Tag Archives: Cody

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Cadillac Build-Off Part 2

6 Jun

June 6, 2011

For those of you who missed part one, here is a quick recap:

Cadillac approached both OCC and PJD with the idea of building a bike for charity. It is being billed as a build-off because one of them will be chosen as the better bike. PJD seems to have the edge because they have a pair of brand new Cadillacs in the shop and are using them as a template and for parts. OCC has a fairly average Jason Pohl design. Senior spent the entire episode telling blatant lies about Paulie and outright insulting him, and then decided that he should meet him in person and make up. And oh yeah, get those shares of OCC Paulie owns. Response to last week’s show is pretty consistent. Emailer’s agree that Paulie has the better bike and that Senior is a jerk.

This episode, like so many before them, just served to show what a jerk he is. He went on and on about how “paranoid” Paulie is, to the point  that he became obsessed with it. He actually believed that Paulie hired spies to take pictures of OCC’s bike. So to prove… I don’t know what he wanted to prove, he and his partner-in-stupid Jason Pohl dressed up in cammo gear, covered themselves in leaves, and crawled commando-style through a vacant lot to Paulie’s fence and hung a sign to tease him.

Paulie never even mentioned it.

More and more, the main draw of this show is Senior’s idiocy. It stopped being about the bikes long ago, and it isn’t even about the lawsuit anymore since it only rated about three minutes of screen time. Here’s the update: They are close to a deal.

However, it wouldn’t be fair of me to not mention something nice. Some kids from the Duchenne’s charity visited. Duchenne is a type of muscular dystrophy and the bikes will be auctioned off to help that charity. Some of the kids visited OCC where they designed a bike with Sr. and Jason Pohl. The kids left with copies of the blueprints they designed. Those guys are jerks, but that was a nice moment.

The kids also visited PJD where they painted with Mikey. Mikey had the line of the night. A parent said to him “you’re an artist too?” Mikey replied “I call myself that.” Nice! No one else does.

The centerpiece of the show was not the disappointing unveil but a competition in which OCC and PJD each raced Cadillacs and compared times.

Senior: “I think we smoked it.”

In fact, Senior had the slowest time and Paulie, everyone else from PJD, and the rest of OCC all beat his time. And he’s the big car collector and “risk taker,” which he must have said about half a dozen times. The fastest time was from an OCC guy we never saw before, named Storm. I think they brought in a ringer. The winning team? PJD, and Senior was visibly upset.

At the unveil, Senior and Junior were together for the first time with each other’s bikes. Paulie’s was far better. They drove out simultaneously and stopped, facing each other. Paulie pulled a power mover. After a pause, he lowered his bike to the ground, no kickstand. The crowd roared. Senior had a surprise too. His had a hidden gas tank and what everyone thought was the tank actually hid a nitrous bottle.

Neither said much, though they did fist bump, and you could see that each crew liked and admired some parts or features of the other’s bike. PJD’s bike was mostly favored by Caddy designers, particularly one who said “I’m the rear engineer.” That’s an interesting title. There was also plenty of love for the OCC bike too.

Which bike was better? I say it was Paulie’s. It was low and long and had great sleek lines. The rear looked like a Caddy rear. Senior’s was nice, not great.

As Dandydan wrote here in response to last week’s blog, all the OCC technology (which Senior bragged about again) just makes their bikes less impressive. And Rick Petko said on the show this week “There’s tons of chrome and paint, more than we’ve had in a long time.” How long? Since Paulie left?

But you all want to know who won. I have to tell you…

… no one won. It was a bullshit ending. They gave a website so the fans could vote on the bikes. No winner was declared.

To see the bikes and bid or vote, go to www.discovery.com/auction I hope that link works for you because as of this writing the site is overloaded.

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American Chopper Sr. vs. Jr.: Don’t Let The Door Hit You On Your Way Out.

9 Feb

February 9, 2011

Yes everyone, Odie was fired. That was the big story this week but there were some little things that I found more interesting. I’ll get to them in due time, but let’s start with the annoying kid who doesn’t know his place.

Even the show’s  announcer seems to hate him. At the top of the show, he said that after he gets fired from PJD, “Odie crawls back to OCC.” That’s giving him too much credit.

Odie’s problems began this week with him donning Paulie’s hat and sunglasses and walking around making fun of Paulie. Remember the last guy who did that? Jason Pohl. What a role model.

Later, Odie and Vinnie walked in with some parts for the Universal Insurance bike and Odie wasted no time ragging on the handlebars. I usually don’t criticize Vinnie, but I fully expected him to say something to Odie. He’s not a boss, he’s not an owner, but if PJD is a team and Paulie is the owner and manager, then Vinnie should be the captain of the team. He has the experience, he runs his own shop, he is the most professional, he is closest to Paulie. I’m not blaming him at all for Odie’s mouth, I’m not giving Odie a pass, but I still say Vinnie should have said something. It probably wouldn’t have done any good, but I think he should have stepped in. Just my opinion.

Odie’s screw-ups weren’t limited to his fresh mouth. He put parts on backwards (and blamed Paulie for making them wrong) pried pieces apart like a caveman and scratched them, and still had the nerve to tell Paulie (who had the patience of a saint with him) “I’ll go home right now. I couldn’t care less.” I hope he didn’t think that was a threat because he did Paulie a big favor. “Get out of my fucking shop right now,” Paulie said with surprising calm.

Odie had the balls/stupidity to call back a little later, hinting he was going to OCC. Like he’d actually be an asset there and Paulie would miss him.

Odie then went up the road to OCC where Senior welcomed him with open arms. He sat back and believed every word Odie said to him. I hope Senior watches his own show so he can see the real Odie, how Odie lied to his face and is just a terrible person in general. At any rate, if anyone has anything bad to say about Paulie he’s a friend of Senior and, not only did Senior hire him back but he (say it with me, I’ve typed it often enough over the weeks) badmouthed Paulie to him. Senior is such a classless louse.

So what did Odie say to Senior?
– He said that he quit. No he didn’t, Paulie threw him out.
– He said that Paulie “never appreciates anything I do for him.” Like what? Showing up late? Messing up the paint on the parts he works on? Mocking him? Glaring at Cody?
– He said that Paulie is always up against a deadline, which is true, but how is that any different than OCC?
– He said they work 20 hour days. Not him. Just last week he made a big deal of leaving at four in the afternoon.

So what did Senior say to Odie?
You’re hired.

Speaking of guys with less than sterling characters, remember Robb? He was the painter last week who designed a bike an then cried like a baby and threw a tantrum when some changes were made. In a small piece of poetic justice, he screwed up the paint on the Bic bike this week and had to redo it. Oh, so sorry.

And as for the bikes, all of them looked great, and that makes two weeks in a row I’ve said that. Even the bike Monkey Boy made for OCC looked good. It was simple and sleek with clean lines and a great color scheme.

PJD gave away a bike to one lucky insurance agent. The guy who won the raffle looked like he has never in his life been on a bike and probably never will be.

The less dramatic but more interesting part of the show cam when a group of kids from a technical school visited OCC. One of them asked Senior what he thinks of Paulie’s bikes. Senior didn’t answer but had this to say about Paulie: “His gift is designing. I don’t think his gift is building. The mechanics do all the work.” OK, he complimented his son’s design skill but he couldn’t leave it at that. He had to say that Paulie isn’t a builder. He’s talking to a group of kids and still he had to take a shot a Paulie.

The same student then asked “what would you say your specialty is?”
“Yelling at people.”

Paulie, to an extent, echoed what Senior said when he told the kids at his shop “You can’t manufacture creativity. That’s what makes us a little different.” The kids saw it too. One of them told the camera that it seems to be more technical at OCC and more creative at PJD. Frankly, that is what should make Jr. and Sr. a good team- they each bring different strengths to the table. Ironically that is what also drove them apart.

Then it got weird. As the kids were leaving OCC Senior asked one of them to give to Paulie a picture of them together. “That particular picture meant something to me so hopefully he’ll take it in the same way.” Interesting that he said it in the past tense. Not “it means something to me,” but “it meant something to me.” Small but meaningful difference.

Paulie had no idea how to take it and was just confused.

As for the rest of the show, Senior refused to shave his mustache for charity and OCC played hockey. Senior was in goal and that pleased Rick. He wanted an excuse to plow into him. Senior was not too mobile but actually not bad, making a lot of stops. Jason acted like a jerk on the ice and I waited to see someone slam him into the boards head first but sadly no one did.

PJD went to Florida to unveil the Universal Insurance bikes and Paulie took the crew to Discovery Cove to swim with the fish, er, dolphins. Seeing Mikey in a wetsuit was quit a sight.

This seems to be the last episode (Of the season? Series?) since Discovery doesn’t have a new one listed on their site. There was a lot of hype during the commercials for Nic Cage’s new film, Drive Angry. It looked awful.

Discovery left it hanging if it was the season finale or not. If it was you’d expect some hype. Some weeks back they were advertising the final episodes but their count didn’t match the number of shows aired. It seems like they added one or two. Will the show be back? Will OCC be foreclosed upon? Will Sr. and his sons reconcile? We’ll have to wait and see.

But my guess is no, they won’t reconcile.

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