A story about Tom isn't complete without a story about his outfits. "Tom's high-roller outfit was a frilly white shirt and high shoes," Jim noted. "He had these fake cigars; he didn't smoke but he said it looked cool." Brian Brennan recalled a gladiator-like outfit with string sandals, hot pants, and practically no shirt that got Tom kicked out of Disneyland. "He was a good guy, he just had some interesting quirks," RK Smith explained. "Like chamois. Throw some water on him and watch what happens." According to Jim, "They (Tom and Rose) looked like Sonny and Cher."
Anyway, back to the gambling. "They didn't track play then, so he'd always take it home stated Jim Clark. We had five safe-deposit boxes: three in Vegas and two in Anaheim, and all in my name. He used my birth certificate to get a driver's license in my name in Nevada. It was like skimmed money."
Money makes people do zany things, but illicit money drove Tom batshit crazy as Tex recalled. "It was so funny because we even had a deal there in the company for a while that any of the female employees who wanted to get breast enhancement could do it courtesy of the company." Try explaining THAT to your PR department nowadays!
If money and power are drugs, then Tom McMullen was a full-fledged junkie. According to a lot of people who worked with him, he'd throw money around even at the detriment of his business. In fact, some maintain that he was successful despite himself, that the crew around him was almost completely responsible for running his empire.
For example, after struggling to recruit advertisers for Street Chopper and Hot Bike, Tex Smith confronted Tom about diversifying. "'We've played around with this long enough,' I told him. We always said we were going to create a hot rod magazine and call it Street Rodder," Tex said. Only Tom said, "'No way, you can't do that; hot rodding is all over. Everything is motorcycles.'"
In fact, Tex met resistance everywhere, even with Rose who ran the books. "She came back and said we couldn't do it unless we killed another title," he said. So they killed Hot Bike. "At least I could see there was a chance of some advertising in that arena. It was kicking and screaming, but I did it.
Those problems were child's play compared to the ones between Tom and Rose. As Dave Brackett put it, "Tom was not necessarily kind to her. He was, well...he needed sexual gratification and he looked for it anyplace he could get it." According to him, much of her physical image-that of an over-sexed Cher clone-was Tom's doing. "She had a temper, but Rose was a very sweet, caring, girl-next-door type person. She took care of the books and finances and Tom was the guy who took the risks. The two didn't mix very well."
"I got a call from Tom," Tex said. "'Rose and I are going to get a divorce,' he said. Well I thought, shit, that's overdue by five years. 'What should I keep...' he asked, ...the magazines or the parts company?' I told him he wanted to keep the magazines for sure so he said, 'Okay, I'm going to tell her I want the parts company.' So that's how all that went down."
But it wasn't a clean break by any means. Both TRM Publishing (Tom) and AEE Choppers (Rose) shared the building and some of the employees. Then there was the subject of the lawsuit later on. We won't go into it, but it involved revealing photos of Rose from her and Tom's early days being sent to her employees and the employees of her soon-to-be husband, John Warren, who worked for Dan Gurney Cycle Products.