RockMoto

“Okay, we are now, officially, the lamest motorcycle gang in the history of history.”

My riding companions laughed, and in total agreement. They could not do otherwise. We were at a mega mall, in sanitized, yuppified suburbia, standing in line to dine at The Rainforest Café.

Now, it’s not for me to cut down the Rainforest, a corporate “restaurant concept” with the combined mission of boosting environmental awareness, dishing up wings, burgers, calamari and cheese-sticks, and steering you to a well-stocked gift shop chock full of bright-eyed grinnin’ critters for sale, in plastic or plush toy form. Animals that, in the real world, surely, would either want to eat you alive or poison you into a coma, lay eggs on or within you, and then have their newly hatched young enjoy you as a still very fresh first meal.

Truly, a group of chopper riding dudes had no business winding up at the mall (the mall!) after two days of thundering over mountain ranges and across several counties. But I wasn’t the leader of the pack. I just was along for an enjoyable cruise.

Of course, we should have been at a dive bar on the wrong side of the tracks. Heavy metal blaring in the smoky air. Surrounded by a lot of leather, tattoos, facial hair, piercings and teeth broken off at the gum line…wielding knives, picking fistfights, spitting a lot and wolfing down unidentifiable proteins that had been lightly killed, quickly scorched and tossed our way on old paper plates. Napkins? Use your sleeve, man. Or the back of the handy T-shirt being worn by the guy next to you. It was probably washed sometime last month.

Instead, at the Café, we marveled at the gigantic tropical fish tank shaped into an arch over the entry to the dining hall. As did all the screaming children. With balloons. As we were seated, wall-mounted audio-animatronic animals snorted, growled and bared their teeth. Every half hour, the dining room went dark, followed by lightning strobe flashes and the piped-in clap of thunderstorms. The chocolatey “Volcano” dessert, a house specialty, was topped off by a shiny, frilly tassel to suggest eruption and flame. Even a lit sparkler would be too much here.

All fake. All harmless. Just like us.

As we were all done with the day’s riding, someone requested a chardonnay (a chardonnay!). Dimly hoping to go just a little more bad-ass, I ordered a “Green Python.” A mix of Midori, coco rum, pineapple and other fruity liqueurs, it was sweeter than a Halloween sack full of candy. I wished I’d asked for it to be served in a dirty glass.

As I nursed that cocktail, I thought about how jungles and motorcyclists, once mysterious and menacing, both used to mean something else in pop culture, triggering unjustified trepidation for the average Boomer.

Stereotypes can take a long while to die. But for mostly better, and maybe for some worse, the motorcycling mystique has changed along with the new millennium.

The parents at the Café didn’t shield their kids from us. The hostess didn’t treat us any different or dial up security. I swear, as I walked to the table, an old lady gumming down her meal grinned at me, as if I was cute or something. She didn’t recoil in horror at my motorcycle jacket and pathetic three-day stubble. I was actually afraid she’d wink at me (please, no!). The local constable didn’t drop by to keep an eye on us outlaws and, forget it, we couldn’t even get arrested in this town. Our Hilton hotel, a walk across the street, had let us park the choppers earlier right in front of the respectable main entrance.

They all just weren’t buying it. We weren’t rebels. We were…accepted. And that simply would not have not been the case just 40 years ago.

On the other hand, out on the highway, various minivan and SUV driving, cell-phone-toting, multitasking motorists didn’t think twice about pulling in front of us, no signal thank you very much, or slicing aggressively between our properly spread out group, or even tailgating with absolutely no mercy and no concern.

“Easy Rider” was about a counterculture that such suburbanites shunned. These days, “Born to Be Wild” is fired up by the musical director on “The Today Show” whenever there’s a piece on anything motorcycle related. The old official biker anthem has been emasculated once and for all. Even chopper riders, by and large, have morphed into domesticated animals not to be feared. From wild to mild. From marauding to mainstream.

Good news, bad news, or is the truth lying somewhere in the middle as usual? I don’t have the answers, I really don’t. Buy me a Green Python sometime and we’ll talk about it. They’re yummy, they are. - Ty