‘Art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man’
– – Martha Graham, Dancer and Choreographer – –

The very first article I ever published appeared in Easyriders, the groundbreaking magazine which was at once the LIFE, Saturday Evening Post and Reader’s Digest of the outlaw biker set. I wrote about tattoo removal – a topic I thought some readers might find interesting – after an encounter with a dermatologist at a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Hastings, Nebraska, who told me about a then-new technique for obliterating unwanted tattoos via laser. I won’t bore you with the details – the information is all woefully outdated anyway – but I ended my piece with the words

‘These days, even art is not eternal.’

However, barring catastrophic circumstances like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, where – in addition to thousands of lives, including my cousin Eddie – an estimated $110 million worth of art was destroyed, or the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of The Buddhas of Bamiyan, art really is eternal….

….and even those pieces lost or destroyed live on in memory.

….and all this to say ‘Hey! I got some cool stuff to show ya!’

IN THE BEGINNING….

I don’t know who first attempted to paint or draw images of the biker life, but Dave Mann was certainly a pioneer. After selling some early paintings of biker life to Choppers magazine founder Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth (creator of the iconic ‘Rat Fink’ and a number of radically customized cars and motorcycles), Mann joined the El Forastero Motorcycle Club (forastero is ‘stranger’ or ‘foreigner’ in Spanish) as a charter member of the club’s Kansas City MO chapter.

In 1971 Mann answered an advert for a ‘motorcycle artist’, discovered in the back pages of a new biker magazine called Easyriders, and spent the remainder of his working life as in-house artist for the publication. His first centerfold painting for Easyriders appeared in October, 1971, and Mann reportedly produced artwork – centerfold paintings, story illustrations and adverts – for every issue from that first to his retirement in 2003, shortly before he passed away. His final piece, Sunset, appeared in the May 2004 issue.

REPRESENT!

His earliest works were primitive – a cross between illustration and caricature – but as he gained experience Mann’s work took on a style reminiscent of the American painter Edward Hopper, who is best known for his iconic Nighthawks (1942). Look at the figures in Hopper’s work, and compare them to Mann’s. I certainly see the influence.

More than technique or style, however, Hopper and Mann shared the desire to illustrate and elevate the prosaic, the quotidian, the mundane everyday doings of regular people historically overlooked by representational artists. For Hopper it might be patrons seated in a late-night diner – an apparent oasis of light and warmth in an otherwise dreary cityscape – sharing space and yet isolated from one another, silent, bored. For Mann it could be the streetwalker ignoring her john to watch the more attractive, more enticing biker cruise by on his radical panhead chopper. Hopper might present a sweet moment between a young couple on a dark summer evening – you can almost hear the crickets singing – while Mann’s swain straddles a raked and stretched shovelhead as he chats up the object of his affections on a crisp autumn afternoon….

You get the point.

And by ‘centerfold’ I merely refer to the fact that Mann’s work appeared in the center pages of each issue, where it could be removed (as so many of us did) and turned into a poster. Although many of his paintings included idealized images of women, his purpose was to document our lives as bikers, not provide masturbation motivation for horny teenagers!

STRAIGHT ON FOR YOU!

One perspective Mann relied on was full frontal….

Here is another of my favorites, a classic piece by Dave Mann:

Mann returned to that theme many times in his career.

Another favorite was the reverse: the motorcycle moving in a straight line away from the viewer. He used both angles to great effect.

Mann’s follow-up to Coming at You appeared in a Jammers Handbook. Mann’s attention to detail extended even to the smallest things, like the oil spatter up this passenger’s left shoulder, excess lubricant slung off the rear drive chain at speed. You could always spot a biker chick by those chain tracks, and you could tell if she was packin’ on a Big Twin or Sporty by which shoulder was marked. I pissed off more than one woman passenger when their nicest tops ended up ruined that way! 🤷‍♀️

THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES

Mann’s technical abilities as an artist are undeniable but, as clearly demonstrated here, for those of us who ride it was Mann’s ability to illustrate the everyday aspects of our lives as bikers which so endeared him to us. He captured the emotional element – the ‘inner landscape’ Ms. Graham referenced in her quote – in painting after painting.. It might be two bikers blasting down an L.A. freeway, beards and club colors flapping in the wind, as one passes a joint to the other.

It might be a biker on his low, lean, radically stretched chopper, glaring balefully at the cop writing out a traffic ticket.

It might be a woman frustrated and angry because her old man, the insensitive prick, just passed a beer joint when she desperately needed a potty break….

….or another one of my favorites. showing a woman curled up against her man’s back, safe and secure and sleepy after a weekend of riding and camping out under the stars, while he steers his radical chopper back to the brightly-lit city in the distance.

One of Dave Mann’s most iconic images has been stolen and reproduced on everything from t-shirts and coffee mugs to wall tapestries, area rugs and more. In ‘Ghost Rider’ Mann equates the hard-riding biker at the foreground to the hard-riding ghostly cowboy keeping pace with him. Some of the later reproductions went the politically correct route of erasing the SS lightning bolts Mann’s biker has on his fuel tank….

….and that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother post! 😎

Mann covered breakdowns and break-ups, club life and solo riders, sleek choppers and road-warrior rat bikes, and brought to each painting the same skill and dedication to detail. He was our Frederic Remington, and we loved him for it.

Another favorite. Anyone who rides very long at all has been in a similar situation….

….but try to make the best of it! 😆

BREAKING DOWN AND CRACKING UP!

Paul Simon once sang ‘Everything put together sooner or later falls apart,’ and that’s as true of motorcycles as anything else. In numerous paintings, Dave Mann captured the frustration and helplessness of that instant when your machine fails, and you realize there’s nothing you can do about it except sit and wait, or go for help.

In the early ’80s, on a ride through the Central Texas Hill Country southwest of Austin, I stripped the teeth off my primary drive belt while pulling up a steep hill. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. It grieved me to interrupt my friends’ ride that way, but I was stuck.

BTW, that was one of the very few times my shovelhead rode home in the back of a truck.

One of the reasons I have always been psychotic about building my bikes to be bulletproof, and making sure I can fix all but the worst breakdowns with tools and spare parts in my road kit is because I cannot stand to be that helpless, hapless rider stranded beside the road. I’d rather have people depend on me than have to impose on friends or, worse still, depend on the kindness of strangers.

In this instance, when I got the bike home and went to replace the wasted primary belt, I learned that I couldn’t have replaced the belt by the side of the road even if I’d had a spare belt with me; that the inner primary cover (which can’t be removed without an impact wrench and clutch-hub puller) wouldn’t let me take the belt off the engine pulley! Since I had the inner primary cover off anyway, I took the opportunity to grind down the bosses on the inner primary so that I could take the belt off without removing the inner primary, the next time the need arose. That’s just how I roll! 😁

As an aside: I will never understand why some riders get angry when I mention tool kits and roadside repairs in that context. Seems to me everyone is better off if I can fix the problem by the side of the road and get on with the ride, rather than be forced to wait for a wrecker or a buddy with a trailer to come fetch me. Still, I’ve had riders – every one of them the sort I call ‘Born Again Bikers’ – get absolutely incensed at the notion that I am capable in that regard, as if my competence was – dare I say it? – a challenge to their manhood…. 🙄

And that’s a whole ‘nother post, too! 😏

Of course, it could be worse. You could be well and truly fucked, like this poor couple….

BIKER’S CODE

However, if you’re lucky enough to break down while riding with others, the Biker’s Code says ‘No biker left behind.’ By hook or crook or boot or rope, you’re both getting home.

And if all else fails….

Another scene most riders will recognize (or cringe from): the bike that just…. Will. Not. Start! I’ve never owned a Sportster, but I started my share during my years of working at Bud’s. I’ve also been that pissed at my shovel, when it’s been particularly coldblooded and cantankerous. Fortunately for me, those instances have been few and far between….

….and the next sound you hear will be me knockin’ on wood! 😱

Sadly, our machines aren’t the only things that betray us.

Bikers are all too familiar with the cager who seems to have it in for us. Popular wisdom advises riders Don’t ride as if they can’t see you; ride as if they’re aiming for you! Unfortunately, I know from bitter experience that sometimes they actually are aiming for us!

But if one of the bastards does nail you, what can you do but heal as best you can, and dream of getting back in the wind where you belong?

If you’ve ever built a motorcycle, you’ll recognize the anguished look on this fellow’s face, as he watches his freshly painted fuel tank head for a collision with the garage floor.

Mayhaps he needs a helper. Maybe a curvaceous blonde? Someone half-naked, perhaps? Yeah, that’ll do the trick! 😆

Or maybe he just needs a sandwich! 😁

GIRLS AND THEIR TOYS

In Mann’s art, women are primarily placed in secondary roles as backrests, bike washers, beer fetchers and sexual conquests. In Mann’s world, women rarely ride their own. In fact, of the hundreds of paintings Mann produced, I’ve only found a baker’s dozen thus far depicting women riders. However, to his credit, man or woman, when he painted them he brought the same skills, artistic integrity and vision to bear.

Finally, what could be finer than doing something you love, like riding, and looking over to see the person you most love in this world enjoying the same thing?

I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON!

One of the downsides of biker life is the occasional brush with the law.

I’ve gotten a couple of these over the years. One was right after I’d installed brand new mufflers on my bike! Turns out I was riding my motorcycle in that trooper’s personal ‘No Biker Zone’. I’ve learned there are a lot of those in this state. 🙄 I’ve come to see ‘too loud’ tickets as a sort of ‘road-use tax’; nothing to do but pay the piper, no pun intended. 😏

My best road dog learned that the hard way. We were jamming through West Texas enroute to the Four Corners region when we were tagged by a state trooper near Sweetwater, Texas. On a busy Interstate Highway packed full of noisy highballing tractor-trailers and speeding cagers, he spotted us coming the opposite direction, doubled back and pulled us over. The fuckwad actually claimed he could hear our exhausts over the noise of the semis and pickup trucks, despite the fact that my exhaust system was in excellent condition and my partner’s was almost new. The trooper ignored the modified pickup that blasted past us as we stood there (leaving us all with tinnitus) and wrote us both tickets for ‘exhaust too loud.’

The first time I received a ‘too loud’ ticket, over a decade earlier, I was incensed because, as it happened, my mufflers were brand-new at the time. How could this asshole write me a ticket? I went so far as to call the State Attorney General’s office, to see if this was even legal, and was told the law leaves ‘too loud’ to the discretion of the officer making the traffic stop.

At the time I was incensed. The state is going to leave something like that up to officer discretion? Geez! The potential for abuse is staggering. How can you defend against an officer’s opinion, when it’s given the weight of evidence in a court of law? Well, you can’t, so I paid up….

….and that’s how I gained the ‘road-use tax’ perspective. If you can’t fight it, just find a way to accept it.

However, I later realized that ‘officer discretion’ is actually a good thing for us. It beats the hell out of decibel meters!

Think about it: the occasional cop may decide your pipes are too loud and ding you for ’em, but with a decibel meter? With a goddam decibel meter, every cop will be writing tickets for pipes too loud. When it comes to cops, better the few than the majority.

In fact, I’m so opposed to decibel meters, and the threat they pose to those of us who ride large-displacement American motors, that I resigned my membership in the American Motorcyclist Association when they made the incomprehensible decision to donate decibel meters to police departments. Seriously!?! What the ever-lovin’ fuck were they thinking? I doubt they miss my $50 annual dues, but I sleep better at night knowing I’m not arming our enemies and making life worse for my fellow riders.

Anyhoo, in the Sweetwater incident, I paid my fine before we left the jurisdiction. I am scrupulous about such things, because I never want to give a cop an excuse, like an unpaid traffic ticket, to pull me off my bike. If they want me they’re gonna have to make something up!

However, my partner, who had never been through this, was overcome with righteous indignation, and swore he’d fight this outrage. Sure enough, when we got back from our week on the road, he had his motorcycle inspected, gathered all pertinent documentation, closed his clinic for two days and hied himself out to Sweetwater to wage war against injustice.

The upshot? He lost two days out of his practice, the cost of travel to Sweetwater and overnight accommodations, and had to pay a fine and ‘court costs’ amounting to more than three times what I’d paid the day I got the ticket. I refrained from saying ‘I told you so,‘ but I did tell him so! 😆 As I said: nothing to do but pay the piper and get on down the road.

A final note: I mentioned the Sweetwater stop to my attorney at the time, who specialized in motorcycle-related law, and he said ‘Oh, that was Trooper _______.’ Apparently, the fellow who stopped us was renowned statewide for his hatred of bikers. 🤷‍♀️ Whatcha gonna do?

We’ve all had close calls like this one, too.

But sometimes the heat is more than just an inconvenient wants-and-warrants stop or speeding ticket. Prosecutors and LEOs seem to be convinced that bikers – particularly patchholders or independents on Harleys – are career criminals simply because they identify as bikers. As a result, too many bikers, many of them innocent, have wasted years inside prison walls. Mann showed their lives, as well.

On a brighter note, here Mann captures the joy on a rider’s face as he clears those gates. The first things he sees are his girl, a bottle of Jack, and his prized shovelhead chop. As an added bonus: Dave Mann and Jacquie stand at far right, ready to welcome him back to the world.

HISTORY LESSON

Mann knew the history of our tribe, too, from the streets of Hollister, California, where it all began….

….through the early days of the custom bike scene.

A RABBIT HOLE:

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go down another rabbit hole for just a moment, to show you another painstaking replica: the late tattoo artist Richiepan’s reproduction of Dave Mann’s own red rigid-framed shovelhead, as pictured below.

Here’s a write-up on Richiepan’s build from the December 2009 issue of The Horse/Backstreet Choppers:

Further down the rabbit hole: a documentary about Richiepan, shared from The Vintagent’s tribute to Richiepan.

OUT OF THE RABBIT HOLE AND BACK ON TOPIC:

Dave captured the club life of the Sixties….

….the custom bike movement of the Seventies….

….the Eighties….

….the Nineties….

….and into the new century.

He gave us the prophetically named Last Call….

….and a glimpse into the future, come what may.

Unlike Vincent van Gogh, David Mann didn’t have to die to become well-known. He had the satisfaction of knowing his talents were appreciated. There were frequent letters to the editors, lauding his works. Poster prints of his most popular paintings sold like hotcakes. Then there was the large-format book of his work released in 1987, which quickly sold out and is now highly collectible. Even the cheapie reprints Paisano Publications released in 2016 and 2017 are going for stupid money on eBay.

Then there are the tattoos: so, so many tattoos! I mean, bikers like tattoos anyway, but they really like tattoos of Dave Mann’s art! Just Google ‘David Mann tattoos‘ and see what comes up. 😮

Finally, there was this tribute to David Mann from the pages of Easyriders; just a biographical sketch and a heartfelt appreciation of the still-living artist. I can’t recall what issue it was in and the interwebs are keeping stum about it. I’ll add the date of publication ASAP, if I ever find it.

‘ART IS ETERNAL, FOR IT REVEALS THE INNER LANDSCAPE, WHICH IS THE SOUL OF MAN’

As noted at the top of this page, artists have the power to move us with their words, their images, their sculpture and dance and film – to limn the ‘inner landscape’ of absolute strangers – and David Mann had that ability, in spades!

HEARTBREAKING….

So many incredible paintings, but one of the images that most touches me is this one, depicting a rider on his rigid shovelhead; the biker and bike from Ghost Rider, sans SS lightning bolts and ethereal cowboy. This time, the biker is alone in the desert hills, but the shadows on the rock behind him tell us he’s missing his woman, wishing she were still packing behind him for the long ride, tucked in behind him where she belongs. The tattoo on his arm and the title – In Memory Of… – suggest that she is not just out of his life, but altogether gone from this world. So much emotion and history packed into one small frame!

Thankfully, I’ve never lost a lover to death, but I have lost brothers, friends and kinfolk, and I do know the ache of yearning for something you once had, and will never have again.

Finally, another look at the artist himself, seated on his beloved shovelhead.

DAVID WILLIAM MANN, September 10th, 1940 to September 11th, 2004. R.I.P.

Paintings © David Mann, found at https://www.facebook.com/davidmannstore, and

Shawn Dickinson, found at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063485559855

A great appreciation of Dave Mann by Mr. Timothy Schmitt appears at http://churchofchoppers.blogspot.com/2008/04/by-tim-schmitt-inside-artists-studio-on.html