PALADIN - 'NOBODY IS BORN A BIKER'

Paladin was a friend of mine from Berkeley CA, a fixture of the burgeoning Old Motorcycle scene in the late 70s/80s, where he could often be seen hanging around T.T. Motors on Ashby Avenue, giving unsolicited advice and a disposition on just about any subject, to anyone who was nearby. Often, that was me, and I rode whatever machine was running, from S.F. to the East Bay to check out the bikes for sale at T.T., visit my friends, and have a chat with Paladin.

He was a devoted Triumph man, and I owned several of his 'hardtail' Triumph conversions over the years, each honed closer to the 'bobber' ideal than anything made today - they were fast, light, and no-frills. He could appreciate other Marques though, and enjoyed discussing their relative merits. As mentioned in my 'tattoo post', he had amazing self-inflicted Triumph tats on his body, and donated his skin to a Japanese tattoo museum on his death.

John Galivan, owner of T.T. Motors (see period photo of John below), has this to say; "I liked and respected him a great deal; I sold him that bike [Triumph TR6] for $49.00 and he stayed. His writing in Iron Horse magazine and others are classics. He coined the word 'unobtanium' referring to rare British parts. The centerfold of this mag w/ the girl and real rats crawling all over is a classic." (Iron Horse cover photo below).

As John mentions, Paladin died twenty years ago in his sleep; nobody knows exactly how old he was, but 50ish would be my guess. He had suffered a mighty knock to the head a few years prior, which definitely altered his personality. Still, an amazing soul - when I bought my first Velocette in 1985 from Munroe Motors, Paladin brought out a bucket of water and sponge and washed it! "Such a finely made motorcycle as this should NEVER be dirty!"

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Paladin, from the book, 'Berkeley U.S.A.' (Anne Moose, Alternative Press, 1981):

"Essentially, everything that I do relates at one level or another to motorcycling. I make my living by writing for motorcycling journals and doing illustrations for them... I'm into motorcycle paint work and uh, you know, it's kind of dull if you ain't into bikes, but I'm into bikes so I find it all quite fascinating....Twenty years ago, it didn't matter if you rode a Harley, or if you rode a Triumph, or if you rode a BSA. If you rode, you rode. You were committed. The other people who rode were your brothers, except you didn't use the word brother because you didn't have to. This was all just, you know, understood at almost a back brain level.

Now then, when the Japanese started bringing their bikes in, what they brought was nothing new in the sense of engineering. What they did was... a publicity campaign. They brought in a form of advertising to make the motorcycle, shall I say, socially acceptable. Well, people that are stone bikers, as opposed to motorcycle operators, don't really care much about social acceptability... But what this did, brought a whole new kind of person into the riding scene, and it brought in a lot of divisionism. In 1963, you break down on your bike on the side of the highway, you know that the next guy who comes by is going to stop and help. And it don't matter what brand of bike you're riding, or if his bike is chopped or not, or who's in a club and who isn't - that's jive. You're a biker or you're not. Since the Japanese bike has become popular...it's brought this new element ...this whole concept of antagonism and divisionism which we've had to deal with for about the past twelve to fifteen years.

Personally, I can't stand Japanese bikes. I don't care how fast they are, or how many camshafts they have, or if they win races. I just don't like the aesthetics of the damn things. But at the same time, it doesn't matter what kind of sled you've got under your ass - when you're in the wind, it's like, the same wind, and that's the policy we're pushing.

As far as I'm concerned, the only group that really matters in this country, per se, is the bikers. And this may sound like an off-the-wall statement, but I think if you'll check back you'll find that during that whole big so-called cultural revolution of the sixties, language, style, and everything was copied from the bikers. Our influence is a lot more subtle than many people would imagine. We're simply living our own lives, and in living our own lives we're setting such a rare example in modern times...

The thing is, you're born black, you're born Chicano, you're born Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Jewish, Polynesian, whatever. Nobody is born a biker. It's something you do by choice. A biker is under a complete psychic necesssity, right, in that he is one half of a symbiotic organism of which the other half is a motorcycle. And if you wish to make any value judgements on that, go ask your mother how she likes her valium.

One of the things that a lot of people that I'm close to are into, is trying to get more women into riding. I guess you could say it's part of our highway beautification project. I personally think that women and men both - and everyone - should know how to handle machines... that, to me, is the only way we're ever going to have what I'd consider to be a sane and healthy culture... If people are going to band together, it must be through recognition and respect of their own strength, and of the strength of those about them. It always starts at the inside and works out."

B/W photos of Paladin are from 'Berkeley USA'. Other photos were sourced from Facebook!