Tag Archives: American Chopper

American Chopper: Sr. vs. Jr. Late December 2010 Double Buffoon

30 Dec

December 30, 2010

For the final American Chopper (not quite so) Weekly Rundown of 2010 I am recapping the last two episodes in one blog. Why? Because I fell behind somewhere along the line.

As usual, let’s get the least important part of the show out of the way, the bikes. On the OCC side, they completed the Chicago Blackhawks bike. It was nice. I am way past being impressed by their bikes anymore. But it had a nice paintjob and since I think they do those things in-house now, nice job on the paint. What’s next for OCC? A bike for the Hair Club for Men.

Seriously? The Hair Club for Men?

Paul Sr. had an evaluation and they determined that they could move some hair from his neck-mustache to the top of his head. Remember, he’s not just a loudmouth jerk, he’s also a client.

Paulie finished a bike for a company that makes, I think, corrugated roll-up gates and pre-fab garages. Again, the paint job made the bike, but I have to admit that Vinnie did a nice job on the gas tank. The woman running the company was so, let’s just say unprofessional, that you wonder how she managed not to run her company into the ground.

But as always, the bikes have been irrelevant to the show the last few years.

The Battle for Rick (“Free Rick! Free Rick!”) heated up as Paulie sent one of Rick’s friends, who was working for PJD, to see the OCC bikes. While there, he asked Sr. if it would be OK for Rick to visit PJD. On camera, Sr. said “yes.” Off camera, Sr. said “no.” Rick never did go to PJD, proving that Sr. is an overbearing tool trying to control everyone around him. It felt like the old Soviet era, where we’d live up to our end of a missile treaty and the Soviets would pull out for, as Sr. put it, “legal reasons.”

Rick is one of, probably the only, genuinely nice guys at  OCC. Other than Rick, I guess I feel sorry for Gus.

Gus is Paul Sr.’s dog, who had a front leg amputated and was just fitted with a pair of wheels to help aid his disability.

Ironically, Sr. is even turning his dog into a motorcycle.

On the other hand, he did go to therapy. Somehow it took a trip to a petting zoo where he fed some carrots to another hairy beast, but at least he went.

That was one of the conditions set by Mikey before they could reconcile. Sr., fool that he is, really does seem to want to have a relationship with Mikey so he went and seemed to be honest and forthright. Was this enough for Mikey? Would you be shocked if it wasn’t?

“Doctor/patient confidentiality” stems from the Hippocratic Oath, which all medical practitioners take.

The Oath of Hippocrates, traditionally sworn to by newly licensed physicians, includes the promise that “Whatever, in connection with my professional service, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.”

In other words, if you tell it to a doctor, he keeps his mouth shut.

So of course the therapist repeated everything Sr. said directly to Mikey, word for word, including his analysis and opinion. It also didn’t help that the session was taped and televised.

Mikey should have been happy. Sr. satisfied one of his requirements. But no, he wasn’t Why? Because Sr. only went as a favor to Mikey. Mikey wanted him to go because Sr. really wanted to go. So Mikey, like Linus in the pumpkin patch before him, wasn’t happy with the sincerity around him and he bailed on the agreement.

It also didn’t help that Paulie got in Mikey’s ear and manipulated him against their father before their father could manipulate him against Paulie.

But it wasn’t all therapy and three-legged dogs for Sr. After spending some quality time destroying a door, he sent look-alike buffoon over to Paulie’s shop.

Some guy showed up at OCC looking just like Sr., at least at first glance. Sure he’s a bit shorter, and his voice a bit higher, but he had the same neck-mustache, glasses, short grey hair, and fading muscle-man stature. Sr. had a laugh and sent him over to Paulie’s to pretend he was Sr. Hilarity was sure to ensue.

It did not.

After a confused second or two, the guys realized it wasn’t their father. The boys signed an autograph and Vinnie was just disgusted by the whole thing. But as the therapist pointed out to Mikey, that was really just Sr.’s stupid way of showing love.

Senior also showed love by, as usual, bad-mouthing his son. He took the whole OCC crew on a ride into the mountains where, I hoped, he’d shoot Jason and bury his body. Sadly, everyone returned. While there he had a sort of “state of OCC address” where he bad-mouthed his son and explained, again, that he had the right to buy out Paulie but Paulie reneged, disagreeing on the evaluated fair-market value of OCC.

He didn’t mention that due to some underhanded manipulation the value of OCC was zero. Not “about zero,” not “almost zero,” but absolute zero. Paulie’s 20% is valueless. Logically, Sr.’s 80% is also valueless, which makes you wonder why he’s working so hard.

Many of you have been wondering about Cody. I have no idea what’s up with him, but we did an Odie sighting. After royally screwing up the Blingstar ATV, this week he did grunt work and kept his mouth shut.

So that’s it, other than Mikey’s foray into living as an adult died and he gave up his studio and moved back into Paulie’s shop.

Let’s hope that in 2011 the American Chopper crew can manage to stay just as stupid as they did in 2010.

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American Chopper: Sr. vs. Jr. Returns Yet Again, December 2010

14 Dec

December 14, 2010

I thought I was done. After the “season finale” in which the gang all went to Sturgis, I thought this show would be gone for awhile. There’s usually a break of a few months between seasons. There I was, taking a nice break from writing about phony-reality television. No American Choppers, no Scrappers (except for the spam some loser from their Facebook page keeps sending) for what I  thought was the long haul. I figured I’d see an ad, read an article, catch a commercial when American Choppers returned but no, this caught me by surprise. How did I know it had returned? It was a suggestion on my TiVo. Thanks. Betrayed by my own TiVo.

At any rate, just because the show came back, there was no real reason for me to write about it. Oh, I was always going to watch. Unlike Scrappers, I do tend to enjoy this show and except for a season or so in the middle, I’ve seen it from the beginning. In all honesty, I get a lot of clicks on the site from the Choppers blogs, but I get a lot of clicks from other things too. However, in this latest show, something caught me eye. Or rather, my ear.

It was Senior.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t insult his son. Though he said some uncomplimentary things about Paulie, they weren’t gratuitous, or simply just “he’s a jerk”-type stuff. And talking about PJD’s debut at Sturgis, he was nearly complimentary

That’s what got me. Senior was reasonable. A reasonable Senior.

Of course, I am an episode behind, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

So here I go.

First, the bikes.

OCC was contracted to build a bike for the Fallen Heroes Foundation, honoring soldiers who died in combat. Remembering the POW/MIA bike, I figured this was right up their alley.

I was wrong.

For some reason, Sr. left the design totally in the hands of the ass-kissing primate, Jason. Jason designed a really cool looking bike. Seriously, it was. It was a true GI Joe bike, desert colors, with ammo draped over it, grenades, claymore mines, and a rifle. It was a really great tribute to war and weapons. I’m sure Duke or Hawk would awesome fighting Cobra on it. I’m not really sure how it was a tribute to fallen soldiers. Everyone gushed about how cool it was, and I agree, it was, but as a tribute it fell flat.

But Jason got to run around with a gun.

PJD was contracted to rebuild and personalize an ATV. Having four wheels and resembling a dune buggy, you may realize that this was not, technically, a motorcycle. To be fair, this is a start-up and Paulie has to take what he can get.

Problem- Paulie knows nothing about ATV’s. Worse, he told the costumer, something called “Blingstar,” that “I don’t really understand quads.” I see a public relations course in his future.

Solution- Odie knows ATV’s. Put him in charge.

Problem- Odie is an inexperienced kid who mumbles when he talks because he doesn’t move his lower jaw, is obsessed with the word “freak” (Seriously- count how many times he said it this episode) and is totally not ready to run a build. When learning that the kid was to be in charge, the buyer, to his credit, didn’t run away, but he did laugh out loud.

Solution- Let Vinnie supervise Odie.

Unfortunately, that is not what happens, so parts don’t arrive on time, guys show up work and have no work to do, and Odie chooses to paint the ATV in unfortunate 1980’s-style neon orange and yellow. It’ll be Hulkamania running wild all over again.

It also inspired no confidence when Odie flipped the quad and landed flat on his face.

PJD has also expanded to the point where Mikey’s blind assistant helps take apart the bikes, and some old guy hangs around in the background.

More on the bike, er, ATV, next week.

The highlight of the show was Senior. He never yelled. He never screamed. I don’t know what got into him, except maybe he finally watched his own show and realized what a goon he looked like.

He gave Paulie credit for building two bikes, gave him credit for actually getting the business up and running, and even back-hand complimented the bikes.

This week he got an invitation to his son’s wedding, and to the surprise of no one, he didn’t go. Say what you will about the guy, and I agree- everything in the family is about 95% his fault, if not more. But this week, he sounded so damn reasonable that even if you didn’t agree with him, you had to admit that he still made a logical point. He said he wanted to go the wedding, but if he did, he would be a distraction, and he was right. He thought it would take away from Paulie’s day, which it might have.  Certainly, a lot of questions would have been asked of Paulie, and who knows what pressure he might have felt.

Personally, I would have gone, but Senior made sense. I didn’t agree, but I could see his point.

Next, Senior reached out to Mikey. After about a dozen emails, they agreed to a sit down in neutral territory to work things out. Senior, calmly and reasonably, explained how he never had a problem with Mikey, how any trouble with Paulie had no bearing on their relationship. Again, damnably reasonable. THIS WASN’T PAUL TEUTUL SR!

For whatever, reason, Mikey decided not to go. He also decided not to tell his father so his father showed up at the diner, waited around for half an hour, tried to call his son, and then left. If I didn’t know better, I’d feel sorry for him.

By the way, this week we also saw Mikey’s new art studio, in which I’m pretty sure he hung up some drop cloths and called it art. And blink and you missed it, there was a “Free Rick” poster there too.

So bottom line, Mikey will have nothing to do with his father unless he patches things up with the rest of the family, which isn’t really fair to his father.

Nor is it fair to us, the viewers.

I don’t know what happened this week, I have no idea what they slipped into Senior’s coffee, I don’t care if he’s in therapy, next week he better scream and yell, blow up a mannequin of his son, take an axe to an old car, anything but be calm and reasonable.

Or this show may have to focus on making bikes again.

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