Originally Posted by alkay191

you should remember Jamie Morocco then

Originally Posted by Oldskewl

I have a sneaky suspicion if some of the old scooter trash in this forum got together for a beer it would turn out to be a night to remember.

OS

Originally Posted by Gypsylady

Now there's a party that would be fun to attend! Nothing like a wild night of terrorizing the normals.

Originally Posted by TwiZted Biker

Originally Posted by Gypsylady

Come on... Give...

Originally Posted by Homeward Bound

I'm developing my theory on all this but it's based partly on that old foundation of "earned" versus "bought" and it's not limited to just motorcycling. Any profession or fraternity ... tribe or pack of animals for that matter ... feels much the same. Some kid comes along and thinks they know everything and can be one of the guys. He's going to have his tail snapped at until he learns his position. Some older guy comes along and does the same thing ... even worse thinks they cant transfer their same position in some other tribe to this one.

What should happen?

As I write I am thinking of a ex-Fed I know who had a late mid-life crisis after a big disappointment which caused him to leave the agency and bought himself a big motorcycle. He did not actually know I ride, have "paid my dues", would call myself a biker (retired) and earned that title ... so I let him talk and what he went to brag about was how "when he goes out, he goes out looking like a real biker".

I thought to myself, "when I go out, I go out looking like or being myself".

OK, at my poser worst it is true to say that I have even made specific efforts to avoid "looking like a biker" just to avoid being seen as one of these guys, what someone else perfectly described as "pirate fashion".

(... Or queer for that matter. As discussed elsewhere there was this unfortunately period when the perfect biker style, the stuff we earned and spent half our lives being pariahs for, became gay high fashion and some kind of 'mating signals' for them. I remember when it happened and have to laugh. I was riding through a strange part of town, saw some guys hanging around in Perfectos, 501s and worn engineer boots and thought to myself, "ah, cool, a biker bar ... I'll stop and go in and check out the scene". "Scene" it was. I had not even got to the bar by the time I had registered there were not very many women in the place ... even less than a normal biker bar).

As Gypsylady said,

I'd take it further and say, "Some people buy a bike to be 'bad ***', other people buy a bike to stop themselves being even 'badder ***'" (... and at the risk of being shot for saying it in the wrong company, I'd even go as far to say the same is even truer of the club scene).

OK, I'm going to sound like an old fart now but I think today's, 'consumer bikers' cannot realise how difficult and how excluded (not exclusive) motorcycling was in the old days. How much of an effort it took. How taboo leather or long hair was. How even blue jeans excluded you socially. Until way after Brando, how t-shirts were offensive underwear. How wide class separations were. How 'being a biker' ... not just 'looking like a biker' ... marked you down. How real the dark sides of Easy Rider movie were even ... and so on. How to live that life took a certain sorts of skills and mastery.

As Barger recently wrote (paraphrasing), "motorcycling required dedication ... and was as good a religion as any". I often say it was a bit like a martial art and would joke that I "had a black belt in motorcycling" (actually, to be specific, that I never took my test because I am not into that kind of thing but that I used to "spar with the black belts" which is true). And, like martial arts, I think there are various different schools or traditions to being a biker but that it take more than just buying a costume.

What I've seen is a bizarre 'hall of mirrors' effect from where motorcycling riders just did their thing, to being reflected in the media, to real life then copying what they saw in the media, to the 'real thing' become highly self-conscious and exaggerated, almost parodying themselves, to that then being reflected again in the media and so on.

The problem being the way the media portrayed motorcyclists often looking for the dorkiest, ugliest, anachronistic, bizarre elements (and there is another sub-plot repeating this in heavy metal music fans).

In sociology, there is a phenomenon called "deviance amplification" (or deviancy amplification spiral) which fits fairly well and was indeed develop using cases relating to motorcycles (see: Stan Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panic examining the case of the Mods and Rockers in England). But it's not a complete fit.

I'd say what's happened in more of an impotency amplification spiral.

But having said that, I have to say the influence and acuity of fashion designers and stylists, who have come to greatly appreciate the power of our folk art and tribal symbols ... and whose employers have made literally billions of dollars from it none of which came out way ... has improved exponentially in the last few years, and some of the apparel really looks quite good these days. Not to mention the prices "authentic" vintage pieces, aka yours and my old jackets and boots, sell for now ...

Just look how valuable that hard earn authenticity is in the unreal world of today.

Originally Posted by Angelfire36

Good stuff ^ It explains why some are so offended by what has happened in the motorcycle scene. And I agree, I just get tired of those who are so jaded that they automatically write off people just because they are young or inexperienced. They don't give them a chance or take the time to get to know them and pass on valuable knowledge to continue the good old traditions that could and should be passed on through the generations. I guess they just want that to die with them. Yes, there will always be a hierarchy and protocols should be followed, but let's not let it go the way of the dinosaurs. I believe the world is a better place with bikers and we should keep those traditions alive.

Originally Posted by Oldskewl

Angel,
we were all young and dumb once and those that choose to listen to old timers learned and earned, but those who let words of wisdom fall on deaf ears were left with opinions.
It's a new day and a new age.