Slow Baja - Finding Chango The Surf Monkey Fellowship With Beth Slevcove

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

As we sort our video and audio recordings from our recent BajaXL drive, we are delighted to share one of my favorite shows from last year. We will return next week with a video of our Slow Baja conversation with Ivan Stewart on YouTube. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel here. "Chango," the twelve-inch tall, plaster-of-Paris, irregularly painted statuette, first appeared in the San Ysidro border traffic lines during the early 1970s as street vendors hawked them to passing tourists. Many a gringo returning from their surf trip, tourist jaunt, TJ bar run, or mission trip came home with one of these in the back seat." Slow Baja has questions, and in this riveting interview, Beth Slevcove of the Surf Monkey Fellowship has the answers. Monkey or ape? Who is Chango's creator? How did an icon of border tchotchkes become nearly extinct? Stay tuned for all the answers! Check out the Surf Monkey Fellowship Follow Surf Monkey Fellowship on Facebook.

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That's N-O-R-R-A-N-O-R-A. R-R-A-a-com, Slow Baja-Safari class. And if you've got some specific questions, feel free to hit me up at slowbaha.com. Click that contact box and we can schedule a call. I can walk you right up to the pharmacy window, get your prescription filled if your doctor has said that Baja is right for you. Hey, it's Slow Baja, and I'm coming to you from the Sheelman recording studio sitting inside my Land Cruiser in a parking garage in North Beach in San Francisco, just back from the Baja XL rally, and we've got a lot of cool stuff to share with you from that adventure.

Brought Kaiser with me, that's right. My podcast producer, Kaiser made his first trip to Baja, and he shot video, and we are launching Slow Baja YouTube podcasts. So you're going to want to check that out over at Slow Baja on YouTube. If you're not following the podcast over there, please subscribe, check it out. And so in effort to get those videos edited and the images edited and do all the work to get the first one right, the first one with Ivan Stewart, we're taking this week off. We've got a great show from the archive, Beth Slevko, on Finding Chango, one of my favorite shows of all time. So we're bringing that one back out for your listening pleasure.

If you didn't hear it, please give it. it a listen and if you did hear it give it another listen i really really really like this show so anyways check it out we'll be back next week with ivan stewart and video do i want to start with the word crazy yes i don't even know you but i feel like i know you it's low bahaw and i am at the surf monkey fellowship of all places i just toured the surf monkey museum and i'm I am delighted to be here with Beth Slevkov in her home in San Diego, her beautiful home in San Diego. And we're going to talk about this surfing monkey fellowship. And Joe is going to join us.

Joe say hello. Hello, hello. Welcome. Beth, geez, let's just jump into it. Sounds good. What? Why? What?

Tell me about your first interaction with, um, Baja and how you came across a surf monkey and how you, I think I'm maybe projecting here a little, but I'm thinking there's a little bit of an obsession that probably had you searching back alleys of T.J looking for ceramic shops, trying to figure out where this thing comes from and who has the molds, am I right? The monkey will lead. The monkey will lead us. It'll lead you to where? Let's hear it. Great places, great people. So I started journeying to Baja, first Tijuana, in the backseat of a church van on a youth group,

trips where we would partner with various communities to build homes together and do all sorts of different things, farming and wonderful opportunities. And when we would come back across the border, you know, we were waiting for an hour or two. And I would see the various Chachke sold only to Americans, you know, no Mexican and their right mind would have a surf monkey on their kitchen table. Mexican Americans buy Chachkes, but maybe not surf monkeys. Maybe not. And so I saw this monkey on a surfboard, and I've surfed since I was 15 or something like that.

So it's probably actually about the same time I was going down there. And I thought it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen. So I say it was definitely love at second sight. So I'm like, who would buy that? And then I don't know, I don't know what happened. I don't know what epiphany came to me, but somehow as we kept going down there for these various trips, and then my brother and I started traveling, we would always own some kind of car that had high clearance that we could go anywhere and everywhere, preferably Jeep tracks to some beautiful

cove that nobody was at, except for little fish camps, fish villages. And somewhere along the line, I just kept seeing these, and I thought, You know, I really kind of started loving these little monkeys on surfboards. And when was it? Then we stopped. Joe's got a pile of notes over here, and I think he's got a clipboard, folks. He is a natural historian and researcher. So that's why I've asked him to be a part of this because he can remember things for me.

But at one point we realized, and this was much later, this was probably 20 years later, early 2000s, that it was hard to. see them. They were really hard to find at the border and we realized that they were endangered. And that's what got us interested in maybe doing something about that. We didn't want the surf monkey to be on the extinct list. So, and I should say actually at the very start of this, the surf monkey is not a monkey. It is an ape. Apes have no tails. I was guessing. I was guessing chimpanzee. I was guessing chimpanzees. It's a chimpanzee. So it's actually not a monkey at all.

Harkening back to my work with Jane Goodall many years ago. Oh, nice. Failed film project with Jane Goodall. Oh, wow. Telling the Slow Baja world here for the first time. Well, I'm glad that didn't succeed because you might not have been here with us now. Talking about surf monkeys. I could have been doing bigger and better things.

Not anything bigger and better than surf monkeys. So let's get the timeline here, Beth. So you were doing. church trips to Baja was at high school, was that college? That would have been high school. That would have been in the 80s. And you're a Southern California girl? Yes.

Okay, if it's okay to say that that way, no slight meant. You grew up surfing in Southern California and doing church stuff in Baja. And in the 80s, the surfing monkey was ubiquitous. I bought one in 1984. I probably bought one in 1986. I have no idea where those two are. but they did not make the move to my adult life, sadly. So you're right.

They disappeared. And I first saw them in the 70s on my church trip and junior high and things. And, yeah, they were abundantly on the border. Prolific. And then now they're, yeah, they've become rare and endangered. So, well, can I get down the path of the thought? I mean, yeah, okay, like you must have had that thought. Hey, remember those old surfing monkeys?

Now it's all Bart Simpson or it's a big, dumb, you know, something Raiders thing, or what have you, whatever is being sold today. That's right. And so why would a sane person with a UC Santa Barbara degree and probably, gainfully and two graduate degrees. Yeah, I was going to say probably gainfully employed decide this was going to be

your quest. Yeah, that's a good question. Well, for those who don't know the surf monkey, it is an important part of surf culture. It's known as the garden gnome of surf culture.

And, you know, thousands have been sold over the years. And people from, you know, you talk to the old, It's got to be the older surfers. You go back to the 70s and 80s. You know, everybody had one. Yeah.

And then you run into people who, like I knew people who, my brother-in-law, for instance, his whole gang of friends from college in Colorado, when everybody got married, they got the monkey. And the monkey passed, you know, over 10 years, it went around to 12 different people. Like a virus. You know, and that's the thing is what drew me in,

is I realize anybody who, we start hearing stories about this surf monkey and anyone who loves the surf monkey is, they're solid. They're good people. Yeah, it's like anyone who travels Baja, not parties and it's not a, but actually, you know, knows Baja, travels Baja, good people, anyone who has an old Westphalia, a camper van, good people, anyone who owns the surf monkey, good people. So that really drew us in to all these stories. And then Joe starts researching, you know, where did they come from?

Well, you started selling them. Yeah, okay. You know, wait a second here. Joe, what's your background? I'm a high school drama teacher who does not surf. And you have an advanced degree. And so what leads you to say, I want to find out. Because I love this woman, the monkey girl next to me.

Who she gets me to go to Baja. rarely but that's why we got the van that I can stay inside of it's got a full enclosed camper so anyway I'll go along because I'm curious I'm just curious but you kept finding you know this people love the monkey and you kept running into people who would be so excited you know when they saw you had the monkey we had a little gift shop at the time in the early 2000s down at Seaport Village and you had all these months monkeys that you'd bring back from your surf trips. So we started selling them.

And every, you know, 500th person came in and went, oh my gosh, the monkey. Always had a story. And they all had a great story. Yeah. Usually it ended up, it had something to do with partying in Tijuana and coming home with one drunk and the girlfriend or wife, you know, moving it from the table or living room to the garage, the band cave. I mean, I think if Seinfeld had been set in San Diego.

there would definitely be an episode devoted to the surf monkey. The TV show, judging Amy, which was on about 20 years ago, it was a recurring theme. All the cast members at one point got the surfing monkey when they were down and out. They would get the monkey and it would encourage them. So there is, yeah, there's definitely all kinds of legends. We found, in addition to the surf community, through Beth's, when she started selling them, you started getting emails from, it would be people who were in. in the Navy in the 70s or 80s, they had a monkey.

So they also came back from their Tijuana trip with the monkey. And then went to Indiana or whatever. So we'd get an email from Indiana. Oh, I broke his monkey. He's had it for 20 years in the Man Cave. I need, can you get me one shipped by Christmas? And we had multiple ones of those. We sent monkeys all over the country.

We had a map of all the states the monkeys ended up. We almost filled the whole country, I think. But sadly, and, you. Sadly, the time it took to package them and they often came broken, and so Joe would have to repackage them and dumpster dive for the materials. This was not a profit center. This is a love project. It costs more money to ship to package it than the monkey was worth.

But people loved them. Yeah. And sadly, well, then we had a surf shop that would ship them. and but sadly they came to the same conclusion. So if anybody is out there that wants to be a monkey shipper, particularly in San Diego that I could. Steve Hall, surfing post on Cass Street and P.B. I'm calling you, Steve Hall.

All right. Let's get the surfing monkey out to the world. I'll get to the monkey. Surf and post on Cass Street. So, Beth, seriously, I'm on the edge of my seat. Like, did you just buy one every time you came back from a Baja trip? And then you had a bunch, and then you said, like, what am I doing with these things? And I'm going to resell them in my Seaport Village shop.

And we were, the recession was coming on. We were going out of business. And I remember one day you just said, you know, like, everything was kind of, you had lost your job. Beth works as a chaplain. And everything was kind of falling apart. And one day you just went, I'm going to start a monkey business. And I'm going to bring the monkey back. It's no monkey business.

This is the only thing that's ever worked from me in my entire life is monkey business. I'm so delighted we're talking about these sort of matters. Right, right. These deep, you know, worthy matters. That's right. That's right. So I would bring them back and I would ask the guys who were running around selling things. You know, I need 10 monkeys.

And they would run around to the various booths on the border and find me 10 monkeys. So it started there, but then a friend of mine, Joelle, she and I would go searching the border to try to find the factories and who's actually manufacturing these, who's making them, who has the molds. And we ran in to... Are these independent standalone, we're going to get to the bottom of the monkey business trips? Or were you doing something else? And you said, you know, after we go get a Caesar salad, we're going to go check out the monkey thing. No, this was pretty much. This was, you're on a journey.

You're on a mission. You know, I. From just the end of the surf trip to you were going there just for the month. Yeah. They are endangered and I need to do something about it. So we ended up finding a wonderful family who has the mold. Wait a second. How?

How? What? Give me a little background. So you're, where do you go? Where do you start? You get the seller and then you say, take me to your warehouse? Well, that took many years in a long relationship before they let us actually come to where they manufactured these. I get it.

But we actually found it on this side of the border, the last exit in the states. There's a lot of different places that import directly from Tijuana down there and have warehouses. And so we were driving around those warehouses. And we found some monkeys and started talking to this family. Since this is, how many years has this been? It's about 15 years ago now. You know, I consider them close acquaintances. You literally just drove around the warehouses on the San Jacidro side of the border.

Yeah. And then would talk to people, you know. Yeah. And say, hey, do you have the monkey? The surf monkey? Chango. Chango. That's what they call.

Yeah, which is Mexican slang for monkey. Yeah. And so eventually somebody said yes. Yeah. Yes. And we have been connected with this family and in so many wonderful ways. And you started selling them then. You were wholesaling them to surf shops all around.

Southern California. And then online we were selling them for a while. Yeah. And you still sell them through the surf shops here in San Diego, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I just posted a link to West Coast paddle surf or something. You know, somebody posted, how do I get one of those?

And I, you know, went to your site and posted a link. And so. There might be some updating that needs to happen. Uh-oh. They don't. Well, when they find out, when they find out that they're nothing, they're going to do a Google search. There are still shops in San Diego selling them. And there's always drama.

The factory had a fire at one point. and actually quite recently, and they didn't have the mold anymore, so they're asking me to bring down, if I had monkeys, to bring down, so they could make a mold off one of the monkeys that I had so that they could continue. And we don't, the group I work with, the family I work with, doesn't have the only mold, but there's probably a handful of molds. There's not, there's not a lot. Yeah, so let's get down to that. I mean, what's the arc of the rarity of the monkey world? and how many different, I saw there was a monkey wearing sunglasses. The monkey in my mind never had sunglasses, so that's a variation.

There's the Husong's monkey. The Corona monkey. Oh, the Corona monkey. Yes, wearing a Corona shirt or something on its back, right? There's a playboy monkey we don't support. The misogynistic monkey. Yeah, the misogynistic monkey. So again, what do you think, Beth?

How many variations are out there? You know, I have no idea. I would definitely less than 10, I would think. But over the years, I'm sure there's been a dozen. And Beth can actually spot them like a jeweler. Exactly. Like she'll look at it and go, oh, this one's indented a little bit of this way, or the board is shaped a little bit different on this one,

because everybody has a little bit different variation. I would imagine that somebody's molding off of existing monkeys, molding off of existing, hey, this one's sold. We need to sell that too. We're going to make ours, and it's going to be just this much different. different because of indifference or sloppiness or intention to make something that's our own, you know. And they don't have the copyright situations there.

Nor Corona's, probably nor Corona's, you know, permission. Or Playboys or. Exactly. So how old do you think the monkey is? What's the oldest monkey you've got? You know. Oh, we know. 1962.

Yeah. In fact, this is, we have a big reveal that we have. actually haven't. Today on Slow Baja, stand back, folks. We kid you not. Joe has done so much research. We've asked a zillion people, and we've gotten 100 different stories, the origin story of the surf monkey. But we actually have the man. Hang on. We're going to take a break for Baja bound, my good friends. We're all going to have a sip of our IPA. We're going to leave you on the edges of your seats, folks. We'll be right back. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border.

And when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Good, good. All right. Hey, we're back, and we're going to find out how old the oldest Chango is. You know, Richard Leakey just passed.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and Lewis Leakey, his father. I mean, come on. We're talking about the origins of man here. Yeah. So, Joe, the origins. Did you have a network of high school drama students working computers and trying to crowdsource this information? Or is this all on you?

This was on me. I'm getting the curious one. And I think you started selling wholesaling to the California Surf Museum up in Oceanside. You know, and so the monkey was on the shelf next to art pieces with a little buy-esion. with a little bio about the artist, and, you know, there was a plaque about the history of everything, and so I thought, oh, we've got to find the history of the monkey. And it was just curious, too.

And you kept asking everyone you'd buy from, and everybody had a different story. You know, each person said, oh, we originated it. We were the first ones to make it. Everyone else copied our mold, or my nephew made it, or we found one in Hawaii, we heard. Anyway, the story was always changing, and we assumed somewhere deep in Mexico or Baja, there's an artist who made the original monkey.

And but we could, we were not, we kept hitting dead ends. We couldn't find it. I know the monkey was in the surf, you know, it was in a textbook about surfing, and, but it didn't mention the origin. We went to, there's a surf version of the Antiques Roadshow that came through. at the San Diego Convention Center, and we took the monkey in, and we stood in line, and we got up there and sat down with them. And I thought, well, we're finally going to get the truth. And they just stared at us blankly. They had no idea.

Next. Yeah. Now we have a Baja hoodie from 1974. Yeah. Repaired in period. So then we just started talking to old surfers, and they'd all say, oh, yeah, I got mine in the early 70s. It seemed like right around 1970 was the earliest.

anybody had thought, maybe late 60s. But again, we were stuck. So then a clue came, a number of people would say, you know, I had the skateboard monkey, or I had the baseball monkey. What? I had the golf monkey, or I had the doctor and the nurse monkey. The politician monkey, yeah.

Yeah. So people kept saying that, and I thought, the monkey family. I thought, well, they're just making a mistake. But anyway, so through some online searching On a lot of old collector sites, there's probably 15 different monkeys. And you can tell they're the monkey's uncle. I mean, they are the same look.

They're the same size. You can tell the same artist made them. They're definitely related. So anyway, so by going through those people, the collector's sites, I found out there was a company called Progressive Arts Products. Somebody had it written on the bottom of their monkey? Is that what? Well, the guys who were all these experts and nerds on the collector sites were like,

oh yeah, these were made from 1968 through 1982 from this company in Los Angeles and da-da-da-da. And, you know, they would get, you know, knockoffs were made down in Tijuana. And usually that monkey then disappeared or whatever it was. It might have been a statue of, you know, for Christmas or a statue for, whatever little cute thing they made at this company, little chachis and statues and figurines. But they would get copied at Baja. But the best seller, obviously, the big one was the surf monkey. So anyway, so then I started trying to find this company. It doesn't exist anymore.

But I found some old copyright trademark documents from the government. How deep will Joe go? Okay, hold the mic here because I've got to find... Yeah, it's getting deep. This is where... On to his printed materials. Okay, this is from the Library of Congress. These folks are taking this seriously slow Baja community.

January... We're not goofing off here. January 15th, 1970. Item H40484, surfing monkey, wearing striped swimsuit, statuette. That's the dude. And I'm like, is the first time I found something, Progressive Art Products of California in plaster.

And then it says... The missing link, Beth says. Now, we'd assumed there's an artist down in Mexico who's made this. But this is Los Angeles. And it says the name by Massad Teraharachi. And as I looked down, there were other trademarked items, other monkeys. And then actually there were... Beth is holding up a scores of these products.

A four-by-six color coat of color print. Of the man. Showing the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who made. We're taking a break here, folks. We're back with Joe and Beth and laughing, having a good time. We just had a visit from her nephew. And what was the name again? Masad Terahachi.

That's a fake name. So, first time. But the name shows up under all these products. So anyway, I start searching that name. And I'm only finding there's a fine artist who's a painter with that name. There's a, there's a Persian artist who came, you know, who basically got out of Iran, Tehran, raised in Tehran. And there was an article in from a North Dakota newspaper in the 1950s about this guy who got out of Tehran. came to North Dakota to become an artist.

And anyway, I'm not finding anything. I'm not finding anything that makes sense. There's not a lot of artists there. But if you're from Tehran, yes, that could be a good spot. Anyway. Wide open spaces. And then I started the name, there's the name, Sean Tarahachi, who in the publishing, like the underground publishing world, this guy is a legend.

And he edited a magazine that was called Crapphound back in the 90s. Yeah, craphound. And he was the editor. of that. And he's a writer. He's known for all this quirky humor and political humor and he's written for public radio. Are we getting in too deep? This is too deep. Anyway, I mean, so there's Sean Terahachis can there be. I mean, how many tarahatchis can there be in the arts that might have a monkey connection? So anyway, through a friend of a friend of a friend who knows a guy, we got his email and I sent him an email and said, hi. No way. Might you be no of, uh, uh, might you be no of, uh, uh, uh, uh,

Masad Tarahachi who made ceramic monkeys? And maybe you know, whatever. I forget what I wrote him. But I wrote this letter like he's, I'm serious. I'm very, trying to be very diplomatic and respectful. He writes back, oh yeah, that's my dad. And we said, my dad, he made the monkey. Monkey man we called him.

Could we meet him? And he just thought, he goes, oh, that's great. He goes, yeah, he was, at the time he was 85, he goes, yeah, he still doing all right. And anyway, he got contacted us, gave us his number. We drove to his home. In 2013, in Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles suburbs. Yeah, we'll keep it. No, we'll keep it private.

But in the suburbs of Los Angeles, he was retired. And you called him and said, can we come? And he was very polite, but a little. bit, he seemed confused. Like, why are these people coming? Why is CNN coming to do a documentary on me right now for the monkey thing?

And so you know, we brought in, we came in, we brought the monkey, one of the monkeys with us, and he looked at it and kind of went, yeah, that's mine, he said. And, but not exactly his. He explained us.

It was a knockoff of his. He goes, yeah, that's a knockoff. He goes, I do. those, yeah. And then we began to tell them the story of how, you know, all these people love the monkey. We've, you know, all these famous surfers and everybody we know has the monkey. We have, we had people who've come up to us and then like taken off their shoes and showed us the tattoo of the monkey. And there's that Peter Gabriel song that was so famous. These two people have tattooed the monkey on their body. This specific monkey. We're telling them all

these stories and he kind of went, huh. I'm not a failure. And then I was like, so we wanted to get the background of it. And anyway, he worked for this company and online you'll still find hundreds of products from this company, every little statue figuring they made. And he goes, yeah, I did that. And I'm like, what? He goes, I was their artist. He made every product for this company. So of the hundreds of products he made, you know, he did the series of monkeys and one of the monkeys was the surf monkey. And anyway, but you could just tell it. It was one of like 700 things he sculpted. But never thought twice about it. It has this whole life, you know, anyway. So,

Beth. That's the first time that his name and the actual origin of the monkey has ever been spoken beyond our brains. Can you say it one more time for slow ball? Yeah. Musud, Musud, Tarahachi. Yes. The father of Sean Tarahatchee of crap hound fame. The father of the surf monkey. I just thought that was a fake name. Yeah. No. Not great. So I remember you left in one. Yeah. That Massoud. Yeah. Coming from Persia, as we say, or around, never surfed in his life. Probably not. And probably never saw a monkey surf. Absolutely. I think we can say that. Or a 1920s bathing suit. Right. Right. Yes. How did all those things go together? Where did it come from? does he get a print out every week of the things he needs to make you know he he um did he enlight

you at all uh he goes you know i'm working on uh these owls and he had a bunch of little owls he was sculpting in the back and then he's i'm working on these paintings and um yeah his wife just leaned over and went he's kind of ADD and he gets bored real quickly and he's on he's brilliant and he just goes on to the next thing and he he doesn't even realize how he's kind of how he's created all these amazing things. And he just gets bored and goes on to the next thing. So, Beth, I'm being serious here for a second. Did you like kind of, were you like peering around in his house thinking, is there like the original Mr. Monkey in here?

Is the original Chango? Is there like the super rare zero zero artist proof chango version that's just kind of sitting over there? Like not, he doesn't care a thing about it in the whole world. is just one of 700 things he made. Oh, I wish. Sometimes people send us in pictures of ones they have that look like some of the original ones that he had made. But honestly, just sitting in his presence, I felt like, you know, I had made it. I mean, it was so great.

You climbed the mountain. You got there. Yes. You found the guy. Yes. And he actually had us into his home. So it was so fun. And like I was saying earlier, these, it's such, they're just good people that love the surf monkey. And I mean, part of what I love about it is that it's just, you know, now it's this irregularly painted plaster of Paris monkey on a surfboard with eight toes.

And that, you know, it's ridiculous. And it brings joy. And I think it reminds us, you know, not to take life so seriously. Joe's taking this seriously. Oh, well, yeah. Sorry. What's the next issue? Patent office.

You know, no, I just remember when we left him, you know, I was trying to, I just get across the gravity of what he had created, you know, and again, telling him all the people who had it. He had no idea that this is being knocked off in another country. And all this, and it went on and on. Thousands of tourists are buying this, you know, month after month after month. And it's on a TV show. You're putting it on T-shirts now. Yeah. And there's multiple, you know, Billabong has every couple seasons does a product.

with the monkey. Stance socks, which is the biggest sock maker. They do all the NBA and everything. They have a whole series of the monkey on their socks and underwear. Anyway, I said all this, did he know? Did he care? Did he mind that he didn't make any money off all that? He said, that's okay.

And then, you know, I said, you know, what do you think of all this influence you've had? And it's been, at that point, it was 45 years. And he went, he just kind of not. Like that's nice and then um you left him one because you were like do you do you even have one he goes oh no so he left him once so we actually had a copy of one he made he was so dear yeah it was really neat and uh mr terra hatchie passed away in 2019 at the age of 91 and the next year 2020 it was the 50th anniversary so you know we celebrated the moon landing and woodstock and

All those big events and of course the surf monkey is 50, 51, 52 now. It'll be 52 next week. Aren't we all? Exactly my age pretty much. That's right. Well, Beth, bring it home for me. Tell us where folks can find it. I listened to a PSA on YouTube today trying to find monkey information.

And there was a PSA for not smoking marijuana, which was kind of freaking funny. Yeah. It was pretty freaking funny as I'm trying to find anything on the surfing monkey as I'm literally driving over here. I don't want to say that folks, like I was surfing on my phone while driving. But I was at a lot of stoplights. And so I was just like, hey, is there anything on YouTube about this dang monkey? Yeah. There's a commercial very funny PSA.

It's like a. Yeah. It's on our website. Yeah. It's super funny. And there's a commercial state of South Carolina did one Christmas about Christmas ideas or I forget what it was. But I remember you. It was a surf monkey.

They phoned you and had you ship one to South Carolina so they could use it in their commercial. Well, wrap it up for me, Beth. Where can people find the surf monkey to purchase the surf monkey T-shirts? What's the future of Chango? I think this is going to help us kind of get back going, moving a little bit. We have day jobs and children. We have a pandemic. We have day jobs.

We have children. That should not stop the world from getting the surfing monkey. And what has continued is I continue to go and buy as many as I can from my friends that are making them. And so pretty much anybody who is in San Diego or visiting San Diego can stop by and get as many surf monkeys as they would like here in San Diego. And if somebody is willing to ship them, then that might be the new thing. Steve Hall. But we need to get a 50th. the anniversary t-shirt out here soon too.

So that's what we're hoping to. And people have said, well, why don't you get them made in China and you could mass-market them? And Beth has been very clear like, no. I'm a purist. They have to come from Baja, made of plaster paris, irregularly painted. And to give credit to our backup artists, we had assumed there was a factory, you know, with a machine producing them in Tijuana.

So Beth, after years of. kind of earning the trust of who she buys from, she got permission to go to the factory with a Citibit magazine. Even a journalist from Citibake magazine went down. And it was, was it a factory? Lusely. In the Baja sense of the word, it was a place where things were made. Exactly.

When you showed me pictures, it was a shed. Yeah, I mean, it was very humble. Yeah, yeah. But they got the work done and did great work there. And the man who made him let me help make surf monkey. with the mold and one at a time. Do you know where it went? Did you get your own surf monkey or did it just go into production and somebody's going

to get the one that you cast? Well, I am pretty much the one who buys all the surf monkeys from this. So you're going to get yours anyways. Yeah, exactly. From this. And, you know, the knife in the plaster at a certain point to make that hole for the change if they, sometimes they have that, sometimes they don't. Piggy bank.

Monkey bank. Yeah, so that was an, that was an, another amazing thing. But yeah, no, it has to be straight from them. Beth, can we agree that on a future slow Baja trip, we're going to get in my old land cruiser and just drive over to wherever these things are made and film a little video of how these monkeys are made? Oh, absolutely. And I'm sure these people that have become friends will welcome us graciously. That would be fantastic. And before you leave today, make sure that one on the table, sands the new year's eve hat is for you oh wow wow well folks we're going to leave it right there

beth jo i knew this was going to be fun and i'm so stoked i am so stoked i am so stoked to say it in the most san diego words of all to have um finally gotten to the bottom of chango and you have the exclusive you have the exclusive origin story you have heard it here first folks. You heard it here first folks and we're not even through January in 2022 and you already know this amazing bit of history. All right. Well, thanks again. One more time, where can folks find you on the internet? Does Chang go have a website? Shango have an Instagram. Surfmunkiefellowship.com. Is that a church? No. Is it a 501c3? It's like fellowship. Ship of the Rings, but cooler.

It's like, what I want to say. But you've had at least, you know, a hundred people ask about the church. And it's, no, it's not a church. It's not a church. Yeah, so surf monkey fellowship.com. I apologize for the, um, the inferences. Needing to update the website. Oh, well, we'll get that settled.

Don't work. We got, we got multiple parties that want to do into the 20th century, if not the 21st. Putting it out there. And then surf monkey fellowship. at gmail.com is a great way to get a hold of me. Direct line to Beth Slev Cove. That is. That's right.

And you can get him at Mello Jones is a great place in Salana Beach. He's an artist that takes the surf monkey and does amazing, amazing art pieces with them. So you bring him the blanks. Oh, yeah. And does he go leaf him? What does he do with these things? I've seen some amazing versions of them. Yeah, I need to post the recent.

He has this angel surf monkey that is amazing. He has a David Bowie surf monkey. he's just he's fantastic a man named john that's miller jones and the california surf museum has the legitimate you know surf monkeys bird surf shed obi mission surf yeah so uh there's a number of people carrying them they're out there and are they still for sale my my best buddy ted donovan mr baha visitor he told me that they're on the mexicali border that i think the more that they become popular with people like us helping that. Retro popular.

The more we will find them being produced. Yeah. So I think we really have brought them back from extinction. I can honestly say I think I've been a part of that. You brought one species back, Beth. One at a time. Poco a poco. Such a delight to be with you in your home.

Thanks for making some time for Slow Baja. And I can't wait to get you in the old FJ40 and go see where these things are actually made. That's going to be a good. good fun laugh. That sounds great. All right. Thanks. Well, thank you.

Hey, I hope you like that one. I did. Kind of fun. Learning the story behind Chango. Those things were everywhere when I first crossed the border back in 1984. They were everywhere. And having just crossed last week, didn't see a single one. So I learned something.

I hope you did too. I hope you enjoyed the show. And if you are enjoying the show, please drop a taco in the tank. You can do that right through the donate button. It's lowbaha.com. and if you're a Patreon supporter of others, please consider supporting this show, Slow Baja, on Patreon.

I would really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And share it, rate it, do all that stuff. I'll be back with something fun next week. Oh yeah, I already told you about that. I'll be back with Ivan Stewart in video from Persebu. That's right. Next week, it's all starting at slowbaha.com on YouTube.

Okay. And to close things up here, to paraphrase Mary McGee's friend, Baja, Steve McQueen, Baja's life, anything that happens before or after is just waiting.