Kelp Issue 1

Premiere issue

TM

A Photo Essay by

John Wagner

kelp

build

‘70 Triumph Trophy 250

North Narrabeen Surfer

Volume One / Number 1

BIG BEN WILKINSON March /April 2 0 1 2

I

n the 1970s, there were three newspapers that defined a generation through their writing and photography.

Tracks, Rolling Stone and Andy Warhol’s Interview each

laid a foundation that many still adhere to today. These pub-

Craftsmanship. Originality. Bespoke. Three words that

lications documented the world around them with a palpable

could be used to describe the trend in not only today’s surfing

sense of creativity and an overriding feeling that anything

culture, but life in general. Kelp has put together a group of

could happen. And it often did. Interestingly enough, a new

contributing writers, artists and photographers that share the

generation is discovering that those same ideals are not too

vision of “craft” in order to document the stories of those that

different from those that they aspire to themselves.

follow these principles. Together, we hope you find a spark in

Kelp is a newspaper that aims to combine the spirit of those

this and future issues of Kelp that might inspire you to reshape

three publications and speak to all generations in a way that

that old board lying in the backyard or to start on that project

resonates to each. Surfing is the backbone of Kelp, as it was

to get the motorcycle back on the road. Or maybe it will simply

for the original Tracks, which sought to capture the aesthetic

give you an opportunity to step away from the computer and

of beach culture. Today, like the 50s, 60s and 70s, the act of

take a look at the world and all the possibilities that still exist.

hands-on craftsmanship — shaping a surfboard, building motorcycles or hot-rods as well as playing music —is as important as the end result. There are growing numbers that feel it’s better to build their own board than walk into a shop and pick one off a rack of 20 others, all the same. Back then, if your motorcycle

Tom Brecke

didn’t fit your style, you’d tear it down and build one that does.

Found your dad’s guitar in the closet? Take it out and learn to play it. In our view, those same standards still apply.

Bill Livingston

by Chasen Marshall

The New Black

I

Oz’s Ben Wilkinson putting big wave world on notice.

t’s late in the afternoon of an early winter day in 2008, and the type of swell that has given Maverick’s its reputation for pulverizing egos is colliding into Half Moon Bay. The channel is a full-on flotilla party, with boats and photographers and Jet Skis; some of the biggest names in big-wave surfing have made the trip to meet this swell, 75 miles south of San Francisco.

The crowds on the cliff and on the beach are dense, and the sun is on the brink of setting. A set approaches, a looming mound of water, growing in size and increasing in splendor the closer it comes to the rock outcropping. It is the type of wave that has sent the line-up scrambling for the horizon on multiple occasions throughout the day. Not many of these waves have been ridden, and even fewer have been ridden successfully.

Sitting in the chilly, deep-green water among the pack of surfers is a mostly-unknown, twentysomething Australian named Ben. He’s managed to scratch his way into a couple waves, but nothing to hang a career on.

He catches notice of the wave early. He’s sitting deep, as he’s been known to do during his handful of previous sessions here. When the pack starts paddling for safety, Ben also starts paddling, but he does so in a way that belies the speed that his 6-foot-4 frame seems capable of producing. His friends call him Big Ben. He’s paddling, but not really paddling; a mind-fuck, of sorts. He’s doing enough to convince his brain that he is attempting to flee, but he’s actually keeping himself “in the spot I like to be — up under the lip, where it’s deep and steep.”

The brawny, brown-haired young man whips his board around quickly; his broad shoulder beginning to paddle at a point where there’s already no turning back. As the wave stands straight up, he’s on his feet, legs wide apart, racing down the 20-foot face, before leaning into a critical turn and outracing this blood-thirsty beast of nature.

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As he paddles back out, adrenaline is coursing through his body. He feels very much alive. His was easily one of the waves of the day. During the ride, Santa Cruz legend Ken “Skindog” Collins was in the channel on a Jet Ski, standing and roaring with approval and excitement.

“Right now the sun is setting and this guy from Australia, Ben, I don’t know his whole name or nothing, but Ben is fucking feeling it,” Skindog tells one of the cameras in the channel. “Ben From Australia is the new black.”

Almost immediately after Ben arrives back in the line-up, another wave, just as big, just as heavy, “with not a drop of water out of place,” begins its mutation. Once again, Big Ben is in the spot. There are no other takers. He whips around, once again too deep to turn back, and repeats his performance.

This time, with his adrenaline racing out of control, he’s short of breath and has a shit-eating grin, and he’s trying to appear composed — like this small window of good fortunate happens to him all the time. Skindog, one of Ben’s big-wave heroes, comes racing up on the Ski, offering to tow him back out.

Trying to embrace this moment, while masking his true emotions in the face of big-wave royalty, Ben Wilkinson waves him off. He wants to make the paddle. He wants to feel the adrenaline. He wants to commit these past few minutes to memory, because he’s come so far to reach this happy point. There are countless dark days behind him and he’s finally awaking to this new reality, this new life that he’d always wanted — but had had to take so many detours in order to reach.

He thinks of his father, and continues to smile. He paddles a bit harder.

It doesn’t take long, or much convincing, to want to root for Ben Wilkinson.

An imposing figure at first glance, once you share a few words with the 29-year-old Australian, innocence and a degree of vulnerability appears from behind his hulking 250-pound frame and steely blue eyes. Give him a beard and a flannel he looks as though he could double for Paul Bunyan.

That innocence and that vulnerability, however, shouldn’t be misinterpreted as weakness.

“He has an old soul; he’s been through the ringer,” says Cliff White-Kjoss, 40, an L.A. County lifeguard who’s a close friend to Ben. “With his father passing away, he had to grow up really fast, but he has his priorities, his beliefs, his identity pretty squared-away.”

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

3

His story explains it all.

Ben grew up in a trailer park a half-mile from the beach in North Narrabeen, in southeast Australia, a short drive up the coast from Sydney. It was the kind of place where his countrymen came to vacation in the summer, but quickly transitioned back to a sleepy town of working-class people once the seasons turned. His father, Mark, worked for a trucking company, and as early as kindergarten he was taking Ben along, giving him responsibilities and even paying him a wage. It wasn’t a fruitful upbringing, but looking back, Ben was and is aware and appreciative of the way his parents “treated me as a person.”

On those “special occasions” when his father had time away from work or the waves were right, Ben would accompany him to the beach. His dad would draw a large square in the sand and those would be Ben’s boundaries until his father returned.

Sometimes he’d keep himself active, doing the things young kids do, digging holes or throwing stones, other times, he’d just sit and watch the waves. He’d never think to leave the square; his dad wouldn’t like that. That was the relationship they had: one of mutual respect, more friends than father/son.

As he got older, Ben proved a gifted sportsman. He split his time between rugby league and surfing, never fully committing to one or the other. He had the size and natural talent to exceed, but the drive was lacking. His drive didn’t carry over to the classroom either. As a teenager, he became a carpenter’s apprentice, focusing first on moving out from under his parent’s roof. Even once he had a place of his own, he remained close.

Everything that Ben hoped would happen and was on the brink of happening changed at 20, just when he was about to put foot to path and pursue a career in rugby: the strongest man in his life, his best mate, his father, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative motor neuron disease. Over time, the man the

locals called “Tarzan” for his size and propensity for throwing the occasional blow, would have his muscles weaken and atrophy, lose control of all voluntary movement and slowly become a shadow of his former self.

For Ben, it meant no more rugby, no more youth.

Fridays were Ben and his dad’s day together. It became tradition to head to Palm Beach, 20 minutes up the coast from North Narrabeen, where they would eat fish and chips and drink a few beers, with a breeze in their face and a view of the Tasman Sea. Mark was still getting around on his own, with assistance from a walker. The pair would talk about surfing, friends, sports and life. If the weather was right, they would go for a swim, “just to get him in the water, out of the chair; get him back in the salt since he was a surfer, a waterman.”

Ben knew his dad was only getting weaker. Before his complete incapacitation, Ben tried to give one last gift to the family: a vacation for four. Ben’s boss, who was an avid traveler and surfer, had often talked about an island in Tahiti called Huahine.

“I wanted to work on the family dynamic,” Ben recalls. “I knew [dad’s condition] was hard to handle for everyone.”

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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It ended up just Ben and his dad. Ben packed up his boards and the necessary clothes, along with his dad’s wheelchair and shower chair.

“It was a pretty big drama to travel with everything,” Ben says. “You don’t notice how hard it is until you’re pushing a wheelchair and dragging a coffin board bag through the airport.”

They rented a small house overlooking a lagoon and remained there for a month.

Though he no longer had the strength to surf, Mark was able to get around on his own for short periods, sitting under the cabana with his eyes on the ocean or occasionally wading into the lagoon to float around. They went snorkeling, they cooked together and made friends with some of the locals.

As his father’s condition worsened, however, more responsibility fell on Ben. He recognized that his mother wasn’t fit to handle what was coming and moved home. He had very little to give, but what he had he provided in spades. Fridays became Tuesdays and Thursdays, and before long, he had to stop working altogether. He was forced to take out a loan.

Ben’s older sister by three years, Katrina, moved out of the family house years prior. She was a bit “wild and rebellious, but with a good heart,” Ben says, and was then struggling as a single mother, getting by on a single-mother pension, raising her son, Tahn. She was no longer with the father and was living in a trailer park in Byron Bay when Ben called her and discussed relocating he and his dad.

She organized the house they’d live in; Ben did the rest.

With part of his loan and with some of the money he had saved up he bought a larger-than-average van, which was “bigger than a Volkswagen but not quite a Winnebago.”

Then he had to pack up both his and his dad’s life into it. He began by loading his dad, situating him in a reclining chair, which Ben could see through the rearview mirror.

Then he packed all of their belongings, including all of his dad’s necessary medical equipment, including the special raised bed, shower chair and wheelchair.

“

Not many of these waves [Maverick’s] have been ridden, and even fewer successfully.

”

It was a slow process that took hours, including packing an extra trailer. Normally the drive would have taken eight to 10 hours tops, but with all the weight, it took a solid 12 hours. When Ben would stop to get gas, because of his dad’s near-complete immobility, including no use of his arms, Ben would scratch his body, including what was a good amount of facial scruff in a short period, and re-adjust how he was sitting.

By the time they arrived in Byron Bay and had unpacked the car in the rain and finally unloaded Mark, he’d been in that reclining chair for nearly 20 hours.

“When I was driving I couldn’t do anything [to help make him comfortable],” Ben recalls, “but he was a tough fucker, he never complained.”

Over the course of the next two years, Ben and Katrina did what they could to make the most of the remaining time in their father’s life. It was hard work. The small three-bedroom house had to be situated with ramps and false doors, which Ben installed, to make getting around a bit easier for everyone.

They’d alternate making their dad breakfast and the family would eat together.

Then Ben would carry him to the shower, help him get dressed, help him to the restroom and in so many other ways throughout the day. In North Narrabeen, a nurse would occasionally come to allow Ben a break. In Byron Bay, Ben and Katrina were on their own.

“The only thing he really could do was stand up, but he wasn’t strong enough to stand by himself, but could be vertical,” Ben says.

While it was a tough time for the siblings, there were lighter moments. When their dad had to have a surgery to have a tube inserted into his stomach for feeding, the anesthesiologist’s name was Wiki Wong, which was the source of some good laughs – sometimes not so privately — for the family.

“It’s really hard to look back, just to be in that predicament and know it’s imminent that your best friend, your dad is going to die,” Ben says all these years later. “There’s no real preparing for it. We did the best we could under the circumstances, and that’s all you could do. Still I would have liked to be able to do better.”

Mark passed away in 2005. Ben was just 22.

“I would have given anything: organs, limbs, I would have probably given my own life, but it wasn’t a possibility,” Ben says now.

He fell into a dark place; not quite rock bottom, but in need of some soul-searching. He needed “time to reflect on the past” and to begin the healing process. He wanted to get away, for a few months if possible, but he didn’t have the money to do so. He eventually moved out of the house he shared with his sister and into his van. The van, which was cream-colored with blue pin lines along the sides, was equipped with a wheelchair hoist. It had a bed in the back and enough room underneath to store a couple surfboards. He drove it down to Sydney and found work in construction and in carpentry until he had saved enough for the trip.

He returned to Tahiti, a place he’d taken his father just before he passed. Ben took up residence. It wasn’t long before he’d made nice with the locals, and was working and surfing frequently. He hiked into the mountains in search of waterfalls, and rode the good waves he’d hoped to find. He added to the tattoo he’d had done when he was last here with his father. He searched for closure.

Along the way he was working as a surf guide when he met a temperamental American named Richard Sherratt. Ben was to drive the American out to a surf spot and spend the day out there with him. The waves were good, and Ben was anxious to do some surfing. Not too long after arriving at the spot, Richard was ready to head in, but Ben was not. Richard bitched, but Ben didn’t give. Eventually, they got to know one another, with Ben sharing his story. By the end of the trip, Richard told Ben to give him a call if he ever made his way to Southern California.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

5

A few weeks later, with $120 in his pocket, Ben landed at Los Angeles International Airport, with no plans except to eventually make his way north to surf Maverick’s. He began his journey with a van ride to the coast, landing first in Venice Beach, figuring he’d “work stuff out from there.” It took a few days, but he eventually tracked down Richard and the successful businessman took the young man in. He put him up at his house, found him work with his construction company, and introduced him around town. Ben was pleasantly surprised by the people Richard introduced him to; the only Americans he’d previously known were a group of surfers he’d come across in Indonesia, who were “kind of loud and obnoxious.”

The same way Ben’s story compelled Richard to want the best for the young Australian, the same happened with almost everyone Ben came into contact with. People would hear his story, get to know him personally and feel an almost immediate attraction to want to help. Not that Ben ever asked for it. But as his dad had told him from a young age: “What you give out to the world comes back.”

His life isn’t exactly everything he’d like it to be at the moment, but Ben’s smiling.

It’s a Sunday in late October and he just arrived in Seal Beach, Calif. the day prior from Hawaii, where he lives with his wife, Kara. When he meets up with his close friends, Kent Maul and Joe Dugan, hugs are exchanged and smiles are shared. There is a pair of sand-finished big-wave guns lying on the lawn, hand-shaped and self-glassed by Roger Hinds of Country Surfboards. These three men are integral members of the Ben Wilkinson support team. Kent and Joe are both surfers and businessman who recognized the talent and the good in Ben. Both believe wholeheartedly that he has what it takes to make it in the big-wave surfing game. They’re just doing what they can to help him reach that dream – like having ‘Wilco Would Go’ stickers made to try to help him get voted into the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contest at Waimea Bay. “He’s a talented guy,” says Maul, who’s trusted Ben to look over his son on trips to Costa Rica and has been in heavy surf at Teahupoo with him over the years. “You want to see talented people make it and live a good life.”

Three years ago, Ben was close. His name was on the promotional poster for The Eddie, as an alternate. That small bit of recognition was validation for the hard work, the juggling of his job and his training, and something that he and his support team could celebrate. But it didn’t last. He was removed last-minute in order to make room for a surfer with name recognition on behalf of a sponsor with influential spending capital.

There’s politics in everything.

“I think the time will come,” Ben says. “It’s still just a dream at the moment.”

Instead of waiting and hoping for his chance, he’s taking the only route in which he knows he has some control: proving his talent and his worth in the water. Though he’s not officially on the Big-Wave World Tour, he’s currently second in the rankings after two events (of five) behind Peter Mel. He finished second behind Mel in Peru at Pico Alto.

Mel has had his eye on Ben for a few years now, dating back to when Mel recommended Ben to fill an open spot at a big-wave contest in Chile. Ben had dropped everything, scrounged together the necessary travel funds (with help from Kent and Joe), and traveled for two and half days in order to arrive 10 minutes before his heat. He lost in the first heat.

“That shows determination, you’re not going to forget a guy like that,” says Mel, who refers to Ben as an “inner-circle kind of guy.”

“These days it’s harder than ever, there still isn’t quite an avenue to follow to become [a sponsored big-wave surfer],” Mel continues. “The way to do it is to have the financial backing to chase swells around the world.

When you see that red blob, you have to have the 5 G’s to get there, and you need to get there to make a name for yourself. It’s tough.”

Ben knows the reality of the game and has no false pretenses of what he may or may not deserve. But he takes inspiration from his sister, Katrina, who, aside from raising a son, is also an elite paddler and rower back in Australia. She’s managed to balance raising a child with her training, as well as going to school and working as an ambulance medic. She has her own home, which she bought with her husband, complete with a pool and a gym. “[Caring for their father and life has been] hard on both of us,” Ben says. “Without each other, we couldn’t have got through it all.”

“I really was just intrigued by his whole act, his whole mannerism,” Hinds explains.

“What he wanted to achieve in big surf was quite different from everybody else that I’d been around my whole surfing life or career. He reminds me of guys from when I was on the North Shore in the early ’70s and surfing waves of consequence. Guys didn’t do it for photos or hundred-thousand dollar travel contracts, they did it because it’s here (touching his fist to his heart), and that’s what I get from him, that he really has a deep passion.”

He wants to see Ben succeed. He wants Ben to finally to pull in a sponsorship that allows him the financial flexibility to really prove himself in waves around the world. But the way Hinds talks about big-wave surfing and the types of people who pursue the act, it’s most spiritual and personal than the corporate take-over has made it out to be. And in his mind, Ben’s old-school in that way.

“A few months ago I was in Huntington Beach with my wife and I walked in the surf museum since I’d never been there,” Hinds begins. “I started looking around and there was this picture of this guy dropping in on this perfect, let’s call it 10-foot Pipeline, just glassy, just picture-perfect wave. I ask the guy behind the desk, since there was no name on it, I go, ‘You know who that is?’ He goes, ‘No, do you?’ ‘Absolutely. His name is Tony Roy, and he was what the North Shore was all about in the ’70s.’ He was a freakin’ nobody – he was Ben. But on the biggest days at The Pipeline, when everybody else was smoking dope and just hanging on the beach, this was the guy, one of the underground guys, who were out there. And that’s what I like, those guys like Ben.”

Ben’s loved ones are optimistic. His new family, of sorts, is doing what it can to expedite the process of elevating Ben’s notoriety in big-wave surfing. They know he has the talent and the mindset to grasp opportunity if and when it finally presents itself.

The rest of the surfing world just needs to take notice.

“

Ben knows the reality of the game and has no false pretenses of what he may or may not deserve.

”

Whether or not the nose of his board ends up littered with sponsor stickers, Ben has the support and respect of Roger Hinds. The pair met a few years ago, through Maul, who thought the two would work well together. Hinds watched some film of Ben surfing Maverick’s and was shocked by the commitment and tenacity in the young man’s approach. Ben was just hoping to find a shaper who was willing to hear him out and create the kind of boards he thought were necessary for the type of surfing he wanted to do.

The relationship now is about so much more than business. First off: Hinds is retired. His professional shaping days are behind him, but he saw something in Big Ben: in his story, in his relationship with his friends, in the way he surfed.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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“CARVING DEEP BLUE RIPPLES IN THE TISSUES OF YOUR MIND” –Cream

The Tales of Brave Ulysses

[

[

KNOS The Future of Style TRAD OMIS

photos by Dana Morris

Dane Peterson ten over at Malibu.

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Photo sequence

by Dana Morris

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

7

In writing the first of many KelpBuild articles, we decided to go big. We could have started out with building your own hand plane or shaping an Alia, but instead, we went for broke: a non-running, parts-missing, not-even-in-the-DMV-records, Triumph Trophy.

The Build.

We decided that the Trophy would be a perfect cafe-racer candidate, so off I went on the hunt. Not long into searching the classified jungle of Craig’s List, I came across this one-- a 1970 Triumph trophy 250CC. Three things were in its favor: it was local, it was British and it was cheap. The British part was counterintuitive to the “plus” side but when you’re an Anglophile you just deal with it.

‘70 Triumph Trophy 250

If this and future articles inspire you to go out and build your own café-racer, then run down this list and check yes or no next to each. If you end up with more marked “yes,” then good on you and go for it. If the no’s win consider yourself lucky and enjoy the read.

T h e L i s t.

1

Do you have a old motorcycle sitting in the back of your garage?

If yes to #1 skip to #3.

2

Do you have a source of endless cash in your sock drawer that your wife or girlfriend doesn’t know about? And/or do you mind spending as much money on the build as you probably could have bought someone else’s finished one for?

3

Do you have time to spend equally between searching the Internet for parts, watching YouTube videos on “ how to,” and wrenching on the bike with tools that just don’t quite fit so lastly driving to the hardware store to buy just that one wrench ...

4

Do you have your Motorcycle license?

Well at least we got you thinking. Here are the photos of the KelpBuild cafe project before I dig in. In the upcoming issues we will alternate between other KelpBuild projects and the café racer build to hopefully inspire you to get outside and build your own vehicle, be it for riding waves, mountain roads or building for buildings sake. Cheers!

[continued page 19]

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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A Photo Essay by John

Wagner

T

he Bonneville Salt Flats is a surreal, stark environment — a diptych of clear blue sky meeting white, briny earth. The flats have also served as the backdrop for motor sports events since the 1930s. What Wagner

captures is not necessarily SpeedWeek itself but details of the people and subculture surrounding it.

“I’m not a very talkative person so I use photography to show people what I think,” said Wagner, whose documentary-influenced images often depict the beauty and tension between urban and natural environments, progress and decay, and machines and humans.

There is a twinge of nostalgia in Wagner’s photographs, a sense that the contemporary world, consumed with the mediocre and mundane, moves us only in retrospect. To that end, photography is like “a time machine,” he added.

“That’s pretty much it.”

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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If you’re in control, you’re not going fast enough.

–Parnelli Jones

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. –Hunter Thompson

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

11

by SIMON J. HEATH

On paper, Amy Gunther, owner/manager of KCDC skate shop in New York, shouldn’t exist. As a former model in Manhattan you would think that she’d have bailed the skate scene years ago for a corporate job and gazillionaire husband. But Amy runs KCDC skate shop because skateboarding is her life, or as she puts it: “I fucking love what I do.” Thanks be to that, because KCDC is the 440 V8 (hemi) of New York’s skate scene.

First up, a refresher. New York is tough – for a skater, it’s a bastard child that’s more Taxi Driver than Animal Chin (go and watch the 1995 movie Kids if you have any doubts). It’s no sunny So-Cal. It snow in NYC, the wind hits you cold half the year, everyone’s got a story about guns and drugs … then, your rent kicks in at around three-grand a month. Try running a skate shop in that chaos.

Amy does.

KCDC is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Yes, Williamsburg has more Hipsters per-square-foot than anywhere on the planet. Don’t judge yet though, because Amy and KCDC have been there since before all that. She fell into the skate business with an ex-boyfriend 10 years ago, helping him run a small shop around the corner. But Amy is no second-string betty. For her, skating is real, which is why she’s still in the business a decade down the track. As she says, “it’s a business that’s got such a crazy amount of heart to it.”

Amy got into skating as a teenager. Like so many of us, it was a tuned-in big brother who guided her to the light on the hill.

The elder brother took her from small-town Long Island to world of the Ramones, Bad Brains and other hard-core bands that included regular gigs at CBGB back in the day. The choice of transport for this scene was fourwheels and a foot, thus young Amy’s destiny was born. Next up was her journey through modeling, one she found tough. So like a lot of creative kids who never did– and never will– fit the mould, Amy found her meaning while rolling with other skaters.

Skating became her refuge from the pressures of modeling and it’s never stopped being central to her existence. The same skate crew she had at age 14 is still friends with her now at 38.

Over the years Amy has crafted KCDC into more than just a skate shop. Inside there’s a perfect 6-foot mini-ramp, gallery space, parties, contests, video premieres–everything a decent sub-culture thrives on. What strikes you however, as you wander the warehouse, is the mellow mood. The joint really is for skaters by skaters. Session the mini a couple of times on a quiet afternoon and you’ll see big name pros enjoying low-key time on the ramp perfecting new tricks and loving what they do. The day I turned up, pro skater

Jahmal Williams had the mini to himself. Some recent events at KCDC included Hopps Skateboard’s mini-ramp comp, Shake Junt’s NYC Video screening and a Vans best-trick comp. Through it all, KCDC never feels like a contrived marketing stunt. It’s more like a clubhouse, a barracks for beautiful losers. The fact that they sell stuff feels more like a convenience than a central premise.

But I have to admit I was a bit surprised when she dropped the marketing jargon of “business model” as she explained KCDC’s workings. However, before she could launch into a tirade of words like “monetization,” “branding” or “ad spend,” she explained that KCDC’s business side is about giving back. Things like mentoring new kids coming up and putting on free events are important aspects to KCDC’s business model, and one that would probably send your normal MBA into a cerebral meltdown; but Amy knows what she’s doing. Skating, like surfing, hot-rods or lo-brow art, is not something the true believers do for a few months then drop for the next big trend. Skating, as the generation who came of age in the 1970s is now showing, is a life-long pursuit. It’s their safe place, whether you’re the misfit in high school or a stressed out dad. For the 30, 40 or even 50 years that one might skate these days, there’s going to be a lot of cash for boards, clothes, pads and everything else going to the shop that wins your heart–and KCDC wins hearts and minds.

After making it in the Big Apple, Amy’s now back at school parttime studying for a degree in business management and finance at Brooklyn College. Good ammunition for a small business fighting the war against online shopping. As for her personal life, well KCDC is Amy’s primary relationship, though she would love to have a family.

Now there should be a happy ending to this story, unfortunately though Amy is a victim of her own success. KCDC’s reflected glory has caused her little neighborhood of old warehouses in the back streets of Brooklyn to become hot property. So the landlord is pulling the rug out from under KCDC, seeking higher rent from some gentrified Johnnycome-lately. As of press time, Amy’s looking for another venue. Here’s hoping she finds it.

that endless diesel drone. the musk of sweat-stained seats that have cradled every kind of pilgrim and every desperate variety of escape. the growing sense that nothing you’ve left behind has any kind of hold of you — that the past is suddenly shrouded and unreachable behind this unexpected eclipse of possibility.

stop at an etiolated gas station in the desert and only when everyone gets off as the bus refuels do you pull the green-stamped package out of the bag between your feet and place it on your knees. you handle it carefully. like crumbling palimpsest. like a message in a bottle of a thousand cracks. under the don’s letter a cellophane bag holding:

a stack of white-bordered photographs a roll of narrow color film lined with perforations an audiotape marked AJ > AJ.

held an arm’s length of it up to the light and peered into a cascade of repeated images of one small man in a giant wave. and the photos have stuck together in places where the emulsion has melted. gingerly you’ve unpeeled shots of beaches and waves and surfboards and pretty girls and a guy in the middle of everything with shoulders like i-beams and a flat level gaze right back at the camera’s that rings some distant bell you can’t place. and on the back are dates and words that mean nothing to you:

1. you’re just out of high school and somewhere in the sticks. strong and dumb and inked up beyond accounting for. too cynical for college. too broke for the community school. can’t get laid to save your life. can’t get high cause it’s all too… something. dumb probably. your stepfather has a machine shop and that’s where you work because no one else would keep you on and he keeps you on because no one ‘cept a mexican will work for less and he can’t hire mexicans no more legal or not cause the sheriff’s office and the state senate scared ‘em all south of the border. so you’re stuck with each other. and him with your old lady and her bottle of beam. and what a joy that is. on a stupid hot day not halfway through summer you open the mailbox and peer inside for reasons that you will never understand. not having peered in there since the fourth grade. not having cared. amidst the bills and circulars and collection notices a small package with green stamps and your name on it. aloysious joseph hodges. like some kind of joke. like some kind of flare from a spacewreck on a planet far far away. your name in ink and written by hand. turn it over and you see:

a mexico address curlicues

flourishes

a person of dignity hunched over their unhurried lettering. what the — but it’s down the front of your coveralls before that red-eyed hawk in the front window knows better. before a parallel path in which she collects the mail and you never get to so much as see that thing takes hold — and your life spinning and spinning down the clockwise flush of that northern hemispheric toilet bowl freefall you’ve been in since first smacked in the ass.

k-38

carmen and me brothers

malibu once upon a time

takayama surf shop

san cristobal home. you are lost in the time machine warp of it all as passengers begin lemming back onto the bus. little kid-quick you tuck it all away. lean back and look around. your secret is safe. your escape route intact and uncompromised. then move your foot just a bit closer to feel the edge of the package through the bag against you. leave it there. and close your eyes again to a new sound. the crashing of waves.

3. a pawnshop off the PCH in el segundo. eight bucks for a tape deck and four more for the batteries to run it. walk down to the water and pop in AJ > AJ. the whirring of tape. the clearing of an old man’s throat. some kind of mexican music in the background. surf in the distance beyond that mingling with the incoming tide before you.

I hate nostalgia. Just the cotton candy taste of the word makes me ill. And yet…

Dear Respected and Honorable Mister Aloysious Joseph Hodges,

My name is Don Veracruz Bustamente Ortega y Gasset, and I am the Solictor General

of the village of Morro de San Cristobal, in Baja California. Enclosed in this package you

will find some possessions of your uncle, Andrew James Hodges, who, I am deeply sad

dened to report, passed away recently. It was his last will and testament that you, his sole

surviving blood relative, inherit his earthly belongings, and he asked me, as an administra

tor but also as his friend, to make sure that you lay claim to all that is now rightfully yours.

It seems that you hardly knew your uncle. For me, this is the saddest news of all, for he

was a very unusual person, liked and admired by all of us here in San Cristobal.

Please accept my deepest condolences and expressions of compassion in this time of —

bang out the back screen door and through the yard up the alley and backdoor into

chad’s down the street. chad the rad who lost his left arm from the elbow down in a

drunken boating fiasco and now sports a bong prosthesis to forestall any talk of:

recovery

healing

karma

god’s plan

or any such nonsense.

This will mean absolutely nothing to you, nor should it, but before the commercials and the movies and the magazines and the clothing companies especially co- opted and trivialized it, our so-called surf culture, trivialized it down to meaninglessness, what we had — well, what we had and lived really was… perfect. Sui generis. Its own distinct thing. True to a time and a place. So, yes: “You should have seen it yesterday.” Yes indeed.

and what chad has handy to dull his pain is more than enough to unbatten the hatches of your narrowed psychic confines. to blow the door off that small cramped and comfortable cell in which you’ve solitaired since since since. to open you up to a place where andrew james hodges can make any kind of sense.

AJ, in life there’s the family you are born into and the family you choose. I know enough about your old lady and that greaseball stepfather of yours to wish you best of luck, because you can only do better with the latter.

it takes a while.

2. you’re on a bus headed west squinting the glare of grime streaked windows and shadowed saguaros off your shoulder. a mile long curtain of freightcars training in the other direction pulled back to reveal:

sagebrush sand

open space that endless fences can’t curtail. the huge sun in the southern sky like some kind of beacon. close your eyes and what is there?

14

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

If you are hoping to learn something about your old man from me, this is not that story. In the back of the shape shack you’ll find a box with his name on it, and yours. That’s between the two of you. And the less I know about that, the better. He was my kid brother, but there’s never been a greater mystery to me than what went on between those two big ears of his.

And this is an invitation, to come down

here and see an alternate path, a differ-

ent way of doing things. I know it won’t

be for you what it was for me, but it’s an

out. And from checking in on you last time I was stateside, I suspect you need

it. An out. Or an in, maybe. I don’t know.

That’s up to you. But it’s all I’ve got. And

now, now it’s yours. Over and out.

kelp

and now to the sound of the gone-dead tape spooling off-camber in the old deck you see him clearly: a broad-shouldered post-dated old man version of the guy in the pictures. a few years back. a vintage el camino. the old man and your stepfather arguing in front of the machine shop. the old man with his hands calmly by his sides and the grease monkey backing away from the brawling he so greedily sought everywhere else. the old man turning to you with that level gaze and then driving away. black california plates in the dust.

4. four days of hitch-hiking after walking across the border you arrive. a fishing village in the wide horseshoe of a bay about thirty miles south of the sudden end of the new coastal highway. wisps of plastic bags peeking out of the sand-blown landfills along the washboarded dirt road that leads you into a first cluster of flat cinderblock huts and chickenwire fencing. then sand to broken pavement to old cobblestone around a plazita baking in the white glare of midday. two old mexicans in cowboy hats regarding you blankly. three gringo hipsters in a new landcruiser with boards strapped to the roof looking up from a map saying hey. a bread truck named bimbo. low tide. fishing boats on scalloped sand the color of wet cement. nets drying in the sun. under a tecate sign four mexicans drinking and playing cards. their posture and volume signaling to an indifferent world the end of their working day. a woman in a tired yellow headscarf walking out with a tray of beers. she looks at you. turns her back and puts the beers down. turns around and looks at you again. you offer her nothing because it is all that you have. she nods and points to the far northern end of the bay. you look out and see nothing but beach and cliffs and the edge of the sky. turn back to her but her back is to you and that conversation is over. you start walking. miles past the last boarded up gringo shack the beach ends and a trail ziggurats up the bluff at the end of the horseshoe. as is invariably the case it lasts longer and covers far more ground than you ever would have thought in your eager approach. truth is that as you ascend the final switchback you are bone-tired and parched and more than ready to reap your reward.

kelp

the top of the bluff offers a wide mesa that protrudes up and out over the water. instead of the expected weather-beaten surfer’s shacks it serves up:

a long sandy bulldozed swath headed north. graders and water trucks and cement-mixers strewn about like toys in an inhospitable giant’s sand box. a long rectangular plot between the highway-to-be and the promontory’s edge gated by two tall surfboards nailed to wooden posts. the words castillo del mar arched between them.

underneath the development’s gate stand two men hunched over a surveyor’s map splayed out on the hood of a new pickup. the taller of them wears a wide white borsalino hat. you approach and know that it is don veracruz the solicitor general and that he knows who you are too. but you wait subserviently for him to finish before you show him his letter. he studies it carefully as if it meant more to him than a single hair on your shaggy head. considers what to say to you and then in spanish explains that sorry but that was all a very very long time ago. then he misinterprets your silence and says it again in english but you stop him halfway through having understood it well enough the first time. you decline his offer of a ride back to town. walk to the edge of the cliffs at the northern end of the development and look down. see the landcruiser and the gringos from the plazita decamped on a smaller version of the big horseshoed beach behind you. the gringos are waxing their boards and looking out at the growing swells before them. two guys and a girl. she looks up and recognizes you and waves for you to come down. you consider the invitation. and you are still considering it as the sun begins to set and they are out there trying and trying and trying again to carve themselves into your sole and unownable inheritance: the long-lived waves of your uncle a.j. hodges’ favorite surfing cove.

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

15

BUZZ CAMPBELL Founding member of the San Diego-based band Hot Rod Lincoln, Buzz Campbell has become a mainstay on the California rockabilly scene for more than two decades. Campbell was lead guitarist for the legendary doo-wop group, Sha Na Na from (2000 to 2004), and currently tours and records with Stray Cats bassist Lee Rocker (2004 to present). Campbell and his group has also backed-up and performed with such artists as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Bo Diddley, and numerous others and tours throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He completed his largest tour to date by opening for the Stray Cats European Farwell Tour in the summer of 2008. The band warmed up audiences in seven different countries and by the end of the tour, was seen by over 100,000 people. Buzz is a master of rockabilly, roots country, blues, and roots rock styles and is currently on tour in support of his 2011 release titled “Shivers & Shakes.” He’s also known to paddle out at various surf spots around the San Diego and others when he’s travelling.

Orange County-based guitarist Ronnie Mendoza recently sat down and talked with Campbell about what’s next for the south county local hero.

RM: So you just released “Shiver & Shakes.” What’s next?

BC: Some touring locally and around the states. Hitting some festivals soon. Viva Las Vegas in April—always a great time.

RM: So in your bio you say that you play guitar to support your surf habit. On the road do you ever get a chance to get in the water?

BC: Ha! Not as much as I’d like. Oddly enough I went surfing when I was out with John Mueller playing the Winter Dance Party Buddy Holly tribute show. Surfed with Jerry Angel in NYC at Jones beach. Weird location, best time. Love Long Boards, old guns, eggs…

RM: Top five surf spots, guitar solos.

BC: Dream surf spots: Go to Hawaii anywhere, Cabo San Lucas, Zippers, Old Mans, Oceanside, Trestles. Anywhere where it’s fun, warm and great vibe. Mexico! Guitar solos: “The first guitar solo that moved me and I had to play was Chuck Berry’s “Johnnie B. Goode” and “Let it Rock.” Those intros—that’s what turned me into a roots guy. I’m a rockabilly guy, I’m a 50s guy.” That big guitar was so cool sounding. Loved Scottie Moore and Chet Atkins. Chet doing “Cannonball Rag,” “Mr. Sandman.” Amazing. Scottie doing a sloppy version of Chet Atkins “Just Because” and playing on all that early Elvis stuff. Cliff Gallup’s “Race with the Devil.”

Unbelievable. Then of course, Setzer. Brian to me was the epitome of taking all the stuff that I liked and fucking Eddie Van Halen-ing it, rockin’ it, modernizing it. He had all that 70s and 80s. I mean, he was the 80s, but all that 70s rock guitar mixed in with that 50s stuff, that was what got me. I heard that shit and I dropped out of school. His live performance moved me that much. I hate to be cliché’ but the solo in “Sexy & 17” is so badass. It’s so melodic and rippin.’ Brian does a really great solo that moved me in “Flying Saucer Rock & Roll” that he covered on “Original Cool.” He did this crazy rock line right in the middle of it and that really connected the dots for me as to where I wanted to go. I want a rootsy, vibe thing happening but then I want to rock it to another level. That’s what I thought he did to it and that’s what I try to do: Bring more of a rock feel to it as well as a country vibe—taking all my influences and chewing em’ up and spit em’ out. “I don’t know what it is, but here you go.” That’s what I think moves me and is what’s original and not just recreating a 50s style of playing. It’s more about being influenced by the era and doing your own thing. Don’t get me wrong, I got a lot of that era in my style, I got a lot of rockabilly in me and I wear it with pride. I just don’t want to recreate anything. I just want to do it how I feel it, you know?

I n t e r v ie w

BC: I was on a pick-up gig and the drummer Jocko Marcellino is from San Diego and he heard about me and they were looking for another guitar player so he came out with Screamin’ Scott Simon (the original piano player) and scouted me. They asked me if I wanted to give it a shot. We’re going to Vancouver next month. I said “let’s do it” and that’s how I started.

I learned a ton from those guys. They taught me about the show aspect. They had so much visually going on. I started thinking less about trying to play so well all the time and more about entertaining people.

RM: I’m going to get all gearhead on you now: What’s your set up, guitar- and amp-wise?

BC: I always wanted to be Brian, so I wanted the Gretsch vibe. Started off with a Guild hollow body—can’t remember the model but I’ve pretty much been playing Gretsch for the last 15 years exclusively. I love Telecasters and Fender guitars, but I just can’t play a thin-body guitar comfortably. I’ve had all of them and I got rid of all of them. I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a giant fan of TV Jones pickups. Filtertron, Powertron, and p-90s. Wolftone p-90s are in my Gretsch Eddie Cochran Model. My red, hot-rodded Gretsch has TV Jones Powertrons, as well as my White Falcon—warmer sounding in that guitar because of the bigger body. My ‘58 Gretsch has the original Dearmond pickups, so I’m crossing the whole spectrum of single-coil pickups. I got the real warm p-90s, the bell-like Dearmonds and all the growly Filtertron / Powertrons going on in all my guitars. I like the extra output of these pickups and the midrange. My tone is a souped-up Filtertron sound. Tavo Vega, who makes the Nocturne pedals, has really influenced my tone in the last few years. I run everything through his pedals to get that over-saturated, slight break-up sound. You get the clean, but you still get the growl.

They’re all over the latest album. My primary amp is a custom amp built by Tavo. It’s a version of his favorite amp the ‘59 Bassman. It’s called the Blondshell. A 50-watt hand-wired head with a closed-back cabinet with Celestions Vintage 30s. I’ve never heard an amp that has the sound that I’m going for and with his pedals going through that amp; it’s just the best.

Warm, warm real dark with a lot of low end with subtle reverb, pure organic tone and it looks like a million bucks.

RM: Any advice for folks wanting to pick up some cool tricks for their playing arsenal?

BC: Well if you’re into the roots stuff, you know the double stuff that Chuck Berry does is great to listen too as well as the Travis picking technique. If you can do those two things, you’re doing something that most people aren’t doing. It really can set you apart. People ask me how I learned how to Travis pick. I got an old Keith Wyatt (Blaster’s guitarist) tape and I followed his instruction. I sat on the couch for a month and put in the hours by mindlessly trying to get my thumb and fingers going—repetition ad nausea. If you want to be a good guitarist you have to put in the hours. No quick and easy way, and it also goes for trying to find your gear/sound. You got to put in those hours.

RM: Your soloing seems to be very song oriented on your latest album. It seems that you’re playing for the song rather than playing to show off your chops. How do you compose your solos?

BC: Great question, and I think it’s a simple answer in a lot of ways: Just play the melody.

Or rather in my mind, I think I’m always listening to the melody and playing off of it. So I think if you hear the melody going all the time and compose a solo, that way you’re going to get something good. It’s always good to throw in some cool flash chops, but you’ve got to play for the song. What’s the song? It’s the melody. So anyone trying to compose a solo, start with the melody, play around the melody. If you can find a really cool rippin’ lick that fits in that melody somewhere that you can throw it in, then sprinkle it—that’s the seasoning. But stick to the melody and you’ll come up with a good solo.

[continued page 18 ]

RM: Ever meet any of your heroes besides the Stray Cats?

BC: I was really fortunate in the early years of Hot Rod Lincoln to meet a lot of guys that influenced me. The band backed up Chuck Berry. I met Jerry Lee Lewis a couple of times.

Chicken picker James Burton, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Carl Perkins, Scottie Moore, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, B.B. King, Little Richard. I just about opened for almost all of them at some point. Then when I was with Sha Na Na (2000-2004) I met a lot of the doowop guys.

RM: How did the Sha Na Na gig come about?

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

17

RM: What advice can you offer to any of us guitarists that find himself or herself overplaying.

BC: You know I got some great advice from a player that played with Lee Rocker before me, Adrian Demain. He’s a really great melodic player and a big jazz-influenced guy. Adrian was influenced by horn players, and even took lessons from a saxophone player. Best piece of advice that he gave me— and I’ll never forget it— was that you have to take a breath when you play, just like a horn player does during their soloing. There needs to be some space. So play a line, kind of like a horn player would: “babba doo dee babba doo bop, (breath), doobee doo da bobba doo baa, (breath), let there be space. When you take those breaks there’s time for the audience and yourself to digest what you’re playing as well as hearing, otherwise it’s just diarrhea of the hands. The space creates tension and that creates hook and that’s what makes it interesting in my opinion.

RM: Ok, so tell it like it is. You’ve toured with the Stray Cats. How’s life kind of being the fourth Stray Cat? BC: Hahaha! You know what, Brian and Lee embraced me from day one. They always supported me when I was a kid in trashy sounding bands trying to get it going. They always somehow saw that my heart was in the right place even if musically I hadn’t developed yet.

RM: You probably reminded them of themselves when they were coming up in some nostalgic way.

BC: I don’t know what it was, maybe so. I’ve asked Lee point blank, “What where you thinking when he produced my first Hot Rod Lincoln album?” I didn’t understand why he took the time. Obviously they saw something, and to get asked to play with them (onstage at the end of that tour) was like coming complete full circle from being 22 years old to being almost 40 and getting asked to play with your favorite band onstage in front of 3,000 people in Europe. It was indescribable, the ultimate honor, it’s the ultimate tip of the hat. It was a great moment, a moment I’ll never forget. Fortunately it was captured on film (there’s a great YouTube of it) and it was, in some ways, the pinnacle of my career. For me, it was like that same feeling I had when I saw the Stray Cats for the first time, play the Bacchanal and I decided I’m dropping out of school the next day. Coming back full circle to that moment and going, “How did I come from that to being onstage that night playing with these guys and playing in their band?” After it was over, I went off the stage, went upstairs and I stared at myself in the mirror for a while because it was like, shocking, it was overwhelming. What was cool was that at that point, they were all my friends and it was me playing with my friends. But it was still the ultimate tip of the hat by all three of them to say you’re playing onstage with us now. It was like being knighted.

RM: Wannabe? I think Lee relies on you to compliment his Stray Cat portion of the show. He knows that you can cover it beautifully. That’s my reasoning on calling you the fourth Cat. BC: People say that they hear Brian’s influence in my playing, for obvious reasons he was a gigantic influence on me and to be compared to his playing is a total compliment and for Lee to say I want you to be my guy to play that stuff is like being Mark Walberg in “Rockstar.”

RM: It 2020, where’s Buzz Campbell?

BC: Geezus man, hopefully I’m still surfing strong and staying in shape. Musically, I’d love to be playing for people that really want to hear what I’m doing and appreciate all the years.

I think I’ve become— and will probably become— a direct link to various giant parts of this music that we all love. I’ve played with and met all my heroes from the 50s, played with the Cats, worked with Sha Na Na, and in 10 years there might not be anybody left from the 50s.

All my heroes are in their 70s & 80s now. I might still be playing with Lee Rocker because I don’t think I will ever stop loving Lee’s music and the Stray Cats music.

RM: Lee has a great voice by the way. Total unsung hero during the 80s because you never really heard his voice during the Stray Cat years.

BC: Absolutely. Like you say, unsung hero, amazing singer, great songwriter, great producer and a super talent. An amazing bass player. Some of these kids coming up, I’ve heard people say, “Oh this guy and that guy triple slaps this and that. But If you break down Lee’s bass playing and listen to the notes, you can see how his father, Stan Drucker (world class clarinet player of 60 years for the New York philharmonic) influenced him. That’s why Lee’s bass playing is so interesting and his tone is so good. I don’t know anybody who plays better than Lee. He’s the best in the world at it in my opinion.

RM: Ok last thing, go ahead and plug away. Where can we find all things Buzz?

BC: Well you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/buzzhotrod, on twitter at twitter. com/buzzcampbell, itunes @ Buzz Campbell. www.buzzcampbell.com/home.cfm. Also, with with Lee Rocker at www.leerocker.com. With Lee we’re starting to do web shows. We’ve been recording tunes and putting them on the website on Facebook. We’re trying to get a show up and running and Lee’s pulling famous guys that he’s worked with and have them come over to his studio and we’ll all jam. It’s all-new now with video and the web. You know, content every week. You asked what I wanted to be doing in the next 10 years? Well, I just want to continue performing my music and with Lee. Staying healthy is key and to keep playing nationally and internationally in any capacity. I love the road.

RM: I will start calling you Sir Buzz.

BC: You know when people say I’m a wannabe Stray Cat I definitely take it as a compliment.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

kelp

TM

Volume One / Number 1

March /April 2 0 1 2

Publisher

Tom Brecke / tom@kelpmag.com

CO-Publisher/Creative director

Bill Livingston / bill@kelpmag.com T h e D M V. My friend Steve, a two-stoke engine genius and Bultaco enthusiast was my source in step one of the KelpBuild Triumph, getting it registered. This, he says, would include a trip tithe DMV and then the California Highway Patrol office. Steve warned me of the nightmares I might possibly face trying to get this 40-year-old bike back on the road.

With the Triumph still in the bed of the truck and parked at Steve’s shop for a look over, we decided on no time like the present for getting it’s paper work. A phone call to the CHP informed me that I would need a DMV referral first, so off I went.

With Steve’s stories fresh in my mind I ran through all possible answers to questions they might ask.

Twenty minutes later sitting in the inspection line my turn is up. Out walks the inspector with clipboard in hand and says, “ looks like a ‘69.... Well that was close, ID numbers say it’s a 1970 but I’m not saying a word. We find the frame numbers and I crawl into the truck bed under the bike looking for the engine case number. They match, he signs off and I say “off to the CHP?” to which he answers, “nope, you’re good to go.”

Now feeling a bit cocky, I figure why go into the DMV to fill out the forms so off I go to start tearing the bike apart to start the build, knowing all have to do is go to the DMV and pick up a license plate and sticker. Flash forward a month and with the frame in one location, engine on my bench in 30 pieces I have some downtime. Why not just get the plates and sticker now?

ART Director/Graphic Design

Randy Gibbs / randy@kelpmag.com

Contributing ARTISTS

Dana Morris • Tom Wagner • Jerry Collamer •

Lorin Fleming • Seth Migdial • Anne Wikenson • Kara Klimek

Contributing Writers

Chasen Marshall • Simon Heath • Ron Mendoza

Special Thanks

Richard Allred • Cliff White Kjoss • Pat Fraley • Jimmie Hines • Berta DosSantos • Thom McElroy • Dan Patchin • Kent Maul • Joe Duggan

If you have the option of going to the DMV or the local Automobile Club to get the paperwork done, 10 out of 10 times you’re going to choose the Auto Club. Handing in my paperwork from the inspection, Steve’s stories long faded from memory, the nice women at the counter informs me,” you need to have CHP sign off on this,” I inform her of the DMV inspectors comments and the fact the Triumph is in a “million” pieces to which she replies, “bummer.”

Steve’s nightmares have become mine.

Disclaimer: Although all the best efforts are made to avoid the same, we reserve the right to publish unintentional mistakes and/or factual errors which may occur on a monthly basis. No responsibility is assumed by the publishers for unsolicited materials/articles/ letters/advertising and all submissions will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright and/or appropriate licensing purposes subject to Kelp’s right to edit and comment editorially. The views and opinions expressed in this periodical reflect the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of the publisher or the editoial team. Kelp reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising matter which may reflect negatively on the integrity of this periodical. Kelp is a registered trademark. No part of this periodical may be reproduced in any form [print or electronic] without prior written consent from the publisher.

by Jerry Collamer 2011

kelp

If your favorite shop isn’t receiving Kelp please contact info@kelpmag.com Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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