarly would let them get close, and then take off, winding back and forth, stopping and starting, carving turns, bouncing over bumps, and keeping the the kids pedaling until they were all out of breath.  It was as if Charlie Gnarly had been born on his dirt bike, his skill amazed them, as the tried to catch him.  Then he'd send up a big roost as he turned and headed off the other direction and disappeared.  

No one knew where Charlie Gnarly lived, or when he would show up.  Scot started riding at the trails every day, and the local kids did, too.  They got faster and faster, pretending to be motocross riders, racing each other every day on their banana seat bikes.  As the Spring of 1970 rolled around, Scot decided they needed to start having official races, just like the real motocrossers did.  He organized races at the old oilfield trails, and called it the B.U.M.S. track.  About the same time, up in Malibu, an hour's drive away, some other bike riders parents' started holding races as well.  Weekly races of what they called Bicycle Motocross began to happen, and draw more and more riders on the weekends.  

Still, once and a while, during the week, Charlie Gnarly would show up at the trails, and all the bicycle riders would take off after him.  By that time, there were broken Schwinn Stingray frames and forks, and a few broken pedals and handlebars, littering the trails.  The crazier the kids got trying to get Gnarly, the more they broke their bikes.  The kids kept looking for better parts, and some of the motorcycle companies, Yamaha and Kawasaki, made bicycles that looked like motocross cycles, but they were heavy and slow, with their plastic fenders and fake gas tanks.  The kids begged, borrowed, and stole bike parts wherever they could.  The just wanted to ride, they wanted to get Gnarly.

One day, Charlie Gnarly showed up in the distance.  Like so many times before, Scot and the other bicycle motocross kids took off after him, chasing him through the trails.  Charlie took a quick left, showering most of the the pack with his roost.  But this time, young Scot Breithaupt was ready for him, Scot anticipated the Charlie's turn, stuck his leg out, and turned off the trail, and cut cross country to the trail Charlie headed down next.  As Charlie Gnarly looked over his shoulder at the pack of kids eating dust, Scot popped out of the brush and onto the trail right next to him.  Scot wasted no time, and kicked the side of Charlie's motorcycle.  Charlie fishtailed, his back tire hit a little mound, and he high-sided, and was thrown off the motorcycle.  Scot skidded to a stop, not really believing he had finally caught Charlie Gnarly. 

Charlie rolled and bounced along the ground, and the motorcycle careened off into the bushes.  Charlie Gnarly smiled.  "You finally got me kid... I had a feeling you'd do it someday.  You got fire in you, like I used to."  Scot watched as Charlie Gnarly got up, brushed some of the dust off of himself, and then went into the bushes, and picked up his motorcycle.  He looked it over, and got back on it.  Scot, very unlike himself, was kind of in shock, blown away he'd caught the champion motocrosser on his Stingray.  He had finally got Gnarly.  "Follow me, kid," Charlie said.  Charlie rode slowly down the trails, to the edge of the oil fields.  Charlie stopped, and got off his bike near an old maintenance building.  

"What're you doing?"  Scot asked.  

"Just hang on a minute," Charlie Gnarly told Scot Breithaupt.  Charlie pulled his keys out of his pocket, and unlocked a rusty padlock on the old building.  He disappeared inside, and reappeared a minute later holding two bicycle frames, frames like Scot had never seen before.  One was bright chrome, the other painted black, the tubes were all straight, not curved like Scot's Schwinn.  Charlie held the chrome one up, "This one is made of Chrome-moly steel, it's lighter, and a lot stronger than your bike."  He held the second bike up, it's down tube looked wider and flat.  "This one is 6061 aluminum, it's not quite as strong, but it's lighter, and it's still a lot stronger than your bike.  I call this design the double diamond hard tail.  If you're going to race bicycles in the dirt, this is how they should be made.  I knew you'd catch me some day, so I figured I'd design and build a  couple bike frames actually made for racing.  You'll be able to ride a lot harder, and a lot faster, on one of these."

Charlie Gnarly handed both frames to Scot Breitaupt.  "Which one do you want?"  Scot checked them both out, then replied, "I want the light one, the aluminum."  Charlie Gnarly held his hand out, and Scot handed him back the chrome frame, and kept the black one.  

Charlie went back into the building, and came out with a pair of chrome forks, with straight fat tubes, the legs weren't curved, they were much beefier than the forks Scot kept breaking. "These are tubular chrome-moly steel, they'll last you a lot longer than the ones you have.  Take these home and build yourself a bicycle MX... a BMX bike."  

"Really?" Scot asked.

"Yeah, really," Charlie Gnarly said, as he locked up the building, and got back on his motorcycle.  

"Thanks." Scot said,  one of the last times he was ever at a loss for words.  Charlie Gnarly started up his motorcycle, nodded to Scot, and rode off.  That was the last time Scot ever saw Charlie Gnarly.  

Scot went on to become one of the top BMX racers, and soon started Scot Enterprises to promote BMX racing, and his riders.   That soon turned into SE Racing, which invented the PK Ripper, the Quadangle, the Floval Flyer racing cruiser, and the OM Flyer for Scot himself.  Scot grew a full beard, just like Charlie Gnarly, and came to be known as the Old Man of BMX, which is what the OM stood for.  The fire that Charlie Gnarly saw in young Scot led to a lot of progression in BMX racing.  Scot rode hard, promoted hard, and would get gnarly every time he did.  That fire also led Scot to a lot of self-destruction at times, he liked to party hard as well.  Scot made huge leaps forward, and sometimes reverted to self-destruction.  But few people, if any, made as much of an impact on creating BMX racing and BMX bikes as Scot Breithupt.  That growth of BMX racing in the 1970's set the stage for BMX freestyle to evolve from skatepark carving in the 1970's to a full fledged sport in the mid-1980's.  SE racing sponsored Todd Anderson, Craig Grasso, Fred Blood, and Justin Bickel, and a few other freestylers along the way. 

OK, maybe that's not exactly how it happened.  That's not quite how BMX began.  But it did begin in 1970, and Scot Breithaupt was a big part of it in the early years.  

In January of 1989, Scot Breithaupt hired me to be a cameraman at the Reno Silver Dollar Nationals, for a TV show he was producing.  Scot headed up early in the week, and paid for a rental car for me to head up to Reno that Friday, taking off a little early from my job at Unreel Productions.  I wound up driving through the Sierra Nevada mountains in a blizzard, so the weekend got off to a sketchy start.  I shot video of Scot, and other racers, all weekend.  We made the long drive back down to Orange County Sunday night.  On the trip, Scot told me the legend of Charlie Gnarly, a mythical guy who young BMX riders would chase when out riding.  Every time they tried to "get Gnarly," they got a little better, a little crazier, and pushed themselves as bike riders.  After a while, the guy disappeared, but every time the BMXers got crazy on their bikes, they called it "gettin' gnarly."  I took a few liberties with the story Scot told me on that drive, but that's the nature of legends.  Welcome to my story in the world of BMX...

A Punch to the Gut

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm currently living in a situation where someone else is paying the rent and bills.  That sounds awesome and makes me sound lazy.  In fact, I'm working my butt off to get this little business up and running.  But I'm still tied to this living situation.  Yesterday, like so many times before, I was told that, due to an unforseen problem, we basically have no food money for the next three weeks.  We also don't have money to pay my medical insurance, and a few other things.

I started my little art business with no money.  OK, I probably had a buck in change, but for all intents and purposes, I started with nothing.  No phone.  My computer died right after I started, and all that.  But the biggest thing going against me was that I had no place to borrow money to get started.  I was unemployed, and for a variety of reasons, haven't been able to find a job here.  To make a go of my little business, I had to put virtually all the money I brought in back into the business, to build up a reasonable amount of start-up capital.  But because I live in a house where the head of household simply refuses to live within their budget, I get nickel and dimed all month for the little bit I do make.  It's one financial crisis after another, most of them self-caused.  As a result, my little art/writing business is on financial life support.

So why don't I leave?  Because if I leave, then I'm starting a business while on the streets.  That's pretty damn hard as well.  I'm in a frying pan versus fire scenario, either option is really hard.  But I've committed to creating my own business and I just have to keep plugging along, day by day.  But it is sooooooo fucking frustrating to have people really stoked on my artwork and not be able to afford to make prints of drawings or other things I can sell.  This is when my background in BMX freestyle and skateboarding come into play.  I make a mistake or fall.  And I get up and keep working.  Quitting doesn't enter the picture.

This blog seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn't.  Check out my newest stuff  at Get Weird Make Money.

Johnny Appleseed and Grandpa's Orchard

I remember seeing this cartoon in school as a kid in Ohio.  Johnny Appleseed was actually a real guy, and he wandered the general area of Ohio I lived in from 4th to 8th grades.  Once when I was about 12, a friend took me deep into the woods.  Normally this meant an afternoon of fishing or playing army.  But on that particular occasion, he wanted to show me something he found.  It was an old gnarled apple tree that was still producing apples, the only apple tree anywhere in that patch of woods.  He thought it was so old, and in such a weird spot, that Johnny Appleseed himself might have planted it.  He could have been right.  We both ate part of an apple, even though there were pretty green, just to say we'd eaten an apple off a tree planted by Johnny Appleseed himself.

When I was a little kid in Ohio, My grandpa and grandma on my mom's side lived in a pink duplex in Mansfield, Ohio.  Mansfield was the actual area where a guy named John Chapman went around planting apple trees in the pioneer days, earning himself the nickname "Johnny Appleseed," and spawning a legend.  All of us kids in northern Ohio heard the tale of Johnny Appleseed.  My grandpa Mayer was many things.  He was a German immigrant who'd come to the U.S. as a kid, worked his way through college, and went on to be a pharmacist who never made a single mistake at work his entire life.  He was also an avid gardener, and was usually out working in his huge garden when we'd show up on the weekends.  Unfortunately, these aspects of Grandpa were overshadowed by the fact that he was a really mean drunk.  My memories of him as a kid were this big guy with no shirt working in his garden.  Then he'd take a break inside, watch golf on TV, and drink a quart of Stroh's beer.  Then he'd go back out into the garden and repeat the process.  I've seen him drink five quarts of beer on a Saturday, and he'd get meaner and meaner after each one.  That sucked, because he could be a really cool guy... when he was sober.

In addition to the huge garden, grandpa started planting fruit trees in the backyard when I was four or five.  He planted apples, pears, plums, peaches, and a walnut tree, along with a lot of berry bushes.  For the next few years he pruned and fertilized and nurtured those scrawny little trees, which seemed like a lot of wasted work to my little brain.  But on a good day, he'd show off each tree and tell us how, if he took care of them for the first few years, those trees would grow hundreds of fruits in the coming years.  Sure enough, those first scrawny trees started yielding fruit.  By the time was was about ten, every trip to grandma and grandpa's house in the summer or fall would end with a big basket of fruits and vegetables to take home.  In a similar fashion, grandpa rented out the other side of the duplex, and wound up buying the duplex next door and renting that one out as well.  He ultimately took back half of the backyard of the second duplex, and planted a bunch more trees.  Those trees, as well as the duplexes, returned huge bounties for the rest of the time they lived there.

So what does my grandpa's orchard have to do with anything, not to mention Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple trees in Ohio 200 years ago?  Starting a business is a lot like planting a garden or orchard.  In the early days and years, you do a lot of work that you don't get paid for.  But if you plant the right seeds and fertilize and nurture them, then can return an amazing bounty in later years.  As I start my little business around art and writing, I keep grandpa's orchard in mind.  Today I was reading a book about business and social media in today's world, and even these guys immersed in tech used the apple tree metaphor.  I'm not just drawing pictures to make a few bucks.  I'm trying to invest a lot of time and effort in building a business that will not only allow me to do a lot of creative projects in coming years, but will hopefully have a long term positive impact, a little like Johnny Appleseed's  and grandpa's fruit trees.

But I live in a household where I'm the only one who does any long term thinking.  I'm continually harassed about not making enough money in my first few months of starting a business with absolutely no money.  In effect, every single day I'm encouraged to "chop down my apple trees" and buy a single apple. This is frustrating as fuck.  But I'm not in a position to move to any other situation at this point, so I just have to grin and bear the onslaught of negativity.  The point here?  Keep planting your apple trees and guard them against anything that might destroy them, especially the people who don't think about the future bounty those trees will bring.

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Boom Boom... Out Go The Lights

For the handful of people that read this blog, you know I'm a middle-aged guy who is starting over in life after quite a few years of trials and tribulations.  I'm currently living in an apartment that someone else pays for.  While that sounds like a good deal, the lack of rent is more than made up for in negativity and unnecessary drama.  Yesterday was a prime example.  Lying in bed yesterday morning, I heard someone wrenching on something right outside my window.  I figured it was the maintenance guys working on the heat pump or something.  I rolled over, and slept some more.

When I woke up later, I noticed my clock was blank.  "Crap.  The power's out," I thought.  So I got up, threw some clothes on, and took a leak in the dark.  I checked the rest of the apartment, and yep, the power was completely out.  It wasn't just a single breaker.

It turned out that the power got shut off because the master of this household (which obviously isn't me) just hadn't paid the bill completely.  I was able to draw my pictures by sunlight for a while, but the drama level quickly went through the roof, and I got very little work done.  As usual, I tried to calm things down initially, and to add some rational thought to the situation.  That's what always gets me into trouble here, rational thought is NEVER welcome in this apartment.  Long story short, I got kicked out of the apartment twice yesterday for offering my point of view, and a non-family member bailed us out.  It was just a bad day all around.  Hope today goes a little better.

I'm no longer writing this blog, check out my newer stuff at:
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Achieving Your Goals

This clip of Jim Carrey shows the most extreme example of visualization and goal setting that I'm aware of.  It worked for him... it can work for you.

When I was in high school in Boise, Idaho in the mid 80's, I used to joke with my dad that I didn't really need to go to college.  I told him I wanted to start my own business, and that I didn't need a degree to hire myself.  We laughed and didn't think much about it then.  Well, I know he definitely wanted me to get a degree, but he didn't push the idea too hard.  I really did want to own my own business.  But I was incredibly shy then, and didn't have the personality to pull it off, though I tried a few times.  Now, three decades later, I am finally committing to building my own business.  Much to my surprise, I'm starting it with artwork, which seems one of the sketchiest possible ways to start a business.  I didn't even think of myself as a visual artist when I started this six months ago.  I was desperate in one sense, despite a wide variety of job experience over 30+ years, I could not get hired for ANYTHING here in this small North Carolina town where I wound up.  There are many reasons why this might be.  Maybe employers think I'm too old, too fat, too sketchy (since my last career was as a taxi driver) or something else.  But it became very clear I wasn't going to find a job here, let alone a well paying job.  Most other people in this area, facing the same prospect, would double down on applying for jobs, or try to get on Social Security Disability, which is seen as a career path in this part of the country.

But I spent most of my life in and around the actions sports and entertainment industries.  I've seen dozens and dozens of people start businesses and do projects starting with very little.  With that background, I simply made a decision last November to create my own job.  It was as simple as that.  My artwork was the only thing I'd made money at in the past years, though very little money.  I realized I had to step up my game artistically, and I started my business with absolutely no money.  I did a couple of drawings for my sister to earn my first little bit of cash, and I kept going from there.  I was living for free with my mom, in an quiet little apartment, so I had that going for me.  But we're always in financial crisis, which has been a big challenge.  I had no phone, no money, very few art supplies to start, a tired old laptop, and a background in blogging.  No one, not one single person, thought drawing pictures was a good idea.  Some of you realize that means I did have one more thing.  A belief I could actually do this.  I'd made my dreams happen, some of them, anyhow, decades ago as a BMX freestyler.  I know from experience that the "impossible" is actually possible.  That is the biggest thing I had going for me.  Then my laptop broke.  It didn't crash, the hinge literally broke.  So I was starting a internet based art business... with no computer.  My next few drawings paid for an old, but functional (barely) refurbished laptop.

As 2016 was starting, I realized I needed to raise money to really get this idea going.  I decided to go with a crowdfunding campaign, specifically, a Go Fund Me page.  I built the page and set a goal of raising $1,000.  I'll be honest, that seemed absurd four months ago.  I had no idea whatsoever if anyone would contribute.  For the first few days, they didn't.  Then my mom's best friend Linda took pity on me and donated $20.  It was a start, but would anyone else follow? I didn't know.

I looked at my approach, and revised it.  Instead of asking for donations, I raised my asking amount to $25, and offered to do a 12" X 18" original drawing for anyone who contributed, or a larger drawing for $50.  Like Jim Carrey in the video above, I started visualizing drawing pictures as well, though not near as intensely as I should have.  I started getting orders for drawings.  They started coming from people I hadn't talked to in years or from people I only knew through Facebook.  Now, about 31/2 months later, I've reached my goal when I include the drawings now ordered.  Officially on my Go Fund Me page, I'm $110 short, but I have orders to cover that.  I achieved what initially seemed like a ridiculous goal.  So I'm successful, right?

Yes and no.  I reached my monetary goal, that's true.  But it took me much longer than I'd hoped.  I wanted to earn that $1,000 in a few weeks, and buy a shelving unit to store my supplies, stock up on the Sharpies and paper and other supplies I use, have a couple hundred bucks in my checking account, and most of all, buy a good digital camera so I can start shooting my own photos to draw pictures from.  Well, I have a small stockpile of art supplies, but I'm low on certain colors of Sharpies.  My checking account in running on empty at the moment, mostly because I had to spend much more than I hoped on basic household stuff, like food and prescriptions and all that.  The good digital camera is still sitting in a store waiting for me, I haven't even come close to buying it yet.

The lessons here?  Goals need to be specific.  Visualization does work, but you have to actually do the work after you visualize it.  There are always other, unforseen expenses when starting a small business.  There are always aspects to the goal we don't think of.  For example, I visualized achieving my goal to earn $1,000 with my art, but I didn't get around to visualizing buying and using that digital camera.  Most importantly, goals are about building a belief that something will actually happen.  Also, goals are an ongoing process.  In six months, starting with literally no money, I can now call myself a "self-employed artist/writer."  But I'm not truly making a living yet.  So it's time to ponder on the goals I just achieved, and use what I learned to set the next set of goals to raise me to the next level.

Generally speaking... I'm stoked.  Things didn't turn out quite how I wanted them to, but then, they never do.  I'm off to a slow but solid start to building my own business, and that's what it's all about for me right now.

I'm no longer writing this blog, check out me new stuff at:
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Who Was Jane Jacobs?

This video above is Dr. Richard Florida, who has given us a new picture of economic development and where we are as a society right now with his concept of the Creative Class.  At 31:13 in this clip, he mentions Jane Jacobs, who was a great mentor of his.

Much like many other days, many of you went to the Google homepage today to find a doodle about some woman you never heard of.  Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jane Jacobs.  So who was Jane Jacobs?  She was a woman who wrote several books about cities, and how people interact in cities.  As Richard Florida mentions above, she saw her biggest contribution to the world as figuring out that it's the interaction of a diverse group of people that ultimately form small businesses, start-ups of larger businesses, and every other kind of "progress."  Economic development, at it's very core, comes out of these interactions of people in cities.  Jane realized that factories and multi-national corporations improved efficiency, but they themselves didn't cause economic growth.  It was people getting together, talking, arguing, brainstorming, and drinking that led to new ideas.  Those new ideas turned into a variety of things, from bands and art projects to small businesses, social movements, larger start-up businesses, and inventions and innovations of all kinds.

At a time when society is literally in constant and massive change, we need all the good ideas we can get as a species.  Jane Jacobs, who never got a college degree or accepted an honorary one, was the person who simply watched and saw the magic happening around her in Greenwich Village, and reported it to the world in her books. 

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 Get Weird Make Money

Why The Rest Of The World Seems To Care So Much About Transgender People

This clip above is Professor Richard Florida, then at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, from about 2002 or 2003.  He's speaking to a group of civic leaders in San Diego, California about the findings in his then recent book, The Rise of the Creative Class.

I'm writing this on April 21st, 2016.  Less than a month ago, the North Carolina legislature passed a law, known commonly as "HB 2" or "The Bathroom Bill."  The law was passed in a special session of the legislature, and was so controversial that the Democratic state senators actually got up and walked out, refusing to even vote on the bill.  As most of you know, the most famous issue in the law is that transgender people are mandated to use the public restrooms of the sex on their birth certificate, not the gender they currently identify with.  The law had several other provisions, and was passed using the fear tactic that the legislature was trying to keep creepy guys from dressing up as women and molesting young girls in the bathrooms.  OK, nobody wants that to happen.  But in the 200+ cities that have a similar ordinance, including Greensboro, NC, that molestation case hasn't been an issue.  I haven't seen one case brought up where that actually happened.  HB 2 was passed hurriedly in response to an anti-discrimination ordinance by the city of Charlotte.

This blog post is not about whether you're for or against HB 2.  This post is about the incredible reaction to HB2, and the long term consequences of passing that law.  In less than a month since HB 2 passed, Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in Greensboro because of the law.  Ringo Star cancelled a show because of the law.  Pearl Jam cancelled a show.  Cirque du Soleil, a huge French Canadian circus, has cancelled all of its upcoming shows in NC, including shows in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh.  Paypal cancelled a planned expansion, including adding 400 jobs, to the Charlotte area.  Deutsche Bank, a huge German-based bank, has also cancelled a planned expansion in NC, this one would have brought 200 jobs with it.  Cyndi Lauper did not cancel her planned concert in NC, but instead said she would give the proceeds from that show to an NC based organization that fights for LGBT (that's Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgender) rights.  In addition, this law and its reaction have made national, and even world news, on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and other major news programs.  In a very rare political move, top porn website X-Hamster first banned people in NC from visiting its website, instead putting up a page to let people know that the word "shemale" had been searched for over 48,000 times this year by North Carolina residents.  Later X-Hamster put up another page asking if you agree with HB 2.  It you clicked "yes," you were banned from its website.  In addition to all of that, the Raleigh convention center has reported that planned events totaling $7 million in economic impact have been cancelled.  The Greensboro convention people have just reported that events adding up to $5 million in economic impact have been cancelled in that city.  Future sporting events such as the NBA All-Star Game, NCAA events, and the X-Games are now in limbo.

If all that wasn't enough negative reaction to this state law, over 100 top executives at major companies also signed an open letter stating their opposition to HB 2.  Those who signed the latter include Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Tim Cook of Apple.  Even a top executive of Levi Strauss & Co. signed it.  Levi's jeans is now mad at North Carolina.  When's the last time you heard Levi's take a political stand?  To top it all off, Stephen Colbert opened his late night show a couple nights ago with a comedy sketch making fun of HB 2 that ended with guys dressed as Abe Lincoln and Robert E.Lee making out with each other.  Others are saying that BILLIONS of dollars in Federal money may be diverted from North Carolina because of HB 2, because of anti-discrimination clauses in Title IX laws.  At this point, it appears that the negative effects of passing HB 2 will likely run into the billions of dollars in coming years, and very likely tens of billions or hundreds of billions in lost revenue and business, because the Republican legislature and Republican governor McCrory of North Carolina have alienated most of the high tech businesses of the world.

I understand that social conservatives don't like gay and transgender people.  That's their right.  I understand that many people would like to pretend that gay and transgender people simply don't exist.  The issue is that HB 2 forces discrimination against some of these people.  It also keeps cities in North Carolina from passing their own ordinances that are more open to these people and other minority groups.  That's why so many people are pissed off at North Carolina right now.  They simply hate the idea of legislated discrimination.

So what? you may say.  This is a tiny group pf people we're talking about.  According to Wikipedia, the best statistics estimate that 3.3% of the North Carolina population is part of the LGBT community, that's 244,000 people.  If all those people were in a single city, that would be the fifth largest city in NC, a bit smaller than Greensboro and larger than Winston-Salem. 

Why are there so many people outside of North Carolina taking a stand against this law?  Now we get to the work of Professor Richard Florida, who's groundbreaking work in economic development really got going when he taught at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.  He explains his initial concepts in the speech above.  Professor Florida was teaching the well known theories of economic development, when he started realizing they weren't really working anymore.  Pittsburgh, much like Detroit, took a huge hit when the factories started closing in the 1980's and 90's.  But it had a great high tech and research scene, and tech start-ups like Lycos (a pre-Google search engine) spun off from Carnegie Mellon.  But the top students in computer science and related tech were all leaving Pittsburgh.  Even Lycos moved to Boston.  So Professor Florida put his nose to the grindstone and started researching why this was happening.  His research led him to identify a new class of workers in the world, which he dubbed the "Creative Class."  With the industrial revolution 300 or so years ago, agricultural jobs dropped to a small percentage of the workforce, replaced by factory workers in the 1700's and 1800's.  But in the mid-20th century a couple new groups began growing in the workforce.  The largest group is the service workers, a relatively low wage group that now makes up the largest population of the American workforce.  But as the factories shut down, another, mostly high paid group, began to grow exponentially in the workforce.  These are the scientists, engineers, artists, designers, writers, media people, and others who use their intellect and creativity as a main part of their work.  These people make decisions, use their judgement, and create new concepts and ideas.  This group of people is now the main economic driving force in the workforce of both the U.S. and other developed nations.

Despite the ability to use technology and work from virtually anywhere, these people tend to cluster in certain regions.  Florida's research showed him that these highly creative "mega-regions" where the Creative Class congregate have certain things in common.  He dubbed these attributes "The Three T's."  They are Technology, Talent, and Tolerance.  The places where the Creative Class cluster are also the regions doing the best financially.  It's that last "T," Tolerance, that comes into play with HB 2.

Generally speaking, the people driving today's tech-heavy economy want to live in a place that's tolerant to all kinds of people.  These creative people tend to abhor the idea of discrimination, especially official discrimination mandated by law.  Tech and creative people tend to be kind of weird.  The "computer geek" is a major stereotype we all know.  Though, in reality, tech people are often far from that stereotype. But for a city or region to thrive in the modern economy, they need to have a technology base (such as a major university), they need to be able to attract highly talented people, and they need to be tolerant do all kinds of different people.  HB 2 told the world, in effect, "North Carolina is not tolerant to various kinds of people."  That's why there is such a backlash to this law.  That's why this law will have an impact on North Carolina's economy that is completely unimaginable at this early stage.

You, as an individual, are free to believe whatever you want about marginalized groups of people like the LGBT community, transgender people, or any other minority.  But, like it or not, these people exist.  Like it or not, a huge part of the U.S. (and world) population believes these people, like all people, should have the same fundamental legal rights as everyone else.  But in today's world, overt discrimination will have huge financial consequences, as well as other social consequences.  Any city or region can pass any law it sees fit.  But the cities and regions that are seen as intolerant to minority groups will find it harder and harder to remain viable economically in the 21st century.  You can be as big a bigot as you want, but the business world is changing rapidly, and the extremely discriminatory regions are being left behind.  Hey, you can start living like the Amish if you want, they have viable economies without modern technology.  But if you want to discriminate against marginalized groups AND thrive in today's business world, it's going to get harder and harder.  If you're a millennial from North Carolina who wants to have a career at the leading edge of technology, you may very well have to move to somewhere else.  Little acts like passing HB 2 have huge consequences in today's world, consequences that may very well affect every single one of the 10,000,000+ people in this state.  Only you can decide if that price is worth discrimination.

Just for the record, I'm a straight guy who has spent most of my adult life in California, where I interacted with dozens and dozens of different groups of people, including people in the LGBT community.  My biggest insight to share from that is that people are people, and we have more in common with each other than we have that separates us.

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