Also this issue: Universal Concerns City Council President Anna Verna jumps into the Universal/SOSNA fray. -Deborah Bolling GoInternet Back To Arkansas There’s trouble brewing in the land of Clinton for Old City’s lightning rod of a telemarketing firm. Oh yeah, there may be some problems with North Carolina officials and the feds as well. -Daryl Gale fineprint Less words, more story. Gale Warning Drucify Him! -Daryl Gale Swing (Vote) Dancing -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

July 24-30, 2003

city beat

Wheel in the Sky

STILL AROUND: A documentary about Robinson's bike club will soon air locally.

A documentary film about a predominantly black biker club keeps Jerome Robinson’s memory alive.

by Jenn Carbin

The last full month of summer should be an especially reflective time for the people Jerome Robinson touched.

The jury trial for Jameel Simpson, the 21-year-old man accused of shooting Robinson to death, gets under way the second week of August, around the same time the Philadelphia premiere of Wheels of Soul, a documentary about Robinson’s motorcycle club, is scheduled to air on local public TV. And, some of Robinson’s sculpture and mixed-media works are showing at the Sande Webster Gallery in Center City through the end of August. But it’s the documentary that’s garnering some attention across the country.

Wheels of Soul, a film about the national, predominantly black motorcycle club of the same name, premiered at the San Francisco Black Film Festival in June. It features the Philadelphia "mother chapter" in a big way.

The film's focal point is Robinson, a visual artist and poet as well as a leader of the local chapter, who was killed in a random shooting at the West Philly clubhouse this past February. The owner of J.R.'s Tattoo, he had been a "Wheels" for 36 years. He was 51 when he died.

Filmmaker Randall Wilson, who "loved the guy," calls Robinson "the star of the film," and says that was natural, considering Robinson's charisma. "He was just so articulate and he was a peacemaker. You could tell he just loved this life," says Wilson.

It was actually Robinson (known also as Wine-O and J.R.) who suggested Wilson document the club.

The two met at the 2002 National Coalition of Motorcyclists gathering in Orlando. Wilson was there to do a piece for American Biker, a three-hour film he calls "a complete history" of biker culture.

"J.R. had come up to me and said, ŒWe're kind of unique,'" Wilson explains. "I thought Wheels of Soul would be good in American Biker. But when I got into Philly, I knew I wanted to do a piece on Wheels."

Wilson and former Disney executive Denis J. McCallion, with whom he runs Centaur Productions/Reel Concepts, have made three documentaries about bikers in as many years. Glory Road, completed in March, is a history of black bikers. Wilson calls Wheels of Soul the most personal. (It will air on Aug. 28 at 9 p.m. on WYBE-TV 35.)

It's an up-close look at "one club, one history," a story told largely by its members, with neighbors and friends, including venerable Philadelphia columnist Clark DeLeon, providing views.

Philadelphia Wheels member Tramp, who appears in the film that he considers excellent, says club T-shirts and the film poster are already being snatched up like hotcakes. (The Wheels are on the web.) One T-shirt is an "in memoriam" for Robinson, with proceeds going to a fund for his 6-year-old daughter Taylor.

Wilson says "the fear and romance" about bikers made him want to get to the truth about them. He spent time with those who consider themselves "1 percenters" or outlaws, which for many bikers means simply living outside the mainstream. The Wheels consider themselves outlaws.

Wilson ultimately found that bikers often do not live up to their troublemaking image and that in the case of Wheels of Soul, the group explodes nearly every stereotype, occupying a singular place among clubs.

"There are no [other] racially mixed outlaw clubs," he says, noting he found that members took good care of their neighborhoods. "These guys are terrorizing the junkies and the drug pushers and the gangbangers. I saw it -- even the cops I interviewed did."

Robinson was not what many Americans think of when the image of a biker comes to mind. A participant in local poetry readings, he also used painting and abstract sculpture to make social statements and document city life. A family man, he was known for embracing differences and letting people be who they are.

Wilson was in L.A, where he is based, when Tramp called to tell him Robinson had been murdered. In recalling that day, his voice gets quiet. "It was like getting a call that a relative died -- you make him repeat it."

Wilson finds the fact that Wheels of Soul is starting to be seen "kind of bittersweet" since Robinson is not around to share the satisfaction. Says Dolores Pulido, Robinson's widow, "All in all, the documentary pleases me because I know Jerome would be tickled that it's gotten to where it is."