The first sentence of Chapter 13 of this 16-chapter book is…..

“Solitary confinement is the worst thing one man can do to another.”

Now, since this is a “book review” and since I don’t know this guy, but I do know who he is, mostly from the “news,” once I got to the above-mentioned sentence in the course of my already having read the first 12 chapters of the book – which I was reading not to give a “report” on it but to get some familiarity with the fellow, from, ya know, his own self, rather than from the news…….where was I. Oh yeah: so I’m reading this here book, and most of it has been read and stuff, I’m almost done, and I’m goin’ along fine, and then I get to this sentence, the opening sentence of chapter 13.

“Solitary confinement is the worst thing one man can do to another.”

Now, For 12 chapters I’ve been reading about life as a Hells Angel. Which apparently isn’t a hobby. It’s a fucking job description. And I’m reading about it from one of only three Hells Angels anyone has ever heard of. Which alone should tell you that whatever a Hells Angel IS, if you’re one of the three everyone has actually HEARD about……you’re probably not just fucking bone-headed resilient like most of them are….. rather your bone-headed resilience likely grows back harder and more resilient every time some of it wears off or gets sawed off. So what i’m saying is, Christie’s pro’bly pretty resilient. He’s likely a pro’bly bounce-back kind of dude.

In other words, Christie or not, life as a Hells Angel, famous or not, no matter what degree of notoriety or lack of incognitoness you might have achieved …….well it’s not the life for me. Let’s put it that way. And I’m reading about this life from someone who not only lived the life but helped shape its direction. So, in other words, for 12 chapters I have been hearing about someone directing traffic in a 24 hour a day job, the LEAST dangerous aspect of it being riding a very large Harley in constant need of repairs that you’re going to do yourself…..at 70 miles an hour. Probably inebriated. To put it mildly: as your go-to mode of transportation. For years at a time. And somehow manage to not die….. just from that.

In other words, by the time I got to Chapter 13 I was now ass-deep inside the head of George Christie. Pro’bly not the best way to put that. Let me try that again. I was being escorted, personally, in his own words, very SENSIBLE words, I have to say, down the life-road of an enthusiastic outsider who from childhood knew he wanted to be not just an outsider but the most universally shunned outsider possible: a Harley-riding, Ensignia-Affiliation on his filthy clothes wearing, brawl first, ask questions later fraternal order of self-admitted lunatics and fuck you, but not your mom, I’ll do that personally……biker.

That’s the ilk the guy who’s story I’m listening to is running around with and in fact earning a reputation for keeping the peace among: keeping the peace among hyper-volatile, anti upwardly-mobile, indifferent to consequences, legality-mocking, enthusiastically confrontational daredevils on all levels of dares, be they man beast or terrain…..….all of which daredevils have severe anger issues ignited by very short fuses. And this is the guy keeping them in line. THAT’S who I’m reading from his own words when I get to the first sentence of chapter 13.

I’m inside this guy’s head, he’s taking me down the road of his life of relentless danger, stress, explosive personalities, he’s trodding through morasses of massive problems, to understate things, not a big deal, all part of the job, “I gut this” sort of thing, trying to keep peace and order through landscapes and wildernesses of paranoia and treachery and eternal threat from“the authorities”……..and then out of the blue comes THIS sentence:

“Solitary confinement is the worst thing one man can do to another.”

The WORST thing one man can do to another……comes at the hands of……not from the most shunned, most-considered-to-be-animals on the planet, namely bikers…….BUT FROM THE PEOPLE CLAIMING TO BE HOLDING THE MORAL AND SANCTIMONIOUS HIGH GROUND!!! GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL!!!

And this ain’t him talking. This is me editorializing. Because he – the writer – ain’t making this claim. I’M telling you this. What HE’S telling you is something different. What HE’S telling you, in very compelling simple language, is what solitary, or what the concept-warping government vocabulary kiddie language calls “Segregated Housing Unit”…. confinement does to a person. This is where that first sentence is going. What solitary does to you. And to him included.

Trust me, by the time you get to this above-referenced sentence you have long ago become totally convinced you are in the company of a fucking truth teller. And get this…..what then FOLLOWS this sentence is a humble, self-confessing litany, very soul-bearing confession of what solitary does to a person and certainly did to him. And this is an actual tough guy.

He says solitary has one function: to break you. And he says it does. It broke him. He then describes the particulars of the eventual, relentless erosion of your entire physical, mental and spiritual superstructure you may or may not have thought of as well-constructed.

So, I’ll tell you this, if he hasn’t won you over with his sincerity and honesty before you got to this chapter, this is the chapter that will cement the issue for you.



Now, his REPUTATION is of an adroit, capable analyzer of the best way to negotiate safely the biker world and the “citizenry” world with the least if not the complete absence of turmoil to both sides. This is not a vice, having this ability. This is a fucking whopping virtue. This is not a quality, if you are wise and sane, you want to squash. You want to SURROUND yourself with such people.

If you’re afraid of competence, then you’re not a leader. You’re a fool. And PROBABLY bureaucrat material. APPARENTLY – and this is me editorializing again – this is not a universally-held attitude. Apparently, a lot of people fear competence and a gift for making things better. Hence his legion of enemies, all of them stupid and the WORST ones being the ones insisting all they want is for you to be safe: The Authorities. And their way of keeping you safe is to lock you down. School shooter? Lock the kids down so they can be systematically killed and thus made safe while the authorities stand around outside doing nothing.

Flu From Nowhere? Lock everyone down so they can be kept safe from earning a living or visiting their aged relatives who are being locked down so they can stay safe from comfort and love. Your planet too dangerously hot due to you existing on it? Lock you down from escaping to a cooler clime or a cooler room by making travel a threat to the weather and making air conditioning a threat those who don’t have air conditioning by allowing you to live while they are dying: all should die in the interests of fairness.

Trespass? Lock you down. Steal a car? Lock you down. Get in a fight? Lock you down. Say a forbidden word? Lock you down. Have a dislike of a category of human? Lock you down. Own something you’re not supposed to own? Lock you down. Wearing forbidden words and cartoons on the back of your clothes? Lock you down. Kill someone? Lock you down.

Show enough sense of fair play that you start getting better press than The Authorities?…..welcome to the world of indictments, the easiest thing on earth to obtain next to getting laid in Parumph. Welcome to a “segregated housing unit.” Welcome to being kept safe enough to kill you as you scream to death with no one around.

And keep in mind when you are being relentlessly tortured by the authorities….you don’t know them and they don’t know you. This torture ain’t even personal. It’s being done by strangers….to strangers. It’s sociopathic behavior taken to almost supernatural levels. Like as though other fucking dimensions are involved. OK. I’m done.

When YOU’RE done, and you WILL read this all the way through because you won’t even know you’re reading, you’ll think George Christie came over the house and sat down in your living room and just started chatting with you – when you’re done, you won’t care what the scuttlebutt is about this fellow, which scuttlebutt SEEMED TO ME to get worse after he threatened to take the holy and sanctified member of the angelic Kennedy Family, Maria Shriver, former wife of the guy who recently during the Bad Cold Lockdown told Americans who wouldn’t wear a mask in an accent he hasn’t been able to undo in 50 years of living here to “Fhuack yu phreedum!!”..…..to court.

When you’re done reading it you will be on his side. And if he DOES show up for a chat? Invite him inside. And you won’t have to hide the silverware either. I’m CONVINCED of that.

–J.J. Solari

We reached out to George about his new book. “Look for my new book Crossing The Rubicon. It spans my 46-year relationship with Ralph “Sonny“ Barger. It will also, between chapters, be filled with short stories from my time with the Hells Angels, Satan’s Slaves and Question Marks,” George Christie.

SUMMARY:

DATES:

ADDRESSES:
If you wish to apply for membership, your application should be submitted to:
• Email: MotorcyclistAdvisoryCouncil@dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
John W. Marshall, Director, Office of Safety Programs, Office of Research and Program Development, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, john.marshall@dot.gov or 202–366–3803. Any Council related questions should be sent to the persons listed in this section.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

(1) Motorcycle and motorcyclist safety
(2) Barrier and road design, construction, and maintenance practices; and
(3) The architecture and implementation of intelligent transportation system technologies.
Description of Duties: The Council shall:
a. Provide advice on transportation safety issues of concern to motorcyclists consistent with the statutorily specified advising duties.
b. Provide a forum for the development, consideration, and communication of information from a knowledgeable and independent perspective.
c. Not later than October 31 of the calendar year following the calendar year in which the Council is established, and not less than once every 2 years thereafter, submit to the Secretary a report containing recommendations of the Council regarding (1) Motorcycle and motorcyclist safety; (2) Barrier and road design, construction, and maintenance practices; and (3) The architecture and implementation of intelligent transportation system technologies.

Membership: Consistent with the statute, the MAC shall be comprised of 13 members appointed by the Secretary of Transportation for a single term of up to 2 years. The MAC seeks to have a fairly balanced membership with expertise in motorcycle and motorcyclist safety, highway engineering, and safety analysis. Specifically, as set by statute, the MAC shall be comprised of the following groups: “(A) 5 shall be representatives of units of State or local government with expertise relating to highway engineering and safety issues, including—(i) motorcycle and motorcyclist safety; (ii) barrier and road design, construction, and maintenance; or (iii) intelligent transportation systems; (B) 1 shall be a motorcyclist who serves as a State or local—(i) traffic and safety engineer; (ii) design engineer; or (iii) other transportation department official; (C) 1 shall be a representative of a national association of State transportation officials; (D) 1 shall be a representative of a national motorcyclist association; (E) 1 shall be a representative of a national motorcyclist foundation; (F) 1 shall be a representative of a national motorcycle manufacturing association; (G) 1 shall be a representative of a motorcycle manufacturing company headquartered in the United States; (H) 1 shall be a roadway safety data expert with expertise relating to crash testing and analysis; and (I) 1 shall be a member of a national safety organization that represents the traffic safety systems industry.” 49 U.S.C. 355(b)(1).

Members serve on the basis of selection by the Secretary for 2 years. If a successor is not appointed for a member of the Council before the expiration of the term of service of the member, the member may serve on the Council for a second term of no longer than 2 years. The Secretary may extend appointments and may appoint replacements for members who have resigned outside of a stated term, as necessary. Members may continue to serve until their replacements have been appointed. If a member of the Council resigns before the expiration of the 2-year term of service of the member—“(i) the Secretary may appoint a replacement for the member, who shall serve the remaining portion of the term; and (ii) the resigning member may continue to serve after resignation until the date on which a successor is appointed.” Id. section 355(b)(2). A vacancy on the Council shall be filled in the manner in which the original appointment was made.

Qualifications: Members will be selected based on their expertise, training, and experience and their ability to represent one of the identified groups.

Authority:49 CFR 1.95 and 501.8.
Issued in Washington, DC.
Nanda Narayanan Srinivasan,

This tale or tail started after the big poker game in Big Bear, California. I was flying down the backside of the mountain. The high desert, beautiful in the fall, laid out before me as the mountain twistiness turned to bleak open sand.

I rode past a female hitch hiker, and she looked to have been there awhile. Dried perspiration stains on her Black Sabbath t-shirt and her Daisy Duke shorts, included perspiring all the way down to her logger boots. She rocked out with her earbuds. Later she told me Black Sabbath kept her distracted.

I pulled-up my old Shovelhead suspicious of the slippery sand. Would she accept a ride from an old biker? I slid my bike to a stop. I was listening to War Pigs by Black Sabbath in my earbuds just under my Bikernet bandanna. She came running up and introductions took place. I told her my friends called me Gearhead. She told me her name was Scarlett.

“What are you listening to?” I asked. She told me Fairies Wear Boots by Black Sabbath. I jarred her attention as she stared at the big Bowie knife on my left hip.

“Do you need a ride?” I asked.

“Of course, Can you take me to the Bella Rosa Bar at the edge of town,” she said still staring at my knife. It was a long monster reaching to my knee.

I asked her if it’s hard to get a ride out here?

“Straights don’t pick up hitch hikers in these parts,” she muttered. “Especially with tattoos all over.” She had some ink work on her neck and on the lower left side of her jawline. Perplexing, the dichotomy of ink against nature on a lone desert highway.
“I always stop for a lady in distress,” I said. “It’s the code of the West, so Bandit says.” She hopped on the back, and we peeled out spitting sand. I love riding my old Gypsy Belle Shovelhead.

We road for a ways, while she leaned in and hung on like she had done this a time or two. We pulled up to the bar just before reaching Lancaster. I planned to drop the lady off and peel out.

“You oughta come in and wash the dust out of your mouth,” she whispered.

Her eyes sparkled innocence, her tats spelled otherwise. “Okay,” I said.

Scarlett hopped off, and I kicked out my side-stand. I threw my bike chain around the wooden rail, once meant for horses. The sun dried, clapboard, Bella Rosa Bar held an old west feel. I noticed a small carved wooden sign above the tattered entrance, “The last place to drink for miles.”

“Here’s double shot of Jim Beam straight up,” Scarlett said.

I suddenly felt like I was in a Twilight Zone story.

Scarlett reeked of that Black Magic Woman vibe. Maybe Carlos Santana wrote the song after a lady just like this little broad. I sat there sipping the double shot of Beam.

“I am going to freshen up,” Scarlett said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

I sipped and scanned the rustic bar.

What happened next blurred my brain. Scarlet came out wearing a silver necklace with a Harley upswept wings pendant. It sparkled with her child-like features. She told me her biker old man gave them to her. Suddenly, I felt out of place or in a trick-bag. I reached down to make sure that Bowie knife was still in the leather sheath. You can’t miss that small machete.

I had lost my custom Arkansas Toothpick to the infamous Bandit in a poker game in Deadwood.

“Don’t worry Doll,” she assured me. “We broke up a long time ago.” She ran her hand down the long leather sheath and muttered, ?“I like knives.”

Suddenly she yanked a dagger out of the middle of her back and threw the flashy dart across the darkened room. It hit the dartboard bullseye dead center at the end of the bar.

That little gal looked hot, smelled hot, dressed sizzling and quivered like a snake. She had on a black bikini top bordered with crystal sequins and a black pair of French bikini bottoms.

“Doesn’t the owner get pissed at your antics?” I asked.

“I am the owner,” She said and licked my left earlobe. “I can run this joint anyway I want.”

I finished my third double and a fourth was on the way. Like I said, things got fuzzy. We talked about her tattoos. During the fifth double in that hot-as-hell bar with only a creaking ceiling fan moving the dense air I nodded out. Awe hell, I passed out.

I woke up a couple of hours later, near midnight, on the couch in her office. Her phone number was tattooed on my forearm. WTF?

I sat bolt upright, where’s my Harley? Scarlett came into her office. “Your bike is secure in my garage behind the bar,” she said smiling. “Here are your keys.”

“Why would you care about an old biker?” I asked.

“I understand your kind and what a man like you is capable of. This is biker country. A lot of outlaws roam these desert communities.”

Texas Red, the bartender, shoved open the office door, “Shit might hit the fan.”

“Can you help?” Scarlett asked, poking her pretty head out the door. Three outlaws saddled up to the bar.

“With a line of southern crude,” I said, stood and stretched. Still in a fog, in a strange bar in the middle of nowhere I wondered. WTF?

She told Texas Red to grab her personal stash of meth and lay out a line. Red looked solid enough. What the hell did I know?

What I didn’t tell her is that whiskey and meth turn me into a rattlesnake of meanness. I did the line and another shot of Jim Beam.

I pointed at another office door. “Is that the way to the garage.”

I jammed outside and Scarlett followed with the keys. She opened the side door, and inside I stopped and looked at my old Shovelhead. It could be my ticket to escape whatever madness lay ahead. I reached for my .38 snub-nose and grabbed a handful of shells from my leather saddlebag stuffing them into my vest pocket. “Where do we go from here?”

Scarlett led me back into her office. Red returned to the bar. I told Scarlett to stay behind me. Her 5-foot 10-inch, 240 pounds of Mexican bouncer stood at the saloon entrance, but I didn’t know what side he was on.

“Don’t come out unless we need that throwing hand of yours,” I said to Scarlett. I pushed my way into the bar.

Red had a carriage, sawed-off shotgun under the bar. Both of his held it, he cocked both hammers. He knew it would be easy to swing out and shoot from the hip.

Three club members bellied up to the bar. They didn’t seem to be messing with anyone. I scanned the bar looking for trouble until I found it, in the form of young man stuffed into the darkest corner. He wore all black and carried a satchel. A shooter who followed the club guys into the bar. Texas Red was wise to recognize trouble.

I pulled out my long Bowie knife and I asked the three rowdy club guys if there was something we could do for them. They spun to face me and my knife.

“What business is it of yours Pops?” A tattooed club guy said and puffed out his chest.

I glanced to the corner as all hell broke loose. The shooter stood abruptly, dropped his bag and cocked his semi-auto AR-15. The fire in the small bar rocked the windows as the massive mirror behind assorted liquor bottles shattered. Patrons dove for the deck.

Texas Red’s shotgun came out from under the bar and blew a hole in the roof as the rapid fire, assault weapon kicked the rifle from his grasp and he dove for the padded deck.

Fire blew out windows and a short Hispanic club member reached for his pistol inside his vest. The bouncer at the door stepped outside quickly and pulled his 9mm from a secure position behind the porch.

I turned toward the shooter and reached for my revolver, when I heard a swish in the air like something surreal, the hiss of a snake. Scarlet’s dagger found it’s mark in the shooters shoulder, before he could react, I was at his throat with my bowie knife.

“What happened to your girlfriend, pal?” I asked.

“She left me for a member,” the shooter said and cringed as Scarlett retrieved her knife from his torn flesh.

I hollered to the members. “You guys better peel out, before the man arrives.” They hit the door, jumped on their bikes and cut a dusty trail into the dark desert.

“Thanks,” Scarlett said. Everything she had was poured into that bar.

I took all the arms and ammo from the shooter. “You’ve got three choices kid,” I said while Scarlett patched his arm and he whimpered. “I turn you over to the cops and you roll the dice with the system. I give you to the club and you have the worst night of your life and end up in a shallow desert grave with tarantulas, or you cut a dusty trail out of this state and start over.”

“But my shit,” the kid squealed as Scarlett yanked at the final coarse stitch in his shoulder, made with used dental floss. It’s all she had.

I cut the line free, yanked him to his feet and led him to the rickety front porch, spun and kicked him in the ass. He tumbled off the porch and landed in the sandy dust. “If you turn around, your dead.”

He screamed in pain scramble to his feet and into his rusty Ford Ranger pickup peeling out of the parking lot.

Nearly 2:00 in the morning, the “open” neon flickering in the dusty window went out.

”You stick around tonight,” Scarlett said.
“I will make it worth your time.”

“Won’t Texas Red be jealous?” I searched for answers.

“He’s my bartender and on my payroll, that’s all,” she said. She grabbed my hand opposite of my knife hand and pulled me into her office, locked the door and yelled to Texas Red, “Close up for me will ya?”

David Allen Coe blasted from the jukebox. I think the song was Divers do it deeper. Scarlett pushed me down on the couch. “You won’t need your knife anymore tonight.”

I raised an eyebrow and slit the seam of her delicate top. She had a beautiful body and beautiful tattoos all over it.

“Shuck those jeans and let’s get down to business,” she said.

She told me later that she liked the way older men think. They don’t deal with any crap anyone shovels at them. They just handle the situation at hand, and they don’t back down.

There is a preposterous rumor going around that Caite Upton, the girl who became inadvertently famous in a beauty contest long ago when she attempted to explain, on national TV, why American school children, in a test, could not find the USA on a globe.

This extremely mean rumor….. that she is now writing all of Kamala Harris’s speeches…..is simply not true. And the reason it’s not true is because it’s not justified. And it’s not possible.

It’s just not in the cards in any deck of cards on earth. Because Caitlin Upton’s response in this clip, compared to Kamala Harris’s routinely horrific gibberish responses to anything – Caitlin Upton’s critique of the American, government-operated school system is a monument to clarity, precision and insight compared to anything Kamala Harris might say at any time under any circumstances, drunk or sober, asleep or awake.

Caitlin Upton, in this clip, makes more sense regarding the state of geographical education in our schools than anything Kamala Harris has ever tried to make sense of in all her life, on any topic, under any circumstances.

If Caite Upton and Kamala Harris were to have, let us say, a debate, on, let us say, various ways to prepare eggs for breakfast, Caite Upton could launch into a rambling disjointed allegory comparing Wheat Thins to the migratory habits of Canada Geese….. and compared to what would be the goonfest litany overflow of imbecilic nonsense that Kamala Harris would be saying in response….

Caite Upton’s lecture would be an exercise in laser-like relevance, microscopic focus and extraordinary depth of reasoned articulate genius and exactitude with straight-to-topic pinpoint accuracy compared to Kamala Harris’s juggernaut of drawled-out and sing-song sleep-inducing repetition of her three-word vocabulary inventory, drawled and redrawled, with long pauses to give the listener time to absorb what she must be convinced is the depth and clarity and philosophical implications of her findings.

Caitlin’s words would be straight-line, dead-on-target revelations of truth and discovery compared to the Mobius Strip of desolate word-trails leading to nowhere coming from Harris’ relentlessly cackling jaws.

People would come-away from Caitlin’s dissertations filled with grandeur at the wonders of communication that are possible between humans while the words of Harris would have listeners walking into walls, into oncoming trucks and off of cliffs and plummeting in bewildered confusion to their deaths, grateful at never having to hear Kamala Harris ever again.

Even Greta Thunberg at her most volcanic, twisted-faced, outburst-festooned, high velocity, full-capacity-level of infuriated, accusatory, spittle-spraying wrath at people refusing to obey her…..she is a demure, well-thought-out, properly behaved and wondrous young lady of calm and good sense compared to Kamala Harris even trying to recite hickory dickory dock.

So, no: Caite Upton is not writing Kama Harris’s speeches. This suspicion and unfounded rumor drags Miss Upton down into a morass of undeserved, meaningless inconsequence that she is far far above.

I am sure Caitlin Upton can go to the MacDonalds counter, order her food, and go to a table, food in hand, with no one on the staff having ever become desolately bewildered if not depressed and suicidal in the process. So, let’s stop this rumor now. I’m not the kind of person who goes around saying this is hurtful, or that is hurtful: but THIS is clearly hurtful.

Miss Upton doesn’t deserve this.

–J.J. Solari

It’s Memorial Day 2023. There’s a jammin’ bike show happening in Deadwood. Dan’s hands are full with Sturgis Museum projects. I’m trying like hell to understand Outlaw Justice, my second book and proof reading each page for reprinting. I’m also building a Knucklehead chop and searching for a 1913 twin engine.

Spring hit the Black Hills like color film smacked photography. Suddenly we’ve gone from 20 degrees to 80 and life is emerald green and brilliant. “I’m not a green guy,” Irish rich said of Charlie’s ’73 Corvette color. I know, that doesn’t make any sense at all…

Cutting to the chase, I’m running behind on this episode because of a myriad of other projects and interruptions. I was able to sneak into the hills over-looking the Buffalo Chip and Dan’s shop recently to grab some shots and kick around the 1914 H-D twin engine rebuild.

It’s amazing how some of these engines survived or weren’t used much. Dan’s waiting on pistons and boring cylinders is critical. How do you bore a cylinder so it’s tighter at the top than the bottom? You got me, but I believe I understand the concept.

Originally, they ran cast-iron Pistons, which don’t swell as much as aluminum pistons, hence the tapered bore. But wait, if you run aluminum pistons, you can bore the cylinders straight and run tighter tolerances. “I don’t have any idea how the factory taper-bored cylinders,” Dan said. He took his cylinders to Lonnie Isam’s shop. Lonnie Sr. has a specific J-model boring table and tooling. Dan honed the freshly bored cylinders and set the piston ring gaps.

Billy Lane told me he’s running Knucklehead pistons in some of his early bikes, but it mean new rods and larger wrist pins. Dan lapped the rods, but the piston pin bushings were fine.

He’s using 741 Indian lower end bearing races and H-D bearings, because the races are readily available from Lonnie or Todd at Jerry Greer’s Indian in Deadwood. Actually 45-flathead military bearings will do the trick and they are available. Dan trued the flywheels and the case bushing on the pinion side was good, amazing and over 108 years old.

The source for many early engine parts is Competition Distributing where his piston pins came from, but there’s an issue. To reproduce parts for early engines is a challenge. How can anyone invest in parts for very low volume engines, say 1000 and 500 are gone. So you stumble into your local casting facility and ask for 100, or even 500 of one part and they laugh you out of the shop…

The cams were all the same for ’14 J-engines. The fast or race engines were juiced with different rocker arm geometry and larger intake manifolds. He’s running a rebuilt Bosch manifold. After WWI the Bosch patents fell into different hands. Some Bosch mags have Germany under the name on the brass tag, others have England or even Made in USA.

Some guys are running standard Joe Hunt or Morris Magnetos attached to an adapter plate.

While in the master’s shop and he wasn’t looking, I took shots of his 1912 single project. Amazing, but this bike will be constructed primarily with re-production parts. The frame came from Dewey Early Harley parts and the bars and front end were manufactured recently in Texas.

There were two models in ’12, the 8-XA which has a clutch on the rear wheel. The 8-A had only the belt tensioner to drive it. Up until 1913 the wheels had only 36 spokes. In ’13 they were changed to 40-spoke wheels. Even the wheels will be new on this puppy. Only the engine will be original. Replacement clutches are available from Sweden.

The tanks came from Antique Moto Smith in Texas, the rims also were made in Texas. Dan laced the wheels and machined the spacers. Look at those tiny rockers from Competition Distributing. Keep in mind, that the new stuff is much more precision than original sand-casted and rough machined components. Even tooling today and of course, CNC machines are very precise compared to old lathes ran by hand.

Next, we will bring you the final install of the newly rebuilt ’14 twin, and maybe a start-up video. I learned that my own ’13 twin racer will not have a clutch, because it will be a crank and ride-off the center-stand to the race. Hang on!

Dustin Hill, my tattooed Biker brother from the gym rides a sic-ass Dyna with all the upgrades. He invited me and 5-Ball Racing Leathers to be a part of his motorcycle event deep in the heart of the Texas hill country, about an hour and half outside of Austin, Texas.

Deemed The Texas Hills Cycle Show at the round up in Blanco, Texas. I rode my FXR chopper, Bandit “Pops” built, out there alone Friday night. I peeled through the back roads and hills. Man, this place was so cool, perfectly tucked away in thick green endless rolling hills and two-lane back roads of the Texas hill country.

As I rode the chopper I was swept away into an old western spirit, twisting and turning through thick gorgeous nature that surrounded me at sunset. I was amazed how the FXR, stretched chopper with the girder front end handled so well. It still fed me an element of danger as the Evo engine and thunder header roared smoothly in the warm Texas heat, a perfect evening for riding.

As I pulled up to the round-up after a strong hour and half ride seemingly out in the middle of deserted Texas country, I felt the feeling of welcome. Rumbling inside the old wooden gates, I was greeted by my tattoo buddies Alex and James and my newest biker bro Johnny Mud.

Frankie Jr. could not make the event, so his sister Maxine bravely agreed to haul the 5-Ball Racing Leathers booth to the event.

Plastered across the back of the booth a mega size poster of Bandit himself made a legendary presence at the event!

With my daughter Maxine, Daren from Hawaii and many more friends, we roamed the isles of beautiful custom built motorcycles lining the top deck of the music venue. A magical Texas evening opened in the vast night sky, after we finished doing some 5-Ball business.

Later, we headed off to some joint in Blanco, a bar found again seemingly in the middle of nowhere, a decorated mid-century retro house, right out of a Marty Robin’s western ballad. We partied a bit with the 5-Ball ladies and left the five ball business in the hands of Maxine Ball.

We returned after a night of love under the Texas stars. Saturday we glowed and roamed the tumble-weed strewn grounds to check the vendors and hang with friends. I want to share a big shout out to those who attended. It was a good time and a perfect Texas biker adventure.

Here’s a few people Dustin would like to thank for sponsoring the Texas Hills Cycle Show and attending vendors:

Kara & Mario the owners of The Roundup. Cowboy Harley-Davidson, Campo Bravo Tequila & Waterloo Sparkling Water for being sponsors.

One of the great mysteries of life on Earth is “Why are all journalists living, breathing, scum-scrapings that have been grinded and peeled off the walls of abandoned outhouses at the bottom of a ravine in Bangladesh?” In other words why are all journalists oily slithering entities made entirely out of bacteria?

We all ask that question at one time or another. Sooner or later in life it dawns on us that all journalists are not only not actually human but that whatever species they are, they’re not even good at being that. I mean they have no “outstanding examples” of themselves but rather are, each and every one of them, at the same low level of slithering, burrowing worthlessness.

Journalists have no universally admired outstanding examples of themselves. They are all, every single one, boilerplate, machine-stamped, identical reproductive copies of each other, kind of like the Borg, with only the names on their birth certificates being different, assuming they were actually birthed and not hatched in petri dishes at Dumb-Iab Industries For The De-Backboned Replicated Talentless.

Once it is brought to a non-journalist’s attention – most of whom have actual jobs, as opposed to whatever the fuck it is “writers” do – once it is brought to a normal person’s attention that journalists are all cookie-cutter imbecilic little snots – a light goes on in the normal person’s head and he goes, “Ya know what? You’re right! They ARE all little rat-like shitballs!” This is usually a happy moment for a normal person. He feels suddenly liberated and free from all fear of journalistic harassment and attempts to ruin his life down the road. Because it suddenly becomes clear that journalists are merely blood-sucking fleas and mosquitoes with none of the sterling qualities of either, neither in behavior nor in appearance.

Once a normal person receives this gift of enlightenment, usually from me, that journalists are all oily little parasites feeding off the actual accomplishments of others yet taking all the credit themselves for saving humanity from harm at the hands of this person or that person, it’s like, and I really hate to use this word, it’s like he becomes empowered. A kind of inflow of life and energy and understanding and calm and the tranquility of no longer being confused fills his spirit and a veil of darkness is removed and he looks around at all about him and he quietly rejoiceth.

Yes, It’s a beautiful thing to see this transformation in others and to experience within one’s-self.

Now, you may ask, “So tell me, good pilgrim come to Bikernet, how is it that journalists have come to acquire this hypnotic, chimera-like ability to disguise their true abominable worthless natures within a gauze, a shroud if you will, a kind of shimmering there-not-there hallucinatory magical sleight-of-hand as it were, to where those of us who are NOT journalists hold them high aloft in a special place of reverence and nobility and soft and quiet superiority of holiness and Jedi-like concern for Only Others and not themselves? How is it we have come to be this thoroughly deceived?”

Not a bad question. And very-well phrased. I have to say. I think perhaps we are going to have a productive session here during our short time together before you wander off to look at tits. Pro’bly before I’m done. Not that I’ll blame you. In fact I’ll envy you. I’ll be stuck here alone. With me.

So…..how IS it that journalists have acquired this preposterous status as living lighthouses of warning and illumination lest, we ordinary folk, we run-aground upon the rocks of ruin?

It’s because of the First Amendment. Which boldly proclaims “the freedom of the press.” And not “the freedom of apple growers.” Or “the freedom of saloon-owners.” Or “the freedom of cigarette manufacturers.”

That’s right: the “press” is the only non-government job in the whole Constitution – which is basically a job-creation edict and not a liberty-creating edict – and all the jobs are in “the public sector.” Meaning tax-supported via the private sector. It’s the dividing of America, via proclamation, into two distinct groups: the authorities, who do nothing, and the gainfully employed, who do everything.

Nothing in your house comes from anyone in the public sector. Yet the public sector is the sector everyone in the private sector is convinced is indispensable. Even though they produce and provide nothing. Except punishment.

The relentless idiotic ranting of assholes like Nancy Pelosi that we are divided as a nation in that we are not all Liberal Communist Assholes…..is typical Liberal bullshit: we were divided right out the gate by the Constitution which created the public sector – the sector that does nothing – as being the authority over the private sector – the sector that does everything.

The journalists of the time, once the Constitution, or as I call it, the re-installation of England back onto our shores, once the Constitution had its ignition switch struck to the ON position, all the journalists looked at each other smiling and grinning and said “Have you noticed, Mi Compadres, that we’re the only job that is not a government job that is mentioned in this entire 4500 word composition? It’s almost as though we have become a PART of the government.”

You may have noticed that while there is such a thing as a “Press Pass” which allows journalists almost unlimited access to government shenanigans, there is no such thing as a “Mechanics Pass” or a “Woodworker’s Pass” or a “Plumbers Pass” or a “Tree Surgeons Pass” or a “Chefs Pass” or an “Appliance Makers Pass” or a pass for any other profession not a government job other than “Press.”

You, if you have not already wandered off to look at tits, are probably musing upon this for the first time in your life. Count yourself among the blessed: most people don’t read Bikernet. Holy shit, tell me about it. You on the other hand, tit-lover and seeker of truths even beyond those of tit-truths, come to Bikernet for calming, joy, and enlightenment. And I am your reward. Can we join hands and get an amen?

Have you noticed that all “newsmen” and “reporters” and “journalists” have this air and attitude of superiority? Like as though they know that in your mind you automatically consider them to be the watchdogs of, I don’t know, oppression, government chicanery, business chicanery, evil-doer chicanery, ordinary-citizen chicanery, as though they are prowling, watchful, ever-vigilant lookouts for naughtiness in every corner and back alley of human existence? They’re not. They’re failed novelists, who, having failed at the actual craft of writing genuinely artistic fiction, have, almost subconsciously, slogged and drunkenly staggered over to the thing called “freedom of the press” to write a rather low-grade version of fiction-writing called “the news.”

There they write distorted versions of reality that non-journalists regard as truth, since, being “the press,” they have Constitutional Sanctity, as does the President, and Congress, and all the other created-out-of-thin-air entities itemized and rambled-on about in the Constitution, which was PROBABLY written by failed novelists since something called The Supreme Court has spent a couple hundred years trying to decide what the Constitution ACTUALLY says. One reason this being necessary is because I didn’t write it. Otherwise it wouldn’t need “interpreting.” You don’t need to interpret THIS do you? There ya go.

You’ll notice successful novelists never become journalists. Have you noticed? They don’t need to. They have succeeded at fiction-writing. When you open a novel and set-in to read it you know right out the gate you are going to be bombarded with lies from one end of the book to the other. Fake conversations, fake events, fake people, fake threats, fake solutions, fake locations, fake weather…..there ain’t gonna be a word of fucking truth anywhere to be found and in fact the name o’ the mother fucker who wrote it might be fake! No one cares.

That’s what you pay for. That’s what you want. You want fucking make-believe so you can escape from your own shitty existence and eavesdrop and spy on some fake guy’s shitty but still more interesting existence than your own. What makes fiction writing INTERESTING is called “writing talent.” Something journalists do not have. In fact they are abysmally devoid of this commodity. No successful novelist or short-story fiction writer or successful script-writer ever “moves on and advances to” journalism.

Going from “Successful Fictioneer” to journalism as a living is not an advancement. It’s a huge fucking step down. It’s if anything, sliding from success into failure. You do not need ANY writing talent to become a journalist. You need SOME talent, sure, say, maybe, for instance, a talent for tossing guilt around onto people who are not guilty of anything, or you need to be a talented fucking asshole, for instance.

But you don’t need any WRITING talent. In fact if you HAD any writing talent you could not BECOME a journalist. The job is that restrictive of actual writing talent. It’s as though only the talentless can walk through the permanently implaced talent-restrictor barrier with complete impunity and nonchalance with welcoming signs all around and well wishers sweeping their arms sideways to usher him on his way to frustration, alcoholism and eternal obscurity where he will join all the failed novelists before him as they, en masse devote themselves to deceiving their clueless, gullible audiences who, because of the First Amendment, are convinced journalists are the 8th Choir of Angels sent here from Heaven and from the very prayer room of Jesus to guide America into Paradise.

They are in fact low-grade pimps from the upper circles of Hell with you as their whores, working their way down to Satan’s Lair where, with Satan, they can kick cans down the road for eternity in ever-mounting frustration.

Now earlier I mentioned that when the Constitution had sputtered into existence (which it now is operating at full fucking throttle) it was at that moment all the journalists looked at each other and realized that “the press” was the only non-government job in the Constitution to be mentioned in a litany of government jobs that WERE mentioned in the Constitution. It was then that the journalists, or failed novelists, all looked at each other cunningly and said all at once and all together “We’re part of the government.”

It didn’t matter that they weren’t actually part of the government, they knew that everyone would ASSUME they were because, as you know, the Constitution is a perfect living document of utter and resolute perfection and would not have granted freedom of the press and not freedom of toilet manufacturing as one of the Rights were it not for the obvious to you and to Jesus fact that “the press” was in fact the only assurance that government, should it stray from its divine and noble path, would be nudged back onto its rightful direction. Thanks to the randomly-assembled Constitution – forever being interpreted and reinterpreted in courts of law – in declaring “the press” – the sole actual job-description mentioned in the entire litany of government jobs created out of thin air…… to be subconsciously regarded by all and with great piousness as a department of government.

IN FACT the press itself has actually promoted itself into a category of something called The Fourth Estate. That’s right, like Hollywood giving itself rewards, the press has declared itself “The Fourth Estate,” the first three being, as created by British Hacks a million years ago, the nobility, the clergy, and the commoners. The Press then declared themselves the 4th Estate and apparently no one said shit about it. Pro’bly out of fear of being interviewed by Anderson Cooper, a journalist. In reality the Press is the estate now controlling the other three Estates and as such is more corrupt than the other three combined. And THAT is saying something.

Now you might say “If that’s the case is the press working in partnership with government?” The answer is yes and no: yes if the government stays aware and cognizant of the fact that “the press” actually IS the government. And no if at any time the government forgets this fact and assumes it, and not the press, is the government…..then the press will strike. And strike hard. And strike unified. Unlike how the government operates which is in a fucking dither and in bewilderment and in a cowardly manner all the time. Plus bureaucrats will throw each other to the wolves with absolutely no hesitation.

The Yellow Wall of Unified Journalists will NEVER do that. They know they have the upper hand: they can write sentences – bad ones, but they CAN write sentences….unlike bureaucrats who can’t do anything, and they can’t get voted out of office or fired by any bureaucrat. But as long as the government personnel show homage and respect and gratitude to The Press……The Press will pretend to be merely a watchdog of government and not the operator of government. For after all, the Constitution itself was written by journalists. It was dreamed up by bureaucrats, but actually composed by journalists. Which is why it’s all over the place.

If a successful novelist had written the Constitution it would 1: be a lot more fun to read and 2: would likely have some logic and coherence to it and a lot less of pontificating its own greatness. But it was written by failed novelists. Not successful ones. But failures. So when your idiot “representative” creates a new idiotic law, it’s your Actual Government of Failed Novelists who will praise it and declare it holy and wise, which you will read about and then vote for. Assuming it’s a law that requires the votes of the alleged citizenry. Which 99.999999% of American laws do not require.

But that’s another and different and equally exciting article. From Yours Truly, J.J. Solari, Failed Novelist Times Ten AND Failed Journalist. IN FACT…..I even failed as a Mouseketeer. There’s a reason I write for Bikernet.

Hunter Thompson once wrote a novel called Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Journalists love it: it’s a litany of stupidity and ignorance and behavior asking for a fist in the face. Journalists can totally relate.

Why Las Vegas is dragged into it at all is an insight into Hunter’s brain: Las Vegas bases its existence and success on the premise that life is fun. Fun for Thompson was being annoying to people.

Thompson was allowed to be an annoying presence with the Hells Angels for a while because Sonny Barger, an unappreciated mega genius in understanding others and knowing how to surround himself with people just as sharp as he was, saw that Thompson was useful: a depressed moron with a Jack Kerouac destiny who would make the Hells Angels part of a best seller.

Hunter Thompson did not present the Hells Angels as glowing role models for others to emulate. That was fine with the Hells Angels. They don’t want to be role models. They want to be left alone. They did beat him up but not because of anything he wrote. He interfered with a domestic dispute.

I’m guessing he laid hands on a Hells Angel. If there are other Hells Angels around and you do this, they beat you up first and then decide if you had it coming later. If you didn’t have it coming….you still got beat up. Maybe you’ll get an apology! But you still got beat up. And you will again if you do whatever you did again. You get beat up….you have a sit-down later.

Unlike how the Mafia operates: there’s a sit down first. THEN you get beat up if it doesn’t go well. We’re looking at two different ways of doing things. Getting back to Las Vegas, only Hunter Thompson would drag the most upbeat place on earth into his idiotic well-written shit-show of useless, pointless, drug-addled homeless-level idea of how to spend your time there.

NATURALLY it was hailed as a brilliant analysis of normal American life by the “critics.” “Literary Criticism” is a category of Failed Novelist who goes into journalism after he realizes writing fiction that’s INTERESTING is hard. Much easier to become a “news” writer where you can interject bits of fiction into something someone else did or said.

–J.J. Solari

Men. And when I say men, I mean real men; not the man bun and panty wearing, pole smoking, Prius driving crowd. Men, are historically, by nature, Conservative. Capitalists, anti abortion, anti gay, pro religion, pro common sense. Men think with their brains. Women think with their emotions and hormones. Almost ALL stupid liberal things, have women at the base of them. America rocked on just fine through the 50’s…  Then birth control and the Gloria Steinems and the Ruth Ginsbergs and the Hillary Clintons showed up, and we have been a clusterfuck of social adjustments ever since. For the same reason there has never been a 2,500 member 70 year old women’s MC… there has been nothing but drama in politics ever since the vaginas showed up, because women are petty bleeding heart idiots who suck at leadership. 

 If women were never allowed a political voice, there would be no such thing as pride month. You sure as fuck ain’t gonna see a  bunch of Hells Angels and truckers and farmers posting rainbows and going to drag shows….  At least not until their wives nag them to the point of doing it to shut them up. Case in point, I would bet my Harley it wasn’t the men in the MRF who decided to hire drag queens to perform at Meeting of the Minds. I mean, even brain dead Budweiser thought it would be a good idea to make Harley-Davidson beer cans in an attempt to counteract the Dylan Mulvaney mess. But, to appease the ol’ ladies… men, even bikers, are feigning tolerance until it becomes the normal. The same way Christians are laying down when it comes to the tonsil jockeys stealing the rainbow that has historically represented God’s promise to Noah. 

 There are reasons i think women are stupid about gay men. They have been brainwashed by people who know how to pull the apron strings that connect to their ovaries. 

First, they were taught to fear penises. Gay men won’t try to fuck them. They can flirt and cajole and talk nasty and date them without jeopardizing, usually, the men they do fuck who are paying most of the bills. That first tampon string connects straight to their sense of safety. 
 
Then, the gay men no longer look like Rock Hudson, and other gay men from back when your sexuality was kept discreet. These days they all wear little ponytails and pink and rainbows.. and children’s clothes are made in the same fashion.. so it triggers those uteruses to want to protect and breastfeed the poor wittle picked on girly boys.

All this mess about drag library time and child friendly drag shows, they always claim they aren’t really grooming the children. By and large, they are kinda telling the truth about that. They are brainwashing the children, and grooming the adults. I can’t tell you how many people I know who used to be Christian Conservatives who were staunchly against all of it, but now are all wishy washy, and say ‘It’s okay because someone in my family is one.’ Well, that isn’t true. What is right or wrong isn’t decided because of what your family is doing. The ones who aren’t pedophiles are actually using passive aggressive forced acceptance by exploiting a family’s love for the kids that are being taught to be drag queens. They know you love your kid so much you will accept them even if they grow up to be an axe murderer.. and they are using that to further their agenda.

Then, they have gayed up Jesus with all the love everybody hippie crap, and wrapped him in a pretty rainbow bow. So , all these fickle minded women have been subliminally taught to connect goodness and holiness to effiminate men due to the vastly incorrect stereotype of Christ, and the intentional subliminal connection made by the use of the rainbow.
 
Then, women have all been fed this whole adopt don’t shop, humans don’t own animals, furbaby bullshit.. and ‘Lizzo is beautiful’ bullshit, and all the other woke bullshit…  until their tiny little female brains have been filled with faux acceptance of whatever the fuck creeps out of the woodwork. 

And finally, there is an inborn curiosity in women so powerful that they spy on emails, cell phones, and any other resource they can find to get in a man’s head. So, they also secretly think they are gonna find out secret shit about men that gives them control; from what they are thinking to how to suck cock better. Women just constantly are trying to find out what men are doing. They mistakenly think they will learn how to delve into men’s mindset, by befriending all these cocksuckers. 
 
I know this will piss off a lot of people. But I don’t care. Literally since Eve ate that apple, ever since Lot’s wife became the Morton salt girl… women have been vulnerable to sneaky shit that eventually turns men’s paradise into a wicked, wicked world…. and as we know, history always repeats itself.
 
–The Wicked Bitch