THE BOOKS
From the roar of the motorcycle culture, to the beat of rock'n'roll, to the wild juxtaposition of wealth and addiction, to the history of the Black Panther Party, to the intrigue of international crime, the non-fiction work of Bill Hayes opens doors that very few people could--or would--venture through.
The Original Wild Ones: Tales of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club
The now-classic book that tells the tales of the legendary Boozefighters Motorcycle Club (established in 1946); the club that was the true genesis of the American biker. The famous 1947 Hollister "incident" is discussed by those who were actually there, and all of the true pioneers of the biker lifestyle are represented; from Boozefighters' founder, "Wino Willie" Forkner, to some of the present-day club members who continue to carry on the traditions of one of the most respected motorcycle clubs in history.
American Biker: The History, The Clubs, The Lifestyle, The Truth
American Biker is the most insightful, comprehensive, and thought-provoking look at the biker lifestyle ever seen in print. The book leads the reader on an entertaining yet evocative journey through the winding spectrum of the entire lifestyle, from its tumultuous history, to the power of the clubs, to the political and media maelstrom both in and around it—all while firmly grounded in the most important component of all: the truth!!! Featuring insights and commentary from biker legends, media personalities, and just plain ol’ riders, American Biker explores the biker culture in an unprecedentedly rich and honest way. Spike, the president of the legendary Hessians MC mother chapter in Southern California, calls American Biker “the best book about the motorcycle culture ever written!” The book is hardcover, 411 pages long and features many “interesting” and vintage photos.
The One Percenter Encyclopedia: The World of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs from Abyss Ghosts to Zombies Elite
A modern-day classic! The One Percenter Encyclopedia is not simply a listing of clubs. NO! And it doesn’t just deal with “certain types” of clubs. The point that the book makes is that there are many different definitions to the words “one percenter” and “outlaw” within the motorcycle club community (and how law enforcement looks at those labels!). Included in the book are listings for “pioneer” clubs, the clubs that really “invented” the one percent/outlaw definitions back after World War II. There are clubs listed that don’t consider themselves either one percenters or outlaws at all but who have contributed to the overall lifestyle. One of the most important focuses of the book is on the international clubs, showing how this lifestyle has spread around the globe! The book is large format (9”X11”), with a heavy “Dutch Binding” cover.
Hell on Wheels: An Illustrated History of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs
In Hell On Wheels, the always-colorful and seductive origin of motorcycle clubs and the American biker is once again told, but this time the MC heritage is woven into not only who the clubs are but what they have suffered in the way of governmental and media oppression. RICO, the Patriot Act, the exploitive and sensationalistic TV shows like Gangland, and other outside hits are all dissected—all to the backdrop of the true brotherhood that has kept the MCs strong since the 1930s. The photos in Hell On Wheels—both vintage and current—are really a priceless and rare gallery, captured by the best professionals and inside-amateurs; and every one of them has truly experienced the real and genuine essences of this lifestyle.
Hullabaloo!: The Life and (Mis)Adventures of L.A. Radio Legend Dave Hull
One of the most popular disc-jockeys in Los Angeles radio history was Dave Hull the Hullabalooer! This book is like the classic TV series ,WKRP in Cincinnati on steroids! Because it’s all true! From Dave’s beginnings in Armed Forces radio to his weird adventures on the air from Roswell to Detroit to Ohio to Florida before settling into the L.A. market. In Los Angeles he established his legend at KRLA and then spread it around to KFI, KMPC, KGBS, and other classic AM stations. This book is truly a chronicle of “The Maniacal, Mega-Watt World When AM Radio was King!” It is filled with rare graphics and photos, along with never-before told stories of ‘60s music legends like the Beatles, the Stones, and the Monkees. The Foreword was written by Bob Eubanks, and there are sidebars by former Dodgers great, Wes Parker; KFI sportscaster, Rich Marotta; Easyriders magazine legend, J.J. Solari; KRLA historian, Bill Earl; and many others.
Triumphs and Tragedies: A True Story of Wealth and Addiction
Hermosa Beach, California, in the mid-1960s. Sun, surf, swanky sand castles along The Strand, and a soundtrack of "Fun, Fun, Fun." But the hang-loose life of the locals would soon be drowned out and painted black. The social storm brewing could turn even the most perfect wave into a brutal riptide. Karl McMillen, Jr., deserved a piece of the Pacific paradise. He'd plumbed his way up from screw-fittings and sweat into mega-business ownership and multi-millions. He'd earned the azure-awesome view that he woke to every magical morning. And he'd earned the ideal family at his side. A dynamic wife and two bright, talented sons with sky's-the-limit potential.
But that storm...
This book explores the down-and-dirty psychology of addiction. It features live "voices from the street." It probes the essence of enabling and the value of "rehabs" neither of which were common concepts in the sixties. It chronicles top-of-the-world success juxtaposed against a downside of life no one should have to abide. A side which proves that some things, money cannot buy.
FRAMED IN MONTE CARLO: How I Was Wrongfully Convicted for a Billionaire's Fiery Death
by Ted Maher with Bill Hayes and Jennifer Thomas
Billionaire Edmond Safra and his wife Lily were superstars among the world’s wealthy elite, whose luxurious and extravagant lifestyle is hard to even imagine for ordinary people. In late 1999, in a transaction of mega-proportions, Safra sold the banks he owned for three billion dollars. He also changed his will to extend the bulk of his fortune to Lily.
Not long after, in the early morning hours of December 3, 1999, Safra was killed—suddenly and mysteriously—in his lavish residence in Monaco, generating a wave of controversy and speculation that circled the entire globe.
In the middle of it all was an American, former Green Beret Ted Maher, who worked as a nurse for the Parkinson’s–plagued Safra.
Maher rapidly became one of Safra’s most appreciated personal nurses, achieving an elite position on the banker’s staff in the high-ender heaven that is Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Through a series of circumstances that swelled into the monster perfect storm with countless imperfect twists, Ted found himself rising in a once-in-a-lifetime dream job; then in a hospital bed after being nearly stabbed to death; then as the lamb-to-slaughter centerpiece in Monaco’s “trial of the century”; and then in a prison cell 4,000 miles from home.
And that’s where he spent almost ten years of his life.
He had become the ideal scapegoat for Monaco’s authorities, the perfect explanation to the events—otherwise hard to justify—that took place that fatal night, when Safra died.
The chronicle of Ted’s struggle to survive in a foreign prison, to engineer a prison escape that would make Captain Virgil Hilts and Frank Morris proud, and to ultimately clear his name has more levels of intrigue and seduction than the six-story fortress of Monaco’s Belle Époque Building—described by Newsweek as the “impregnable haven for the rich and reclusive” where Edmond Safra lived and died.
FRAMED IN MONTE CARLO opens two doors: a platinum portal into the lavish life of Edmond Safra, and a hard iron cell gate into the 2,886 days of Ted Maher’s screaming nightmare.
It’s a hyper-emotional and enlightening walk through both.
Greatest One-Percenter Myths, Mysteries & Rumors Revealed
Our newest book was released in May!!! Check out the review of it by Motorcycle Hall of Fame member and Easyriders magazine photojournalist, John "Rogue" Herlihy: http://baggers.bikernet.com/pages/Greatest_One_Percenter_Myths_Mysteries__Rumors_Revealed.aspx
Scars from the Claws: My Life with Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party
by Artie Seale with Bill Hayes and Jennifer Thomas
(This book is scheduled for release soon!!!)
Artie Seale was one of three people present at the founding of the Black Panther Party. Artie obediently took notes as her husband, Bobby Seale, and his closest friend, Huey P. Newton, perfected their Ten-Point Platform, setting out to change the racial and political landscape of the United States. They succeeded. The BPP’s powerful imprints are still strong today—long after its effective demise in 1972 and formal disbanding in 1982.
But while striking out at “community imperialism” and the “racist power structure,” the claws of the Panthers also turned inward, shredding their own kind. Artie Seale bears the scars of this horror.
As Artie listened to her husband tell the world that “saying ‘keep a woman in her place’ is like saying ‘keep a nigger in his place,’” she meanwhile endured his degrading domestic brutality. Right from her wedding night rape, Artie suffered pain and humiliation at the hands of Seale. Surrounded by hit men and besieged by daily threats on her life, Artie kept the details of her nightmare a secret—until Scars from the Claws: My Life with Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party.
Ms. Seale’s goal of Scars is twofold: First, to at long last expose the hypocrisy, greed, and corruption of the Party—including long-buried events and murders. The second is to share her story of abuse, to help other women avoid the destructive trap she fell into.
Artie’s domestic nightmare melded with the myopia of extreme politics. Surrounded by high-profile militants like Eldridge Cleaver, David Hilliard, Elaine Brown, Angela Davis, and of course, the ever-volatile Huey Newton, Artie was there for every fiery event the BPP ignited. And from her unique—and virtually invisible—vantage-point, Artie saw and experienced things no one else did.
Stealing the Blimp: Road Tripping Through the Soul of the '60s, Crash Landing in the Maw of the Millenium!
by Bill Hayes
(This book is scheduled for release soon!!!)
This lighter-than-stale-everyday-air story will take you from base (and admittedly really gross) adolescent hyper-inanity, through a few generations of social development, into the most legendary and impactful eras of pop and rock music, and then face-first into the questioning world of just-what-the-hell’s-going-on-here-in-society now.
Yes, goofy-kids-will-be-goofy-kids regardless of time and place, and adults-will-always-be-whatever-they-need-to-be-and-why, and the social effects—and sometimes, scars—left by both are often not pretty but are always permanent. All of that stuff, however, is what goes into making individuals individuals.
It’s life.
And life is always on the move; especially when it comes to change.
But by the world’s big-handed evolutionary clock it really was a very short hop from the Baby Boomers and the first piano-sized televisions with shaky rabbit-ear antennas to the millennials and all of recorded global history and entertainment compressed into various tiny HD-screened “smart” devices.
Technical advances are a normal part of that “change,” sure, but the kinds of cultural leaps we’re taking here in the world of instantaneous instant, instant gratification and hyper communication can sometimes lead to slips and falls into deep cultural chasms And the echoes in those trenches can rattle people to the core when the volume of the soundtrack that surrounds them is turned way up.
This adventure is about the power in that volume.
Fighting World War II...in Panama?
A Young Sailor’s Memoirs & Photographs, from the
Jungle to the City
by Bill Hayes
(This book is scheduled for release soon!!!)
For my twelfth book I’m slicing into something a little personal. But this intimate dissection is also allowing me to cut off a few good-sized pieces of an extra-thick and bloody subject that choked much of the world and has intrigued historians for about eight decades now.
World War II took the lives of between fifty and eighty million people; a brutal bottom line calculated to be close to three-percent of the entire population of the earth at the time! Of those millions, many estimates list military deaths in the twenty to twenty-five million range.
Thankfully, my father wasn’t included in those numbers.
He was, however, part of the totals that comprised the fighting forces of the United States during the savage span from December 7, 1941 until September 2, 1945.
And unlike so many veterans of every war, my dad actually enjoyed talking about his experiences and showing his photographs.
To me.
And these sessions were always accompanied by more than a few cans of Schlitz and Bud and Brew 102.
There were several reasons for his willingness and comfort to reminisce. He never had to kill anyone. No one tried to kill him. He never even fired a gun on a battlefield or took down a plane or threw a grenade or launched a torpedo. He had a unique experience in a unique place and interpreted it all, well, uniquely.
I’ve put this book together for him, for me, and for the world, really. Given even a little universal credence, maybe the way in which my father looked at the war and at people and at cultures and at society just might lead to an avoidance of any further ignorance, arrogance, ambition or just pure asshat-behavior that could once again wipe out three-percent—or maybe even all—of the world’s inhabitants.