Thursday 5 January 2012

THE 'BILLY BIKE' AND A YOUNG BLOKE'S YEARNING . . "EASY RIDER" 1969

CAPTAIN AMERICA WAS A MARSHMELLOW - THE BILLY BIKE WAS THE BOMB !!!!

THE RIDE THAT FOREVER TWISTED MY MELON AS AN 8 YEAR OLD IN '69/'70
[CLICK ON POST TITLE TO VIEW, YES, I THINK IT'S A MODEL - I SUCK  AT UPLOADING]

When Easy Rider was first released I was eight and living on a Naval base where dad was the head honcho, like a lot of kids my age, I was already besotted with bikes and cars, trucks, planes, anything that was loud, fast and cool. It was screened one weekend in the sailors mess area toward the end of '69, I think, and the old man said I could sit and watch it up the back, definitely wasn't cool with mum, I was stoked !!
The storyline was way over my head, and would remain so until I saw it again years later after reading 'Fear and Loathing' in grade 9, but I didn't give a shit !! From the moment Fonda and Hopper threw their legs over their steel steeds and headed off into the Great Wide Open in pursuit of the Dream I was gone a million, never to be the same, beyond redemption and seeking none . . .
Even then, in my pre-pubescent wunderlust, I thought the Captain America bike was sorta soft, girly, a bit 'poofy' as we Aussies used to say, Hopper's ride on the other hand, had me by the scrotum from the get go, it was so fucking cool . . . kinda ugly/tough/practical/real, and as a redheaded kid back in the 60's I always felt kinda ugly, it just looked like the kind of bike I wanted.
In the 42 odd years since, not a thing has changed, I can dig the lines of the extreme style of the 'pretty bike' but I'm still in love with Billy, the only thing that has changed now whenever I watch the film . . . . . is just how fucking slowly they are going !!! There were reasons for that and you can explore them on your own, that's somone else's story . . . .

R.I.P DENNIS HOPPER, YOU AND YOUR RIDE WILL LIVE ON FOREVER.

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