It was a simple stoic statement, “Ed, I didn’t get to surf,” during a conversation with my Old Man, Big Ed, a couple of years back.
We were cruising the Esplanade in my ’51 Woody checking the surf during an onshore hot summer day. Although equipped with no Tyler longboards hanging out of the tailgate — and so no hope whatsoever of water time — I still was scouring our standard South Bay dumpy beach break for any possible corner or an open face.
It’s what us local surfers do.
We look at the surf, envisioning cutbacks, tubes, noserides, barrels — even sometimes just the simple act of surf riding. It’s self-inflicted torture. And especially with the South Bay’s mostly walled-up waves, a lot of false hopes.
But all dogs have their days.
We love it.
In my moment of out-of-body fantastical surf delusion, it dawned on me: Big Ed never had the opportunity to share in our South Bay surf fantasy.
I was transplanted at the age of 9 from Philly.
On an LA business trip in the early ’90s, Big Ed — as a young engineer on a side trip — was invited to a sales dinner by the sales team at Old Tony’s on the Redondo Beach Pier.
Was it that magnificent South Bay elixir, the Fire Chief? Maybe.
But most certainly, that invite to dinner changed his trajectory in life.
As a 29-year-old, it dawned on him, sitting with these sales sharks: “Man, sales is where it is at. How do I relocate to the South Bay with my family in tow?”
A couple months later, he took a sales position with a Southern California territory, armed with a leased 1992 Honda Civic.
Big Ed planted a seed in Torrance and the rest is Solt family history.
For some reason, I have a core memory of his first company car being a Chevy Lumina that changed colors depending on the angle of the sun — such a ’90s sign of a success flex.
Thank God, I had a hard-working Old Man who allowed me the lucky life of a surfer.
As an impressionable surf gremmie in the early 2000s, Mike Purpus — the best South Bay surfer of the ’70s and ’80s — would tell me these whooping tales. By the time I met him, he self-deprecatingly deemed himself “the fat Captain Kangaroo,” with his trademark ’70s mustache and the most magnificent silver mullet.
The movie Big Fish comes to mind.
In the decades of our friendship — which includes three years as his roommate — these tales became true.
One particular moment comes to mind: the time I met Gerry Lopez.
It was at a “Five Summer Stories” movie night about 15 years ago. Purpus went up to Gerry and said, “Thank you for saving a spot at Pipeline.”
“Michael,” Lopez responded in his zen demeanor, “you earned your place.”
Purpus may have preferred introducing his much younger girlfriend, the legendary Annie, to the surf legend. But it was a sweet moment that brought Purpus to tears.
One day, after listening to Purp’s whoopers while judging local high school surf contests, I interrupted and handed him one of my El Camino College writing assignments.
Purpus asked me to co-write a weekly surf column for the Easy Reader about the surf contests and local surfers.
It’s where I got the introduction to Kevin Cody — editor, publisher, and owner of the Easy Reader.
I was some young hepcat driving a ’59 Galaxie with Pat Ryan shapes hanging out of the trunk, driving Purpus to pick up our weekly checks. (Purpus stopped driving in the early ’80s when the sponsors stopped giving him cars.)
Etched in my psyche forever:
“Kevin, is my check ready?”
Purpus’ helium voice — sort of a South Bay pro surfer trademark vocal tone all the way up to Greg Browning.
God damn, I was so nervous walking into the storied newsroom of the ER.
I’m sure my ride-or-die editor and one of the best South Bay storytellers, Mark McDermott — then a young upstart journalist cutting his teeth in local news — was sitting at his cubicle wondering, “Who the hell is this kid?”
And then meeting Kevin Cody — who was, and still is, my hero.
Fast forward eight years, Kevin and the Meistrell family gave this kid the keys to his own publication, Drop Zone, and introduced me to the talented graphic designer Mark Kawakami to lay out the new zine.
Kawakami’s my other ride-or-die — the guy who’s taken design ideas we’ve concocted together and made them thousands of times better than I could’ve ever imagined.
This experience would lead the three of us to publish the Hermosa Beach Concert Series and the BeachLife Festival magazine for Allen Sanford.
I’m forever grateful to all those who got us here — to publishing South Bay Standard Issue magazine.
I’m grateful for the writers and photographers I’ve been stoked to work alongside — the very best in the South Bay — most of whom, like myself, got their start with the greatest local newspaper in the world: the Easy Reader.
And here I am rambling.
There’s so much I can say. So much to say about the South Bay.
We are hemorrhaging South Bay stories.
We live this.
And this is why the crew at South Bay Standard Issue believes it’s our time to tell them.
This is the magazine we’ve always wanted to publish.
Gratefully Stoked,
E. Solt