Standing in line at the Job Fair

The world is changing rapidly.  Are you?

My name is Steve Emig, and a couple of years ago I was unemployed and went to a job fair at First Christian Church in Kernersville, NC.  At the time, my resume' was made up of taxi driving and gaps in employment.  I'd done a wide range of jobs before that, but no one seemed to care.  I didn't look good on paper and I knew it.  I also didn't look good in person.  I weighed well over 300 pounds and wore thrift store clothes that didn't fit very well, but they were the best I had.

I entered the church and started walking past the line of other people looking to get one of the 100 jobs available that day.  I kept walking and walking.  I thought I was going to see a "Welcome to Virginia" sign before I got to the end of that line.  The line wrapped around the gymnasium and I took my place at the end of it.  While most people were probably hoping for one of the few jobs available, I had different thoughts.  My thought was, "I should start a snack bar next to the line and sell food and drinks to everyone waiting."  My years in Southern California around lots of entrepreneurs gave me a different outlook than most North Carolinians.

An hour or two later, I gave my resume' to a few companies.  One company had a stack of paper resume's well over a foot high.  Hundreds of them.  I handed my resume' to the lady and she added it to the huge stack.  I was so depressed as I walked out of that church that day.  I never heard from any of the companies.

An online article last year said that there are now at least 30 million unemployed and underemployed people in the United States.  I'm one of them.  In my case, I've decided to create my own job.  I do a unique style of artwork with Sharpie markers which you can see at Steve Emig Art.  I'm now working seven days a week doing something I love.  I'm not charging enough for my drawings yet, I'm working on getting my name out there right now.  I'm also a blogger and writer, and have some books I want to right in the coming months and years.  This blog here is dedicated to all of us in the 30 million looking for meaningful and well-paying work.  I hope you'll find something in this blog to make you laugh and help pass the time as you wait in that ridiculously long line at the job fair.  Enjoy.

If you're depressed and need a quick laugh, click here.

If you want to know who the heck I am, go back to the previous post. 

If you want to hear about the best book I've read about finding work in the 21st century, click here.

If you think your life couldn't possibly get any worse, click here.

If you want to see two formerly homeless guys who are now successful, click here.

If you want to know why your resume' doesn't get you a good job, click here. 

Many years ago, when my younger sister was in college, she had a big decision to make.  I created a list of questions to help her figure her dilemma out.  It worked.  Over the years, I've turned that list of questions into a workshop called "How to Find Your Passion in Life."  I'm thinking about starting to give these workshops again.  If you're interested in attending one of these workshops here in the Triad area, email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com .

Who the heck is Steve Emig

This crazy clip is video I shot at the 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails in 1991.  Mission Trails is a desert area outside San Diego, California with lots of hiking and biking trails.  This happened four years before the X-Games started, a year before Mat Hoffman built the first mega quarterpipe, and 12 years before skateboarder Danny Way built the first full Mega Ramp.  Most of the best BMXers in the world were at this contest, and no one had seen a jump like the huge "Death Jump" you see in this clip.  We were all actually afraid someone might die at this contest. 

My name is Steve Emig, and I've lived a pretty weird life.  I was born in Ohio in the 60's, making me one of the old farts of Generation X.  I lived in a series of small towns in Ohio until I was 13, when we moved to New Mexico.  I was a smart, dorky kid who sucked at sports.  I was scared to death most of that year in New Mexico, but I came to love exploring the desert during that time.  A year later, my family moved to Boise, Idaho, where I lived all through high school. 

In a trailer park outside of Boise in 1982, I got into BMX bike riding.  My friends and I rode little jumps and tried to out ride each other night after night.  That fall we learned there was a BMX track in Boise, and we started racing BMX.  I raced all through 1983, then got into the emerging sport of BMX freestyle.  Basically, I was a high school kid doing tricks on a little kids' bike.  I loved it, but everyone else thought I was a n idiot.  But I stuck with it, becoming part of Idaho's first BMX trick team with friend Jay Bickel. 

A year after high school, my family moved to San Jose, California, an area which was just starting to be called "Silicon Valley," because of a lot of computer companies in the area.  I started a BMX zine, (pronounced zeen) which is a small, self-published booklet.  My initial reason was to give me an excuse to meet and interview the pro BMX freestylers in the area.  While I did that, I worked at a local Pizza Hut.  In a turn of events that still boggles my mind, that little zine got me a job at Wizard Publications, the company that put out BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  Suddenly I was part of the BMX industry, and couldn't really believe it.  Instead of reading about the top pro riders every month in the magazines, I was meeting them, writing about them, and driving the photographer to photo shoots.  At 20 years old, I was a guy who never took a single college course, and suddenly I was proofreading two global magazines, and writing articles.  My life went off in an unexpected direction.  I went on to work at the business that put on the BMX freestyle contests, and then moved to a video production company owned by Vision Skateboards. 

I went on to produce and/or edit fifteen low budget bike, skateboard, and snowboard videos.  I contributed to 7 different BMX magazines, and self-published over 30 zines.  I stumbled into the TV production world, and worked on over 300 episodes of a dozen different TV shows.  I spent four years as a crew guy on the set of American Gladiators in the early 90's.  Then, in 1995, I burned out.  I drifted away from the BMX world, though I was still riding my bike every day for fun.  I was sick of working on lame TV shows.  I wanted to produce my own shows, and start my own business, but I just didn't have the personality and the guts to do it. 

I started reading lots of books during that time, on business, economics, philosophy, religion, and personal development.  I went to work as a furniture mover, sometimes moving three houses or apartments in a single day.  It sucked.  I continued to try and figure out what life was all about and where I fit in to this weird world we inhabit.  I went back into the entertainment industry, working as a lighting tech (basically a roadie).  It paid well, but I had to quit because of an injury.  I couldn't do the heavy lifting anymore.

Still not sure where I really wanted to go in life, I wound up working as a taxi driver in 1999.  I did that off and on, and also struggled with homelessness for several years.  Finally the taxi industry took a big dive in 2007, and I became homeless.  No booze, no drugs.  I just couldn't find a job that paid enough to get away from cab driving.  I lived on the streets of Southern California for nearly a full year, panhandling to survive.

With my life stripped down to a daily struggle for survival, I gained a whole different perspective on life.  Many of the personal doubts and issues I'd been struggling with faded.  But I wasn't able to find a good job, or start a business to get myself off the streets.  I called my family in November of 2008, and they scraped together money to fly me to North Carolina, a place I'd never lived.  Remember November of 2008?  The global economy was one the verge of collapse, and no one knew what was going to happen.  There were no jobs to be had here in Kernersville, NC.  Eventually I became a taxi driver in Winston-Salem, but couldn't make a decent living at that. 

Finally, last fall, I decided I needed to create my own job.  I'd been doing this weird type of drawing with Sharpie markers for nearly a decade.  I stepped up my game, and worked on getting work drawing pictures for people.  I'm still in the early stages of this, but I'm drawing seven days a week now.  I'm not charging enough to really pay for the time I put into each drawing, I'm more focused on getting my work out there and building a following at the moment.  I also have two or three books in my head that I want to self-publish in the next two or three years. 

At a time when 30 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, I realized that my best bet was to create my own job.  This blog is dedicated to those 30 million people looking for meaningful and well-paying work in today's crazy world. 

Resumes Are Like Butts

Lets face it, resume's are like butts, everyone has one and most of them are full of crap.  The tech guys in this video talk about how they got great tech jobs.  They did it through personal connections and building cool stuff that shows a potential employer they knew what they were doing and could actually finish something.

That said, I'm not a tech guy.  I did actually get one job from a resume'.  After years in the TV industry in Southern California in the early 90's, I burned  out and wound up working some lame job in Orange County after a while.  I learned there was a small equipment rental company within walking distance of my house.  I didn't know anyone there, so I typed up a resume' and took it over to them.  But I knew from experience that bosses doing the hiring rarely read an entire resume'.  In the TV production world, nearly all jobs are filled through personal contacts.  So in the very bottom of my resume', I wrote, "lost in the woods ages 4 to 9, and raised by raccoons."  I walked over to the company, handed my resume' to the manager, talked a couple minutes, and walked home.  A couple days later they called and said they needed some help for a few days.  An hour into the job, I asked the guy I was working with why they called me.  He said, "We just wanted to see what a guy raised by raccoons was like."  We both had a good laugh, and I made $100 a day prepping equipment for a few days. That was the only time I ever got hired off a resume'.

These days, much of the working world operates like the TV production world did back then.  There are lots of qualified people seeking every decent job.  So how do you set yourself apart?  In the old days, the trick was to make friends.  That hasn't changed.  What has changed over the past 25 years is the internet, smart phones, and social media.  Are you on Linked In?  If you're looking for a decent job, you probably should be.  I'm creating my own job, so I haven't bothered with it.  But I do use Facebook to get art jobs right now.  I'm working my existing network.  Are you?

Here are some tips I've learned from my blogging and social media experience. 

1.  A blog, website, You Tube channel, or good Twitter feed show people you can actually do something.  I blog about my days in the BMX freestyle industry in its early years.  I have a blog of the artwork I'm doing right now.  And I have this blog, aimed at the 30 million unemployed and underemployed people in the U.S.  I'm one of those people, and I got to the point where I had to create my own job.  (More on that in future posts).  What a blog, vlog, You Tube channel, custom Facebook page or other web presence does is show that you're self-motivated.  It also establishes you as a possible expert in your field.  That's a good way to meet people who need talented employees or freelancers.

2.  Use social media to meet people in your chosen field.  As a 20-year-old kid in the BMX bike industry many years ago, I learned that the trick to finding work was to get around the people who make stuff happen.  In any industry, there are relatively few people who are really pushing the progression of the industry.  These days, you can often friend those people on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, link to them on Linked In, or connect in many other ways.  Here's the big trick:  don't connect and ask for a job.  Follow what they publish.  When you have something worthwhile to add, comment or contact them.  Make it short, sweet, and to the point, as the old cliche' goes. 

3.  Social media superstar Gary Vaynerchuk took his parents' New Jersey liquor store from $3 million in sales a year to over $30 million a year.  He did it with internet marketing, a video series, and social media marketing.  He stresses to GIVE what you can to people.  Get to know them, make friends.  Then, and only then, ask them for help, a reference, a job, or to make a sales call. 

For tips on using today's technology in the work world, check out You Tube talks (and blogs and books) by Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and Gary Vaynerchuk.  There are plenty of other people you can learn from, but these three are a great start. 

A Bunch of Jobs Better Than The One Youre Applying For

Again, NSFW.  Here's the funny part, I've actually turned down one of the jobs on this list.  I was offered $9 an hour to test video games in the early 90's, and wasn't interested.  I'm just not a big gamer.  I do actually know a photographer who did some boob adjusting one day.  As the story goes, (and I believe him), as a photo assistant one day, had to stand behind Cindy Crawford and push her boobs together to give the appearance of a bit more cleavage.  Even crazier, he gave up the fashion world to become a top BMX bike photographer. 

As for me, I saw dozens and dozens of boobs while working as a taxi driver.  On one occasion, I had a passenger pay my way into a strip club and... well he paid for some other attention as well.  Why?  He had just returned from another country, and all of his friends had other plans that night.  I got paid to be a professional wing man, sort of.  Good work if you can find it.

Jobs Worse Than The One Youre Applying For

Uh... if you haven't figured out by the still shot, this is a big NSFW.  NOT SAFE FOR WORK, just in case any of you aren't familiar with that acronym. 

I've had some weird jobs over the past three decades.  I spent one day unloading coffins on a TV set.  I got pummeled as a crew guy on American Gladiators.  I've cleaned up the puke of strangers as a taxi driver.  But.. these jobs are all worse.  Somehow animal renderer didn't make the list. 

Are You Having a Bad Day

If you think you're having a bad day, watch this.  Nick Vujicic has no arms, no legs, a loving wife and kid, and more speaking engagements then he can possibly handle.  Still thinking you're having a bad day?

Follow Your Gut

Bleek job prosects.  Heavy Metal.  Tight pants. A huge beard.  Porsches.  Magnus Walker followed his gut through life.  You didn't.  That's why you're standing in a half mile long Job Fair line and he isn't.  That's all I'm going to say about this TED Talk.

How Two Brothers Who Didn't Want to Get Jobs Accidentally Created a Huge Business

Several years ago, Bert Jacobs and his brother graduated college and didn't really feel like getting "real" jobs.  So they made some T-shirts up and sold them in downtown Boston.  Then they made some more shirts.  In this video Bert tells a great and entertaining story of how their business grew into something neither of the brothers expected. 

How a Book I read 27 Years Ago Predicted Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

This video is a Power Point presentation of P.R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycles.  This is the most incredible theory on human society I have ever seen, and this video only has 373 views.  If you are interested in how society changes over time, and have 43 minutes, check out this video.

In the late 80's, I was living in Southern California and working in the BMX bike and skateboard industries.  My dad, a design engineer, got a job in North Carolina.  For Christmas in 1989, I flew to my parents' house in Greensboro, NC for a week.  I didn't take my BMX freestyle bike, which I usually rode two or three hours every day.  I was bored out of my skull, and picked up a book to read while in NC.  That book was The Great Depression of 1990 by economist Ravi Batra.  Yeah, I know, it's a pretty boring sounding book to most people.  But I wanted to start my own business then, and was taking an interest in business, economics, and the future.  For me, it was a fascinating book.  Many of you may be thinking, "Wait, there was no Great Depression in 1990."  Technically, that's true.  What we did have was a "double-dip recession" that lasted from mid 1990 to about 1996.  That's about as close as you can get to a depression without actually having one.  One many levels, Batra was right, the economic downturn just wasn't quite a deep as he predicted.

That brings us to the next question.  How did he predict that economic quagmire?  Ravi Batra was from Indian descent (India Indians, not the Native American ones) and he was familiar with The Law of Social Cycles, thought up by P.R. Sarkar.  It's an amazing and deep theory.  But here's the gist of it.  Sarkar believed that there were four basic mentalities in any society.  These are the Acquisitors (business focused people), the Laborers (those who work for the others), the Warriors (people who earn a living with courage and physical abilities), and the Intellectuals (those who earn their living with their brains).  At any given time, one of these mentalities is dominate in society.  That dominant mindset shapes all of society.

Here's where it gets really crazy.  One of these mindsets can dominate a society for hundreds of years.  There's no set duration.  But the four mentalities dominate in a certain order, the order I listed them above.  By Batra's estimation, the U.S. has been in the Acquisitor Age since it first formed as a colony.  In 1989, he said we were getting to the point where the business world was ripe with corruption, and the average people were getting tired of being screwed over.  That corruption would lead to the collapse of the Acquisitor (businesspeople) Age, and the Laborers would rise up en mass and fight back to even things out.  Basically, since I read that book in 1989, I've been waiting for a big populist movement in this country as a reaction to the massive corruption and wealth inequality.  

Some of the first evidence of this societal change was the Occupy Wall Street movement.  It started with a small group of activists, and seemed to catch fire across the country in a matter of weeks.  Simply put, it was an idea whose time had come.  People across the country (and much of the world) were sick and tired of working harder, longer hours, all for a decreasing standard of living.  People of the Baby Boomer and Generation X have watched thousands of factories close up, the jobs taken by robots or workers overseas.  There seem to be fewer high paying jobs and more low wage service jobs.  In addition, younger people struggled through college only to end up with a mountain of debt and few good job prospects.  Then came the real estate market collapse and The Great Recession.  That horrific economic downturn morphed into a really anemic economy.  Politicians kept trying to tell us that the economy was back.  But us everyday people knew better. 

Then, as the 2016 presidential campaign got going, a couple of unexpected candidates jumped in the race.  On the Republican side, New York City real estate mogul, billionaire, and reality TV star Donald Trump started making fun of nearly everyone.  His crazy, racist, sexist, inflammatory comments sparked a lot of media attention... and supporters.  At first his fellow Republicans saw him as a joke.  No one took him seriously.  But his hatred, anger, and salty comments have now turned to votes.  He tapped into a huge number of people in the U.S. who are pissed off about something.  A lot of these people are racist.  Some are religious fanatics.  Some are sick of no longer having high paying factory jobs like those that existed 20 or 30 years ago.  As a group, Trump supporters are afraid.  They're afraid of an uncertain future in a slew of different ways.  Now we've come to the point where much of the Republican establishment is actually trying to wipe out their top presidential candidate because he doesn't represent the Republican party they worked so hard to build.  In a sense, it's a surprise political revolution.

On the Democrat side, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere and started attracting crowds of 20,000 to 30,000 people to his events.  He's a die hard progressive, and a self-proclaimed democratic socialist.  The Democratic Party thought Hilary Clinton was a shoe-in for the nomination.  She is leading at this point by a fair margin, but Bernie Sanders has tapped into a populist sentiment in the U.S. that the Democratic leadership didn't realized existed.  On both sides of the political aisle, candidates no one expected to do well are showing just how much American citizens are sick of politics as normal in Washington D.C.  Bernie Sanders actually campaigns on the platform that this country needs a political and economic revolution.  The highly educated, highly motivated political operatives of both major parties have no idea how to deal with Sanders and Trump.  These unexpectedly strong presidential campaigns seemed to surprise nearly everyone.  Except perhaps economist Ravi Batra.  Using the Law of Social Cycles, he saw a huge populist movement coming nearly 30 years ago. 

The 10 Year Old Who Makes over a Million Dollars a Year on You Tube

This post has a personal connection for me.  Last Thanksgiving, I was invited to my sister's house in Greensboro (NC) for dinner.  She was cooking, family members were chatting, and my niece and nephew were texting.  Typical family during the holidays.  In the course of conversation, someone asked about my sister's best friend from high school.  My sister said something like, "She's doing great, she's married and has two kids.  Oh... and her 9-year-old makes over a million a year on You Tube."  I laughed.  My sister said she was serious, then pulled out her phone and showed me one of these EvanTube HD videos.  She wasn't kidding.  When Evan was five, his dad, who's an accomplished video producer, thought it would be fun to have Evan review some toys on You Tube.  So they made a video and uploaded it.  Then they made another video... and another.

In the clip above, you see Evan at age seven putting together a Lego set with 3,800 pieces, rated for ages 14 and up.  Evan is a really smart kid, personable, and does great in front of the camera.  His You Tube channel took off, gained hundreds of thousands, and ultimately millions of views, and attracted attention from toy makers.  Now he not only gets free toys, he gets paid to make videos reviewing them.  This is a business that didn't even exist 15 years ago.  Evan and his family didn't set out to make Evan a superstar or a school age millionaire.  They just made some fun videos, made them in HD with good editing, and it took off from there. 

My point is not that you should write to Evan and ask him for a loan.  My point is that in today's weird, high tech enabled, connected world, businesses like this are possible.  Just for the record, as I understand it, most of the money is going into a college fun for Evan and his sister.  Evan and his family are using technology to their advantage.  Are you?

Two Formerly Homeless Guys Talk Success on a TV Show

Gotcha.  Did you know that legendary comedian and TV host Steve Harvey used to live in his car?  If you watch his talk show regula'rly, you may have heard him mention it.  In this clip, Steve interviews DeStorm Power, a formerly homeless guy who became a social media mogul on Vine, and has turned that into a TV hosting job on BET.  Listen to what he says.  Work hard.  It's possible.  What's holding you back?

Confessions of a Former Luddite

Like most high tech Luddites of the 1990's and early 2000's, I didn't really know where the term "Luddite" came from.  This short video explains it, if you're curious.

Here's what screwed up my thoughts about the internet.  In the late 90's, one of the guys I worked with was lead singer in a band.  It wasn't a huge band, they played good ol' rock n roll, and they had a hardcore local following.  He invited me to a party at the band's house after one of their shows.  It was a good party, guys and girls drinking an socializing, music playing and all the normal party stuff.  At one point, someone led me into another room.  In that room were several drunk party goers surrounding a computer screen.  On the screen were several small pics of other people they were communicating with.  "That guy's in Norway!" someone said, pointing to one of the pictures.  That was my introduction to the internet.  Drunk and stoned people in Anaheim, California typing messages back and forth to drunk and stoned people in other parts of the country and the world.  I wasn't very impressed.

A year or two later I became a taxi driver, and spent most of my time sitting in the taxi.  At that time, the Dot Com boom was in full swing, and it just seemed ridiculous to me.  I didn't like new technology.  I didn't see any point in changing.  It sure looked like this "whole internet thing" was a bunch of hype.  I decided to just wait it out for a few years, and see what became of it all.  Sure enough, the Dot Com bubble burst in the early 2000's, and things fell apart.  At that time, I was still working as a taxi driver, and couldn't afford a computer.  I spent most of my time sitting in my cab and waiting for calls.  I would occasionally go to the local library, rent a computer for $5 an hour, and check my email and look a few things up on Google.  That was it for me.  I still saw no point in the whole internet thing.I didn't get it.

Then, in 2003, the taxi company I worked for switched to a computer dispatching system.  Every cab had a $2500 computer mounted in it, and it KILLED our business.  Literally overnight, our business dropped to almost nothing, and I struggled to survive.  Like so many other people in other industries, I was minding my own business when technology came out of nowhere and completely changed my industry.  I wasn't able to escape taxi driving over the next few years, and I worked more and more hours, and eventually wound up homeless.

A year later, when I moved in with my parents in North Carolina, I had daily (and free) access to a computer for the first time.  I started playing around on it.  I was unemployed, in my early 40's, living with my parents, and really depressed.  The Great Recession was in full swing, and nobody was sure what was going to happen.  I started blogging about my early days in the BMX freestyle world.  I didn't think anyone would read what I wrote.  It was just a creative release for me.  After about a month of blogging, one of my posts went viral in the old school BMX freestyle community online.  I didn't even know there was an old school BMX freestyle community online.  Suddenly I started reconnecting with lots of old friends through the internet.  My BMX blog became the #1 blog in its niche in the world.  I did a follow up blog when the first one ran its course.  That blog became #1 in its niche.  I was still unemployed, but my blogs about BMX, and later homelessness, drew in over 160,000 page views.

One day someone emailed me and wrote, "you know some people make money with blogs, right?"  I had no idea.  So I started looking up blogging and learning more about it.  That took my life in a new direction.  I'm basically a writer at heart, and I started learning how technology had completely changed the writing industry.  I began searching for my place in this new and changing world.  I also learned that very few people actually make money form their blogs.  But blogs are really good even if you don't directly make money from them.  That led to this blog you're reading right now.  Millions of people in this country are now unemployed or under-employed.  One big reason is because technology (and social change) have completely changed the game where work and business are concerned.  This blog is to share what I, myself, have learned on these subjects.  Hopefully you'll get something positive out of this blog that will help in your work life. 

High Praise For Middle Aged Entrepreneurs

In this article in Venture Beat, they report that actual research is showing that middle-aged entrepreneurs are actually more successful more often than the young entrepreneurs that turn into media darlings, and then go under.  The studies say that life and work experience are the reasons more older entrepreneurs find long term success.  Good to know.

Seth Godins Linchpin idea in 9 minutes

If you're checking out this post right now, there's a good chance I just gave you a flier about this blog while you're standing in a ridiculously long line of people at a job fair.  Bored?  Sure you are.  Nervous?  Probably.  That person a few people ahead of you may have a much better resume' than you.  Or maybe not.  What does it take to get a great job in today's working environment?  Heck what does it take to get any job in today's working environment.  Seth Godin says it takes a "linchpin."

Who the heck is Seth Godin?  He's a marketing guy who dove into the world of the internet in its earliest days of the 1990's.  More than anything, Seth really understands how today's technology is changing the working world.  He gets it.  One of his books, Linchpin, talks about what type of person is really valuable in today's working world.  The video clip above gives you a quick look at this idea.  Now, look at that line in front of you again.  Do you have 9 minutes to listen?  This idea could totally change how you think about work.  Listen to this clip.  After that you can watch his full, 52 minute speech on You Tube, or even better, you could read the book.  It's worth it.

Panhandling or Guerilla Marketing

I'm not homeless like I was a few years ago.  But I'm not making a good living yet, either.  Why shoot a photo like this?  It's funny.  In today's social media world, funny can go a long way.  This photo will get a few shares.  Heck, it might wind up getting a lot of shares.  If it brings some people to my blog, this piece of cardboard with hand lettering has done its job.  If it makes you chuckle, then it has really done its job.

Funny Panhandling Sign 15

I actually used this sign back in 2012.  At the time, I didn't have a PayPal account.  I just thought it was funny.  I really like this sign, because it shows just how much, and how fast our world is changing these days.  If you go back to this post, you'll see there is a panhandler in Michigan who actually has a website and accepts credit cards on his phone with Square.  Or at least he did until his phone got stolen.  This may seem like a big joke, but on today's world, this is the kind of thinking it takes to get your life back on track if you're really down and out.  Homeless people just can't walk into a factory, fill out a paper application, and interview for a job like they once did.  These days our resume's are digital, the job scans keywords, and it's difficult to even talk to the person doing the hiring in many cases.  If they do interview you, what do they check next?  Your background, probably your credit report, and your social media.  These changes in the hiring process make it much, much more difficult for a homeless person to get hired for the job that may eventually pull them out of their financial quagmire.  If you haven't been homeless, or chronically unemployed, these ideas may never have crossed your mind.  But they're a reality in today's world.  And that's what this blog is about.  On my journey to get my life back on track, I'm dealing with many of the issues that 30 million other people are dealing with in today's rapidly changing working world.  Just because you can do the job, doesn't mean you can get the job.  Even if you do get the job, it might not pay enough to get on top of things financially.

I've been near the bottom.  I've lived on the streets and panhandled to survive, despite my reasonably high I.Q., my willingness to work hard, and my background of working long hours.  It still wasn't enough.  If you can relate to any of that, you'll probably find some interesting posts on this blog.  Good luck on your  journey through these issues. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 14

I think this is the funniest sign I ever came up with.  People just didn't know what to think.  Some cracked up laughing on the spot.  Many others just gave me really puzzled looks.  Oh, did I mention that I'm a guy and weigh well over 300 pounds?  So I guess this sign just created a mental picture that people wanted to un-see.  Just for the record, no one ever gave me $50. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 13

OK, this sign came out of frustration.  Here in North Carolina, A LOT of people think that talking about Jesus to a panhandler is helpful.  I hate to burst your bubble, but it's not.  Nothing against Jesus himself, but every panhandler I ever met already knew who Jesus was.  Telling a homeless person that Jesus loves them doesn't help the immediate situation.  Sure, it's a nice sentiment, but when you drive away, that person is still homeless, pretty broke, and likely hungry.  Here's an idea, DO SOMETHING to actually help the situation.  Give them a dollar, a slice of the pizza you're taking home (that has actually happened to me), or just yell, "Hang in there, man!" 

The thing about The South is that a lot of people grew up thinking that some people actually deserve to be homeless.  Even worse, these Bible thumping Christians talk to homeless people in a completely condescending way.  The Christians I met while on the streets completely turned me off to organized religion.  I still believed in God, but I didn't want to go to church ever again because I was so sick of religious people talking down to me.  It was a long time before I started going to church again.  The point here?  Telling a down and out person about Jesus doesn't put them to work.  You may actually turn someone completely off to religion by "witnessing" to them.  If helping the homeless isn't your thing, fine, leave them alone.  If you do want to help, a little food, or a simple "Hi" is a good place to start.  See if you can help their immediate situation.  THEN invite them to your church.

Funny Panhandling Sign 12

The top sign here was an idea that I got from the internet.  But I had to add my own twist to it, so I wrote the second slogan on the back of the sign.  If someone laughed at the first side, I'd flip it over.  This sign got a lot of laughs.  Many times, the money was so bad panhandling, that I'd do it mostly just for the entertainment.  If that sounds dumb, think up a slogan of a few words and see if you can make a complete stranger laugh with it.  Ask any stand-up comic, getting laughs consistently is a hard thing to do.  I literally thought of myself as a roadside comic when I was using the funny signs.  It's really cool to see someone pull up with a sour look on their face, see my sign, and burst out laughing.  It's awesome.  If they gave me a buck or two, even better.

It got to the point that I actually had fans.  Yes, a panhandler with fans.  Delivery drivers and people who drove the same way every day would stop and tell me that they actually looked forward to my signs every day.  Think about that.  There aren't many panhandlers in the world that can say that. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 11

This idea, like many ideas, came to me while I was out panhandling.  One of the weird things about panhandling is that I usually seemed to be in a better mood than all the people driving by me.  Someone shouted something at me one day, I don't remember exactly what, but my response was to yell back, "Hey, at least I'm not related to you."  They drove off, and I thought, "hey, that'd be a pretty funny sign." 

Funny Panhandling Sign 10

This is one I thought up.  Personally, I thought this was one of my better signs.  It didn't get as many laughs as the Lexus sign, but pretty close.  I also had quite a few people take pics of this one. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 9

This sign was usually good for a few laughs.  Other people just thought it was dumb.  Dumb people, they thought it was dumb.  Lighten up people, it's only homelessness.  If I really had a Lamborghini that needed brakes, I'd be selling the kids on Craigslist to pay for it.

Funny Panhandlilng Sign 8

This sign was one I thought was funny.  But in North Carolina it just confused people.  A couple seemed to think we were still fighting this war.  C'mon people, Google it.

Funny Panhandling Sign 7

If you live in the South, you know there's a fast food joint called Chick-Fil-A.  Their commercials have these amazing cows who have signs that say Eat Mor Chikn.  Or something like that.  The cows and rappel, parachute, and do all these crazy things, but somehow they can't spell.  So this was my funny take on that slogan.  This sign was AMAZINGLY popular with rednecks.  A couple yelled out of their trucks at me claiming that they'd actually eaten 'possum.  Luckily for me, none of them offered to share any.

Funny Panhandling Sign 6

This is another idea I got off the web.  Usually they say "alcohol research," but I don't drink.  Pizza is more my style.  Mmmmmmmmm... pizza.  Sounds good right about now.

Funny Panhandling Sign 5

At one point while homeless, I went to the library, got on the computer, and searched for funny panhandling signs.  There were only about a dozen photos online then.  One guy had a sign that said, "Bet you can't hit me with a quarter."  As a fat guy with a sweet tooth, I put my own spin on that idea.  One time, a guy in the second lane threw a Moon Pie or something at me.  Not a Twinkie, but close enough.  I'm still pissed at Hostess for when they stopped making Twinkies and then brought them back in a tiny size.  WTF?

Funny Panhandling Signs 4

This sign, by far, got the most laughs and biggest response when I was homeless in North Carolina.  I can't remember how many people honked or waved and then yelled out their window, "Me too! I need a Lexus, too." 

Funny Panhandling Sign 3

Another panhandling slogan I actually used when I was homeless.  This one was the best sign for getting teen and 20-something women to take my photo.  I have no idea how many times this sign wound up on Facebook back then.

Funny Panhandling Sign 2

Here's another one of the funny panhandling slogans I actually used when I was homeless. 

Funny Panhandling Sign 1

To explain why this blog is called "Bum to Bankroll," I have to first admit to being a bum.  I'm not talking about a guy who sits on the couch and doesn't take showers for three days.  OK, I'm that kind of bum, too. Sometimes.  But in late 2007, I could no longer afford to keep driving a taxi in Orange County, California.  I walked away for both financial and health reasons.  For almost a year, I lived on the streets of Southern California, panhandling to survive.  The streets sound cool in gangsta rap songs.  But they are far from cool in reality.  How did I wind up homeless?  By working 80 to 100 hours a week as a taxi driver.  No booze.  No drugs.  Well, a lot of caffeine to work them crazy hours, but that was it.  I became completely homeless by working more hours a week than most people ever will.  The industry was dying, and I just couldn't scrape up enough money to escape. 

My panhandling sign usually read "Homeless and Hungry."  Simple, to the point, and effective.  But after a while I started putting funny slogans on the back of my signs.  If nobody responded to the front of the sign, I'd show the funny slogan.  It worked a fair amount of the time.  This is one of the slogans I actually used when I was a panhandler. 

Business Income Is Not A Paycheck

In starting my own art business in the last couple of months, there's a lot I'm dealing with.  On one hand, that's good, I like to stay busy.  One the other hand, it can lead to stress.  Yesterday I delievered two large drawings to a local woman and she was stoked on them.  That put some money in my pocket.  I'm currently living with my mom, and have been since my dad died 3 years ago.  Since I was a taxi driver for years, I now think like a businessman.  Cash in my pocket doesn't mean that I have any money.  It just means the business has a little.  My mom, on the other hand, has always had traditional jobs that give you a paycheck.  When you get that paycheck, you buy groceries, pay bills, and maybe go out for dinner or a movie or whatever. 

In a small business, it's totally different.  I started my business with literally NO MONEY.  I've been building an online business with no computer of my own.  My laptop physically broke in late November.  I also have no smart phone, not even a dumb phone, very few business supplies, and lots of other immediate needs to keep this little business chugging along to the point where I can pay the bills I need to pay.  But my mom sees income as a paycheck.  I'm reminded we need milk.  And eggs.  I don't eat eggs... can't stand them.  And dish soap.  The bottle we bought last week is gone already.  The list continues.  My priority is to get my laptop fixed, because I haven't had the computer time to do everything I need to do.  I just barely have the money to get it fixed right now.  But that causes extra drama in the household.  This is just one of the multitude of issues that have reared their head in my life.  The drama part sucks.  But the art is a blast.  Gotta just keep plugging away.  Or as our Carolina Panthers football team says, #keeppounding. 

30 Million Unemployed and Underemployed in the US

This clip is not the most entertaining, but it's really informative about today's work environment.

In this Gallup article, The Big Lie, from a year ago, it states that the real number of unemployed people and severely underemployed people, tops 30 million in the U.S..  And now there's worry that we're dropping into another recession.  This is what this blog is about.  I'm one of those 30 million people. 

How did this happen?  Here are some of the main reasons, which I will go into more detail in with future blog posts.

-Millions of American jobs have been lost to automation in recent decades, this includes everything from industrial robots to computer programs, to everyday conveniences like ATM machines.

-Millions more factory jobs have been shipped overseas to countries across the world with much lower wages and less environmental regulations.

-The massive change in personal technology, like personal computers, the internet, cell phones then smart phones, social media, etc. has changed the way we communicate.  This has changed business and the workplace at a fundamental level.

-Technology has led to a new kind of job rising to the forefront, jobs that require more tech savy, more thinking, and more creativity.  These jobs pay well, but they're not what our school system teaches people.

- Our school system was created in the late 1800's to turn farmers into factory workers.  It completely fails to prepare today's kids for the jobs that now exist and will exist in the future.

- Most civic leaders still don't really understand this.  Our country is being led by people who still have the "bring back the high-paying factory jobs" mentality.  They're fighting the wrong battle at this point.

The Human Cost of Super Bowl 50

I'm not usually a fan of Fox Sports, but this is a really good  article about how San Francisco has driven the homeless from their "homes" to present a better city image for Super Bowl 50.  On one hand, I've become a Carolina Panther fan while living here in NC.  I've been an underdog throughout my life, and have a tendency to root for the underdogs I see.  That's what the Panthers always seemed to be.  Here's why I became a Panthers fan.  Years ago I was watching a game, it was third and fifteen, Panthers ball.  They RAN IT, and converted.  Next series it was third and 17, they RAN IT, and converted.  Next series it was third and 15 again.  They ran it, and converted.  I thought, "OK, I can root for this team."  Any team who can pound away like that has my respect.  So I want the Panthers to win the Super Bowl to finish off this amazing season.

But there's another part of me that knows how ridiculous huge events like the Super Bowl are.  I heard on the news that San Jose, Santa Clara, and San Francisco are spending $50 million on this football game.  Obviously, there are a lot of other things they could spend that amount of money on.  I've lived in San Jose.  So I know that "The City," as locals call San Francisco (not "San Fran" or Frisco") is an hour's drive in traffic from the stadium in Santa Clara, which is at the very bottom of the San Francisco Bay.  It huddles into San Jose.  So 40 miles from the actual staduim, homeless people have been pushed out to God knows where at this point.  That really, REALLY sucks.  The good news is that this attack on the homeless people's daily lives has backfired on the city.  Instead of quietly moving the homeless out of sight, San Franccisco's homeless problem has been brought front and center.  Hopefully some good will come out of all of this.

Crowd Funding My Small Business

Singer/songwriter/musician Amanda Palmer went to college and then worked as a self-employed "human statue" for years while getting her music career going.  She's now one of the best known musician/entrepreneurs out there.  She has a really hardcore following of around 25,000 people.  That makes her a loser to most major record companies.  Yet she did a crowdfunding campaign to produce an album a couple years ago and raised a record $ 1 million+.  She encourages people to download and torrent her music.  Yet she's doing better than most musicians out there, and doing it on her own terms.  If you are an artist, have any kind of business (or even a non-profit), I highly recommend taking 14 minutes to listen to her TED Talk above.  It's a great insight into how to be a working artist these days.

A couple weeks ago, I started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1,000 to get my small business going.  For the most part, I'm hitting up old friends from the BMX world, and other people in my Facebook world.  I had no idea when I started if this would actually work.  To my old friends and acquaintances, this raises a bunch of questions.  Why didn't I start a business 25 or 30 years ago like so many of my friends did?  Why don't I have a "normal" job at age 49?  Why did I suddenly decide to become an artist?  Why not go drive for Uber since I used to be a taxi driver?  Why am I broke at my age?  Why would anyone give money to a guy who used to be homeless?  Why don't I borrow money from my local friends and neighbors here in North Carolina?  I'm sure it goes on and on. 

So here are some of those answers.  I wanted to start a business 30 years ago, but I was way too shy to be a good salesman.  I've learned over the years that, like it or not, selling is a huge part of running a business.  That sounds obvious, I know.  But a lot of people, especially in creative work, work on an idea but aren't able to sell it.  Either you have to be your own salesperson, or you have to hire one.  That's why my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend didn't turn into my own business.  I wound up teaming up with Chris Moeller, one of the best salespeople I've ever met, and producing the first couple S&M bikes videos.  The Ultimate Weekend, my 1990 personal project, sold about 500 copies in the U.S. and an unknown amount overseas.  I sold the world rights to it.  In 1993, the S&M Bikes video 44 Something went on to sell around 8,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling BMX videos of the 1990's, and possible all time.  I made a decent low-budget video, and Moeller sold the hell out of it for years.  But I wasn't able to sell on my own then.

Why am I broke and starting over at age 49?  After an injury in 1999, I left my good paying job as a lighting tech in Hollywood and became a taxi driver.  Taxi driving isn't a job, it's a small business.  We had to pay lease on our cabs every day or every week, ranging from $550 to $875 a week.  On top of that, we had to pay for gas, another $300 a week on average.  Keep in mind that the average ride was about $12, and we normally got one ride every two hours from dispatch.  If you do the numbers, they don't add up.  In the good times, a taxi driver had to really know the area and the bar and club scene, AND had to hustle like crazy.  I earned a great reputation of always paying my taxi lease, even when many other drivers were getting behind.  Then, like so many other industries, new technology entered the picture.  Taxi companies went from radio dispatching to computer dispatching.  In one day, literally, a single day, the whole business changed.  The companies put a lot more cabs on the road, and it became harder and harder to scrape by.  I gained a ton of weight working those crazy hours, and started having serious health problems.  I had to walk away because of the poor business and health issues. 

Ultimately I wound up in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina, right when the Great Recession hit.  I couldn't find ANY job.  Here, in this highly conservative part of the country, backgrounds like mine, with a wide variety of jobs, don't play well.  By one estimate, there are about 30 MILLION unemployed and under employed people in the U.S. right now.  I'm one of those people.  I decide to take matters into my own hands and put my full effort into art and writing.  Those are both things I've made some money at in the past, and I've actually made my living writing at times.  Instead of fighting for the handful of factory jobs left or fighting everyone else for a low pay service job, I'm creating my own job.  To do that, I need some help.  This is where the crowd funding campaign comes in. 

I've learned there are different ways to use crowd funding in today's world.  One example is a guy named Cat Man, the Carolina Panthers self-proclaimed #1 fan, who gets on TV and the jumbo tron nearly every game.  But he didn't have the money to go to the Super Bowl to watch his beloved Panthers this weekend.  So he launched a GoFundMe campaign to ask for donations.  Last I heard, he raised something like $8,000 in a couple of days.  Good for him. It wouldn't be a Panthers game without Cat Man there.  He's that much a part of the scene.

I'm taking a different tack, similar to the way start-ups use Kickstarter.  I'm not asking for donations, I'm asking for orders.  For $25 I'll draw you an original picture that I usually sell for $30.  And I'll throw in a zine, too.  Why?  To jump start the business and get it going quite a bit quicker.  I've been doing a few drawings, but I need to find work on a much more consistent basis.  It's working, slowly but steadily.  I'm far from making a living at this, but I'm on my way. 

The biggest thing I've learned about crowd funding, from books, online sources, and Amanda Palmer herself, is that you need a following of some kind for this kind of fund raising to work.  My network online is limited mostly to old school BMXers, but that's where I have to start.  In this new blog, I'm working to set an example for the other 30 million unemployed/underemployed people out there as to what's possible in today's world.  Things don't work the way they did 20 or 30 years ago.  It's a whole new game, and a lot of people are having trouble adapting, myself included.  This blog is a chronicle of my journey from a former homeless man to someone able to thrive in today's world.  You're along for the ride if you keep following.