I Smashed His Face. He Got Wise.

Lovely Spring is in the air. Bicyclers and priers beware! What did I see riding past the Hell's Angels outpost today at 77 East 3rd Street? But a pair of songbirds: a gnarly, longhaired Harley aficionado kissing his saddle-bagged, red head bride. Lovely, really. Who knew that Hunter S. Thompson's favorite bunch of invaders, the ones who "are tough, mean and potentially dangerous as a pack of wild boar," knew such love? Despite the lore of this place, the infamous stop that Sandy Frazier Alexander started in ‘69 seems relatively tame these days in the gentrified East Village. Alexander, an East Coast biker and something of a rival to the West's Sonny Barger, knew how to kick it in the orgiastic day, I hear. So did Ken Kesey with his woods parties that The Angels and Ginsberg use to frequent. But, anyway despite the whining sirens, helicopters and attempted siege on the club this past late January after the beating of that dumb Brooklyn bitch who jumped on one of their bikes, things seem calmer these days at the building ridden with security cameras. Thompson, who got riot-beaten himself by the crew, did say, "Many of their 'assault victims' are people who have seen too many Western movies; they are victims of the John Wayne complex, which causes them to start swinging the moment they sense any insult." RIP H.S.T, RIP.