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American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Mikey Out?

30 Apr

April 30, 2012

MIKEY OUT? April 30, 2012
OCC starts a build that will be unveiled to the prime minister of Malaysia, while PJD finishes a pimped-out bike for baseball player Aaron Rowand. And Mikey drops an unexpected bomb when he considers quitting the show.

PJD starts right where the last show ended. Aaron Rowand wants a bike similar to the Black Widow but with baseball touches, which makes Paulie a little nervous since Aaron is very particular about what he wants.  It does not look like the Black Widow except in the black and red paint scheme. The rims have replica wooden bats running through them.

OCC is building a bike for the Prime Minister of Malaysia. The OCC crew is going there (Senior, Jason, and Jim) to find out about promoting travel and tourism.

Over at PJD, Vinnie and Paulie noticed that Mikey hasn’t been around in a while so Vinnie set out to find him. Wasn’t hard to do, he was at his gallery.

Mikey told Vinnie that he was thinking of quitting the show. He feels that the attention from the show is hurting his chance of having a relationship with his father. HMMM. Where did he get the idea of not being around the cameras? Oh yeah, last week when Paulie and Senior met without cameras. He is so easily influenced.

BTW- when did he become part owner of a pasta sauce company?

The guy on the right is Chef Angry Mike. He makes pasta sauce. The guy on the left uses it for finger paint.

Back at OCC, Jason is once again getting too involved in the building. He made his drawings, then he wanted to make changes during fabrication. Senior was not happy but who does he have to blame but himself? He’s allowed Jason to do pretty much whatever he wants around the shop, even to the point of laughing off a (probably phony) tantrum a few months back. Yes, what happened this week is extremely minor and not a big deal, but I point it out because (I  have not said this in a long time) Jason will be running OCC someday. Bank on it. Senior loves the guy.

Rick drops the news about Mikey leaving on Senior. Rick needs to stay out  of this. The less he is involved with the family troubles the better for him. Senior doesn’t understand why Mikey would leave. “I think this is a drastic step here.” Rick says he will get in touch with Mikey, and he is Mikey;s friend, but Senior wants Rick to pass the message that he is willing to talk to Mikey. Nothing wrong with Senior saying that, but again, Rick- don’t get in the middle of this!

Senior also pointed out that Mikey might ne the most popular person on the show. I think Vinnie and Rick might beat him, but out of the Teutuls that might be true.

I often say that the paint makes the bikes. Not in this case. The Aaron Rowand bike looks great even before the paint,and Nub once again justified the faith everyone has in him. From fabrication to paint this is one of my favorite bikes.

Near the end of the show Rick and Mikey hung out in a park and talked about how Mikey is doing. He cut his hair and shaved his beard and looks much better. Mikey confirmed that he is quitting the show (though a couple of minutes later he says he is undecided but leaning toward eaving) and hopes it will help his relationship with his father. “It is time to move on.” Rick told him that Senior misses him and Mikey said he misses his father. According to the commercials this arc continues next week.

NEXT WEEK:
MALAYSIAN ADVENTURE May 7, 2012
Senior, Jason, Jim and Steve travel to Malaysia, where they not only unveil their latest bike, but also encounter wildlife, swim under waterfalls and barter at the central market.

Oh boy.

Dispatches From The Front: Japan

26 Apr

April 26, 2012

Mr. Blog’s brother, Allan Keyes, is in Japan on a two-week solo vacation. He’s not totally alone; he is with a tour group full of strangers. I am going to be sharing his edited dispatches from the Land of the Rising Tsunami. What am I editing out? Anything that could get him into international hot water. And if you knew him, you’d realize what a task I have ahead of me.

Here are his first posts, fresh off a 14-hour nonstop flight.

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[Editor’s note: Japan is 13 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast Headquarters of Mr. Blog.]

Greetings from the future! It’s FRIDAY the 20th right now. Tomorrow (yesterday’s) Powerball numbers: 22, PI, 21, 3 and 7,453 cubed. Oh, and the Mets lose. I can see it now (but disgustingly enough I can see the Yank game in real-time. BOOOO! Also, this Yu Darvish is kind of a big deal over here.)

Woke up at 6AM, YAY jet lag lol. The free buffet was pretty good though. The sausage is pork but still pretty tasty. It’s the important things.

Anyway, day 1 – free day. Gonna grab a cab to Ginza and see what’s what. I may try to get a cab to Chiba Lotte QVC stadium to see if I can get a ticket at the walk-up window around 6.

I’m just waiting for the tour manager to contact me so I know where top go tomorrow (Sat) If I don’t hear from this guy by end of the day I’ll be annoyed.

See you later Chief – stay out of trouble.

-Big American Man 

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Dispatch #2

Dick Clark died? Cancel New Year’s Eve!!!  Now I can’t goof on New Year’s Rocking Ghoul Jan 1 will be much more boring.

Ginza was great, even for a tiny purchase they make you feel like a king over here. I bought a pastry to take back to the room- they put a freaking tiny ice pack in the box to keep the pastry fresh!!! It’s a mix of ultra cool and all of a sudden you see Pikachu and Dragonball Z advertising adult underwear and you realize it’s also insane at any given moment. But safe. I could throw my wallet on the floor and people would dive over each other to return it to me. The cabbies wear kid gloves, and the doors open automatically in the cabs. Bad ass. Speaking of which, I have one of those super toilets. The lid opens automatically when I open the door, swear it looks like a croc coming to feed. But I appreciate the heated seat and massager. Not so much the bidet but whatever. I took some pics, one of which I’ll send in a minute.

Lots of surgical masks on display around town. Hand sanitizer everywhere. Black suits and ties seem to be the business uniform in these parts. House  is odd dubbed in Japanese. [Editor’s note: The TV show, not an actual house.]

Japan league teams have awful uniforms for the most part. No Bobby Valentine ads- yet

Two amusing items: everyone waits for the light to be green always. Even if there are no cars coming they stand and wait. I’ve been following suit except one time the New Yorker in me took over and I started to cross, realized nobody else was walking and got mortified so I ran back to where I started. An old lady looked at me approvingly for fixing my mistake. No scandal shirt incident this time!!

 
The other thing was I was in a store and didn’t realize the amount of yen for something I wanted was significantly more than I had on me. Plastic to the rescue! Nobody there had to know I was a Baka gaijin ( stupid foreigner)

Hope all is well!

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Dispatch #3

Red Beans are delicious as a filling in fried or steamed dough

Went to a restaurant called Fungalo Bungaloid. Delicious Italian believe it or not

The sumo holding the baby was a contest – two sumo held babies. An announcer berated the sumo (or the kids, who can tell?) The winner was the kid who cried the most. Seriously. THEY MAKE BABIES CRY FOR SPORT!

Met the tour group today. Nice people but kind of OLD. Two flamboyant life partners in the group and all they can talk about is gay marriage. Seriously. And I’ve never heard anyone complain about bunions until today. Now I’ve heard it at least 5 times. On the plus side most of them like me since I seem to remind them of their grandkids or something. (Except for the two life partners. No kids for them)

Saw a guy who was a dead ringer for Odd Job. SWEAR. And a couple of passable Mr. Fujis.

McSushi: CONFIRMED.

-Later Chief

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To Be Continued