Folks Of Interest Rodders Journal Update

Even if the degradation in the two dimensions reduced your sense of depth I always encouraged you to enjoy the visual interpretation of detachment & full throttle alienation.
As we continued our work with the final manifest that we thought would forever change the future of automotive subcultures and eventually destroy its compartmentalize kookery, our years of disgust with the mediocre and adolescent safeness in lawn chair displayed cars seemed to only raise those feelings of inadequacy to a critical level and we lived on the edge waiting for the final suicide bomb mission because we thought that the world needed more words and less cardboard cutouts of those false heroes who somehow became the mass appeal.
I remembered the rattling handcuffs when I woke up on the hospital gurneys. There was something underneath my skin, something that was more important than “making the weekend” scene with a bunch of Andrew Dice Clay Ness looking tattooed fuckwits.
The point that I’m trying to make is that in all my years of this, I’ve never once met a TV god that could weld or fabricate better than me in real life, but what they could do is exist in life without controversies and insert witty stomach cackles right before a commercial break.
Fucking Gatorade heroes and low sodium diets.
If you look at the content of those shorty periodicals or most Kustom Kulture magazines what do you get out of it?
I wanted fucking hot rods without any rules or expectations. My idea was to build something the same way a kid would have built it in 1952. There really isn’t any rules in that. it seemed simple enough to not become a “label”.

also on another note. Even though @Ryan and I never saw eye to eye on a bunch of things I always respected him because I knew he shared the same passion as I felt in my heart every time I picked up the torch.

 

He's back!

 

Rodders' Journal Update?

 

Wow Ryan, you just had to bring that up.

 

I’ve met a few Tv “gods”. Some were PT Barnums with wrenches. Others were real.
How do ya get on TV before the age of YouTube, IG (had to ask what that was once here) FB ……
I guess you lived near the site they are made at and answered an ad. Or a producer found a name in one of these “post 75 poser mags”
One TV god in particular, Foose. Born and raised banging on cars, worked with a talented father then landed a job at one of the shops that eventually becomes a TV show.
He reminds me of Elvis. Talented but lured into cheesy movies. You may not like his style, I’m not a fan of everything he’s drawn, but I envy the artistic ability. I dug several of his and his dad builds.
a friend of mine worked in the production of one of these. The audience isn’t us. A small percentage of the audience builds their own junk. The drama and story is developed to lure in the same type that watched Jersey Shore.
I recorded a pilot once. The scenes or plot was created by a producer then “scripted” before the shoot. Amateur actors portraying “real” people.
I even know of one shop that told a film crew to leave. The producer didn’t like the lack of drama. The shop crew was building cars. No fights, to chairs tossed, just building. The shop owner refused to embarrass himself his shop crew or craft to satisfy a producer.

The number or size of audience that would watch a show the average member here would watch is simply unprofitable or unmarketable in large scale.

 

I once saw what I believe to be a flying Alien spaceship - maybe it was delivering Rodder's Journal

 

^^^ see, proof positive - Thanks!!

 

Just when I thought this thread couldn’t get more weird or awesome...

 

I posted this before but I remember a short lived motorcycle show on tv that was on one summer about eight years ago. There was the owner who seemed to be nice enough, a good natured white dude that was pretty chill, and an ernest young man who wanted to learn. Try as they might they couldn’t pull off the artificial drama. On one episode the owner was trying his hardest to be grumpy and the older guy to be cantankerous and it just didn’t fly. It actually showed how to get things done! Six shows later...poof! cancelled never to return.

 

How long ago did this idiot leave? Or was he banned? Sounds like he needs some serious therapy or perhaps “he needs his head balanced” ( like a wheel you apply a little lead to one side or the other).

 

Literally?
20 something years ago? I wrote some stuff on a message board and it became what everyone expected of me to be in person. Some got more than they expected and they figured out that all this nonsense wasn’t exactly some persona that one could just write off so easily.
I got into fights because of “those words”
Like dudes look for me at an event because of words on the internet. To try to kick my ass.
It’s so odd and heartwarming to me and my cock fills with blood when I think that the incoherent banter still rents space in people’s heads!
Isn’t that what “writers” are supposed to do? I’m not even a fucking writer.
I read stuff like physics books and true crime.
I think I read one or two issues of TRJ because a friend was in it at the time.


“Job well done, germ”
You’ll forever be remembered for your magnificent breaths of life! Pissing off a bunch of old dudes who thought they were going to tell me how I needed to do things in life is probably why I have pushed the limits with my fabrication and welding and why I set out on my journey to Southern California.
I do beautiful work and I know this so I charge a shit ton for my services and work seems to keep finding me.
I spent so much time in my life being an involuntary survivor.
i don’t want to hijack this thread or take away from people who want a periodical to be published again but I’m going to say this.
The reactions of people who call me “insane Incoherent. Drugged out” etc, those reactions to whatever is written has always been fascinating to me, more so because I don’t even remember most of this shit until someone brings it up or calls me and says “hey dude check out the HAMB”

so here we are!
This is about “writing” isn’t it?

I do think it’s “cool” that some people understand the madness and some people can look between the lines and see what others can’t or refuse to see.
That’s the best part.

My favorite things to see are the DIY printed fanzines !
The stuff from the “punk rock” era.
the subject matter of an independently printed publication is usually top notch because someone is creating it for something besides fame and money.

goodnight

 

Im stoked to see you back Germ! Carry on.

 

Germ, I remember BobK telling me he'd met you and that you were nothing like the persona you adopted here

 

I love that the one Rodders Journal thread that doesn’t get locked goes way off the rails to the point that this last page or two even exists lmao.

if we are keeping score chalk me up for one more “it was the aliens” lol

I heard Germ welded up the craft himself with pure hellfire on the back sound stage of occ choppers with the ghost of Hunter SThompson whispering in his ear

 

Maybe the magazines were going up, and not down, and that's what happened to the Rodders Journal!

 

Possible. That would be a better explanation to what happened when they shut down

 

Guys don't get your hopes too high. Most companies that try to come back from
bankruptcy don't last but 3 years. The same problems that took them down still exist and unless the management has been revamped you are going to see a mess. Now I want it to be successful and have noting against Steve but have seen to many businesses try to come back an fail.

 

Is it safe to say that the internet ruined printing?
Honestly, I’d you do your research just here in the HAMB you are going to get twice as much or more than any magazine could ever give you. I don’t want to make a “boomer” joke, but get with the times. I understand the look and feel of print. I remember in the early 90’s I went to swap meets just so that I could look for old magazines because inside them they had the history that is kids were trying to emulate.

I tossed out all my magazines and only kept pre 1960 stuff because I wasn’t interested in the modernization of the “shitbox”.

When I visited Bill Hines the first time in 2002 and stayed around for the summer, I didn’t know that a few years later Masterson and I would be working a business out of the original Barris/Jeffries shop. I didn’t know that we would eventually have those guys at our disposable when we took on traditional projects.
Having Bill Hines come to your shop and double check your lines before you cut a roof was probably a great teaching tool. Learning to torch weld and braze and do lead the correct way was all passed down by guys in there 80’s who thought we could make more money doing more modern automobiles.

magazines had their time in history and their purpose but civilization has since moved on.
I honestly don’t have a reason to store a bunch of printed shit and move it around the country!

I have a large collection of original hot rod and Kustom history that I share on my Instagram . Original photos and items from the time period that most people forgot. I’m also a very avid metal detector guy. When I need to find something based on a photo or a negative that I have in my collection it’s easier to look on the HAMB for that information.

in this day and age every single idiot with an electronic daydream device is an accomplished photographer.

Ryan writes some great blog material.
There’s lots of guys who continue to make it happen

 

i would strongly disagree with that no need for paper print argument. when the things in life that are important to you are all in the social media world ,who controls that? it can all be gone the next time you turn on your computer or phone,

 

I worked for a printing company for 34 years. At one time we printed over 200 trade publications. When I retired in 2012 we were down to 90 publications, all of which were way down in page counts. The publications started to go away when the internet started to be the go to place for info for the majority of people. For the most part magazines have been replaced by the internet, and places like the Hamb on the internet is the reason. You can't ask a magazine to clarify something you don't understand. On the internet you can.

 

For those who don’t have an InstaGram account or don’t follow @losershero, your missing out on viewing some interesting artifacts from the Glory days of “Kustom” cars…..
If you left here due to some printed words you could easily scroll by and not read, how did you ever survive on a playground as a kid?

 

Picked up a copy of Hemmings lately? About half of what it once was.

 

Nope, civilization ruined the internet!
Or was that Al Gore?

 

I know I am different, but I like me a book ( magazine ).When I go somewhere that is worth taking pictures, I take them with a camera and then go to a kiosk and edit them into something worth looking at and have them printed for next day. If I go to sit with cronies I pass the pictures around, the people are polite and look at them and pass them around, sometimes they ask if they can keep one. No germy phone being passed around. I hope the magazine has a future, it was good quality which seems to be making a comeback for some of us in our harbor freight society. Read it when it comes out, stack it somewhere for future reference. Hopefully others feel the same.

 

I’ve always been a pic guy looking at car magazines, the write up to what was done I like in short and how to.
The fluff of I have “engine”
In front of “transmission” backed by “rearend” doesn’t really grab me.
Now I’m no where near a lit guy, so excuse me.
I do like reading Stephen Spielberg? Books though. He can grab ya

 

I bought the rodders journal for the same reason I bought playboy, the articles!
That's bull shit, I like the pictures.

 

i guess we came up in different sewing circles. But calling me an “idiot” is the easier softer way of expressing your discontent with what didn’t even concern you at the time the debauchery was taking place.

you would think that most of my brain cells were killed and it would be impossible for me to even articulate a complete thought with pen and paper but here we are today.
My name is Jack but my friends call me “germ”.
Truth be told!
I don’t even understand how to navigate this thing and it moves so fucking fast I’m scared that I’m gonna be overloaded with information.
This place is nuts and it has always impressed me how much it grew I just don’t have the time like I used to. I still write and have been approached by guys who wanted to do something with it but it’s hard for me to make a commitment when I’m literally traveling around to different states year round to do welding and fabricating work.

im a fucking road whore because that’s where the cheese is,

There was a kid here once that put a 1950’s Fulton Sun Visor on his 65 Galaxy 4 door, I don’t remember his name but I’m pretty sure he still talks with his therapist about the outcome of that adventure.

another guy posted his work on here and I asked him if he used a cheese grater to shave the bondo. He never lived that down. Somebody mentioned Bob k. He came to my shop when he was passing through but we agreed to keep our meeting a secret. I didn’t want him to ruin my street credibility by going around and saying I was a nice guy!

so yeah. I really am a fucking Idiot!
But words have a way of bringing out emotions and I like uncomfortable eye contact!