I just finished watching the seventh and final season of Sons of Anarchy (“SOA”). It’s an interesting series about how a gang (oops, I mean, a “motorcycle club”) manages to eek through life by helping others with a warm smile and shooting guns at people.
Knowing that cable TV series always try to be as realistic as possible, there are a few things I have learned about your run-of-the mill motorcycle club:
- Let all your cellphone calls go to voicemail. You will sleep better. Like phone calls from the dentist, 99% of all incoming calls are bad news. But you will still lose a tooth tomorrow.
- Biker women are much more attractive than I knew. Knowing SOA was shot in the LA area, and that the directors wanted to show the biker life as realistically as possible, I now know that only the skinniest blonde women enjoy the lifestyle afforded riding on the back of a Harley. And they are much less argumentative than most women I know.
- In a meeting, you have a better chance of being shot by your partner than your enemy. Never go into a meeting alone because it is probably an ambush. And never go to a meeting with only one guy alongside, because he is probably leading you into an ambush. And never go to a meeting with two or more guys because there is no meeting – it is an ambush. All of a sudden an IRS audit suddenly seems like a piece of cake, doesn’t it?
- Never leave an MC (motorcycle club) because having the ink removed MUST hurt! When joining an MC the club makes you get a tattoo to prove your commitment. If you mess up (which is not a wise career move, by the way) then they kick you out and they remove the club tattoo. Sure, we’ve all seen the commercials about how easy it is to have a tattoo removed nowadays. But don’t expect the members of your soon-to-be-former MC to make an appointment with one of those specialists. Not only don’t they have the time to sit in the lobby and wait for you, I don’t think the club’s health insurance covers it. Your former club has a quicker way to remove the tattoo for you. Spoiler alert: look up the phrase “skin graft”.
- If you try to run a legitimate business, like an ice cream parlor, it will be a tough go. Until John Q. Public toughens up you can expect customers to shy away from businesses where bikers hang out and occasionally get grenaded.
- Don’t deal with the IRA. They are meanies and sometimes they lie. And they always seem to have someone else in the back room that they ‘forget’ to tell you about…and he has an AK47…pointed at you.
- People still like you even if you have club connections, ink (tattoos), cuts (an MC jacket), cuts (tears in the skin), guns, no real job, a cool ride, greasy hair, and an attitude. Note: guns really help sway people over to you.
- Your mother MAY get you in trouble. Fortunately, SOA has their own take on how to handle the situation. I just don’t recommend it.
- Your MC logo won’t contain a rainbow, flowers, a unicorn, a smiley face, fluffy clouds, or a picture of a person with any skin still remaining.
- White supremacists are not always nice. It’s true. And I’ll argue all day with anyone who disagrees.
- Nobody watches TV. I have to say this about how I’ve raised my kids: while they are watching mindless shows about Decepticons or Kardashians they are not out popping a cap in someone’s a**. Sorry, sometimes the street lingo crawls into my vocabulary.
- Don’t worry about social media. MC’s don’t have Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. And they sure don’t put any pics on Instagram.
So I guess I will have to change my midlife crisis plans from joining a motorcycle club to something less stressful, like a senior citizen’s club. And senior citizens are more dangerous on the highway!
