O/T...Who wants to tell me about Ed Roth?

Johnny Ace,
I was displaying that drawing plus a couple others at the San Mateo or Oakland car show. A friend of mine had entered his Triumph drag bike and we placed some of my drawings around it to spruce up the display.

Roth was at the show and spotted that particular one and wanted it. He didn't say anything at the time about the little magazine coming out. The original drawing is white prismacolor pencil on black paper, about 11" x 17". It looks like it was used as is, no touch ups, just the "California Choppers" text and "$1.59" text dropped in.

I do recall now, that Roth didn't like the front wheel that much. It was out of round. He asked me if I knew what Ellipse guides were, and that I should get some. He thought it was cool to have most of a vehicle pic distorted but that it was important to have the wheels and tires in correct perspective.

Not much more to add to that meeting, as I recall he had a big booth, the Yellow Fang was on display. At the other end of his booth there were a couple guys airbrushing shirts and stuff on the spot. I don't know who they were.

Btw, I lost my original copy of that California Choppers mag. Roth didn't have any more copys when I contacted him in the late 80's. I finally got a copy thanks to Franco (another helpful artist).

 

Well heres my story. I called Ed one day out of the blue to try to get him to come to Vegas. At that time he wasnt sure. I offred to pick him up and carry his junk ( he only lived less than 2 hours drive away) The first thing he asked me was what kind of car do you drive? I told him I had a 59 Buick. "BAAHHH BUICKS GIVE ME WARTS! i CANT GO RIDING IN NO BUICK" I laughed my**** off.

We got things eventually worked out. He showed up at VLV. I kept in touch with him through phone calls and mostly e-mail. I asked him one winter If I could come down and interview him.....he told me the only way I could do that was if I brought my wife and kid down with me. He really wanted me to bring them. So rather than drive down in the*****ty winter weather we decided to wait till spring some time then i would come down for the day with the famdamily.

Ed passed away several months later and I never did get to go down and hang out with him. But I do have a very faded worn our RF shirt that says on the back........."Buicks Give Me Warts" I wore it so much that what he wrote on the back of the shirt is faded bad.

Ive been to his house since then....and believe it or not....there is lots and lots of amazing art on the walls and some very inspirational pieces. One piece in particular has been a real catalyst for me in the decision to pursue my dreams in the art field.


Mike

 

Great story,Mike... Yes, Franco has been very helpful to other artists at times....He even clued me in as to who the "bad guys/crooks" were in the SoCal area when I told him that I would be doing work outside of Roth Studios (a RARE occasion-Pops did not like moonlighting!)...Franco is also one of the few in this field of art who actually worked with and got to know the real Ed....which is actually a whole different scene than just setting up next to him at a show...he let lots of guys spend the day with him at his appearances,some of them then went around calling themselves Roth artists,much to his dismay...
I'm not trying to say that I'm tight with Franco or name drop...I only met him once in person,but he gave me lots of advice over the phone...Just wanna say he has been known to help other artists out,too.....

 

He was at the World of Wheels car show (Milwaukee) in 2001

I was working at a hot rod booth kiddie-corner from him

I talked to him several times that weekend.

I showed him my work, and told him I was in art colllege....
He told me to walk in there Monday & tell 'em I quit (In retrospect, that my have been better?

As He signed my drawing, he mentionen the some querks in it, & wrote on his autograph"keep practicing, Then he
sketched a wheel in front of me and said "this is how to draw a wheel" - I still have the sketch today.

Basically he told me to drop out of art school and hang/draw at the drag strip
I might regret not taking his advice, But I will never regret meeting him months before his passing.

 

Buick59....hope to see ya at Ed and Ilene's hacienda next spring....We promised that we would be there....We did not have the funds to attend Ed's funeral and therefore I have not paid proper respects in person....It's gonna be hard ,though...

 

Just a lirrle bit of history for you. Come to your own conclusions. In the late 50's and early 60's part of So Cal surfer culture was the act of "Rat*****ing" some one. It consisted of doing something disgusting to some one you didn't like or were trying to discourage from coming around. A typical Rat***** was putting your***** in someones drink while they weren't looking, but every else was!*****ting on someones surf board or in their car was also a Good R F. Thats just a start, let your imagination grow and remember how cruel the 15-25 year old group can be to each other. After someone got Rat*****ed all witnesses shouted R F< R F, you just got R Fed. Noone could sell T shirts by mail order in 1961 with Rat***** for a name hence.........

 

I hear ya Seldom Scene....That's what I heard from Robt as well....stands to reason that Ed and Newt came up with "C.S."..Chicken Shift,a companion to RF who never quite caught on....hilarious artwork,though!

 

I passed him on the street when he stopped in Champaign, IL for gas a few years ago. I waved. End of story.

 

The first time I met Ed was when I lived in the S.F.V.(so.cal) in 1963. I was 14.
Ed and Ray Brock handed out the trophies to the
winners of the "Revell Open" model car contest that year.
I was lucky enough to win my division with my
little T bucket model that used most of the parts
from the Tweedy Pie kit. Hey Ed I still got that
trophy man!
When the Biker seen hit the Valley by storm,
(right after the release of Easy Rider) Ed was
selling a series posters of the Hells Angels and
Satin Slaves. These were drawn by Dave Mann.
Man when me and by buddy Bob saw those drawings,
we jumpd in Bob's 58 impala and headed for Ed's
shop. The old brain has faded but I believe it
was in Downey. We walked in this little hole
in the wall shop and Ed came in thru a door from
the back and said "What do you finks want?" Thats no
*****!!
I said we wanted to buy a set of those biker
posters. Ed said sorry guys I sold out of them.
Man we were bumbed out. Well we started for the door
and Ed said " Hey come back here I got something for ya".
Ed reached under the counter and pull up a mailing tube
and handed it to us. It was already addressed to be
sent out to someone else, but we scored the posters!
Thanks Ed for being a big part of my hot rod past,
and present.
----------------------------------------------------------
"OPOSSUM BENDERS"
Central Missouri Chapter

 

Visor...ya still got the model that won the trophy?

 

Inspiration in buckets and spades.

(Also want to ditto what Mike said about Franco)

 

Visor say`s he still has the model.
Peddro,I lost that book when I moved back to Missouri from Oregon. If I remember right, it wasnt real thick because it was aimed at kids, I think it had a yellow front and back cover...wish I still had it, I`ve thought about that book quite a bit in the last few years!
Rix2Six, just saw your post, I think that was the book,scan it in for us if you can.

 

I met roth at one of the shows in '96 where moriarity had displayed the rotar. I got there late and the spectators were gone, he was hanging around his booth... Got to talk to him for almost a hour...

He told me not to go to college.

I didnt listen to him.

--- BUT, It did inspire me to start to build a car and college rounded off my art, i dont think that would've happened on my own. I'm in love with his crazy cars. Thanks to Mark I was able to take a ride in one of them, the globehopper.

 

I'll tell you a story (as much as my tired brain will allow) that a friend told me about Big Daddy.

I dunno where they were but it was cold - Ed was working on a car (under the hood). Ken (my friend) was watching him and noticed some snot starting to drip down Ed's nose. You know how it gets when it's cold outside right? It starts running, it drips, you can't feel it.

Ken said to him, "ed, yer nose is really pouring and you gotta do something before it gets worse"... (I guess it was getting pretty gross looking) and, instead of blowing his nose or wiping his nose, Ed takes a shop rag in sticks it in his mouth - just high enough to be right under his nose to catch the snot. I guess he kept that rag there for a long time, serving its purpose.

I about DIED when I heard that story. That solution to the problem is so much ED... too too funny.

Ken tells it better - you had to be there.

Becca

 

Tuck....I'm just glad you did stick with art! Your stuff is super-clean....Sano,I believe they called it!
VT....good to know everyone is enjoying the thread...I thought twice about it,mainly because I didn't want Ed's name toyed with or dismissed because some folks don't like kustom kulture hype or VD clothing or that sort of garbage....I try to keep my experiences and stories to a minimum here,cause I either get accused of not being who I say I am, or because it turns into a pissin' contest over who was Ed's "favorite"....not on this board,per se, but on other boards,groups,etc....when you do something almost your entire adult life,it's kinda hard not to talk about it...I wanted to go help him with the Nova project,but......
So,anybody have any Roth airbrushed shirts from the Slauson days?
I remember seeing one here a few months back....

 

Hey J.A.!,

Great to hear another book on Big Daddy Roth is in the works!

No question, BDR's a huge influence on me. Said howdy to him at shows in Louisville, KY and Chantilly, VA then a couple of years later my artwork caught his eye and we hooked up via email. He wanted me to work up some trial art for him. Sadly, he left us before it could be completed. It's all here at:

http://www.jdetrich.homestead.com/files/bdr.htm

There's some pointers on what you'll need to start off doing artwork, supplies, use of house paint to fix mistakes, etc. Golden advice.

John Robertson lives down the road from me and he has some stories about buying the Wagen Meister from Ed. He told me
Ed kept lowering the price on him and John wasn't even asking for a break! Here's a link to picts of John R. restoring the Wagen Meister:

http://www.motorsports.cc/htmlFILES/EdRoth.html

FYI, Ed requested that the Wagen Meister be painted blue ... build specs are here:

http://www.mightyquick.com

Also, John R. told me an interesting story of how he and Ed tried to get the Beatnik Bandit II into the Smithsonian.
The two of them met with some Smithsonian suits to see if they could get something going and all the while Ed's eatin' a soft pretzel! He made sure to brush off all the salt though.

Man, I wish Ed was still here with us! His spirit is going strong though!

Keep me posted on the book! Gotta have it!

John Detrich

 

Man I am like so glue'd to this post!!!!!!
I aint getting much done?!?!?!?
FRITZ

 

Well, here is my BDR story. As probably everyone knows, Ed hosted the Rat Fink Reunion every year at some location in the greater LA area and at some painter/pin striper's shop. The reunion generally took place in mid-december and Ed acted as host to all the slightly' or really' off center folks that thought Ed and his art/philosophy were right on! The particular year I decided to go the reunion was held on my birthday and we were in Vegas anyway, so EARLY on that Saturday morning we rolled our rental wheels out of Vegas headed for some damn place in the LA area that we had never been before. I had talked to Ed previously when I had decided that the trip would be the perfect present and had tried to get travel directions. Bad idea! However, once we did get to the general area that the festivities were being held at, we just kept asking people for help and we wound up at the shop. What I didn't know was that the party didn't get going until early evening and I had promised my wife that we would be on our way back to Vegas by then, no sweat. So, I got to talk to Ed for a while and helped him set up the grilles for the burgers and dogs. I also gave him a couple pairs of Ray Ban sunglasses as I worked for Bausch &amp; Lomb at the time. Ed was thrilled with the glasses and asked what he could do for me in return. I really didn't want anything as just meeting and talking to him was a memory that will never be forgotten. He insisted that he give me something, so I asked him to send me a copy of the video he was making to record the event. He said "no problem". We hung around for as long as we could and watched Ed and several other stripers have at a '39 Chev sedan that had been driven in from Texas for the event. The Chev was mostly the brown known to be surface rust. No matter, everthing got striped. It was great. Well, it came time to go, we thanked Ed, shook his hand and got ready to leave. Ed said he would be sure to send the video. Sure enough, several weeks later a packege arrived at our door from the head Fink hiss-own-self. The video! I popped it in the machine and sat down with a beer to enjoy the goings-on. Whoa Nelly, the video was so bad it nearly made me sea sick. Ed was a great artist and an even greater person but, he sure wasn't a videographer. I saw more footage of the ceilings and floors than I did of the people and things that were happening. Ed never let go of the record*****on! I tried several times to watch the video but just couldn't do it. Finally one day, I was going to record the drag races and just out of pure stupidity I used Ed's tape. Major dumkof award for sure. Anyway, that is my story. I hope I haven't bored you all to much. Ed was the best, the VERY BEST!

 

I met him (sorta) at Mooneyes Xmas in '97. It was so busy, I just got to shake his hand and say "Hi". But I remeber him as a HUGE guy! Bigger than life with a smile to go with it. His baseball mitt swallowed my hand.
Sadly, the next time I could afford to go to SoCal again was this past summer to Moldy Marvins BBQ in July, but there was alot of RF stuff there but it wasn't the same without the big man in the big hat...
So, seeing all the REAL Finks are reading this, I'm gonna do my support of HAMB and give you Finks a chance at something cool...
here it is:
RAT FINK IN 3-D!!! The glasses are still in there, never taken out.
Remember this is a HAMB auction/Rat Fink

 

and the back with the man himself!

 

Johnny Ace...check yer PM's Homie...

Later, ESnacky6...

 

In the mid 80's my brother and I attended the annual car show in Omaha. I believe it was an ISCA show and Ed was there, selling shirts and key chains etc etc... My brother asks him what kinda project he has in the works and Ed says "I got a super secret project back home in the shop in Manti but nobody knows what it is."
He says, "I got Dirty Doug sitting up on the hill with an AK-47, keeping watch until I get back."
And then Big Daddy launches off into a disertation about automatic weapons. Musta stood there in front of him for 10 minutes listening to him talk in detail about which ones were best and "muzzle velocity" this, and "thousand feet per second" that, until we hadda excuse ourselves.
We didn't know if Ed was really into guns or just having a little fun with us and I still don't know....

 

Back in 91, I drove 5 or 6 hours to a big model show in Kentucky to meet Ed. Got there and realized it was a HUGE SPACE (i.e. Star Wars, Trek) type show. They stuck Ed in a small back room, right by the door. Luckily I found him, got to hang out with him for a few hours, the whole while he was doodling on some paper, small sketches, and he kept asking if I liked pizza, which I thought was strange, but ask anyone who knows me and I'd eat pizza for any and every meal. Anyhow, we'd go to another subject, and again it would come back to pizza.....anyhow fast forward to they were anouncing that the show was closing, so getting ready to leave, I am walking toward the door, get outside and forgot a picture that I had Ed sign. I run back in and tell Ed I forgot it and he says good, here's something for ya...he turns around a 11 x 17 poster he was drawing on, and well...here's what it was....The ABSOLUTE most nicest guy that I ever met, wish I coulda seen him again..

 

And here's a little corner of our "Hot Rod Bedroom" dedicated to The Man hisself....

 

I remember he worked with the model makers and inspiredd me to build models first then KARS-also back in late seventies I wrote to Ed and bought one of his pin striping how to books-lots more about wipin your brush on your pants and pschyin out hard customers etc than tecqunique!- still got it!- also he was on the old AMrock station at Kansas City-WHB- once doing a call in interview with the DJ and I called and asked him about how he did the molds for his body- and was real nice -told me/NO MOULD- how he did plaster over wire to get it to his Idea of the shape and then Fiberglassed over the results of that first take....Real Nice guy.....he was a GOD........in my mind!A buddy of mine said when he was at a show sellin shirts he would just lay down on the ground in the shirt booth and sleep rather than get a room!!

 

I couldn't believe it when I saw Ed standing in his booth early sat morning at Autorama in Detroit...WOW...ED ROTH....in the flesh!!!! No one was around yet and I got to talking with him about the usual car stuff....My son asked Ed if he "Was the guy who invented Ratfink" and Ed said yes. My son asked for his autograph in his spiral notebook, so as we were talking, Ed was doodling...RF of course, and the caption was "Don't swet the small stuff"....after the show, we sent him a thank you note and a few weeks later....I'm checkin my mail and there's a letter from ED...wholy*****...beyond belief!!!...more sketching and a phone number for some parts I wanted to locate and an invitation to meet up at St Ignace that summer.

Ed was the coolest and most creative hotrodder EVER, ...and a gentleman to boot.

I didn't really know him....but I miss him.

 

The first time I met Ed was at the World of Wheels show in Boston in 91 or 92.He had a booth set up selling shirts and Gary Mizer was working with him at the time.
We talked for a bit and then it came out that someone had stolen his brushes that day.I had my paint kit in the car and offered him whatever he needed.
I brought it in and he proceeded to pick out the rattiest brush I had in the box and said,"This'll do fine"
When I got ready to leave he said he'd like to give me something for the brush;would I like a shirt? I picked out a RF(is there ANY other?) and across the bottom of it he wrote,"Ray,thanks for da brush" and signed it.
The shirt has been washed and worn many times but the words are still VERY clear on the bottom.It has many paint stains on it and some have said I should probably frame it and put it with the other Roth memorabilia I have.But I think Ed would have wanted it to be used rather than enshrined so I still wear it on special occasions(like painting).And that's MY Ed Roth story.
Ray aka safariknut

 

[ QUOTE ]
I'll tell you a story (as much as my tired brain will allow) that a friend told me about Big Daddy.

I dunno where they were but it was cold - Ed was working on a car (under the hood). Ken (my friend) was watching him and noticed some snot starting to drip down Ed's nose. You know how it gets when it's cold outside right? It starts running, it drips, you can't feel it.

Ken said to him, "ed, yer nose is really pouring and you gotta do something before it gets worse"... (I guess it was getting pretty gross looking) and, instead of blowing his nose or wiping his nose, Ed takes a shop rag in sticks it in his mouth - just high enough to be right under his nose to catch the snot. I guess he kept that rag there for a long time, serving its purpose.

I about DIED when I heard that story. That solution to the problem is so much ED... too too funny.

Ken tells it better - you had to be there.

Becca

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Johnny great thread! 5 Star and a big Thumbs Up !

I found a foto of Ed and Ken.
Ed and Kenny we're paintin' Toilet Seats up at Hot August Nights when this happened. I guess Ed's noise wouldn't stop
dripin' so he stuck a rag in his mouth to stop the water works.

Good luck with the book sounds like a great idea.

Moldy

 

<font color="purple"> In '00 I was gonna caravan down with Ken to the Mooneyes Christmas gig. I met Ed at 2 different shows in the past, but only talked a little cuz he was busy. I was gonna hang with them all day at Mooneyes, but my truck had broke down and I had just spent all my money on a new truck. I decided to wait till next time. There was no next time. At least I have the trike body I got from Ken. I finally have enough of the parts collected, I will start one it next year. </font>

 

Wow Johnny! This is a great post and I think you are on the right track. As far as your book goes... So many of the people doing books on Ed only ask the artists or the so called name-sayers. What you're doing is what Ed would have done... Asking the average person what their thoughts on something was. This post is great for a lot of reasons. For the most part it shows how many people were touched by him. Not in a "God" sense but in a coolness sense.

Here's my story:

While traveling to Pheonix with Ed. WIth Ed in the brand new yellow Honda with me in the*****py old red Honda, heading to the Tuscon Autorama, we pull into Tuscon to a local grocery store. Ed told me we were going to pick up some supplies. He went in and grabbed the largest loaf of french bread, a package of salami, and some bologna, two large tomatoes a big jar of mayo. As we were getting this he tells me that we forgot the most important part of it, "Magic Sauce", in other words Tabasco. After we pay our bill, he heads to the parking lot and spreads everything out on the hood of the yellow Honda. Ripping open the bread with his hands, he pours the mayo on, piles on the packages of meat, and then loads the entire thing up with the "Magic" tabasco sauce. Making this mess back into a sandwich he tears the thing up into sections. So I ask, "Is this for dinner or breakfast? For both of us?" ANd he answered, "No, man this is our whole breakfast lunch and dinner for the whole weekend of the carshow." So I told him that it would spoil by then. But he****ured me that "No, the "Magic" sauce would keep it from spoiling." And sure enough the sandwhich did last us all weekend, and nothing spoiled.

And this was just food for thought.....

Endsville
Von Franco