Funny Sonny

I didn't know why they called him, "Crazy Richard."  Richard was calm compared to the other bikers I had come to know in my association with Funny Sonny.  True, Richard carried a leather-wrapped cane made of a 3/4" steel pipe with a piece of rebar pounded through its center but he'd had trouble walking since he'd put his bike down a few years earlier.  So, the cane seemed more a durable necessity than a weapon.

I asked Mississippi Charlie once why they called him "Crazy Richard" and he answered, "Because of the way he killed that guy."

I let the subject drop and never picked it up again.

Meeting Sonny, Funny Sonny, was pure adventure.  I answered the request line at the radio station for which I worked one day and heard, "Hang on a second, Bro., the cops are here."

Sonny had called the radio station to request "Gimme Shelter" and "Magic Bus."  No surprise as Sonny called once every week or so to request, "Gimme Shelter" and "Magic Bus."

It was not terribly surprising either that I was on hold because the cops were at Sonny's house.

Leonard Martin Selig, aka "Funny Sonny" had been a badge-wearing, dues-paying, card-carrying Hells Angel from a time as far back as the 50's.  Run a search on Google Images and you'll see him as he was in his prime.  He'd been thrown out of the club for some reason he never disclosed but he held firm in his loyalty to the "Masters of Menace."

A voice that sounded literally like tires rolling on a gravel driveway came back on the line, "It's cool, they're looking for Doc.  Hey, what're you doing for the 4th of July?"

As it happened I was hosting a party at my home on the beach and quickly invited Sonny to stop by for a formal introduction.

On July 5th, Funny Sonny, Pork Chop, Mississippi Charlie, Crazy Richard, Freaky Fred, Bear, Doc, all their Old Ladies, and an appropriate number of choppers lined up in front of my beach house for the party.  Lost weekends were regularly scheduled features at my house in those days so my 4th of July party was still in progress, luckily.

Sonny, obviously disappointed on our meeting, was expecting the 6'-5" voice he'd heard on the phone and the radio, not the 5'-6" reality.  Still, ours was a bond that transcended size and one look in each others eyes and we knew we were brothers.

Sonny got married a lot.  The year following our first meeting, one of his weddings was at my house there on the beach.  Now, Sonny was a meticulous wedding planner.  The food, the booze, the ceremonies, all were planned and laid out with careful attention to detail.  Traditionally photos taken at weddings focus on the bride and where there were plenty of those there was also a plethora of images of the food table (from different angles), the booze table (from many different angles), and the bikes (from every imaginable angle).

The night before this, his 8th wedding, was Sonny's bachelor party.  There was a little bar about 3 miles down the beach from my house where we had all agreed to meet.  The first of the party to arrive was a group of five or six of us.  This was just the core bro's.  The main body of revelers would come later.  Bikers are not always welcome at bars and we had to get a feel for the atmosphere before committing fully.

Crazy Richard, Pork Chop, Sonny and myself were the first to arrive.  There was a nice buzz about the place, friendly faces, etc.  But, there was one table occupied by what looked like some red shirts from the Varsity Defense Squad at the local University.  That's fine but they'd had a good start on consumption by the time we arrived and so, to prove themselves, they started the, "Biker...this," and "Biker...that," and "I'm gonna do this to a biker."  All that machismo crap.  We were just ignoring it, not wanting trouble, and taking turns on the video game until more folks arrived.

Finally, Richard had heard enough.  A backhand sent a nose-tackle from Minnesota ass over teakettle.  Three of his comrades stood up whereby Richard picked up a table, lifted it over his head, pulled it down hard and split the table in half in one fell swoop.  The red shirts looked at all 5'-10" of Richard then at Pork Chop and Sonny, apologized and carried their first string out between them.

We all apologized for the mess and offered to buy a new table but the bar tender just smiled and said, "Happens all the time!  Not a problem!"

By closing time there were no fewer than 40 bikes lining the curb outside the bar.  We had made the bar tender a very wealthy man via both consumption and tips.  Leaving the bar became an event.

At the exact moment Sonny exited the bar a tractor pulling a giant trailer covered with hay and piled to capacity with Christian youth was passing by at a respectable 3 miles an hour.  It was a good old fashioned Christian youth hay ride.  Sonny stood in front of the tractor, big alligator tears rolling down his face, pleading to let him on the trailer as he had never been on an honest-to-God hay ride.  The driver, looking at 40 bikers all cheering Sonny, immediately agreed.  Since Sonny's bike had never been on a hayride either it was lifted onto the back of the trailer to take them both the 3 miles down the beach to my place.

The next morning there were two puzzles facing Sonny.  First, how did all the hay get stuffed into his motorcycle, and second, how did we get the motorcycle into my living room?  I wondered how we got the motorcycle off of the trailer.

No matter, tonight was the wedding!

I had to work the graveyard shift so I could not stay for the whole of the festivities.  By the time I got home I found people sleeping in every room of the house and in my own bed I found both my girlfriend and a rather non-threatening fellow called Hobbit.

At Sonny's 9th wedding I was the ring-bearer, riding a child's tricycle and floor length leather coat up to the bride and groom then falling over and handing up the ring in the style made popular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.

With 30 Harleys lining the swimming pool, when they were pronounced man and wife, all the bikes were started in unison and revved up to a thunderous salute to let the gods know that the union was fixed.

One time, just for the sheer joy of it, I brought Funny Sonny, wife #8, and Freaky Fred to a party in an exclusive neighborhood, thrown by high ranking members of the Advertising Community in our town.  It was not long into the party before Sonny started taking his clothes off, revealing the flaming Harley Davidson tattoo that covered his back.  Freaky Fred, who was not house broken, pulled off his pants then pulled off the counter top on the bar.

We were asked to leave early in the evening but the allied media in attendance didn't stop talking about the bikers at their party for years to come.

In the end a friendship is measured in the hard times, not in the parties.  I was diagnosed with a rather nasty brain tumor which demanded three surgeries, two of them at the Mayo Clinic.

After the first surgery, Sonny came by the hospital every day to stand up for me.  He didn't stay long, certainly not so long as others did, to the point of discomfort, but he was there every day to make sure I was making progress.

Then, when I went to the Mayo Clinic, he called every day to check up.  The phone calls weren't long enough to be uncomfortable, just long enough to get an update and make sure I knew who cared.

It was after the third successful surgery that Sonny came to me in confidence to invite me to a surprise party for wife #9.  In typical Sonny fashion all the particulars were planned to the tenth power.  He would pick me up at 2:30 and would be driving the "cage" (biker vernacular for a car).  The party would start at 3:00 at the Glynns Cove Tavern.

When we arrived we approached from a side street and the first thing I saw was the bar-b-cues.  Sonny built these bar-b-cues out of 55 gallon barrels, cut in half, then welded along one edge with long hinges, grill inside, iron legs below.  There were three of them, end to end, filled with whole chickens.

We entered the rear to find all the tables in the room pushed together, draped, and covered with food.  I saw 30 or more bikers I knew and all their old ladies and when i walked in the place erupted with cheers and applause.  Sonny, whose speechifying was legendary, handed me a case of beer and said, "This party is to celebrate a life!  That's why this party is for you, Owl!"  I'm still crying over that.  More cheers and bear hugs followed but by 4:30 I needed a nap before I went to work.  I was still weak from the surgery.

Sonny gave me a ride home and another hug when he dropped me off.

I only lived a block away from the radio station where I worked so when I woke up, 5 minutes before I was to be on the air, I just dashed out the door, crossed the street, grabbed my first newscast from the counter, ran in the studio, opened the microphone, hit the sounder that introduced the news and began reading the top headline.  "A shoot out between rival biker gangs has left two injured.  The Glynns Cove tavern ... "  I have no idea what the rest of the newscast sounded like as I was on complete automatic pilot until the first record started.  I was already dialing the phone before the vocals started.

Wife #9 answered Sonny's phone and told me he was at a safe house with his Winchester.  Doc had gotten shot but he was okay and already at home.  When I finally got a hold of Sonny he told me the story.

The party was going well when a couple of guys showed up wearing colors.  Sonny and Pork Chop greeted the strangers and told them though it was a private party they were welcome to come in, they just couldn't wear their "cuts," not proper biker etiquette.  The two refused the compromise in such a way that Sonny and Pork Chop were forced to show the two the sidewalk.

Minutes later Doc came running in yelling, "GUNS!  EVERYBODY DOWN!"  Doc was shot in the back from a .22 rifle and the jukebox was hit once.  The cops caught the two in their car in minutes and they were in jail where they would stay for some time to come.  Doc was fine, he was out of methadone anyway so the pain killers were a big help.  No one else was hit.

And there it is.  There are two kinds of people in the world: decent and indecent.  There were the people with whom I worked every day who didn't call me once while I was having brain surgeries left and right and Sonny who called or came by every day.  There was my family who, apart from my mother, never even said, "Welcome back." and there was Sonny who threw a party celebrating my life.  There were all the friends, from all the years, who never said, "Boo" or "How do you do" during that whole episode and there were 30 bikers and their old ladies who embraced me and made me loved when I was in need.

There was Sonny, for whom I would willingly kill or die to protect, who would willing kill or die to protect me, and there was my wife who forbade me to see him anymore, crushing both him and me, who was only my wife for a few years.  He refused to see me for the next 24 years and I don't blame him one bit.

I just read that Sonny died in July of 2010.  I didn't get to say, Goodbye.  Even in death he's teaching me what's really important, what makes the best in people, and who to trust.

Gerry Garcia once wrote that Bikers are very up front about who they are.  You can recognize a biker from a block away and you know they're potentially dangerous.  You will, on the other hand invite someone wearing a suit into your home, sign over all your money and all your possessions, and off he will run, you smiling, waving, and trusting all the way.

I hope, when the end of the world comes, I'm surrounded by bikers.  I hope when I die, that I will meet up with Sonny once again, climb on the back of that cream colored Harley, and not throw off his balance ... just ride.  Ride Free.