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They’re Baa-hack
That ridiculous thing, Sons of Anarchy, begins its second season – of a proposed seven seasons – tonight, Tuesday, September 8th, at ten o’clock Eastern. And apparently, 5.4 million of you have had this day marked on your calendars for ten months. Three weeks ago, according to the Manteca Bulletin, a “mind-boggling” number of the [...]
Continue reading...Shop Class As Soulcraft
29. June 2009
I had a little, blonde, blue-eyed social worker once upon a time. She bought me with those eyes. She could freeze streams with those eyes. She could look a hole through a cloud and she kept those eyes open at all the right times. Sometimes if I shut my eyes I can still see hers. [...]
Continue reading...Dear Rebel: On No Angel
22. May 2009
Sometimes, one of your comments and my response to it, gets up on the page. Because, you know, I am lazy and this is how I can get somebody to do half my work for me. Especially when a holiday is coming up. Today’s winner is Jack. Jack commented on my review of Jay Dobyns’ [...]
Continue reading...No Angel
16. February 2009
The new and improved America has no shame. Shame, to paraphrase a T.S. Eliot character, is now nothing but an obsolete response. And, although this is still only February, the obvious winner of the Shameless Jackass of the Year Award for 2009 can already be named. We need look no further. Jay Dobyns is clearly [...]
Continue reading...The Shovel Revival
5. January 2009
Think of Zephyros Major as a writer hang around. Think of his book, The Shovel Revival: A Motorcycle Manifesto, as his stab at getting a bottom rocker. You know, from one of the major clubs like “Random House” or one of the little ones like “Da Capo.” And, be warned that he only made prospect [...]
Continue reading...Sweet, Sweet Wine
10. November 2008
Biker not look at picture now. Biker read words. Her name is Sara. Does that answer your first question? Now what do you want next? The good news or the not so good news? First the good news. Yes, you are exactly right. Sara does want to party with you. That’s why she is smiling [...]
Continue reading...Sons of Anarchy Revisited
3. November 2008
Sons of Anarchy is officially a television sensation. You must be hooked. Everybody is required to be hooked. Numerous print articles and press releases tell us so. For example, a feature article about the show’s ginormous sensationality, by Los Angeles Times auto writer Susan Carpenter, has been popping up in whole and in part in [...]
Continue reading...Riding On The Edge
22. October 2008
Now it is all just echoes: The echo of the motorcycle club; the echo of the working class hero; the echo of America; the echo of when we never had a doubt; the echo of when we never lost a war, we were always right and we could do anything we could imagine. No wonder [...]
Continue reading...The Mongol’s Memoir
10. September 2008
Stephen Crane described joining a motorcycle club. “I stood upon a high place…” Crane wrote in a slim little book called The Black Riders in 1895. And saw, below, many devils Running, leaping, and carousing in sin. One looked up, grinning, And said, “Comrade! Brother!” Ruben “Doc” Cavazos, the International President of the Mongols Motorcycle [...]
Continue reading...Sons Of Anarchy, Costume Melodrama
4. September 2008
There is not a moment of truth in the FX television networks new costume melodrama, Sons of Anarchy. Not a moment. Not a second. Not a breath. The show was proceeded by such an avalanche of hyperbole that even cynics hoped it might be better. A cogent show about bikers is theoretically possible. HBO’s series [...]
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8. September 2009
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