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GOING THE DISTANCE
"JESSE JAMES SUCKS"
by Genghis
PHOTO BY GENGHIS
A SERBIAN PROVERB:
"A greedy father has thieves for children."
FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE:
"Long Beach, Calif., resident Deann McClung, then 34, claimed James made "sexually offensive contact with her breasts" and "did cause [her] to have sexually offensive contact with his sexual organ," according to the lawsuit, which was released from court archives.
James, now 40, countersued the woman for fraud, but both cases were ultimately dismissed in May 2001. L.A. attorney Patrick Fraioli says, "In a case like this, I strongly suspect a settlement was reached."
An attorney for James, who did not represent him at the time, says the lawsuit appears "baseless."
"It is unfortunate but many times despite the total lack of merit it becomes more expedient just to resolve the matter as opposed to going through the process," James's attorney says. "I believe that is what happened in that particular situation."
A lawyer for McClung had no comment.
McClung, who was hired at the custom motorcycle shop around April 1999, alleges that she was fired less than a year later for her complaints of harassment. She also stated that James made sexual propositions and degrading comments to her and displayed pornography in the workplace. The harassment occurred "on a regular basis," according to the papers.
Since James's alleged cheating scandal broke last week, four women have claimed to have had affairs with Sandra Bullock's husband."
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I never liked Jesse James. I always sensed a slimy crust to the guy, like a disingenuous used car salesman might have. Then again, I'd hate to give used car salesmen a bad name by linking 'em with Jesse James' name.
Even in the days of Snow's Iron Horse when Snow (and the rest of the biker media) slobbered all over James as some sort of customizing guru, I greatly abhorred his money-hungry ways. These were the days before he gained TV notoriety, and eons before he married into Hollywood Royalty by hitching his slimy, greedy ass to America's Sweetheart. I can't muster-up a shred of respect for anyone who charges over a hundred grand for a frickin' bike, man. In my view, no motorcycle is worth more than 15K, period. This is in the real world, now. I ain't rappin' about the hordes of "collectors", Hollywood rich assholes and spoiled millionaiare athletes, who make up Jesse James' customer-base, who
want to paint 'emselves as bikers by Platimum Carding into the life. I'm talkin' about the real world. The one that you and I and other average street bikers inhabit, and have inhabited all of our lives. The Real Biker World where that Harley 74 means everything to us, always has and always will. The prepackaged life story of a guy that was descended from the original Jesse James, the kid who made good by starting customs in his mother's garage culminating in an Golden Empire laid on the foundations of $125 grand motorcycles for sale---left me cold, man. It's too phony.
I couldn't dig the mindset. Deann McClung wasn't the only one who may have had "sexually offensive contact with his sexual organ..." Any morons who paid over 100 grand for a Jesse James bike also blew him big-time. You've gotta be a freakin' moron to spend that kind of bread for a motorcycle.
I understand how the allure of celebrity seduces even bikers. Many in the biker subculture have worshipped at the moneyed feet of people like JJ, simply because it is the human condition for the uber-impressionable to be susceptible to the shine of celebugreeds. People are impressed by bread and power. However, any clear-thinking biker can see through this and see what a crap-pile greedheads like JJ truly are. Perhaps now some can see how virtuous bolt-on parts are. The term "one-off" implies a heavy price tag. "Bolt-on" frees one from the slavery to celebrity and elitism that permeates the world that the JJs luxuriate in. Screw that noise, man! Bikes like my Mabel, a Harley 74 that consists of traditional Harley and aftermarket parts with reasonable prices that were
readily available to any average street biker over the years, is as good as a motorcycle sold for $150,000. Bolt-on parts used to be perceived as a proud tradition in the earlier days of the biker subculture, before "Master Builders" hit the television air waves.
It's the money-driven elitism that's infected the scene for the past couple of decades, that's skewed the reputation of bolt-on components. Hey baby, my S & S Super B carb is a bolt-on part. So are the Avon tires fore and aft on my Stroker Shovel. So is that Harley 21 inch front wheel on Mabel. The rear sixteen? Cheap from Drag Specialties.
Those drag bars? Twenty bucks at Brooklyn Harley-Davidson in 1972. Those 8 inch glide risers? Bought for less than $30 in 1985, straight outta the Paughco catalogue. My horn? Three bucks at K-Mart. The seat? La Pera, cheap 25 years ago.
Ain't nuthin wrong or "one-off" about these components, at all. Maybe it's me, but I take great pride in buying all my clothes at K-Mart. Jeans for sixteen bucks. A belt for five. A package of four pocket-Ts for nine. Screw designer clothes and motorcycles. Gimme my Harley and I'm a happy biker.
Mabel Wong: A five grand Harley, class and tradition mean more than money.
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing what we do have."
FREDERICK KEONIG
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A basic Harley-Davidson no matter what year, replete with all the class that has made the Harley motorcycle the spinal mainstay of the biker subculture for the past 80 years, is all the class that any biker could want. Even a totally unchanged Harley that becomes more than four, five or six decades old, inherits a patina of class that is unattainable with the splashiest of paintjobs or the widest of rear tires covering one-off wheels. There is something special about an original Knuckle, Pan or Shovel for example, that the intervening years have conferred on 'em that makes knowledgeable bikers who see 'em take notice and give apprecation time to 'em.
These old Harleys demand respect and attention, and they get their well-deserved stand-and-look time from true bikers. Biker Lites on their $100 grand Jesse James creations need not apply. They're too engrossed in peer-pressure driven status symbolism, to notice class when they see it.
Harley-Davidson Class shows, man. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it will always be. In the meantime, Greedheads like Jesse James continue to cheat on their old ladies and cheat their well-heeled customers. Later.
FINITO