The Beginning.
Bill Hayes
Author & Media Producer
BOOZEFIGHTERS
"The Original Wild Ones"
The book about the Boozefighters MC, “The Original Wild Ones,” went from just another project to a powerful venture based in respect, emotion, and love.
It truly has become very personal to me.
The original Boozefighters laid the bricks to a social foundation that many
of us rest our entire lifestyles upon.
And that is the key to the book.
While the true, technical history of the club and its founders is extremely
important, this lifestyle component is our aim.
The images that emerged from Hollister in 1947...the ensuing short story,
“Cyclist’s Raid,” by writer, Frank Rooney…the 1954 classic motion picture,
“The Wild One”…all are integral to the feelings that we have every single time
that we fire up our big bikes now, a half-century later.
The 100% completely unique passion that is generated by riding a Harley…by
being a “biker”…is not only undeniable, it is unparalleled in society. Period.
This feeling is what we want to convey in “The Original Wild Ones.”
But we are also going to define that feeling…and the image…in very realistic
terms…the terms that were truly set into motion by the original members of The
Boozefighters MC, and still exist within the club to this day.
The violent, anti-social persona of “the biker” that was elevated to mythical
realms by the media wasn’t exactly what originals like Wino Willie Forkner had
in mind when he sat in the middle of Hollister’s San Benito Street swilling
the hooch out of that giant jar…or when a bunch of the BFMC members dyed their
hair bright red just to clown around at the Riverside run a year later. The
“fun” quotient that was the driving force behind these “wild ones” getting on
a motorcycle in the first place unfortunately gave way to a dark side of this
lifestyle via the commercial media imagination.
Maybe, just maybe, “The Original Wild Ones” can change some of that.
Bill Hayes
