Tag Archives: OCC

Season Finale at Sturgis! American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior.

9 Oct

October 8, 2010

This week, the not-quite-battling Teutul clan took the act on the road to Sturgis, South Dakota. Sturgis is the site, every August, if the country’s biggest biker rally.

It was also the home, from 1996 to 1999, of an annual WCW wrestling pay-per-view event, Hog Wild (later changed to Road Wild after Harley-Davidson sued.) While never the best or most popular pay-per-view, it was infamous for losing money time after time. WCW would set up the ring in the middle of the field and encouraged the bikers to ride up to ringside and watch from their bikes. For free. This event was totally free to attend. While most ppv events generated thousands just from ticket sales, this one, year after year, generated zero dollars. And the event was so bad, with the wrestlers usually caught up in the biker festivities and not in, um, “prime shape,” it had a terrible buy rate and it always hemorrhaged money. So why did they do it? The man in charge was a motorcycle fan and wanted a yearly trip to Sturgis. No wonder they went under.

And since we are talking wrestling in an American chopper blog, this gives an excuse to bring back my favorite “separated at birth” picture. 

Whatchoo gonna do? Vrooom!

Anyway, back to the show, and why am I so happy? As Jim Morrison sang,

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again

Until next season.

Lets get the only source of anxiety out of the way early- DID THEY RECONCILE? DID THEY DID THEY DID THEY?

No, silly. Of course not. Senior bad-mouthed Jr. in a magazine article and Paulie took the high road, which is smart but boring. We want a fight!

Anyway, the Scooby gang went down to Sturgis, Paulie to unveil a pair or bikes and Sr. to show off his unimpressive drag bike.

Why was it unimpressive? The impressive parts of the bike were the electric motor and batteries, neither of which he had anything to do with. The rest? Just a long, ugly bike.

Paulie, on the other hand, made a pair of great looking bikes. Of course, I have long said that the paint job makes the bike, and Paulie had nothing to do with that. And he had little to do with the build- Vinnie did that, and some other guys too. That is why his business is called Paul Jr. Designs, not Paul Jr. Builds. Truth in advertising.  (Yes, I know Paulie did the webs- don’t email me about that.)

At any rate, for Paulie, the season ended on a high note. His bikes were built, his shop was up and running, he unveiled his bikes.

For Senior, the season ended pretty anti-climactically. The last few weeks Sr. and OCC had been trying to break a world record. Well, this week they did, sort of. After they unveiled the bike, the owner took it and Sr. got to watch the event sitting in his office, via video. That sort of sums up the entire season for Senior, just another hollow victory.

Strangely, for a season that focused less on bike building than on family breaking, this finale focused almost entirely on bike building, and suffered for it, Honestly, it was boring. The show, which was on the verge of cancellation last season, reinvented itself with the family feuding, and for some reason abandoned it for the last few weeks to the detriment of the show.

On the other hand, most of the feuding was pretty stupid and one-sided, so in this short season of seven episodes you swung from boredom to stupidity. The stupidity, at least, was entertaining. Senior never failed to make himself look like an idiot.

So what did I take away from this season?

"FREE RICK"

You won’t believe how many hits I get from searches for that phrase.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →