When you work at a gun shop long enough it’s only a matter of time before you end up face to face with a motorcycle gang, That’s how this story starts and somehow it ends with me being treated like family by a Southern California club, The moment that sealed it was a high-speed chase where we were the ones doing the chasing, wind ripping, adrenaline spiking, and in my earphones was No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak,” a breakup ballad clashing hilariously with the chaos, That song has lived rent-free in my head ever since as the most backwards soundtrack to violence imaginable,

Somewhere along the way I accidentally peeled the colors off a rival gang’s hangaround, a move that should have ended badly but instead won me notoriety, From there it snowballed, Twelve hours on the bike through desert heat that felt like Mars, climbing into the rainy mountains of Grass Valley, collapsing by a lake under the night sky, and eating a live frog at a bonfire to prove a point, That’s how I became a friend of the club, even if I’d never take the patch myself,

I explain why these clubs matter, the sense of belonging they provide, but I’m also self-aware enough to admit that most of it is pretty whack, The rules, the rituals, it’s a play I could never act in, This episode is me looking back at a wild stretch of time, one that shaped me without ever defining me.

WATCH HERE