So reads the sign on the gate that protects you, a fine, upstanding citizen, from the chaotic world that is Dr. Neon's laboratory. Dr. Neon (aka Alexander Evans) was the first person to think of lighting up motorcycles with neon tubing, and if you've ever seen a custom sportbike rolling up to the spot bathed in an unearthly glow, chances are it was one of Dr. Neon's "Glow Job" kits wired up behind the plastic. Although he got his start in sunny California, Dr. Neon has since relocated his operations to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. The curious sign affixed to the gate in front of Farkham Hall--the converted, 16,000-square-foot church Dr. Neon now calls home--is just the first indication that once you step inside things are going to get weird. That impression is confirmed a few seconds later when the good doctor appears riding a motorized BarcaLounger and wearing camouflage dungarees, rubber Birkenstock shoes and homemade metal sunglasses. "When the going gets weird," the late Hunter S. Thompson once said, "the weird turn pro." At Farkham Hall, we were definitely in the presence of a professional.
It doesn't take long to guess Dr. Neon is a product of La-La Land. The Doc got his start with neon in Los Angeles back in the 1980s working as a neon artist for Disney, MGM and Twentieth Century Fox studios. In his spare time he worked as a stand-up comic, running around with the likes of Jim Carrey, Pauly Shore and the late Sam Kinison. At the same time Dr. Neon was a hardcore motorcyclist--he started out riding motocross on everything from Bultacos to Hondas, with a special affection for too-fast sportbikes since way back. His first of this breed was an old Kawasaki Z1000 bored out to 1200cc. "It was turd brown and I used to ride it up to Santa Ana all the time to get parts for my Harley," Doc remembers. The Harley in question was his '76 FLH, a crapwagon the Doc reckons ought to qualify him for a Guinness World Record for the number of miles he pushed it.
By the late '80s Dr. Neon hatched the idea of lighting up motorcycles with neon, and in '90 he officially launched his Glow Job product line after his first trip to Sturgis. In the beginning he worked mostly with choppers, which he was building at the time, learning the finer points of machine work from none other than the late Kenny "Von Dutch" Howard. "I used to take the Dutchman a case of beer every time I'd come by or he'd yell at me," Doc remembers. "He would turn in his grave if he knew his name was being used to sell a line of yuppie clothing," Doc says, referring to the popular Von Dutch apparel line. Arlen Ness was the big name in custom bike building in those days, and Jesse James was still Greg James. "I liked Greg, but he was still a kid back then and he definitely didn't invent the chopper." Doc's current take is that Jesse James makes bikes for good boys who want to be bad. "He pretends to be a blue collar guy, but he's driving a $300,000 Porsche, not a pickup truck." The Doc doesn't have much time for the Orange County Chopper freak show, either, using language we can't print when talk turns to the subject of the dysfunctional duo charging money for autographs.
If you can't tell, Dr. Neon is a man with strong opinions. Of course, he has a few about sportbikes, too, but in stark contrast to his disgust for what the chopper world has become, he has a special affection for the sportbike scene. "The guys that ride these Japanese bikes are f***in' individuals, they're the real deal," he says. "These guys got 150 horsepower and the balls to use it. They are their own men, not like these henpecked nine-to-fivers on Harley clones. I'd have a 'Busa if I weren't such a fat old man 'cause I love what's going on in the sportbike scene. These kids ride by my booth at Daytona pulling some wild stand-up wheelie, and I think they are f***ing heroes."
It's this appreciation for sportbikers that drives Dr. Neon toward the custom sportbike world--in fact, on the day we visited, a sportbike neon job was at the top of the Doc's to-do list. Jawanza Lamar from OuterXtremes in Alpharetta, Georgia, was bringing a custom GSX-R his shop built to get the full Glow Job treatment, and the Doctor was more than pleased to play a part in the custom sportbike revolution. "They used to look like some sort of racing team on all these GSX-Rs and R1s," he says about sportbike riders. "I love the fact that now they are starting to totally individualize their rides. I love what they are doing."
Lamar is late, so to kill time Dr. Neon gives us the nickel tour of Farkham Hall. The basement was originally filled with dingy, dark classrooms, which the Doctor has completely refurbished with fresh paint and modern lighting to serve as his neon production workshop, packing, shipping and final assembly facilities. Stopping in the workshop, the Doc pauses for a moment to show us how he makes his famous neon plug wire kits, cutting a hollow glass tube (imported from Italy), heating and bending it to the required lightning bolt shape, then hooking it to a manifold to fill it with argon or neon gas before capping it off.
Moving upstairs, we enter the main hall, a 3000-square-foot space with 48-foot ceilings that will eventually serve as a showroom to display the Doc's products. Toward one end of the building is the office, the library, the "castle room" and the "planes, trains and automobiles" room, hinting at some of the Doc's more eccentric hobbies. The castle room, for instance, houses a castle replica made completely from sugar cubes, featuring hundreds of intricate pewter knights and soldiers Dr. Neon sculpted and cast himself.
A spiral staircase leads up to the Doc's living quarters, set off with a menagerie of flying pigs and cows hanging by clear lines from the 38-foot ceilings. A huge neon Einstein watches over the industrial-sized kitchen, and the Doc tells us all the metal in the church was salvaged from a local scrap yard and reworked in the rear workshop.
Doc's deranged dog Harley (so named because he's unreliable) starts barking, at last signaling Lamar's arrival, and the three of us retire to the workshop to give the GSX-R the neon treatment. The plan is to use two green neon tubes and 12 green LEDs to make the Gixxer light up the night. With Lamar and the Doctor working together, the whole process takes more than an hour. There are just two wires run directly to the battery to power the entire system; no need to cut into the wiring harness.
Once all the LEDs and neon tubing are in place, we kill the workshop lights and turn the Gixxer on. Lamar grins ear-to-ear and makes plans with the Doc to drop by with another custom sportbike he is working on, while the Doc asks Lamar about his roadracing adventures, all under the warm, neon green glow. Soon Harley is growling for his dinner and Lamar packs up for the long haul back to the Hotlanta area. We wave goodbye as the heavy gate with the ogre sign swings closed. A couple of bums scratch around at the end of the street as the sun sets over Asheville, and all is quiet at Farkham Hall. So ends another day in the world of Doctor Neon.