by Sonny Barger
Do you fight fair or do you fight to win?
People sometimes rap me for my practice of rat-packing. In other words, when you pick on one of my friends, you’ll immediately have to contend with all of us. The situation turns ugly in a hurry. People get hurt. Now let me ask you a question. When your friend or loved one is fighting—winning or losing—do you idly stand by and watch them defend themselves? I hope your answer is no.
Neither do I.
I’ve learned to live with the fact that the first things tossed out of the ring in the heat of combat are benevolence and mercy. When you’re fighting for your life, your pride, or your dignity, all rules based on courtesy are suspended. There is only one objective at this point and that is to win the fight by any means necessary.
You have to enter a fight with two things: the knowledge of what you are fighting for and winning as your only objective. Once you have your conviction straight (and lots of times this will have to be a decision made in a split second), act on it and quickly. The first punch is usually the one that gets the attention of your opponent and makes the difference.
A few years ago, at a book signing and swap meet, a group decided to invade our gathering with weapons, clubs, knives, and baseball bats. The first of our crew at the scene was severely outnumbered. He had his conviction straight and he went for it, initiated the battle, and didn’t hem and haw around waiting for backup, which, of course, came quickly. I was proud when I heard what he had done. He charged into the situation with a “take no prisoners” attitude. But it wasn’t too long before an entire group jumped in to help. By the time I arrived, the situation was well under control. The invasion was contained within minutes, even before the cops came to “restore order.” It was a concentrated effort by a team that put a lid on any further violence that day. That didn’t stop the cops from arresting some friends. Months later, my friends were completely exonerated and acquitted.
In times of trouble, if one of your friends is in difficulty, jump in and help. You won’t see me standing by in a bar, watching one of my friends in a fight, slugging it out alone. Screw fighting fair. The health and safety of my cause and comrades far outweigh what others might think of me. If the odds and numbers happen to tip in your favor, then so be it. If not, kick ass anyway the best you can. Then, later, call in all your friends and make your adversaries pay dearly.
7
An Organization Can’t Be All Chiefs and No Indians
To become a leader, first you’ve got to join the group. Sounds simple but it is not.
Let’s take the example of a couple of guys in a bar. One scribbles an idea on a napkin. The other guy looks at it and agrees. They vow to ride together and watch each other’s back out on the street. These two individuals become one and inseparable and thus a small organization of sorts is born.
In my particular case, the organization I joined was a motorcycle club. It was a group of disenfranchised people who thought that they were the only ones on the planet who felt unfulfilled, unsatisfied, on the outside, and out of step with the mainstream. That’s not a bad thing. These are the type of people, the renegades and the castoffs tired of going it alone, who might be your first “joiners.” From there, as your organization evolves, leaders will begin to emerge from within.
There is one type who inspires others to walk a little taller and straighter, the one individual who can listen and talk to everyone, who acts for himself when he acts for the group. And then there are those who are good at taking direction. It is not that these are “weaker” individuals or that they lack stamina; they are soldiers who trust and respect the group as a whole and are able to take direction from a leader they trust and respect. The leader guides the group.
Are you considering becoming a leader? Have you worked with an organization long enough to know how it really works?
When the first club I was in got off the ground, I was kind of coached by another biker member who had a mind for organization. We talked about things like membership dues, meetings, rules, and what struck me most was that everything he was describing was a lot like the U.S. Army.
The army is structured on a ranking system and you work your way up the ranks based on merit and performance and the exhibition of leadership qualities. You don’t become a sergeant without having been a private. As a sergeant, you have more responsibility than a private, but you also have to report to someone above you as well, who in turn reports to…thus the chain of command.
This system seemed in the past to work very well and indeed it did. So well that it still works today. I used a lot of the protocol I saw and learned from the U.S. Army in assembling my first club.
Work on it, think about it, and try to realize your own leadership potential, and don’t forget to encourage someone else’s as well. Not that everyone even aspires to be a leader, and that is natural. Some people are just born followers.
8
Trust Is Not a Weakness
Do you have someone close to you who will lay it all down for you without batting an eye? I do.
I can always depend on my best friend. He’s my homey, the perfect cell mate, my soul brother, my missing piece, the other half. Out on the street, rain or shine, night or day, he’s there and game for anything. Even when a motorcycle ride from Oakland to San Jose was like a cross-country trip, he was there. In a heartbeat he was always ready to ride. It is the trust between us that keeps us bonded. I don’t feel any less of a person or weaker when I turn to him for advice, help, or just someone to listen. We understand each other and have for a long time.
When I moved from Oakland to Arizona, that same friend packed his gear as well. After more than forty years of riding the Oakland streets together, we migrated to the great Southwest, surprising everyone who couldn’t begin to imagine us ever leaving Oakland and making such a radical change. But we did it, and my friend now lives about fifty miles down the road from me, the Arizona equivalent of a neighbor.
You can’t have too many close friends. Luckily, I’ve cultivated quite a few of them throughout my life. Through my relationships with my friends, I’ve learned how to trust. Especially on the road, having a good friend riding close by is the equivalent of having an extra set of senses. He helps prevent me from being careless and stupid. I ride at my best with my friends around.
In prison, you can’t put a price tag on a friendship or on trust, having someone watching your back. Most people are able to honestly count on one hand the number of people they would trust with their lives. For me, that list could go into the dozens, a long list of people I’ve learned from and people who have learned from me. People who keep their friends and comrades at arm’s length often find the world a very cold and lonely place.
Whatever the bond that binds you (for me, it’s motorcycles), a strong mutual interest with a core of best friends you trust will help you live a longer and straighter life. These comrades are the guys who will pull you back when you cross over the line, who will pick you up when you fall over the edge, who will make sure you don’t have to go it alone. We don’t ride alone.
I guess the strongest example of trust or brotherhood today is a motorcycle club. We did what we wanted to do, together. We knew the virtues of an organization that was based on depending on one another and none of us was any weaker for it. No one ever thought less of us for it, either.
9
Stay Alert in the Pack. What Happens to You Happens to the Rider Behind You.
Be vigilant and aware. Those living and working next to you are depending on it.
Riding in a forty-bike pack is the ultimate exercise in teamwork and the most definitive example of harmony I know. Consider it the domino effect on wheels; one small screwup in the fast lane can result in the catastrophic downfall of the entire group. If you’re part of a well-oiled outfit traveling ninety miles per hour in close wheel-to-wheel formation, there’s no wiggle room in the execution. Not only must you trust those who are immediately in front of and behind you, but each and every rider up
and down the line, from the pack leader to those bringing up the rear, are all interconnected by riding and working in close proximity. Riding like this is a rush that gives everyone involved equal power and authority over one another’s fate.
It takes know-how and courage. The ride does not require an explanation, just participants.
It is also an exercise of trust and character within a situation of life and death. Every rock, pothole, or tire scrap you meet on the road affects the guy behind you, and so on down the line. Since everyone’s reflexes are equally vital, no matter how much partying you’ve done the night before, when you assume your position in the pack, your senses and talent for anticipating the actions of those behind you and in front of you must be second to none. Just being on top of your game isn’t enough. You’ve got to crawl inside the hearts, minds, and souls of everybody else riding in the pack. On the highway, at ninety-plus miles per, there’s no such thing as one rider who’s more important than another. The pack needs to be a well-timed centipede, a mighty machine, every moving part equal, vital, and well oiled.
Cruising along a straight highway with good weather and no traffic isn’t too much of a challenge. It requires that all riders keep an even distance apart. But anytime there is a curve, each rider needs to adjust his speed and carefully track the path of those ahead, not to rear-end them or veer into the rider beside him. The pack, as determined by its leader, may also have to snake around traffic or other road obstacles in order to stay together as one group, or divide temporarily until the interruption is passed. Add the complications that come from the elements like wind, fog, or rain, and the riding gets even more hazardous and challenging. Maybe someone’s bike has a malfunction, runs out of gas, or leaks oil. The bigger the pack and the faster it goes, the more likely some tiny factor will be amplified to cause potential disaster. Managing all these variables successfully is a daunting task in which only the fittest survive.
The pack-riding experience is an extreme experience. Life in the fast lane, as they say. At its best, you are moving as gracefully and majestically as the wind. At its worst, you’re scattered across the highway. In seconds you can go from an impressive formation of riders to a pile of bleeding flesh, broken bones, broken glass, spilled fuel, burned rubber, and twisted steel.
I seriously doubt you’ll find a better example of a team of people living, breathing, moving, and reacting in sync as a group. A lot has been said and written about a group acting as one. Here’s my ultimate illustration. You have to become one with your partners. No choice. Together you enter a state of elevated achievement only through mutual skill, practice, and trust.
A successful ride happens when we anticipate one another’s moves, even limitations. As a pack, we regularly put our lives and fates into one another’s hands. It’s only through working as a seamless unit that we reach our final destination or goals, ride after ride after ride.
Stay alert by keeping your eyes and all other senses not only on the road ahead of you, but also on the rider in front of you and behind you. By looking out for your partners, you’re also looking out for yourself.
10
Tradition Just Gets Your Engine Started. You Drive the Bike.
As a member of the next generation, what are you bringing to the table to keep your organization going and up-to-date?
Try to remember the reason you started riding a motorcycle in the first place. For me, it was a couple of things but mostly rebellion. It was partly the movie The Wild One with Lee Marvin. There was also the initial rush of getting up on two wheels and riding against the wind. There was also the power and the rumble of the bike and the look on the faces of the girls as you drove up on your Harley. There was the look on the faces of their boyfriends as their girlfriends looked at you riding on your bike. On a bike, suddenly you had a 360-degree view of the countryside (before helmets were mandatory) and you were roaring down the interstate. But mainly you rode for a reason—to be different, right? And to be able to hang out with a core of buddies who actually rode, and who weren’t afraid to shake things up, to fight, raise hell, get laid, get high, and ride fast.
My point is that we did this for a reason. We weren’t just blindly following tradition. Invent your own styles and systems. Don’t be enslaved and trapped by the past and a particular look. Shake up the institution you’re a part of. Change things. Move the furniture around. Change the lightbulbs. Stand up to the older generation who prefer it their way and are intimidated by the challenge of creating a new subset and a newer mind-set. It is the same process that me and my young friends created by inventing a new look for riding our own customized Harleys. We did that literally by reinventing the Harley-Davidson from the ground up and by conforming to our own vision and not that of the motorcycle company and the dealers. We converted our machines from what we considered to be loaded-down garbage wagons to sleek, stylish choppers. We also transformed the old-fashioned concept of Sunday-afternoon motorcycling into a key ingredient of the new counterculture of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We became labeled as the one-percenters that gave motorcyclists a bad reputation. In turn, we gave an established, staid, and stodgy organization like Harley-Davidson a new lease on life. They started selling a lot more bikes to a younger demographic.
Create your own new one percent. Just as we found a new way of horrifying the establishment of weekend riders, young riders of today are rebelling in their way by showing a preference for speed. They favor faster and modern brands of European or Japanese sport bikes to Harleys. These are the bikes that are now leaving Harleys in the dust, and are bikes that, out of the box, can get up to speeds of over a hundred to a hundred and twenty miles per hour in a matter of seconds.
Go beyond the bikes and bike clubs for a second. Think about becoming the individual that you want to be and not something your peers or parents expect you to be. Do it your way and don’t keep looking for constant approval. It will come in time if you are true to your own instincts and passions. Be true to yourself, everything else will follow.
A word of warning. When you break new earth, you’ll instantly be considered an outsider. You’re bound to meet lots of resistance from the old guard. When you create something new and unique, it’s harder for the old guys to dismiss and judge you by the same old (un)reliable standards.
Without an infusion of new ideology, institutions are doomed to become just that—institutions. They become parodies and clichéd versions of themselves, or worse, complacent and established relics and rituals of the past. They hang on to tradition and hide behind it.
Whatever you do to distinguish yourself will necessarily involve some kind of danger, some kind of risk, and the challenge of doing something new. No risk, no gain. It’s up to you to keep it interesting and new and, most important, you.
11
Leaders Accept Dissent, the Tyrant Goes It Alone
Can you handle an honest disagreement?
Many leaders like to think that they surround themselves with the brightest, the toughest, and the best, but how many have the balls to surround themselves with the most honest?
As Americans with less than three hundred years of heritage, we rose from the spirit of violence, rebellion, and revolution to become a nation of doubters and dissenters. It’s in our genes to stand up and disagree. That’s the cloth Americans are cut from. Thomas Jefferson did not firmly believe in democracy, but he sure as hell felt strongly about liberty. And in many people’s heads, there was no stronger defender of the American way than Thomas Jefferson.
There’s bound to be lots of disagreement and dissent among defiant individuals. When you surround yourself with dyed-in-the-wool individualists, that’s the cost.
The organization that I belonged to was filled with individualists, tall, short, smart, not so smart, funny, morose, etc., but we were a group and had one thing in common: we all liked to ride motorcycles and that was the common denominator. When there was dissension (and you can surely believe there was), we always got b
ack to the common good of all, and as the leader, I had the job of making that decision.
Tyrants are always right because they insist they are. They don’t listen to anyone but themselves anyway. Leaders listen and act accordingly.
As a leader, don’t confuse honest dissent with disloyalty or subversion. Take dissent and criticism as it’s intended (provided it’s honest). Listen hard. And don’t take it personally. Good dissent may come from that lone, brave friend and colleague who will save you from making the biggest mistake or the worst decision of your life.
12
If You Want to Travel Fast, Travel Light
Strip away the excess baggage inside your brain and move through your problems and obstacles faster. You weren’t born on drugs, with a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit or a drinking problem. Why not streamline yourself and clean up. If you’re using, take a week off from the substances. Can you do it? You can if you want to.
When I originally stripped my bike down, it was to lighten the load and reduce wind resistance. It was a bumpy, rigid ride, but when you’re young, the rough ride only makes you tougher and able to face a lot of things, because nothing is easy. But it was the simplicity of the stripped-down bike that I dug. I didn’t really need or want all those mirrors and saddlebags and aerials and fancy partner seats. I wanted to ride by myself—fast and my way.
Too many people complicate their lives by trying to have it all: the career, the money, the family, the respect, too many friends, too many cars, and too many bedrooms in an empty house. It’s like the bike with so many gadgets on it that you forget why you’re even riding it.
