From:        Mark Vinticticus McGhee I
To:             blackecho
Subject:    Hmmmmmmmmm
Date:          August 19, 2006

A awhile ago I was cruising down the 91 fw and I got strafed by an R1

I like all bikes. I respect all people on 2 wheels no matter what they are

riding.

Maybe you won't post this - that's ok. I have been strafed a few times and

let it go. BTW,

I've been on two wheels for 20 years and I like everything there is about

bikes and what every brand has to offer. We are all battling cagers out

there - what does it matter what you're on?

Yes, I'm a 1%R but that doesn't really matter. What matters is this

incident.

I usually ignore drive-bys - strafing - whatever. Usually, as you guys term,

"SQUIDS" just out doing their thing. But that day was the wrong day for me.

he came too close and I felt a nick on my peg. I rode on trying to reason

things out. Problem was - I couldn't let it go. I have what you might term

an ""agrarian" bike - but I also have it at 120HP and bored to 113CI....

So, I just opened it up and tried my best to catch the Busa bitch. I didn't

- of course.

Thing was - ends up - he and I were both out for a long ride. He stopped at

station in Banning and so did I. It was pretty clear that we both knew what

happened 50 miles back.

So, when I was done with him - he understood the importance of respect on

the road.

Try and trace it to me - no problem. He actually apologized.

So, can't we have some fucking courtesy between us? I think your site is

going to get people

hurt. Thinking about fucking with HD riders because you believe most are

harmless is a bad premise.

I am the guy that will check every gas station for the person that strafed

me - I am the person that will slow down and wait for the chance. I will

punish people and you now setting people up for that?

Is that what you're promoting? I know you won't put this on your site, but

I'm just asking you...........do you really want sport bikers hurt because

they believe all HD riders are the same?

Jeeezus - some of the stuff I've read on your site could get people killed.

_________________

To which I replied

_________________

You know, this whole store-bought, I-ride-a-Harley-and-I'm-a-badass-macho bullshit really does get old after a while, doesn’t it? If I had a nickel for every Harley owner who ever emailed me and claimed to be a one percenter, I’d be filthy stinking rich right now but since I don't and since I'm not, I'll just have to be content with pointing out the sad facts of reality to these people over and over again while getting what little bit of amusement I can get out of it. I'm going to go ahead and put Mark's email into a format that is easier to read than what he sent me so bear with me.

"A awhile ago I was cruising down the 91 fw and I got strafed by an R1 I like all bikes. I respect all people on 2 wheels no matter what they are riding. Maybe you won't post this - that's ok. I have been strafed a few times and let it go. BTW, I've been on two wheels for 20 years and I like everything there is about bikes and what every brand has to offer. "

Truth be known, I've been riding for 27 years, various models, on and off road. When I ride, I pretty much ignore other bikers (import and domestic) and go my own way. I don’t wave at every biker I pass because I really don’t care if you ride or not, I don’t even care if you exist. The important thing isn’t if you ride or not, it’s if I ride or not; I couldn't care less what you do or don't do. So, given all of that, you can see why I don't subscribe to the whole "brotherhood of bikers" crap or the idea that everyone on two wheels is part of some sort of big family that has to stick together.

Remember: just because you can ride a motorcycle doesn't mean that you should. Case in point; you.

Seeing someone else on two wheels doesn’t make that person unique or special; anyone can own a motorcycle (Harley Davidson proves that) and if anyone can do it, then anyone who actually does do it isn’t all that special, now are they? I don’t believe that riding a motorcycle sets you apart because that would mean that some portion of your life was defined by what you own, not who you are, and I don’t roll like that.

"We are all battling cagers out there - what does it matter what you're on?"

It doesn't matter to me what you’re on or even if you ride, Mark, unless you get it up your ass to tell me that I'm not as good a person as you are simply because of my choice in what I ride. When you start trying to shove your store-bought, pagan religion and your nonsense beliefs on me, we're going to argue (and since your life is one made of make-believe and mine is based in fact, you've already lost your argument before you started it). The end result of such a debate is often found here, on my site, where I correct the rather hilarious misconceptions of the odious hillbillies.

And as far as battling cagers, I own a cage. I like cages, especially black ones that go really fast and get really shitty gas mileage. I'm a cager when I'm not riding my sport bike, though I'm one who does look out for motorcycles (all kinds) when I drive and treats them with both respect and courtesy. I treat a motorcycle in traffic as another car but I guess that puts me in a minority. I feel no real enmity towards people who drive on four (or more) wheels.

“Yes, I'm a 1%R but that doesn't really matter.”

Sigh.

No, it doesn't really matter, Mark, because you're not really a one percenter so let's just stop kidding each other, shall we? The simple fact is that one percenters don't go around telling other people that they are one percenters and I really doubt if a true one percenter would even use email let alone brag about what they are in an email. Being a one percenter is a life choice, Mark, not a patch you buy and wear. The people who are one percenters don't wear silly little patches telling the world what they are. The world knows what they are by how they act, not what they say.

Facta, non verba.

Deeds not words.

I was on Ebay the other night and I decided to type in "one percenter" and you know what I found, Mark? This:

"Hard to find"

Yes, the auction actually read "hard to find." Hard to find, my ass. There were ten of them for sale on Ebay at one time. The asking price? $2.99. Yes, for three bucks, three teeny bucks, you too can be a bad ass biker. What the auction description should have read was "Hard to EARN." Wearing a patch or claiming to be a one percenter doesn't make you a one percenter, Mark. Do you know how many of these patches are out there? I'd bet good money that every person who shows up at Sturgis has one of these sewn onto their leathers. It's a fad. I even thought about buying one of these patches, just for fun, and sewing it onto my own jacket, sort of the Jungian Duality of Man concept, and to prove that anyone can buy one of these and claim to be something that they aren't. If people asked me what the "1%" meant, I'd tell them it meant that I was at the tip-top of the food chain.

Anyone with a patch that says "1%" on it or anyone who tells anyone else that they are a one percenter simply isn't a real one percenter. You can pretend to be a one percenter all you want but you’re only fooling people dumber than you and if a real one percenter ever does show up, he’s going to make you eat that silly little patch you have on your vest (if he doesn't first shove it up your ass sideways then, just for fun, give you the Heimlich maneuver to make you cough it out the top). I get so many emails from people who claim to be one percenters that apparently the one percenters actually occupy more like 30% of the known bikers out there on the road (instead of just the claimed one percent). Now, I was never really very good with figures (beyond the basic stuff) but the math just doesn't add up. Everyone can't be a one percenter even if they really wanted to. If you are a real one percenter, Mark, then stop bragging about it. If you do brag, people just aren't going to believe you or take you seriously. The short of it is; if you say you're a one percenter then you really aren't a one percenter.

A real one percenter would have known that ...

"I usually ignore drive-bys - strafing - whatever. What matters is this incident. I usually ignore drive-bys - strafing - whatever. Usually, as you guys term, "SQUIDS" just out doing their thing. But that day was the wrong day for me. he came too close and I felt a nick on my peg. I rode on trying to reason things out. Problem was - I couldn't let it go. I have what you might term an ""agrarian" bike - but I also have it at 120HP and bored to 113CI.... So, I just opened it up and tried my best to catch the Busa bitch. I didn't - of course. Thing was - ends up - he and I were both out for a long ride. He stopped at station in Banning and so did I. It was pretty clear that we both knew what happened 50 miles back. So, when I was done with him - he understood the importance of respect on the road. Try and trace it to me - no problem. He actually apologized.

I have no respect for squids. I think that Darwin should be allowed free reign in calling idiots back to meet their Maker. You won't find me shedding any tears when some idiot on a sport bike (or a Harley) does something stupid and ends up in the hurt locker. I don't feel sorry for squids, Mark. I feel sorry for the people that they accidentally kill when they decide to go and check their stupid ass on out of this world by T-boning a car load of young women at 150 mph. I feel the same way for drunk drivers and people who take drugs or overdose. I don't pity losers and idiots, Mark, because I usually have to fill out all the paper work on their stupid asses and inform their next of kin during the wee hours of the morning.

Now, as for your story, well, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call "bullshit!!" on this farcical story due to conflicting data on your part and a complete disregard for basic physics, both of which must match in order to have a valid story. First you claim it was a Yamaha R1 which strafed you then you say that you tried to catch up to the "Busa bitch." Which one was it, Mark? A Yamaha R1 or Suzuki GSX-R1300 Hayabusa? They are two very different bikes but then I guess all sport bikes look alike to you, don't they? The facts of your story are in error lending a great amount of initial disbelief to your tale. The physics also don't make sense simply because if a sport bike blew past you at the speeds you're implying and it was close enough to "nick" your peg (which means that you had metal to metal contact at high speeds) then you both would have wrecked. There are parts of a rider which stick out farther than a peg, Mark, especially on something as narrow as a sport bike. If the sport bike rider had nicked one of your pegs with his peg, then chances are, he would have torn off his leg at the knee a few microseconds before the pegs came into contact with each other. On a sport bike, the rider sits with their legs spread in a slight forward V, this means that while the feet are on the pegs, the knees are usually hugging the frame or the fuel tank and that makes the knees stick out farther than the ankles. Harleys are wide, sport bikes are narrow. Buzzing a Harley at touching distance at super high speeds risks getting caught up in highway bars or other ridiculous add-ons like tassels and saddlebags. In the real world, if what you say happened actually did happen, then you two would have both gone down in a twisted mass of flesh, bone, blood, plastic, chrome, shredding metal and screaming tears.

So, if the road incident is fake, I would probably have to believe that your chance meeting and your claim to have vended out some street justice on your "assailant" fifty miles down the road was also pretty much a tall order of bullshit from the get-go.

“So, can't we have some fucking courtesy between us?”

No, Mark, I'm afraid that we simply can't. You see, respect and courtesy are both earned; they can't be bought, borrowed or begged for. You can't buy respect over the counter or order it with a credit card out of a catalog. It has to be earned. Now, I have an opinion. I'm entitled to that opinion especially since it is my own opinion (not someone else's), since I have researched that opinion thoroughly, and since I have made my choice based on hard facts and first hand experience (not by listening to hear-say or believing marketing spin). I keep my opinion to myself, on my own website, paid for out of my own pocket, and whether you read it or not is inconsequential to how I live my life. You have to come here to read my opinion, I don't send it to you via email, post it on other sites or troll message forums. I don't advertise my opinion, charge for people to enter my site or have a special "members only" section where you get to read the really good stuff if you subscribe each month. Whether you read my opinion or not, whether you visit my site or not, whether you print my work out and frame it or use it to wipe your warty ass with is inconsequential to how I'm going to live my life or how your decision on what to do will affect how I live my life.

For what it is worth, I didn't start this argument but I'm going to fight each and every idiot who thinks they can buy a reputation rather than earn one.

"I think your site is going to get people hurt. Thinking about fucking with HD riders because you believe most are harmless is a bad premise."

Oh, what a leather clad, chrome studded, crock of leather tasseled, over the counter purchased, macho bravado bullshit …

I would never, ever advocate fucking with Harley riders, Mark, mainly because they're stinky and inbred and you really don't want to ever swap any genetic material with someone who has a lower number of teeth in their head than their indicated boot size. Now, I'd like you to point out exactly where on my site that you read that I am advocating violence against other bikers. You can't though, because you're reading something into my site that just isn't there and try as you might, you just won't find it.

Why?

Because nowhere on my site will you find any such ridiculous suggestion. Beating up other people in order to justify or defend your set of beliefs is a very Harley Davidson thing to do, it's the contemporary followers of old Ned Ludd which have made Harley Davidson what it is today, not smart people, not well educated people, but the lowest common denominator in our society. Violence is a solution open only to someone who has no way to defend their position. Thinking like you do is what is going to get people hurt because it reinforces the thoughtless, knee-jerk violent defense of a completely make-believe lifestyle. A bad ass isn’t something you brag about being or something that you can magically become just because you sew a patch onto your vest or buy a big, shiny, brand new bike that's louder than a hippopotamus getting gang raped.

Bragging is for people who can’t do what they say they can do, Mark. It’s the people who don’t brag that you have to worry about in life; it’s the quiet people who sit calmly and watch you with cold eyes when you run your mouth. They’re the ones who are laughing at you silently, on the inside, because they’ve already sized you up and determined that you just aren’t going to be that difficult.

Now, for what it is worth, the only person advocating violence here is you and you’re not only advocating it, you’re actually bragging about having (supposedly) done it (though there is certainly evidence there to suggest otherwise). The only thing sadder is that you somehow feel that it is okay to beat someone else up just because of who you pretend that you are and the life that you pretend to lead. I have no respect for you or for anyone who uses violence as their first choice in solutions to a problem. Not only did you solve your problem with violence, but you’re basically saying “you sport bikers better not ever mess with a Harley rider because MOST of us really ARE bad asses.”

Wrong.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, Mark, I assure you. For every bad ass Harley rider out there, there are forty geezers who are doing good to make it to Shoney’s let alone Sturgis. If anyone's words are going to get anyone hurt, it's your words that are going to get a lot of old geezers hurt when some younger guy on a sport bike hands them their ass the first time they pull up to a gas station, suck in their gut, bow out their chest and try to mouth off at the import owner like you claim you did. If anyone is setting a bad example here, it's you.

Yes, much to your chagrin, a large portion of Harley owners are harmless posers, Mark, because that's the target market that the Motor Company makes such an easy profit off of. Think about it. I want you to think about just what it is that you say that you are. A self-proclaimed one percenter, pretending to be the baddest thing on the bad and reinforcing that image with laughable stories that no one is believing. A one percenter. That means that for every real one percenter out there, there are 99 other bikers out there who aren’t one percenters and no where near close. Those bikers (of which you are included since you are not a real one percenter) are some of the fattest, dumbest, laziest, odious excuses for human beings to ever walk the face of the Earth. Harleys aren't bad ass bikes and therefore, anyone who rides one cannot be considered a bad ass biker. Personally I think that Harleys are dumb-ass bikes and I also believe that adjective goes far in describing the kind of people who would own a Harley, let alone actually ride one in the first place.

“I am the guy that will check every gas station for the person that strafed me - I am the person that will slow down and wait for the chance. I willpunish people and you now setting people up for that? Is that what you're promoting? I know you won't put this on your site, but I'm just asking you...........do you really want sport bikers hurt because they believe all HD riders are the same? Jeeezus - some of the stuff I've read on your site could get people killed."

Holy Sweet Dementia Suffering Foster Mother of Baby Willie G.!

Did you just say that you will "punish" people?! Who the hell do you think you are; "The Punisher?" (you know, the Marvel Comics vigilante character with the tag line of "This isn't revenge. It's punishment.") Unreal! Your own little world of make-believe apparently goes far deeper than anything Lewis Carroll ever dreamed up. Yes, if I had to make a guess, I'd say that your own personal rabbit hole is pretty much bottomless and that you jumped down it a long, long time ago.

Man, do you have some serious psychotic issues brewing! I've heard of road rage before but you're a fucking ticking time bomb waiting to go off and a lot of innocent people are going to get seriously hurt when you do finally experience your long overdue mental meltdown! Now, as for punishing people, I'm not sure that you have that right let alone the authority, Mark, to do what it is that you say you want to do. You're not some vigilante out to right terrible wrongs, you come off as more of a stalker with a serious mental instability, someone whose make-believe life has taken hold of their concept of reality and thereby given you the means to justify the ends. Not only do you (wrongly) chastise me for advocating violence against Harley owners (which I don't) but here you are advocating that it's perfectly okay for Harley owners to use violence against import riders if and when they see fit to do so, even claiming that import riders might get killed in the process of voicing a difference of opinion to you.

You've got an interesting mixture of transparent hypocrisy mixed with serious anger management issues and a borderline psychotic personality to top off this emotional powder keg you call a personality. I would fervently suggest that you stop freebasing whatever illicit pharmaceutical it is that you are currently abusing, that you park your big shiny, pretend bike, that you pack all of the make believe lifestyle stuff away and that you undergo professional psychiatric help for a long, long time until you are fully cleared to be allowed back in the good graces of the human race.

Violence?

I'm not setting anyone up for anything of the kind, Mark. I don't know where you get the idea that I'm advocating violence against any biker as nowhere on my site do I say that or even hint at that kind of detestable, inexcusable behavior. Beating up Harley owners simply isn't going to solve the big problem. No, that’s only going to cause more problems for import owners and generate undue sympathy for you and your kind (and sympathy is one of the primary things that has kept HD alive all these years). No, if you want to hurt Harley Davidson, you don’t beat up their customers, you stop buying (or never buy in the first place) their lackluster products. It’s economic warfare through individual monetary sanctions, Mark, not fisticuffs on the highways and interstates. Not buying anything made by Harley, that's what is really going to hurt The Motor Company. If I advocate any violence on my website, it's the economic kind and the target is the Motor Company itself, not its customers (or all the wannabes). I guess you could say that I'm "punishing" The Motor Company for selling out and becoming an embarrassment to the country they purport to represent. You can't hurt Harley by beating up the people who ride their products but you sure can hurt Harley by not buying their products and by not supporting them.

You say that you hold a grudge, that you're willing to stalk someone, hunt them down, and wait in ambush on someone all in order to hurt them and get even? Well, I find that to be pretty scary behavior. Just remember one fact in life, Mark, if you can't catch them on the open highway (try as you might) to begin with, then when the tables are turned, you're not going to be able to outrun them on the open highway either. It's when the hunter becomes the hunted that the game really gets interesting, don't you think?

I don’t think one single thing which I’ve posted on my site will get anyone killed, Mark, unless being encouraged to think for yourself is somehow inherently dangerous (and it just may be to most Harley owners because it would signal the end of Harley Davidson as it has come to be defined).

My site is about anti-stupidity.

My site is about questioning what you believe in and just why it is that you believe it.

My site explains that it is not easy to be a patriot, that freedom and patriotism can't be bought at a store and that sometimes the people who wear and wave the most flags are the least patriotic people of all. My site is dedicated to teaching people that you are not what you own. My site is directed against a pathetic company that has not only embraced stupidity, but has sought it out, nurtured it and elevated it into a type of pop culture coolness for a large group of people who are too stupid to know what stupid is when they see it. I mean, come on! When you're so pathetic that you have to drape yourself in repackaged, high dollar stupidity just to get noticed by other members of the species then you're pretty much a failure as a human being on more than just a genetic level.

Having a difference of opinion (and being able to defend what you believe in by using facts and logic rather than your fists) isn't nearly as dangerous as stalking other motorcycle riders and beating them up just because you don't like them or you feel threatened by them. If your first answer to a problem is violence, then I truly pity you, Mark. You've got a short, hard life ahead of you and I bet it's going to be filled with a whole lot of pain and bitter disappointment if not a wheelchair and a handicap parking sticker. If you think that all Harley riders are tough, you're sadly mistaken and you’re buying right into the marketing myths that Harley has reinforced in order to sell a product that they couldn’t sell short of using highly invasive brainwashing. On the other hand, if you think that all sport bike riders are kids you can stalk and muscle up at a gas station, you're even more tragically mistaken.

Not all HD owners are the same, Mark, but then again, neither are all sport bike riders. Your mistake is in assuming that I believe so while in turn believing so yourself. Just because you claim that you ambushed some naive 18 year old on a R1 or a 'Busa (hell, it could have been a Honda Rebel for all we know since you obviously don't know one import bike from another) at a gas station doesn't mean you're going to have the same results when you go up against a 35 year old on a sport bike and try the same thing. If you keep chasing down sport bikers who you think wrong you on the open road and you keep thinking that every import rider that you chase down is going to be just some ignorant kid who likes to buzz old geezers for fun, then you're a violent crime scene waiting to be processed and probably a (posthumous) Darwin Award nominee.

Oh, yes. Darwin loves him some fools, especially ones who think with their fists instead of their brain.

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