So who the hell plans a motorcycle show in the middle of winter anyway? With public transportation to the Javits Convention Center equaling a held out thumb I had to walk four blocks in a blizzard and two feet of snow. Trudging through that storm, all I could think about was motorcycles, how there was no way on god’s good earth I could ride one right then. The only way the IMS could further dissociate motorcycles from their actual possible use would be to hold the show on an off shore oilrig.
             People thought me naive to care that there was no way to ride a motorcycle to the show. It wasn’t about riding motorcycles, said they, but talking motorcycles. It wasn’t about the use of motorcycles, but the ornamentation of one’s groin with a motorcycle.
            I’m told I’m not a motorcycle enthusiast, what Hemingway would have called an “aficionado.” All I do is ride a motorcycle, that puts me in a different category than people who know the names of people who won races, or talk about alloys on cylinder walls, or all those other things I don’t even know I don’t know about because I’m not an aficionado. Some say I’ll learn, as if I was horribly wounded in an accident and painful physical therapy is the only way to help me. Others just shake their heads.
            That’s what I faced as a reporter for a motorcycle magazine at a motorcycle show. I might as well have been friggin’ Santa Clause the way people looked at me. I can’t talk motorcycles, I can’t swap lingo, I don’t know any secret handshakes and I really don’t give a damn. I stick my bike between my legs and let go on the streets like a junkie chasing a fix because I love to ride.
            So what did I see at the show? Lots of people who know lots of names and lots of terms. They have motorcycle mugs in their offices and wax their bikes every warm Sunday. I saw lots of hot shots, lots of hog riders, and I saw lots of dumb kids like me trying to look like we fit in. That’s right, put me in the category with the dip-shit who doesn’t even own a bike yet, I’ll be happier there.
            And you know what else I saw? Lots of bikes that look like the same old bikes that bore me ‘till I want to jab out my eye with a syringe from a hospital dumpster. More bla in red here and more bla in green there. Ya know what, Honda, give me something I can care about. Give me something that makes people write songs and change their lives. Give me something that makes me want to sit by a fire on the beach drinking cheap beer while I get a jailhouse tattoo from a guy with a bandanna and a beard who’s smoking a joint. Give us a reason to scream a war cry, Yamaha. Give us a reason to punch somebody, Kawasaki.