Tag Archives: charity

American Chopper News! American Chopper Return Date + Name Change

28 Aug

August 28, 2012

This ran last week in the New York Post. I’ve added some commentary in red.

Rebuilding
‘American Chopper’ father, son try to mend feud
By MICHAEL STARR
Last Updated: 10:48 AM, August 24, 2012
Posted: 10:16 PM, August 23, 2012
EXCLUSIVE

Call it a Teutul huddle.

“American Chopper” stars Paul Teutul and his son, Paul Jr. (or “Paulie”) — whose three-year feud has ripped their family apart — are talking about reuniting to build a bike and repair their shattered relationship.

“Talking” is the operative word here.

“It’s fairly early, but I have a good feeling,” Paul Sr. told The Post. “I think that, out of the last two-and-a-half years, this is probably the first time it seems kind of real.”

Father and son have been estranged since Paul fired Paulie from Orange County Choppers in 2008 after an epic blowup (they had a stormy relationship, even in the best of times).

Paulie then opened his own competing shop, Paul Jr. Designs — three miles from Orange County Choppers — which was featured for two seasons on TLC’s “American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior.” (The show is back to using its original “American Choppers” title.)

Both men, interviewed separately, say they were wary when show producers broached the idea of them reuniting to build a bike, which will be featured in the Sept. 3 season opener.

Mr. BTR: “Reality” show? The producers broached the idea? When the season finale aired and Senior called Junior with the idea of building a bike together for charity he acted like it was his idea and Paulie acted surprised. This show is so fake, so scripted, so set up it was obvious that even without this admission we all knew that there was little reality here. Yes, there is bad blood between them and yes, there are legitimate problems, but from the bikes that the network sets up for them to build (Deadliest Catch bike was the most obvious one) to the manipulative editing to the blatant situations like this, created solely for the show, there has been no reality here for ages.

“You know what? For me it just became time,” says Paulie. “It’s been a long time, and a lot of bad stuff took place, and it was just like, something is gonna change or it was never gonna change.

“The hopes were to start this earlier, but I didn’t feel like my father was necessarily saying the right things in my direction. I kind of stopped waiting for him to change and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Senior says he thinks “it’s gonna take some time” to mend fences.

“This is probably more of a beginning, hopefully,” he says. “It’s not like [the blowup] was something that happened only during the show. Our relationship was like this before the show, too. So, in essence, the [fight] was the best thing that could have happened. Even though it was upsetting to everybody, including our family, I think sometimes you have to get to that place to be able to realize that things didn’t work out . . . everything has to be re-earned again. I feel good about it.”

Paulie says he entered into the tentative agreement on two conditions.

“I wanted to make him feel comfortable, so . . . I said, instead of arguing about what kind of bike [to build] and where to do it, let’s do it up at my father’s house,” he says.

“The biggest thing was that I didn’t want to mix the businesses,” he says. “That’s the key. I’m way too far along with my company to make my clients wonder what’s going on here. I won’t allow that line to be blurred.”

Paul Sr. sounds hopeful it will all work out.

“Listen, there’s a lot of hurt and a lot of anger through this whole thing,” he says. “Do I have an open mind about the whole thing? Yeah. Do I want to see things work? Yeah. Do I want it like it was before? No.”

“You have to understand, everybody has their own issues with him,” Paulie says of his father. “I hope it starts with us and I hope it continues . . . and hopefully it will trickle down, for his sake and for the rest of the family’s sake.”

American Chopper, and Mr. Blog’s American Chopper Weekly Rundown, will return on September 3rd. 

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American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior week 6: A Thorny Legal Issue?

26 Sep

September 26, 2010

A Quinn Martin Production

Act One: A Matter of Law

I am in no way an expert on business matters or the workings of foundations and donations, but something struck me wrong this week. Paul Sr. and OCC were involved in building a bike for the FBI. About halfway through, Senior was informed that the underwriters for the FBI bike had pulled out. I take this to assume that the FBI was not paying for the bike themselves, and rightly so, as I can’t see any justification for a government agency to be spending my tax money on a vanity bike. I am just speculating, but I guess the bike was going to be paid for by the FBI equivalent of the Policeman’s Benevolent Association, or some other charitable organization. All fair and good.

At any rate, the money disappeared. Paul Sr. decided that his OCC foundation would donate the bike to the FBI. OCC would fulfill it’s obligation and the FBI would get the bike. Again, fair and good. But here is where I got lost. Perhaps someone could explain this to me.

Once built, OCC would donate the bike to the OCC foundation (because legally they are separate entities despite being all Paul Sr.) and OCC would get a nice big tax write off for the donation. So far, so good. The problem is, the bike was still in the building stage and parts needed to be bought and expenses paid for, all of which now would come out of Sr.’s pocket.

To make up the out of pocket expenses, Sr. planned to auction off one of the OCC regular production bikes. So not only will Sr. make back his expenses from the auction, and likely make a profit too (which is fine- he is running a business, and he was not doing the FBI job for free) but with the foundation, he will also get a large tax write off. So in effect, he is donating a bike he is not paying for to himself (via his foundation) and reaping another payoff down the road, a second payoff for the bike which cost him nothing to build. The OCC foundation would donate the bike and get whatever credit they normally get for a donation, yet this asset was really only theirs through the dint of some paperwork and they wouldn’t actually be spending any of their charitable assets.

Something sounds wrong, especially when you consider that he could build the bike, recoup his expenses and a profit via the production bike auction, and them give it to the FBI right from OCC- no foundation needed.

I may be wrong, but this really sounds like the same strange transfer of assets that made a court-appointed appraiser determine that the value of OCC stock was zero. That the whole business of bike building, which Paul Sr. spent twenty years building, was valueless. I don’t know what, but something sounds fishy to me.

Act Two- A Matter of Ethics.

So how hard is Paulie really working?

Since he began the new web bike, Paulie has said over and over how they have little time to get it done, how many long days they have to put in, how late they have to work. But this is the third show since they started the bike and Vinny said “this is the first time we’ve put in really long hours.” It is? But what about all the times Paulie said they had to work really hard and stay late? Then I remembered all the times in the last few weeks that we’ve heard Paulie say  “that’s good work, let’s call it a day” and closed up while the sun was still shining.

Sr. claimed that he’s heard that Paulie doesn’t show up at his shop until 10am and leaves early, and while I am inclined to take anything he says with a grain of salt, I think the evidence shows that he may be right.

Paulie hired a guy to come in and help them out, a person who had been fired from OCC. According to Sr. (again, grain of salt) he quit after only two days because he couldn’t work in such a lazy environment. I know Sr. was trying to tamper with him and hire him away, but the fact is he never went to work for Sr., was never lured away, so I am again inclined to believe Sr.’s description of the events.

Neither Paulie not Vinny are fabricators and they need help. They had problems getting started with equipment and personnel. I get that. but now that they have two bikes to build and a very short deadline, why haven’t they put in the hours?

Paulie hasn’t changed.

Epilogue: Senior is a jerk

Trying to hire away Paulie’s workers, riding up and down past the shop, killing a replica of his son- Senior says it is all a part of the game. What game? No one else is playing a game. Paulie, to his credit, is staying above that kind of nonsense. If Senior wants to play his mindless mind games on his sons, then there is a serious problem with him. In the last few weeks since Paulie and Mikey didn’t respond to his half-hearted attempts at reconciliation, Paul Senior really seems to have snapped. He’s stooped to badmouthing his kids to strangers. Speaking on the phone to a wife of a man he fired, Senior said that “all three of my sons are bums.”

Stay classy, Senior.

And to the rest of us, stay tuned.

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