Tag Archives: Paulie

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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American Chopper Senior vs. Junior Week 5: Bad Parenting 101

20 Sep

September 20, 2010

Parenting- noun
1- the rearing of children
2- the methods, techniques, etc., used or required in the rearing of children

From the web:

Are you constantly searching the latest on parenting to make sure you are doing everything exactly right? It’s time to relax. Temple University psychologist, Laurence Steinberg, says that perfect parents just don’t exist.

“Most parents are pretty good parents,” says Steinberg, “But I’ve never met a parent who is perfect 100 percent of the time. We all can improve our batting average.”

TEN BASIC PRINCIPLE’S OF GOOD PARENTING

1- What you do matters
2- You can’t be too loving
3- Be involved in you  child’s life
4- Adapt your parenting to fit your child
5- Establish and set rules
6- Foster your child’s independence
7- Be consistent
8- Avoid harsh discipline
9- Explain your rules and decisions
10- Treat your child with respect

To provide some insights on the difficult world of parenting, Mr. Blog has invited someone who embodies parenthood and displays his methodology each week on cable television. I’m sure we can all learn a lot from him.

And now, Presenting Prof. Paul Teutul Sr.:

Is this thing on? Who here is from out of town? Wait- I think this is a carburator or something.

Hey there. Parenting can be a tough thing, and uh, I’m just glad that I got this chance to talk about it.

I was asked to write something this week on this here internet because some of the parenting things on the show this week, American Chopper, OCC, seem to be kinda misunderstood, or misinterpreted, ya know?

First of all, the idear that I don’t love my sons is just nonsense. Everything I do is to get a better relationship with them. Look at number six on the list. Independence. It hurts me when I see my son Mikey, big as a house, looks like he smells like a dead muskrat. I feel sorry for him, he’s pathetic, but sometimes you need tough love, ya know what I’m saying? At the rate he’s going he’ll barely last the year. I love him and I’ll be proud to be his pallbearer in my sleeveless suit. Ya know with my guns, I don’t need anybody else. I’ll carry the coffin myself. That’s love.

Paulie? Youse have to understand, he sleeps until like noon everyday so I have to do a lot to get his attention. Its all up to me. Its like number two says, you can’t be too loving. Like when I built that there ramp behind my shop, ya know? Let me tell you the story behind that.

I was busy in the shop, yelling at somebody to finally get off their ass and do something around here, when that idiot Jason called me in to the office to hear something on the radio. It was Mikey and Vinnie. They was talking crap about how all the good OCC bikes was made by them, how Paulie did all the design work, and I was gettin’ all pissed off. Sure he designed all the cool bikes from the early years, like the Fire Department bike, and the black Widow bike, and the Jets bike, but who the fuck is he to tell people that? Who the fuck did some of the welding, ya know, and the handlebars? Me. When I wasn’t off gettin’ a massage or walking my big slobbering dog that was all me. I did everything. I built this shop with my bare hands. I bent the steel with my teeth. Youse think he could build a bike himself? Not if he had to get up before noon. Jason may be a stupid looking Mongoloid freak but at least he gets here on time.

So anyways I decided, ya know, just to have a little fun, to build a ramp and fire a bike off of it, with a dummy dressed like Paulie on it, over a ravine we got there down behind the shop. Just to get his attention, ya know, just to tweak him. It’s all in good fun. I figured that would let him know I love him. What says love more than blowing up a dummy of your son? Its not like we have any bikes to build or anything.

So we fired the thing up and shot it out of a slingshot let me tell you it just, uh, sorta fell off the ramp and bounced a few feet. I really hoped that Paulie would see it or hear about and and maybe this would be the start of some sort of reconciliation or somethin’ but Paulie never did say anything about it so maybe next time I need to try something else. I think I’ll burn a cross on his lawn to show him how much I care.

Some people pointed out that it was like I was, ya know, symbolically killing my son or something, but what I got to say about that is, sometimes a symbol stands for something, ya know?

As far as the other stuff this week, yeah, I can see how people might think that I badmouthed Paulie to some schoolchildren, but it was all in good fun. I call that “opening the lines of communication.” Eventually what I said will get back to him, and he can say what he wants to the school kids too, if he ever does build a bike. Its like that telephone game youse played in grade school. Telephone equals communications, right? I heard that no one wants to hire him and he has no money coming in down there. Figures. Who ever heard of Paul Jr. Designs? I got the name, OCC, uh Orange County Choppers. All he’s got is some building where a guy died.

Thank you Professor Teutul. Next week our guest parenting lecturer will be:

"Luke, who is that tatooed douche bag?"

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