Photo by Lena Gonzalez
1:45pm | The irony here is that I wrote an article just a few weeks ago entitled “The Redemption of Jesse James,” about the counter-culture hero’s rise from a beleaguered troublemaker to an accepted contributor to society and beloved native son of Long Beach.
On that day, the city named a street after James’ world famous motorcycle shop. He now runs his business on West Coast Choppers Place. His wife Sandra Bullock, a few weeks away from winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, attended the press conference and so did her huge smile. It seemed that James had ascended from being viewed as a nuisance to the upper echelons of society.
That day seems to have been a long time ago.
Today, James has been cited for vandalism by the Violent Crimes unit of the Long Beach Police Department after approaching and threatening a celebrity photographer parked across the street from the location of the West Coast Choppers Place press conference.
James blocked the photographer’s car with a motorcycle and yelled at him through the driver’s side window as a friend struck the car’s windows with a knife and slashed three tires. It was all caught on video.
The photographer was also cited for stalking James, but it’s the celebrity that took the biggest hit.
The photographer never would have been there, of course, if news hadn’t broken a few weeks ago that James had been unfaithful to Bullock – his wife of five years this July – with a variety of women. Then came the photos of James posing as Adolf Hitler – years before meeting Bullock – and the questions of possible neo-Nazism weren’t far behind.
A few admissions of guilt and public apologies later and all of a sudden, he wasn’t the Jesse James that we proudly pointed to as a symbol of Long Beach and the do-it-yourself style that sets it apart from Los Angeles and Orange County. He was no longer the Jesse James that enlisted the help of thousands of willing fans when his beloved pit bull went missing.
We built him up and he broke himself down – that’s what happens with American celebrities and James fell hard.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see this day come,” James told me when West Coast Choppers place was unveiled back in January. “Through all the ‘Monster Garage’ stuff and I always thought we were kind of a thorn in the City’s side. It’s nice to be seen as an asset.”
I’m sure it was nice while it lasted.