so, in short, here’s the story behind the orange beast. which wasn’t always orange.
i used to work a freelance job, leaving lots of time for morning surfs. i’d brew a cup of coffee at home, pour it into my to-go cup, drive down to the beach to check the surf and see friends. if it looked good, i’d put on my soggy wetsuit and go into the water. if not, i’d delay the inevitable and finish my cup of joe. a few hours later after paddling out, i’d get out of the water, reach for my yellow cup (it was hard to find a good quality orange travel mug)) only to find it empty. it always a very sad moment. even though everyone thinks the weather’s just fine and dandy here in southern california, three and a half hours in the Pacific in the winter just leaves you a little bit, well, freezing.
every surfer has probably thought of it- someone rolling up just in the nick of time, putting a hot cup of joe, or tea, or chocolate into your hands and belly, warming your insides up just right- just like an ice cream truck would in the summer. we looked up the hill at tourmaline, expecting a kind of grown up ice cream truck to come visit. the thought reoccurred wherever we surfed, actually- it just seemed that much more dramatic watching this vision of glowing coffee mobile coming down that big hill. how cool would that be?
a while later, i started drawing strange little pictures of trucks with coffee machines in them. most of the time i was doing this at work, usually in an office set (there were good desks to work on there) on the set of Veronica Mars, where i occasionally worked. 12 Step, another grip and fellow surfer, laughed and agreed that it was a great idea. the idea was getting firmer- a surf coffee truck. my only caveat at the time was that the truck had to advertise what it offered in large letters: JOE EATS WAX. i still love it, though general consensus said it was too confusing. (and if you agree, it’s Joe (coffee), Eats (snacks), Wax (surf wax). “Organic Coffee (&) other good stuff” took over, which i like, too. (though not as much, i admit, as “Joe Eats Wax”).
nowadays, everyone mistakenly calls me “Joe.” First of all, “joe” refers to a cup of joe, or coffee, not my name (though nowadays i answer to anything). in surfing, or longboarding, more specifically, when someone runs up to the front of the surfboard (the “nose”) and hangs out up there (as in “hanging ten,” “putting ten over,” “grabbing five,” et cetera), it’s called noseriding a surfboard. it’s also called putting your “toes on the nose.” and there you have it. hopefully this didn’t ruin everything for you. but i think a little enlightenment (at least this kind) goes a long way. and you’ll be that make cooler when you explain this to your friends and co-workers.
next i had to find the vehicle. the ice cream truck was my first idea, but those were way expensive and hard to find as i searched all over. then after working around an ambulance all day on a different film shoot, realized i could convert an old ambulance into a coffee yielding, lights a blazing machine. there was enough room to stand inside, they came with their own electrical system, and they were fairly small. most were diesel, which meant more efficient fuel usage and the ability to convert them to running on veggie oil. then i found out how expensive used ambulances were, so i kept looking.
i found the current Joes on the Nose mobile on ebay a while later. i missed the end of the auction but emailed the seller, letting him know that if the buyer didn’t work out, i was interested in coming by and checking it out. he contacted me a few hours later, told me the buyer was giving him the runaround, and how he could show it to me later that day if i could make it to Clairemont. It was on my way home, and the rest, they say, is history.
