Caught THE BIKERIDERS a couple of nights ago on streaming... This will definitely be a purchase on disc when available.. I didn't expect it to be so personal for me.
The spoiler below is to protect you from boring personal info about me AND about the movie
[Show spoiler] While my recent holiday was an overwhelming success, there was a point on one of the last days in Rome where I found myself a little out of sorts. I had spent months planning (perhaps overplanning) every single moment so that we could get the most out of what may be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Despite growing up catholic (and still knowing more about the religion than most current practitioners), I had not planned our trip to the Vatican around avoiding the feast of St Peter and was devastated to find the main church blocked off with seating in a fashion that precluded me giving the tour that I wanted to give my family (having been there many times and having an intimate knowledge of the building)...Moreover, Michaelangelo's PIETA was closed off for renovation ahead of next year's jubilee.
After a quick walk around in a predetermined cattle like line, we were thrust unceremoniously back out onto the front steps.. As my family was assuring me that they still had an educational and entertaining time and that the error was purely random chance, I realized exactly where I was and meditated on the nature of random chance.
More than a half century earlier, a 27 year old woman had been sitting right where we were. She had been deemed too old to get married, and as per the custom in her family, she had to take the step towards becoming a nun, so that her younger sisters could settle down. Her only request was that she take something of a world tour before taking the orders.
This trip found her sitting on the steps of the vatican agonizing about the last exposure she had in her camera and wanting to get a picture of herself in this iconic spot. Fortunately, for me, and my kids, she spotted a young American soldier. Having served in Vietnam, he was now stationed in Germany and was on some sort of leave. The LEICA camera around his neck indicated to her that he knew how to take a picture...The rest was history...I'm here (and my kids ) today because of that random chance meeting.
The romance of the story wears pretty thin from there.. LOL...perhaps the most ridiculous marriage in history... On their wedding day my dad was 6' 2" and 250 lbs...My mom is well under 5 feet and was 98 pounds when she was 9 months pregnant with me. She had been well established in a career with the Canadian federal government...Like many Vietnam vets, my father found it very difficult to adjust back into civilian life. There was nothing positive for him in his native Tulsa, Oklahoma so they settled up north in Toronto...where he found a home and acceptance in what I would best describe as an outlaw motorcycle gang. He would call it a club with a clubhouse.
The BIKERIDERS tells the story of the founding members of THE VANDALS and begins in 1965.. I went in thinking that this movie would have little to do with my father's experience...but as the scope of the movie widened into the early 70's and depicted the violent shift of biker culture with the influx of members returning from Vietnam and specifically mentions the emergence of chapters running guns and drugs from Canada, I started having a visceral reaction to the movie.
My dad left us when I was 4 but the "clubhouse" scenes in this movie were ingrained in me from my personal memories.. Big hulking men, with long hair sporting tattoos and earings wearing denim and leather....brandishing guns and knives ...violent horesplay...The movie is spot on in it's depiction of these things from my (repressed?) memories of these things
The biker life is very precarious for the wives and women involved. There is a scene where a wife gives her gang member husband an ultimatum - Turn in his colours or leave... I was in the room when my parents had that exact conversation...It would be the last time I would see my dad for more than 20 years... I remember him picking up the family cat and tucking it under his arm on the way out.. He was closer to 350 pounds by then.
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