OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
At least a thousand members of saloon society attended the “Save the
Patch” rally at a Mongols friendly bar called The House Lounge Saturday.
The rally was both a publicity event and a fundraiser. The proceeds
will help the Mongols Motorcycle Club pay the cost of defending a
landmark legal case. The points of that case, titled USA v. Mongol Nation, an Unincorporated Association,
is to outlaw a lawful group with the aid of propaganda and to
criminalize the previously legal act of belonging to a motorcycle club.
Mongols Nation, which attorney Joe Yanny thinks is likely to be
ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, has been almost completely
ignored by the world’s press.
Two reporters made the trek to the House Lounge. One guy wore an Aging Rebel tee-shirt. The other, whose name is Brian Day, wore a press pass from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune,
which is the only news outlet in Los Angeles that has even tried to
report on the Mongols with any semblance of professionalism since
Operation Black Rain was announced in October 2008. You can read Day’s take on the rally here.
Hanging Separately
The Hells Angels and the universe of clubs that support them were
conspicuous by their absence. Los Angeles was unique in the world of
motorcycle clubs for years. There are several one percenter clubs in the
City of Angels. Three of them are big, tough clubs that would have been
solely preeminent almost anywhere else in the world up until about a
decade ago – the Mongols, the Vagos and the Hells Angels.
And it is hardly betraying a confidence to state in writing that the
Vagos and Mongols have arranged a détente in the motorcycle world and
that the Hells Angels remain proudly aloof from that. Nor is there a cop
anywhere within ten thousand miles of Steve Cook, the biker authority
in Kansas, who does not know that there was a bloody incident on the 15
Freeway south and west of El Lay on March 22, a week before the rally,
that involved two well known Los Angeles area clubs. So neither the
Angels nor any of the clubs that must get along with the Hells Angels
made an appearance at the rally. Interestingly, the One Down MC, which
is mostly African-American, was there.
Anyone who knows anything about outlaw clubs or how those clubs
actually work or who understands the single, expressionless face that
all clubs must show to outsiders can imagine that as many as four or
five Angels out of ten sympathize and identify with the Mongols’ legal
dilemma. But that is simply not how the Hells Angels as a whole relate
to the outside world. So in the coming battles over what fraternal
organizations Americans will be allowed to join the Angels will probably
stand alone.
The Event
The House Lounge was packed with patches. There was just enough room
for guys to hug. It was a daytime, friendly event attended by many
women. At any time hundreds of Vagos, Mongols, Carnales, Silent Natives,
Aztec Riders, Vietnam Vets and Pacific Savagez spilled out into the
street.
The steak sandwiches were good, the music was loud, the beer was
cold. Dave Santillan who is not afraid to be known as the President of
the Mongols gave a pleasant speech about the importance of the cause.
Increasingly, there is only one biker party. What differentiates
these events from one other is their subtext. The subtext of this party
was a well known train of logic which goes like this: If faceless and
mostly anonymous government employees can do this the Mongols they can
do it to any motorcycle club including the Hells Angels. If this can
happen to motorcycle clubs it can happen to the Ku Klux Klan, PETA and
the Tea Party. And after that the government will find a way to impose
its will on the Catholics, the Jews, the Methodists and the Boy Scouts.
The subtext was why the party at the House Lounge mattered. To belong
to a motorcycle club is first and foremost a way of being a man. Men
don’t have to stand tall but every once in a while they do have to stand
up. And, every once in a while a man does have to draw or cross a line
in the sand. The Mongols and the Vagos just drew a line.
