This IS awfully brief and somewhat un-“polished”.\u00a0 It’s more of a “stream-of-consciousness” piece.\u00a0 It is, however, from the heart.\u00a0 In light of the estimated 100-150 K turnout, (as opposed to the thousand or so islamists that showed up for THEIR “million”…)<\/p>\n
You may or may not know that I worked in the motorcycle industry for many years.\u00a0 Yes, of-by-for-around-and-about THAT motorcycle company.\u00a0 They recently celebrated the one hundred tenth anniversary of “The Motor Company” in Milwaukee…if you’re a “local”, “M’wahkee”.<\/p>\n
I have MANY friends that attended the festivities, in Wisconsin and elsewhere.\u00a0 I did not.\u00a0 Even had I been “able”, I would not have gone.\u00a0 It’s not MY motor company anymore.\u00a0 I have, many times, described myself by paraphrasing Shylock:\u00a0 “If you cut me, do I not bleed Pre-Luxe?”.\u00a0 Yes, I knelt before the altar of the V-Twin in The Church of The Bar & Shield for a good part of my life.\u00a0 Since, I think, ’65 or ’66.\u00a0 I began my life on the fringe, well, on the fringe.\u00a0 Collecting railroad spikes from along the tracks and salvaged wrought iron fence from my “goombah’s” scrapyard.\u00a0 Grinding, polishing and chrome plating them to make “custom” footpegs and “sissy” bars.\u00a0 Even made a set of handlebars, once, from a chunk of power transmission cable I brazed solid and plated.\u00a0 I went through many of the incarnations, intonations and inflections of a “motorcycle enthusiast”.\u00a0 Even in those hyper-inflated ’80s years.\u00a0 When all was beemers and rocket bikes.\u00a0 When I was at a job where all of “the guys” were going to have a “bring your motorcycle to work day”, my co-workers jaws positively dropped when I showed up that morning with all that iron between my legs.\u00a0 (A 1950 FL police model, and the only chrome I added to it was a distributor cap.\u00a0 Then, only because it was the only one in stock at a dealer when I needed one.)\u00a0 Ahh, the LOOKS I got!\u00a0 The attitude changes I felt as I shut her off, put the stand down, leaned her over and walked toward the rest of “the guys”!\u00a0 Funny…only a very few years later, they would all be buying one of their own.\u00a0 Stickers, tee shirts and chain wallets became de riguerre.\u00a0 I went from outcast to inside guy.\u00a0 I knew my motorcycles.\u00a0 Inside out.\u00a0 From “pea-shooter” and “pocket valve”.\u00a0 “J” model.\u00a0 “K” model.\u00a0 Servicar.\u00a0 Knuckle-Pan-Shovel-Iron heads with flat sides.\u00a0 Toppers and Aermacchis.\u00a0 Rigids.\u00a0 Girders.\u00a0 Choppers, baggers and glides. I could go on and on.\u00a0 For a long time.\u00a0 Trust me.<\/p>\n
At the end of that weekend I received an e-mail from a very dear friend.\u00a0 A friend who was also, for many years, deeply involved in the day-to-day of The Motor Company. My last living connection to it all. I was surprised at the timing, considering the anniversary party.\u00a0 I replied with a very breif “Are you home or on the road?”\u00a0 I will excerpt her reply here…<\/p>\n
“Ah Darlin’ I didn’t go.\u00a0 Lots of reasons but my love affair [with the factory] is suffering contusions and abrasions of the heart.\u00a0 I’ve seen too much rawness and depravity than from the day when I fell in love with it all….It’s too bad.\u00a0 My heart will always beat a little faster when I hear those deep, growling pipes that play the sweetest music of any bike ever made.\u00a0 I miss a lot.\u00a0 But I don’t miss the way its corrupted itself…”<\/p>\n
I had some hope, a while back, when it was rumored that Willie and Karen (Davidson) had approved the use of skulls at the factory level for paint jobs and accessories.\u00a0 Only a brief while earlier, flames had been approved.\u00a0 They flubbed it.\u00a0 All of it.\u00a0 They carried some of the simplest forms of “biker” or “hot rod” art and art-nouveau’d it to death.\u00a0 Wait…I’m not referring to true “Art Nouveau”, I just mean that they took it off to some extreme level of “acceptable palatability”. The kind that bikers and hot rodders would not understand.<\/p>\n
When the “OLP” program was fired up, in an effort to control every dollar in the accessory market, They flubbed it.\u00a0 The truth was, it wasn’t all about the money.\u00a0 It was image control.\u00a0 Mind control and attitude control.\u00a0 “Vee haff vays” of making you like our products.\u00a0 We’ll just take everyone else’s off the shelves.\u00a0 This wasn’t just straight-up capitalism.\u00a0 Straight-up capitalism was the part that brought more than 50% of any motorcycle produced with foreign sourced parts.\u00a0 You see, they lost more than their identity when they were taken over by American Metals and Foundries.\u00a0 Enough so that they became more agressively capitalistic than even the company they broke away from.\u00a0 NOT that I believe there’s anything wrong with capitalism…no no no!\u00a0 But capitalists without souls go to the dustbin of history faster than those with poor quality products.\u00a0 Or, at least, they used to.\u00a0 (All chrome plating outsourced to the Orient.\u00a0 Sure, it IS less expensive when you can dispose of all the toxic waste in the sea.)<\/p>\n
You know…not long ago, whenever I would stop and talk to people in leather, the people on competitors’ motorcycles used to, (but no longer do), preface their descriptions with “it’s not a Harley, but…”\u00a0 It’s getting harder and harder for Joe Iwannamotorcycle to find a discernable reason to spend an extra $5-10K.\u00a0 And I can’t say as I blame them.\u00a0 Especially since that extra five or ten large is the difference between fifteen to thirty grand.\u00a0 No, we are not talking about a five thousand to ten thousand dollar import versus a twelve thousand to twenty thousand dollar pseudo-American machine anymore.\u00a0 We’re talking about second mortgages either way.\u00a0 I have always maintained that “it’s not about what you ride, it’s about whether you ride”.\u00a0 True enough.\u00a0 But we have been seeing an “adjustment”.\u00a0 Now, it’s a question of “progress or die”…read that, “change, (for better or worse, but change, dammit!)”\u00a0 It hurts, but not nearly as badly as the first time I saw a chrome plated radiator cap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This IS awfully brief and somewhat un-“polished”.\u00a0 It’s more of a “stream-of-consciousness” piece.\u00a0 It is, however, from the heart.\u00a0 In light of the estimated 100-150 K turnout, (as opposed to the thousand or so islamists that showed up for THEIR “million”…) You may or may not know that I worked in the motorcycle industry for<\/p>\n