by Sonny Barger
School and I didn’t fit well together; there were far too many rules and things we had to do and it seemed to me that all we did was sit there. I wanted to be outside doing something.
I’ve always been someone that wants to be doing something. Not talking about it or thinking about what could be done, but doing it. I have always felt my first impulse or instinct was right and I’ve gotten this far, so something must have been working.
But as I have gone through life, I have seen too many people sitting on the sidelines watching and I think it must be one of two things that makes them do that: fear or laziness.
Fear could take the form of being afraid they might be wrong or, even more, fearful for their lives, reputations, and well-being.
Laziness is another thing altogether. That’s a habit developed by people who just float through life and let others do things for them and are not interested in making a difference anyway.
In the late sixties, there were a lot of antiwar demonstrations going on and in particular a lot going on in the Bay Area, where I lived. I knew my position on the war, and rather than not getting involved, I did. With seven or eight of my fellow club members, I went to a demonstration just to see what was going on. The club was basically apolitical, but some of us were veterans and had served and we didn’t like the way the demonstrators were treating the Vietnam veterans. They were not only blaming them but ridiculing them.
So we went out to a major demonstration to make our point just like the demonstrators against the war were making theirs. Fair is fair. We wanted to make it clear where we stood on the war as well, and guess what, we were for it.
Big surprise to everybody.
I felt like the peaceniks were only agitating and calling names and really didn’t have specific complaints except for the fact that they wanted the war to stop. They weren’t getting anything done really, except for looking like heroes in one another’s eyes.
We made our point and left.
If something is wrong, as I have said before, it is up to you to fix it. Don’t just sit there, do something rather than obeying and criticizing. Challenge the systems of control. Only you can change your world.
49
Blood Makes Everything Slippery
I took my inspiration from a movie; you can take yours from wherever you want.
Johnny or Chino? Who’s the man?
Over fifty years after its debut, The Wild One remains an important movie to me. It’s a movie about freedom on a motorcycle that sparked a revolution among teenagers of the fifties and on into the sixties. It was my first realization of freedom.
Most of the film’s fans identify with Marlon Brando’s character, Johnny Strabler. Brando, who did a lot of his own riding in the film, influenced a later crop of rebel movies and actors, including Rebel Without a Cause, Jailhouse Rock, and much later, Easy Rider. Aside from being banned in England for fourteen years and selling a lot of black leather jackets and motorcycles, The Wild One did only respectable business. But it set off a whole new genre of film, the low-budget bike picture (including Hell’s Angels ’69 and Hell’s Angels on Wheels, in which I participated). Some maintain that The Wild One set motorcycling back years, but for me, it pushed it into a proper perspective.
The Wild One was the first movie I saw that put the feel of motorcycle riding in a realistic light. It depicted motorcycles ridden in tight military squadron formation, the principle from which many an early motorcycle club was born. In the movie, there are drag races in the street. Doughnuts are spun in the dust. Women are chased and ogled at.
The Wild One woke up American youth during the sleepy conforming Eisenhower fifties. It sparked a rebellion, causing kids like me to question their own views on authority and freedom. The Wild One hit a nerve and jump-started the cultural revolution of the sixties. All sparked by motorcycle riders.
During the final scene of the movie, Johnny smiles. But Chino, the Lee Marvin character, doesn’t stop grinning throughout the entire film, even when he’s knocked silly off his bike. While everyone else deals with the calamity and confusion, and while Johnny is nearly broken by the system, Chino is the only guy who truly has life by the balls. He is the hero who is free and rides, off camera, into the sunset.
Most people are raised to be quiet, to conform, to obey. They’re told they should go through life avoiding risks or fights or trouble or whatever. We’re raised to think that blood, violence, and sex are things to be avoided. But watching Chino made me realize that it’s not that simple. For some of us, living outside of the rules, outside the norm, outside of where things are safe and predictable and boring, is where life is at its best.
Blood makes everything slippery.
50
Keep Things Fresh by Replacing the Tires and Checking the Oil
How big is your world, and is it getting bigger or smaller?
The size of your world is in direct proportion to how much courage you have to fill it, change it, and even leave it. During my last days in Oakland, I felt that my way of life was shrinking. As traffic clogged the roadways (and age clogged my arteries), even the sky seemed to be closing in on me. I had a couple of heart attacks. California, the original motorcyclists’ paradise, seemed fenced in and I was shrinking with it. The streets seemed filled with cops. The population numbers told me everything I needed to know. Twenty-seven million people now lived in California. Arizona had six million.
It was time to move on. I was gone.
Those of you who live in places like Montana or the Dakotas know all about space. You understand the concept of open skies. I found out that environment reflects your mood, and my mood was changing for the worse. I was running out of sky, and I felt the need to feel more space. Sonny’s rule of thumb: the bigger the sky, the bigger your world, the more room you have to move.
I had experienced the desert near Phoenix while I was in the federal prison there, and became fond of the hot dry climate that seemed to favor my respiratory system. It’s also a great place to ride, if you can get away from the city.
My world grew suddenly and dramatically when I moved to the Southwestern United States. It took a bit of courage, first to admit to myself that I needed a change in scenery after many decades, and then to actually move on. Sell the house. Pack up the stuff I’d accumulated over a half century. Leave most of my best friends miles behind. Ride away from my birthplace. But in the end, it was all worth the effort.
The minute I made the commitment to relocate to a place with more room to ride, more sky to look up at, and more air to breathe, I instantly felt my lungs and my world expanding. I could now physically breathe deeper. I felt stronger. Once a free mind is rocked by a new idea and a new environment, it is never the same. Change was great. Once again, I was ridin’ high and livin’ free. I wasn’t sticking around someplace for the sake of sticking around, and that included my home and my relationships.
Fewer laws contribute to living a larger “Barger” life. As California became more and more legislated, I longed for a new Wild Western home front. I’d lived in California since the day I was born. California was no longer the secret paradise. The word was out. Even the gold country seemed crowded. I needed broader horizons, where I could open up the throttle and really let my bike and my life kick loose. For me, that place turned out to be Arizona.
I can already see houses and shops creeping in where there was once dry empty land. I guess it’s inevitable. Like the lonesome fugitive my buddy Merle Haggard sings about, I’ll be on the run again soon, chased farther and farther up a country road, farther away from the crowds and the housing developments that keep popping up everywhere. It’s a fact of life that if you’re not running from the law, you only have to stay one step ahead of everyone else, and you’ll be okay. I know that now, know that I must keep riding and keep moving.
And I will.
Be free.
About the Author
Ralph “Sonny” Barger currently lives near Phoenix, Arizona, having
moved from his longtime hometown of Oakland. He is now a member of the Cave Creek chapter of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club. A master mechanic, he has been technical consultant on several biker films including Hell’s Angels on Wheels and Hell’s Angels ’69, has served time in federal and state penitentiaries, and is developing a movie based on his autobiography. He rides his customized Harley-Davidson every day and bench-presses 285 pounds. Keith and Kent Zimmerman are a unique writing team of twin brothers. They are coauthors of Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, written with John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, a number one bestseller in Britain that was nominated for a Ralph J. Gleason Book Award. “The Zimmermen” also cowrote Daddy-O: Iguana Heads and Texas Tales, which delved into the life of Texas sculptor and photo-realist painter Robert “Daddy-O” Wade.
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Also by Sonny Barger
Dead in 5 Heartbeats
Ridin’ High, Livin’ Free
Hell’s Angel
Copyright
FREEDOM. Copyright © 2005 by Sonny Barger Productions. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader December 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-157348-4
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