By Garrison Keillor
In print: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Three-hundred thousand bikers spent Memorial Day weekend roaring around Washington in tribute to our war dead, and I stood on Constitution Avenue Sunday afternoon watching a river of them go by, waiting for a gap in the procession so I could cross over to the Mall and look at pictures. The street had been closed off for them and they motored on by, some flying the Stars and Stripes and the black MIA-POW flag, honking, revving their engines, an endless celebration of internal combustion.
A patriotic bike rally is sort of like a patriotic toilet-papering or patriotic graffiti; the patriotism somehow gets lost in the sheer irritation of the thing. Somehow a person associates Memorial Day with long moments of silence when you summon up mental images of men huddled together on LSTs and pilots revving up B-24s and infantrymen crouched behind piles of rubble steeling themselves for the next push.
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I think that we can all agree that motorcycle clothing is only effective if we wear it. With that being said, what do you think is effective motorcycle clothing?
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This question is kind of broad. What do you think about leather motorcycle jackets? Are they just good protection, or do you also express yourself with the jacket you wear? Are you a leather jacket wearer, and if so: do you wear custom leather? Off the rack leather jackets? Off the rack, with personalized patches? A leather riding vest? Just looking for thoughts and opinions..
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I'm trying to find as many rockandroll, rock or pop songs (or any music) that actually uses the sound of a big chopper revving up. The Shangri-las put out a song in the early 60's called 'Leader of the Pack' - it was a 'death' song, because the biker gets killed in the end in a crash. You hear the engine rev up strongly in the song right after the intro and then you hear it again at the end and you actually hear the crash - pretty abstract for a bubblegum song. It was banned in the UK and on some USA radio stations.
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