![]() ![]() I’ve seen junk-sellers at Hershey with more elaborate setups-and probably bigger crowds around them. There’s something really humble about this whole scene, what with the mighty Rat Fink himself hawking trinkets out of a tent at an out-of-the-way Midwestern car show. We should have had him pinstripe the Little Red Wagon-that would have been really cool to have. We roll up to a pop-up canopy with folding tables piled with pins, gewgaws and, naturally, T-shirts-lots and lots of T-shirts.Īnd there’s an old guy, Roth, I presume, underneath or around the canopy selling his stuff. I almost certainly wanted to be somewhere else. Only, I do sort of remember it-one of my earliest glimmers of memory, in fact-or at least my brain is doing a good job weaving a plausible reconstruction out of scraps: It would have been a hot summer day, and I was (I think) riding in a Little Red Wagon. Ignace Car Show in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and I would have been too young to remember any of it. It would have been in the early 1990s at the St. But it was too complicated and besides, wood and me don’t jive! So I went to the local lumber yard and got some casting plaster (which is gross ’cause it dries so quick) but it was cheap and better’n wood.As family lore has it, I met Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, car customizer and weirdo underground artist extraordinaire, once. I knew fiberglas existed but couldn’t get anyone to help me (except Dirty Doug later on) so I was gonna make me a body outa wood like the Shadoff Special guys’d done. “First I had the frame which was your basic ’29 Ford rails and fitted this junk Caddy engine into (junk but ran good). Shoes was good for about 4 days before I’d throw a coat of black paint on ’em.” My pants are always ruined by the end of each day, but in them days I’d have to throw ’em away each day. I got some of the gooiest messes ya’d ever wanna see. It seemed too far out for my brain so I just dismissed it ’til I saw the LIFE article. It was also very cheap! It could also be done by people with little or no talent and I had both. Ya could’a knocked me over with a feather. ” In Africa I had got this fantastic idea for a fiberglas car when I saw a picture of Henry Ford beatin’ the trunk of one o’ his new ’41 Fords with a sledge hammer and it wouldn’t dent. Roth's Beatnik Bandit - controlled by a central 'Joystick', (no steering wheel) and hand-blown bubble top, 1960 None of these Neo-Artistes sat and lamented on Things ‘Back in the Day’, but completely without the aid of computers or digital devices of any kind, Roth created a FantasyLand of FantasticNess we now Worship as California High Art …and Rightfully So ~ Matisse, Picasso & Dali before him, gazed for the most part Wholly and Phantasmagorically Into the Future. Though we now use any manner of digital technology to create Modern Art, preserve Nostalgia, Pop Culture & Retro-Everything, ( which I am Shamelessly Guilty Of ), One of the Most Iconic California Pop Maestro MasterMinds, Mr. 1963Īlthough this Modern Day Badass Hot Rod was not built in California ~ The Style it Embodies is completely a la Ed “Big Daddy” Roth 1963…Īnd California-Style It Is…Having seen, owned & been exposed to A Lot of Hot Rods, Federico had to admire Blown to Be Wild for the Sheer HotRod Audacity, Craftsmanship & Total Big Daddy RothNess of a Monster Car Come to Life ~.Thou Shalt Drag ~ “Big Daddy” Roth Lives ! A California Genius in his Heyday ![]()
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