The Devils Ride – Twenty Feet From Stardom

In case you missed it, it might have been the untold story of the cast on the TV series called The Devils Ride.

Sure the actors members of the Laffing Devils outlaw motorcycle club have an appearance that is designed to intimidate the general motorcycling community… what with those glove-free hands, unwashed Levi’s, well-used black t-shirts and conditioned leather vests.

The Devils Ride, which started out as a reality TV show centered on the hard-hitting San Diego biker club drama, has really settled into its soapy role.  Each episode is dumb-and-dumber as the audience is told numerous times about what just happened, as if 6-minutes of commercials made us forget that the script and actors are the shows weak spot.

But, the big reveal on this Oscar weekend is this newly uncovered “second-team” of stand-ins performing (HERE).  Could it be the stand-in actors from the TV show?   We know that stand-ins are the unsung heroes of movie making and are picked based on height and body shape similar to the stars of the show.  Stand-ins are helpful to the production process and you’ll notice in the video they fulfilled a rather tedious task in a bar scene which has yet to air on the TV show.

This video is either poetic justice or a bit of karmic retribution from all us viewers who have no time for mediocre and who believe a baseball cap should be worn in the direction that your life is traveling!

As Ringo Star said in the movie “Hard Day’s Night” when ask “Are you a Mod or Rocker?” he replied “I’m a Mocker!”

And guilty I am.

Photo courtesy of College Humor.

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The Devils Ride Gets No Respect

I’m not talking about the comedic belligerent loser, Rodney Dangerfield, who penned It’s Not Easy Bein’ Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.

Rather my reference is about the TV show called The Devils Ride… which gets no respect.  You may remember it as a TV show with an ambitious teaser ad, but was instead a jaw-doppingly dis-functional motorcycle club (MC) reality train wreck that most bikers have no respect.  It’s a TV show about what happens when you take a testosterone supplement and ride a motorcycle.

To be fair, maybe you’re one of the few who have waited all winter for the MC “reality” series to return and lucky for you it does for a second season in just a couple of days.  Premiering Monday, Feb. 18 at 10 p.m., the new season of The Devils Ride will follow the DAGO biker “war” as it gets EVEN bigger and deeper.  As if that’s really possible!

The San Diego-based Laffing Devils Motorcycle Club (LDMC), was once a growing club.  The boyz got into a tiff over something that no one can remember and split into two separate clubs. Now in the second season viewers will get a sensory overload of club members going head-to-head with the rival club, Sinister Mob (or Sin Mob).  The 2nd season promo states that the Laffing Devils’ leadership is in turmoil: founding member “Danny Boy” and “Sandman” are butting heads not to mention Sandman’s off camera legal trouble with the ex-wife and the original founder, “Gipsy” is missing in action.  Maybe because he also has his own set of off-camera legal issues with a minor.  Meanwhile, “White Boi” — recently released from prison — is causing ripples among the club members.  Yawn.

Anytime a television show is promoted for being hard hitting or “smart,” someone’s laughing all the way to the bank — some company called, Discovery Channel and Bischoff Hervey Entertainment.

This is garbage TV.

Let me tell you how I really feel.  All you have to do is take a couple steps back and you’ll quickly realize that we’re looking at blended baby food made out of corn syrup. It’s just a blob of tasteless, high-calorie paste that will work well with the LIPITOR ads.  And the Discovery Channel medium dispenses the paste to people who can’t feed back, can’t change it, who only get it in 17-minute bite-sized chunks interrupted by 14-minutes of commercials.  It’s written by a team of writers who all have one thing in common: They’re not allowed to say whatever they’re thinking! They’re not allowed. We’re definitely not getting motorcycle club insight or truths; we’re getting lies and acting so heinous they should issue a police ticket.

You might disagree and call me out for not being a credible TV critic.  To be one, I’d have to write a 50-page review of each episode which would take longer to read than it does watch the show, while espousing in a pseudo-intellectual way, the show details so that the masses can talk about it over a latte at the water cooler with their new devil horned t-shirts.

The conversation we’re not having is: there’s a couple hundred million of us watching an average of six hours of TV a day… a one-way transmission that only tells us we have a lot of physical and mental ailments… there’s 5-hour energy drinks to perk us up, Lunesta to put us to sleep and our clothes will look brighter with Tide detergent as we recline in the lounger to watch the TV show.  The one conversation no one is having, not a single one of us is having is a debate about whether or not liking The Devils Ride makes us smart or stupid.

It’s my judgment that the show is a full-on assault of our intelligence by “actors” who have taken a faux role way too serious.  It should be noted that the crap troop breeding this ignorance is executive producers Eric Bischoff, Jason Hervey and Steve Stockman along with Discovery’s David Pritikin.

I will say props for riding some some nice motorcycles!

Photo courtesy of Discovery Channel and Bischoff Hervey Entertainment.

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The Laughing Devil Tickle Monster

Thomas “Gypsy” Quinn – Laffing Devils Motorcycle Club

Pardon me, but your character is showing…

Companies that support reality programming are a bell weather of the culture.  Reality TV programming is an expansive industry label, and runs the gamut from Michael “Mike” Rowe (Dirty Jobs), Adam Savage (MythBusters), Jake Harris (Deadliest Catch) to Thomas Quinn (The Devil’s Ride).  The one consistent characteristic of these type of TV shows is the dramatization of “real” events and occupations.

And in The Devils Ride dramatization, there includes an element of criminality and deviance which is posed as “entertainment” and is a constant factor in their so-called everyday motorcycle club life.

Speaking of lifestyles and the failure to realize the impact on other people…  Thomas “Gypsy” Quinn (age 43 ), ex-president of the Laffing Devils Motorcycle Club (now disbanded) and star of Discovery’s – The Devil’s Ride, was arrested August 28th on suspicion of committing a lewd act with a minor.  Specifically he was arrested on suspicion of having oral sex with his minor stepdaughter.  Mr. Quinn was arrested at 10am outside Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, CA. and bailed out the next day.  I don’t have independent confirmation, but it’s been reported in motorcycle forums that the stepdaughter is a child of his ex-wife and that she was 10 years old at the alleged time of this event.

As all the facts come to light and if the arrest results in a conviction – I point this out because Mr. Quinn and his ex-wife have been in a contentious battle for custody of children (different children than the alleged victim), and this could be an attempt to pit one parent against the other through the kids “crying wolf” prompted by the ex-wife.  Crazier things have happened and as of Sept 5th Mr. Quinn still has not been charged. He was supposed to be arraigned on that day, however San Diego’s District Attorney is still mulling over charging him.  So, it’s prudent to maintain the innocent until proven guilty theme.

But, speaking of guilt — when a publically traded company Discovery Communications (DISCA) maintains tacit support (by its silence) of a reality TV actor accused of child molestation – its sending a powerful message.  I’m not cutting Discovery Channel any slack on this.  It’s my viewpoint that David Zaslav, CEO Discovery Communications or David Pritikin, Discovery Channel Executive Producer of The Devils Ride missed the opportunity to build a meaningful and authentic connection with its viewers.  The company should have released a formal response about the arrest/allegations, but as is often the situation the economic incentive, and publicity has them instead remaining silent.  SILENCE from the very same company who just released an award winning documentary, “Sin By Silence” to raise awareness of domestic abuse!  In this post-Sandusky era of saying nothing to avoid bad publicity… that is shameful.

The lines between culture and commerce mean companies, their Reality TV programs and the actors often blur the lines between reality and representation, where the ability to determine what is real and what is not is increasingly brought under question.  There have been a lot of critics about whether the Laffing Devils Motorcycle Club is real.

Child sexual exploitation be it fabricated or real is serious.   I don’t know how this will ultimately play out for Mr. Quinn, but clearly it’s a sad family tragedy.

References: Sin By Silence movie trailer; Fox 5 San Diego; Channel 10 News;  Channel 6 news; 

Photo courtesy of Discovery and Quiet Little Place Productions.

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Laughing At The Laffing Devils

Gipsy On The Devils Ride

It wasn’t all that long ago that most biker shows on TV were about building obscenely expensive and nearly un-ridable custom motorcycles.  Viewers of these shows could pretend that they were skilled enough to build a custom bike and somehow like magic become a rich and famous celebrity or join the elite club of A-listers who love to flaunt their fabulous machines.  I described it HERE as too much of nothing!

But, American infotainment marches on to find even more drama and action so now we have the Laffing Devils MC on a Discovery TV show called The Devils Ride, which is like watching the Wildhogs movie except they were funny!

The show’s executive producer, Jason Hervey told Realscreen, a webzine about the global business of factual entertainment that “They are not a gang, but I will tell you they are a fierce group of individuals.”  Hervey also told Realscreen that the Laffing Devils initially scoffed at his invitation to become celebrities. They reportedly told him, “We aren’t the Kardashians, brother – we’re the real deal.”  “They take a lot of pride in their club,” Hervey said. “There is a lot of respect and protocol that goes into interacting with them. Essentially there was a big process about trust, because they didn’t want to look silly or do a ‘typical reality show.’”

Well on the respect front they over promised and under delivered.  I feel disrespected for having watched 2 episodes thinking the show would develop into something of interest, but now all I want is my time back!

To prove the point about it being faux at every turn just go to the sweepstakes or Facebook page and you’ll notice that they’ve reversed most or photoshopped the photos of Gipsy’s motorcycle.  I guess the devil head shifter just looks too cool on the wrong side!

Shame on Discovery producers of The Devil’s Ride for trying to cash in on the biker niche market.  This  is about as big a dud as the Facebook IPO!

Photo courtesy of Discovery Channel

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