Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Realities
"'Just remember', Ryan raised a warning finger in jest, 'years from now
when they finally catch us and ask us what we were up to, your story and my
story may be wildly different and yet totally the same.'"
- Jack Fritscher "Some Dance to
Remember"; Knights Press 1990.
Since the award-winning documentary "The Thin Blue Line"
(1988, written and directed by Errol Morris), television and movie viewers have
been treated to a slue of stories depicting differing views and angles of the
same happening. As a story unfolds, we witness different sides of the same
occurrence. At first the varying views confuse the viewer in details as diverse
as they are numerous. Then (either slowly or with the speed of a single scene),
the relative truth of the issue is revealed. They cut through the facts to the
"chase", through the lies to the "truth" and through all the
flotsam to find what is significant that 'floats'.
Sometimes they don't 'float'… they leave us with
unanswered questions about the reality or logic of the conclusions brought
forth. Details are left dangling and threads are left un-pulled (I unravel more
clothes that way). So, when something in history is recorded and accounted for
in more than one way by more than one person, it irritates the 'thread pulling
section' of my brain until eventually I have to look into it.
Yes, I am one of those people.
I am one of the people that cannot let well enough alone, despite the fact that
all the evidence points to a conclusive (yet speculative) solution that many
accept as a fact.
While in search of the elusive beginnings of the term
"Old Guard" (as it relates to the American leather community) I read
significant disparity from solid sources about the way of living for the folks
who fall under that title, I am not one to sit idly by and accept it as written.
I
can't.
Is this a personal fault of mine? Perhaps, but that is
the way I am mentally constructed, regardless. And, let's just look at this
'anal retentive behavior' as something that benefits us all
One of the key images we have from the days when the
'Old Guard walked the earth' (sorry for the poor alliteration) is visions of
leather bars with gleaming rows of Harley Davidson motorcycles aligned outside,
basking in the glow of the setting sun, as men clad in leather and the dying sun
sat with cold beer to usher in the evening.
Since the days of the movie "The Wild One" (1954) and the Harley 74 Shovel Pan, leather has been synonymous with this image of the motorcycle rider outlaw gang roving the land in search of the next fight.
At least I have held this image in my mind.
Visions of solid leather on two metal wheels eating pavement along America's
highways permeate the culture of leather as much as any other. But, the reality
of the predecessors of the "Homo-muscular" movement, were apparently
not the shady characters that are legendary and (in some instances) real visions
of the outlaw motorcyclists of yore.
Where did this image come from?
Popular culture has always marketed the 'rough and
tumble hero' in a significant and timely manner. During the late 1940's and
early 1950's while America whiled away the time watching the newly popular
televisions, and the Korean War gave everyone pause to contemplate trouble
outside a "perfect" United States, several events conspired to allow
this to occur again.
On July 4th, 1947, in the heat of a farm
community's celebration, the American Motorcycle Association sponsored the
annual hill climb meet in Hollister, California. Among the purported 2,000 to
4,000 attendees and approximately 4,000 inhabitants, arrived two motorcycle
groups: the 'Booze Fighters' and another named 'The Pissed Off Bastards' (one
member would later leave the latter group to form the 'Hell's Angels').
These 6,000 to 8,000 people all settled down that first
holiday evening looking forward to the week's festivities. (1, 4)
Controlling and directing all these throngs of people was
the local police force of seven officers. After that first night, they were
exhausted from the frenzied running about assisting people and ensuring the
"public safety".
In the years that followed the Second World War, there
was a sincere and existing alliance between the 'citizenry' and the police
forces. This was a time when (should something happen) the cops could always
count on the local populace to assuredly come to their assistance. Because of
this feeling of community and mutuality… the police did not have (as in
today's American society) agreements between themselves and the other regional
police departments, and did not believe any more than the 7 officers would be
necessary to control the masses present there that week-end.
Unfortunately that three day period in
Hollister, California was to end this vulnerable and naive nature for most of
America. It was the beginning of one of those rare historical moments that often
goes unnoticed, but reverberates through the society it drops into. The days of
innocence were on their way out.
Within 24 hours, the town had been turned upside down. No one
was killed… there were a few minor injuries; but, the police had failed at
stopping a group in the process of (what in later years would be referred to as)
'civil unrest' because they were ill equipped for the task; and the citizens,
unprepared to face such a "foreign" entity as a motorcycle gang,
failed to assist as was supposed they would.
If this was all there was to this story, you and I
would not be writing and reading this… there was more.
"I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!"
~ Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) to his fiancée, Kelly (Helen
Hunt) (while boarding the Fed Ex flight that crashes) in the movie "Castaway"
The story became more than a simple disturbance in rural America… it became "an event".
The San Francisco Chronicle reported this happenstance with a flair and
sensationalism seldom found outside of "big cities":
Motorcyclists Take Over Town, Many Injured - by C.
I. Dougherty Jr., Staff Writer
Hollister. July 5 (1947) - State Highway patrolmen
tonight imposed informal marshal law in downtown Hollister… …The outburst of
terrorism - wrecking of bars, bottle barrages into the streets from upper story
windows and roofs and high speed racing of motorcycles through the streets…
…As state police moved in {at the request of the local police chief}, hundreds
of cyclists roared through the streets… defying traffic regulations… …Many
were in spills and crashes... …One mans left foot was virtually severed.
Riders, both men and women, steered their machines into bars, crashing fixtures
and bottles and mirrors… … Bartenders halted sale of beer, believing the
rioters could not afford whiskey… …As many arrests were made as possible…
…The emergency room… …was jammed to overflowing… …more than 40 cases
had been treated."
No one will ever say with a straight face that logic has anything to do with
mass insurrections or their control… a kind of madness takes place with the
people on the street.
I am a firm believer that everyone interacting in this
sort of insanely violent civil disobedience is psychologically and radically
affected. Whether it is from pheromones, hormones, the 76 trombones, instinct,
or simply "letting go with the moment", we often times see the
damnedest things occur at the height of a "real riot" (is that an
oxymoron?). The people on the street running, looting, smashing things and the
officers or military responsible for regaining control all become infected with
the hysteria and madness.
Considering this, you have to wonder who the 'brain
trust' was that made the decision that if you take away the beer and leave the
whiskey, they will settle down.
Yeah… …good plan.
Newspaper accounts often 'travel'.
This one definitely had wings… it caught the imagination of more than one
person out there in the world that was America. A few of those who saw it and
paid attention, were the authors and the screenwriters.
Frank Rooney noticed. In 1949, he wrote a story for
Harper's Magazine entitled "Cyclist Raid" that loosely depicted
and sensationalized the Hollister event. The article was later picked up and
published by Life Magazine as a serial feature article. Although the piece
was labeled 'fiction', Life's publishing of it coupled with the 'feature'
status, led to a mistaken and popular belief that the atrocities and
happenstance of Mr. Rooney's fabrication were the facts of that 'Hollister
4th'.*
"Hollywood grew to be the most flourishing factory of popular mythology
since the Greeks."
~ Alistair Cooke; "America"; Knopf
1973
Compounding this journalistic endeavor in creating myth, Hollywood took notice.
Stanley Kramer's 1954 classic film
Stanley
Kramer noticed Rooney's article and in 1954 released his (soon to be
classic) film, "The Wild One"
starring Marlon Brando. Sociologically speaking, it could not have come at a
more advantageous or disparate time. Society of early 1950's America was in a
significant disparity between angst and apathy.
American society, upset about the changing face of the
world political scene and rather complacent about the internal issues, which are
always present in a society, was awakening to itself in a sleepy sort of way.
The country watched the movie. It did well in the box
office (after all, it was a Brando film). Then they quickly forgot about
it in an effort to get on with the importance of nothing else. It was one of a
'billion' cultural issues and icons that dropped into this new world of media,
public opinion and nuclear proliferation.
I don't want to over emphasize the impact of the
movie; it was rather muted at the time. The only sensationalism attributable to
it was the general and regular uproar from the right winged elements and the
backlash against the 'immoral and indecent things being portrayed on the screen, therefore
to impressionable American children' (do I have the mantra down well?).
The fact is: it was a good film (not great) with a
great actor in a decent part, but it was the first to effectively use the issue
of 'teenage rebellion' as a central focus, and therefore set a sort of 'genre'
for the decades to come.
More importantly, many of the children at the time had
a seed planted and grew up wanting to be "Marlon Brando" and this
(along with the all pseudo "Wild One' knockoff movies and the decent ones
such as James Dean's "Rebel Without a Cause") would account for some
of the explosion of motorcycles on the highways in the early 60's.
I don't want to overstate the case with this movie, but
it was a pivotal point in America's opinion on the motorcycle and it's riders.
As time went on and this type of exposure was generated, you either wanted to BE
them, or you became predispositioned that they were all evil, against social
values and out to do damage to your personal property for no discernable reason.
It was one of the first times that Hollywood made a
film which both influenced other movies for decades to come and society through
its children.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
So then, can we assume that this film led to the popularity of the motorcycle and therefore the leather "revolution?
Hell
no.
We have to remember, that the culture shapes itself…
and, the beginning of the articles and film were (indeed) an incident in real
life. This went on before, during and after all of the public bull. This
was one of those cultural indicators that make you wonder between the choices,
"Chicken Vs Egg". It definitively would not be the last film to impact
how we perceived ourselves as a culture, in society and in leather (but more on
that later).
Right now, we have to look at the people and the issues
that were ongoing during (all) this BS that were also shaping what we would
become. Let's face it: Movie stars, Movies and their impact on us is always a
topic for fascination and they always influence us in subtle and insidious ways
(and, they definitively have affected us on a societal level - that much cannot
be disputed). But WHY we do things we do as individuals is always more complex
and (for myself) much more interesting. We may never know what the actual
impetus for leather organizations had for founding (beyond a commonality for
interchange amongst like minded folks), but we can at least talk about and
document the significant occurrences that may have influenced the individuals in
their choices for joining.
Of course, formation of these groups was made between
folks who were acquainted and friends. No one forms a group arbitrarily just to
run through the exercise (well, except the US Congress). So what groups were
formed and influence us as we are today? What other social icons and happenings
occurred that were instrumental in forcing our sort of issues into the public
eye and therefore (for many of us), lead us directly or indirectly to find
places such as this web site to find out more?
This is what we will be exploring next.
* Ironically but deservedly, the article won first place in the 1951 O'Henry
Award for Best Fictional Short Story and Mr. Rooney was a later recipient of a
Guggenheim Fellowship Award.
1. "Hell's Angels - A Strange and
Terrible Saga", Hunter S. Thompson, 1999, Modern Library
Edition
2. San Francisco Chronicle, July 6, 1947, "Motorcyclists
Take Over Town, Many Injured", by C. I. Dougherty Jr., Staff
Writer
3. Emails between Mr. Guy Baldwin and KJPS Howe, November 2002
4. "The Leather Restoration: Sacred Cows make the best
Hamburger", Guy Baldwin, Speech: Leather Leadership Conf
6 / 04-14-2002 (copyright)
5. "The Old Guard (History of Leather Traditions)"
By Guy S. Baldwin (copyright)
6.
7. http://www.missoulian.com/specials/hellsangels/ha02.html; The Missoulian "Paratroopers Were Probably Original Angels", by Michael Jamisson
8. http://www.satyrsmc.org/ , Satyrs Motorcycle Club National Web Site