General Music Chat

Bob, in response to your comment on another thread.

@ my first biker rally there were 5000 there. they were burning Jap bikes (totally uncool I know) and my date entered the itty bitty titty contest.

ahh good times


http://www.myspace.com/blunderingeye

No, totally cool to burn Jap bikes. How many American bikes have the Japanese allowed to be sold in Japan over the years? They have had very low quotas of American bikes and autos allowed to be sold there ever since WWII. Didn't we kick their ass in WWII? I say burn all the friggin Jap bikes and STOP buying Chinese manufactured crap for that matter....I'm glad Toyota is having the trouble with their cars recently...BUY AMERICAN. See we're getting off track from the original post. Totally cool Shred, you're going to have to send us pics from your upcoming poolside gigs...

Then you're against personal freedom of choice? The japs brought high performance to new levels. Americans who wanted to purchase these high performance bikes had to pay a tax that was given to Harley Davidson, without their consent, I may add. Then Harley Davidson bought a motor home company with a lot of the "Free" money.

Socialism at work. Do not reward someone for a better product, but steal from them to reward someone who refused for years to make a better product. And the assholes destroying what someone worked hard to purchase often took pictures of their crimes with their jap cameras. It doesn't matter if some of those products actually cost more and people chose quality over price.

Good idea. Make one model car, bike, guitar, and even if it is total crap, don't allow any one to purchase anything else. Gibson and Fender were putting out TOTALLY unplayable garbage years ago. And the prices were through the ceiling for that crap. Even look at Gibson and Fender prices today. Foreign competition caused those companies to improve what you paid for to a great degree. Foreign trade has caused a lot of improvement in American products. Musicians would not buy foreign made instruments for quite a while. Then they played them and found the high quality was worth purchasing them. Here is a name for a lot of people who harp on buy American but own products other than the ones they are harping about. They call them Hippocrates. It doesn't matter if there is not an American product to fill the void or not. They should do without if they are true to their beliefs of American only, not slam others for their choice or destroy their hard earned property.

They own foreign made cameras, television sets, radios, tools, Musical instruments, computers, mp3 players and all manner of foreign products that have incidentally been greatly improved by foreign companies. When American consumers destroy everything not made in America then they will truly be patriotic in your eyes?

We can't blame any of it on unions who's totally unrealistic pensions and pay drove products out of the range of the middle and lower class. High union wages and unrealistic pensions are a good deal of the reason manufacturers had to look elsewhere to make their products. The added price of union pensions are a cause for American car companies to have to price themselves out of the competition. I worked and as a Lab Technion for Zenith radio. The union worker was highly paid with great benefits but they still went on strike at every opportunity for more.

When you want more because you see someone making more money than you, or see that they have nicer toys than you have, there is a word for that. They call it coveting. Socialism and communism are based solely on coveting and greed. Think about it. "It's unfair. He has more than I do"

Well, you're getting your way. Pretty soon the peoples bank, the peoples car, the peoples musical instruments will be the only thing the government will allow you to purchase. Naturally you won't be able to afford any of that because the government never has run anything without it becoming a nightmare. And you won't have a job making American products. Down with competition! Amen brother. Down with freedom. Hieil Obummer.

I had a Harley. I got tired of it breaking down and stuff rattling off of it as I went down the road. And Harley makes almost zilch of their product here in the USA. It is almost 90% imported. They are mostly assembled here LIKE SOME FOREIGN cars. I also have some jap bikes. And I build a lot of what I ride from American and foreign parts. I am as American as anyone out here. I have freedom of choice. That is what makes me American.

I don't buy anything based on price alone. I don't buy anything based on who made it. I actually make almost everything I have. I have made my own amplifiers, my own rides, my own sound FX, made my own guitars from American wood, (I don't use slanty eyed wood). I still use what I make. I don't like communist country's selling stuff over here. But neither will I destroy what someone worked hard at an American job to purchase. And I would never dictate their choices. THAT is the American way.

I ride a Yamaha dirt bike with a license plate. There are NO American bikes in this class of machine or I would own one.

But that has not stopped some of the "I am financing a Harley, so now I am cool" types from talking sh*t. While riding alone in Cleveland late at night last summer, I stopped at a bar to pound a couple of vodka and OJs. I left my bike leaning against a phone pole on the sidewalk. Well some Harley riders grabbed my ride and threw it into the middle of the street, yelling "rice junk". You should have heard these 3 so called "bikers" crying for someone to call police as I handed them the asskicking of thier pathetic lives. I am not saying I am some "tough guy", but you cannot let people abuse you. Right after I gave the biggest one a size13 motocross boot to the ribs, I ripped his silly leather vest off his fat ass, and guess where it was made?

These guys learned to not pick on a rider with the courage, strenth and conditioning to race MX, because thier whiskey muscles and tattoos will be of no help to them.

That being said. I buy american whenever possible. I buy American clothes, CARS, TRUCKS, furniture, appliances, etc. The last pair of pants I bought were made in USA, they were $100, but they are sure to last a long time.

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I just don't get where people think they have the right to destroy some thing someone worked hard to buy. I guess I never had that attitude.

What got me going is my daughters first Sturgis bike rally. She worked hard for two years to get the money to buy a bike when she was 18. It was a brand new Yamaha Virago. She was all excited about her first big ride to the Black Hills on her brand new bike. And she rode it and had to dodge the big bad bikers dressed in their leathers swaying all over the road in their mobile homes while hauling their Harleys on trailers. The South Dakota cross winds on I 90 are very fierce at times.

We rented room in a cabin at the foot of Terry peak. When she came out in the morning the big bad bikers in the room next to us had broken the mirror and bent up some stuff on her bike. That pretty well put a damper on her first rally. Not one of the group of 5 staying in the room next to us had the balls to fess up. All between the ages of 25-35. You know the type. The big bad tough guys that wear their leathers to the local bar and try to shake up the home folks. Yuppies that had the money to get Harleys when the fad hit. They are so ignorant that they have no clue that that Pappy and the Jackpine Gypsy Motorcycle club that started the Sturgis rally rode mostly Indian motorcycles, not Harleys. None the less those ignorant F^&%s thought it is a Harley rally.

Well, I am a biker. Never owned a car. I rode in the winter and the summer. I only have ridden bikes my whole life. I still have 5 bikes, and 4 three wheelers. I have to ride one most of the time because my dog always wants to go with. And I can carry a guitar and amplifier on one if I need to. In case anyone thinks a trike is a wuss machine here are a few pointers. Riding a trike is far harder than riding any bike. So called bikers, like the phonys that trash other riders rides think it takes more balls to ride a two wheeler. But that is the nature of posers. Totally ignorant. Truth is that controlling a triangle is a completely different animal. They wheelie, they flip in high speed turns, and they will literally rip the bars from your grip if either rear wheel hits anything. They are outlawed and un insurable in many states because people can't handle them. On the other hand, the rear wheel follows whatever the front wheel does on a bike. Riding a bike is fun. Riding a trike is a bitch.

I see a lot of big bad bikers on Harley's that believe they are the real thing because their wallets made them real bikers. Now those are the kind that find it funny to trash something someone else worked hard to buy.

Any real biker has respect for the other guys ride, no matter what, and they don't think someone messing with your ride is funny in the least. If you don't know why, bikers used to be a brother hood until the posers sold their hula hoops to buy Harleys to haul around in their trailers behind their mobile homes.

That's like believing a guitar hero isn't a real guitar hero unless he plays an American guitar. And I sure don't understand what would be funny about setting fire to other musicians guitars because weren't made in America. But some people don't like guitars made from slanty eyed wood.

I have nothing against Harleys. I like them. I actually like any bike I am riding at the time. I even think Mopeds and Cushman scooters are a blast. That's what riding is about.

Now I'm getting out of here to play one of the seven of my AMERICAN MADE STRATS. Or one of my Jap guitars if the mood strikes me to do so. I may even play it through one of my American made amplifiers using a Chinese FX pedal. OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH A CHINESE PEDAL??????

I rode a Verago year round till I got ran over, destroying my bike.
( and tearing open my right heel )
I rode that machine in weather a HD wont even crank in.
Say what you like. Yamaha makes a good machine, and speakers, and ...

It's not a question of buying or not buying something based on quality. It is a question of principle. Japan has been protective of their economy ever since WWII. They have had strict quotas on imports there for DECADES. We have not had ANY QUOTAS on the number of Japanese made vehicles in this country. This is all about FREE TRADE, period. A lot of this is our fault by the way. We completely destroyed the Japanese industrial infrastructure during WWII and gave them all the time in the world to re-develop their industry, all the while letting them have strict quotas on importing American goods. I sometimes wonder who actually won the war. We have protected Japan militarily (running up billions of dollars in costs) all the while protecting their ass while there was a HUGE trade imbalance in their favor. I think we're a bunch of dumbasses while they laugh all the way to the bank, and now to add insult to injury China owns our asses as well. Serves us right for being STUPID...

Sorry, but I disagree Bob. You are only telling a small part of this story. The fact remains that Japan kicked our asses in cars, by SERVING THEIR CUSTOMER'S needs, unlike the previous American arrogance, that kept American car manufacturers, building cars with steering wheels ONLY on the left side, as opposed to making some with the steering wheel on the LEFT for many overseas markets. This existed for DECADES. Also, Japan realized that people wanted smaller cars with better gas mileage for the gas crunch of the 70's and they were the ones serving that need, while American car companies CONTINUED trying to FORCE big gas guzzling vehicles on the public.

As to tariffs on imports, etc... This works BOTH WAYS. There are American manufacturers that are protected on OUR SIDE too, using fees and tariffs on foreign competition.

Absolutely FREE TRADE is the only way to go, but we will likely NEVER see that happen in our lifetime.

And honestly, all this.... "Buy American" is way outdated. The economy is now a GLOBAL economy. There is no going back from that. There SHOULD BE NO going back from that either. Being able to buy products from a GLOBAL MARKETPLACE for resale HELPS most businesses. Manufactruers? Manufcture something else, if you can't compete globally. But I don't want your sub-par or too expensive product being FORCED on me, just because you are based in America and fund enough politicians to get tariffs passed in YOUR PERSONAL BUSINESS'S favor.

Toyota is a foreign company. Ok. But they also have factories here in America, and employ thousands of Americans, not to mention the car lots, and all the peripheral businesses. It is virtually impossible to insure that something is PURELY American made these days. It can be simply ASSEMBLED here, yet MADE overseas. Foreign companies often now MAKE their products HERE IN AMERICA! Or sometimes 90% of a product is American, while the other 10% is made somewhere else.

It's a different world.

Adapt or fail.

It's that simple.

And honestly, all this.... "Buy American" is way outdated. The economy is now a GLOBAL economy. There is no going back from that. There SHOULD BE NO going back from that either. Being able to buy products from a GLOBAL MARKETPLACE for resale HELPS most businesses. Manufactruers? Manufcture something else, if you can't compete globally. But I don't want your sub-par or too expensive product being FORCED on me, just because you are based in America and fund enough politicians to get tariffs passed in YOUR PERSONAL BUSINESS'S favor.

Toyota is a foreign company. Ok. But they also have factories here in America, and employ thousands of Americans, not to mention the car lots, and all the peripheral businesses. It is virtually impossible to insure that something is PURELY American made these days. It can be simply ASSEMBLED here, yet MADE overseas. Foreign companies often now MAKE their products HERE IN AMERICA! Or sometimes 90% of a product is American, while the other 10% is made somewhere else.

It's a different world.

Adapt or fail.

It's that simple.

ok yea


When the dollar hits rock bottom, and it will, we will not be able to buy stuff from the rest of the world, because the dollar will be worthless. We will only be able to get ahold of things made here. Now THAT will be a different world.

from the moment you read this, for the rest of your day or night, whatever 'thing' you come in contact witj... Try to find out where it was made.

I wager it will be about 85% China

When the dollar hits rock bottom, and it will, we will not be able to buy stuff from the rest of the world, because the dollar will be worthless.

When the dollar goes down, some sectors of the economy suffer, but others improve... like exports. Exports increase dramatically, when the dollar goes down, because the foreign consumer's money goes further now.

But the reason the dollar is suffering, is because of our financial irresponsibility. We have taken on unprecedented debt. There is less confidence now, and this devalues the perceived worth of our monetary notes.

And honestly, all this.... "Buy American" is way outdated. The economy is now a GLOBAL economy. There is no going back from that.

For once, Craig and I can agree on something

And on a Monday!



Well said Craig. You are right on the money with this brother.

Well...

Me launching my YZ 250 at an outlaw race in PA...




My Harley and my Yamaha side by side...




Anyone got a problem with that???

Well...

Me launching my YZ 250 at an outlaw race in PA...




My Harley and my Yamaha side by side...




Anyone got a problem with that???

Alright! A yz250, hog and a piano, too bad we are not nieghbors.

Hell yeah!!!

Well...

Me launching my YZ 250 at an outlaw race in PA...




My Harley and my Yamaha side by side...




Anyone got a problem with that???

Its good to see some other dirt bikers on here.

A couple of shots from my racing days. Holeshotting a big race at Lake Whitney Tx, picture with multi time national champ Rick Johnson, my son, myself and our little teammate with the spoils of war.