Tag Archives: Cepheid

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Mikey’s Decision

3 Oct

October 3, 2011

Last week, after Senior uncharacteristically low-key and slightly on the humble side (seriously, by Paul Teutul Senior standards, that is) reached out to Mikey, he was given the run around by his son as usual. So it all comes to a head this week, as The Discovery Channel leads us to believe, so we’ll see what Mikey’s Decision is tonight.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Next week’s show is described this way on The Discovery Channel site:

Mikey’s Favorite Moments
From PJD’s first big unveil to bow  fishing in Louisiana, Mikey recalls his favorite American Chopper memories.  Relive the scary encounter between Junior and a lion in South Africa, as well as some touching family moments.

Yep, it is a clip show. So is the season over? I don’t know. But I can’t wait to see Paulie vs. the lion! Oh, and those “touching family moments.” How ironic is that?

But on to tonight. The builds continue on the Beck’s Hybrid corn and Cepheid bikes, but that’s not really why most viewers tune in anymore. I can’t say I’m crazy about the PJD Cepheid bike, but that’s because they are following the color scheme of the Cepheid components and they are going for a “clinical” look. (Paulie must have said that word a dozen times this week. Or at least it felt like that.) I think they are succeeding, but the bike isn’t to my taste. Not a bad bike, just not to my liking. Nub has been playing a bigger part at PJD these last few weeks, and that is a good thing considering how vital the paint jobs are to their bikes.

OCC, you may recall, is building a reverse trike, meaning that the two wheels are in the front and one in the back. They are also doing work with fiberglass, which they haven’t done in the shop before. Like Paulie’s bike, they are doing a nice job but it isn’t my type. If you’ve read these posts before you know I am not a motorcycle guy but I do appreciate the way they look and how they are built but these don’t do it for me, though I do see and appreciate all the work and tech going into it. It isn’t an insult to either team that I don’t like the bikes.

Skeeter, the grey-haired old man, is helping out on the hybrid bike and while he seems to know his stuff, he also seems to just repeat what Mike says. He comes across a sort of long-haired parrot. Nice guy though.

As the show opened, Senior again reached out to Mikey and asked to commission a painting- a Mikey Teutul original! He must really be desperate. Once again, the ball is in Mikey’s court. Mikey went to think it over in his studio and we were treated to him creating more art, and I’ve said it before, he’s about as talented as an entire kindergarten class. Hey, that’s a compliment- he’s not as talented as one kindergartener, it takes a whole Kindergarten class to equal him. Anyway (sorry about that) he said that his father didn’t want to discuss anything of substance and decided that he won’t see him. How does he know what his father will discuss? It doesn’t matter. He simply doesn’t want to- or is scared to- see his father and instead of admitting it he is making up reasons to put it on his father’s shoulders. Oh sure, Mikey could meet him anywhere and anytime, Senior will be there, but in Mikey’s mind it is all his father’s fault they won’t meet. I don’t often give Senior the benefit of the doubt, but he isn’t wrong here. And if Mikey goes to a meeting and Senior won’t discuss certain things or refuses to consider change, or whatever Mikey wants, then he’ll have a legitimate reason to moan. But right now Mikey is playing possum.

Later, Mikey asked Vinnie for advice on the Senior situation. Vinnie kind of pointed Mikey in the direction of getting together and Mikey, who goes however the wind blows, seems to move a drop in that direction. (But he also says he is going to take his time with it “that’s for certain.” How much longer is he going to wait?)  And good for Vinnie, who hates Senior, for putting that aside and telling Mikey the importance of having a family.

So Mikey emailed his father and decided it was too awkward to make a painting for Senior and said he “has a fear of his father because of all the chaos.” Finally! And I swear, I wrote that a few paragraphs back before Mikey said it, I swear. And the upshot is that he decided to keep the lines of communication open (email) but keep his father at arm’s length, which is just a cop-out.

Mikey’s Decision? He punted.

But at 9:48, any little sympathy I had for Senior was lost when he sat down with Jason for advice and explained the whole thing. To Jason! And what did Jason do? Giggled and laughed. Go back and see for yourself. Jason’s advice? Hire a private detective to follow Mikey so Senior can “accidentally” bump into his son. I wish a two by four would bump into Jason’s head.

Interestingly, Senior and the guys at OCC are responding in a back door way to what the fans who write in here and elsewhere say. Fans say that a lot is fake on the show, but no, everything is real. Steve (claimed he) sat at a ballgame and some fans asked him about the show. Senior claims that they have a negative public perception (true) and they have to move past it for business reasons (also true.)

“If he (Paulie) called me up today and said fuck it, let’s go fishing, I would. But there’ll be no talk about when I smacked him with the paddle whan he was seven years old. The only time he ever got hit in his life. I’m not going there no more.” Nice.

Senior keeps talking about “doing restaurants.” An OCC theme restaurant? What do you think about that?

And last week’s tease of Rick going to PJD? Not a whisper.

Next week’s show, which they claim is “all new,” is a clip show focusing on Mikey and is followed by the premiere of American Guns. You guys are on your own with that show.

An “all new” clip show. Well, technically, but…

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American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Senior Reaches Out

26 Sep

September 26, 2011

I have been given no reason to believe anything the Discovery Channel shows on their commercials for American Chopper so I’ll just post the description from their website and we’ll see what’s what at the end.

Post-settlement, Senior tries to commission a painting from Mikey but gets mixed  signals from his son. OCC starts a build for a hybrid seed company and PJD works  on a modern build for a medical technology company.

Before you get too excited, there is no description for next week’s show but it is called Mikey’s Decision, so expect nothing to be resolved this week.

I think last week’s post covered the Senior/Mikey relationship pretty well so let’s just jump right in. But I will say this, no matter what else I and others say about Senior, he is making a move so give him a drop of credit.

The show opens and what are the odds of this? Two competing companies who make hybrid corn seeds have come to OCC to get a bike built. How many hybrid corn companies are there? Seriously, is this just a coincidence? But OCC can only do one and they pick a -get ready for this- father and son company, Beck’s Hybrids. And who went out to the seed place to do research? Jim who never seems to leave the office and Jason Pohl, who thinks it is funny or cool to say “motor-sicle.” The only other option is that he can’t say “motorcycle” properly and even I don’t think he’s illiterate. Annoying yes, ass-kisser yes, illiterate no. At any rate, OCC is going to build some sort of reverse trike that should look like it is ready to harvest corn. And in the “what are the odds of that?” category PJD just made a trike last week. But I am sure it is all a coincidence. OCC makes trikes every week, right?

PJD is building a bike for a medical research and supply company, Cepheid. And in a moment of TV history, we got to see someone stick a swab in Mikey’s nose for some sort of bacteria test. It was negative.

Cepheid makes medical technology, computerized testers and such, and the bike is going to incorporate some of their technology and the clinical look of the Cepheid products, charcoal grey and white, with some chrome. It would be clean and functional, with curves instead of edges, but as the build moved along Paulie was still poking around and trying to figure out what he wanted in the bike. Brendon and Vinnie were not totally sure what Paulie had in mind since, as usual, there were no plans or diagrams to work from and Paulie seemed vaguer than usual with his ideas. In fact, Brendon seemed to have a clearer idea than Paulie this week.

But unclear plans are also a problem at OCC. Jason saw that the frame wasn’t like the plans he made. Why? Because he didn’t take into account the way bikes are built and knew nothing about the structural integrity of the frame. And he had the nerve to say that the fabricators would have to work around it. Work around it? Why not make plans that are buildable to begin with? At least Mike Ammirati (and I think I spelled that right) had the balls to get pissed and curse at him. After Jason walked away, of course. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, and getting Senior’s pet angry at you is not a good idea.

Paul Senior got involved in the build by cutting pipe and some metal work, which you have to admit he is good at.

Senior said that “Mikey is persuaded easily” and blamed Paulie for keeping Mikey away from him. I do agree with the easily persuaded part, but I don’t think Paulie is actively keeping them apart, I think it is a case of Mikey wanting to fit in with Paulie so he goes with Paulie over his father. Senior did say that both of them “did some damage” and seemed a little more honest than usual. That might be because he was away from the shop, by the water with is wife. In front of the guys or in the shop he is all bluster and bluff, but he let his guard down a little and- for a second!- seemed human. After some thought, Senior decided to go to Mikey’s studio with no cameras. (About time!) Hopefully, they could talk about painting and his life and not get into anything with Paulie or OCC. If he came up with it himself, I think it is a very good move.

And for those of you who remember the late, lamented Gus, Senior played around with a younger dog of the same breed. I have  no clue if Senior already owned that dog before Gus died, but he showed more love to his dogs than anyone else on that series.

Meanwhile, in a feat of amazing timing, Senior showed up and missed Mikey by ten minutes.

Senior left his number with the receptionist and asked her to call him when Mikey came in, so of course Mikey didn’t want her to call back. (And neither did she.) Mikey, and here I think he is being a total tool, said that he wanted to take baby steps, like emails. Hey Mikey- YOU STOPPED ANSWERING HIS EMAILS! Remember when you were supposed to meet him for lunch and you didn’t show up? Remember when you made therapy a condition of seeing him and he went and you still wouldn’t meet him? GROW UP. (And his art? I still think it is a joke.)

But later on he did text his father to see if everything was OK (it was very unlike him to drop in without a camera crew, so maybe something was wrong) and Senior texted back that he’d like to paint with him. With about thirteen minutes left Mikey said he invited his father over to pick out some art. So of course they went back to the bike build.

During the build, Rick asked Senior how things were going with his sons. Senior, unusually, kept quiet. He was very subdued. If anyone had never seen this show, never heard about the feud, they would have a completely different view of Paul Teutul Senior than long-time viewers do. I wonder why the change?

After a long text exchange, Mikey waffled and finally said “I’m not sure what to make of this.” Man, just meet him. If it goes bad, you don’t need to meet him again. Just man up.

NEXT WEEK: Senior says about a text from Mikey “I feel like he is talking to a client, not his father.” Interesting point, too bad Senior says it to Jason.

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