THE VINTAGENT ON NPR

The wet plate photo I shot of the Captain America chopper last May

The upcoming sale of Michael Eisenbergs Captain America chopper (later today) prompted quite a bit of interest in the film, the bike, and the back story of the bikes used in Easy Rider.  As Id just researched this very subject for my book The Chopper; the Real Story (Gestalten), and have what I believe is a fairly complete picture of the origins and build of Captain America, I guess Ive become an expert on the subject!  National Public Radio producer Tom Dreisbach assembled the story, and I was interviewed in the studios of KQED in San Francisco, which was a novel experience for me.  Im regularly interviewed on radio and for podcasts, but have never before been on All Things Considered!

The wet plate portrait of Cliff Soney Vaughs I shot at a reunion of man and machine last May in LA, for The Chopper: the Real Story

The story is available on a podcast at the NPR site, and the text of the story is on the same page.  Its not the complete story - youll have to buy my book to read that, as its complicated and long.  I had the pleasure, by coincidence the same day as the NPR broadcast, of meeting Larry Marcus in Oregon last week; Larry is a professional mechanic, and actually built the B bikes for Easy Rider, in the backyard of the home he shared with Cliff Vaughs in 1967/8.  The spot he chose to meet (and Indian Casino) was, by greater coincidence, having a small chopper show at the time, which included a pair of replicas of the Easy Rider choppers.  Strange and stranger, but there you go - the life of the Vintagent is never without surprises.

Larry Marcus with a Captain America replica...