Winterhalder The Assimilation

Rock Machine Become Bandidos: Bikers United Against The Hells Angels
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9899997-6-2
Verlag: Blockhead City Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 258 Seiten

Reihe: The Assimilation

In the early 1990s, Maurice 'Mom' Boucher and his fellow Montreal Hells Angels, reputedly the most ruthless and vicious bikers in the world, subdued all comers except the tough-as-nails members of the Rock Machine. Founded by Salvatore Cazzetta, an ex-friend of Boucher, the Rock Machine had every intention of standing up against the Hells Angels. Seven years of bloody conflict, which left over 160 people dead and countless injured, was the result. Heavily outnumbered, the Rock Machine appealed to the worldwide Bandidos Motorcycle Club, who rivaled the Hells Angels in terms of membership and strength. In January 2000, the Rock Machine ceased to exist and became a probationary Bandidos chapter - the first to be established on Canadian soil. Biker Edward Winterhalder was assigned by the Bandidos to coordinate the transition. Although the stage had been set for an end to the biker war and a positive outcome for all, it was anything but. Starting with the arrest and unsuccessful deportation proceedings of Winterhalder by the Canadian authorities, more intrigue, assassinations, and double-crosses, Winterhalder found himself in a situation even he found impossible to control. In The Assimilation, Winterhalder - in collaboration with author Wil De Clercq - recalls his life and times as an outlaw biker; his personal involvement in the creation of the Quebec Bandidos; his friendship with the key players who made it happen; and his eventual disillusionment with, and exit from, the Bandidos Nation.

Wil De Clercq lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, and has worked as a freelance writer and editor, a visual artist, and in such diverse fields as demolition, the merchant marines, faux finish painting, advertising copywriting, and film and television production. He has been a dynamic force in the world of motorcycle journalism for more than thirty-five years. Wil De Clercq's books include Biker Chicz: The Attraction Of Women To Motorcycles And Outlaw Bikers with co-author Edward Winterhalder (2014); Biker Chicz of North America with co-author Edward Winterhalder (2010); Biker Chicks: The Magnetic Attraction of Women to Bad Boys and Motorbikes with co-authors Edward Winterhalder and Arthur Veno (2009); The Assimilation: Rock Machine Become Bandidos - Bikers United Against The Hells Angels with co-author Edward Winterhalder (2008); To Dakar And Back: 21 Days Across North Africa By Motorcycle with co-author Lawrence Hacking (2008); and Blond China Doll: A Shanghai Interlude 1939 - 1953 with co-author Hannelore Heinemann Headley (2004).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Winterhalder, Edward

Leseproben

Prologue I was eleven years old when Donald Eugene Chambers founded the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in San Leon, Texas. The year was 1966. Chambers, who was born in Houston, Texas, in 1930, was hooked on the motorcycle way of life from an early age. Although he didn’t race motorcycles, he was an avid fan of two-wheeled competition and belonged to an American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) affiliated motorcycle club called the Eagles. The club’s members religiously hit the road to attend and support AMA races in southeastern Texas. Eventually Chambers migrated from the Eagles to another motorcycle club called the Reapers, which, as their name suggests, was an outlaw club. In the Reapers, he attained the position of national secretary which provided him with a solid grounding in the dynamics of how to successfully run a motorcycle club. It was only a matter of time before Chambers, who liked to do things his own way, got an itch to found his own club – a club he would call the Bandidos. The founder of the Bandidos has often been characterized by journalists and authors alike as a disillusioned Vietnam War, Marine Corps veteran who became a biker – like so many other vets – because he had an axe to grind with American society, a society that denigrated survivors of that terrible war as losers and baby killers; that spat upon them in airports; and that in many cases denied them employment. The truth, however, is in direct opposition to the myth: Don Chambers, although at one time a member of the Marine Corps, was anything but a disillusioned Vietnam vet. The closest he got to Vietnam was the evening news. Whether he was disillusioned or not is a moot point: it sounds good in print and jells with the cliché portrayals of bikers. In society’s collective consciousness, anybody who starts or joins an outlaw motorcycle club must be disillusioned, disturbed, antisocial, or rebelling against something – perhaps all of the above. No doubt Bandido Don was disillusioned with American society of the 1960s as were millions of hippies, college students, and assorted left-wingers during that turbulent decade. Another misconception, which has been disseminated by many journalists, is that Chambers chose the red and gold colors of the Marines for the Bandidos’ patch in tribute to the Corps. Actually, the original patch colors he chose were red and yellow, inspired by the coral snake and a southern expression “red and yellow, kill a fellow”. Red and gold wasn’t adopted until a number of years after the Bandidos were founded. And contrary to popular belief, Chambers did not base the central image of his club’s patch on the cartoon character in the Frito Lay Bandito TV commercial. Although it makes for an interesting story it lacks total credence, as the commercial didn’t even start airing until 1967, and only during children’s programming. Another myth surrounding the founding of the Bandidos is that it was Chambers’ intention to create an intimidating gang that would control the Texas drug trade. When the Bandidos Motorcycle Club first came into being Chambers was a gainfully employed longshoreman on the docks of Galveston, not some kind of kingpin drug dealer as has been suggested. While it can’t be denied that Bandido Don became involved with drugs – it is a matter of record that he was mixed up in a drugs-related double homicide for which he served time in prison – like the dozens of other outlaw motorcycle clubs established in the late fifties and early sixties riding Harley Davidsons, drinking, partying, and rabblerousing were the Bandidos’ mandate. The slogan Chambers adopted for the club – we are the people our parents warned us about – is the key to the mindset he harbored: fuck the world! We’re not toeing the line; we’re not the conditioned little puppets churned out by the system to serve society and the ruling elite who push the buttons; we do things our own way! As an outlaw biker Chambers’ philosophy and feelings towards mainstream society was well defined: “One percenters are the one percent of us who have given up on society and the politician’s one-way law. We’re saying we don’t want to be like you. So stay out of our face. It’s one for all and all for one. If you don’t think this way then walk away, because you are a citizen and don’t belong with us.” Exactly what inspired Chambers to call his club the Bandidos, and where exactly the “Fat Mexican” patch idea come from, is much less sensational than the myth. People who were close to Chambers admit he possessed a vivid imagination, an imagination that found inspiration in Mexican folklore and its close ties with the Tex-Mex community. Chambers was known to hold a fascination with Mexican desperados and he spent countless hours in his local library reading up on them. From there it’s a short path to the Texas motorcycle club that would bear the Bandidos name. Although the original Mexican bandidos were scruffy and mean hombres who engaged in disreputable deeds ranging from raping to pillaging to causing havoc wherever they went, they would never foul up their own towns. If anything, bandidos were their town’s protectors and quasi-law enforcement officers. During the French Intervention in Mexico they even fought the invaders alongside government troops, militia, and mercenaries. The popular image of the Mexican bandido as a well-fed and juiced-up pistol and machete wielding character, wearing a sombrero and bandoleer, led Chambers to adopt it for his club’s patch. The caricature of the Fat Mexican is at once humorous and menacing, and clearly sends a message: don’t mess with me compadre! While the idea for the Fat Mexican logo undoubtedly belonged to Chambers, the actual design was executed by a local Houston artist who had also been responsible for the logo of the Reapers. Once Chambers had a name for his club, a patch, and governing laws and by-laws put in place, he started recruiting potential members which did indeed include Vietnam veterans. It was only a matter of time before the club started to spread throughout the South, Southwest, Midwest, and Northwest and the Fat Mexican patch became ingrained in the minds of citizens everywhere. At the time of the Bandidos’ founding there were numerous motorcycle clubs in the United States. These included AMA chartered clubs that were dedicated strictly to the promotion of motorcycling events including touring and racing. These were often family oriented clubs and carried with them an aura of respectability. The first motorcycle club in America, if not the world, was founded in 1903 in Yonkers, NY and aptly called Yonkers MC. The club actually got its start in the late 1800s as a bicycle club. Owning a bicycle back then was considered daring and different. But with the advent of motorized cycles, the Yonkers Bicycle Club became a bona fide motorcycle club in 1903. It is still active today and can unequivocally claim to be the forerunner of every motorcycle club that followed. The Yonkers MC’s main activities included recreational riding, staging racing events, and most importantly, extreme partying! One year after Yonkers MC was founded on the east coast the west coast got its first motorcycle club. It was started in San Francisco and appropriately called the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. Like the Yonkers it is still active today and was created with the same mandate in mind. Both clubs became among the first chartered members of the AMA, an organization that actually wasn’t launched until 1924. Although latter day Yonkers and SFMC members have been active in the outlaw community at certain times, neither club has ever worn the outlaw 1%er badge and are still considered to be family oriented clubs. By 1966 there were plenty of outlaw clubs as well. In the public’s perception, these clubs were made up of dangerous individuals who were to be avoided at all cost. This is not surprising considering the steady diet of badass Hollywood biker movies of the sixties, and highly publicized and exaggerated, mostly isolated incidents, fed to mainstream America.The cornerstone of the modern-day outlaw motorcycle club lies in California, long known to be a magnet and incubator for off-the-wall social movements and radical concepts. Its genesis can be found with the hard-riding, hard-drinking, and hard-fisted members of two clubs: the Boozefighters of Los Angeles and the Pissed Off Bastards of Fontana. Both clubs were kick-started in the wake of World War II when motorcycles were cheap and sold by the thousands as war surplus. Many of those who bought bikes gravitated into groups to ride and party together. In a story that has been told and retold countless times, the rowdy presence of the Boozefighters and Pissed Off Bastards at the 1947 Gypsy Tour Rally in the small town of Hollister, California, gave birth to the biker image of troublemaker and antisocial deviant. Their usual high-jinx, hard partying, heavy drinking, and crazy motorcycle stunts, although not exactly Boy Scouts behavior, were totally blown out of proportion and sensationalized in news reports. The most outrageous episode which actually did occur was when two members of the Boozefighters rode their bikes into a local bar. A staged picture – taken by an opportunistic photographer and published in Life Magazine – showed a drunk on a motorcycle clutching a bottle of beer. Ironically, he wasn’t even a member of a motorcycle club. The picture, and headlines such as...