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American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Winners and Losers

13 Feb

February 14, 2012

Last time we saw American Chopper, Paul Senior got his ass kicked in the three-way build-off between Sr., Jr., and Jesse James. Why did he lose? Because his trained pet Jason designed something that was anything but a motorcycle. Smart move for a company that builds motorcycles.

What’s on tap for this new season kick-off?

In the aftermath Chopper Live, Junior celebrates his win while fulfilling an order for an overseas client, while Senior focuses on the future with a big build and an even bigger opportunity: a spot on Celebrity Apprentice.

What does this mean? This means a double dose of Paul Senior: The Apprentice on Sunday, American Chopper on Monday. I am going to recap the Apprentice as long as Senior remains unfired, which frankly can’t be long. To put it mildly, he is not a team player.

Here we go.

Less than one-minute in we see Donald Trump shaking Jason Pohl’s hand. This is going to be bad. 

The show opens in the aftermath of the live show at Paul Senior’s house. As usual, he ran down his son’s bike and was impressed with Jesse’s bike. Did you expect anything else?

“I don’t think it made a difference if we made a bike or not… I knew we weren’t going to win.” And then he was sad because he was booed. Tough.

He was also disappointed that he hasn’t heard from Paulie since the hug on the live show. But on the other hand, he’s building a bike for Trump! (Don’t blame me for that, he more or less made that segue himself.)

Paulie went back on local radio, and with all the appearances he makes on that show, I have to wonder what other programming they have. the big DJ pointed out what I am sure we all noticed, that PJD came out en masses, and Senior came out himself. Tells you about his mindset that he came out to represent the bike, which yes, his company built, but he had zero hand in building or designing.

Then we get to see Senior and Jason at Trump Towers. Jason, to give him the merest  modicum of credit, wore a nice suit. Senior wore an old sleeveless t-shirt. That’s class. He looked like an old orangutan in a fancy office. Anyway, Trump is hiring OCC to build a bike and of course, he wants a gold  bike.

Get used to this. Clearly, Senior is giving Jason more and more influence in the shop. Never mind the “meltdown” last season, never mind the complaints from Rick, Senior loves Jason. He went with his design in the build-off, he took him to meet Donald Trump and let him sit at his side, he is going all-in on Jason. during the meeting, Trump flipped through a portfolio of OCC bikes but when he wanted to see more, Jason told him to go look on the web.

Trump is aware that he is on TV, he is aware that he is in a couple of deals with Paul Teutul, so he let it go. You try telling Donald Trump to go to your website and see how well that goes over.

Trump helicoptered up to OCC headquarters and there, Jason showed him his design for the bike, which was branded more or less as you’d expect a Trump bike to be.

Back to PJD, the crew watched a replay of the live show. Jesse James was no less dopey this time around. Paulie watched the clips of the fights, a bit somberly, and looked impassive when he saw himself hug his father. He explained that yes, he loves his father, but he can’t have a relationship when his father acts toward his family as he does. Maybe yes, maybe no, but he hasn’t even tried to talk to the man. If you’ve read this blog before you know I think Senior is almost all to blame, but hey, don’t say you can’t have a relationship without even talking to the guy.

“Paulie worked for me for twenty years and the day I made him a millionaire, he told me to f**k myself.” -Paul Senior to Donald Trump.

Ok, scratch what I said above.

Coming out of commercial, a very sad note: Paul Senior’s mother died. And no matter what else is going on, I’m very sorry for that. She’d been on the show a few times and they showed some clips, including when she met Jorge Posada of the Yankees and called him “George” over and over.

Throughout the show Senior has been having conversations with his wife and I haven’t said much about it since they are obviously staged for the cameras, with the wife just listening as Senior explains what is going on. Staged.

And then the news- Paul Senior is going on The Celebrity Apprentice!

And next, Mikey’s website! Have you gone there? I have not but it has a forum where, he says, people are talking about his father going on The Celebrity Apprentice. What did the scene add? We got to see Mikey in a sport coat.

Do you watch this show for the bikes? We are now 35 minutes in and motorcycle-related programming has been about 5 minutes. But honestly, that isn’t a problem as the people who used to watch for the bikes have left as the show has begun to feature family drama in the forefront.

Back from commercial break and we get  to see OCC building a bike. Sort of. Grainger got a few scant seconds of screen time for their bike. It was already built and all we saw was about 30 seconds of finishing touches. See what I said about the show not being about bikes? We then got to see the bike unveiled and Senior was busy with Trump’s show so who did Senior send? Christian. What, you  expected Jason? Ok, you got me, he sent them both. Christian rode it in, and Jason ran the show. The bike reminded him of “old-school Chicago.” Really?

PJD, on the other hand, is building a bike for a company in Poland and the show gives it similar short shrift.

And after a four-minute segment, another commercial break. Hey Discovery, I cut you some slack when you did that during the live show, you have no excuse here.

(During the break we saw Paulie and Nic Cage shilling for the Ghost Rider movie. Since when does Nic Cage just go by Cage?)

With Senior off on The Apprentice, who was running the shop? I am not sure who was running the office, but Jason was running the meeting in the shop about Trump’s bike. I am telling you, Jason is the heir apparent. Oh no, not someone who knows how to build a motorcycle, someone who can draw a motorcycle.

Memo to American Chopper: less Jason, more Rick.

Back at PJD the bike for the Polish client continued, and for what may be the first time on the show we saw Vinnie’s young son, who is almost two. Cute kid, and Vinnie seems like a nice father.

Then after another short segment, a commercial break, including the commercial for the awful-looking Ghost Rider movie. In the last 15 minutes, the shows and the commercials have been split about 50/50. Honestly, Discovery is getting really annoying.

One last note, at the end of the show we met the Polish client, who can’t speak a word of English. The guy had charisma to spare. He needs to be on every week.

Next Week:

THE APPRENTICE BIKE
Feb. 20, 2012
Senior deals with the death of his mother and is hurt then he does not hear from Junior or Mikey. Then, while PJD starts a build for One Call Concepts, OCC unveils a gold bike for Donald Trump.

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Priorities First (Classic Random Repost)

9 Feb

February 9, 2012

I have to admit- I am busy. Too busy to blog. While I have material for the next two weeks I have not actually, you know, um… written anything.

But that is no problem when you have a back catalogue of almost 800 posts.

I picked this at random and it is a pretty good one. Hey, could have been worse, it could have been my review of Matthew Perry’s bomb TV show Mr. Sunshine.

Enjoy.

—————————————-

Originally posted March 24, 2011

Quick- your toilet or your cell phone?

You can only have one. Which is it?

I choose the toilet.

Let me say up front that I am a cell phone owner. I am not a cell phone user. My phone is rarely, if ever, on. My theory on cell phone ownership is this: I am not a doctor or a lawyer. I am not on call at all hours of the day or night. If I am out doing something I don’t want to talk to people with whom I can talk to any other time. I don’t need to be on the grid 24/7. My phone is for my convenience. It is there in case I have to make a call. I don’t make frivolous calls. I have never called someone to say “where you at?” My phone calls don’t include the phrase “just chillin’.”

This is why people buy answering machines. Unless you are a professional or a corporation, you don’t have an answering machine to get the important calls you miss when you’re out, you have it to screen calls so you can avoid them. So if I am avoiding calls at home why would I answer any ring when I’m out?

I can hear the arguments now: What if it is an important call? If I am expecting an important call I am not at a ball game in a crowded stadium. If my wife is pregnant and may go into labor at any minute I am not venturing more than two minutes away from home. Don’t look for me in Baltimore. What about an unexpected emergency? Really, how many emergency calls have you gotten in your life? I haven’t gotten any. Odds are I won’t miss one if I go out. If an emergency happens at night I can be reached at home. During the day get me at work. The odds are on my side that I won’t get an emergency call while pumping gas, and the rules say I can’t use the cell phone then anyway.

The usefulness of my toilet is so obvious that I won’t go into it. I will simply link to the blog entitled No Toilet No Bride if you need an explanation.

Of course I am used to the toilets (and toilet paper) of the modern world. What would the answer be in Cambodia?

40 percent of Cambodians have cell phones? I have trouble believing that. How can they afford them? From all I have seen of Cambodia it is A- extremely poor and B- extremely poor. It is also underdeveloped and extremely poor.

“Hello, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“Where you at?”
“Starving.”

Cambodia once had the thriving civilization of the Khmer Empire. Its capital city, Angkor, was the seat of government for a civilization of over 3 million. Not a single one of them had a cell phone. And no, it is irrelevant that cell phones were invented maybe five hundred years after the civilization declined and disappeared. My point stands- they valued toilets over cell phones.

So imagine the embarrassment of the guy sent to Cambodia to convince them to use toilets. This could not have been a glamour assignment. This seems like the sort of job given to the new guy.

“Earl, I have a job for you. It is a very important overseas assignment.”
“My name is Louis.”
“Earl, you leave tomorrow morning for Cambodia.”
“What am I going there for?”
“We’ll brief you when you arrive.”

And then it is too late to back out or quit.

On the other hand, put yourself in the place of the farmer singled out for producing the most excrement of anyone in the village. If he’s anything like me, he took it in stride. I’m sure he stood up, gave a small but awkward smile, waved to the crowd, and announced that he’s ready to take on all challengers. I hope a championship belt and a Wrestlemania match come with this title.

I wonder if Oprah knows about this? She needs to make them sign her no cell phone pledge.

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