THE LOS ANGELES OLD MEMORIES

Cars:1930’s , Model: Miss Julie the Bully

Images: Jaymz Eberly / Ian Young

Words: Ian Young

Do you ever catch yourself being drawn into a tennis match on television? Or maybe space out watching a ping-pong game or something? Sitting there looking back and forth, back and forth … on an on until you start to get dizzy? That dizzying feeling was what it was like to witness the Los Angeles Old Memories Car Club and their stunning 1930s rides roll in one after the other to meet us for an interview. Classic old car, after another, after another, after another… Gato, president of the club, came with like nine cars. That may not seem too amazing to some people but man, we were expecting maybe two ... at most.  So we were blown away in other words. 

That “no way, … this only happens on TV” first impression didn’t fade away quickly as we got our stuff together to begin filming. The experience of introducing our lenses to the damn near full-fledged portable car show was beyond description.  One way to put it would be that it was a little slice of lowrider heaven.

The Los Angeles Old Memories Car Club came out in full force.  And the fact that the lovely Miss Julie the Bully has returned to light up the scene once again was the icing on the cake. 

Lowrider Pimps: Alright it’s your comrade Ian Young here from Lowrider Pimps back again. Today were here with Gato from the Los Angeles Old Memories Car Club. I appreciate your time man … you guys coming out here.

Gato: Hey this was cool for me. I really enjoy doing this kind of thing… with the interviews and all.

Lowrider Pimps: So tell me little bit about the Old Memories Car Club. How’d you come up with the name and everything?

Gato: Old Memories Car Club has been around for a while now. It was back then … right after they started the Dukes.

LP: Oh Yeah?

Gato: Yeah, it was part of the Dukes at one time. Then some of the guys got out of the Dukes … they started Old Memories, Los Angeles.  That was back in the late seventies so it’s been around for quite a while.  Right after that it started breaking up into different chapters.

LP: Ok, ok … so what makes you guys different from any of the other car clubs out there?

G: Old Memories is different because it starts from the … my chapter is a little different from every other chapter.

LP: Really … why’s that?

G: Our chapter we accept women … as long as they have cars, where as a lot of other chapters don’t.

LP: Nice.

G: We go from the 1920’s all the way to the ‘50’s and so on …

LP: Ok, ok … so how many members do you guys have?

G: Our chapter has about forty-two members right now.  I think ours is the biggest chapter of Old Memories.

LP: Yeah, yeah … I think one of the other guys was telling me about that. You guys are pretty new but you guys are the biggest chapter of the Old Memories CC.

G: I wanted to start off something that broke off into Los Angeles … the reason is because I have to many members from to many different areas.  So I wanted to go ahead and start the Los Angles Old Memories chapter again.

LP: So how old is Old Memories CC ... what’s the history behind it? 

G: I would say this Old Memories chapter is 29 to 30 years.

LP: Is there any history benind it?

G: Yeah, the history behind it is anybody who used to care for and appreciate the old cars back then … which were Pops and Moms cars, and started fixing them up. If you guys remember, some of the guys who drive these cars were (introduced to) these nice cars by mom or dad.  Now we can look back and say that we own one of the parts of history.

LP: And you guys don’t have just old cars, you know, it’s like all kinds of cars right?

G: Well, we own any car in those years. That would have to be anything under ’58.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a Ford, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Chevy, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Chrysler … anything that has to do with any of those years.

LP: … basically the old memories...

G: Right, that brings old memories. (laughing)

LP: That’s right … that’s right. So you’re sort of a living legend in a way…  So if anybody was trying to start up a car club out there, what advice would you give them?  What makes a good car club?

G: Well, if your gonna start off with old cars ...  my advice would be first off to remember it’s a family thing.  So you’d want to join the whole family.  You wouldn’t want just the dad to participate….

LP: Right.

G: … You’d want the mom, you’d want the kids. You’d want everybody to show up for any events.

LP: Keep it family oriented.

G: Right, ours is like a family thing. That’s why, like I said, my chapter … we accept women … kids of all ages. So, this is the difference and that would be my advice. If your gonna start a car club, you wanna start it as a family thing.

LP: Ok … well, it seems like you have a lot of love and respect for the community y-know? How do you keep from getting caught up in the negative aspect of lowriding?

G: Well, first of all; you’re always going to have people that are going to talk about negative because when you talk about old cars … they always seem to think that old cars are going to be trouble.  But, the thing about my chapter is … I got different ages.  From our oldest members being around sixty-seven years old to our youngest members … probably like twenty-four, twenty-five years old. And that’s not considering the bike club, the bike club goes all the way down to about maybe a two-year old.

LP: Oh wow…

G: So when you have a family with you … y-know, who’s going to turn around and judge you and be like … y-know?   Your not going to have some old (family) man out there starting trouble. (laughing)

LP: Yeah, yeah, yeah (laughing)…

G: That’s basically our thing, how we prove ourselves….  Also we give back to the community.  Our giving back to the community is having charities. We’re doing one for down syndrome, for the kids.  I have done some for Toys for Tots for the kids. I’ve done some for the hospitals. That’s how you prove yourself, not only with what you have … but what you can give back to the community. 

LP: That’s beautiful man …  that’s beautiful. So does anybody out there inspire you? Because you’re an inspiration to alot of people out there, but is there anybody out there that inspires you to, y-know keep it moving in a positive direction?

G: You know what inspires me? I came from a broken home. So that kind of helps me keep it moving in a positive direction and help out people in trouble.  Another thing too that helps me out is … I used to be a gang member and instead of showing our colors (in a gang related way), I show my colors through my vehicles, through my kids, through my family and having a good time.

LP: That’s what is all about. Keeping it positive you know? So where does your love for lowriding come from … like, how far back does that go?

G: You know what? I started lowriding when I was like nine or ten years old.

LP: Wow … you had a early start huh?

G: My first vehicle, which was a surprise to a lot of people, was when I was eleven.  I owned a car at eleven years old.  I bought it for fifty-seven dollars. (laughing)

LP: That’s alright man (laughing)

G: I learned a lot because my dad would always tell me, “move the car because the sweepers are going to come by”. This is actually where I learned how to drive.  Stick shifting I actually learned from my wife.  She was raised off of stick shifting cars. Her dad would always ask her to move the cars too so, I learned how to stick shift from my wife.

LP: Man, so that goes back a ways huh? So what’s the craziest thing you’ve seen dealing with the Old Memories CC?

G: The craziest thing … I can’t really say because our club is so united …

LP: Uhh huh…

G: The craziest thing I would say that our club has done … would be … one of the biggest events was an event with like five hundred, six hundred people. See, we don’t charge for people to come out to our events... that’s one thing. So having the live music and having some of the people that sang back in the old days like Cherry Pie, Marvin & Johnny … having them donating their time was a beautiful time for me.  Even having the mayor of Los Angeles come out there and hand us an award. (Norman Melina) And having the police department be there to stand by us. I think that was one of the craziest things.

LP: That’s nice man… So what do you think of the sort of pin-up style we’re trying bring back into (the cliche image of) lowriding? … not really going into the sleazy part of it but trying to make it a little more classy. What do you think of that?

G: You know what? This is the kind we need.  This is what we need. We don’t need somebody that’s gonna show their body, we need somebody that’s gonna show what Old Memories is all about.  Because Old Memories is about if you guys remember back then, Old Memories was about just class. And class to me, and class to a lot of these guys that got these old cars, that’s the main thing. Having somebody that’s classy, showing off their cars, coming out dressed up in a zoot suit, coming out dressed up in the ‘50s, ‘60s, even older … ‘30s, ‘40s …that’s class.  That is Old Memories … not the new generation.

LP: Yeah… your right about that man.

Where do you see the culture of lowriders and lowriding going in the future? Like, what do think we can anticipate as fans of lowriding?

G: The culture of lowriding to me, is driving down the street and being proud of a car. Something you built out of your own hands. And putting it together and showing it to  everybody. Feeling proud about it and saying this is something I built. Not something something that somebody went out there and built it for you ... to me culture is something that you built, out of your mind, put together and your driving it down the street. This is what brings culture back.

LP: Where do you see it going in the future?

G: The future to me, if we can keep kids out of trouble and keep kids from getting into any kind of gangs … and getting them involved in something that they can get their minds into. Painting … into using artwork. You know my truck… I have a ’48, I got artwork on it. I got sandblasting in the windows, I got chrome all around.  Something that you want to put in mind … that goes down in history. We can pass away, but metal or glass will always exist. Vehicles with gas are never gonna go away. So if you wanna put something in mind as something that your going to leave behind, stick with something that everybody’s going to enjoy seeing in the future.

LP: Ok, ok … So do you have any shout outs or anybody you want to say hello to out there?

G: I’d like to say hello to all my members of Old Memories Los Angeles. I’d like to give out a thanks and give my support even though we had hard times or not, to my wife Liz in Venezuela.  And to thank her, I really love her a lot ... and my kids, I got five girls. They have supported me a lot along the way. They have put they’re bikes together and I really wanna thank them for supporting me. Most of all … to my club, which is a family club … Old Memories Los Angeles.

LP: That’s beautiful man … well I really appreciate your time man and I really appreciate you guys coming out here to meet with us today.  You keep it goin gin this positive direction that your going in man.  We’ll see you at the top.

G: It was very nice to meet you guys. I had a good time. I hope to see you guys again. Hope you guys can come back.

LP: Oh, definitely. That goes without saying.

Watching the Old Memories Club drive off into the night was kind of like watching an old movie end. It’s almost like as we were walking back to car after we had gotten all our last-minute shots in and were expecting credits to start rolling. To all the members of the Los Angeles Old Memories Car Club, you guys keep it slow and low. Much Respect, this is Ian from Lowrider Pimps signing off and we’ll see you fools on the boulevard...

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Miss Julie the Bully on our Community Page