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This is a wild ride of a book
One of the better books I have read in a while. Sonny Barger is a real American legend. I love it when you read a book and there is honesty in the writing, this book delivers that. After reading this book I felt nostalgic for the fact that in todays overly litigious world, there are so few men left like Sonny Barger. Men who are willing to stand in the middle of town at high noon to fight for what they believe in. Having just read Michael Tenaglia's "Anti-Hero", I couldn't help but feel that Sonny Barger has unknowingly influenced, young writers like Tenaglia in so far as their ethical reasons for living outside of the law. In todays world, we need more Sonny Bargers, and less politicians. I recomend this book to all.
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Helmets Off to Barger and the Zimmermans
Coming down hard off my last two reads, Saramago's All the Names and Llosa's Feast of the Goat, although great books, I was primed to drop the academy for a while and get high on some hard-boiled treat of American narrative. Behind the well-designed pulp-ish cover of "Ridin' High, Livin' Free," rebels rule, Barger's book calls out, like drag pipes tearing through town, custom painted gas tanks a glint in your girlfriend's eye. Here's the raw, street-wise tone Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett made famous, from tattoos and tears to biceps and the poetry of the search, American style, like Route 66 it never ends. Anecdotal ironies abound, the mystique, the myth, the clubhouse fish tales, stories of life, the other side of life, just trying to get though life, hang on to your life, get out and ride to save your life¯a little sympathy is ok, but don't complain. Don't be afraid to pick up this book, mainstream middle class sensibilities need to be stomped. Professors, assign it for your Literature of the Deviant class. These tales are for and about those who can still think for themselves. And if you like documentary photography, some of these photos helped create the archetype. Ride high, live free, the American code. Helmets off to Barger and the Zimmermans. Thanks for the refresher course. Now I want to crank up my Road King, tear across the states and rip pages from this book in hopes they find windshields.
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Hell's Angel
Zimmerman's easy read of Barger's memories is a bit of history. One begins quite quickly to realize this history lacks credibility. Barger has reinvented the story of the gang-beating of Hunter Thompson. Skip Workman himself admitted in a 1967 television interview that women once in a while needed to be beaten like a rug. A woman's beating is the reason Thompson expressed his disapproval and was subsequently beaten (Workman's comments were specific to the Thompson beating). Barger softens the story in the book, as part of his overall attempt to change the reputation of the club and make them appear to be heroes. Barger further hopes to canonize himself through this self-fashioning. Once this credibility is broken, one cannot help but question the account of Barger's wife's accidental death while attempting to self abort. Barger freely admits he did not want children. As long as you are ready to indulge the over 60 Barger's attempt to use this quick read to convince you he is an American hero (he supported the Vietnam war), take a peek, it won't take much of your time.
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