From Behind the Lens
By: Colleen Swartz
March 15, 2008
It’s never too late to be brought up right.
I know that I work for one of the coolest biker rags out there today but you guys are going to have to bear with me as I tell you how that came to be. See, I was not raised in the bike culture. Sure, I am 38 years old but it wasn’t until I was 32 that I came to meet my boyfriend JP who is a biker. Before JP I only had antidotal information on the biker culture. My cousin Rusty (the black sheep) was hard-core but I never got to hang with him and although I have fostered a great love of photography all of my life, it wasn’t until JP started taking me to bike events that I turned that love into a career that now has me almost exclusively shooting bikes and biker culture.
If I had been raised in a family or amongst a group that was like the people that I now consider “family” I would have been schooled right from the start but I wasn’t so now I find child-like wonderment with so many things that many of you take for granted.
I have come to love riding bikes, hanging with bikers, going to bike events, shooting bikes, writing about bikes and being part of the biker culture but only too late in life. This brings me to our story.
It is a story of getting an education from Wildman Chris Callen at his dining room table one night (very late) when he started talking to me about how so many things in Cycle Source are derivatives of things that the biker rags back in the 70’s were doing. I couldn’t relate, so he started pulling out issues of Easyriders from his huge collection for me to look at.
I was blown away. I had honestly never sat down and looked at a ‘70’s era Easyriders before and Wildman couldn’t believe it. He was giddy with excitement as he ripped open issue after issue pointing at bikes, telling me how they did it in the day and why, showing me cartoons and David Mann stuff I had never seen before and ads and fiction and more natural tits and big ‘70’s bush than I had seen since…. Well, honestly I had never seen so much natural tits and ‘70’s bush before that night.
A part of me felt like a fool. Like a poser. Like a fraud. Sure, I had a good eye in the camera and I knew what I liked in bikes and I could relate completely with the biker mentality and attitude, but it turned out it was all by simple luck and coincidence. I just happened to naturally be drawn to these things and had nothing to do with knowing the history and the path that had been laid down by countless bikers before my shiny little face turned up.
Wildman must have picked up on my sheepishness and he said the kindest thing to me. Wildman told me that he was amazed that I knew as much, felt as much and lived as I did without ever being raised up right.
That was a small consolation to me but very welcomed and now I find myself buying old Easyriders off of eBay or anywhere else I can get my hands on them. I share Wildman’s giddiness every time I sit on the can and page through one of these gems. Look what they had going for them! A topless (or nearly topless) hot chick on every cover, bylines like “How to keep your old lady from bitching” and “How to make righteous home brew” and “Another successful prison bike show” and “Bucks Down? Why not hop a train?” and “Lots of disgusting stuff”.
Do you remember Easyrider’s top advertiser? It had to be Righteous Products with 10 or more ads in every issue completely ripping off Harley-Davidson. It is amazing to me as I watch Harley corporate have bonfires of goods that even come close to logo infringement now and back then you could get H-D belt buckles, watches, Nazi knifes, Nazi belt buckles, playing cards, beer mugs, knit hats, you name it, they put the Harley-Davidson logo on it and someone else made the money. Wildman says that the striking resemblance of Cycle Source’s Low Down and the guy in the Righteous logo was no coincidence.
I wish Jammer Cycle Products were still in business because I would order the shit out of what they offered along with Tee shirts stating “Harley riders eat more pussy” and “Stash Pouches” that are advertised by saying “Goin’ into a heavy neighborhood? Protect your valuables with this Stash Pouch that won’t slide down when jumping or running.” and a photo of the pouch holding $100 bills, a knife, a gun and something that looks a lot like a dime bag.
“Dusty” Sage did a great “Asstrology” piece that puts me in stitches. In fact, if you were a Cancer and wanted to know how your September, 1977 month was going to go; Dusty told you; “You might possibly be faced with a big decision this month. Of course if it’s choosin’ between a new front end for your ride or gettin’ the ol’ lady a washer for your threads, that’s simple. After ya get your font end, show her what a sweetheart you are – buy her a washboard. That way you’ll still have clean rags and it’ll keep her ass in shape too. Let her know who’s boss. You’ll do the pickin’, she can do the lickin’.” Priceless.
So maybe it’s not too late for me. I will continue to marvel at the bikes and the drug use and the clubs and the bush and the parts and the parties that happened when I was just a child and try to bring it with me into everything that I do and see. These old Easyriders have opened my world to the people and lifestyle that was truly sub-culture in the 70’s and I now cherish them the way Wildman does.
And that is how I see it, from behind the lens.
Your comments and story ideas are always welcome at colleen@digitalmagicbigshots.com.
