Here's Bob Osborn, best known to us old school racers and freestylers as Oz, the longtime editor and publisher of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. While it was Andy Jenkins picked me as a potential worker at Wizard Publications in 1986, Oz was the guy who actually hired me, and signed the paychecks. This clip goes back to the very beginnings of BMX racing in Southern California in 1969-1970.
One thing about working at Wizard Publications in the 1980's, even for a short period, was the cool conversations that would happen in and around work. I was roommates with Gork, the editor of BMX Action, and Lew the assistant editor of FREESTYLIN', and we either rode in Gork's van to work, or rode our bikes about 4 miles, across Redondo Beach and Torrance. We didn't walk into the front office in the mornings, we went into the small door, next to the warehouse door, on the side of the building. The place was an industrial property, a small warehouse, about 5,000 square feet, I think, with offices in the front. You can see that door we walked in, next to the open warehouse door, in this clip, at 1:48. R.L. Osborn and RonWilton come racing out of the large warehouse door, next to it, in the 1985 Rippin' video. You can also see them walk into the front offices of Wizard in the beginning of the clip.
Dian Harlan, the receptionist you see, was seriously the most amazing receptionist of all time. You'd ask her some little favor or something, totally forget about it, and three days later she'd have done it, and twice as much work as you needed her to do. She'd hand you the information you asked for, or some random photo you asked about, or whatever, with three times the info or background you asked for. She never forgot anything. She was dating photographer Steve "Gibey or "Guy-B" Giberson then, and later married him.
Anyhow, when we walked into the warehouse, Wizard's white Chevy Astro van was backed in its spot to the left. The there were about 4 rows of big warehouse shelving units beside it, the back part of the warehouse. There was an empty area straight in front of the warehouse door, about two car lengths. Oz would pull his 4 wheel drive van in there, when he was in town.
While I worked at Wizard, Oz was off shooting Ansel Adams-style black and white photos 2-3 weeks each month. Along the whole wall, across from the big warehouse door, was a row of small offices, with a larger conference room at the left, in the corner. Then the offices turned the corner, forming a big, "L,"coming up the far left wall. That's where Lew's office, my office, and the photo room were.
To the right of Oz's parking space was the copy machine, where the early Club Homeboy stickers were first made by Lew, along with several Mel Bend (aka Andy Jenkins) zines. Next to the copy machine was a standard picnic bench, and a little open area. On the wall there was the office kitchen area, with a sink, counter, and microwave, and refrigerator. That was our lunch and break time hang out area, along with a picnic table outside in the parking lot, by the T.O.L. ramp.
A door in the kitchen area led to Oz's darkroom. Right above that, was Windy's dark room, with a wooden staircase coming down on the right side of the kitchen area. The last corner of the warehouse, to the right as we walked in human door, or the big warehouse door, was a photo backdrop area. There was a rack that had huge rolls of paper that Windy could pull down,, different colors, to shoot studio photos. If you're a freestyler, and you remember Ceppie Mae's Dance of Doom cover shot, on the September 1986 cover of FREESTYLIN', that was shot in that corner, along with all the bike "beauty shots" for bike tests.
So, like any office, various people would gather around the inside picnic table, drinking coffee or sipping a Coke or something, on breaks, or at lunch, and talk about one thing or another. One day, Oz and R.L. both happened to be there, and Oz got talking. I think all of us editorial guys, Andy, Gork, Lew, and myself were hanging out, munching on lunch, as were Oz and R.L.. I can't remember if Windy was out there that time. In most offices, that would be a typical lunch conversation. But I was a kid who was riding in NorCal months earlier, and a freestyler in Boise, Idaho , the middle of freakin' nowhere, just over a year before, I never thought I'd ever meet R.L. Osborn, or Oz, or any of other guys from "The Magazines." There weren't really any videos then, BMX and freestyler were all about the magazines. I was still getting used to the idea that many of my heroes from only months earlier, were now my friends and co-workers. Fanboy moments came often at Wizard.
Somehow the conversation got back to the earliest days of BMX racing, and none of us really knew that history then. YouTube was 19 years away, no documentaries had been made, or even thought of. Gork was working on the 10th anniversary edition of BMX Action, but that only went back to 1985-86. So the only way we learned about the really early days of BMX racing was from some rider or industry person who was there. That's what we were talking about that particular day. Sudden;y Oz chuckled, and looked over at R.L.. "Remember what I said when you first wanted to race BMX?" R.L. nodded and said, "I remember." Oz went on, "R.L. told me he wanted to try this BMX racing, and I said, 'Shorty, you know this isn't going to go anywhere, right?'" R.L. chuckled and nodded as Oz said it. That story had been told before, and I think it was being retold fo rmy benefit that day, as the new guy of the bunch. Oz saw BMX in 1969-70 as some weird little fad. But R.L. was into it, and they could take Windy along to hang out, and it'd be a cool family thing on a Saturday afternoon. So Bob Osborn, a fireman at the time, with an interest in photography, got R.L. a bike, and they went to his first race. And then they went to another. And another.
Oz laughed again. At that point, Oz had been publishing BMX Action magazine for ten years, and FREESTYLIN' magazine for nearly two years. "I was wrong about that one," Bob Osborn chuckled, "I never thought it would turn into all this." At that point, the fall of 1986, Oz was able to let the crew run the magazines, for the most part. He still made the big decisions, and kept close tabs on everything. But he would go off into the wild, to places like Yosemite, to shoot the photos he'd been dreaming of shooting for many years. His daughter, and R.L.'s big sister, Windy, was the staff photographer for both magazines. She was legendary to us slightly younger guys already, as an epic photographer. R.L. was riding for Redline (though talking to General about a new deal at the time), and running the legendary BMX Action Trick Team, with Todd Anderson as a vert rider. Oz had plucked young BMX guys, Andy from Wyoming, Gork from Sacramento, Lew from Michigan, and me from NorCal and Idaho, to write, edit, and proofread the magazines. Roughtly 16 years after that first BMX race, BMX was the Osborn family's lives and livelihoods, and ours as well.
Now, another 34 years later, I'm sitting behind a boutique shop in the San Fernando Valley, during a pandemic, pirating free power and wifi, to write a blog post about a moment that happened in the Wizard offices, at 3162 Kashiwa Street, in Torrance, California, back then. Oz is in Montana, shooting incredible portraits of real cowboys and Indians. Windy is living in San Diego, last I heard, still shooting great photos. And R.L. Osborn is getting back into the scene after nearly 30 years away. With his son Dylan and friend Pat, they're doing Facebook broadcasts for viewers all around the world, and working on some new products.
The point to all of this? When something, no matter how weird it seems, really draws you in, really gets a hold of you for a while, like BMX bike riding did for us, you never know what it will lead to.
Here's BMX industry guy in today's world, Brian Tunney, with a look back at the building where so much hope and so many dreams, for so many weird kids, was born in the late 1970's, and through the 1980's, into the beginning of the1990's.
I honestly forgot about Brian's shoutout at the beginning of this clip. But I know no one will believe that. Just for the record, I started my Freestylin Mag Tales blog (200+ posts, deleted in 2012, when I got real depressed), in early December 2008. I'd just gone to visit my family in North Carolina, and wound up getting trapped in NC, financially. I lost all my magazines (full set of FREESTYLIN', + 100 or so more magazines), all my raw video footage I shot from 1990 to 2008, and all my video master tapes. I was depressed, and was not mentioned in the FREESTYLIN' book that Andy, Lew, and Spike did.
At that point, I was left out of the history. OK, I played a very tiny bit part in it. But in 2008, I had nothing left but memories of years of BMX freestyle, and my Tech 2 brake lever key chain. So I started blogging, telling weird little stories of moments of BMX freestyle, from my perspective. I planned to write 20 or 30 posts, that's all. I think I've written well over 1,000 BMX memoir posts since, across 5 different blogs now. I kind of became an unofficial history of BMX freestyle for a few years. People started using my posts as source material for Wikipedia pages and online articles. I was really the main guy telling stories from the early days, for a while. Now we have whole bunch of podcasts adding lots more stories to the mix, and a few more written ones, plus a few documentaries online, which is awesome. I wish I had time to listen to more of them. Again, you never know where things will lead when you start some weird little idea, and then back it up with hard, consistent work. No go ride... Or write.
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