it comes in pints?

One would hope that you steer clear of Oakland most of the time... :-)

You know the difference between a Hoover and a Harley, right?

Yeah, I know it's old. But so am I, so go figure.

i dont get the joke somebody please explain the difference between a hoover and a harley

I don't think "providing security" can even remotely describe what the Hell's Angels did at Altamont and whoever in the Stones' management cooked up that idea wanted it that way. Too bad their lust for promotion didn't have them looking at the bigger picture and the deathly potential of that kind of setting. They were giving them BEER while they were supposed to be minding the crowds. The luckless bastard who ended up getting killed stormed the stage with a knife in his hand headed for Jagger. Hardly a "fan." To make things worse, those dumb fucks parked their bikes right in the middle of the crowd - and then proceeded to get pissed off any time someone in the audience even touched or sat on one of them. In a post-concert interview, dumb friggin' moron Sonny Barger starts going on about how no one was respecting his bike, the thing he held most precious in the world, as if his anger justified their violent rampages against the crowd. The thing is, if you take something you hold that dear and park it in the middle of 400,000 hyped- and doped-up rock fans, I'm not going to feel so bad for you when it winds up with a scratch on it.

oh by the way (its kathy again, and i'm still waiting to hear the joke - somebody, please?) anyway, i just hope everything stays cool and the weekend goes down in history as the celebration it was meant to be and no craziness or anyone getting hurt. party on!

I don't think you should stay away from Oakland this week-end. If you don't bother them they won't bother you. In fact maybe you should drop by and say Happy Birthday to Sonny, you might make some new friends. Maybe the police should be watching the exits out of san Jose to make suer to Mongols don't ruin this event.

Kathy, a Hoover has the dirtbag on the inside.

Dyna,
Tell that "you don't bother them/they don't bother you" stuff to the people they beat the crap out of at Altamont. Unless, by "bother," you mean, "having the nerve to exist within a two mile radius of me while I'm getting drunk."

And you know what? Now that I'm remembering more, the guy who stormed the stage had a revolver. The Angels were the ones with the knives. Meredith Hunter was stabbed five times and beaten to death. If "security" was all they were providing, I suppose subduing the guy and handing him over to the police might have been the appropriate course of action. But they pummeled the guy to death instead.

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to make friends with Sonny. This is the guy who called into a radio station the day after Hunter died to complain about the way the crowd handled being around his motorcycle. As if the tragedy was his damaged bike and not that somebody got KILLED. What an awful human being.

Emily,

Sorry for your loss, However don't you think brandishing a revolver at a concert is asking for trouble and if he hadn't brandished a weapon he might still be here today. I am not saying stabbing a person to death is right, either. They could have handle the situation better.

Dyna,
It's not even very clear whether he pulled the revolver before or after the Angels started in on him. If I had a revolver in my pocket and someone started beating the crap out of me, I might be inclined to pull the thing out myself. The Angels weren't entirely to blame - they were drunk and pissed off and should NEVER have been put in a position of authority over that crowd. They certainly shouldn't have been given beer or drugs. The Stones and their managers are just as culpable. They knew that they would have a volatile mix on their hands. They wanted headlines. They got them.

And to think, all it cost was one human life.

Reminds me of a story that happened when I was a whelp in Klickitat County, Washington. (Few will know the geography. It's pretty boonie-esque.)

On the hills above the Columbia, there's a replica of Stonehenge, and every year, the Hell's Angels would have a rally there.

One year, we had a particularly testicular sheriff, and he told the Angels in no uncertain terms that he didn't want them around Stonehenge. So they instead contacted the county commissioners, and explained that although they really wanted to have their rally at Stonehenge, if the sheriff was that opposed, they'd just have to settle for having their rally in town (population about 3,000) instead. On the residents' front lawns.

The bikers got Stonehenge, and the sheriff wasn't reelected. Which is a damned shame, because if the county hadn't caved, he'd have been perfectly ready to face the Angels down with a rusty pocketknife. Sometimes I wonder what ever happened to him, and wish we had more cops of his caliber around today.

Joel,
Were the Angels particularly rowdy or destructive? I mean, I'm all for the law & order type sheriff or what not, but it sounds a little unreasonable to tell them they can't convene in a public place if they're not vandalizing it or causing a public disturbance.

Emily, I don't really know. I did hear about livestock missing after their gatherings, but nothing certain. All I knew of it was what I overheard from adults. It might not even have been the Angels; there are other bikers out there and "Hell's Angels" gets used as a generic term a lot.

I did know that sheriff, though. His son was my age and we were pretty close. And he was a tough sonofabitch. I never knew him to be mean, but I wouldn't have wanted to piss him off, either.

If you don't know what you are talking about....

Only one person was killed at the Stones concert. That person pulled a gun. The HA took care of a perceived threat...

How about some of the good stories you never hear too??? How about their charity drives and their participation in the toys for tots campaign?

EJJ,
Um, I DO know what I'm talking about. I've read more about it than you can imagine and seen Gimme Shelter about 1000 times. I've even read Sonny Barger's autobiography. YOU are the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. I never said more than one person got killed. Nobody - NOBODY - knows if Hunter pulled the gun before or after the Angels started in on him and even then, he was stabbed FIVE TIMES and BEATEN TO DEATH. That's not exactly managing a threat. As I said before, they could have restrained the guy and called the police. They didn't. The Angels were DRUNK and on DRUGS and abusive to the crowd. They made a movie at Altamont - it's all on TAPE, for Christ's sake.

And what about the other stories? Nobody's demonizing the entire lot of them here. We are TALKING ABOUT ALTAMONT right now, not Toys for fucking Tots. Pardon my rude tone, but if you're going to come in and lecture somebody about not knowing what they're talking about, you'd best make damn sure YOU do.

W T F you cowardace ingrates your talking about something that happened in the 60's none of your concern and to Emily instead of eating your ho ho's why dont you go tell an angel to their face how you feel about them. This go's for everyone
take a step back and look at the revunue that it brought into by one of these events/especially for small buisness owners. Have You personnally ever organized a ride or benifit for children, single mothers, cancer and lupus patients and there foundations.ALTAMONT IS OVER FTW$%#@@& M/C biker for life

Jesse,
Learn to spell and try and conquer basic reading comprehension, then come back and we'll talk. I don't know how to say it any plainer, so I guess I'll just have to shout it.

NOBODY IS DEMONIZING EVERY PERSON WHO HAS EVER SAT ON A MOTORCYCLE BEFORE. YES, THE HELL'S ANGELS PARTICIPATE IN CHARITY ACTIVITIES AND ARE PROBABLY MOSTLY NICE FELLOWS WHO LOVE THEIR MOTHERS AND HELP OLD LADIES TAKE OUT THEIR GARBAGE. BUT ON ONE DAY IN 1969, A BUNCH OF THEM GOT DRUNK AND DID SOMETHING REALLY FUCKING STUPID THAT RESULTED IN A LOSS OF LIFE. IT WAS A CULTURAL PHANTOM THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE REGARD AS THE DEATH OF THE 60s AND YES, WE'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT IT, BECAUSE SOME OF US TAKE THINGS LIKE PEOPLE GETTING KILLED SERIOUSLY.

Now, if you are compelled to respond to anything I write, please read it in full until you understand or shut the FUCK UP.

IDIOT.

Cowardace? Why must she be a cowardace? Never a cowarddeuce or a cowardjack? That is so... cardist!

Personally, I think Emily will be a queen wherever she walks.

Emily,
Get over it. That happend a looong time ago. That would be like saying all Germans are evil for what Hitler did or that we should all blame white people for enslaving africans and that they deserve restitution because of what our ancestors did. Get over it. Besides if you knew anything you would realize that historical events (even school text books) and news reports are all colored by what the media and the government want us to know and believe. I don't care how many movies or books you have read. People change. Grow up. And yes, I would love to see you say all of your crap to an Angel's face. So if you weren't there, then you don't know for sure do you.

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD. ON. A. BOUNCING. POGO. STICK.

CAN. YOU. FUCKING. READ?

I'll get over what I want to, you stupid dolt. If you are so fucking stupid that you cannot comprehend what a person is writing, then at least try and overcome your compulsion to comment on their remarks. For the LAST. FUCKING. TIME. I am not criticizing all Hell's Angels. I AM FUCKING TALKING ABOUT ALTAMONT. It's not a matter of "getting over it." I am over it. It's not like because I've spent two minutes of my life posting about it on this thread that I spend every waking moment fuming about it.

And before you write condescending remarks to somebody you know ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING about, spend a few moments thinking about what an ass you're making of yourself when you lecture a person with a fucking history degree about their knowledge of historical events.

Seriously. You are a fucking moron. Go away and please never come back.

And, by the way, how in the WORLD do you know if I'm actually acquainted with any Hell's Angels or not? For all you know, I could be bloody MARRIED to someone in the Hell's Angels. What the FUCK do you know about me based on what I've written here? And YOU'RE telling ME to grow up?