If you’re fortunate enough to have a copy of our Premiere issue (I don’t even have one!) from early 2002, you’ll remember our feature on Jungle Pam Hardy. Always been a fan of hers and Don Moats turned us onto yet another picture page of her and Jim gettin’ DOWN (here). Not in that way, dude. Sheesh.

There is a lot of history per square foot at Heinold’s Saloon.  In spite the strip mall and office buildings they are building around it, Heinold’s still stands very much as it did in 1883.  While that birthdate might not impress our Eastern-bred editor, in Left Coast terms, it might as well have been spawned in the Big Bang.  You can sit at the very same table where Jack London did his homework on and drink at the sloped bar that was restyled by the 1906 earthquake.  The place has been a hangout for the Oakland HA and William Taft and thousands of commuters and sailors looking for their first or last.  There is a neat interview with Heinold talking about Jack London here.

this great photo was found at the Jockey Journal 

Friends and contributors, Estevan Oriol and Mr. Cartoon have just opened their retail store in downtown L.A. They could’ve opened it just about anywhere, but they put their money where their mouths were and pulled back the curtain on the fabled SA Studios by opening the doors to Last Laugh in a notoriously seedy part of town. It’s good to see guys of their stature never forgetting or leaving the car culture they came from…

In the last issue, David Burge took us over the border into Juarez with Mike Lightbourn – the guy who discovered the remains of Ed Roth’s Orbitron – and embarked on the haphazard journey of one of the greatest car culture archaeological digs of the century. The Orbitron was found and was destined for more glory than it originally ever enjoyed.

Now, months and untold zillions of dollars later, Beau Boeckmann (of Galpin Auto Sports fame) unveiled the finished restoration of the three-light monster in fine L.A. style last night to a heady mixture of hot rod royalty and SoCal hipsterdom.Darryl Roth was there with brothers Dennis and Charlie, custom paint icons Bill Carter and Larry Watson were trading stories (Bill was on a cane after getting hit by a truck on his motorsikkle – guys half his age wouldn’t be doing so well!), Dave Shuten – who headed up the Orbi’s restoration – was breathing a well-deserved sigh of satisfaction, Robert and Suzanne Williams were chatting it up with some L.A. hip-hop guys, Xzibit and Jelly Roll were wondering “where all they alcoholics at?!?” and Mike Lightbourn represented El Paso with all his homies extremely well.

Now, I’m not exactly sure who all the celebs were on the step-and-repeat and I’m pretty sure there were more than a few hipsters in attendance who had absolutely no idea who Ed Roth was and what the big fuss over the little blue car was all about, but hey – that’s L.A. and it’s quite a scene.

Here’s the thing, though: there were a few thousand people at this event and it took 30 minutes just to get off the freeway exit and onto the Galpin Ford grounds. Even if just a handful of all the bedazzled blazer crowd were stopped in their tracks by one of the greatest car culture finds of our generation, that’s a good thing and I’d like to think a few more gearheads were born again last night…

Issue 11

Dick Allen Didn’t Take It With Him

Images: Bruce Parrish Collection

The origin of the custom chopper is a mysterious one, its history lost in a haze of drugs, sex and the illicit free-spirit. It’s a story that is not documented, save word of mouth and small town tales passed down from one person to the next and then ultimately, one generation to the next.  Many have claimed to be the first to do this or that and we can never be too sure about who’s telling the truth, but there is one early pioneer who can undeniably be credited for elevating it all from just a chopped-up bike to a Custom Bike – and that’s Dick Allen. 

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The reigning king of Low Brow art, Robert Williams, was in Oakland this weekend as a guest of Phil Linhares – chief curator of the Oakland Museum of CA – for the L.A. Paint exhibit. He spoke to a packed house on Sunday and we got the rare chance to sit down with him and his beautiful wife, Suzanne, yesterday amid his mind-blowing paintings to just catch up and chat…

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Issue 14

Room 13

Steve Sellers Is Building A Place For Himself

Photography: Jay Watson 

“I spent all night doing that…” Steve Sellers is standing at the mouth of his filled, but amazingly tidy, shop in San Jose, CA. And below the modest “Sellers Equipped” shingle hanging over the roll-up door, he’s answering the silent question as I point at the seemingly endless amount of perfectly hand-twisted safety wiring present all over the front of a neat little Model A roadster. And herein lies the point of what Steve has been apparently put on this Earth to do: bring back the art of hotrodding. Over the past few decades, an entire industry – a self-sustaining economy – has circled its wagons around the culture of hotrodding. There’s just about nothing that can’t be bought and bolted onto, welded or pressed into a custom car project of any kind, shape or style. The benefits are obvious – more people with varying degrees of talent can experience what only a few could this time a century ago. But along with catalogs, shade-tree mechanic shows on TV and the glut of information online, there’s something that seems to be missing. Something that, at one time, was one of the hallmarks of the subculture. And that, friends, is the art of perfection.  

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Issue 11

Tattooed By Bert Grimm

Images: Tattoo Archive 

The Golden Age of Tattoo. Unless you’ve been living in a van down by the river (and even then, there’s a pretty good chance some scrawny, full-sleeved indie band guys would be crawling all over your pad for their next CD cover photo shoot), you can’t help but notice that the most permanent of all fads has gripped popular culture faster than the foam trucker hat movement – but without the same ease of disposal. What was once reserved for a few select subcultures is now gaining broad acceptance, appeal and – we had to say it – permanence. 

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Boogie is a special breed of photographer.  He’s one of those guys who not only sees all the stuff you miss, but he records it.  He’s the kind of photojournalist that sees what the story is all about for you.  He’s been to places you are afraid to go and has found a beauty you cannot resist.  His work can seen in Paris galleries, high-end fashion advertising and the finest hot rod lifestyle magazine ever printed.

He may have been to the edge and back, but I am not sure he was ready for what we had in store for him when we dragged him to TJ to get an interior made for George Lopez’ Chevy.  Within 20 minutes, we had been pulled over and heavily questioned by the pigs and within 3 hours, had been arrested and robbed of all our dough by TJ’s finest.  We skated by on Boogie’s silver-tongued confessional stylings and, for some reason, he is still talking to me.

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What O.G. Hardcore really looked like.  That’s Todd Barnes (TSOL) and Pat Brown as in The Legend Of.  Pulled off Jack Grisham’s myspace.