Are You Ready for Biker Chic?
In this new year, motorcycle helmets have replaced chastity belts and Near Beer as the outlaw biker’s principal nemesis. A law took effect Jan. 1 requiring California motorcyclists to wear helmets--or face a fine roughly equal to that levied against dope smokers. Reaction has been boringly predictable: Choppers at the Capitol, nonstop carping about “personal freedom,” litigation.
Boys, it doesn’t have to be this way. I come today with a modest idea--no strings attached--that would turn this law into the best thing that’s happened to bikers since the halter top: designer helmets.
After all, getting rich is the best revenge. The law says wear helmets, so wear helmets. But not just any helmet. Your helmet. An authentic, one-of-a-kind Hells Angels motorcycle helmet. Brand name, The Brain Bucket.
If the Hells Angels don’t do it, Ralph Lauren surely will. The market is too ripe. One million Californians ride motorcycles, and the new law is said to require as many as 400,000 helmet purchases. Prices for those shiny, dorky looking jobs now being sold range from $50 to $500. But even at $100 a helmet, it suggests a $40-million gross, for starters.
Don’t worry about the current anti-helmet sentiment. It can be easily erased with marketing. If the American public can be sold on dry beer, it can be sold on anything--even The Brain Bucket. Detroit for decades battled seat belts and air bags, ostensibly on behalf of consumers. Today, seat belts are standard and the car companies all tout their air bags. Safety has been made to sell.
The hard work, creation of a marketable image, already is done. It took a lot of plunder, a lot of pillage and more than a few farmers’ daughters, but the Hells Angels have built themselves a national reputation, an image. Most people who ride motorcycles want to cop a bit of that image, to advertise their outlaw streak. It’s all about look, and Angels define the look, from bike to headgear.
Until now, bikers have squandered their Q-rating, given their hard-earned image away. From Melrose-quality black leather jackets and chain belts, to big Harleys, all sorts of products bear the outlaw stamp, but the Angels don’t see a cent of the action. I’m not even sure they have a registered trademark. “We’ve been approached several times,” George Christie, a prominent Angel from Ventura County, said in an interview, “but we just don’t want to sell something that people have given their life for.”
Nobility has its place, George, but this isn’t it. This is America. Think of the Memorial Day weekend beer kitty. Think of the Bad Curve Widows and Orphans Fund. Think of all those bugs you’ve eaten on the road to becoming an American metaphor. Think of $40 million and, finally, think about what this Brain Bucket ought to look like.
The right helmet would sell itself. Most models today look almost orthopedic, balky contraptions you might wear after a bad head injury, not to prevent one. Brainstorming the Bucket, fantastic possibilities float by. I see the buffalo heads of Indian medicine men . . . horned Viking headgear . . . Kaiser Wilhelm and his spike . . . .
The helmet I settle on finally is understated: smooth leather in flat black, adorned with a set of broad wings and skull, lined with silk in American flag patterns. A beauty, made with the Smithsonian and Neiman Marcus in mind. It also would work. The Swiss Army knife doesn’t sell because of the prowess of the Swiss fighting man; it sells because it’s handy. I’d line the Bucket with the newest high-tech padding material; advertise it with slow-motion shots of Joe Don Baker whacking at one with his “Walking Tall” stick.
Whatever the design, the project must be rushed. There’s going to be a pack. The NFL will muscle in, and its helmets already are made. L. L. Bean and Eddie Bauer might try to develop a helmet for their flanneled constituencies (something in coonskin, perhaps). Sharper Image, I’m sure, already is testing a telephone helmet for the biker executive.
The Brain Bucket, properly launched, will be but a beginning. I see a catalogue. Authentic Hells Angels boots, knife scabbards, barbecue recipes. Leather pants with mesh crotches: “Feel the wind, again.” I see “BRN BKT up 1 3/4” ticking across the Big Board, Hells Angels unloosed on the world of LBOs, corporate lawyers, lobbyists: the outlaw big time, yes.
