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Well crap. Now Klif and I will have to vote for Gore since he's one of the brotherhood. GFFG!
Tennessee Minister Recounts Gore's Wild Night With Biker Gang
By David Thibault
November 06, 2000
For most of his adult life, Ray Hudson kept quiet about the events surrounding a party he attended 29 years ago this month. Given the nature of society in the waning days of the American era we loosely refer to as The Sixties, Hudson's account of that November 1971 night in Nashville could easily strike many as unremarkable.
Hudson, who's served as a non-denominational minister for the poor and homeless since 1980, lives in a Nashville suburb today and maintains a full-time job for a local computer store. His prior membership in a motorcycle gang has been relegated to ancient personal history, as was the story of Hudson's alleged experiences with Al Gore in 1971.
His associations with other gang members long severed, Hudson's story lacks corroboration, as did earlier news reports of marijuana use by Gore during his tenure in Congress and nameless rumors of cocaine use by George W. Bush. But the detail of Hudson's recollections and his reluctance to tell the tale, with little to gain and much to lose, lend credence to his account.
Breaking Three Decades of Silence
Hudson had no reason to talk about the mistakes he made as a young man or to make public what happened on that November night in 1971 when, he says, he and Gore attended the same motorcycle gang party in the Woodbine section of Nashville.
But last Thursday, only five days before the presidential election, news broke that Bush had been arrested in 1976 for driving while under the influence of alcohol. At that moment, according to Hudson, everything changed.
"When the DUI story broke, I said, 'Oh well. What the heck. This (Gore story) is true,'" said Hudson. "I know it's true and I'm going to put it out there." Hudson's story was first reported Friday in an interview with Nashville talk-show host Phil Valentine during Valentine's daily program on WLAC radio. What Hudson has put out there is his account of Al Gore's behavior at that biker gang party.
According to Hudson, Gore, who was researching biker gangs for an article he later wrote for the Nashville Tennessean, smoked marijuana with gang members that night, fired two rounds from an automatic pistol inside the home where the party was taking place and went off to a private room with a young woman to have sex. At the time, Gore had been married for about a year-and-a-half.
As a member of the motorcycle gang known as the Death Angels, Hudson's nickname in the early 1970's was "Buzzard." He admits it was a life full of sex, drugs and violence.
The party was not Gore's first visit with the bikers. Hudson remembers Gore visiting gang members at least once previously. Hudson said the gang was eager to help the young reporter, hoping that Gore would write a positive story, "because at that time, we were getting a lot of hassle from the police."
He says the one-story frame house, where the party occurred, was in "a fairly rough neighborhood" and served as the rented home for several members of the Death Angels.
Hudson said when he got to the party between 3 and 5 p.m., Gore already had arrived. "But it was after dark when the party really got going," he said. Between 8 and 10 p.m., "there were [alcohol] chugging contests and the dope got more plentiful."
Hudson recalls that he and Gore were seated in the living room with about 15 to 20 people. "We were all sitting around, getting fairly well-loaded, talking, joking. He (Gore) was not overly talkative." Hudson says he saw Gore drinking beer and "I saw him smoking pot and passing it around. He took a couple of tokes and was feeling pretty good."
Later, according to Hudson, one of the gang members took out his handgun and fired a bullet at a small piece of interior trim over the front door and then encouraged Gore to "take a shot at it."
"One of the old lady's guns was laying out on the coffee table and he (Gore) was handed the gun," Hudson recalls. The gun was either a .32 or .38 caliber automatic, according to Hudson, who says Gore fired twice and missed the trim both times.
"We didn't have registered guns, permits for the guns. In all probability, the gun came to us through illegal means. Gore knew we shouldn't have had them," Hudson said.
Following the shooting incident, Hudson says he remembers Gore "going into the room with the girl," but says "I did not see him come out."
The house contained three bedrooms, according to Hudson, and the one Gore allegedly used was just off the living room. Hudson said after Gore and the young woman left the living room, he didn't hear any sounds coming from the bedroom because the party was attended by "a rather noisy bunch and we pretty much forgot about him."
While Hudson did not witness what went on behind closed doors, he said there's little doubt what went on in the bedroom. "We didn't give somebody a girl for them to talk to," said Hudson. "We wanted good press. If you want a good article, you've got to be nice to the reporter. That's what the whole situation was."
Hudson couldn't recall the name of the woman who allegedly went into the bedroom with Gore that night, saying only that she was in her early 20s and was one of the women who "had sex with whoever they were told to have sex with."
Weighing the Risks of Disclosure
Hudson said some people encouraged him to tell his story to the National Enquirer, but he decided he was "not looking to make any money off of it." But there also were Republicans in Nashville, including his employer at the computer store, former GOP state Senate candidate Lynn Ray, who urged him to tell his story earlier this year.
For many months, Hudson said he "didn't want to be the one to put the story out, to be accused of dirty politics," a perspective that was shared by Ray. "We agreed at this late point in the campaign it would be dirty tricks and it probably wouldn't help Bush to do it," said Ray in an interview Saturday night.
Ray said he has known Hudson for "at least 15 years" and described how he first learned of the former biker's acquaintance with the vice president in casual conversation. "It was like, 'Let me tell you about the time I met Al Gore,'" said Ray.
As a result of their own personal and professional relationship, Ray said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of Hudson's account, calling him "one of the most trustworthy people I know. I would trust my life with Ray Hudson."
According to Ray, both he and Hudson decided that the risk of retaliation for telling the story outweighed the need to tell it. "It's a scary thing to do," said Ray. But he recalled how Hudson made his decision to talk about Gore's conduct only after hearing news reports about Bush's arrest in Maine in 1976.
"It was a dastardly thing to do, what the man in Portland (Maine) did to Bush," said Ray, referring to attorney Thomas Connolly's admission that he was responsible for leaking the documents relating to Bush's arrest.
Ray said Hudson decided Friday to disclose the information in an e-mail to WLAC radio talk show host Phil Valentine, who then interviewed Hudson about the 1971 incident later that day. Ray said he expressed no opinion about Hudson's decision to go public because "the die was cast at that point."
Tennessee Minister Recounts Gore's Wild Night With Biker Gang
By David Thibault
November 06, 2000
For most of his adult life, Ray Hudson kept quiet about the events surrounding a party he attended 29 years ago this month. Given the nature of society in the waning days of the American era we loosely refer to as The Sixties, Hudson's account of that November 1971 night in Nashville could easily strike many as unremarkable.
Hudson, who's served as a non-denominational minister for the poor and homeless since 1980, lives in a Nashville suburb today and maintains a full-time job for a local computer store. His prior membership in a motorcycle gang has been relegated to ancient personal history, as was the story of Hudson's alleged experiences with Al Gore in 1971.
His associations with other gang members long severed, Hudson's story lacks corroboration, as did earlier news reports of marijuana use by Gore during his tenure in Congress and nameless rumors of cocaine use by George W. Bush. But the detail of Hudson's recollections and his reluctance to tell the tale, with little to gain and much to lose, lend credence to his account.
Breaking Three Decades of Silence
Hudson had no reason to talk about the mistakes he made as a young man or to make public what happened on that November night in 1971 when, he says, he and Gore attended the same motorcycle gang party in the Woodbine section of Nashville.
But last Thursday, only five days before the presidential election, news broke that Bush had been arrested in 1976 for driving while under the influence of alcohol. At that moment, according to Hudson, everything changed.
"When the DUI story broke, I said, 'Oh well. What the heck. This (Gore story) is true,'" said Hudson. "I know it's true and I'm going to put it out there." Hudson's story was first reported Friday in an interview with Nashville talk-show host Phil Valentine during Valentine's daily program on WLAC radio. What Hudson has put out there is his account of Al Gore's behavior at that biker gang party.
According to Hudson, Gore, who was researching biker gangs for an article he later wrote for the Nashville Tennessean, smoked marijuana with gang members that night, fired two rounds from an automatic pistol inside the home where the party was taking place and went off to a private room with a young woman to have sex. At the time, Gore had been married for about a year-and-a-half.
As a member of the motorcycle gang known as the Death Angels, Hudson's nickname in the early 1970's was "Buzzard." He admits it was a life full of sex, drugs and violence.
The party was not Gore's first visit with the bikers. Hudson remembers Gore visiting gang members at least once previously. Hudson said the gang was eager to help the young reporter, hoping that Gore would write a positive story, "because at that time, we were getting a lot of hassle from the police."
He says the one-story frame house, where the party occurred, was in "a fairly rough neighborhood" and served as the rented home for several members of the Death Angels.
Hudson said when he got to the party between 3 and 5 p.m., Gore already had arrived. "But it was after dark when the party really got going," he said. Between 8 and 10 p.m., "there were [alcohol] chugging contests and the dope got more plentiful."
Hudson recalls that he and Gore were seated in the living room with about 15 to 20 people. "We were all sitting around, getting fairly well-loaded, talking, joking. He (Gore) was not overly talkative." Hudson says he saw Gore drinking beer and "I saw him smoking pot and passing it around. He took a couple of tokes and was feeling pretty good."
Later, according to Hudson, one of the gang members took out his handgun and fired a bullet at a small piece of interior trim over the front door and then encouraged Gore to "take a shot at it."
"One of the old lady's guns was laying out on the coffee table and he (Gore) was handed the gun," Hudson recalls. The gun was either a .32 or .38 caliber automatic, according to Hudson, who says Gore fired twice and missed the trim both times.
"We didn't have registered guns, permits for the guns. In all probability, the gun came to us through illegal means. Gore knew we shouldn't have had them," Hudson said.
Following the shooting incident, Hudson says he remembers Gore "going into the room with the girl," but says "I did not see him come out."
The house contained three bedrooms, according to Hudson, and the one Gore allegedly used was just off the living room. Hudson said after Gore and the young woman left the living room, he didn't hear any sounds coming from the bedroom because the party was attended by "a rather noisy bunch and we pretty much forgot about him."
While Hudson did not witness what went on behind closed doors, he said there's little doubt what went on in the bedroom. "We didn't give somebody a girl for them to talk to," said Hudson. "We wanted good press. If you want a good article, you've got to be nice to the reporter. That's what the whole situation was."
Hudson couldn't recall the name of the woman who allegedly went into the bedroom with Gore that night, saying only that she was in her early 20s and was one of the women who "had sex with whoever they were told to have sex with."
Weighing the Risks of Disclosure
Hudson said some people encouraged him to tell his story to the National Enquirer, but he decided he was "not looking to make any money off of it." But there also were Republicans in Nashville, including his employer at the computer store, former GOP state Senate candidate Lynn Ray, who urged him to tell his story earlier this year.
For many months, Hudson said he "didn't want to be the one to put the story out, to be accused of dirty politics," a perspective that was shared by Ray. "We agreed at this late point in the campaign it would be dirty tricks and it probably wouldn't help Bush to do it," said Ray in an interview Saturday night.
Ray said he has known Hudson for "at least 15 years" and described how he first learned of the former biker's acquaintance with the vice president in casual conversation. "It was like, 'Let me tell you about the time I met Al Gore,'" said Ray.
As a result of their own personal and professional relationship, Ray said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of Hudson's account, calling him "one of the most trustworthy people I know. I would trust my life with Ray Hudson."
According to Ray, both he and Hudson decided that the risk of retaliation for telling the story outweighed the need to tell it. "It's a scary thing to do," said Ray. But he recalled how Hudson made his decision to talk about Gore's conduct only after hearing news reports about Bush's arrest in Maine in 1976.
"It was a dastardly thing to do, what the man in Portland (Maine) did to Bush," said Ray, referring to attorney Thomas Connolly's admission that he was responsible for leaking the documents relating to Bush's arrest.
Ray said Hudson decided Friday to disclose the information in an e-mail to WLAC radio talk show host Phil Valentine, who then interviewed Hudson about the 1971 incident later that day. Ray said he expressed no opinion about Hudson's decision to go public because "the die was cast at that point."
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