Basement Punk Gets The Blues

OK, so it's not a Road Story but it is a great article written by Tyler for the New Paltz Oracle......

Basement Punk Gets The Blues
By Tyler Gomo, Contributing Writer

When the Paramount Center of the Arts in Peekskill appeared before my eyes on Sept. 28 with its flashing marquee shouting “B.B. King Tonight SOLD OUT,” I immediately knew that I was out of place. Rocking a Pelican hoodie and my trusty Pony slip-ons, as well as an experiment in facial hair on my face, my appearance was an immediate clash with the majority of concert-goers that chose to go business casual with tucked-in shirts, shined shoes and clean faces. I felt like the equivalent of a kid that goes to a formal event in one of those cheesy tuxedo t-shirts. But I wasn’t dressed up for the sake of mockery; as a veteran of basement punk shows, I had no clue about the unwritten laws of B.B. King concert attire etiquette. Fortunately, Paramount security at the doors didn’t see me as too threatening to the basics of twelve-bar blues, so my faith was somewhat restored.

Sitting in the Paramount, a colorful theater with Greek head busts adorning the walls like lifetime ticketholders, I had entered a time capsule. B.B. King’s band and subsequent entourage walked about the stage and orchestra section in suits that recalled 1950s “cool.” There was also a certain swagger in their steps that I had never seen before in real life, the kind of walk that just screams, “Yeah, I’m the trumpet player…but I’m the baddest one you’ll ever meet!” Despite being in the back regions of the theater, I felt that kind of energy during something as simple as a sound-check. I knew that from this point on I was in for something completely different.

When the show began, things did not start with everyone out on stage. Only the band was present, blasting out an eight-minute plus rave-up that featured solos from everyone and led to King’s introduction.

As the blues legend sauntered on stage in his finest suit, I was taken aback. With the rock shows that I’m used to the musicians on-stage appear almost equal in importance to the crowd. In this case it was like seeing an immortal arrive, someone that was miles away from being a mere human. Once he picked up his famed guitar, the Gibson ES-355 named “Lucille” that waited for him onstage, King kicked the show into gear with singing and guitar playing that shook my skin with its raw power.

Being in that seat, I couldn’t help but compare this experience to concerts I’ve seen in the past. For one thing, my hoodie wasn’t at risk of being torn apart by raging thrashers like the time I saw Thrice at Northern Lights in Albany. Instead, a middle-aged woman just sat there, admiring Mr. King’s playing. Then there was the musicianship; the drummer didn’t just blast away on a double-bass drum pedal and hit cymbals. Instead, he just stayed in the pocket making fills when appropriate. But the biggest difference between a rager in a friend’s basement and a concert of this magnitude, is respect. People were quiet during B.B. King’s stories, entranced by his presence and magical personality and when he both entered and left the stage, the crowd delivered a grand applause with everyone on their feet. It was certainly nothing like the time a lead singer of a no-name punk band got nailed with a beer bottle two songs into a set.

This god-like figure told lengthy stories of women and fishing, communicated with the enthusiastic crowd (many of them shouting the name of his beloved guitar) and entertained with a charisma that is often hard to find in musicians, filling 90 minutes with absolute substance and no boredom. I didn’t know the names of the songs that he played or what albums they were from, yet I danced in my seat as if I knew them all. The show was an experience that a basement punk show could never deliver on its best night.

Lovely Rita

Seems like some rides that had events you thought would be “par for the course” can quickly turn into the ones we remember the most. It also looks like many of my “memorable” events seem to deal with either chaos (inflicted or self imposed) or extreme weather or a combination of each. This is another one of those mini sagas.

It was October 2005; BRAG (Buell Riders Adventure Group) was having a regional event in Lavale, MD. Having never been to any BRAG event because of conflicts of scheduling; I wanted to check it out, plus it was fairly close. So I sent in my registration and payment of $55 and started to make my plans. BRAG use to schedule their events in similar fashion as HOG. Opening ceremonies were on Thursday night and things would wrap up on Saturday evening. That is about as much similarity the two groups shared, as you’ll find out. I made contact with a few riders that I knew locally from the BadWeb website (Rich & Fritz) and three of us planned on heading down the Thursday of the opening day.

We all meet in Mayberry off I-84 and planned on mostly interstate riding to get there. Granted it’s a boring ride, but we figured we would be doing plenty of backroads in Maryland and West Virginia. The day was perfect; sunny in the low seventies and not a lot of traffic on the roads. We were cruising at a good clip heading south on I-81 when suddenly the front end of my bike starting shaking like I was riding the rumble strips. Then as quick as it started it stopped. I wasn’t to sure if it was the bike or I hit a bad batch of pavement that I didn’t notice. So I went on (of course with no reduction of speed). About two miles later it started again. This time I knew there was something with the bike so I pulled over to the shoulder as quickly as I could. My two co riders, Rich and Fritz, quickly followed behind. I got off the bike and started to look at the steering head figuring that was the problem. As Rich and Fritz were walking up to me, they were asking what’s wrong and I was only able to tell them what happened and wasn’t too sure of the problem. Fritz mentioned that he noticed me looking back at the road as if I ran something over or lost a part. “Looks like this is your trouble” Rich cut in to say, “your front bearings are falling apart. The little steel bearings were falling out of the hub onto the ground. Needless to say the first word out of my mouth was SH*T. So before anything went further, I broke out the trusty cell and called the HOG/BRAG roadside assistance. They took my information and told me the driver will call when he is on route. First part done, now to find a Buell dealer; looking at the BRAG handbook we noticed we were located about 45 minutes northwest of Gettysburg H-D/Buell. Call number two; hello parts department would you by rare chance have a set of front wheel bearings in stock for my bike? To my surprise they had two in stock so I immediately took them and gave them my credit card info. Next step, service department please. I gave the information and situation I was in to the service rep, also telling her that the tow truck was in route. “Let’s see………….we can fit you in on Tuesday.” Tuesday????? It’s 1pm on Thursday; perhaps you didn’t hear that I am broken down over 5 hours from home. “Well sir, maybe the best we can do is late Saturday” was the follow up. “I’ll tell you what, the truck is picking my up and I should be there in about an hour, we’ll try to work this out then.” I had no other choice, the next nearest Buell dealer was over 3 hours away.

The wrecker showed up, 30 minutes after my call – great time. As the driver was loading my bike calls 3, 4, 5,……..were made to anyone I could thing of that may know someone at Gettysburg H-D. I hopped into the cab and we were on our way with my two co-riders following. A few more calls went back and forth on the trip with folks checking in on my problem and letting me know if they we able to do anything. Nothing concrete so far. We got to the dealer in decent time and as the driver was unloading the bike I went inside to let the service counter know that I was there and would be rolling the bike in shortly. Back outside the driver told me there was no charge because we went within the distance allowed, so I gave him a tip for doing a great job, rolled my bike into the service area then went back out to talk to my friends. I told them to head on to the event that it would be more than likely that I would be spending the night in Gettysburg and I’ll update them as soon as I have any information. We all looked at the map and found a road that cut through Catoctin Mountain Park, MD to Haggerstown where they could catch the interstate to Lavale. We said a few more words and then they were on there way. Now to go back inside to find out what my near future will bring. As I walked in, my bike was gone. Looking through the service bay window I saw it was on a lift. “Mr. Gomo?” Yes. “I just wanted to let you know that we are going to do our best to get you up and rolling soon.” Wow, thanks; I didn’t expect this; hopefully the bearings were the only problem. Would you believe that my bike was ready in 45 minutes? The mechanic asked me how fast I was going when this happen, after a mumbled response from me he stated that it was a good thing I stopped when I did; I would have definitely had a life changing experience if I went any further. Not to mention the outrageous front end wheelie I would have really not enjoyed. To top things off, my bill with parts was $86. I gladly gave the mechanic something extra for getting things done so fast and thanked the manager as well. Hard to believe after how the situation started that I was back on the road in less than 3 hours.

Once outside I called my riding pals to leave them a message that I was rolling again. To my surprise Rich picked up the call. He said they were grabbing a bite in Haggerstown and that the road we picked out was great; loaded with twisties and hardly any traffic. Rich did tell me to watch out for one traffic sign with a sharp turn at 10mph. Seems that Fritz saw the sign a little late and shot straight across the road. Good thing for him he had no oncoming traffic and was fine; perhaps a need for a change of shorts but nothing else. I told them I was on my way and should see them in about 2 ½ hours. I geared up, topped of the fuel and headed out.

The road through the Catoctin Mt Park was fantastic. A combination of long sweepers and grouped up banked twisties through the forest; I guess it was scenic too, just didn’t take much notice to what was happening off the sides of the road. I was in the zone, hitting all the apexes just right with my ass slide to the side of the seat and dragging knees when suddenly the sign Rich told me about zipped by me. Whooa baby……slow down. As I gingerly entered the radius; I noticed a fresh single line track straight off to the other shoulder. Must have been Fritz’s trail; yup he was lucky. The road meandered out to Haggerstown where I caught the interstate that would take me to my destination.

I-68 was a decent road for traveling. Plenty of vistas to take in and some enjoyable long sweeping turns made it less boring than a lot of other interstates. I was moving along making good time, figuring I’d be in Lavale, MD by 6:30pm. While riding two just released Buell Ulysses’ came up on me out of nowhere. They hung by for a couple of miles then once again took off. Figuring they were heading to the same point I was, I twisted the throttle a bit to catch up and follow. After a few miles, their rate steadily increase and when I finally looked down at the speedo I decided it was time to back off a little; mainly because I seem to have a natural attraction to cars with flashing red lights when I ride too fast. As I found out the next day, these guys were from American Iron Magazine and just picked up the new bikes from York to do a test ride story plus tie in the BRAG event.

I rolled into Lavale right around 6:30 pm, just as figured (that really doesn’t happen often), checked into my room and headed to the Opening Celebration dinner which was being held at the same hotel. I signed in, got a bunch of goodies from BRAG, found Rich and Fritz then had some dinner. A fine meal it was; full course prime rib dinner, certainly not a HOG event. The Director of BRAG addressed the group about the events and rides scheduled for the next two days. There were about 100 attending the event. These folks came in from Ontario, Canada, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Maine to name a few points; and they all rode. No trailer in sight with this bunch. The events included a tech seminar with engineers from the factory to be held at the H-D/Buell Dealership that was directly across the street – very convenient. There were also two routes about 200 miles each that travel a bunch of backroads in Maryland and northeastern West Virginia. After the dinner and information part of the evening, the rest of the night was spent tire kicking and meeting riders from everywhere.

Next morning, Friday, started of with a great breakfast buffet (part of the package) then across the road to the dealer for the seminar. While there we all gathered for a group photo, as we were gathering I meet the two Ulysses riders from AIM that passed me; Sam and Joe. While talking Joe asked if I was the gut with the JUGGLE license plate? Yup that was me but how were you able to reads it at the speed you were going? A trained eye was the response. We would see each other through out the weekend and hang a BS. The seminar was ok if you’re into the tech side bike. Me, I’m into the riding. One cool part was the engineers would help set up your suspension with consideration of your size and type of riding. I had my bike done then joined up with a group and started on one of the 200 mile routes mapped out.

The area was great for riding. Good roads, great weather (which would turn, but that’s for later), and interesting sights. We went through areas the looked like covers from Architectural Digest to Appalachian reports from National Geographic. The day end with some great miles covered, had some dinner and once again the adventure stories went late into the night. One story included Fritz once again making a detour on a curve (I believe he finally kicked this problem). He went wide into a cornfield and all they saw was his helmet popping up above the corn every 3 feet where the rows were until he hopped back onto the road. No worse for wear, just some corn silk dangling on him, he kept on rolling unphased - a true hardcore rider.

Saturday was woken up to light rain, weather reports where showing that Hurricane Rita was heading our way from the gulf. Rich and Fritz decided to head back while I opt’d to stay for the rest of the event hoping the storm would just keep heading north without swing east (boy I was wrong). I did a little riding around locally, hung out with the Sam and Joe Roadshow before they headed out to where they were bringing the fleet bikes. The day ended with the closing ceremonies at a vintage 50’s diner that BRAG took over for the night. Dinner was your choice of the menu, dessert too. Once again the night was topped of with riding war stories; the difference was now the rain was getting heavier. The reports started to show the storm was heading our direction and may be by us early in the morning. I should get a job as a weatherman; my predictions are as good as theirs.

Waking up Saturday was to the sound of pouring rain – damn. At this point all I did was pack up; eat another great breakfast, this time I loaded up with extras to take along, toss on my gear and roll. I called home to let them know I was going to head out and just stay to the interstates since the traffic would be light because of it being Sunday and now cause of the rain. My daughter told me it may be good idea to stay another night and not ride in this weather. I told her it was just raining slightly heavy, but not much else and I should be fine. Well that statement held true for about an hour into the ride. Things started to go downhill kind of quickly at one point. Winds were picking up, rain was dropping down even more and here’s some idiot on a Buell riding in the middle of it. Once again another smart move on my part; I'm loaded with great ideas.

Well the rain was getting heavier as well as the winds as time went on. At one point I was leaning into the wind to keep the bike up when suddenly the wind changed direction. The sudden gust actually blew me over one lane. Needless to say the pucker factor to stick to the seat kicked in instantly. A minvan road by me with a bunch of kids pasted to the windows looking at me like those suction cup stuffed Garfields. Well a rest stop was in order; next exit here I come.

By this time, everything I had on that was to be “waterproof” failed. I was soaking wet. Even my boots were filled to the brim with water. Loverly. When I entered inside there was a stream of water showing my path. After a hot Mickey D’s coffee and hot apple pie I was ready to venture out once again. Determined, yes –Smart, no. Well the rest of the ride didn’t change too much. Every 45 minutes to an hour I would take the exit to another McDonalds for more coffee and pie; I just needed warm stuff to keep me going. Now when I go the Scranton area of PA, I started heading over the high point the interstate travels and guess what was next? Well it seems the temps dropped to the point it was starting to flurry. I don’t know what’s worse; my constant involvement with bad weather or my stupidity to ride in it. Well the snow wasn’t sticking so I keep going figuring I had about 2 ½ hours left to get home.

I was close; it took me 3 more hours to get home. I was drenched, looking much like a white raisin and freaking cold. I sat in the tub with the hot water running for about 2 hours before I start to get feelings in all points of my body. Soooooooo I wound up doing everything I tell my students not to attempt. Ride when fatigued, ride to the point of hypothermia, and the infamous just pull over and wait it out speech, well I certainly learned a lesson. The next day I woke up to a sunny day in the low 60’s and life goes on. Another memorable event thats for sure.

From Back When

Since I am sitting here in the office and slightly depressed that I had to cancel going to the NYS Rally because of work commitments; I thought I might start a thread of how we started into this great sport we enjoy.......

My first bike was a Fire Red 1973 Honda SL70 when I was 14yrs old. A friend of my family, a lifelong rider (he also was part of the motorcycle division in WW2) thought a kid in the country (we lived in Big Indian back then) should learn to ride and have a motorcycle/dirtbike to keep occupied and stay out of trouble. Though a great idea, the staying out of trouble part didn't work out to good for me (too long of a saga to go into).I spent countless hours and days riding that bike along with neighbors my age that owned Indian dirtbikes (that's right, the Indian name was even tossed on 2 cycle dirtbikes). We probably covered every logging road within a 20 mile radius as well as practiced performing stunts I certainly wouldn't try today.

One day we were riding in a field close to our home that had some great knolls for jumping the bikes, a couple on a Harley stopped on the road and watched us for a while. I remember it as a blue FLH, late sixty's perhaps with the big dual person "pogo" type seat. All of sudden the guy was alongside of us riding in the field with his lady watching from the road. He circled around the field with us a few times. Then being the show off teens we were, we headed to the jumps. One by one we sail through the air higher than we ever did before, almost looking like pro's (that teenage showoff adrenaline was kicking). When we all turned around we saw the guy heading to our favorite jump at a good clip. That H-D went into the air with the rider standing on the floors boards at amazing heights. He landed slightly awkwardly but kept the big blue machine up on its rubber. That was the coolest thing I ever saw. He then picked up his girl, waved to us and went roaring up the road with that rumble that gets all of our hearts beating.Looking back, I really don't think he knew how drastic that jump was when he hit it, but he forged forward and pulled it off with style all of his own. I can only imagine how they told their version of the story and describing the looks on our faces.

There are always certain factors or situations in our lives that helps form thoughts or images in our minds, no matter whether they're logical or emotional. Over the years after that Honda I road and owned an array of bikes. Even though the person that bought me my first bike was a Harley owner; it wasn't until that event in the field that made me want to own and ride a Harley of my own - I just don't see me hitting any jumps in the future

Buffalo Don

I’ll toss out another story from the cobweb laden depths that I call my memory. This one is a bit longer……..

This one goes back to the 4th of July weekend of 1993. The summer of ’93 was one that out of 16 weekend, we had rain 13-14 of them. What a lovely riding season. Anyway, this one kind of involves my pal Dario again. We planned to camp out the holiday weekend at Cedar Point County Campground in East Hampton. We had to reserve the lots in March since they go fast; especially the weekend of July 4th. As you can predict the weekend was another rainy one. Although there was a slight chance of it being partially clear, that went all to crap with a hurricane/tropical storm heading up the coast. Never the less, we were going.

I was leaving from work in Westchester on Friday afternoon and Dario, his girlfriend and other friend were heading out from Nassau County. I originally thought I would be in East Hampton around 8pm. I had to keep in mind that it was a Friday of a holiday weekend and if you ever headed out to eastern Long Island on the southern fork you’d know the amount of traffic congestion there is and the average pace of 10-15 mph. Things started off bad real early on Friday. Due to situations at work, I needed to stay later. Normally I would be able to make up some time riding and not worrying too much about traffic jams (my safety approach to riding really wasn’t honed in back then), but now the weather reports were stating that the storm was picking up speed on the water and was moving faster towards the island. Lovely.

I finally left work around 6pm and the rain was starting to come fairly heaving already. It took me over an hour to make it over the bridge to Queens, so much for darting through traffic. By then all my rain gear failed and I was already drenched. So I pulled over for some gas (the mileage on a Sporty with a 2.2 gallon tank was certainly limited) and opted to take off the gear since it was useless. So dressed in wet black leather from head to toe, a wannabe helmet and small clear glasses, I head onto the Long Island Expressway with the Sporty loaded up with wet camping gear. After 4 more hours of riding through massive waves created from passing cars, the constant downpour, and a mouthful of wet road dirt I made it the campgrounds. Pulling up the entrance at about 11pm I was met by a county parks officer. Seeing a bike pull up in this weather and hour along with the thunder of my straight pipes probably put him on a level of being on guard for anything.

“Can I help you?” was the first words from him. I told him that I was there to meet friends and had a lot reserved. He then stated that he was sorry, but I couldn’t come into the campgrounds. WHAT??? I asked him if was because I was riding a bike and he told me that no one can entry the site after 10pm. You’ve got to be kidding, I have a reservation. Sorry, county rules. Not sure what to do at this point, I tossed a line of BS at him hoping it would work. “I just spent riding in the rain for 10 hours from Buffalo to get here and you are telling me I can’t go in because I’m about an hour late?.” Once again sorry, county rules prevailed. After a couple of more rounds, I realized I had no chance of winning. Could you at least go to the site and tell my friends I’m here. Sorry, we only would go to a site if there was an emergency. What the hell is this I thought? Inches of water around me, almost midnight, soaking wet and no place to stay; so I started up the bike, rev’d the snots out of it figuring my friends would hear me from a far and headed down the road. So it’s midnight on the Friday of a holiday weekend in the Hampton’s, what’s the chance of finding a room at this hour? And find one that didn’t require a mortgage to sleep in? Slim that's for sure. So I figured I would find a remote spot on the side of the road, toss up my small tent and spend the night there. But before I do that, I could get some “dry time” in a bar until about 4:30 am, plus have a drink or two. The roads lead me to the next town over, Amagansett.

I pulled up a parked in front of a night club called Stephens Talk House with a rumble that echoed through the streets. As I got of my bike and removed my helmet, I noticed the guys at the door were staring me up. They seemed to have a look of concern as I was walking up the planked ramp to the entrance; probably for good reason. Here I am large logging boots, black leather pants, vintage road worn biker jacket, hair down to the middle of my back (dark, with blonde and eggplant colored streaks) matted and a face dirtied from road crap, just looking like I've been laying in muddy water for weeks. “Can I help you?” was muttered from the one bouncer. Here we go again, the first time someone asked me this evening, the results weren’t to good. “Yeah, you got a towel?” I responded. When he answered no, I told him that the bar inside would be able to help me then. As I started to walk past him he said to me that they don’t want any trouble – give me break. I’m to damn tired and wet to be a problem. As I walked in it felt the same as when the boys in the movie Animal House walked into the club to see Otis Day & the Knights.Time stopped, things got real quiet and the room was looking right at me. As I scanned the club all I saw was 20 something year olds wearing plaid patterned shorts and polo shirts, each with some sort of little animal emblem on the chest – I just entered yuppie hell. As I headed to the bar, folks cleared a path to let me by. They looked at me like the one of bad ass bikers that were in the end of the Weird Science movie. I ordered a beer and just hung out listening to the band a checking out the scene. Not my normal kind of hangout. I found out later that this club was one of the bigger hot spots for the area money folks. Entertainers like Billy Joel and others would regularly stop in a play with no notice, that didn’t happen that night though.

After a short time a couple of people came up to me and start conversation. I’m guessing thatthey either lost a bet or failed at paper, rock, scissors and their friends dared them to speak to me. Conversation was typical for strangers and started off with where you’re from. I told them my story about not being allowed into the campground and one asked “so you’re from Buffalo?” Don’t know if they didn’t hear me correctly over the music or just weren’t paying attention, but instead of dealing with explaining it all over again, I said yeah. As the night went on more people were talking to me, it was kind of like meet the alien night for all the Hamptonettes. As the evening tickedaway, more conversation and jokes were told as well as more beer flowed then some yahoo decide that we all needed shots of Yukon Jack & lime (aka snakebites). The band kept playing, folks were drinking, dancing and having a great time and I somehow was in the middle of everything. There still are a few blank spots, but I do remember even being on the stage singing backup and roaring up the crowd – funny what some hops, barley and Yukon will do to you. By the end of the night …errr morning I somehow was transformed from a psycho looking weirdo to the center of attention, almost rockstar status. Certainly hard to figure knowing how shy I am (wink). Finally it was time to go, not by our choice - the staff. As I walked outside with a few of my new found friends, we noticed that it was starting to get light, the rain had stopped for now but things were still overcast. One of the crew offered that I could crash at the place he and his friends had, all I needed to do was give him a ride there. So being a little safety conscious (but not smart enough to stay off the bike), I told him to wear my helmet to be safe (what an oxymoron that was). I started up the Sporty and the two of us roared through the streets setting off every car alarm we passed. How or why we weren’t stopped by the police, I have no idea. We travel through a few different dark back roads to his place, went inside and crashed.

We I finally opened my eyes; I was staring at unfamiliar carpet strands. I stood up a bit too quickly because it seemed what little blood was left in my head, rushed to my feet instantly. Wow the signs were all there; my mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage, I was dizzy as all hell, stomach turning, muscles aching and dry mouthed. Yup there was no doubt I was seriously mugged by a bunch of St. Paulie Girls. Finding my way to the frig, I opened it to look for some relief. I found that everything had been labeled by name with masking tape and marker; definitely a house rented by a group of kids. So to be fair, I had a drink from each one, had myself a smoke then grabbed my helmet and headed outside. Damn it – still raining. So I mounted my wet iron steed and just started riding with no idea where I was or where I was heading. After 30 minutes or so I found my way back to the center of East Hampton; now I had some bearings and pointed myself back to the campground that blocked my entrance last night to finally meet up with my friends. Since it was daylight, rolling through the gates for the campground was no longer an issue. Following the lot numbers I came to the site where we were to meet but much to my surprise the lots were empty. As I shut down the bike I just sat there and stared for a moment when some guy asked me if I was looking for the bikers that were here last night. Yes and where are they? He told me that they packed it up about an hour ago stating they had enough and were going home. What the F*** was my first thought, had enough? I’m out there burning brain cells to stay in town and they leave? Now the payphone/answering machine game starts. Once again cell phones were rare back then and those who had them had mucho dollars, plus the phones themselves were the size of a shoebox.

Realizing that I am now stranded in the rain again and brutally hung over, I decide to try to find a room somewhere. After a dozen calls, it’s obvious that even though it’s pouring rain it didn’t stop everyone from using their booked rooms for the holiday weekend. As a last resort I call the local Chamber of Business and asked if they knew of any available rooms. This was something I remember someone telling me that they do occasionally keep listings of rooms that are vacant in the area. I lucked out, there was a small 3 bedroom B&B that had a room available. I called immediately and got the room and for a cheap rate considering everything going on. After following the directions, I meet the folks who own the house; of course I had to tell them my story and why I needed the room onshort notice (I did leave most of the partying stuff out). They then showed me my room and said that there was a shared bathroom at he the end of the hall with a shower and tube. I was also informed that the other occupants were out all day whale watching. Right about now a shower or bath sound great. Grabbed my towels and partially wet but clean clothes and headed down the wallpapered hall. It was a neat old farm house that was very much pulled out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I opened the door to the bathroom and saw the biggest cast iron bathtub on clawed feet I have ever seen. You could have done laps in it. I’m there! Soaking in the hot water made me realize how achy all my muscles and joints were from boththe riding and the self inflicted damage I put myself through. After what seemed to be over an hour, I went to my room climbed into the giant canopy bed and crashed for some time.

Waking up, I once again had that “where the hell am I” feeling before things started to focus in my brain. With nothing else to do, and now partially rested, I got dressed and headed to town. I once again left a message on my friend’s machine, telling him I found a room and was going into town for some eat’s. I pulled up to a tavern called the Grill, made my way to the bar ordered a beer and some food. It was a nice place, very rustic looking with a rows of patio doors that opened to a seating area on the street. I don't think there are too many places in town that weren't nice. As I was eating the phone on the bar rang, the bartender picked it up and after stating “The Grill” was just listening until I heard him reply “oh, you’re looking for that biker from Buffalo” and handed me the phone. I asked who would be calling me and he said that the person on the phone was looking for someone riding a Harley and you’re the only biker in town this weekend that everybody knows of – Grrrrreat. It was my friend Dario. He was trying to get a trailer to come out and pick me up. I told him not to worry about and that I have a place to stay. Besides it was already 9pm. Time sure fly’s when you’re in a semi comma.

As I left the Grill it was still raining with no sign of letting up. Well since I only know of the Grill and Stephens, might as well head there. Trying to pull upquietly this time was like being as smooth as a whisper that could blow the leaves off a tree. Didn’t work well, but at this point who cares? I headed up the ramped entrance once again and saw the same bouncer at he door. This time I was greeted with a Hey Don, How’s it going? Shit that can’t be good, he knows my name. As I walked into the bar, I was suddenly greeted like Norm on Cheers with a group yelling “HEY IT’S BUFFALO DON!” What the F*** did I do last night? Now I am not the best with names, but this time I couldn’t even remember these people’s faces. It’s like I never meet them – bad sign. To spare you some of the details, I’ll just sum it up as a night for them to remember, because I certainly didn’t. I just went by the stories they told me, pretty amazing stuff. So I spent the night BS-ing and turning down shots everyone felt they owed me (obviously had more than my share the night before). The night seemed to end with less causalities and I actually headed to my room before the bar closed, probably a good thing.

Sunday morning came; I had some cigs and coffee for breakfast and started to roll home. Damn I was sore. That ride on the L.I.E. was painful, but at least it wasn’t raining, overcast but dry for now. On the way home I saw a plywood sign off the road saying that there was bungee jumping off the next exit. What the hell might as well check it out. Once I found the spot I saw it was a crane set over a pond and guys were jumping and bouncing away. Out of curiosity I went and ask how much it cost. $25, wanna try it? Not realizing that my cerebral cells were not at full operating mode, I answered- sure. So they put me into the caged platform and as the crane was lifting us (me and the “assistant”) I was getting the body harness put on and was given instructions – not one word I heard. The guy then tells me to just jump at the count of three. I leaped before he finished two. Scared shitless I go falling to the ground where suddenly I'm snapped backed by the bungee. I bounce for a few more times then they lower me to the earth. The one guy all psych’d up goes to me “wasn’t that just cool?” I responded by throwing up where I stood and answered NO. This dumbass activity certainly made riding that much more enjoyable. What was I thinking? Oh that’s right; I was temporarily brain dead when I left East Hampton. Well that should be it, just a suffering ride home – wrong! I was just about to head to the bridge to get off the island when I notice another bike parked under a overpass with its rider sitting on the guardrail. I pulled over to see if he needed any help. He told me that the weatherband radio just sent out an alert about a possible tornado in the area. What else do I need to deal with? He suggested I wait under the cover with him until things passed. Within minutes the sky darkened like midnight and winds were gusting out of nowhere. All the garbage and sand was blowing around making it hard to see when SLAM – a huge burst of wind blew over both our bikes. I just stood there shaking my head saying I surrender!!!! What the hell did I do to pay this price for the weekend? We picked up our rides and after about forty minutes things started to calm down. Only a couple of scratches, nothing serious resulted from their knock down. We said goodbye, ride safe and headed our ways. I did find out later that there was no tornado, just excessively high winds came through – that’s for sure.

The rest of my ride home was uneventful (finally) and I spent the whole day Monday just lying around recouping. And so ended the wild rampage of the one time Buffalo Don; hoping the name and weekend would rest in peace. I was told some time later by a friend who would visit the same area on a regular basis that he overheard some folks talking about this wildman that was from Buffalo. Hearing the story from me already, he thought it was best to keep his mouth shut and not let anybody know he knew me – smart move

My First HOG Rally

Couldn't sleep the other night so I decide to do some writing to pass the time. Nothing of real importance, but if you have some time to kill - here's something to read. (maybe you're up late now too).

Here is another one from the past. The first HOG Rally that I attended certainly turned out to be a bigger adventure than I would have imagined it to be. It was in July of 1989 and it was a NorthEast Rally that was held in Worchester. Mass. Being a member with HOG for three years at that time, I thought it would be something to check out. So I talked my brother-in-law, John, into doing the trip with me. We registered for the event, found a site close by to camp at and were ready.

On Thursday, the start of the rally, we opted to take back roads through northern Connecticut to head to the rally. The ride took us through rolling hills and small towns. It was a fairly hot summer day but things were going good until about 1 ½ away from our destination the front end of my Sportster started to wobble on a turn. Able to pull over safely, I found out I had a flat. Ok so it’s not the best way to start a journey, but the tire said tubeless on it so my partner headed to the closest auto shop for some fix-a-flat. His trip took only about 40 minutes, we install the repair in a can; the tire looked good so we headed to a service station to top of the air and continued on our way.

We arrived at the campsite and upon checking in, the person at the desk stated that they did not know that we were with the rally and did not permit motorcycles on the campsite because of noise. Granted our bikes were loud back then, we were both running drags but I thing the bigger fact was we both very much looked like long haired dirtbags – very much the stereo type biker for the average non rider. He did give us the name and phone number of another site. We called; they had room and said that bikes were welcomed.

We got to the new site, found our location in the campgounds, took down the rope surrounding our site and set up our tents. While we were doing all that, we were deciding how to approach the rest of the afternoon/evening when this guy came over to us and started conversation. He told that his name was Bob and started talking about all the things going on besides the HOG Rally. He mentioned a biker rodeo in the next town that he seemed eager to check out, a couple of bike shops, and bars in town. He mentioned that he meet some cool bikers in one of the bars the night before. Now this guy was a little hyper to say the least, babbling at 100mph and talking like he rehearsed all the phrases they use to quote in Easyriders magazine back then. Well, we told him we were heading to the rally to register and check things out the grap a bite. He decided to tag along (little did we know about his shadow type tendencies).

The rally was basically a large tent with a couple of vendors and some food for the members. They had a bike show and rides scheduled, maybe a couple of other things but not much more (at least what I can remember). So we looked at some bikes, walk around (with Bob following us everywhere yakking away about more “scooter trash” stuff) then decided to get something to eat, Guess who decide to tag along? After dinner, now around 9pm, Bob stated he’ll take us too the bar where he met the group of people he spoke about before.

As we walked in we came upon a couple that Bob ran into. We introduce each other and started to talk. The guy was Dario and he was with his girlfriend Roseann, both from Long Island. Bob headed to the bar and Dario asked if Bob was a friend of ours. I said no and that we were trying to figure out how to loose him politely, and if that didn’t work try another approach. Dario said they we so happy to see us walk in with him because they were trying to dump as well, seems Bob’s leaching was trying to many that came in contact with him. So Dario, his girl, my brother-in-law and I decided that there was no reason to be polite and left on our rides while good ol’ Bob was getting a drink. We headed to a few other joints that night and finally rumbled into the camp grounds about 2am (amazing how loud those drags are in the dead of the night).

7am, after an night of maybe one too many and 5 hours sleep, Bob sticks his head into our tent and starts yakking and asking all kinds of questions – where did this guy come from and why is he speaking to me at this hour in my tent? I told him (can’t remember in what tone or exact words) we’ll see him later; I need sleep. Rolling out of tent at a sensible 11am, I found Bob sitting by our campfire (which he must have started). I wasn’t two steps out of the tent when his verbal assault started again. This time it was about the bike rodeo he wanted to check out and if we wanted to go with him. Yikes how is this happening to us. After meeting up with Dario & his girlfriend (they were also staying at the same camp site), we decided to head over to the HOG tent to see what was going on for the day, and once again guess who tagged alone? So the five of us on four bikes headed out and once we headed onto the interstate Dario and I took off at a very quick pace, not realizing that we lost John in the traffic, along with Bob. It wasn’t until we got to the HOG tent that we noticed there were no more John and Bob. Figuring they knew there way, we went about checking things out. Now this was way before everybody had cell phones so we had no checking on John. While we were at the HOG site a sudden storm developed out of nowhere. The skies blackened like it was midnight and the winds started to pick up. Everyone, including ourselves, head for the big tent for cover; the winds got so strong that the tent started to lift off the ground and debris was flying everywhere. Then the rain came and came hard and fast, followed by hail. Very intense situation to be in. No one wanted to step from under the tent, but all were thinking it was going to collapse. The wind even knocked over a few bikes, it was wild. After about 40 minutes the storm passed and skies cleared up like nothing happened. Someone for the hotel where the rally HQ based itself told a group that a report of a small twister touched down not far from us. With all the excitement going on we forgot about John, then out of the steam mist from the hot blacktop and cool rain came John, like the scene from Days of Thunder where Tom Cruise first shows up on the racetrack riding a Harley. Immediately we went over to him and ask where the hell he went.

After a few “you F ing guys” for loosing him, he said since he wasn’t to sure where to go he followed Bob. Bad choice; Bob lead him straight to the biker rodeo he wanted to go to all weekend. Once they got there, they became part of the storm. Problem was they had no place to run for cover. So being pissed about being lost in traffic, dealing with Bob for the past 24 or so hours and winding up somewhere he didn’t want to be in a near tornado - WITH BOB, John told Bob if he comes near him again he’ll have to hurt him. That took care of Bob for the rest of the weekend. After a few war stories of the past event the four of us headed out and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out, riding, playing pool (where we were accused of hustling people and almost got into a bar fight – hey what can I say, I use to play the game well) and keeping good company. When we left on Sunday, we exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch. As John and I were packing up, a camp ground employee stopped by our site and asked what we were doing camping there. Not sure what he was talking about, we said this was where the office told us to go. He noticed that the folks all down the row where set up one space over from where they should be, probably because of the way the lots were marked. He then asked if the site was roped off. We said yes and we thought it was what they did for empty lots. The man then told us that the site was roped off because the ground was contaminated and they were waiting for the DEP to check the soil. GREAT. Nothing like finding that out as we were heading out.

After all that, and the experiences from the long weekend (not to mention that we may have indulged a bit too much in during that time), all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. That was slightly altered though. Remember that tubeless tire? Well it finally let loose an hour into the ride home. Little did I know that there was a tube inside those spoked rims. How the tire lasted for 4 days I don’t know, plus some high speed were involved as well. At this point 50 cans of fix-a-flat wouldn’t help me. With it being Sunday and both of us having no idea where we were, things looked grim. So John called a friend of ours and asked if he could pick up John’s truck and come get us. We gave him the pay phone number we were at (that damn no cell phone thing again) and after a few calls and few wrong roads, our buddy showed up 5 hours later. We load the wounded Sporty and John’s bike into the back of the truck and made our long trek home and I got to bed about 11pm. The next day at work was pretty rough to get through, that’s for sure. I got home Monday after work and hit the sack at 5pm and slept for 13 hours.

Looking back the rally has a special place in my memories. Granted the event itself was a little lack luster, but everything else that occurred was certainly something to smile about. Dario and I became lifelong friends. We have spent time with each others families and Tina, the kids and I attended his wedding on a tourboat in Long Island. Since then Dario had a messy divorce and moved to Virginia but he is just as jovial and fun to speak with and we keep in constant contact. You never know what life has to offer, but you can almost always guarantee that you’ll meet some fascinating people while riding your Harley. Looks like now there is going to be a road trip to VA one day soon to visit an old friend and gather new stories.