Daniel stepped out of the closet just long enough to say...

From: "Daniel Kaplan" <DanielKaplan>

To: blackecho@goingfaster.com

Subject: Harley Davidson's

Sent: Sat, 18 May 2002 13:45:34 -0400

I can't help but wonder why you would put so much effort into your anti-Harley website.

I know one thing, I can spot jealousy when I see it.

I do not ride Harley Davidson's nor do they appeal to me, but I feel they fill an important niche in the choices available to the motorcycling public.

Almost every remark you made about why Harley's are ridiculous contraptions made for people that just want to buy an image could be applied to every Japanese cruiser rider and 98% of the people that buy sportbikes.

You leave me wondering exactly who is really the one that doesn't get it.

Good day.

__________________________________

To which I replied... 

It is quite evident, Mr. Kaplan, that you could never be considered to be an English major as you clearly do not understand simple written English, even when it is laid out on about a third grade level in order for you to do so. You choose to totally ignore my guide on how not to get yourself ridiculed and instead submit this rather amateurish piece of drivel in order to make yourself feel better. Here, you, a self-professed non-Harley-liking crusader for all motorcycle freedoms, have instead decided not to take a stand for anything while defending the endangered feelings of complete fashion worshipping mongo-tards.

I can tell that you feel very uncomfortable about creating waves in society because, quite simply, you aren’t the kind of individual who is strong enough to create these kinds of waves and then to ride them out. Hell, the biggest splash you make in society is followed shortly thereafter with a quick pull of the handle on the toilet. You are a spineless, emotion vomiting goodie two-shoes ass fairy, Mr. Kaplan, and a rather pathetic one at that.

Isn’t it a really good thing that your ass crack is designed to sit perfectly on something narrow and long, like the middle of the fence that you so obviously walk in your rather drab life?  Have you also noticed how that middle of the fence that you choose to walk fits so neatly and comfortably right there between your two prodigious ass cheeks? It is almost as if it were designed to do just that! I can guess that after many long years of comfortable placement in that position, much in the same way that the blade tip of a screwdriver matches up perfectly with the slotted head of a threaded screw, that your all-conforming ass has molded itself quite well to sitting on the middle of the societal fence.

Your email clearly indicates that I have obviously upset your world in a way that you simply cannot fully comprehend. How could someone do this to you?! Am I a mean old person!?  No, I’m just using my riding boots to kick you in your ass in order to jump-start your seldom used and rather miniscule cerebellum. You may not even realize just what it is that I have done to you, Daniel, thick skulled as you obviously are, so I will explain it to you. To put it simply, I have grabbed both of your eyelids and flung them wide open like the pale, limp pink shutters that they are and what I have shown you has caused you to be afraid. You are afraid because what I have shown you is not something that you are comfortable with. It is not something that you never wanted to be shown because it instantly dispels the imaginary little world that you have called home for oh so very long.

I have shown you reality, Daniel and it is an environment that people like you are ill-suited to venture forth across.

I can't help but wonder why you would put so much effort into your anti-Harley website.

Read my latest reply to "Steve" on my feedback. He asks the same question that you do and I thought I answered him quite effectively. However, since I forgot that you can’t read simple English, let me reiterate my stance on the matter one more time. I’m kicking the ass of the ignorant to jump-start their atrophied brain stems back into at least a minimal amount of use.  In other words, I'm about to attach the red (positive lead) cable to your left nipple, and the black (negative lead) cable to your right nipple, and turn on the juice to see if we get anything on the brain activity monitor.  If that doesn't work, I'll just attach them directly to the bolts in your neck.

Call it shock therapy, because nothing else seems to work with you flock following dullards.

My site is a labor of love, Daniel. I’m sure there’s enough love here to share with you, and all the rest of the mental skidmarks like you, which is what I’m doing right now whether you like it or not. Lube up, bend over, and prepare to embrace hard reality, chimp. It’s going to be a rough ride for you, I’m sure.

I know one thing, I can spot jealousy when I see it.

You couldn’t spot your asshole with a flashlight, a stand up mirror, and a hand drawn map so what makes you think you can spot something as complex as jealousy? If you just opened your eyes a little more, Daniel, you would realize two things:

1)  HD is nothing more than a huge strap-on penis replacement for society neutered, gender bending, fashion Twinkies.

2)  You would also be amazed at how close to the center of the flock you actually graze on a daily basis.

However, since you putrid scoglodytes just can’t seem to understand this whole ‘jealousy’ aspect, or even what the term "jealousy" really means, I will try to explain it again on a level that you will understand which means I’m going to have to roll up my sleeves and discard about 25 years of education and experience in order to do so. Hold on, Daniel, let me get some crayons, magic markers, paste, colored construction paper, and some scissors and I’ll bring it all down to your level of understanding...

Jealousy.

Common sense would state that to be jealous of something then that something must naturally be unobtainable or out of reach by the person who is jealous of it, for whatever reason that may be. Jealousy, simply put, is a desire to have something that you do not have and that you cannot otherwise easily obtain. In order to be jealous, you must have an object which you desire to acquire, yet you must not be in a position to acquire that object. Jealousy is all about trying to have something you can’t have. It is as simple as that.

Now, since I have no desire to own a Harley (thus ruling out the first of the two obvious critical components of the act of jealousy), yet I have the financial well being to be able to afford a Harley (or two or more) so should I choose to do so (thus ruling out the second critical half required to exist in a state of jealousy, the part about not being able to obtain the object of my desire…), I am therefore, clearly not jealous of Harley Davidson owners or their ridiculous motorcycles and you obviously do not know anything about jealousy.

Since this is not jealousy, since you have not spotted jealousy, and since you do not know the one thing that you claim that you do, this obviously makes you somewhat of a failure.

Oh dear!

Look at it this way, Daniel. Think of a Harley Davidson as something other than a motorcycle, say a DVD player or even a VCR. If I go to the department store and see a DVD player or a VCR or even something else that I want, that is desire, not jealousy, especially if I can whip out my checkbook or bank card and pay for this item that I desire right then and there and walk away with it. If I can afford what I see, yet I choose not to buy it, then that is a personal choice based on many factors, none of which include the act of "jealousy".

However ...

If everyone else is buying this item and I am not, that also does not make me jealous. I may know something that they do not. I may have read Consumer Reports while they did not. Consumer Reports may have said that you would have to be a total ass-muppet to buy that type of VCR or DVD player, or whatever.  Knowing this knowledge beforehand makes me an informed buyer.  That therefore makes me guilty of exercising a personal right based on my choice of how to spend my hard-earned money and the research done to back up that decision. If this product that everyone is buying is three times as expensive, three times as heavy, three times as big, and three times as loud as something say made just over the border in Canada, then I’d be a fool not to buy the Canadian product. It is a much better product for much less money.

Do I buy an American TV set based on 50 year old vacuum tube technology, or a one inch thick, gas plasma, high definition TV that mounts on my wall and has remote control, even when it was made in Japan? Guess my answer to that one, chimp. I don’t care how many American flags you plaster on the outside of the box with the 40 year old technology in it, I will always spend my money for quality and quality today has no nationality. Commercial patriotism is a laughable marketing tool that only works on the weak minded.

So, I’m jealous?

What a laugh… You and a bunch of other minimally evolved mental cretins think that I’m jealous of Harley Davidson because it is beyond the comprehension of your walnut-sized brains to think that anyone could not like Harley Davidson. I mean, who doesn’t want to be patriotic and buy into the American dream? I don’t, not if that dream has been reduced to nothing more than a commercial farce. The only thing I’m jealous of Milwaukee for is that they have a huge financial pipeline into the direct heart of weak minded redneck America and the amount of money that is flowing in from that pipeline is truly mind boggling. I’m not jealous of their motorcycles, Daniel, I’m jealous that I haven’t found a way to exploit the gullibility of stupid people like those fetid old troglo-tards have! The day I find a way to take smart money from dumb people is the day I realize the contemporary American dream.

So, do you still think that you can spot jealousy?

You can’t even spot that the "jealousy" argument is the first ignorant statement that a typical HD owner or otherwise loyal supporter is taught to tell other people who might try to steer large segments of the population away from spending all of their hard earned money on total junk. I don’t like Harley because it is an inferior piece of shit motorcycle, it is an image, it is a sheep in wolf’s clothing that is all sound and no balls, and you think I’m jealous of that?

Think again because it is obvious that you must truly be one seriously afflicted mongo-tard.

I do not ride Harley Davidson's nor do they appeal to me, but I feel they fill an important niche in the choices available to the motorcycling public.

Your own choice is not to ride Harley Davidsons because you say that they do not appeal to you yet you feel that HD fills an important niche in the choices available to the motorcycling public. Could that be that you feel that they are total pieces of shit, unworthy of your hard-earned money, yet you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by calling the typical Harley Davidson rider a total ignorant mental and fiscal virgin? You’re one pretty confused and messed up individual, you middle of the fence walking, weak-minded sissy vagina, do you know that? Choose your side and get off the fence! You are either for an America based on strength, or one based upon image. You can’t have both, and the secret is, if you build for strength, image will follow. Image is a byproduct of strength, not the reverse as Milwaukee would have you believe.

What choices are you referring to, Daniel? The choice to say one thing and be the exact opposite? The choice to outright lie? The choice to cover yourself from head to toe in officially licensed and endorsed, brand name emblem slathered apparel all the while crying out that you are an "Individual!" while your actions scream "carbon copy"? HD is a choice, yes, Daniel, you are correct. HD is a choice open only to weak minded, easily brain-washed, idiots who chose to buy their image rather than earn it. For those who think that image brings strength, but there are no shortcuts to strength, Daniel. You can buy image, but you can’t buy strength, you can’t even rent it. HD owners buy into a lifestyle, Daniel. Harley Davidson isn’t a motorcycle, it’s a lifestyle, and it costs you to join. You don’t own a Harley, Daniel. You rent it. It completes you, it enhances you, it builds upon your image while doing nothing for your strength.

You pay your rent with every official license and endorsed product you buy.

Almost every remark you made about why Harley's are ridiculous contraptions made for people that just want to buy an image could be applied to every Japanese cruiser rider and 98% of the people that buy sportbikes.

What?!

OMG!

Bwahahahahaha!

That has to be one of the most ridiculous and asinine statements anyone has ever said before!  I believe you have just made ignorance history as no one in the entire record of written and spoken language, let alone the history of the human race has ever said something so profoundly ignorant as what you just stated. Yes, you could go down in history as the man who uttered the most ignorant statement of all time. I am actually dumber for having read that part of your email and those brain cells truly died in vain.

Please, give me a few seconds to mourn their passing…

Okay.

So, every tired old cliché used by Harley riders also applies to import owners? How laughable. You’ve got five seconds to decide which side of the fence you’re going to land on because I’m about to throw you off the middle, ass first, chimp. If you won’t make a stand, then someone stronger, smarter and better than you will step up to do the job for you, someone like me. Never send a boy to do a man’s job, and in this case, you definitely need to step aside and let the men handle this problem in society. It isn’t for someone who is afraid of making waves or hurting feelings because if this country is going to get back on track, there’s going to be a whole lot of feelings hurt and a whole lot of waves made.

I’ll believe the ridiculously asinine statement that you just made when I see Ford make a Honda CBR edition of the F150, or Barbie comes out with a Kawasaki Ninja to ride or the import motorcycle companies start to make more money off cheap trinkets than they do actually producing and selling motorcycles. When I walk into some redneck gas station and see genuine Kawasaki bandannas and do-rags for sale, or genuine Honda sunglasses, or a Suzuki car tag and window decals, then I’ll stop believing that Harley is nothing more than a ridiculous market driven fad cult and that the true sign of a real motorcycle company is not its product, but all the cheap ass trinkets it can stamp its name onto. Harley Davidson isn’t a motorcycle company, Daniel, not a real one. It hasn’t been a motorcycle company for a long time. Harley sold out decades ago. Everything that Harley used to stand for has been lost and that is what is so funny about the whole thing.

You see, Harley got owned. Pure and simple. Harley went up against society, and society won. Harley raised its fist to the Man and the Man kicked Harley’s ass. Harley used to be about rugged individuals, about bad ass outlaw bikers, and fringe elements of society. Harley used to be all about counter culture, riding against society, but society wouldn’t have any of that. The culture absorbed Harley, and now Harley is owned by the very people that it used to stand against. How serious do you think I take Harley now?

Not very.

Harley sold out, Daniel. The Man rides Harleys now. The Man owns Harley now. Harley is the Man's pet now, but they tell you that they aren’t. Harley was weak, they couldn’t survive without joining with society and the Man. Harley rode into the Institution, fists raised in defiance, and the Institution rode out on Harleys, whooping and hollering.

Harley doesn’t make motorcycles anymore. All they make is excuses, and they’ve been making them for over three decades now.

They’re damn good at it, too, but then practice does make perfect.

You leave me wondering exactly who is really the one that doesn't get it.

Wondering is good for you, Daniel. It means that you’re starting to question the established norms in society. If you are wondering who still doesn’t get it, then that should be pretty plain and self evident. If you have to ask, you really just don’t get it, Daniel. My advice to you? When you talk out your ass, it’s plain to see where your eyes are located. I guess that also makes it really easy for you to see what is happening on each side of the fence when you sit on the middle of it, now doesn’t it?