MrMoto666

thailand 1

2006-01-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

MrMoto666
Dear Friends,

This is day three or four in Thailand and I am not really counting.
This is the adult version of my travel-log, so delete it now if children are reading.

I flew on Horizon Air from Spokane to Seattle.

I purposefully dressed in inconspicuous and metal free clothing so that I would not be hassled by Homeland Security at the Airport.

I failed. I dumped my duffle bag, Montana Public Radio shoulder bag, shoes and vest on the plastic trays so that some stranger could inspect the contents with the x-ray machine. He or she looked intently at the TV monitor. I am guessing he or she was really watching Sponge Bob Square Pants re-runs on cable, but that is immaterial to the narrative. I step through the high-tech metal detector and it beeped. I complemented the woman screener on the fact that the floor was dry for my stocking feet and that I would not have damp toes for the next 24 hours of travel time.

She asked me to take my change out and put it in a plastic tub. I walked through again and beeped. I was about to remove the watch and belt buckle when she motioned me over to the “special area.” A security guy was running his hands over an elderly woman’s calves. Hmmm. He motions her to go and looks at me.

“I have to check you more closely,” he says. “If you want, you can ask for a private room.” Ouht oh! I say “No, that’s OK, Just don’t get too personal.”

He reaches into a box and pulls out a pair of blue rubber gloves. I haven’t seen a pair like that since my last doctor’s physical. “Ouht OH!”

The TSA (transportation security agency or something) agent is shorter, plumper and more tanned than I am. Maybe 35 to 40 years old and either Native American or Asian ancestry. Kind of a pleasant fellow. He smiled, and not sadistically either. A good sign.

He has me stand on the “special” carpet, the one with two foot prints woven into the design. Reminded me of Arab toilets, the ones with two foot prints to stand on when you squat or stand to pee. The foot prints are about 2 feet apart, so I stand there with legs spread. He asks me to hold my arms out straight with palms up. I stand there in supplication.

I thought he was going to ask me to close my eyes and touch my nose—then recite the alphabet backwards. He wands me and the thing beeps here and there. Then he says I am going to have to pat you down. I looked for a cop car to lean against. He rubs his blue hands all over my chest, arms and legs. I remove my watch and belt.

Hmm not good. Then he is squatting down caressing my ankles. He stands up and says something like, now I have to check your torso. I will be using the back of my hands. He proceeds to perfunctorily and professionally run the tops of his hands near my groin and butt. I start to wonder what a smurff hand job feels like and think I know the answer.
In spite of provocation, I don’t say much. You know how I can say the most inappropriate things at time, but this is the first step in a 7 thousand mile journey. I don’t want to be the subject of a report on CNN so I bite my lip. Besides, there is always the threat of a cavity search and he already has the gloves on. I really, really don’t want to sit on my ass for the next 24 hours with K-Y oozing out of it.

He sends me on my way. Oh thank god. I look out of the airport window at a nice Canadair Regional Jet and think, Wow, they upgraded the equipment.
They announce the flight and the woman at the gate says “please go to the airplane on the right. No luck there, buddy, it really is a turboprop. A nice Dash 8Q-400, but never the less, a turboprop. The cabin was narrow, the seats narrower and there were lots of them. I thought it fortunate that I was sitting behind the propeller line, but my only view was the left engine nacelle. So much for a window seat.

My seat mate was a Mormon salesman. Nice fellow actually. We chatted about Carrier heating and cooling systems that he sold. The pilot said the flight will be a little bumpy, which I understood to mean that we were ridding the roller coaster with no tracks. I looked at my seat mate and almost warned him that I would grab his hand in scarcely controlled terror if we started to nose down toward the Cascades.

But then, why should I make him nervous too? Yes there was a light chop, but nothing that some prayer and butt clenching didn’t cure. Glad, again that I did not get the K-Y at Spokane.

The view of the Cascades was spectacular, and the tops were way too close to the airplanes wheels. We were at 18,000 feet, but I could still see cars and trucks on the highway and lots of snow. I remembered seeing the movie “Alive” about the Argentine rugby team that crashed in the Andes. My seat mate was plumper than I so I had a chance to be chosen last in the musical chair game of “guess who’s coming for dinner?”

Landed in Seattle airport. I looked everywhere to find an envelope and stamp so that I could put my Last Will & Testament in the mail before taking off. This last minute stuff just kills me. I didn’t think it would float if the Northwest Airbus didn’t. You would think you could find an Air Mail stamp at a frigging airport. I guess everyone just e-mails important last messages to loved ones these days.

It is now Beer Thirty in Thailand, so I will write more stuff later.

Love and that stuff

Jim

Rivercity

2006-01-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

Well dear readers, I will be returning to Rivercity in two months.
I has successfully graduated the University of Montana with a second Batchelors of Arts degree. This was my third college and my third stab at being "edjewukated."
I can't tell you how happy I am to leave school, especially now that I am going on the modern version of the Summer after Graduation and the last summer before a life time of labor in some corporate grind.

I am going to Thailand to sample the local culture.

If Blogspot will allow it, I will faithfully post my adventures on the blog, rather than sending E-mails to all my friends. They can read the sordid details about riding elephants in Chaing Mai and surfing tsunamis in Phuket. I may also go to Saigon, just so I can say, "Yeah I was in 'Nam. I don't wanna talk about it." Or maybe I will tell the truth. Like Jane Fonda, at least I can say I been there, even if I didn't defend my country, like George Bush.

So, keep reading. I plan to call the series "Rubes in Thailand" because I will be traveling with a half dozen yokels from Montana.

thanks
Jim

Rivercity blues 3

2006-01-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, Tim Monzon called, saying he would be in Rivercity that evening. This offered an excuse to enjoy the town’s cultural ambience with another sophisticated Missoulian.

Tim Monzon is a 40ish fellow who has had several careers. He has been a railroad man, a highway patrolman, a janitor and is currently a sergeant in the US Army Reserve. Tim is a man of refined tastes and full of intellectual curiosity.

Therefore I took him to The Boot bar for “hot oil wrestling.” A van load of young ladies from California are touring the west offering displays of Amazon hand to hand combat. I was expecting something akin to World Federation of Wrestling competition but I was disappointed.

I paid $20 admission for the pair of us. We seated ourselves with Levi, a mop headed young man from Lander who was celebrating the week anniversary of his 21st birthday. I bought him another Coors Lite and we chatted as the anticipation built. The show started an hour late, giving us plenty of time to anticipate. A tall, slim, young (well nor that young) lady (well, probably not a lady either) with black dyed hair and black eye-liner chatted with Tim, Levi and I about living in Long Beach. I had a difficult time not looking at the six or seven inches of skin between her belly button and the top of her hot pants. This is because she was standing and I was sitting. She was blocking my view of the intoxicated, shave-headed, tattooed, beer-bellied, oil-field workers who were standing in front to the improvised stage. Those fellows were an animated wall of Orange County Choppers-logo, sleeveless T-shirts, rodeo belt buckles and cut-off, camouflage army fatigue pants.

I was so thrilled to have invested $10. This was much better that seeing Batman-the Beginning for $7.50.

Tim and I were dressed in 2nd hand Hawaiian shirts. Levi wore a brightly flowered Hawaiian shirt too. Again I knew I had made a sartorial error. I will order my West Coast Choppers T-shirt on the internet immediately. Yeah, me and 20 million 14-year-old boys – With Attitude!

Promptly a about 10 p.m., several women paraded through the crowd, dressed in “fantasy costumes.” The MC instructed us to yell “take it off” as pre arranged times as a signal to the ladies to remove a piece of clothing. And it worked too. When 20 big, ugly, hairy, greasy, armpit-smelly guys yelled “TAKE IT OFF” the woman in the middle of the room dropped her shirt, bra or pants. It took me 54 years to discover this secret. Why didn’t some one tell me sooner? Maybe it does not work when just one not-so-big-ugly-hairy-greasy- armpit-smelly guy meekly says this to a woman in a crowded bar. I will experiment with this idea when I get back to the Union Club, just for journalistic research purposes of course.

Woman wandered around as if in a daze. This could be due to some level of intoxication or perhaps a vacuum between their ears. I will bet their boy friends find either of these conditions to be a bonus later in the evening.

The MC told the assembled congregation of gentlemen that the girls were willing to sit politely on their laps for a mere $5. Off came the shirts as little portraits of Lincoln waved in the air. Huh? And they didn’t even have to yell take it off. Why didn’t anyone tell me before? Well, actually I knew that, but I am so cheap that I show ‘em a George, not an Abe. I guess I will have to step it up next time.

Some of the gents slumped to the floor and laid the back of their heads on the chairs before the girls could sit down. Imagine the ladies’ surprise when the expected comfy lap turned into a sharp nose. Most of the sits were short. Fortunately no one suffocated. A few guys started thrashing and waving their arms if the ladies sat too long.

Most of the oil wrestlers seemed a little thin and boney for the rigors of grappling on the very attractive blue plastic tarp ring. I don’t know what their exercise regimen was, but what ever it was, it resulted in voluminous breasts or at the least volcanic looking nipples. One lady’s nipples were so pert that she was able to carry lighted birthday candles on them. That caused a few flash bulbs to pop in the audience. Don’t you just love show biz?

The MC then auctioned off the opportunity to slather the wrestlers with hot oil. I guess that it was baby oil and not Wessen corn oil. I deduce this because the oil did not smell like the deep fat fryer at McDonalds. I tried to lick a belly as it went by, but was rebuffed in my journalistic research to check the flavor.

A 30s-40s something woman (with man attached) bid $40 to grease up a tall slim blond. The wrestler wore a bikini bottom and a thin, white wife-beater top, you know the kind that Marlon Brando wore in Streetcar named Desire. The woman from the audience had long, long light brown hair, pulled back into a braid down to her waist. She was slim as well—not at all like the barrel-shaped women that inhabit River City. The wrestler sat on the floor and flexed her muscles while the woman poured oil from a pint squirt bottle. The flexing involved thrusting her chest forward and spreading her legs while checking her crotch for lint. After the oil was poured, the two women rubbed their chests together to properly apply the lubricant. They kissed for a while and mutually grabbed ass.

Now, this was clearly in contravention of the rules that the MC laid out at the beginning of the evening. I guess this is another instance of the double standard in male-female behavior.

For some reason, both women’s shirts were transparent after the oil application. I guess this was the same principle that allowed early frontier families to make windows out of oiled parchment.

Another wrestler was similarly anointed. She too had blond hair, pert breasts, a transparent wife-beater shirt and bikini bottom. I did not know which one to bet on, since neither wore a number. It really didn’t matter since everyone in the bar stood up as a sign of respect when the girls started grabbing at each other. Tim and I could share the excitement aurially because all visual stimulation was blocked by a screen of sunburned shaved heads, uplifted tribal-tattooed arms, armpit hair and “Choppers ‘til you Die” black shirts. The crowd roared and jeered. Tim, Levi and I drummed our fingers on the table.

Two 21-year-old women came over to talk to Levi. They were shocked!, simply shocked! to see this kind of behavior in a rowdy bar in River City, Wyo. After an hour conversation and watching this sort of shocking activity, they decided to go to the Disco down the street. It was ladies night and drinks were half off. Levi followed with his tail between his legs. Oh wait! He didn’t have a tail. It must have been some other sort of male appendage that was long and hairless.

When the crowd of 200 pound pillars parted, we saw that the wrestlers had lost their shirts, and not a keno machine in sight. The women looked well slimed, being oiled all over like James Dean in Giant. The guys were standing at attention, or at least part of them were/was. The ladies slid through the crowd back to their dressing/undressing room and that was pretty much that.

It was midnight when Tim and I left the bar, having consumed our fair share of water and lime ($1.00 each). A car load of teenagers mooned us as we walked down the sidewalk looking for the next big thing on this full moon night.

And that is the news from Lake Woe is Me.

rivercity blues 2

2006-01-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

The Starlight Lounge is also Rivercity’s gay bar. When I walked in there on Saturday night, a tall skinny fellow was taking the cover charge at the door. He was dressed in black jeans and a pair of studded leather suspenders. He wore studs and rings through the normal fleshy appendages on his face and chest. His black hair was spiked. He may have been wearing black eye shadow. I don’t really remember, since the rest of the night was so memorable. I guessed he was a Goth of sorts and let it go there.

I sat at the bar, again wearing my nice dress shirt, clean blue jeans and comfy brown pull on shoes. I looked at the guys at the end of the bar. Sartorially, they were much better dressed than the jeans and Sturgis-shirted guys sitting at the tables—with women, I might add. The fellows at the end of the bar were fey, if that term still applies. They struck me as limp-wristed and a little too chatty and giggly. What I did not realize at the time, was that only single guys sat at the bar and the permanently single guys sat at the west end of the bar. I also didn’t realize that I was dressed a lot more like them than the guys who had girls.

I figured that by dressing up, I might meet a better class of woman. Of course the better class do not frequent the Starlight, ever—not on a bet—wouldn’t be caught dead there. I was fishing in the wrong stream here. My hook was baited for trout and there was nothing but carp in the water.

I sat there sipping my drink and trying to look both friendly and not bored. Suddenly, a baritone voice attacked me from my right.

“Hi, I’m Terry,” I heard. I introduced myself. I looked down at a pair of black engineer boots, black chaps, black Levi jeans—size approximately 40 waist and 28 inch inseam, biker belt buckle, black T-shirt with Harley shop logo, black leather vest, double chin, hairless face—doughy, jowly and effeminate, brown eyes and long tangled brown hair. Terry looks about 5 feet five inches tall, 175 pounds and 45 years old.

Terry owned a shovelhead and worked on the drill rigs outside of town. “Used to work construction, but the money was better on the rigs” Terry said.

I said “uh huh.”

Terry asks me, “Ya ever fuck a roughneck?”

I confessed that I had not had that pleasure.

“Well, ya wanna?”

At this point, I am somewhat nonplussed. This isn’t the ‘70s any more and people don’t just ask to fuck any more, do they? But then again, I try to get laid once a month and I haven’t met Miss April yet.
I look around the room. I don’t see a person I know, and no one who might know me. What the heck, I think, I’m 600 miles from home, who would ever know, right?

I told Terry that I don’t do this with just anybody, and especially not with complete strangers. “We have to dance first.”

The band, named the “internet” or the “interlopers” or the “intercourse” or something is a 1980s heavy metal band. They play AC-DC and Queen. I think that all the bands in Wyoming must be ‘80s tribute bands, either that or Country and Western—both kinds of music according to the Blues Brothers.

I told Terry, “next dance.” Well the gravel-voiced, shaved-headed, muscular lead singer said “We’re going to change the pace and play a blues number.”

Terry grabbed my hand and dragged me on to the dance floor, to the slow sounds of a blues romance tune. She threw her left arm around my waist and pulled me close to her pot belly. Her breasts rest upon the shelf of my gut and she put her calloused right hand into my left. Terry was quite light on her feet for being a rig hand.

As it turns out, Terry is a modern day Calamity Jane. She is a strong, independent woman who works men’s jobs in a man’s world. She has a 19-year-old daughter who she wants photographed for the magazine I work for. Terry is also betrothed to a guy who doesn’t drink or ride a motorcycle. After several hours of breathing second-hand cigarette smoke, I went home with a headache and not Terry.

I guess the next time someone asks if I’ve ever fucked a roughneck, I can honestly say no.

I now understand that Wyoming is a lot more liberal than Alan Simpson and Dick Cheney would have you believe.

Conversations overheard at the bar.

A guy wearing a black T-shirt that says “I’m not fucking stupid, but I used to” told his buddies that he wears this shirt when he visits his ex-wife.

Another guy said, “I woke up in the drunk tank. God, I felt awful, but it gets worse. When I open my eyes, there’s this big Indian holding his dick in my face. I knew it was going to get ugly.” The speaker paused for effect. “Then the Indian says, ‘Hey man, could you get your head out of the toilet, I gotta take a piss.’”

A guy holds his hands up like a calf roper. “Thirty seconds! I win!” Then he says to his buddy. “So I told the chick, ‘look baby if you practiced you would be better at this. It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.’”

And that’s all the news from Lake Woe is Me.

rivercity blues 1

2006-01-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

I spent my first Friday night in beautiful downtown Rivercity (better known as Smalltown USA). It was not a pretty sight.

At about 5pm, I returned to my dorm room after a busy day of office politics. I have been here 3 days and the office accountant hates my guts because I did something for the boss. Never mind too much to tell and not worth it anyway.
I return to my monk's cell for a nap. My neighbor has his door open and is playing "stairway to heaven" on his electric guitar. I put in my ear plugs and actually sleep for half an hour.

The boss invites me to dinner in a nearby town and says meet me at 6:30. I dress for a night motorcycle ride. He shows up in a Ford F150. I change clothes. Now I understand that part of a woman's psyche. You must be properly dressed for the date.
We drive 24 miles and chat about sundry man-things such as work and women and some motorcycle stuff. Men can be quite chatty when there is no one around to mentally record everything they say and play it back later during an argument.

We eat at a bar/restaurant. The place is packed. This is the yuppie version of Wyoming while Rivercity is the blue-collar section. To put it in perspective, This town is Whitefish and Rivercity is Kalispell. This place has good hamburgers. The boss says (good naturedly) "Order me a regular burger and fries, you're paying." Oh swell a reversed Dutch date where one is invited to dinner and told to pay. Do they even have a name for that? Or at least a name for that which is not derogatory to some ethnic/national group? Anyway, I good naturedly pay for his dinner, cause he is the boss and he drove me 30 miles from my home in a rain storm. A $5 hamburger is cheaper than a bus or taxi ride home. (I will have to remember that trick.)
At the bar, we meet the three guys at Stroker's motorcycle shop, Jeff, Tom and a young gentleman who was of no consequence so I forgot his name immediately, maybe Chris. These were a jovial lot. Both Tom and Jeff are divorced, Chris has not yet married.

Tom was quite taken by the beauty of the bartenderess. Therefore Tom was buying rounds of Crown Royal and Seven for the table and paying with a diminishing supply of $100 bills. It is not that the drinks were expensive, but Tom was showing off his wallet to the bar maid. Tom is a plump, but fit 50-55 year old fellow with a full head of short hair and by 8pm, florid face. He is from Nacogdoches, TX so he is brash and loud. Even though he is from Texas, he is also quite witty. This proves my point that Texan's of elevated IQ come to the realization that they must leave the state in order to commune with normal people.

The table was quite boisterous after about five rounds of drinks. I, of course, drank tonic and lime. I wish I had brought my notebook so that I could capture the banter. It seemed to be the quality of the Algonquin Club at the time.

The bar was smoke-free and filled with women, of many stripes, both country and western. No, actually it was Yuppie and Tourist, but that is OK. Most were in my age demographic, which is OK too, because I was only watching. Since my boss had the wheels, I couldn’t very well dump him for some floozy and lose my ride home. Besides, I was enjoying the manly company, with all the commiseration about divorce and the perfidy of females.

Tom’s intended date for the evening was tall, slim, had light brown hair, a nice rack and wore a belly shirt. Unfortunately, this showed off some bright red stretch marks. I doubt that Tom’s eyes had traveled any lower than the bottom of her skimpy shirt. Perhaps he had not looked beyond the top either.

A chipper woman with short black hair and bright smile sat down beside Jeff and chatted with him. She knew my boss too. They joked about their mutual torrid romance. (The boss has been “happily” married for over 30 years.) Now I know how rumors get started. Actually he didn’t remember her, met her at work or something.

Why do people entrust their secrets with me any way. I say “hi, I’m a journalist” and they blab about all their affairs and high crimes and misdemeanors (like Bill Felt).

So there was ample fodder for the gossip mill, but of course, my lips are sealed and my sources are protected.

Jeff’s little cutie (actually, she was not little) was flirting with Jeff and he was enjoying the attention. Throughout the conversation, her girl friend (short, emaciated, blond and wearing a neck brace—I have no idea) is yelling at cutie to play pool. Cutie mumbles “I don’t play pool.” Then she yells over the table to her friend “I SUCK.” Boy that stopped the conversation at the table as everyone (who were not paying close attention like I was) lowered their drinks and stared gape mouthed. Jeff grinned widely. Then, Cutie’s husband wandered in the door and she dumped us.

Tom asked Jeff, “What color were her eyes?” and Jeff replied “36D.” I told Jeff that it really didn’t matter, because she out weighed him by 20 pounds. Jeff has been divorced for 6 weeks and really doesn’t care.

The boss and I left shortly afterward. I will check in with Jeff & Tom for the rest of the story. Driving home, I realized that my “new best friends” live and work in This town, because I have not met anyone here, except the office staff. I signed a statement as a requirement for indentured servitude that said I would not drink, take drugs on the job or date anyone in the office. When I signed it, I did not realize that there might be anyone worthy of dating in the office. This criteria being: female, old enough to appreciate me, not old enough to be a grandmother. Well, there is a lonely single-mom here that fits that criteria, so alas, now I understand why one should not date in the office. It causes an emotional dynamic that can be uncomfortable for everyone.

Back to the narrative: Since it was only 9pm when I returned to the monastery, I put on my motorcycle coat and rode down town to the only dance hall in town—the Starlight Lounge and bowling alley. I can hear throbbing 80’s rock through the walls of the building as I walk toward the battered wooden door. Smoke boils out when I open the foyer door (every business here has double doors, to keep the warm in and the bugs out). I am greeted by a 30ish year old Indian fellow who looks and is sized like Jabba the Hut. He had a pleasant demeanor, because I think he used his immense bulk to intimidate the patrons. I sat at the bar beside another character from Star Wars. The 20-something bartenderess had lots of piercings, a tight top, baggy cargo jeans with lots of rings to attach chains or carabineers or what ever. I remember spikes too, either a belt, WonderWoman wrist guards or choker collar, but not in her hair. The waitress was tall, short dark hair, 30-ish, full bodied, wide hipped and wearing a Victorian type Empire dress that was red and black. Embroidery over a net, wearing a slip and high heals. She was the best looking woman there. She was chewing gum, smoking a cigarette and eating skittles while serving drinks. Amazing job of multi-tasking.

The general fashion sense of the men was Harley-Davidson, Sturgis, oil-field, cowboy and Nascar. Everyone was a billboard for something. I was wearing a nice Western, Navaho-design, button-down shirt that I bought at the Salvation Army. I was way over dressed. My pants were not oil-stained enough.

The band were four 30s-40s guys wearing black, one bass guitar, one lead, another guy and a drummer. The drummer had a cigarette stuck in one nostril. It was not lit. Maybe he was using the filter to staunch some blood flow or something. All of them had thinning long hair.

On the dance floor, two Native American couples danced to the music. The Shoshone Indians must have been prolific buffalo hunters because most of them are plus-sized. Their dancing was as suggestive as it was clumsy. Those four people worked themselves into a frenzy of passion that they left all sweat soaked at 11pm.

Most, if not all the unaccompanied women in the bar had rings on their left hand. This did not prevent them from flirting with the band, nor dance among themselves. One woman in particular strutted into the bar wearing a shinny black mini skirt, shear off white pantyhose, black high heals, and a white satin shirt that was unbuttoned two buttons from the top and the bottom. Longish light brown hair and a not-attractive face. In case you missed it, I was not using the English double negative denoting understatement. Her face was not attractive. She tried though, because she used lots of blue eye shadow, some blush and lip stick. She almost made it, but through her shirt, I could see several spare tires stacked above her hips. I guessed that she was not wearing panties and fairly quickly, she proved me right. She was doing the Sharon Stone thing with the guitar player and I happened to catch the show.

By 11:00pm, I had inhaled enough cigarette smoke, drank enough tonic and lime and had seen a movie’s worth of drama.
I went home to my cell and my lumpy mattress and tried to sleep. I woke up with a severe cigarette headache. I feel the onset of depression. I am living in the wrong town. There is only one live-music venue and I saw it during prime time. I guess I shall have to ride to that town often.

That is the news from “Lake Woe is Me.”

Property Patch

2005-04-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

Someone called “bullshit” on my explanation of the outlaw motorcycle club property patch as being “the equivalent of a gold wedding ring [and] merely easier to see,” especially when one is intoxicated. After sulking because my self esteem was damaged, I decided that I had been issued a challenge of sorts.

I faulted Lee Tortorelli for looking at the motorcycle culture for 3 days and then making broad assumptions about it. I lived in that same culture for 30 years and was a member of an outlaw motorcycle club for 5 of them. I figured this gave me the right to make broad statements about things I “knew to be a fact.”

Unfortunately, being a member of something does not make you an objective observer. Therefore, I shall step back and examine the topic of property patches and report my findings. If the facts do not back up my statement that a property patch is equivalent to a wedding ring, then I shall set aside my opinion and report what I have found. This is what the J-School is trying to teach us.

Since I have not yet had a chance to interview anyone, I did some research. I thumbed through Sonny Barger’s autobiography “Hell’s Angel” for information. The HA are only one of several nationally renowned outlaw motorcycle clubs, but through self-promotion and the publicity the HA earned from Hunter Thompson’s book “Hell’s Angels, The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs,” the HA are considered the “gold standard” against which outlaw biker behavior is measured.

It was my assertion that the property patch protected women from unwanted flirtation. On page 45 of Sonny Barger’s book, he states that one Hells Angels club rule was “No messing with another member’s wife.” Further he says “Big time rule. Wife, girlfriend, old lady, whoever she is, if she’s yours, she’s yours. If you fuck with someone else’s old lady, you’re out of the club.”

Barger says on page 97, “We go out of our way to make sure the women who either go out on runs with us, visit our clubhouse during parties, or are just associated with us feel one hundred percent safe. Touch a Hell’s Angel’s old lady and you risk the wrath of not only the member but the entire club.” On the previous page, there is a photo of “Mother” Miles and his property patch wearing old lady, Ann.

I believe Barger was being disingenuous in his statement about the safety of woman at HA parties. I gave a woman a ride home from the Hell’s Angels national run in Missoula in 2000. I asked her her impression of the party at the camp ground. She replied, “It was fun for a while, but then it got weird.” I did not press her for further information and she volunteered none.

Once at Sturgis, I wolf whistled at a beautiful woman on Main Street. I realized that I had made a social faux pax when her HA old man turned and glared at me. I wanted to shrink into the sidewalk. So, I have no doubt that one risks physical harm for messing with an Angel’s old lady.

This idea of the sanctity of the old lady trickled down to the rest of the motorcycle clubs. About 20 years ago, I was at a party in the Tri Cities, Wash. An intoxicated outsider was flirting with the old lady of a member of the Brothers Motorcycle Club. She was wearing a property patch. She complained to her old man who happened to be the club president. The president called over the club member who brought the offending outsider to the party. The president ordered, “You take care of your friend or I will.” The club member punched out his buddy and escorted him away. The etiquette problem was solved at the cost of a broken finger, a fat lip and a black eye.

This illustrates the power that old ladies who wear property patches have within the motorcycle club. Old ladies don’t have a vote in the club, but they certainly make their views known to the male members. A woman wearing a property patch represents the club to the outside world, in much the same way a male member does.

If you can’t be cool, be weird.

2005-04-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Something I learned in High School, way back in the middle third of the last century (i.e. the ‘60s for those who don’t do math) is that if you don’t have what it takes to be cool, you can always be weird. Some people have made careers out of being weird, such as Hunter Thompson and Tiny Tim.

As a non-traditional student at University of Montana, I have made a meteoric career of being weird. I was an incandescent piece of dust in space that lit the firmament for a brief moment. I think I brought joy into students’ lives. If young ladies noticed me at all, they would smile. But it was not my Richard Geer good looks (perhaps I should not use him as an example) that caused their lips to curl in a reverse sneer, but my funny hat.

I was the only adult on campus willing to wear jester hats to class. Sure there were a few dreadlocked Subaruistas, outfitted with large mongrels collared by red farmer handkerchiefs, who wore multi-colored, multi-tailed and be-jingled hats, but they were fortunately few and far between.

I am about to be ejected from the warm saline environment that is the University womb. After another semester (I can’t stretch it to two because I am paying my own way), I shall be tossed on the job market like so many other bright and eager graduates. This is to say like rubbish onto a landfill.

The university asked me to create and update this blog. They, being wiser than I, see blogging as a way for individuals to get their message out to the world. Of course, the university has no control over the content of my blog. Therein lies the fly in the ointment. I am reverting back to my High School epiphany of “It is better to be weird than to be cool.” There is no way I can be cool on campus, hence the funny hats. There is no way I can be cool in blogging (at least not like the pros are), hence the outlandish and outrageous opinions I shall express here.

Being a non-traditional student allows me the freedom to have non-traditional opinions about political and cultural subjects. I am more than happy to share them with you and invite your comments.

Since I am studying Latin as my foreign language, I have become interested in Roman history. We can learn a lot from Rome, especially now that we seem to be coming to the end of the republican form of government. We appear to be on the cusp of entering a new Imperial age led by a new family of Cesars.

Having said that, I want to know—American Gladiator: Where are the swords and tridents? Your thoughts please.

Buell Firebolt, the Next Thousand Miles.

2005-04-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

This was not published by ThunderPress, for obvious reasons.

The Firebolt is a wonderful motorcycle. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it makes a lousy dirt bike. I won’t tell you some tall tale about the Montana Highway Patrol having a Blue Light Special behind me, forcing a high speed chase down a gravel road. The truth is more prosaic.

Montana has ten times as many gravel roads as paved ones. It seems that everybody, who does not live in town, lives five miles up a gravel road. Lots of parties are held in remote camp grounds, again up a “maintained” county road. Some events are located up a Forest Service logging road, which is a step down in width and upkeep from the county roads. Therefore, an all-round Montana bike should be able to negotiate pea gravel, ruts, mud and snow. The Buell is adequate on hard dirt surfaces, but it is squirrelly on mud and ice. The fat rear tire does not grip like a narrow knobby. The front fork’s abrupt steering is not conducive to confident rut jumping and pot hole bouncing. The forward riding position puts too much weight on the front half of the bike. This makes the front wheel wash out before the back one. Don’t think about using the front brake. The throttle is so sensitive that small bumps will cause sudden surges of power at the most unexpected and unwanted moments. Ye Haa! I have heard that war is 90 percent boredom and ten percent sheer terror. In the dirt, the Firebolt is the same thing.

Last time, I wrote that the Firebolt is a “babe magnet”. It still is, but this spring, some how, the magnetic polarity was reversed. Now I repel the women I hoped to lure into my net. Perhaps it is the white mustache that pokes out from under the full-face helmet, or the look of desperation in my be-spectacled eyes. No matter, the bike is still fun, even without a passenger clinging on.

During solo rides, I tend to push the limits of my skill. Compared to my younger companions, I am still a curve weenie. I brake harder in front of a sharp blind curve than my buddies do. There are several reasons for this. The first is that I witnessed a near-fatal crash recently and the second is that I started my motorcycle career on an ancient Harley 45. My first bike had a lean angle of about 15 degrees, before it ground off structural parts. It also had equally-ancient hard-compound rubber tires (five bucks each in 1976). They would skid at the hint of moisture on the road. Finally, the bike had brakes that were either barely adequate or locked up. None of these factors inspired confidence in a novice rider. In contrast, the Buell has a lean angle of about 87 degrees (well, I am exaggerating, but if you look at the magazines, you will get that impression). It has incredibly sticky tires, although short lived. I have managed to wear down a set of Dunlops in 2,500 miles. The tires on my old Harley 45 lasted about 25 years. The wheels rusted out before I had to replace the rubber.

I am trying to learn how to ride the Buell to something near its capacities. To this end, Pete and I have taken our nearly identical Firebolts to what is euphemistically called “The Prairie Path”. The name requires some background explanation. Our county government vowed that there would be no motorized racing within the borders of our fair community. An enterprising fan of speed and curves (no dummy, motorcycles) bought a chunk of rural land and graded a two-thirds mile course on a piece of the prairie. He then applied for a permit to lay asphalt on the property. The “powers that be” asked the purpose for said pavement. He said he was putting in a “path through the prairie” so that people could enjoy the native flowers and grasses in a wild and undisturbed setting. Of course, the pavement was to allow access for the “persons with disabilities”. We can imagine that previously mentioned “powers that be” thought he was talking about wheel chairs and bicycles. The Prairie Path can accommodate six pedestrians walking abreast or three wheel chairs in a row or a gang of pedal pushers in formation. The path has several hairpin turns, a down hill left that quickly swoops right and up to a crest, which is followed by a short straight away. The course is so tight that the average rider will shift between first or second gear. A skilled rider can catch air before accelerating to a hundred on the straight. The rider must brake strongly before the chicane and hairpin or their speed will carry them into the flowers and native grasses. Wheelies and stoppies are common when the Ducati and Kawasaki guys are on the track (I mean path). I ride so slowly that I haven’t scraped a knee puck yet. I haven’t crashed yet either.

Our friend Wrecks (who shall remain otherwise nameless for various reasons that involve the arcane world of zoning and land use), has— after a fashion— actually provided a recreation area for persons with disabilities. The riders on the path are certifiable “sport bike nuts”. Were it not for the nature trail, these mentally disturbed riders might be more physically disabled. A curve weenie like myself has discovered that I can lean over at previously absurd angles and live. This has of course, encourages me to go faster into curves on the highways through the Montana Alps. It has also given me the confidence not to panic and ride into the ditch. I call this the “oh crap moment”— when you freeze at the controls and head straight for what ever has scared you. Rider confidence has shortened this moment, allowing me to regain control and turn more sharply to stay between the painted lines.

Back to the subject of “sport bike nuts”, as I have stated previously, the Firebolt is not perfect. After 2,500 miles in the saddle (an apt analogy since the seat has about as much padding as a western saddle and is similarly shaped), I have discovered a few more quirks. First, the early kickstands were not that well designed. The cast steel stop does not allow the stand to extend far enough past its center point. Twice, the bike has rolled forward and fallen off the stand onto its left side. The second time around, the windshield and seat were scratched. The result was much cursing and eventual use of a grinder. This was not a little Dremal, but the big Makita with carbide disk. Sparks flew as I hacked at the kickstand stop. Normally, I can barely restrain my perverted desires to chop a bike up and remake it in my image, once I get a grinder or torch in my hand. (You should see the BMW dirt bike I am building.) I was sorely tempted to smooth off the welds on the gas tanks. Fortunately my lusts were satiated with just a few nicks on the kickstand. Whew!

Later, I discovered that Buell had a recall concerning some aspect of their kickstands. I took the bike into my local dealer, Montana Buell – Ducati - Harley-Davidson for some other warranty work. The speedometer ceased to measure speed at 2,200 miles. The shop technicians generously repaired the damage to the high beam dip switch caused when the bike’s kickstand went on strike and walked off the job. Here is a plug for MT-HD. They have always offered cheerful, prompt and courteous service to me and Western Montana’s motorcycling public.

Sorry — I got off the subject — of sport bike nuts. I say sport bike, instead of the politically incorrect term “crotch rocket”, because as my friend Mad Matt says, “A crotch rocket is in your pocket”. A sport bike is what your crotch rocket sits on”, which is the gist of the problem. I suffer from a malady that I call “Buell Balls”. I found it is not just me; other senior riders are physically configured in such a way that their genitalia fall asleep when they ride the Buell or other sport bikes. To elaborate my experience; after a long ride this spring, I climbed off the bike, stood up stiffly and then started to feel a sensation that would, in the past, suggest that a trip to the free VD clinic was in order. Eventually, after hopping up and down and doing the funky chicken, full consciousness returned to that sensitive portion of my anatomy. I understand that mountain bike riders suffer from the same disorder. This is caused by the narrow seat pushing against and constricting, the artery that pumps blood to the rider’s groin. In some ways, letting my little friend sleep peacefully allows me focus on riding instead of daydreaming (about all the women that I am not meeting). None the less, the awakening can be very dramatic. It can be as intense as the thawing of frost-bitten fingers or toes. People stop and stare or cover their childrens’ eyes when they see me gyrate in pain and grope myself at the gas station.

When will Corbin make a seat for the Firebolt? I ask you, in the name of public decency, please make a softer seat for us old guys who are trying to retain or regain their youth. Please!!!

Impressions from Riding the Buell Firebolt

2005-04-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

My First Sport Bike, by Jim Beyer, new Firebolt owner. This was published in ThunderPress in 2003, but I forget exactly when.

A person's impressions are determined by his/her previous experiences, or “where you are going depends on where you are coming from”. My first impressions of the Buell Firebolt were colored by a quarter-century of riding Harley Big Twins. When I opened the magazine, my thought was “looks Jap”, then “just another Sportster” and finally, when I read the statistics, I thought “a Jap 600 can beat it”.

Having dismissed the Firebolt, I gave it little thought until my buddy Pete confessed that he wanted one. For the 25 years I have known Pete, I have rarely, if ever, seen him buy something new. Until August, the newest bike he owned was a 1962 Sportster, although he once owned a ’76 Shovelhead dresser. I went to Pete’s house to complain about my divorce and he nattered on about how he saw a beautiful blue Firebolt at Montana Harley Davidson, Buell, Ducati. He said, “the color looked just like burning gases flared off by the refinery” where he worked. A rather industrial, but poetic, metaphor. Pete was “cowboy rich” having just slaved for 60 days straight, rebuilding a refinery in the bay area of California. So I told him to buy it—not realizing the implications.

Pete rode his new prize down to the Rhino Bar, where the Montana Legends hang out, all hunched over like he was making love to the gas tank and grinning like the Cheshire cat. Few of his buds could believe that he was riding a 21st century bike, let alone a motorcycle built in the last half of the 20th century. What really impressed me was the way young women gravitated toward the Buell. Pete really couldn’t give a damn, since he is in a happy relationship with the mother of his children, while I, on the other hand, am suddenly single after 20 years of marriage.

After the bike was broken in, Pete let me take it for a ride. I buzzed up the freeway for about five miles and was impressed enough with the performance to start hoarding money to buy my own. I have a modest collection of antique bikes and an even more modest business selling them. I offered to trade my Vincent Comet straight across for a Firebolt. No takers, so I loaded up a trailer full of stuff and headed to the Antique Motorcycle Club show and swap meet at Davenport, Iowa. My motivation was to get rid of stuff and bring home money, therefore I was making deals and selling inventory for almost any offer, reasonable or not. I dumped five small bikes and came home with a pitiful pile of dollars. Working the internet, I sold another ten old bikes and a bunch of Harley 45 parts for cheap. I was about half way there.

Being a good consumer, I shopped around and found the best deal at Big Sky Harley-Davidson, Buell in Great Falls. They were willing to take my XR883 Sportster as trade in and sold me the Buell at MSRP. My local shop did not want my Sportster, so I loaded it up and drove to Great Falls, in a snowstorm, on October 1st. This is Montana after all.

Wearing as much clothing as I could, looking like the Michelin man, I took the Firebolt for a test drive. This was more of a formality, than a decision-maker, since I was pre-disposed to buying it. Since the bike was not broken in, I turned the right twist grip to “moderate” instead of “loud” and put on 20 freezing cold miles up the twisty road to Sand Coulee. When I came back, I told Big Sky’s owner, Brian Moen that “the bike was no fun at 70 mph”. His face fell with disappointment, fearing I did not like the cycle. I followed the remark with “but it will be lots of fun at a hundred”. I also thought the Firebolt needs a sixth gear and the mirrors suck. Small details did not deter me from buying it.

Now for some impressions of the bike:
The transmission needs a sixth gear, an overdrive or bigger rear sprocket or something. At least I think so. I am used to riding my Harleys at a range of two to four thousand RPMs. When the Firebolt hit four grand, I am ready to shift up. After riding the bike for 1,100 miles, I am beginning to realize that the Buell hits its power band at about five grand. This isn’t your Father’s Sportster, this is an all new beast. I managed to run the bike up to a hundred at about 5,000-5,500 RPM, (which was great until I met the Highway Patrolman) but I wonder what it would do with sixth gear. The tranny seems clunky and “Sportsterish”, but it is loosening up a bit and shifts a little easier. I find it hard to locate neutral some times. Late in the evening, alcohol may play a part in this difficulty, but during the day I blame the bike.

The mirrors look real cool, but they are nearly worthless. I look in them and get a great view of my elbows. I have to raise my left hand off the bars or twist my shoulder and elbow up and out of the way to see what is behind me. The alternative is to turn my head down and to the right or left to look behind me. This means I am looking backward and upside-down through a bug splattered face shield. Whoa dude! Acid flashback!! After one of those, I did my first stoppie – trying to avoid a pickup truck bumper. The brakes are great. Why didn’t some one think of the ring front brake 20 years ago?

The engine rattles like my Dodge Cummins diesel. Pete took his into the dealer complaining that the rods were knocking and it was not even broken in. The mechanics fussed over the bike and eventually called Buell. The factory confirmed that all that banging and thrashing were perfectly normal. I guess the problem is that the muffler is so quiet that a person can hear the engine. I never had that problem on my Big Twin. (Loud pipes save lives you know.) After 1,200 miles, my engine sounds like a rock crusher too. I mentioned to my dealer that I have another 51 weeks to see if it blows up. He winced. I swore a long time ago that I wouldn’t buy another first-year vehicle, but here I am doing final product testing for the factory. I assume they will stand behind their product, but not too far behind it. The gaskets leak on the primary and cam cover sides of the engine. I commented to Sean the mechanic that I thought I bought a Buell, not a Harley. I guess the acorn does not fall far from the tree. My BMW has been around Harleys so long that it leaks too. It must be contagious.

The riding position is surprisingly comfortable, for me. The windscreen funnels the wind on to your chest and face, which helps keep your weight off your wrists. I managed a 250-mile afternoon on the second day I owned the bike and a 400-mile day, four days later. Neither ride killed me, although my riding skills nearly did. The skinny seat has minimal padding. I find I am sitting on my upper thighs as much as my hip bones. This is no touring bike, but it is not bad as a day cruiser. The Buell offers no significant weather protection. Any crap in the air is directed to your chest and helmet (an item I now recommend). After one little ride my face was stung red with large flies, gnats and an occasional grasshopper. My leather is coated with insect slime, as is the front of the bike. I have not ridden the bike in the rain and do not look forward to the experience.

I dropped the bike off its side stand about 28 hours after I bought it. I started the engine to warm the Firebolt late in the evening, having consumed an adequate amount of beer and two jalapeño Stolis. As I turned, with the intent to pee in the alley, I heard a horrific crash. It took both Joyce and me to lift the bike off it side. It seems heavier than the stated 445 pounds dry weight. I cursed and fumed, but realized that the only noticeable damage was a busted turn signal lens. The next day, when the fog cleared, I noticed that my left wrist was bent differently than my right one. A quick check proved that both hands were still attached and were working, so I concluded that I bent the little stub handlebar on the left side. Upon further reflection, I decided that I liked the angle of the bent bar better than the straight one. I concluded that if I could bend the bars at a several degree angle where they exit the top triple tree, my arms and wrists would rest in a more natural way. (Eric Buell — pay attention, you can sell angled replacement bars with different degrees of bend to accommodate different body types.) The new turn signal was only $6.00. Buell must not be selling replacement parts at Harley prices.

The Firebolt is extremely nimble. I rode up Highway 12 to Lolo Pass at speeds greatly in excess of what I could attain on my Fat Boy. Being an old Harley rider (a double entendre — meaning I am old and I ride old Harleys), I am not used to seeing my knees so near the ground. Unless I am falling off. My first bike was a 1947 Harley 45, which has a lean angle of about ten degrees and the merest suggestion of brakes. It taught me to take my time while going around curves and never hit the brakes when leaned over. The Buell allows me to hit decreasing radius blind curves at too high a speed and live to tell about it. My buddy, Matt at Performance Sport Bike, advises Pete and me to take some lessons at a track in California so we can use the Buell at something near its potential, without screwing up big time. By the way, Matt is a dyed in the wool Honda fan and he says the Firebolt is the first Harley he would ever, ever, EVER, consider buying. He was impressed how he could pull off the I-90 Bonner exit at 125 mph, take the sweeping curve and still merge with the logging trucks at the bottom at a more sedate 30 mph.

The Firebolt can pass anything except a gas station. It holds 3.7 gallons of gas in its hollow frame. The little yellow “low fuel warning light” comes on after approximately three gallons have been consumed. Having not studied the operator’s manual carefully, and being blissfully ignorant of the importance of little yellow lights, I blew by the last gas station on the Seely-Swan highway just as the light came on. Let me say that you meet the most interesting people in the back woods of Montana, when you pull in their drive with a sputtering motorcycle. I will now backtrack five or ten miles to a gas station to avoid making that mistake again. Another niggling gripe is that I can not read the numbers on the speedometer. I would rather blame the graphics designers at Buell, than the effect of three decades of self-abuse. None the less, the numbers could be lots bigger. The faster the bike, the less time you want to spend looking at the speedo. The old Vincent Black Shadow had a speedo as big as a wall clock. The Buell’s speedometer is a mere 3 inches across and there is not enough contrast between the numbers and the background.

People ask me to compare the Firebolt with my 1994 BMW R1100RS, an 1100 CC sport-touring bike. (It is for sale, by the way.) There is really little comparison. The BMW is far superior to the Buell, for long-distance touring. It handles well, is faster, has luggage, a well-padded seat, and a windshield. It needs no maintenance other than tires, is absolutely reliable and lacks soul. It’s also uglier than Janet Reno. In contrast, the Buell is sleek, sexy and graceful – like a Ducati – without the eight-hour valve adjustments. When I bought the BMW in 1994, I wrote to Vaughn Beals that if Harley ever built a sport bike that wasn’t a warmed over Sportster, I would buy it. Harley did and I stuck to my end of the bargain.

The Buell is a babe magnet. It attracts girls’ attention better than stapling a hundred-dollar bill to your forehead. The Friday after I bought my Firebolt, I was giving young ladies rides. The first one, Tracy is tall, skinny and has a pierced tongue. You know what Chris Rock says about pierced tongues on women. On Sunday, I gave Heather a fast ride up Lolo Creek Road. On Wednesday, I had an hour-long tete-a-tete with Bonnie, a young Beemer riding intellectual. She asked me to go sky diving with her. (Ah — the things I might do for love.)

Perhaps, one of the better parts of the deal, is when a girl asks if she can ride on the back of your Harley, you can say “sure” without actually lying to her. The Buell does not have “Jap bike” performance, “Jap bike” price and may not have “Jap bike” reliability, but it is “Made in the good ol’ U.S.A”. In these times of recession and possible war, it seems important to support the home team. To be absolutely clear, I love the new Buell, in spite of its warts. If I wanted technical perfection, I would stick with the BMW. If I wanted absolute speed, I would have bought a Hayabusa and if I wanted gorgeous European styling, I would have bought an Italian bike. Like America, the Buell is a melting pot of all these cultures. Not perfect, but above average.

PS. Any allusions to alleged infractions of the laws of the State of Montana are exaggerations for literary purposes only and not to be taken literally. For those who object to the reference “Jap bike”, let me say that I have nothing but admiration for the Japanese nation, Japanese people and Americans of Japanese descent. “Jap bike” is a mildly pejorative term that is in popular use, in the USA among Harley riders. There fore I feel it is acceptable to use it as a colorful, descriptive term for a class of imported motorcycles. For those who object to my use of “girl” to describe a nubile, twenty-thirty something, female, human being, I say to you, get a life — like I am trying to do.