What's In Your Hands Right Now might not look it, but it's impressive. It-this magazine, to remove any doubt-is the fountainhead of a publishing empire; many of Source Interlink's esteemed titles like Truckin', Street Rodder, and HOT BIKE can track their DNA 40 years to Street Chopper Magazine.
But that's the boring part. This might sound self-important, but this magazine did for modified motorcycles what Hot Rod magazine did for modified cars two decades prior: Street Chopper gave chopper fans a place to swap ideas and buy parts. It also made heroes of ordinary guys.
Sure the mainstream magazines acknowledged chops, but mainly out of curiosity. You have to remember that the only biker-specific rag to that point was Ed Roth's CHOPPERS Magazine. But it was more culture oriented, the features were pretty light, and it completely lacked tech. Anyway, the only thing you could buy from it was patches, pictures, and decals.
Street Chopper, on the other hand, was literally the marketing end of AEE Choppers. AEE if you didn't know is largely credited as the first chopper parts mass manufacturer. Prior to it, builders created choppers by modifying OEM parts and making the rest from scratch. Street Chopper offered feature bikes for ideas, tech stories to show how to do them, and AEE part numbers for ready orders. In that sense their relationship was necessary; each relied on the other.
But what's really important about this little rag is how it got there. It's a yarn about hot rods, chopped bikes, wild animals for pets, jet planes, high-stakes gambling, hookers, and company-funded boob jobs, just to name the subjects fit to print.
We know this because most of the people responsible for it are still around. But to make this story interesting, the first person we're going to introduce you to isn't. We'd like you to meet the late Thomas Michael McMullen.
>The Man >the Myth >McMullen
The subject of Tom's early life probably isn't interesting, but you should probably know it anyway. He was born in Ohio. He spent his Navy service in a submarine, and upon discharge he moved to Southern California-Lynwood to be specific, the place where he met the second guy you should meet, Jim Clark.
Jim is important for several reasons. They met in 1959 and over the years Jim played key roles: best friend, confidant, bodyguard, crony, alibi, shill, and cleanup man. He held various positions at Tom's companies: vice president, general manager, and managing editor just to name a few. And he's absolutely essential because the guy remembers everything to an alarming degree. "I have a tape recorder in my head..." he admitted, "...and it doesn't have an off switch."
Tom got a degree at Compton College which led to a job at Beckman Instruments where he met Carl Sulkey. Together they started a little side business in 1963 called Automotive Electronics Engineering. "The shop didn't do all that well," Jim remembered. "He got some jobs and wired some cars. But Tom and I both knew Tex Smith from the L.A. Roadsters." If you want to sound like you know what you're talking about when you're bullshitting your buddies, remember Tex' name.
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