The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1392: Lessons from 'The Bikeriders' w/ Payload

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

57 MinutesPG-13Payload has an exceptional Substack while often writing for the Old Glory Club.Payload joins Pete to explore the theme's of Jeff Nichols' 2023 movie, The Bikeriders.Payload's SubstackHeavy Lies the CrownPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Payload is here for the first time. What's going on, man? How are you doing? How are you doing, Pete? It's a pleasure to be on with you. I'm definitely honored. Oh, man. I wish I was prolific at you as writing. I used to write so much.

I'm just not, I can't do it anymore, man. So, no, the reason I have you on, I'm having you on is because, I mean, shit, I mean, no one did. If I say you deserve it, that makes it sound like I'm, like I'm something more than I am. But you got a lot to say. So, you know, having you come on, I feel like you probably should have been on, you know, a year or two ago. So there's my, uh, me saying, I'm honored to have you here. Well, I'm humble. Thank you. I appreciate that. You want to tell, I mean, obviously, no docs, but tell everybody a little bit about yourself,

as much as you want to say? Sure. I'm a former white libertarian, kind of like you were, similar trajectory. Came to right-wing politics a number of years ago, and, you know, I tend to be a obsessive when I get into things. So I got kind of all the way down deep deep in it and you know kind of led me here. Yeah, I'm from the northeastern part of the United States and just born and raised and just kind of got heavily involved in this stuff started writing kind of on a whim just to kind of make sure I had my thoughts organized based on, you know, things that I had read. over the years and then seemed to get some traction and people liked it. So, yeah, I'm here now.

That's awesome, yeah. You can crank it out and the references and the amount of footnotes and, you know, solid sourcing. So, but hey, maybe we'll talk about something you wrote a little bit later. but, well, actually, we are talking about something you wrote. You actually wrote a substack for the old Glory Club talking about a movie that came out in 2023 called The Bike Riders. And I just recently got around to watching it. And then after reading the substack, I was like, I think this is definitely a subject that is,

it's actually a discussion that seems to be perennial. on the right, would you say? Yeah, definitely. You know, we'll get into it here, but I was kind of struck because I didn't see this movie initially when it came out. I mean, I saw previews for it, thought it was kind of interesting. I liked Tom Hardy in general, Austin Butler, liked what he had done, but I didn't see it initially.

And then, you know, kind of once I was in these spaces and, you know, in kind of Argyz circles. I watch this movie and I'm like, wow, there's there's a lot of things that apply here. So yeah, I do think it's an important movie from that standpoint. And overall, it's entertaining. I don't know if you got this too, but I was thinking kind of influenced by Scorsese. I don't know. Possibly. Well, just the style, just the style of it. A lot of the cuts, some of the some of the dialogue just it's stylized in the way the way Scorsesey right uh directs things I think yeah I mean there there is a there is a grittiness to it um Jeff Nichols the

director um he he is a southern guy who's from little Little Rock Arkansas and he puts the South and a lot of his I think his life experience into his movies and you can kind of feel that and sense that it's there's a kind of a Southern, definitely a Southern authentic Americana feel to them. So that's kind of definitely, I think, from lived experience that he's had. So I think that's in a lot of the movies. I mean, I didn't pick up as much as the cuts. I wasn't, I guess, kind of looking at it that way.

But, you know, I could look at it again and see it with the Scorsese stuff. But I don't, and film a lot of times, I'm not paying attention necessarily to maybe that stuff. But yeah, that's what I got. Yeah, I like stylized Michael, like Michael Mann's stuff and stuff. Yeah, I love music. Yeah, I love Michael Mann too. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, it's loosely borrowed from a book that Danny Lyon put out. I mean, very loosely. But this was supposed to follow the outlaws, the Outlaw, motor the outlaws motorcycle club from 63 to 67 right and they changed the name to the vandals and i mean what jumped out at you first when you uh when you started watching it yeah um you know initially i i picked up that jeff nichols made the movie which interested me um he made a movie um called mud from 2012 and i really love that movie um it's with matthew mcanaughey um you know know, kind of a Southern Americana story, a coming of age story, kind of wrapped in a mystery.

I think that's his best movie that he's made. So I really like that one. So if, you know, if he made that, it was kind of interested in this. I like the previews. So I watched it. But, yeah, it's based around kind of loosely on that Outlaws motorcycle club. I think it's the second largest motorcycle club in the world next to the Hells Angels. started in Illinois.

They're classified as an organized crime syndicate by the DOJ, but I tried to look into actual crimes that they've committed and been charged with and didn't really find anything. So maybe they just don't like white guys organizing, which makes sense. But I've talked to a decent number of people in our circles about this movie. I actually got some mixed reactions. I talked to Josh Neill about it a little bit,

and he said he fell asleep watching this. So I think some people maybe thought it was boring or maybe didn't get it what it was going for. But I really think the purposes, the purpose, you know, kind of for our stakes for the movie and why it's important, is that, you know, you see a full life cycle of a living thing, of an organism and an organization. You know, it kind of shows the journey.

determination, the ascendancy, the apex of something, and then the decline, collapse, and death of something. And it really shows how if you don't keep your guard up, if you don't develop a backbench, if you don't have proper leadership, if you don't have levels of discernment in your organization, things can go very bad, very quickly. and something that was great and kind of genuine that had a purpose and a focus and a drive to it can be totally overtaken and be destroyed. So I think, you know, kind of for our guy's purposes, I think it's a very important movie because of that. It's definitely a cautionary tale and a lot of practical application can be applied from it. I think something that really stood out to me and, you know, I actually had to stop the movie and really ponder it is the fact that Tom Hardy's character. Johnny, who was the founder and the leader, it's not like he started this club out of,

he saw a need like in society for something. It wasn't like he, it was, he just decided he wanted to start a club. He wanted to be, be around a bunch of guys. And because he had already been riding and everything. He has a wife. He has kids. He has, he has a, he has a regular job. I mean, like a legit job. He's not a, you know, what you would think somebody who might start a bike club would be like, you know, someone on the outside of the law, or even a degenerate. And he just is like, yeah, I'm, you know, they show him watching the wild one with Marlon Brando and being like, yeah, this is, this is what I want to do. And it just seems probably what I came to was it was just a sense of wanting to be around other men and be around people who would

consider be brothers. Yeah, you know, he's, you know, kind of just the typical blue collar guy in the 1960s. He has a wife. He has kids. Seems to be a good husband, a good father. But yeah, he sees this movie on TV with Marlon Brando, the Wild One, and he's like transfixed. He just like, he sees it and he's like, yeah, I have my direction. I see it and I know exactly what I want to do. And it kind of just goes from there. You know, he has his mission at that point. And I think, you know, a lot of Nichols movies are,

even though this movie isn't set in the South, it's a lot of his movies are people that are stuck in their ways or on a certain path being pulled in different directions by people outside of them. You know, like in a lot of his southern movies, it's people living the southern lifestyle or the traditional lifestyle and then being pulled by modernity or post-modernity and that push and pull aspect. And this, you know, obviously the motorcycle club is kind of this insulated group outside of 1960s society. Obviously, you know, you have like the hippie, movement going on and all, you know, that shit.

And this is kind of, obviously that doesn't have any take with him. So he sees something that gives him a little bit more to life that he seems to need. Yeah. And he, he structures. What's interesting is he, he doesn't structure the, like the hierarchy of it in a way where like, I'm the leader. You say, whatever I say goes. and I mean, I'll bring it up to basically his, how he sees the future of the club playing out.

But anyone can challenge his authority at any time. Right. And that, you know, that's most clear when, I mean, these are just a bunch of guys from Chicago. And somebody's like, well, you know, I know some guys in Wisconsin who want to start a chapter. Can I do that? And he's like, no. And he is challenged to a fight, basically. And if he loses that fight, basically, he loses the club.

Well, he loses control over the club. He won't be the leader of the club anymore. And that's just something that is not, is very far into the modern year. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, that was a big point that I noticed in the movie. And I wrote in my article, you know, the rights. of passage that, you know, existed prior to liberalism, you know, really, really taking hold

and how men, you know, interacted with each other. Yeah. So, you know, he, other guy in the group wants, wants to start another chapter. He goes to, he goes to the Johnny character, Tom Hardy about it. He says, no, fights him. You know, Johnny, you know, Johnny beats him. And then as soon as the fights over, he lets him start the chapter, shakes his hand, and it's like as if nothing happened. And that's unfathomable today for something like that to occur. That has been totally beaten out of men to, you know, act that way. I was talking to my wife's father who's who is in the military. And, you know, he used to get in back in the day, I mean, he used to get in fights all the time. I mean, guys just

swinging at each other and then, you know, two minutes after the fight's over, you know, the guys are smoking a cigarette together laughing and joking, like, it's nothing. It's just that's how men used to operate. And that's just, it's just non-existent now. I think about stories that my dad has about back in the day, you know,

if you were a teenage kid and you were maybe, you know, underage or 16 or 17 years old and you drank a little bit too much, you know, one night and, you know, The cops found you, picked you up at a party or you were driving or something like that. The cop wasn't going to end your life by, you know, getting you a DUI. He was going to take you home to your dad because he probably knew him. And he knew that your dad was going to take care of business and beat your ass. That, you know, just doesn't exist anymore because we don't have these tight-knit,

homogeneous communities anymore where something like that's possible. and that's what liberalism ultimately destroys. So I think that was a big, definitely a big aspect of the movie that I picked up. As an aside, as somebody who I think most people know that I grew up in New York, I grew up in the Bronx. And even in my neighborhood, like if the adults, and especially the parents were so tight-knit that like if I was acting out in public, basically other adults had permission from my parents to take care of it.

Yeah, to take care of it. You know, to smack me and send me home so that I can get smacked at home. Right. Yeah. And that's that, people hear that and they're like, how, what? Well, that's because you're, you live in a deracinated society. And believe it or not, there was a time when New York City neighborhoods were not. They were actually pretty tight-knit.

Absolutely. But one of the things that you brought up in the article was, we've already talked about what Yaki called the feminized liberal paradigm and how it just seeks to emasculate and just take away masculine behavior. And that when people look at this, when people look at like a top-down, kind of leadership like exists in this club that it's like that I mean I think we know now especially with books like the authoritarian personality things like that that had to be bred out or that had to be not only bred out but basically made criminal like you're not criminal like you're not

criminal like you're going to get arrested but like you're you're on the outside of you're on the outside of the culture if you you know if if you're if you don't have this um kind of passive passive um attitude towards everything that's happening around you right absolutely yeah i mean yaki says liberalism causes hardness to softness masculinity to femininity um history to herd grazing destiny to happiness you know and women essentially having to become men and because men are becoming women. Men start believing that what makes a man is being concerned about things that women, for centuries were cared about, their social standing, matters of the gut, meaning, you know,

your economics, and then you're purely your sexual marketability to women. Dr. Matthew Refield Johnson talks about all the time how almost, they're sort of, so many things that men do and so many of them are really just to make themselves attractive to women. And the idea that men didn't really operate that way until really the 20th century. Of course, you know, there were chivalry and, you know, ways, but once the 20th century really kicks off and gets going and you know, the social end. engineering regime and liberalism truly, you know, kicks into the society. Men don't operate

naturally as men anymore and they don't know how to. So they, it's like this synthetic overlay trying to figure out how to be a man again. And then you don't have fathers that operated like men so then you as a, the child can't develop properly. And it's this vicious cycle. So yeah, I mean, that's it, watching this movie was kind of like a breath of fresh air. you know and just kind of the total difference with you know this club and how these guys operated as opposed to you know what we see today you know and the the manosphere stuff with all of this garbage that we see about you know how to be masculine as kind of like this put on but it doesn't work because it's not natural and you know you kind of can't fake it till you make it you have to embody it um so yeah i think that was a big aspect of the movie that I liked. Well, we've been talking about Johnny, the president of the club, and really the movie doesn't, the movie really doesn't focus on him. It focuses on, on Benny. And Benny is like, the way I look at it is like Johnny is the leader. He knows that he has to keep things in order.

but Benny is like really the spirit of the club. Like he is the rebellious spirit where he, without the club, he doesn't really see himself as anything. Like the only, like, you know, one of the points they make in the movie is the only time that his soon to be,

I don't, do they even say that they got married in that? I don't even know that they even say that he and Kathy get married. Yeah. I know that they're together at the end, but I don't know if they ever, I don't know if it says that they ever actually do. Right. But, you know, one of the things she says is the only time that she had ever seen him, the only time you ever see him cry is when he thinks he can't, he might not be able to ride ever again. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I say in the, you know, his, his motorcycle might as well be, you know, a part of his body. I mean, it kind of, it kind of is him. And then you have these kind of tricks. transfictions that you see throughout the movie. You know, you have Johnny with the Marlon Brando, you know, character on TV. Well, Kathy is, like, immediately transfixed on, on, on, on, on, on Benny. I mean, it's like you would have, an army would have had to have marched on her for her to stay away from him.

You know, she's with, you know, she's with a, you know, she's with, I think she's living with her boyfriend. And she just immediately leaves him as soon as she meets, meets, he meets, he meets, So, you know, she goes off with him and kind of starts coding herself that way, you know, as kind of how, you know, kind of a biker chick with, you know, with this group. But yeah, I mean, Benny is kind of this outlaw, you know, spirit. He's really kind of the geist of the group that kind of only the group can kind of contain. You know, there's a scene where he kind of goes on a joy ride and then gets chased by the cops. And it's not like he's outwardly seeking any like criminal behavior or anything like that. but he's just not willing to stay in the lines kind of drawn by, you know, typical society.

You know, he's just, he's kind of one of those guys that, you know, this kind of free spirit type. He kind of reminded me of how, like, how like somebody like Sandbatch is, you know, and you kind of need somebody like that in your organization. So things don't stay stale and stagnant. They're going to think of something that somebody else won't. They're going to think of some kind of out of the box. idea they're going to think of something wild. They're not so crazy that they can't fit in the organization. So you definitely need people, you know, kind of like that in your organizations to kind of keep things moving, keep the gears going. Well, since we're talking about him,

since we're talking about Benny, you know, one of the things that I think is very admirable about Johnny is that Johnny realizes that he's not going to be the president the whole time. and maybe he really shouldn't be the president the whole time. And the one, you know, one of the mistakes that I think he makes, the thought that Johnny has is that Benny would be a great leader, would be a good leader of the club when it's, I think it's obvious to anybody who has studied leadership or studied history, studied great men of history, knows. so that he's not a leader, he's not a president. He'd be terrible. He'd be terrible at it. And so I give it to Johnny for wanting to realizing that, hey, I need to have some sense

of hierarchy here. Somebody, you know, somebody eventually is going to have to take over for me. But the fact that he loves Benny so much that he thinks that Benny could, he's blinded to the fact that Benny is not a leader. I think it's, I think one of his downfalls is the fact that he wasn't looking for somebody who was more like him to take over the club when he couldn't, when he couldn't do it anymore. Right. Yeah, and I was critical in my article of Johnny for that. I mean, one of the, one of the reasons for the downfall in the slide of the group is that Johnny isn't developing a backbench. He isn't identifying anybody. you know, to kind of, in a way, kind of be his, his apprentice and his, you know, his next up in line. I think he does kind of sense that.

I don't think that he senses it until things start to, you know, kind of go wrong. Once he gets into the fight with that kid, who's only named the kid, kind of the villain of the movie, there is kind of this foreboding tone that starts to set in in the movie. And it kind of, everything kind of backslides and goes down from there. So, yeah, I'm, yeah, the one major flaw, one of the major flaws of Johnny is just not kind of identifying anybody else, you know, in the group they kind of take over after, not, not grooming anybody to step into that role. And, you know, it kind of definitely costs them in the end. Well, that, that brings me to another character that is vital to the story. even though he's not in the movie very much is a character called they just call him the kid and

when we first see him he is I think they're stealing hubcaps or something like that and the vandals ride by and he is immediately transfixed you know these guys on bikes these guys are all dressed alike and he puts together a you know a group but his own kind of biker gang um we also find out that he has a terrible home life. I mean, tragic to say the least. But he goes and he wants to, he wants to be a part of the group. And then he wants to be a part of the gang. And now, you know, we, we, we really see how important, uh, that Johnny really realizes how important gatekeeping is yeah yeah definitely um yeah it's critical part of the movie yeah you have kind of these transfictions that come up you know with you know the third the kid Kathy and then and then

Johnny throughout the movie but yeah the the kid kind of I think sees there's like a slow motion scene where the you know Johnny's going through the street the gang going through the street and the kid just can't take his eyes off of it and I think the kid kind of almost sees it as a step up or a way out to kind of continue his behavior, but kind of have the protection of a gang with that. So he approaches Johnny essentially demanding that he be allowed in the organization. And then Johnny kind of senses immediately like, you know, at a instinctual level like this kid's bad news.

And then Johnny asked him, Would you leave your friends behind to join the gang? And he says, yes. And like, you know, that's like a no-go for Johnny. He was like, you know, absolutely not. I'm not let you in. And then the kid pulls a knife in response. You know, Johnny, Johnny whips him, you know, takes him down, tells him never to come back.

But I think that's when Johnny starts to get nervous. And kind of like I said before, things start to go downhill from there. But, but yeah, I mean, I think Johnny. gets gradually overwhelmed by the situations that he's in and he doesn't really know any way out other than to just totally leave what he doesn't want to do because

you know you can kind of understand it because he started this group it was his thing he's the founder of it the leader of it and then it just totally swarms him because he just he kind of starts letting things

slide after that guys start doing their own thing he kind of starts to lose in control and you know it kind of goes down from there yeah i think one of the uh one of my big takeaways in watching it is that you know when when he is challenged and and the um i can't remember the name of the guy who challenged him about starting the chapter the wisconsin chapter um you know after the fight johnny wins and he's like well yeah that by the way you know You can start the Wisconsin chapter.

I think it's obvious that as much gatekeeping as Johnny is doing in the Chicago chapter, he's not teaching the other chapters that are popping up that they need to gatekeep because, you know, you start to see, they start to have get-togethers with chapters from other states. and you start to see, wait a minute, what is this, what is this guy doing there? What's this guy who's shooting smack? What's he doing there? These guys who are really just like, you know, straight up rapists. What are they doing there?

He didn't teach the other chapters that they need to gatekeep. And that becomes really important when the kid, who he said can't be part of the club, goes to Wisconsin and gets into, you know, gets inducted into the club in Wisconsin and then comes and challenges his authority. Right. Yeah, I mean, you know, the cliche of, you know, you're only as strong as your weakest link. I mean, you have to develop other people, not only leadership, but, you know, having, you know, kind of a standard, basic standard operating procedure for how your other parts of your organization, organization operate. You know, you can't, once something gets scaled, you can't do everything

yourself as the head or the, you know, the CEO of it. You can't, you can't manage everything and kind of this, you know, narrow on the ground detail. You have to trust other people that they're going to, they're going to, you know, do what they need to do and essentially the way operate the way that you have. But yeah, there's no, that just doesn't get developer, get ingrained anybody else. And yeah, Johnny slowly starts to lose control of, you know, the group that he founded. And yeah, they get to these get-togethers. And, you know, they're very kind of wholesome initially, you know, in the beginning.

You know, Michael, Michael Shannon has kind of like the classic, you know, supporting character role that, you know, he's had over the years with this guy. kind of has this vignette talking about how he wanted to be drafted in Vietnam but didn't get to go and you know the guys protest people protesting about are a bunch of possees and the things like that so it's a nice little monologue there but um but yeah um he goes these yeah and then at one point he has to save Kathy from being gang raped uh barely there's another guy forget his name he's in the he's in the movie for a little bit, not much. He's in the Walking Dead. I forget his name,

but he essentially is going to be killed by the gang. And he's, he wants, yeah, he wants to, he wants to leave and get out, but he's afraid of repercussions. Like,

he just really doesn't like what's going on, heavy drug use, heavy drinking, violence, stuff like that he wants out, but he's afraid that, you know, he's going to get,

he's going to get whacked by these guys. if he leaves. So, yeah, Johnny kind of, he goes to Benny twice around sometime at this point, asked me once to take over again. Benny says no, obviously. But yeah, at that point, Johnny's kind of lost and doesn't know what to do. Well, I mean, we do see, I think one of the reasons why you know, cockroach is just basically beaten down by a couple of the guys is he gets really hammered and says, I want to, I'm going to leave the club and probably become a motorcycle cop. Right. That's not.

As soon as he said that, I'm like, are you in, oh, my God, this is not going to end well at all. Right. Right. But Johnny does eventually let him out of the club, but I think he shoots him in the leg. Yeah. I thought he was doing that so he wouldn't be able to ride again. And then it's revealed that he actually did get his wish that he wanted. But so, all right.

So, yeah, so he offers Benny, you know, he's like, I need you to take this over. And he's like, no, I don't want to do, I don't want to do that. And then we see that the kid comes down from Milwaukee or wherever he is. He's a member of the Milwaukee chapter now. And he challenges Benny to, I mean, he challenges Johnny for leadership of the club. And why don't you take it from here? Because it's a pretty pivotal. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's a showdown, you know, between him and the kid. The kid now has, you know, the Milwaukee chapter to back him up. Johnny has his guys there. The kid challenges him to a knife fight. So Johnny, you know, begrudgingly kind of, you know, pulls his knife and then, you know, the kid immediately pulls a gun and just shoots him dead, you know, right there. And it's a very cold, stark scene because, you know, slowly everybody just leaves

and leaves Johnny there. So it really is just kind of, you know, lions in the wild at that point. no kind of humanity there um johnny gets killed guys that uh have been with johnny essentially since from the beginning don't do anything they just they just drive away and leave with the milwaukee group and their their new leader the you know you know this kid so yeah the um i think basically at that point everyone knows that the club is done that it's anyone who was there from the the beginning who was there for brotherhood realizes that this thing is so far off the rails. I mean, I think a couple of the original guys stay with the club and keep riding only because, you know, they don't have anything else to do.

They have nowhere else to go, and this is pretty much all they know at this point. And there's the only brotherhood they have. but the um Benny has basically ridden off and like after the whole

cockroach thing he like disappears for a while and and then he come he finds out that um through the somebody tells him that that Johnny had been killed

and then he heads back and um we we see that um I think it's pretty clear at that point that if Benny is the heart of the club, if he is the soul of the club, he was the heart and soul of what the club once was. And he realizes that now. And, you know, it seems like at this point, it seems like all he has left is, all he has left is Kathy.

So he goes back to her and, you know, basically the club, now the club is just waiting for Rico loss to be drawn up. Right. Yeah. I forget whether they say at the end. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, Benny, you know, comes back, ends with Kathy. And I don't, I forget what, does Benny, do they say that Benny continues to ride? I mean, I know he's kind of working like in an auto body shop, but I don't know if they say he continues to ride or not. But yeah, I mean, once the kid, you know, I talk about Yaqui.

talking about cultural parasitism, you know, and what is that, you know, what is a parasite? It's a life form that lives off of a host at the host's expense. So once this kid is allowed in, it feeds off of the host until it eventually takes it over because it's not, it's not dealt with. And now the vandals really aren't the vandals anymore. They're whatever this kid wants it to be, which is an outwardly, you know, thoroughly criminal gang. And it, yeah, it can just go to show the ascendancy, the decline, and then the death of, you know, an organism. So you get the full life cycle of something.

And then also, you know, the cautionary tale of what happens when the organism isn't gay kept or the parasites aren't kept off of the organism, you know, and they're not dealt with. You're eventually going to die. Well, it seems, it seems the message of the movie is almost that, um, that Benny is like really the vanguard of the group. He's the spirit. He's the spirit of the group and he is, he's what's pushing them forward. And as soon as that disappears, as soon as he, he disconnects from the group because he doesn't see them embodying that spirit anymore, that's when it dies. Right. So, you know, I think when if some people say a vanguard is expendable, I think they're wrong.

I think that once the vanguard, once that vanguard spirit is gone, then you basically are left with a, you know, it's like the whole thing about any organization that isn't explicitly right wing will eventually go left. Well, as soon as the spirit of the vanguard is gone, now you have something completely different. and they can't achieve the goals that it started out that it started out with right well i mean you're you yourself are famous of saying you know the the left gave their radicals six-figure no-show jobs and then the right canceled theirs and called them nazis you know you have to court your your radicals and i would say in this case you know uh benny is that guy or you know hopefully there are other guys after him that kind of emulate that spirit too. And you, those guys are kind of pushing your organization forward and, you know,

kind of in a healthy way. And then you have the leadership at the top that kind of hems it and reins it in and operates as a sovereign and has that discernment so that this organization continue to fully form and move forward. But yeah, you know, if you don't cultivate those things, if you don't shepherd it, if you don't guide it in the right way. If you as the leadership cast, don't have the discernment to see the proper roles in places

where people need to be and where they need to go, eventually it's going to fall apart. A fish rots from its head. You can't get around not having proper leadership. It'll destroy any organization. Yeah, and then finally at the end, we see that, you know, they do the whole montage kind of thing where you see the guys who have stayed around that are still trying to stick it out. And Benny and Kathy are together. And it looks like they moved to Florida like she had suggested.

And he, he's not riding anymore. but I don't know. It seemed like, I don't know if you got this from the final scene, but it seemed like they were happy. Like they were, they were just had,

like maybe, maybe he had been, maybe he had been like, okay, this was something in my life that I couldn't control, but this I can control. This relationship I have, I can control. While still,

having that twinkle in his eye of, of rebelliousness. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I saw the twinkle on the eye too. I thought maybe, you know, kind of that's always in the, that's always going to be there. Maybe it's something that, you know, he ends up returning to. I would think maybe, you know, kind of down the road or later in his life. Um, I think Kathy was probably, uh, happy at the time, but also at the same time with kind of how women operate. I mean, what, what attracted her to him, you know, in the first place, that that kind of spirit and that kind of rebellion. So I don't know how long their relationship

could last if he isn't able to operate that way, if that makes sense. So, yeah, I'd be kind of, you know, curious, you know, post how how their relationship would continue or if it would kind of, you know, kind of burnout, you know, where, you know, Benny isn't able to operate the way that, you know, he, he had in the past or, you know, what can kind of rekindle, you know, kind of that spirit form. Yeah. No, it's a, the whole movie is just, it really is interesting in that when you, when you know how to watch it, when you watch it from a more right wing,

authoritarian also leadership is top is top down it's amazing how many how it is a cautionary tale for any group that's seeking to

organize especially seeking to organize in a time when their ideas are not the mainstream because obviously this is a motorcycle club. They are, they're wild.

They like to fight. They like to drink. But they really are mostly about brotherhood and motorcycles. But yeah, the, if you're going to do something, if you're going to form something outside of, you know, what the, what the zeitgeist has been for, you know, decades upon decades and a social engineering regime has told you, you know, is wrong, is immoral, is racist, every word that they could possibly use to, um,

the conservatives are still using today to attack our friends. Um, yeah, it's, I think much, much can be learned from this and, uh, you know, we always talk about, right wing art. And I don't know that this was specifically designed to be and written and shot to be right wing art. But it definitely is a piece of right wing work, a right wing work. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think he necessarily nickel is intended for that to be. But yeah, I mean, it really almost is, for our purposes, it's almost a documentary on, you know, kind of things to do and things not to do.

And then I'm definitely a cautionary tale on when you don't do these things that can be catastrophic. And you cannot let your guard down and you got to see these things. You got to call them out when you do see them and you can't let things fester. So, yeah, while I don't think he intended to. to do that. I think he just kind of made you know, a kind of a straight up movie where

he just followed kind of a life cycle of something with kind of a tragic a tragic ending. But it ended up kind of dovetailing with our purposes and what we what we're trying to do. So yeah, I mean, I

think there's so much practical application to the movie and I think you know, people watched it and they didn't kind of, I think a lot of people watched it didn't understand what they were watching, you know, a lot of guys that I talked to or they went into the, they went into the movie with kind of preconceived notions about what it was going to be. And then, you know, it wasn't that. So they found it boring. But if you go into this with the right kind of eyes and perceiving what what is really being shown to you, you know, there's a ton in it that you can

take away in a lot of valuable lessons. Yeah, it's interesting. I, um, I know this probably sounds tedious, but I go into basically everything I watch looking for what's the narrative they're trying to sell. And then I always end up, especially if they are trying to sell a negative, like a anti-right-wing narrative, I always end up learning something or being able to pick something out of it that they just miss. You know, it's that whole thing about. about how, you know, is this, you know, the meme, is this you? And they're like showing you, is this you? Is this what you, is this what you really, what you really stand for? And it's like the most base thing ever. Right. Yeah. And it's like, you get a lot of that from, from this movie

where it's really, it's really supposed to be a cautionary tale about, oh, you don't want to get into, get into a life like this. This is what these guys were like. And then, And then you come away with it and you're like, yeah, these guys were, these guys had actually built something that it could work. But the cautionary tale is just basically how they got infiltrated and they let their guard down and they stopped gatekeeping. I mean, to give Nichols a little, I'll give Nichols a little bit more credit. I don't know if, I don't know if his message was like, oh, like don't join a biker gang. I think he's a little bit better than that. I think he's just, he really is kind of committed to kind of showing some, you know,

kind of what this biker gang was and kind of all of its glories and all of its, all of its flaws. And I think he is one of the better filmmakers that we have with the other, going off of his previous work product. I don't think he looked at this biker gang kind of punitively. I think he, I think he wanted to showcase kind of, you know, the good things, but the good and the positive with them. You know, and talking about unintentional, you know, kind of right-wing cinema, the first article that I wrote for Old Glory Club was on the 1990 movie Q&A. I don't know, being a New York guy, I don't know if you've ever seen that.

it's with Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, and Armada Sante. And watching it now, like 30 years past after it was made, you're like, oh, my God, this is the most reactionary right-wing movie I've ever seen. Nick Nolte, who's supposed to be like this crooked Irish cop, is really the hero. He's trying to keep everything together. and all of these libtards are trying to tear everything down. So that would, you know, I was amazed by that movie when I watched it, you know, you know, 30, 33 years later when I wrote that article. But it's, it's nice to go back and find some of those gems where, you know,

it's supposed to be kind of this, you know, progressive, liberal view of something. and it ends up collapsing back when you give it, you know, kind of 30 years time. No, I guess I can see what you were saying about the, about bike riders, because really Johnny's character is portrayed in a positive light. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He's not, he's not Johnny and Benny. They're not presented as criminals. They're not presented as, they're just presented as,

dudes, guys, and guys who care about their, care about their brothers. And by inviting in a, or allowing in a bad element and everything, it really does turn into a cautionary tale, whether he meant that, meant to be like that or not. I mean, you know, it's really like anything. I mean, any, any organization can fall prey, you know, to these things. I mean, What do we see with immigration? I've seen it over and over again in business. I've seen it in business. I've seen it over and over again.

Yeah, I see it too. I was involved in high-level college sports coaching. I'll leave it at that for a long time. And you can see it in that in a team aspect or in coaching staff. I see it now in work life. I mean, we see it obviously with immigration. I mean, the moment you let in a foreign element. element that doesn't match up and is not going to get with a program and doesn't understand

and doesn't want to understand what the modus and operandi and the raison d'etra of the group is, that they are going to change the organization. You are not going to change it. And if you let an alien force in, it's going to eat you and it's going to spread. It's never not happened. And it's never not going to happen. it's a law of nature. It's it's human nature. Well said. Well said.

Well, I mean, I think we can wrap it up right there. Definitely got enough information in about this and the tale that is told and how it is applicable to, you know, what, what some of us might be doing in real life. And, you know, I think that it's important. to not only look at history, but also look at art. And you'll see, I mean, so much can be, so much can be gleaned from art that, you know, it's just amazing to me how when you watch certain movies, that the message is speaking to you so directly

that you almost feel like, come on, this is, they have to know what they're doing here. And this was almost like one of them where it's like, he has to know what he's doing here. I mean, he's, he's talking directly to me. Right, right. Yeah, I just think occasionally, you know,

you kind of get, you kind of get these things at a sim, out of, at Hollywood for all of its faults where you get kind of this accidental magic where it just connects, it just connects with people that it isn't supposed to connect with. Or, you know, we kind of, you know, see this now in kind of the meme culture where, you know, you see it with, you know, American Psycho and, and Christian Bale's character, Patrick Baveman.

It's like it became this own thing that the filmmakers, the writer, Bail himself, don't even acknowledge or sign off on. They actually hate it. But it's its own thing. Now you see it with the kid and drive. It becomes its own animal that's just in the zeitgeist forever. So yeah, that's kind of the still the magic that movies can provide. Tell everybody where they can find your stuff and support you. Yeah, thanks, Pete.

You can find me mainly on Substack under Payload or the publication name is Payload. cognitive solutions. I write for the old glory club. There's a bunch of articles of mine, pretty much all on movies on there that you can read. I also write for a newer publication called The Coming Storm with some guys that we got together and started publishing things on history, where we're at now and where we want to go and how to build things. So you can check me out on all those. I am on X. If you're a good faith actor and want to follow me, I'll follow you. I try as much as possible to get off of X as everybody has kind of been talking about. I do think it is a cesspool. But luckily, actually for me,

group chats actually seem to be getting me off of X, which is better than being on X all the time. So that was kind of my soft exit out of X and being getting off of that platform. Awesome. Everybody head on over to Substack and search out payload. I'll put a link in the show notes and support him. He puts out everything for free. But send them some money. I do.

So thank you, man. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Pete. Thanks for having me on.