Bike rally or not to bike rally? Life or death?

I was talking to Chessie http://chessiestales.blogspot.com/

the other day online about an up and coming bike rally and she was telling me why she had mostly given up going to rallies. Some of her reasons were the hard drinking and truth be known they are just never as fun as they are made out to be. I have to say I agree with her and it made me have second thoughts about going to the Smoke Out Rally

coming soon.

Well this was the plan until I got home from work today and my wife told me about the death of TapOut

leader Charles "Mask" Lewis (mixed martial arts promoter)

I know you are asking yourself what does this have to do with a motorcycle rally.

This made me start thinking of rallies I’ve attended in the past; I went to a large rally in New Orleans many years ago, I went to the rally to try and buy a frame for my chopper and ended up meeting two guys that were sharing a booth selling their products, one guy was named Billy Lang

and the other was called Indian Larry.

I had a chance to have a brief chat and got photos with both of them (great couple of guys) but right after the rally Indian Larry was killed in a motorcycle accident, it was a big lost in the motorcycle world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8PFK3tRSMM

Here’s how the two events come together, truth is I don’t travel in the same company as a lot of the hardcore bikers, TV stars, mixed martial artist, most of them I just don’t run into on a day to day basics in the big city of Petal, Mississippi. Ha-ha. So rally and events are the only chance I get to meet them…and I have found some are great people and some are quite frankly ass-holes…take the American Chopper bunch for instance,

I meet them at the same rally and I pretty much found unless you were a girl stroking their huge ego’s or a guy buying their products, they would not even speak to you. I did not get along with them at all, BUT I’M STILL GLAD I GOT A CHANCE TO MEET THEM.

I wish I could say the same for Charles "Mask" Lewis; it’s not like I was a big follower of his career but I have to admit I would have loved to have talked to him and picked his brain a little bit. You have to admire anyone that can turn a t-shirt business into a muilt-million dollar business.

So I guess all this said; life is short...get out there people!!! You may not get a second chance to meet someone that may change your life forever…long live the Mask and Indian Larry in our minds and may they R.I.P.. Till next time…
Big Al