Late last week when I first wrote the first draft of this piece, I was angry and it sounds like it. Over time as I waited for permission to use various pictures and/or searched for free to use images on the internet, it crossed my mind that it might need to be toned down a bit. After re-reading it tonight for the 100th time I have decided to let it roll as is anger & all because it is the truth. Unlike some assholes I consider all who ride to be my brothers & sisters. Sure the odd fool might embarrass the family but to preserve the biker way of life we have got to stick together regardless of race or type of motorcycle we choose to ride.
Positive imagery provided courtesy of Bear over at The Old Bike Barn FB page! Thanks This is the link for the main Old Bike Barn Store.
All over the internet and on the news all day and all night since Memorial Day weekend, all kinds of whiny, scared weenies, greedy developers and racist jackasses have been calling for an end to the Annual Atlantic Beach Bikefest, more commonly called Black Bike Week. Last weekend a bunch of thugs from Summerville, were in Myrtle Beach and decided to shoot the place up. I must point out that none of the shooters or the targets for that matter had anything in common with the bikers except for race. You can Google the thuglife dot com website for the Charleston, S.C. area. I refuse to link directly to it but if you wanna look it up and verify what I am saying be my guest. Somehow this important distinction has been lost by all of the news media, why? Because for years the city leaders of Myrtle Beach have been scheming and dreaming of ways to get rid of everyone they consider undesirable, this especially includes anyone on a motorcycle whether black, white or any other variation of humanity.
First some background information I am a redneck good old boy white-bread cracker and damn proud of it. Yes I got a Rebel flag around here somewhere & I listen to a lot of southern rock & heavy metal music. Anybody tells you that I hate anyone for any reason is yanking your chain so that they can control you, don’t let them do it. I also love custom cars, fast bikes, big ass trucks and hot ladies. Perhaps unusual for a person of my background I prefer sports bikes over the Harley type stuff. Most important of all I believe in the freedom that motorcycles symbolize for all of us. Ever since the city of Myrtle Beach started harassing bikers to put an end to the rallies I have only been to that giant ocean side hospice center 3 times. Once to support Ron Paul during the republican debates, once to visit with a dying friend, and then back for his funeral. I have not been back since and I never ever plan to return again. If you own a motorcycle or if you love someone who does, my opinion is that you should NEVER go to Myrtle Beach at any time for any reason. Go directly to Atlantic Beach for the Bikefest, if you can’t get a room there stay anywhere close by except Myrtle Beach. There are plenty of other nice beaches for your family vacation the rest of the year too, let this place go to hell without you.
For the longest time the Grand Strand was referred to as the “Redneck Riviera” and for the longest time the vast majority of the crowds were local or nearly local people. But with time and prosperity tourists began to trickle in from further and further away, many from the eastern seaboard began to even bypass their local beaches up north to visit the warmer and at the time safer southern paradise of Myrtle Beach, especially the older snow birds. The problem was that this place was filled with a bunch noisy loud people who liked to have too much fun too late at night. Ocean Boulevard was crowded with cars & truck filled with (mostly) young people having fun. In the summertime, during my last couple of years of high school almost every other Friday night we would head to the beach in a convoy of vehicles from Darlington and cruise until the sun came back up! Then of course there were the bike rallies, for several years in a row a few friends and I would hit the beach and enjoy the show, eat too much expensive local seafood, and have a few beers. The scene on the boulevard didn’t even get rocking until after midnight, sleep was what you did in the morning. The African-American bikers had their rally up at Atlantic Beach and yes some of them would roll down south to have a look around. Big deal, we all came to the beach to have a good time without hurting anybody and that is exactly what we did.
Some of the good old boys in trucks like this could be your best allies if you reach out
This magnificent truck was painted by Lex at http://lexnfx.com/ If you need a badass custom paint job he is the man to see. Seriously go check out his website.
But the (northern) tourists and the snowbirds whined that all of these rednecks, bikers and blacks were keeping them awake past 9:00 p.m. Why couldn’t Myrtle Beach be more like the Jersey Shore, or the big city west coast beaches? So with dollar signs floating before their eyes at the possibility of so much more tourist money from far away and from wealthy retirees who just wanted to play golf by the ocean until they passed on, the city fathers began to act. Using the strategy of divide and conquer they decided that the first group that had to go was all of these noisy ass redneck teenagers from the surrounding area. After all they didn’t spend that much money, not being old enough to drink and being more interested in getting laid than playing golf, combined with all of the redneck imagery such as the loud music and Confederate flag license plates, they made an easy target. The first step was the introduction of anti-cruising ordinances, and very heavy handed enforcement of noise and traffic laws. Together with members of other local groups the beach area was completely sterilized of anything a local young person might enjoy. I do realize that some of you reading this are probably glad they got rid of them and may have even helped to run the rednecks out due to racial politics. I forgive you and plan to help you fight to keep your rally, just remember to stay free we must fight for every man’s freedom whether we like them or not. Think about it, back when the rednecks ruled Myrtle Beach y’all didn’t have nearly the trouble you got now. A bunch of rich white progressives are way more dangerous to your freedom. Plus they are the worst fucking prudes on the planet, no fun allowed with them in control.
They really mean it at Myrtle Beach!
The next big target was the Harley rally, at the time it was the easier target. All those damn drag pipes echoed up and down the walls of the new high rise condos on Ocean Boulevard, keeping the highly desirable newlywed or nearly dead tourists awake at night. It didn’t matter that the bikers usually brought great big bags of dollars and spent more money in a shorter period of time than any other group, they had to go. It was not the image that they wanted to project. The desired picture was Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons in Hot Jersey Nights, not Peter Fonda & Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. So they enacted noise restrictions so tight that a stock bike might not pass, put in a city helmet law, greatly restricted vendor permits, and directed the police force to make life as miserable as possible for the bikers until they got the message. I know that I did, and except for the occasions mentioned above I have not been back, and now that my friend has passed on I never will. The Myrtle Beach HOG rally still goes on, but it is just a shadow of its former self and now has much competition for the biker’s cubic dollars from events such as the Outer Banks Rally. If I want to go for a family beach vacation I usually go to one of the small town beaches in N.C.
Now they have the chance to hit their final target Black Bike week. All of these silly people from the far reaches of the land where there are darn few black folks and the ones that they do see resemble Bill Cosby’s t.v. family, well they are scared to death of a man on a motorcycle and when it’s a black man on a motorcycle, it just scares them that much more. The Bikefest had a couple of advantages, the first being that the epicenter is in Atlantic Beach, out of reach of the Myrtle Beach law, and the second being that the NAACP was watching over the whole proceeding looking to sue the ass off of anyone that they could possibly could claim was acting out of racism. At the time this all started I think Myrtle Beach had a republican mayor, so they were afraid to crack down on them as they had the other two groups. This turned out to be the two edged sword that may eventually cut the head off of Bikefest. Because they knew the civil rights organizations were monitoring the scene and that the police would be less likely to react, a lot of the thug life crowd began to take advantage of the situation. The rally began to develop a bad reputation that quite frankly had nothing to do with the bikers. The bikers are not the problem, they never have been. Now Myrtle Beach has a super “progressive” democrat mayor, and there has been a major outbreak of violence involving persons of color in Myrtle Beach at the same time as the Bikefest was happening in Atlantic Beach. If any civil rights group tries to stop them, the democrats, backed by the will of most of the people of all colors in this state, will scream, “We’ve got to protect our children!” and then bitch slap them into the middle of next week. And yet another group of innocent people will lose a little bit more of their freedom.
If you think what I am saying is a little far-fetched just remember when you cruise through Atlantic Beach, you see the historical African-American beach in S.C. When they look at Atlantic Beach all they can see is how much money could be made if they could bulldoze it flat and then build 500 more 20 story condos packed to the rafters with blue haired Canadians and retired farmers from Minnesota. It ain’t about racism, they take advantage of other peoples racism to further their agenda but it’s all about money, and that’s the bottom line. If it were just racism it could be stamped out, but the ever increasing greed of well-heeled politicians (regardless of party) will never die.
Once again let me state. The Bikers Are Not The Problem! The root of this problem is in the policies and development directions pursued by the leaders of Myrtle Beach. The problem with their desire to attract the big city tourists and remake Myrtle Beach into a “Coney Island / Jersey Shore South” kind of place, they forgot the reason the reasons that people were looking for alternatives to these places, namely overcrowding and a growing crime rate. The shootings this weekend had nothing to do with the bikers, period. Gang style violence of this type is a regular event in the locations that the powers that be in Myrtle Beach are trying to emulate, and even if all of the bikers are permanently banned from the area, unless the city leaders change their tune and quit trying to become another overdeveloped big city beach these problems are only going to get worse. Quit blaming the bikers and open your eyes to the truth.
Trust me a man on a 20 grand custom bike like this one below is not going to cause you problems, I don’t care how he looks to all the straight laced types.
I’d like to have a beer with this man & talk about motorcycles.
Let me go on the record as stating the city officials of Myrtle Beach asked for this when they started their war on bikers a decade ago. While most folks like me just shook their heads and walked away some decided to stay and fight it out. African Americans came out in droves to support the Bikefest even if they didn’t ride. Too bad all of you Caucasian bastards didn’t help us, no y’all were glad to see most of us gone and still hope to get rid of the rest. FYYFF”S! Of course anytime you get a much larger crowd than normal you’re gonna get a few trouble makers, but like I said, y’all asked for it and you got it.
Now there is one thing the bikers, the leadership of Atlantic Beach, and the various civil rights organizations are going to have to do. You’re going to need to step up a little bit and push back against the thugs, maybe even crack a few heads, or help the Myrtle Beach po po identify the bad guys before they cost you not just your rally but the entire city of Atlantic Beach. The bikers and the people of Atlantic Beach deserve better than to be smeared by the actions of criminals, and yes it is not fair that the innocent parties have to do something about the problems. All I can tell you about that is welcome to my world. The rich old men with the big money bags are just waiting on someone to screw up bad enough so that they can snatch it all away from you and make themselves even richer.
Nothing like a strong beautiful woman riding her own ride!
Now let me address some of the shit that I have heard from stupid ass white people. One guy was on the news talking about two wheeled terrorists, because he saw some bikers dressed all in black with bandannas over their face. Listen up sunshine, a bandanna over the face worn by a person on a motorcycle is a piece of protective gear not any kind of attempt to be sinister. If you are that damn stupid that you have to describe folks trying to keep bugs, dust & rocks off their face as terrorists all I have to say to you is Yankee go home, and stay there.
Of course there are also all the complaints about the women in teenie weenie bikinis. It’s the beach people! It’s a place to have a good time, with as few clothes as possible. As long as they got their nipples and their slits covered up, please quit griping, if you want to be somewhere where women are completely covered up perhaps you should vacation in Lancaster, PA or Tehran, not at any beach anywhere in the U.S. Same thing goes for some occasional whooping, hollering, engine revving, and maybe even a burn out or two Yes some people might go a little too far and folks who are actually endangering other people should be stopped. But the enjoyment of freedom always involves a bit of risk, and believe it or not, free men and women prefer it that way.
Until next time ride hard, ride as safe as you can and still ride happy.
Peace Y’all,
‘Psyco
Welcome to the Asylum 