Jack Macpherson, 69, Renowned for ‘Huge Beer Orgies’ in L.A.

Jack Macpherson, who co-founded the party-loving Mac Meda Destruction Company beach crew immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s book “The Pump House Gang,” died November 16 at a Los Angeles Hospital. He was 69.Macpherson died of liver and kidney failure at a La Jolla hospital, his son, John Macpherson, told the Los Angeles Times.“He definitely killed a few beers in his time,” his son, John Macpherson, said. “He lived the old-school, 1950s surfer life the kegger parties that never really ended.”“Mac” Macpherson was never mentioned by name in Mr. Wolfe’s 1960s magazine article about Southern California youth culture. However, Mr. Wolf did mention the Mac Meda Destruction Company in his chronicle about young surfers who hung out at the sewage pump house at Windansea Beach.The Mac Meda Destruction Company was named for the antics of Mac and his friend, Bob “Meda” Rakestraw.At parties, Rakestraw “wouldn’t just walk into a house, he’d run through the door and jump out through a window,” Macpherson told the La Jolla Light in a 2003 interview. “People would say, ‘Here comes Mac and Meda. They’re a walking destruction company.'”Crew members wearing football helmets and wielding sledgehammers demolished condemned houses for fun and held wild parties.Wolfe described the company as an “underground society” that “is mainly something to bug people with and organize huge beer orgies with.” The crew’s logo was a mushroom cloud. Macpherson stenciled it on Tshirts and it began showing up on cars and windows around town. Police suspected the youngsters were involved in a dangerous gang. “Back then,” Macpherson told the surfing magazine Longboard, “the cops hated us so much that you could get arrested for walking down the street in a Mac Meda shirt.” Mac Meda shirts and car stickers still are produced in town. John Duncan Macpherson was born in La Jolla, Calif. He grew up to become a local mailman, retired in 1991 and became a bartender at a San Diego pub. He “spent his whole time around the beach area,” his son said.

Jack Macpherson, 69, Renowned for ‘Huge Beer Orgies’ in L.A.

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