‘Rest Easy Crawdaddy’: Malibu mourns a legend who ‘saw beauty in things that others didn’t’
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If you knew Malibu, you knew the Crab Shack, that barn-red, century-old little house hugging the hillside just a few miles south of the pier.
And if you knew the Crab Shack, you definitely knew its owner, Randall Miod — better known as Randy, or Crawdaddy, or simply the Craw.
“The whole community knew the Craw,” his friend Todd Proctor said. “I don’t care if you were driving a Bentley or you were hitchhiking to the beach. You knew the Craw and you loved the Craw.”
There was always a party at the Crab Shack. Miod was the party, his friends and family said this week — a generous, fun-loving free spirit who knit people together and brought out their best.
“Mining out the gold in each person, and then getting them to see that gold and getting them to operate off of that best version of themselves — Craw was like a magician that would do that with people,” Proctor said.
Miod died at his home as the Palisades fire swept through Malibu, said his mother, Carol A. Smith of Banning. He was 55.
News of Miod’s death sent waves of grief through a vast network of friends, neighbors and acquaintances who’d surfed with Craw or crashed on his couch or stayed up late laughing and talking with a man who “made you feel like you were your best self,” his friend Michele Ceaser-Germann said.
“He just had this ability to bring people together,” Ceaser-Germann said. “He saw beauty in things that others didn’t. He was a salt-of-the-earth guy.”
Miod (pronounced “my-odd”) was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the San Fernando Valley, Smith said. He discovered skateboarding and surfing in junior high and was soon skipping school for the waves so often that his mother hid his board.
Proctor was a scrawny 12-year-old surfing Malibu’s Second Point in the mid-1980s when Miod paddled up and introduced himself. It was the start of a decades-long friendship.
“He would take an interest in people, find out what they were about, build them up, encourage them and what they were into,” Proctor recalled. “He was like this big brother who always made you feel like you were moving in the right direction.”
Miod moved to Malibu a few years after high school and found a room in a ramshackle three-bedroom wooden house that stood out among the glittery residences lining Pacific Coast Highway.
Remembering lives lost in the Eaton and Palisades fires, the most destructive fires in Los Angeles’ history.
He’d acquired the nickname Crawdaddy thanks to congenital bone deposits that bent his arms inward like those of a crustacean. The house soon had a nickname of its own: the Crab Shack.
The landlord later moved away and left Miod in charge of the property. When he decided to sell about 15 years ago, Proctor said, friends chipped in to help Miod buy it.
“The door was always open, for surfers, people on their way from different countries, vagabonds traveling through that he felt a kindred spirit with,” Proctor recalled.
There were parties. There was music. The walls were lined with Miod’s photographs and abstract paintings. There was a band setup in the corner where Miod, a drummer, and others would jam. There was an aluminum ladder leading up to the roof with its view of the sea. There was always a giant secondhand couch, and whenever it wore out someone would drag in a new one.
Miod never married. He had no children and worked at local restaurants to pay the bills. He was the heart of a different kind of family, one made of people who loved Malibu and surfing and everything that went with it.
“He became a legend in Malibu,” his mother said. “I don’t think he ever realized how much everyone loved and respected him, for just being Randy, the Craw.”
He knew how dangerously raw life along that coastline could be. He’d lived through fires, earthquakes and mudslides. As recently as February, a boulder came crashing down the hillside, missing his home by inches.
“I’m just chilling, watching TV and then I hear — kaboom!” a bemused Miod told KCAL.
As the Palisades fire closed in on Jan. 7, Miod called his mother around 3 p.m. to say he could smell the smoke. He said he had a hose and was going to fight for his home.
“His last words to me that day were, ‘Pray for the Palisades and pray for Malibu. I love you,’ ” she said.
He stopped responding to texts after that. On the morning of Jan. 9, Smith received a call from one of Miod’s friends that human remains were found in the Crab Shack’s charred wreckage. With all his roommates accounted for, it could only be Miod.
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The Palisades fire destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in Malibu. Among the first things rising from the ashes is the legend of the Craw.
Painted tributes have popped up along the beach walls: “Rest Easy Crawdaddy,” “Crab Shack Forever.” When it’s safe to do so, his friends are planning a memorial. One last gathering with Craw at its center.
When she learned of her friend’s death, Ceaser-Germann climbed up to the rafters of her West Hills home. She took down a box of mementos and began sifting through letters and photos marking decades of friendship.
A small card she didn’t recognize was stuck at the bottom. It was a Chatsworth High School student ID. Not her own, but Miod’s. The Craw’s. It felt like a sign.
“I know he’s looking down right now,” she said. “Hold your people close, now. Tell people you love them — now. Don’t wait until you can’t anymore. No one’s guaranteed another moment.”
