agingrebel.com
The public relations war between the fictitious Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club and the putatively real Laffing Devils Motorcycle Club entered its fourth day this morning.
The Laffing Devils is the subject of a Discovery Channel “reality television” show called The Devil’s Ride. Discovery is working the club like a pimp works a crack whore and the line between the motorcycle club and the television program has disappeared.
The show may possibly now be an embarrassment to the club. This page has made multiple attempts to solicit comments about the show from both the producers (Bischoff Hervey Entertainment Television, LLC) and individual patch holders. An unidentified member of the LDMC emailed, “Things are a bit hectic right now. But we are always wanting some good publicity.”
Apparently, the club got what it wished for. Discovery is now hawking 13 pieces of merchandise that are intended to milk additional revenue for the network.
Merchandise
Some of the merchandise blatantly insults and trivializes motorcycle clubs as institutions. For example: “Head on down the road with the Laffing Devils on the reality show The Devils Ride. This Devils Ride Skull pullover Hoodie bears a skull-and-spears icon in aviators. Controversy abounds between real-life motorcycle clubs and fictional motorcycle clubs when the line between the two is smudged by reality….”For $27 plus shipping and handling, Discovery will sell fans of the television series “The Devils Ride Respect Old Blood T-shirt .” The piece of cloth refers “to founding father and Laffing Devils’ President Gipsy stepping down from his spot, the Devils Ride Respect Old Blood T-shirt calls to the loyal. With the promise of new blood in the Brotherhood, there’s sure to be some change. Watch it go down in this official tee as realities clash….”
For the same price, small boys of all ages may own a “Devils Ride Part Of The Brotherhood” shirt. This thing symbolizes that the wearer has “lived life all pumped up on a level of intensity that normal life can’t match. The Devils Ride Part Of The Brotherhood T-shirt is about the answer to those questions. The Laffing Devils motorcycle club is largely full of guys who looked for answers and found them in their motorcycle club.”
Qui Es Mus Macho
The entertainment news show TMZ created more controversy, and publicity, for the show this week after Kurt Sutter, the lead producer of Sons of Anarchy, tweeted “watched DEVIL’S RIDE. probably get in trouble for saying this, but I’m pretty sure my SOA actors could kick the shit out of this ‘real’ MC.”TMZ then quoted a club patch holder as saying, “I am concerned that Kurt’s creative mind is stuck in make-believe land with his recent comment on Twitter. Here’s a reality check for ya Kurt…. I am sending a personal invitation to your pretty-faced Kurt Cobain look-alike star Jax (portrayed by Charlie Hunnam) to come down to San Diego and prove your point. And tell him to wear those shiny white kicks too. I hope he’s a size 11, I could use some new shoes.”
Sutter responded to that by tweeting, “the reality is that hunnam is probably the toughest fucking dude on my set. newcastle street kid. he’s the last guy I’d ever pick to fight.”
In the last two days, Sutter who also has a new show on Discovery called Outlaw Empires, has stated that he believes that he has been exploited by the network. Yesterday he tweeted, “i know devil’s ride has exploited SOA and is now using me for more exposure” and “LACTATING DEVILS, fake MC is now threatening actors. wow, they are so fucking BADASS. gigiddy. TMZ you complete me.”
Sutter Explains It All
This afternoon Sutter posted a video on YouTube in which he further explains that he has an argument with the Discovery Channel but not the Laffing Devils. Sutter said:“No one at the network (Discovery) ever mentioned this outlaw motorcycle project they had in development – not to me, not to my producing partners at Studio Lambert, nobody. Nothing was ever said. And I didn’t hear about it honestly until somebody started tweeting about it and I guess some of the trailers had already come out.
“And suddenly I’m watching the promos for this show and I’m seeing scenes that were taken directly from, you know, Sons of Anarchy pilot. You know, a guy in a barbershop watching bikes go by. And, suddenly it all felt a little covert and quite honestly a little duplicitous. And, I just felt like, you know, when suddenly the network is billing this show the, you know, real life Sons of Anarchy and stealing the concept in terms of…uh…not stealing the concept but going after clearly the audience that watches Sons.
“And because I was associated with the network (Discovery) because I had this project going on the obvious assumption, and I think it makes sense, is that people would assume that either that was my show or I had something to do with that show. And, I just felt like the network had to be aware of that and perhaps that’s why they never mentioned it. And it was just, you know, it just felt like kind of a shitty thing to do. And you know, obviously that’s what happened and people assumed I had something to do with that show and I didn’t. And, now I feel like, well, did they only get in business with me on Outlaw Empires because they knew they were doing that and it was somehow, some way of doing this…you know… branding thing so…and tapping into the Sons audience.
“So, suddenly I just felt like, I don’t know, I just felt like duped, quite honestly. And, pissed off you know? So, then I felt like that’s, that I need to, uh, I need to distance myself from that. You know, that’s not a show I’m associated with. It’s not a show I want to be associated with. I don’t do that kind of reality TV. Outlaw Empires is a documentary series based on the lives of real people. So I just felt it was important for me to distance myself and I do that by how I usually do on Twitter by making some sort of snarky, absurd comments.
“And then what happened, as usual, is that comment got fed back to the guys that were doing that reality show. And they said some things about me and that got spun out in a certain way that I’m sure wasn’t the truth either because it was fucking TMZ so it is what it is. And of course these guys are gonna respond in a big way when they have some fucking douche bag with a camera calling them out in front of their friends. So, it just went ugly which is fine if the blowback is only on me. But, then they started harassing Charlie (Hunnum) and emailing him. And then, once again, I’m always taught the hard lesson of that when it comes to Sons of Anarchy it’s not me, man. I’m not the show. The show’s this bigger entity that impacts the lives of hundreds of other people.”
“So that’s what went down. I don’t know those dudes (the Laffing Devils). I don’t want to know those dudes. And I know they are a support club for a bigger club and I guess inroads have been made to clean things up so everyone feels like they’re being heard and respected and that’s fine. That should all be done. And I support that and will do whatever I need to do to make that happen. So that’s what went down. And for me the biggest culprit in all this is Discovery. I hate to be the guy that goes, ‘Oh the evil empire network did it.’ But, you know, I don’t know what else to say.”
And, that bullshit is what happened on the motorcycle outlaw frontier today.