Chopper Hostel

Thanks to Luke Atkinson over at @Hillbillydemafia for making all this happen ! It’s never run this good.

I rode my chopper for the last time five years ago comin’ back from the Twin River Campout. I heard a knock on the way up and I made sure it was toast when I left.

Flat shiftin’ at full burn for about 20 minutes locked the whole shit show up tight. It was intentional and to this day I don’t feel guilty or have any explanations as to why it needed to die. It was the next mornin’ after a mushroom cleansing and my mind was clear and calm…it needed to die. It was glorious.

The next few years were spent workin’ on clearing that shithole of a property I found myself calling home. It was more than just a long term sentence at some low rent labor camp, It was me desperately tryin’ to break that fucking addiction to that old Shovelhead. The one that has plagued me since I first threw my leg over it riding to Watkins Glen on the back with my Dad. Best time of my life.

That was when the bike was new…I’m surprised we made it. 1979 isn’t a year known for quality Harley Davidsons. It blew up 2000 miles later for the first time and the dealership he got it from just replaced the pistons and rings never wondering why it was pushing the piston pin through the cylinder wall. Dad just gave up on it and it sat in a parking lot of an apartment we were living in at the time. I sat there for over a year with a blown motor, it was mine when I came back from being deployed (fuckin’ whores and drinkin’ WAY too much) in the Navy.

I’ve been stuck with it ever since. I guess there was sentimental attachment to that piece of shit so I just kept it, rebuilt it and beat the living snot out of it for over 30 years. I always wanted to ride a different bike on some of those long stretches of nothing highway, but it wasn’t gonna happen if I have to sell the Latowski to do so.

I’ve had a couple of Evos in different configurations, but they never gave me the riding that I really craved or the soul I was accustomed to. That uphill chug of my iron cylindered Shovelhead give it all meaning, anything else just gets you there.

Today, I had the same shit day that I have been havin’ for years but today, I threw my leg over the Latowski and went out for a scrape in the twisties for the first time in five years. Today, that shit day vanished as I shifted into 2nd, by the time I hit the first hairpin I was thinkin’ of unicorns and pixie dust. Factory reset.

I gotta be honest, toughing it out so could make myself a home was a great idea. Doing it without my Shovel was downright cruel. Too much time walking and too much time thinkin’ you’re a loser while you do it.

The rationality of it makes sense. I had a very unhealthy and all too nihilistic relationship with the Latowski. My obsessive behavior is something that will easily take me down a path of self-destruction and if not addressed would, undoubtably end darkly.

I did it with drinkin’, just stopped, went to a few meetings and my life improved without the hootch. I did the same thing to quit the bike, but life just sucked without it. It actually did work and I scrambled to make something out of my property, but it would have been a much less traumatic path if I hadn’t removed the one thing, besides my dog, that gives me this much meaning.

It’s completely irrational and I’m fully aware of it but when ‘up and runnin’” became the mantra in Snow’s Iron Horse I treated it like gospel, eventually becoming a snake handling zealot in my attitude towards it. Whatever, at least I had an audience.

This is now my 60th summer traveling on this rock and I’ll be damned if I don’t still get that snake handling zealot feeling every time that motor barks to life! I’m a simple creature and it just doesn’t seem to work without that chopper component, and now it’s sitting in my driveway. I may start speaking in tongues again.

It’s almost gthe end of the summer as cooler weather is on the way and Smoke Out Rally is next month. I wasn’t really planning on making it but the bike is ‘up and runnin’, Salisbury is only a 200 mile ride away, not making it would be kind of lame.

I’ve been keepin’ to myself and acting the hermit for a few years now. Mostly because it was a change from when I was still actively writing for the magazine, but also transportation issues have kept me on the property.

Now, however, I’m back in my ‘happy place’ ridin’ my old Shovelhead and freakin’ out the squares. I am in the exact same position that I was before the bike finally accepted its rebuild and started playin’ nice. I’m still broke, the roof leaks and I have no idea how I’m going to make it through the winter; however, I still have Chopper Hostel to focus on improving and maybe even an art career that I can still salvage. With a bike on the road things seem a little less desperate, a little more manageable. Things that you have to force into being aren’t easy and opening a chopper campground when you are walking is downright disheartening…it just sucks. Having two wheels under me will lift that fog that comes from the depression that comes from years of, what seems like, constant failure.

Looking over the grounds and I can see lots of improvements and a clear path to continued growth if I can just keep my head on straight and not disturb that sleeping bear of manic depression and self-deprivation. When it takes hold, nothing gets done, everything is grey and future plans feel futile. I’ve always known it was an illusion but once in the throes of a good kick in the balls downward spiral it’s hard to see things clearly.

For me the answer lays behind the six bends of my old Shovel, it’s the filter that turns the volume down on everything and makes a guy ten foot tall and bulletproof. Depression fades when your negotiating hairpins on a 9-foot-long chopper, the road a head keeps you focused.

I’m not letting my bike fall to the wayside again. I thought I was doing the right thing by putting it on the backburner to sort the rest of my shit out, I was fuckin’ wrong! The bike, come to find out, is the one thing that keeps me grounded in my own shoes. Without it it’s easy to get bogged down in algorithms and politics. Haves and have nots. The general horseshit that they throw at you to keep you participating in the endless narcissism and mass manipulation of the wills of the common citizen. In short, playin’ your part in the puppet show.

I have been revived from my coma. Like Neo, I have been unplugged from the matrix but by a crotchety old Shovelhead, not Lawrence Fishburn. It only takes a few hours on a schooner of your own making to separate you from…well…all that other shit!

I’m kickin’ around the idea of a pre-Smoke Out party here at Chopper Hostel. I know a lot of people will be makin’ their way near my neck of the woods and it might be a gas to have a bunch of old bikes and the beat-up bastards that ride ’em enjoy a little secondary road action to get ya there. Let me know in the comments below with any ideas that you may have.

As far as my life from this point forward goes, I see myself continuing to build out the facilities and get the word out about Chopper Hostel. It’s my dream at this point to have the Hostel fully operational to round out my remaining years riding the mountains of West Bye God on that same old bike I always ride with a bunch of likeminded friends campin’ out on my property and forgetting the world.

So with newfound clarity and confidence the Hostel is moving forward with constant regularity. The bike puts me in the game when folks come by. I’m always down for a ride and if possible, I wanna take every one of them. There’s a few solid weeks oof summertime riding down here in the hills and then the autumn riding is ridiculous in its beauty…it’s like fuckin’ CGI!

Things have been moving along steadily on here and I have been posting at least once a week. Do me, yourself and the world i9n general and please subscribe to Chopper Hostel with email updates to stay informed of news, merch, scheduled events or just to catch the new blog when I drop one

Also you can help by visiting my store to buy prints, new merch and original paintings all ready to ship.

I appreciate your continued support and look forward to getting the word out on this project, the stories and general mayhem. Until next time…”GTP” out