Orangeworld Choppers

Having lived in Orangeworld now for three years, it has only recently come to my attention that this town seems to be some kind of haven for bikers.

I am used the to the many ner' do wells who haunt the two local bars, from which C and I are often required to flee, due to the frequent appearance of former and existing clients who like nothing better, then when completely hammered, to stumble up and strike a confrontational conversation about whatever issues led us to be involved with them in the first place.

In my case the conversation goes something like this: "You know that landlord who said I was a drunk and fought all the time?!?!??... Well he is...a big fuck.....I shud jus' punch his face in!" this address delivered while said person is weaving dangerously back and forth on his heels, perhaps about to crash backward into the "Country and Western" juke box.

In any event a large group of "patch sporting bikers" has recently taken to holding improptu "runs" at one such local establishment on 'dead' mid-week nights.

Of course they all sport the same greying long hair pulled back in a pony tail; faded jeans with the giant beer gut dangling over their belt like a cliff shelf, this having made it necessary, over the years, to have their "mamas" let their leathers out.

In an intriguing Sopranos like fashion they all retire to a bunch of empty boothes in the back of the bar and, interestingly enough, talk quietly and keep to themselves. They are more polite and less intrusive than many bar patrons (for example the pool player who insists on standing next to our table and repeatedly breaks wind while braying: "Well I'm just airing my views...Bla...ha ha ha!!!")

Most intriguing is the bikers' strange homemade magazine that can always be found piled around the bar in their wake.

I never really knew much about bikers before except, that in criminal lawyer terms, they are your dream clients: they pay in cash, always pay their bills and always pay your full fee.

Reviewing the "biker" mag it has come to my attention that bikers inhabit a truely weird place in the, how should I say it: "political spectrum"... hmm... No... "social spectrum" hmm No... "natural and animal spectrum"..? No.

Let's just say in all of the above.

They are...well, right-wing, racist, sexist, Liberatarian neo-Nazis.

In the circles I run with, no one would accuse the police of being "lefty-liberals" however according to "Truly Bizarre Stupid Biker Today Magazine" (it really has no title I just made that up) the police are in the pay of the 'liberal left media' who are the stoogie tools of non-english speaking 'immigrant hordes' whom are either dupes of the 'liberal left media' (who control the police) or their victims... I really, actually didn't think that Hitlerian logic still lives!

So let's get a little more aquainted...

Bikers, who we all know, really and quite frankly control a large part of the drug trade and other unsavoury businesses are, in the pages of their tomes, some kind of free market-ish, brave lone wolves who are subject to unwarranted persecution by the state (which incidentally is controlled by immigrants and left liberal media).

Contrast this with the bikers' view of the 'bad drug dealers' whom the magazine insinuates are 'immigrants'.

Numerous cartoons show clumsy and comical police officers staking out hairy bikers who are simply going about their business, while behind the cops' backs, characters resembling "Japs" from WWII racist propoganda wander in and out of grow-op houses with garbage bags of dope.

Onto gender issues, the magazine sports misogynistic joke pages which contain hilarious 'fun' dictionaries such as what women really mean when they say things. Invariably the meaning of any thing a woman says, means she is "fat" or a "bitch".

For example when a woman says 'I am tired' she really means "I am fat"; "I am not interested means" "she is a fat bitch" etc... these boys forgetting that in terms of "fat"(and I don't mean in the hip hop 'phat' way) bikers have not just taken the cake, but clearly eaten all of it too.

The sexism and surreal racism is compounded only by the odd homophobia.

'Their' women, who pose throughout the pages on old Harleys wearing very little, like to add their comedic skills to the mag, relating how they can tell if someone is really a "fag" through all sorts of strange and barbaric criteria that would make any man, straight or gay, especially those who endured gym class in say 1979 or 80', puke due to post traumatic stress.

What I find, in the end, perhaps most odd about the whole thing is the chest thumping, gingoistic obsession in the magazine on "supporting our troops". There is picture after picture of men in uniforms; many pages feature yellow "Support our Troops" ribbons followed by 'jokes' or jibes directed at people who "undermine the war on terror". All this is delivered in a manner so vitriolic that some American mid-west hippie basher circa 1968 would end up feeling somewhat effete.

So how is it that fat, racist, homophobic, sexist, hairy guys, whom break all criminal law; control organized crime and prostitution; and incidentally,couldn't get into the army themselves, end up thinking of themselves as the salt of the earth and and defenders of Canada of yore?

By the way Stephen Harper, in the biker mags, they just love you....