By Scott Buckner
Spring Break sucks when you grow up. You can subscribe all you want to that “You’re only as old as you feel” business, but once 40 starts looming large, you’re just Creepy Uncle material to anyone in a string bikini along the entire Florida Coast during the month of April. But that’s okay. The National Geographic Channel informs us that yes, Virginia, there is a Spring Break for the aging. Yeah, it’s held during the summer, but still. It’s a place where, for an entire week, you can drink until you puke and witness feats of beaded necklace-collecting that reduces Mardi Gras New Orleans to a burg of rank amateurs.
Where is such a magical place? It’s the Sturgis Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, as seen in Tuesday night’s airing of Sturgis: Hell On Wheels. I had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with my vacation time last summer, so this biker event has become my new Mecca, I think. I shall start saving my pennies right today because unlike college Spring Breaks, you’re perfectly welcome in Sturgis no matter what stage of middle-aged physical deterioration you’ve reached. So no matter how bad you think you look without a shirt or dental insurance, a sizeable portion of everyone else is going to look worse than you.
The Sturgis Rally began quietly enough in 1938 with a fellow named J.C. “Pappy” Hoel, a member of the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club. Rodeos and festivals were big tourist draws for the small towns in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so they dreamed up the Black Hills Motor Classic so Sturgis could have some of the tourist pie, too. The first Classic drew nine motorcycle racers, and they camped out in Hoel’s yard. The main draw was originally track racing, but the real fun was in the stunts, like crashing into wooden walls, jumping ramps, and crashing into cars head-on. Today, more than half a million people find their way into town during the first week of August every year to see motocross racing, burnout competitions, and famous biker-friendly bands like ZZ Top and Kid Rock. They also come for the Full Throttle Saloon, a full-service bar at the edge of town that hooches up 30,000 bikers a day and features a dude named Rhett Rotten zooming around the inside of a giant barrel called The Wall of Death on a 1927 Indian Scout six times a day.
While everyone’s there for a whole week, there’s plenty of motorcycle racing and motorcycling showing going on, tattoo showing, tattoo getting, and – oh, screw it already – there’s tits. Tits everywhere. Women flashing ’em, guys taking pictures of ’em. Old tits, young tits, it doesn’t matter as long as there’s someone showing tits somewhere. It’s just one gigantic tit-fest! The restaurants in town even serve tits and eggs. “Motorcycles and women – that’s what it’s all about,” said one attendee, forgetting to mention tits.
Sadly, in one of the biggest demonstrations of ironic behavior on record, National Geographic – which made its reputation among generations of young readers by showing tits – failed to actually show any on Sturgis: Hell On Wheels.
Boycott at will.
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Previously, in What I Watched Last Night.
Posted on January 31, 2007