Today In Labor History April 4, 2001: Ed Big Daddy Roth died. Roth was a custom car designer, pin-striper, cartoonist and leading figure in the Southern California, working-class, Kustom Kulture. He invented the Rat Fink cartoon. He also designed numerous well known hotrods, like the Beatnik Bandit, the Surfite (seen in the film, Beach Blanket Bingo) and the Orbitron. Numerous other Kustom Kulture artists were inspired and/or mentored by Roth, including Robert Williams.
My old friend Shannon Shirley turned me on to Roth and his art back in the 1980s, although I was first exposed to his style from my elementary school days, when I used to build plastic models, and Revell sold several model kits of Roth’s creations. One of Mattel’s original first series Hot Wheels was a replica of the Beatnik Bandit. Shannon was also a good pin-striper and customizer. I remember he once bought a large snake skin at the Ashby flea market and used it to create possibly the first snake-skin gas tank on a Harley Davidson. He also tricked out a Baja Bug and hand-painted a shark eating the Jesus fish on the bumper of my VW Rabbit. And then he got into tattooing and became a fantastic tattoo artist, too.
I first met Shannon at a party at Rowan’s. I think I met Alesha there, too. On a beer run, we decided to get a house together and become roommates. Ah, such innocent, youthful times, when a mutual thirst for beer was sufficient connection to believe we could be compatible roommates. And, for the most part, we were. Our first house burned down. I remember Shannon trying to fling buckets of water from the front yard up to the second floor, where the flames were shooting out. And the Berkeley Fire Department, BFD, drove right past our burning house and Shannon chased after them screaming. Once it was out, Shannon continued to live in it, even without a roof, until we found our second place, virtually across the street from Rowan and Leslie.
Shannon was an elevator man. Worked for Otis Elevators (Elisha Otis invented the first safety elevator, back in 1852). His dad and both his brothers worked for Otis, too. He was a real working-class punk among a bunch of university punks. Went to tons of great shows with him. Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers (including the infamous Halloween show at the Farm), Jonathan Richman, Minutemen, Black Flag, Snakefinger, Cramps.
Shannon would have been 60 this past February. Rest in Power, my old friend.
