Another Geezer or Just Another Rider with A Grudge?

I think I love this guy, Damon Lavrinc, and this article, "Why No One Will Sell You The Bike You Want" is so dead-on it hurts, "This isn't intended to be negative or anything, it's just stating the great unstated caveat when it comes to the American motorcycle industry."

• Combine that with our overwhelming need to overcompensate and you create a market that sees motorcycles as toys. 
• The Harley idiots (pictured) are all drunk, all the time and refuse to wear helmets.
• The sport bike tools think their chin strap beards and bright white sneakers endow them with a professional athlete's riding ability and buy those GSX-Rs as first bikes, then quite predictably run them into the first tree off the dealer lot.
• If you owned a small general contracting firm and a nice man at the bank suddenly told you you could buy any motorcycle you wanted, would you want a nice little runabout or the HOG with the most tassles ever squeezed on two wheels?
• Where, in most of the rest of the world, governments have imposed tiered licensing for motorcyclists, requiring them to work their way up to riding the big, dangerous bikes, America has always been a total free for all. Here, a 16 year old can perform a couple U-turns in a parking lot on a scooter, hitch a ride from Mom to the local Suzuki dealer and walk out the same day with a Hayabusa.
• All of a sudden, sportbikes don't sell and, try as they might, Harley's success can't be emulated by the Japanese. Kawasaki logo's just never looked as good on a bandana.
• . . . the parent companies can't be bothered making the bikes newly-impoverished Americans might be interested in buying. Why would you, when this country only accounts for .66% of your sales?
• Will you ever ride a motorcycle? Well, it's one of the most life-affirming, time-saving, downright awesomest things you can do, but the people trying to sell you motorcycles would never tell you that, which is a shame. 

Those are just a few of what I considered to be core nuggets in Lavrinc's argument, but you should read the whole article and get a load of how a real marketing guy thinks. (I'd pretty much forgotten that there are marketing guys who DO think.) (Thanks Paul!)