Venice Beach Photographer Josh "Bagel" Klassman will be one of the featured artists at the next Midnite Bazaar.

Bagel will be showing off pieces from his huge collection of photos he took as a surfer/skater growing up in Venice:



Some of his works will also be for sale at his booth.

Here's video that just got uploaded about the past Venice Surf-A-Thons.

Venice, CA is tiny beach town that has had a HUGE impact on underground youth culture. This place has given the world some unreal illustrators, and one of them goes by the name of RIC CLAYTON or RxCx for short. He is a true OG Suicidal Boy and the band’s go-to artist for most of their early flyers. Seeing the rad shit Ric drew for each show was just as important as the line up. He was a genius at turning their lyrics into illustrations that still resonate with youth culture today.

A new book has just been released about Ric and his art: Welcome to Venice RxCx , available now on Amazon


The new book Welcome to Venice RxCx published by Kill Your Idols gives you an in-depth look into Ric’s influence on SoCal underground culture. Straight up, he is one of the most influential punk artists to come out of the 80’s.


Another thing that really made him stand out from other illustrators of the day were the button down shirts that he drew on. If you were a Venice/Mar Vista/Santa Monica local who was down with Suicidal Tendencies, you would get in touch with Ric, hit him with $15 or maybe less – I’m not sure – come back in a week or so, and he would hand you a one of a kind Suicidal shirt (this was before silk screening shirts became the norm). For some people, seeing a bunch of dudes rocking these shirts with blue bandanas struck fear in their hearts. These shirts become famous because they were featured on the cover of Suicidal Tendencies’ debut album. The new book features a rad photo essay of RxC’s hand drawn button down shirts, compiled by the man himself.


His black and white illustrations for thrash punk band Suicidal Tendencies are instantly recognizable around the world. Clayton was in the mix just as punk and metal cross-pollinated in the early 80s, but he also stood at the crossroads of the Dogtown skating scene and cholo culture in Los Angeles. Impossibly, Clayton embodied and portrayed all of these movements simultaneously in his artwork. In Welcome to Venice you'll enjoy a generous serving of this riveting artist's output, including fliers and album artwork for Venice bands such as Neighborhood Watch, Excel, Against, Beowlf, No Mercy and naturally, Suicidal Tendencies.

Allen Sarlo, Venice Breakwater, December 1985

Photographer Josh "Bagel" Klassman has finally created a website to share his huge collection of photos he took as a surfer/skater growing up in Venice:

The majority of my photos that you will see on here were shot from the mid 1980'z to the mid 1990'z. That era was an extremely volatile, gritty, dangerous, violent, chaotic, crazy, unruly, insane, and radical on many levels, and for me being 14 to 25 years old during that time it was all a beautiful disaster and very fun to say the least, I loved every second of it. Oh ya, and let's not forget all of that beautiful graffiti, the more the better, graffiti art, tagging, gangster style, murals, stories, political, statements, every style of graffiti covered the streets and it made for an incredible esthetic. My photos are an insiders perspective, I was a part of all you see, it was my every day life. I was a participant documenting my world...

Head over to Josh "Bagel" Klassman Photography and check out vintage photos of how Venice used to be.

Follow Bagel on Instagram too at @jbk_photos

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Jay Adams

Check out this raw video footage from the archives of Venice Skatepark and Venice Surf-A-Thon founder Ger-I Lewis.

Gotcha feeling nostalgic? Check out Ger-I's book, 1978: Crashed Memories

Mickey Dora and Johnny Fain may be among the contestants in this digitized home video from about 1966.

From "The Living Curl" (1965,2008), a surf film by Jamie Budge

One California Day is a 2007 documentary film about surfing shot in six coastal regions in California. Directed by Mark Jeremias and Jason Baffa, the film looks at the experience of California surfing.

The Brothers Marshall representing First Point Malibu in Jack McCoy's documentary A Deeper Shade Of Blue

Watch the full film on Amazon: A Deeper Shade Of Blue

20 years ago, Venice pro Rick Massie was interviewed by a Socal surf/skate/snowboard/music magazine called KOR Magazine. KOR was one of those free mags that you found at most southern California surf and skate shops back in the late '90s. The mag has been dead for long time, but we found issue #3 in our storage. And while looking for stuff to post for Throwback Thursdays, the interview with a local Venice pro seems ideal, so here's the interview and photos from the 1-page spread:

Sean Planck So how did you get into surfing?
Rick Massie When I was (young). I used to just hang out down by the beach, because that's what all the Mexicans used to do (laughs). A couple of friends of my sisters and brothers used to surf, just messing around, so I tried it out, picked it up,and never gave it up. I just want to keep surfing.
SP How old were you?
RM Eleven.
SP That was in Venice, right?
RM Right
SP I was reading the write up the LA Times did on you. They portrayed you as kind of a "bad boy" of surfing. What's up with that?
RM I guess because I'm kind of an outcast in the surfing world. Nobody is like me. Nobody grew up with the lifestyle I did. People don't look at me as a surfer. Like when I go to a club or something, people I meet are like "You Surf!?"


Like last night I was at a Laker game. This guy who gave us the tickets, I think he works for GTE, he was telling my manager "Somebody hit me up to sponsor a Latino surfing contest. I didn't know Latinos surfed!" (Laughs) And I'm standing right there next to him! So my manager says "This is Rick Massie, professional surfer. He's Mexican." The guy says "Wow really? I never knew Mexicans can surf." I mean there are Mexican surfers on the scene, but nobody that grew up in the ghetto. nobody that grew up within the gangs. Not that I'm in a gang, but I've always been around it. But people look at me more as a gang member than a surfer.
SP Do you ever have any trouble with sponsors, being from Venice? Like they don't want that image?
RM Yeah. Nobody wants to push Venice. They don't like L.A. No surf company like L.A. L.A. has a bad rep. With the riots, and the gangs, and the drive-bys. So nobody wants anything to do with L.A., and they don't realize that L.A. is a very marketable place that can sell. But the big companies are looking for that blonde haired, blue eyed surfer from Orange County. And I'm far from that.
SP And who are you riding for now?
RM Right now I ride for these Japanese companies. Airtight, Ocean Gear, and my surfboard sponsor, Scott Anderson. But right now I'm looking to find a sponsor outside of surfing. Something different. Something like Tecate or something that's a Mexican type of thing. Surf companies like to market to themselves with that blonde haired blue eyed image. I'm not that. I'm far from anything like that. I don't want to be something i'm not. I don't want to be fake. I'll always be from Venice. I'll always be Mexican.
SP Where do you like to surf in California?
RM In California? Venice. (laughs) I just like surfing out front, just getting some waves. But really nowhere in particular. I just want to surf wherever there's waves, be with my friends, and have fun. That's one thing I like about Venice. You know everybody. If you don't, they ain't gonna paddle around you. (laughs) But it's cool like that. I like being right next to home, so I can just go home and shower afterwards without driving home.
SP What about the world?
RM My favorite surf spot in the world? I like Mexico. That's where I'm going next month.
SP Whereabouts?
RM Puerto Escondido, in Oaxaca. The waves are really good there. I've been there three times. Every time I've had good waves. I've been a lot of places, but I like Mexico best. I feel at home there. I feel comfortable. I know a lot of people down there. I know the language pretty much, so I feel comfortable down there.
SP How long have you been pro?
RM I turned pro when I was 18, so six years now.
SP Music?
RM Anything, really. From rap to rock. I even like some country. But you won't catch me with no cowboy hat on. (laughs) I got friends that are rap artist, like Kid Frost, and I got friends that are rock like Ponro for Pyros and those guys . It's cool when you know the people, cuz you really get to know the music.
SP Do you snowboard?
RM Yeah. Once in a while. i like it, but it hurts! It's not like falling on water. (laughs)
SP What about skating?
RM Yeah, I do a little skating now and then. I don't skate much anymore. I had a halfpipe in my backyard as a kid.
SP Any closing words of wisdom to up and coming surfers?
RM You can tell these kids everything, and they'll just do what they want. The message I got is be yourself. Don't be fake. There's so many little kids trying to copy pros' styles. Be an original, not an imitator.

For this week's Throwback Thursday, we got Val-Surf's 1988 Winter Catalog. They sent these out in the mail to customers on their mailing list. Here's some high resolution scans of each page.

Here's an old video dug up from the archives about the Sunset surf spot.

Come hang with Jeff Ho, former Zephyr surfshop owner and avid shaper, surfer, and skater from Dogtown. From Abbot Kinney's "Venice of America" to "Silicon Beach," Venice Beach natives Mike Silver and The Dark Bob guide us around the beach, canals, and some ever evolving waypoints with many colorful tales surrounding one of the West Coast's premiere culture centers. In true Venice fashion, artist Alex Schaefer and friends also cultivate stoke with an eclectic mix of art and performance.

Some videos from the previous Haunted Heats.



First video is Surfing Highlights from ZJ Boarding House's 2015 Haunted Heats Surf Contest.

And below is the full contest video from 2013:

A color aerial view. In this shot you can see the P.O.P. parking lot was basically where the big parking lot is now at OP26.
The famous entrance to Pacific Ocean Park.
Things began to change in the late sixties when the park fell on hard economic times. By the early seventies the park was closed and deteriorating.
After the park stopped pleasing visitors above the water, local surfers took advantage of the waves below the pier.
The situation went from bad to worse when the park caught fire and was severely damaged in 1974.
After the fire local surfers used the burnt out hulk of the park like a reef forming the Cove, a heavily localized and obviously gnarly surf spot.
A nice left breaking to the north of P.O.P in front of what is now Ocean Park Tower 26.