It Ain't Over Til the Cat Lady Sings
 

Every town has at least one resident "Cat Lady" - hoarding all the catnip. You know the Cat Lady phenomenon, that unusual foray into dementia where the quirky spinster archetype down the way begins acquiring cats in unhealthy numbers. It starts innocently with just one fuzzy feline, the culturally accepted "norm", until a girlfriend moves away and our Cat-Lady-to-be inherits yet another tabby. Next thing ya know, a stray shows up on the doorstep and pops out a dozen kittens.  A few weeks later, our Cat Lady’s entire working salary is spent on Little Friskies™ and kitty litter. Come back in a couple years - and the cats have taken over; the house stinks to high heaven and the carpet is ripped to shreds. There are 125 cats running the asylum - and since cat food is cheaper than human food, the Cat Lady now serves up Hamburger Helper™ spiked with Meow Mix™ from the stay-moist-pouch, instead of sirloin. Ugh.

 

Now, everybody's heard the sordid tales of the classic Cat Lady and her sad plunge into zoophilia, but what most M1 license holders don’t realize is that a similar fate belies a fabled few who delve just a little too deep into the world of Motorcycle Rights Organizations. In fact, there are Cat Lady types living in the midst of our own MROs, hoarding a different type of fuzzy problem with teeth; motorcycle rights. The unifying parallel is that you can’t herd cats, and you certainly can’t herd Bikers. Both are independent-minded free thinkers that rarely go where they’re told, needing to be either convinced, or coaxed into compliance. When a cat falls off the back of the couch, he’ll cop an indignant attitude - almost as if to say, “I meant to do that.” Bikers are much the same, they’ll piss away all their rights through shoddy stewardship and irresponsible behavior, and then blow it off by blaming it on somebody else. Ego. Attitude. Stupidity. Apathy. All are acronyms for a soon to be - dead sport.

 

Herein lies the analogy; substitute the word, "cats" with the phrase, "motorcycle rights" - and you'll find yourself stumbling down my personal dementia; caring for the motorcycle "rights" that nobody else in California seems to care for. For a number of years now, folks have been telling me that I have completely wasted away my life. I've become a “Jack of all rights, master of none”, I don’t have the luxury of selecting any one favorite “right” to sit and pet; I like them all. Unfortunately, it becomes unhealthy after a while, and you lose focus on the things that really matter in life; like paying the bills.  I think it was Sun Tzu who said, “We are, afterall, only humans - who happen to ride motorcycles.”

 

I prefer to call it a "sacrifice for the riders of California", but I'm not the first, and I'm certainly not the last person who will wake up one day - pissed off, bitter, broke and wondering why nobody cares. Sure, YOU care, because you’re reading this article, but what about the other 1,109,373 M1 license holders in California ?  The tardy slips are in the mail, you see it every time a motorcyclist is run over from behind and the media buys into the law enforcement PR machine that blames the rider, or worse yet, the helmet, for an inattentive driver crawling up your backside with a 4000 pound bullet at 70 mph.

 

My affliction started out innocently. I had a moderate interest in riders rights; that helmet thing and maybe lanesplitting.  At an ABATE Board of Directors meeting a few years back, Honda Ray announced that he and others throughout California were receiving citations for illegal handlebar height. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door, and I have an apehangers problem looking up at me from my front doorstep, so, I "adopt" the apehangers issue, I bring it in from the cold, do some research on the care and feeding of apehanger laws in the United States - come to the realization that handlebar height limitations (from the 60’s) weren't based in science at all, but instead are universally steeped in arbitrary subjectivity by intimidated authorities looking for the power to stop a motorcyclist they didn’t like. Next thing ya know, I end up penning the definitive work on the subject; "Handlebar Height Modernization and Analysis of 50 States; The Monkey Business of Ape Hanger Statutes." I poured my heart and soul into that project and carved out a tiny niche for me and my psyche. I had groomed my first cat.

 

Unfortunately, it only served to feed the addiction, and I wanted to do more. Next thing ya know, a local newspaper criticized the (not "legal" - but "permissible") practice of lanesplitting. "Lane SHARING" when you talk to the media. I organized a well mannered re-education campaign geared towards the editor and with the help of other like-minded local riders - I made a difference. I wanted more cats.

 

Motorcycle Awareness Month came next. (NOTE: Motorcycle "Safety" Month is a CHP/DOT/NHTSA/NTSB/M$F “buzzword” which usually means a Government issued “feel good” press release full of bureaucratic CYA/BS which essentially blames YOU – the rider - for the SUV that made you into a hood ornament) Helmet tickets. Red light bills. Ridiculous EPA rulings against performance mods. Smog check for motorcycles. Right of Way violations. Ear plugs. Rallies. Other state’s problems. I woke up a couple years later, much worser for the wear, with a couple dozen issues swirling around my head, surrounded by the horrible stench of…poverty.

 

Sorta like that goofy-assed cat-lady down the street, that spent years taking in all the stray cats that nobody cared about, I tried (and failed) to take care of everybody else's un-wanted motorcycle rights. It’s not like the Weekend Warrior, Barbie and Ken or the free motorcycle magazines in California will lift a finger to stamp out an overzealous government, they’re too busy having fun. Meanwhile, I'd feed those issues, give them a home and waste all my time and money trying to make a difference, while everybody else in the industry was busy making money. Only a handful of folks helped take care of those rights. In fact, most folks would laugh at me for devoting my life to such a losing cause - just like they laugh at the Cat Lady.

And as it is in real life, when the Cat Lady can't feed the cats anymore, the ASPCA comes in and takes 'em all away. Same thing with me, I’m unleashing all the various causes I’ve harbored for the last couple years, and now it’s going to be up to youse guys and gals to feed and care for your OWN damned “right” to ride. Everybody is expected to adopt at least ONE “right”...and there are a myriad of rights to adopt...but will anybody take the job seriously? We both know the answer to that one. Like children, we sure want that cute cuddly little “right” for a short while when it’s still tiny, adorable and manageable. But eventually, we’ll stop picking up after it and we won’t feed it anymore. Then it’s lost. I think we know how hard it is to re-gain a lost freedom when we start getting lazy, and it slips away…or is stolen by the Chinese restaurant down the way.  

           

I’ve heard that age-old axiom, “It ain’t over til the Cat Lady sings.” Well, she hasn’t started belting out that Quiet Riot tune just yet, but for the riders of California, youse guys and gals need to listen up, because she’s taking a deep, deep breath, and something is gonna come outta her mouth, soon. Let’s all hope she just hacks up a furr-ball, and we continue to ride for many more years. If YOU and just one friend would help out by getting involved with motorcycle “rights”, we’d all live to ride another day. Even if it’s just a trip to the grocery store to buy cat food.