LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Okay my friends, it's that time of year.  The link below is for Cycle Source Mag's Best of.  Vote and let your voice be heard!  God knows it's never heard any other time lately.  Imagine if you will, someone, something or some organization that actually cares about YOUR THOUGHTS!  So make them known, anonymously of course!  It's the best of both worlds.  You get to stand up and state what you believe and nobody will know you did it!

Time is running short on getting the results and getting them tallied up and off to print, so go cast your votes and share the survey with your peeps! 

Cycle Source Mag's Best of Survey

Till we see each other again,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and the Man off your ASS!

Your friend,

Jack Shit

SLAB CITY RIOT 3 SHUT DOWN BY THE MAN!

Leave it to a bunch of people who claim to be all about FREEDOM and living without judgement to fuck it up for everyone else.  Sure the party got a bit out of hand last year, but what are you going to do.  What blows me away is the fact that the "residents" of Slab City got up the cops asses so bad and it's not like the police didn't hate us all enough already, it gave reason to the event being shut down!  When the pre run scouting party arrived at the Slabs, it was made abundantly clear to them that if everyone showed up the following day, the cops would come down on everyone with an iron boot!  Well who needs that shit!  I've read a whole bunch of blogs and comments on posts about "being real bikers" and "I'd never be run off like that" and "fuck the police".  The guys from Biltwell could have let this event go on because of all the work that has gone in to it.  They could have sat back and let everyone who is supporting them ride right in to an ambush!  Can you afford a handful of tickets for pipes, helmets, signals, horn, etc etc etc etc and then get your bike out of impound, because that is what Califuckinfornia does to people?  No, well most people can't these days.  So rather than let everyone get fucked by the big fist of Johnny Law, I commend them for pulling the plug on this and letting everyone know exactly what happened and giving people a heads up!  So you rode 500 miles to get here for Slab City... ride another 100 and go to the beach or go camp with your bros.... after all, this shit we do is supposed to be about the bike and riding right?  So hop to it and just go fucking ride and quit your bitchin!

Slab City, "the last free place in America" isn't so much about freedom I guess if you don't see eye to eye with the people who live there!  So much for "FREEDOM" right?  Half the people on the Slabs want us there, a few don't.  A few spent money to make t'shirts to sell and are now busted because their Slab neighbors ruined it for them.  Oh well.  So fuck it, we will just ride on to another place, open the same beers that would have been opened there and hang out with the same people just the same.  All you guys did was make this the event that never was, congrats.  Now you will not have drunken bikers campsites to rob and rummage through, so ya screwed yourselves!

So if you were going to Slab City Riot 3, go on the Wuss Ride and I'm sure you will be quite happy where you end up.  No matter what the case, no matter SCR3 or not, I'm pointing my bike in that direction and going anyway!

Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and the Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit

Slab City Memories

With all this talk about the upcoming Slab City Riot 3 just a few days away, I started looking back at some old pics of the last two Riots.  Any way that you slice it or dice it, they've been a great time!  About 80 miles in to the first one, it seemed my knuck began to starve for gas, yet the tank was full.  Nothing like carb troubles in the middle of the damn desert!  No matter what I did, once I hit 70mph, it cut out.  I'd let off the gas a bit and the power would roll back on, till I hit 70mph and then it would repeat over and over.  By the time I made it, I had a wicked case of whiplash.

Here we are replacing the hokie ass copper oil lines that had been put on to replace a broken steel line.  I had just gotten the carb sorted out, hit 90mph on the freeway and GTP came screaming up behind me pointing!  The oil was pouring out and making a massive smoke cloud.  He thought I had burst in to flames riding because of the carb.  The oil was hitting behind me so I never even saw or smelled the smoke!

We always meet up at the Waffle House in Tempe, AZ before we roll out.  This was the meet for the first Slab City Riot.  I had no choice, I had to take a picture with this waitress.  Check out how thick her mustache is!  It was thicker than the one that I had shaved off only the night before!

This shot here of the Knuck was probably the most victorious I had ever felt riding her.  It was a battle like no other getting her to the Slabs between the oil lines and the nightmare of the carb, but I rolled in on her and rolled out on her!  Koko made me proud as fuck that day.  RIDE A KNUCK, CHANGE YOUR LUCK!

Overcoming carb issues was one thing, overcoming other issues took a bit more effort.  Well, effort and court dates as well.  Friends from New Mexico had made the trip out to ride with us and we didn't make it even out of Phoenix before the shit hit the fan!

We've been through carb shit on the way in and just went you think you got it made, on the way home, that's when the throttle cables break.  Thank God we all have friends who allow each other to butcher their bikes for parts that we need for our own.  Thanks to brother Skoog and his push and pull throttle, he had both cable still on his bike... well he did for the first 8 miles of the ride....

I love the way that hungover, Brother Adam is praying to the chopper Gods!  Please oh please let this cable somehow work!  His prayers were answered.... in this instance.   As you can see in this pic, it is nice and sunny and warm!  Holy shit that didn't last!  Wait, let me show you at this point, where the Knuck was.....

Piled up in the truck with the garbage, the coolers and the luggage.  As it turns out that a 10 cent rubber grommet inside the carb had rotted away and that was the cause of all the trouble on the way out!  We gutted it, took it apart and Charlie the Nomad went on a hunt in Slab City.  He came back with a busted up old camp stove.  Found a grommet, believe it or not that was damn near the size and we went to work on it with the file from my leatherman.  The last thing you want to do is be standing in the position that I was, in the middle of the desert 300 miles from home.  The crazy part is, look how happy I still was.

We put the grommet in the carb, put the carb back together, put the carb back on the bike which let everyone else get some much needed sleep because we sure as shit didn't get any the night before.  I kicked the bike over and she fired up on the first kick!  I rode her all the way out of the Slabs and down in to the town of Niland and when I twisted the throttle, it was over!  Thank God we had the truck!
As I wrote in my last blog post about that first trip, we had arrived just as the sun was about to set.  Within a few minutes of our arrival, it was dark.  Within a few more, it was like being out in space.  We had no idea where we had set up camp until the morning.  That is when we had an idea of where we were at and just where we had stayed.  You ever wonder what happens to those campers that people put in their trucks and make the truck about 10 foot high and then they drive them under a 9'8" bridge?  One would think that they go to the junk yard and get crushed!  Not true!  They go to Slab City and people live in them.

 This is no bullshit folks, people actually live in these things.  They get scraps of metal and wooden pallets and they make little fences and gates around them and they decorate them.  It is mind blowing.  Now some of the families that live here are too large for them all to fit in to one smashed up slide in camper shell.  What's a family to do you ask?  Easy answer, just move on in to a two family home like the one shown here in the photo below!  It's fucking mind blowing!

Everything at the Riot revolves around the Range.  It is a stage area with upside down home depot "Homie" buckets hung upside down with light bulbs in them.  That is the stage lighting!  If memory serves me correctly, the man in charge of the stage is named Builder Bob.... no not Bob The Builder as one would think.  As at any performance hall or venue, you need seating right?  Old theater seats without the fabric over the springs are lined up in front of the stage along with all the removable mini van bench seats that have been taken out over the years.  The first time that I saw it a few thoughts entered my mind.  First, I thought of all the movies with the hippies, Easy Rider comes to mind immediately!  They go back to the commune and the hippies perform on stage, this may very well be THAT VERY STAGE!  Then the next thought entered my mind, this screams Spahn Ranch, you know, where the Manson Family lived.  As a matter of fact, the entire place had a very MANSONESQUE feel to it!

Then there are the what the fuck was I thinking times.  Like when you just loosely tie a flannel on the back of your bike while trying to fix your risers as the sun is setting.  You figure, hey, I'm only a few mile away, I'm only going to put it right back on when I get there...... well until it sucks down in to your chain, then in to your primary and then your bike comes to a screeching halt as you are riding.  You and a great many of your friends then spend the next 11 hours or so picking pieces flannel out, one screwdriver size piece at a time!

In the spirit of the Slabs, you have to use everything you find, anywhere.  One mans junk is another man's treasure!  I guess some asshole looked on the map and it read Salton Sea so they came completely prepared for it!  Since there was only one left, God only knows what happened to the asshole or the other leg?

After having learned our lesson picking the spot that we chose last year to camp, at the second Riot, we decided to move to the other side of the luxury home and stake our claim in a better hood.  One of the photos above shows where we woke up and saw the paradise that is the Slabs.  Imagine our surprise when we awoke this year on the good side of the house!  HOLY FUCKING SHIT is all I can say!  Take a look at this shit!

As you can see, a lot of progress has been done on the renovations and the additions that were added to this home in just one short year!  I think the hubcap collection at the main entry to the home is the perfect touch and it just screams, WELCOME!

THE SLAB CITY RIOT is just simply about having a great time in the most traditional BIKER way possible.  Well without the rape of course.  I've still yet to get someone to rape me, but hey, there is always this year!  It is also about partying till you damn near drop fucking dead!  For some, they bring tents and for others it is just a bedroll to keep them off the cold ground.  Then you have the rare person who goes through the trouble of setting up his tent only to use it as a bedroll anyway.  These are my favorite!  This time I brought a tent with me.  I bent 24 tent stakes in half trying to pound them down in to the ground.  I thought it was called Slab City because of the concrete slabs left behind after the base closed.  I think it may actually be named this because the ground itself is hard as a fucking slab! 

It was at the second Riot where I officially met the first Douches in my life that ever needed support!  I could understand a Douche` needing a refill or to have the tube rinsed out, but never before support!

I could go on and on and tell the stories getting to and from the Riot, I could go on and on writing about the parts that fell off, the bikes that broke and the crazy shit that has happened, worse yet, what I've seen.  I won't do it though.  I just took a walk down Slab City Riot memory lane and it made me smile ear to ear and I thought I would share it with you.  What I wanted to do more than anything was end this with photos of the tourist who came to the Riot the very first year, had such a good time that she screwed a dog.  No, I don't mean that she found an ugly broad or an unattractive guy to hook up with.  I mean this bitch got banged by a dog!  Shit folks, I thought it was the local "Slabbers" that we had to worry about, boy was I wrong!  It's the damn tourists that should scare ya.  I'm sorry, I can't find any pics of the girl getting nailed by the dog, sorry to let you down.  On another note, if you have any pics from Riot 1 of this moment, please feel free to send em my way!

For some crazy reason, with all the crazy shit that goes on there, all the bike shots, all the people shots and the shots of Salvation Mountain that I have, this is hands down my favorite pic from the Slab City Riot ever.  That big tan pile next to the coals is me and for the record, no that is not a Don Wood Gypsy Biker Bedroll, this one actually zips up.

Oh yeah, before I close out this post, let me remind you of one very important thing.  Make sure before you leave that you check your site for valuables and such and do a quick double check of the garbage, you just never know what you may find in there!  Hell, look what we found in a pile of garbage.

So if you heard the rumor that George the Painter died 3 years ago, it is true.  Look at this Ghostly Mother Fucker!

See you this weekend at the Slabs!

Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and The Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit

Can't believe it will happen again! BUT IT IS!

I can't believe it!  This is actually going to happen again.  Not only will it happen again, it is now a two day event!  What is this event that I speak of with such shock?  The SLAB CITY RIOT 3!  I've been to both riots now and there will be no way on earth that I am going to miss the 3rd.   As a matter of fact, the photo above was shot around 2am in the middle of the Desert in Niland, California at a closed down pre WWII military base known as Slab City.  Slab City is also known as the LAST FREE PLACE IN AMERICA.  There is no electricity, there is no running water, there is no law and no law enforcement presence, well that is until we arrive!  Then the presence of the law goes through the roof!

I remember the first year of the event.  Here we are in the middle of fucking nowhere, a place lost in time and the police are coming out from behind bushes to write tickets to guys rolling around on bikes in the dust for not wearing helmets.  California and their fascination with writing helmet tickets is beyond comparison.  Well I guess it's any way to make a buck these days!  That first SCR was wild to say the least.  After the battle of a life time with my knuck's carb to even make the 300 mile ride we rolled in just moments before the sun set.  It was surreal to say the very least.  I had never seen anything like it.

The photo above was sent to me from a friend last year.  They found it on a California rock station's web site of all places!  There is no way to describe the way the "residents" of The Slabs live.  I swore to God as the sun went down that we would be pulled in to holes in the ground, knocked out and carried away to be turned in to Slab City Winter Stew!  From the moment you pass what is what I understand to be the only building still standing on the property, the old guard shack at the entrance, your mind begins to stop and refresh, stop and refresh because you just can't believe what you have just seen.  Once past the guard gate, the first thing you see is Salvation Mountain and it will blow you away.

Imagine coming up on a hand painted mountain?  A mountain covered with paint, stucco and caulk.  There truly is no way to describe this.  Some spots, you can actually walk in and through the mountain. 

As the night progressed and the cops kept coming in to the party and believe me, they never came alone, people began busting their balls pretty bad.  Finally somebody asked them "how come you have to come here to harass us"?  The cops response stunned me!  "We are not here to harass you guys, we are here to protect you guys from the "residents" was the cops response.  All I could think was, what the fuck did he just say?  As night fell and darkness arrived, once you stepped only feet away from the fire, you found yourself literally standing in nothing but blackness!  Pure and total black out!  My buddy Adam called me and asked, "dude, where the fuck are you"?  My only answer was, "I'm standing at the intersection of raped and killed"!  COME AND GET ME! 

Last year, the event had doubled, if not tripled in size and that intersection that I once stood at was now smack in the middle of this makeshift lunatic campground.  It was easy to tell where you were with the lights that were installed so that you could see better.  Lights you may ask?  Yes, the guests of Slab City who forgot to bring flashlights simply lit a car on fire to provide better auxiliary lighting and ambiance!

By the fourth time that the fire department and the police arrived to put the fire out, all I could think of was "well, that is the end of the Slab City Riot"!  Yet here I am, watching weather forecasts, figuring out what to bring, which bike to ride and what can I bring to burn for warmth this year because just as it was the first year, it is going to be cold as a witches tit again.  I don't care so much about that because I have gear for that, after all, I'm from Jersey.  My problem will be in finding that gear!  Even though I have the Road Glide now, I'm pretty sure that I am going to ride the FXR.  I have the ability to carry more shit that way and something tells me that I am going to need it this year! 

The first Riot, I had spoken to friends that were riding out there with me about what to bring.  I was trying to figure out what to pack.  When you ride a 47' Knuck Chop, you don't have room to carry much.  I was trying to figure out how to do the bed roll and the tent and they laughed at me.  Tent?  A fucking tent?  We are going hard core man, bed rolls and that's it!  Well as I lay on the ground on my bedroll getting as close as I possibly could to the massive fire that we built, I looked around at each and every single person that I rode there with as they set up their tents!  MOTHER FUCKER!  Everyone but Brother Adam and I were in tents.... what happened to the Old School Chopper rules? 

There were two things that I found myself worries about that first night!  First and foremost, I was worried that I would awake and find my Knucklehead gone!  Second, I was worried that I would awake and find myself floating in a cauldron and being stirred by a big stick!  The only answer I could think of was my old tried and true, handcuff my leg to the bike.  This way they would have to take us both!

The temps had dropped in to the low 40's and were accompanied by up to 60 mph wind gusts if my memory serves me correctly.  We ended up having the biggest and longest burning fire at all of the Slab and I lay down right next to it.  It was so warm and so lovely and I hate to sleep with clothes on.  So as I laid in my bedroll, I stripped full on naked.  I was the like the cheese in a grilled cheese.  Warm and toasty on the outside and gooey and melting on the inside.  That is until the flames died down and turned to coals.  Around 5 am, all of the Jack Daniels had caught up to me and I had to piss so bad that it was like having a knife stuck in the kidney.  As I opened up the tiniest crack in my roll, the air whipped in and my balls instantly shrivelled up to raisins.  OH MY GOD!  What do I do?  So I grabbed my knife, licked my thumb and stuck it in the air to check the wind.  I dig a hole with my knife and check the grade of the land by pouring a bit of water.  Rolling away from my bedroll, thank God.  I put my dick through the opening in my bed roll and pissed straight out of it!  I must have pissed for two minutes non stop and the horror of the thought that what happens when the hole fills?  Luckily, it never happened!

So for Slab 2, I borrowed a bagger from my buddy and I got some pay back!  As the temps rose throughout the day, people kept taking off layers of clothes and asking if they could put shit in my bags.  Uhm, nope, sorry, no room, they are all full!  You got it!  Not only did I bring a tent, I brought a temperpedic pillow, I brought an air mattress, I brought some food, some water, change of clothes, flash lights, tools and a sleeping bag.  Hell, if the place had running water I would have brought a blow up pool with me and used my battery operated pump to blow bubbles in it and make a jacuzzi! 

So over the last few days, I've gotten a bunch of messages about what people need to bring with them.  Let me say this.... find a way to hold your tent down with something other than with tent stakes.  I bent 24 of them trying to bang them in to the ground!  Bring water, bring whatever you think you may need.  Not only is there nothing on property, but the only thing I believe within a few miles is a bar.  Other than that, it is easily a twenty mile ride to anything else.  If you are coming from AZ and you are planning on going out via the I 10, and you are on a chopper or a sporty, BRING A GAS CAN!  My suggestion would be get to Gila Bend and take the 8!  It's going to be down in the 40's at night there this year and highs only in the 60's during the day so be prepared for that. 

If you are heading to the Slabs, I'll see you there.  I don't want to hear on Monday we are back home, that you saw me but didn't want to bother me and come up and say hello.  You better fucking come up and introduce yourself.  Everyone be safe, have a great ride, bring what you need and I look forward to seeing you at the Slabs!  Oh yeah, make sure you bring your camera, you are not going to want to miss this shit!

Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and The Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit

My Untold Sturgis Tale!

As I get my body and my mind ready for Daytona Beach Biketoberfest at the Broken Spoke, I couldn't help but think about this past Sturgis Rally at the Spoke.  Originally, I was going to write a small piece about it for Cycle Source Mag but Chris Callen gave me the opportunity to write about GTP's art show there and I chose that instead.  So here you go, Jack Shit's lost and untold Sturgis!  I hope you enjoy the ride.

I had gotten the go ahead email along with a signed contract, I was not going to be a spectator at the 71st annual Sturgis Rally but I was coming back to work once again for the Broken Spoke family and I was pumped.   The plan was to mix it up this year, the one and only Jay Allen would be hosting downtown at the Original Broken Spoke and I would be hosting up at the County Line Spoke!  With the exception of checking in with Jay and going on the Cycle Source Ride last year, I had never even stepped foot in the bar.  I did however ride my knucklehead right through it! How could I not?  You can't come to the Broken Spoke and not ride through the bar!

Before the gig was set in stone, the plan was to ride up in a pack with friends and pick up stragglers along the way and roll on in to Sturgis big!  Plans are meant to be broken!  Although there is nothing like runnin in a pack with your peeps, it is also a recipe for disaster when you have to be somewhere at a specific time.  I had to be at the Spoke and didn't want to leave anyone broken down on the side of the road, or God forbid in an accident.  The plan changed, I would ride up with just one guy.  I would ride up with one BIG, FUCKING HEAVILY ARMED GUY!  That should be the answer to any trouble along the way!  We decided the leave late in the afternoon, a day early for the "what if" factor and thank God we did! 

All the hours of work that went in to turning the PICKLE SICKLE  nearly in to a full on FXRT was worth it.  I say nearly because the last of the parts that I needed to do it were being delivered to me in Sturgis.  As you can see, I had everything on that bike wrapped in heavy duty contractor bags just in case we caught some rain on the way.  JUST IN CASE, what an understatement.  I took no shakedown ride on the bike after finishing the work, the shakedown ride to see if we had put everything together correctly would be 1400 miles for the PICKLE SICKLE!

Now here is something to make note of, a little Jack Shitlosophy if you will!  When you are someone who can't carry a weapon, a bullet or so much as a big stick, your next best bet is to travel with your very own Grizzly Bear, a very angry Grizzly Bear!  As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that we could have crossed paths with that may have been trouble for us was a MAMA GRIZZLY!  We shot some pics for posterity and we were about to pull out for Sturgis when a bit of common sense hit me.  HEY ASSHOLE, YOU DIDN'T EVEN BRING A JACKET!  You see, I was in a Phoenix frame of mind.  I hadn't needed a jacket since March and hell it was summer in Sturgis too right?   What's funny is, nearly every time I do any type of hard freeway running, I wear a leather "just in case".  The last thing you want to do is go down in Az. on a road filled with gravel everywhere and if you are lucky enough to make it off the road to the "soft" dirt, you are damn near guaranteed to smash your ass full on in to a cactus!  Come to think of it, I guess there is a chance we could hit some sprinkles on the way up as well and I do own a rain suit, I'll bring that too.  Now, one other problem, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY RAIN SUIT?  I live in AZ, we have 350 days of sunshine per year.  I have not seen my rain suit in 6 years!  After a short delay from running around like a penis without a head in the blistering August heat, I found all that I needed.  They say the trick to rain gear is to have it with you, this way you will never need it.  It is only when you don't have it that the universe will piss down on you.  For the record, WHOEVER SAYS THAT IS GOD DAMNED WRONG! 

We made it 42 miles from the house, up up up the mountain heading towards Payson, AZ and the Mogollon Rim and we already hit rain!  45 minutes ago, I was standing on my driveway in blazing sunshine without a care in the world or a cloud in the sky.  By the time we were 2 hours in to the ride, I had on my shirt, my hoodie, my leather and my rain gear.  I had to put the bubble shield on my helmet, put on a second pair of gloves and dump water out of my boots, WTF?  I figured we would cross the mountain in the cool night time temps, I sure was right about that, it was REALLY cool.  We didn't even make it 100 miles in to New Mexico and we had to call it quits for the night.  I was half crippled, exhausted, cold and had a knot in my low back that was feeling like I was being fisted by a T Rex and to top it off, my left side gas cap that really isn't a gas cap was leaking when the tank was full.  Day one came to a close with us grabbing a hotel with the plan of getting up super early the next day and blasting straight on through to Sturgis!  From the next morning on and having ridden through some of the most beautiful country on God's green earth, this is the last and only photo that I took the entire trip to Sturgis while standing on two feet!

My evil genius had paid off!  I decided to leave early for the what if and just in case factors and  experienced them both.  As you can see in the pic above, it was a spectacular day for riding!  Now we are going to make up some miles, burn up some freeway and be in Sturgis a few days early!  We rode a few hundred miles and were making great time.  We stopped about 150 miles outside of Albuquerque for lunch, hell, we were kicking ass and taking names, what could go wrong?  STUPID QUESTION!  I snapped this shot of the Grizzly Bear on the road after lunch and even managed to capture a few of me and my bubble. 

Those clouds, all puffy and nice turned jet black within the hour!  The temps dropped again and the sky just vomited on us!  Non stop, blinding sheets of rain and virtually one long hydroplane all the way to Colorado City!  So here I am, jammin as fast as the FXR will carry me and making my peace with God for all the wrong that I've ever done and asking him to just ride with me for a while!  It rained so hard that it was coming down between the front of the helmet and the bubble at 80 mph, how is that possible?  As we approached the bottom of a grade and the base of a bridge I couldn't even see the lane lines any longer and I was just thinking to myself, you should have taken the truck you stupid fuck!  With that, I hit what I can only describe as a small lake at the foot of that bridge!  The bike stayed on top of the water for a bit but the second I came off the throttle, the bike went full on sideways to the right and my balls instantly retreated right up in to my abdomen and I knew right then and there, I WAS DONE!  I guess either the old rule of "objects in motion tend to stay in motion" or God was still chilling out on the back seat for the ride, but somehow, the wave of water straightened the bike right back out!  I rode on for a few minutes and I could feel the pins and needles that had instantly arrived mid forehead begin to ease up.  We were only 67 miles from our last fuel stop and I didn't care, I hit the first exit that I could see.  Not the first exit that I passed, because the weather was so bad that I actually rode right past a massive neon green sign that read EXIT!  As I pulled in, I thought for sure that I was going to have to eat shit about stopping!  You know how it goes right?  What's the matter pussy, afraid of a little rain or something?  As I pulled off the helmet and turned around, my buddy Mike was white as a ghost!  He looked horrified and he said and I quote, "hey man, can we just call it quits"?  "Well sure I guess, if you want to be a big pussy"!  Meantime, I'm thinking inside, THANK GOD!!!  Second day, second hotel!  This shit was unheard of!  In the hotel by 9pm, a great night sleep and up at 6 am and back on the road.  I laid in bed, eating the most God awful gas station pizza with one hand and blow drying my gloves and two pair of boots with the other!  It rained until around 10am the next morning!  This was madness!  I would call this once again, DELAY OF GAME!

We made up some serious mileage that day!  The entire time the only bikes we saw on the road were going in the other direction.  Packs of bikes heading the other way.  Every single time I saw a pack all I could think of was that somewhere, somehow, I got off course and was going the wrong damn direction!  We made it all the way through Colorado and we were not far in to Wyoming when it was time for a fuel stop.  The sky ahead of us looked truly deadly!  As we pulled in, each and every single pump had at least one or more bikes parked at it and everyone was putting on every bit of gear they had to face this battle ahead.  I was not going to re-live the events of the last two days again.  I went in to the truck stop and bought some duct tape and asked the guy behind the counter for as many plastic shopping bags that he could spare.  I went back to the pump and installed my new rain boots.  I looked at the big Grizzly with me and he just shook his head and asked, "ya ready for this"?  We pulled on to the freeway and by the time we hit the bottom of the ramp, with all the gear I had on, it was feeling like I was being shot with rock salt from a shotgun!  Within 2 miles of entering the freeway, it crawled to a dead stop.  In the few minutes that it had rained, it had already caused a massive accident it was so bad.  As we passed on by, there were two pick up trucks upside down and a semi jack knifed between them.  What the hell was I doing?  We knuckled up, face the demon and rode on and what do you know, we rode right at of it.  The storm was massive but it was moving on an angle and we cut the first corner right off of it and got past it!  All of a sudden, it went from 51 degrees to 94!  Off to the side of the road to take off all the damn gear!

Somewhere around 90 miles or so from Dead Wood, South Dakota I stopped to gas up, piss and check my phone.  As I listened to my messages, I come upon one from GTP! " Dude"!  "Where the fuck are you"?  I sure hope you are okay, it is horrible here in Sturgis!  A massive storm just came through and CRUSHED US!  Tents are down, tarps are gone and all the porta johns are laying on their sides!  We were so close that I could taste it.  There was no way, come hell or high water that we were not making it to the  Broken Spoke Campground this night, no way, no God damned way!  All we had to do was cross up and over one big ass mountain, in the dark.  We just had to watch out for deer every 1/2 mile.  I'm from Jersey, I know how to watch for deer, let's go!  What I hadn't figured on was the temps.  I thought I was just tired and cold and being a big ass Pansy!  We stopped just prior to Deadwood and I said to my Grizzly Bear, "holy shit I'm cold" and he responded with "you should be, my temp reading was 47"!  WTF?  Is this not summer?  As we rolled on in to the COUNTY LINE SPOKE, it looked like a war zone!  All I could think about was getting in to my cabin, pulling off my frozen clothes and crawling in to my sleeping bag!  As I rolled on up to the country store the one and only, greatest night security guard in the history of bikerdom was sitting on a rocking chair, the legendary Brother Speed and by his side, Mikey from the WALL OF DEATH!  Who do I see about getting my cabin Brother Speed?  "Hell if I know man" was the answer!

So here we stand, wet, frozen, exhausted from a 700+ mile ride that day and the thought of even getting back on to the bike was inconceivable!  Brother Speed being the class act that he is offered me his cabin to crash in for the night but I wouldn't have it.  We hung on that porch for a few, I ate a gas station cookie and it was incredible!  I chugged down some water and then I swore I saw a skinny gray ghost approach and hell if I wasn't right!  Coming out of the fog was GEORGE THE PAINTER!  I got ya all hooked up brother, I've got a soaking wet picnic table for you to sleep on, let's go up the hill!  Okay, I'll ride up the hill, how do I know where to go?  "You will see a motor home that says FUCK YOUR HOA on it", that's us!  Here I thought he was screwing with me, but sure as shit as I pulled up the hill, sliding in every damn direction in the mud, thinking to myself, I stayed up on two wheels the entire way and I am going to crash right here at the Spoke!  Chris and GTP hooked a brother up.  They set up a tent for me to crash in until I could get situated with my cabin in the morning!  It looks like the decision to leave early was the right one to make!

As you can see here in the very first photo taken the next morning, I was beat down, broke and used up and I only had two weeks left till I got home!  The one and only PICKLE SICKLE kicked ass!  A bit of gas in the water but no worse for the wear!  For the record, even with all that biblical rain, everything stayed totally dry!  I've got to admit, the THE SPOKE hooked me up man!  I think I got the very best cabin on the property!  Check this shit out!

Each day I awoke to Bear Butte, it was inspiring!  The forecast for the Sturgis rally was rain, all day, every day!  If it was anything like the ride up, it was going to be one hell of a bad week and an even worse ride home!  I took that first day on property to get accustomed to the lay of the land so to speak, take my trip down town to say hello to everyone at the down town Original Spoke.  I have to admit that seeing the main lot of the Spoke empty without Cycle Source and  the Limp Nickie Lot there poked a hole in my heart!  I was so excited and pumped up to finally be hosting the Broken Spoke County Line and all the people that I cared about were going to be all off at other places, doing their own thing this year.  The "Lot" was down at the Buffalo Chip and everyone else was scattered about Sturgis.  The only thing that I could hope for was that at one time or another, they would find some free time and make their way over to the The Spoke! 

Even empty, the Broken Spoke County Lineis a magical and mystical place.  There is just something about the property, Bear Butte standing guard and watching down on us all, the rolling hills, hot rod lake and so much more that  it just grabs you and takes hold.  Don't even get me started on the pool!  For the record, as of this day, I've never even so much as had my toe in the damn thing!  There is just something so amazing about being at this place and watching it go from near empty to jam packed full!  Many of you don't ever get to see the property "at rest" so to speak, most of us arrive well in to the rally!  Take a look at how gorgeous this place truly is.

Whenever I work a rally or an event, my "what if" strikes me to the core again!  What if the crowds suck, what if the weather is bad, what if I SUCK, etc, etc, etc?  With the weather forecast looming, all I could think of was a massive storm coming all week and having the entire campground in the bar non stop.  What the hell would I do to entertain all of these people whose trips were ruined by bad weather?  Perhaps it was Bear Butte but in the entire week, we got a total of 25-35 minutes of rain, spread over two days!  Each day I would watch the massive storms forming all around us.  I would get calls from people all over Sturgis telling me how hard they got hit.  The hail damage done to bikes and how tents were just blown away and yet each day, it passed right by the Spoke!  The rally Gods were shining on the Spoke this year!  All I kept hearing from all over town was that the numbers were down, it was going to be a "soft year" and people were bumming out.  I was getting traffic reports that there was not even traffic downtown.  NO TRAFFIC IN STURGIS?  How is that even possible?  I could only respond with "well, it's jammin out here at the Spoke"! 

By the first full night of business my worries had ceased!  This was going to be a great rally one way or another!  I had yet to ever work with the folks from Target Logistics and I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive but that was short lived!  I have to say that they treated me well and like I have been part of the Spoke family for years. 

All the pieces of the Broken Spoke puzzle for the 2011 rally were coming together and fitting in to place perfectly.  Things were looking great.  I have to give up some mad props though, right now, before I forget to the entire American Wall of Death family!  For the very first time ever, I got the chance to spend time with this incredible group of people who travel the country keeping America's first extreme sport alive and honest to its tradition!  I must say this and it is really important.  One night early in to the rally at around 4 am, I rode the PICKLE SICKLE over to the wall to see everyone hanging out.  We began chatting and they had asked if I had seen the condition of the flat track?  NOPE!  Well the grass and the weeds are chest high.  Well that sucks!  If we can get some golf carts and stuff, we could probably flatten it down, tomorrow we'll take a look.  Forever, I will remember as the words came out of my mouth, "let's ride there now"!  Oh my!  So let me just say this to you, NEVER, EVER, GO FLAT TRACK RACING AT 4AM IN THE MORNING WITH ANYONE WHO USES "DEATH" IN THEIR DAMN NAME!!!!  Please, don't ever forget that!  Let me just say that the PICKLE SICKLE had to spend some time being repaired after this night's events!  All day, I did whatever it was that I could to support the Wall and each night, these maniacs came in to the bar to do whatever they could to support me!

  This entire family and that is just what they are, are some of the finest people I've gotten to know and I am so proud to call them my friends now!

We rocked on all day, partied our asses off, then broke in to a big concert every night until midnight and then the mayhem began!  Each night just before the headline band went on we would finish the party up in the main bar, announce that we were moving down the hill and then rock the better part of the night away.  For the first few nights we hosted a miss "this or that" contest and the crowds loved it, both the men and the ladies.  Each day got better, each night got insane and each night I got less and less rest.  There are very few things left that surprise me anymore but I had one major one in store for me at the end of the first night!  I had two porn stars living in the cabin next to me!  The kicker was, they only worked as a team!  OH GREAT!  They in fact turned out to be really nice and the guys with them, just as nice.  It was always easy, no matter how buzzed I was upon my return to my cabin at night to know just which one was mine.  Mine was the one next to the cabin that had the line of band members, roadies and guests lined up trying to peak through the window!

The girls were known as the Evil Pin Ups, you can check them out online.  Although a great many of my friends as I wrote earlier, had been staying at other places for the rally, I was fortunate enough to have one of my dearest friends not only staying there, but having his incredible art work on display in the Legends Gallery!  The one and only George The Painter was right there for support every time I thought I wasn't living up to my potential or stressing about some stupid shit!  His show in the Gallery was amazing and we had a private, invite only party to kick off his show!  It truly was nice having him there!

With each day that passed by, more and more dear friends stopped in to support me.  With each knowing smile that I received, the pressure lifted more and more off of my shoulders and I was able to loosen up, be myself and kick fuckin ass!

Each and every single day, I was rewarded with the gift of friendship.  The gift of seeing old ones and making new ones.  Sturgis is an amazing place where relationships are formed and bonds either sealed or broken!  It is a place where there is no supervision and you are left to your own devices.  In Sturgis, the truth comes to the surface.  For some, their truth was giving up on their plans to help out a stranger with a broken bike.  For others, their truth was showing the world what they were really made of.  Proving that they were not there for the bikes, the brotherhood or even the party, they were just there to profit and move their shitty little lives forward and benefit from the hard work of their alleged friends.  The scum floats to the top in Sturgis, thank God for it!  It is a make you or break you kind of place.  For the ones who it made, God bless you, you deserve only the good.  For the ones that it broke, FUCK YOU, you never deserved to be there anyway!  There is an old saying and it holds so true, SOME FOLKS JUST CAN'T HANDLE THE FREEDOM!  

Each day at the rally just got better and better.  Everyone worked their asses off.  That is the thing most people don't realize.  The work that goes in to the rally before us retards even get there to start fucking it all up is incredible and after the rally is done, the work continues to clean up after us.  Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way complaining!  I would not trade the job that I do for anything on earth!  I get paid to bring smiles to people's faces, what could be better than that?  The one and only Jay Allen says, WE ARE MAKING MEMORIES FOR OUR GUESTS and it is absolutely true.  It is our job to make good ones for you, not cause bad ones.  These are wise words!

I could go on and on and lay out the rally day by day but who the fuck needs a blog that takes two hours to read?  What I can say is that each time I get the great honor of hosting the Broken Spoke and being invited in to the family, I myself am left with amazing memories!  The rally came to an end and I awoke in my cabin in a panic because I had over slept!  No wait, it's over!  I opened the door of my cabin, turned left, lit up a smoke and took in one long last good look at Bear Butte.  This place truly is magical!  I grabbed up my dirty laundry and separated it from what was left that was clean.  I began packing but had to stop each time someone poked their heads in the door to say goodbye!  We made it through damn near the entire rally without hardly even a drop of rain compared to the rest of Sturgis and its surrounding areas!  Literally thousands of people placed their hands in mine or high fived or fist bumped me saying thank you and see you next year, THIS PLACE IS AMAZING and I agree!  I loaded up my shit in the RV that GTP had come up in.  Souvenirs, laundry, bike parts etc., all packed in to the truck ready to go.  I called my girl and said, "baby, I'm coming home"!  As I fired up the bike, I took one long, last good look around and soaked it in!  It was time to head home and I was desperate to see my girl, but honestly, it's really hard to leave.  It truly is hard to shake of "RALLY FEVER"!    I guess another reason that I really didn't want to leave was;

Can you take a guess which direction I was heading?  Yeah, you guessed right!  Straight back in to belly of the beast!  I made it from my cabin back on down to the general store, said good bye and then headed up to the main bar.  Walking in I could not help but to feel a combination sadness and joy.  It was like looking over a battlefield that you were victorious on!  You have the joy from the victory but the sadness of the men you lost while trying to attain said victory!  I put on my rain jacket and said to the lone guy standing there when he asked, "what no pants", hell no, I'm still trying out that whole if you got rain gear you won't need it theory.  I rolled up to where the driveway meets 79, turn the front wheel left and cracked the throttle.  I made it no more than 200 feet and the sky began to piss on me!  The universe sure has some sense of humor!  I didn't stop until I got in to town to put the rain pants on.  By the time I had hit downtown and was at the stop sign in front of the Original Broken Spoke it had stopped raining!  Son of a Bitch!  Three hard, long days of riding and I rolled on back in to Payson, AZ.  I had to stop and see Long Jon and Pinky at Sacred Skin to make sure they too made it home, thank them for hangin out with me and take a piss!  It was like a mini Sturgis reunion because before I could even fire the bike back up, GTP was once again standing in front of me!  We hugged and off I went, I was a man on a mission to make it home!

Sturgis 2011, the 71st annual rally was 99% incredible and 1% suck ass!  I'm sure you guys have read that story!  L,L,H&R my friends..... 

Until we see each other on the road,

Keep the wind in your face,

Tits in your back

and The Man off your ass!

Your friend,

Jack Shit