offices and stuff. The last time he worked, Lawan told me about this guy who fell out of van onto the highway. Movers are weirdos. Everybody’s high, people smoking crack on the job, drinking beer at 5:00 am, it’s pretty outrageous. Even with that going on, they’ll work 24 hour shifts sometimes. The P.O.W.’s hate moving with a passion but they need the money. The work is sparse, but with rent at only 80something bucks a head, one day of work could pay someone’s bills for an entire month. The moving guy’s name is Bingo and his kid Anthony is a totally rad rider from the neighborhood. Big Island calls up What a Lot a Pizza and orders a few larges for only $3.99 a piece. The WALA guys know everybody at the house now, and the orders come in simply from “the bikers”. Today’s driver was new though, and he was wandering all over the street.
He went to Mrs. Iroquois’ house across the street and then to the Sand People’s house next door before Big Island started yelling at him, which was funny because the guy turned out to be deaf. There are some total freaks living on Iroquois street. The houses themselves aren’t unusual, just older single-story tract houses. The lady across the street, Mrs. Iroquois, used to call the cops all the time because there were cars parked in front of her house, people were too loud, or riding the ramp...anything. Then one day someone gave her a Christmas card and now everything is different. She brings cookies over and even donated Christmas lights to the P.O.W. house so it wouldn’t dull the block. There used to be a Hustler model living next door that even flashed her tits before. Now that house is empty and the landlord came over and told Sal that the smell from Dave’s shed is making it hard for him to rent his house. 
On the other side of the P.O.W. house is a family that have had a front yard full of sand for the last five years. You rarely see any of the Sand People, but when you do they’re weeding the sand or raking it. The Mansons live up the street and are the shadiest people in the neighborhood. Every now and then you’ll see one of them ride by on an old beat up beach cruiser pulling a trailer or something. The Mansons are speed freaks and it’s not unusual to find them out in their front yard at 3:00 am rebuilding motors, painting bikes, making CB radios out of old electric shavers, you name it. By the time everybody gets home from moving at 11:00 pm, I’ve finished a six pack and start getting rowdy. Griffin freaks out and starts telling me that I don’t have any respect for his house and that I should get out. They drag themselves into the back room for a smoke session and I can hear them in there going crazy about me. Making a really big deal out of stupid little things like respecting the house can go on for hours, even days. When there are 20 or so people to tell the same exact story to, issues seem to drag on forever. The funny thing is that when you are in the house it seems like everything that is going on is really important. So much information is being dished out, you feel like something is happening. You don’t even think you need to leave the house. I’m pretty infamous for showing up at the house drunk and causing some huge scene.
I can remember coming over with my f**ked up friend Crazy Red right after he got out of jail, and starting a food fight that turned into a full-blown furniture fight. Now the lamps are nailed to the walls. That little incident got me “banned” for a while. Plenty of people have been “banned” from the house. Shit, I’ve been banned so many times even I can’t remember them all. I just don’t show up for a while and then everything is OK. The P.O.W.s are either very forgiving or very forgetful, because everybody comes back. Crack Head Ned got banned after a bunch of stuff kept turning up missing, including Darrin’s handgun. People catch Ned wearing clothes that were buried way back in their closets. Ned is bad news, and doesn’t even live at the house. Ned still hangs out all the time. I think they need him around for pot. 
The funniest ban ever has to be the ban on the White Bear, this friend of mine who used to live in the water heater room where Dave lives now. Steve got banned for “talking shit around the house”. Unlike the guys that need to come over to ride the ramps or get high or whatever, I don’t think Steve ever wants to come back anyway so it’s no big deal. But they like to talk about it. The big rumor lately is that Sal is going to kick Dave out, which is really funny because Dave is the only original P.O.W. left. The joke is that if they kick Dave out of the house, he’ll take the house with him. I don’t doubt it. Sunday, 4/10/94
After a night of heavy drinking, Dave woke up with his own puke all over him. By 7:00 am he was working on his bike trying frantically to get ready for the first Magic Mountain show at 2:00 pm, which he’s scheduled to ride in. The drive to the park is about two hours. Besides his inoperable bike, Dave’s car has two flats and a dead battery, and he lost the keys so Big Island fixed it up Inglewood style, with a screwdriver ignition. I don’t think Dave’s driven his car since he did shows at the LA County Fair about six months ago.
I show up around 2:00 pm and Dave is back in his shed with a porno mag. His Toyota is in the driveway with the hood up, tools everywhere. The car still has two flats but is packed full of spare bike parts. I think Dave realizes he has lost his privacy and comes out of the shed in that same pair of ratty Vision shorts drinking an Old English 40. We try jumping the car, but no luck. One quick look at his bike and we all figure out it’s not even rideable. So Dave sets out wrenching on it again. The car still doesn’t run and the bike still doesn’t work and there are only 20 hours left to get ready for tomorrow’s show. Dave can’t afford to lose the $100 a day twice. Besides, the promoter bought his story today, but another no show could end the deal. Lawan eventually creeps out of his room undisturbed about his lazy day. I ask him why he didn’t go to the big jumping contest with the rest of the house and he tells me the promoter is a bigot. After a few hours of MTV, Lawan and Alex take my truck to the mall so Lawan can buy some shorts. Before leaving for the mall, Lawan changes into his funky fresh Filas and some new shorts. He says some of his ladies will be there. It’s about 5:00 pm when Cruisin’, Griffin, Sal, and Neal from England show up in the Radillac (the other nickname for Cruisin’s car).
They were the only ones that showed up for the contest and the promoter called it off, so they drove two hours each way to do a demo on some really lame track. There were only about 20 kids watching, and Neal ended up hurting himself. For all their efforts, the promoter ended up giving them $40 to split up. There was supposed to be a $200 purse—but that’s Rich. With the money they bought two cases of Budweiser for the house. Later, Jay, Scotty, and Mark get back from Venice Beach with a bunch of pot. Everyone’s running around calling it “candy”. The front room is suddenly busy. Jay’s got the four-footer in the kitchen working on it. Griffin is looking for his lighter. I don’t know exactly what everybody is doing but the whole scene reminds me of an Indy 500 pit stop. As soon as that bag pulled into the house people started running around getting loud and doing stuff. After the session, the smoking crew packed up and headed for the adult bookstore down the road.
They call it “the spot”—16 channels, full doors with locks, paper towel dispensers in every booth—class. With any luck they’ll get a Hunk Golden video. Hunk is a stage name, of course. He used to race BMX and quit to do porns. I came across him once when I was flipping through channels. Too much. Eventually, Brian gets home from some shitty race in Minnesota. He had a good weekend but the track was built out of frozen dirt that thawed out during the race and turned into slop. Brian got a second and a third and came home with $1040 in prize money. Brian grew up in Maryland and started racing bikes when he was 12 years old. His older brother Alan moved to California more than five years ago and was one of the original P.O.W.s. Alan and Brian are the Airwalk shoes/Schwinn bicycles BMX team. Now 21, Brian flies to roughly 20 races a year and rides his bike every day. Brian and Alan both find it hard to believe that everything has worked out. “At one point my dad had me signed up for school and had my dorm picked out and everything when I got a call from Cyclecraft (bike manufacturer) asking me if I wanted to move out and race for them. I left the next day.” Tuesday, 4/12/94
After work I went straight to the house to get some runs in one the ramp. Before I even got my pads on Dave was running around the ramp asking me if I wanted to help him build a spine ramp for tomorrow’s show. By the time we were done riding, it would be close to 9:00 and Dave wanted to build a f**kin’ ramp. I didn’t think he was serious but he was. He was rambling about everything. He said he’d buy beer, pizza, whatever, he just needed a ramp by tomorrow. For some reason I said yes. On the way out, Dave was screaming at everyone, running around babbling, talking to himself, humming songs, you name it. We should have backed out right then. Sal was sitting in front of the stove cooking some food and bitching at Dave about the gas getting turned off. Dave might be a slacker when it comes to paying the bills, but that’s partly because nobody ever gives him the money on time. I don’t think anybody realized it at the time, but the stove burns gas so obviously the gas wasn’t turned off. The water heater had just been run down. It must have been one of those rare P.O.W. days when more than one person took a shower. 
By the time I made it back into the front room Dave was arguing with Griffin about the lawn. Dave was acting pretty weird. If any of the rumors I’d been hearing about Dave becoming a big speed freak were true, it would explain all this. Eventually we left. A quick trip to the hardware store for coping and then to Jeffro’s house for power tools and we were off. Jeffro’s real name is just Jeff but he has a pretty big afro so everybody calls him Jeffro. He looks like Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter and I think he’s the street’s speed dealer. From 10 pm to 5:30 am me and Alex built ramps. Dave cut a couple of boards and pulled some nails, but for the most part he just ran around in circles, smoked broken cigarettes and drank beer. Occasionally he’d start an argument about something stupid and then get busy doing nothing again. The broken cigarettes were lying everywhere burning. They would fall out of Dave’s mouth and he’d just light a new one without even knowing what was going on.
At 6:00 am we pulled up to the Gas-Mart with a five foot wide, four foot high spine ramp in the back of the truck. Budweiser still in hand, Dave went in to get some burritos. As we pulled up to the house the sun was just coming up.
To be continued.............
Part 1
Part 3
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.