Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'm Vin and Code are hard to
get on. I've I've tried. It's not and it's gonna happen.
And look, I'm not busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's it. They're just busy.
Speaker 1: And I know how it is because I can't, you know,
keep up. So it's it's it's tough. I think maybe
if the weather's nicer, it's a good place to visit
for a weekend, I'll get Vin, maybe bring the family
down or something like that. Same thing with Cody. I'd
love to have him come down and enjoy the island
for a couple of days as part of being on
the podcast.
Speaker 2: You know, that would be nice. So so Vinnie, Cody,
if you're listening, Yeah, someone's for you.
Speaker 1: I think we'll have them on. I mean, i'd even
like to have like Jason Poulan or like Christian, like
Welter or trying to think who else. Pretty much you
should have Christian and Nick if you can.
Speaker 2: The mechanic. Yeah, those guys were crazy. Yep, they were crazy.
They were wild man wild. They would eat anything, yeah, anything.
It was rotting. Yeah. Nick was a beast, wasn't he
a beast? Like? Nick would go out every night to
bars and just knock people out. Yep, he would punch
it just because he couldn't go home until he did.
He was a sweetheart too, make at it. Was a
big hearty guy. But when he drank, he was I'd
go to the bar with him, right and I put
my credit card or whatever behind the bar, you know,
like we were gonna go belly up, start drinking, and
we'd start drinking, and then he he would get a
little crazy, and then he'd like hit like boom, upper
cut through the ribs to you. Yeah, and yeah, he
got real handsy. I'd leave the card there and just
go home, like I'm not dying tonight. Crazy. Yeah, he
was nuts.
Speaker 1: Him and Christian were both crazy, both great guys, but
beautiful when they went out drinking.
Speaker 2: Man, it was just a matter of time, matter of time.
I was just as bad. I wasn't. I wasn't getting
into altercations. You know, no, me neither.
Speaker 1: I never been like that, misbehaving maybe not you, not
trying to hurt anyone except for you when you were younger.
Speaker 2: I don't remember this digging it up. It's just like churning.
I'm getting killed here.
Speaker 1: I'm just totally doing I just I guess I think, man,
I felt like growing up, I had like a lot
of anger issues just thinking about being like a teenage
like even like I'd say, from like eight on, I
felt like I was maybe it had some anger issues
and I had younger.
Speaker 2: Siblings an alcoholic. Yeah, that's true, so I definitely did.
Speaker 1: I just wonder how how that shakes out, Like what's normal,
because we used to fight all the time.
Speaker 2: I go into my basement and punch the floor because
of you. Maybe not at night after dinner.
Speaker 1: Maybe not with him because he was younger. Maybe probably
me and my brother Dan probably fought a little bit more.
I think sometimes we both would.
Speaker 2: Beat me up, beat you up, Yeah, I remember that.
And then I'd beat up our sister who was younger,
and then they'd beat me up for doing that. Yeah.
You know what we would do.
Speaker 1: We'd go on these long trips, right, and me and
Dan would be in like the back seat, and Michael
would be in like the front bucket seat, and you know,
we'd be like, hey, you know how much longer I'm
being real annoying?
Speaker 2: My father's screaming in the back? Yeah, reaching back.
Speaker 1: I won't eat words because you can't use those words anymore.
But he would call us every name in the book,
and he'd be trying to he'd be trying.
Speaker 2: To hit us the third seat in the back, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember one time, man, I signaled to my
brother Danny, who was sitting next to me, and Michael
was right in front of me in the chair, and
we've we like punched them up real bad, like.
Speaker 2: No one of them one of them hands around the face.
I did, and I saw I reached over the top
of the seat. I couldn't read, and I couldn't with
my hands clasped, but I held him into the seat
just so he wouldn't be screaming. And then we let
it go. And he was like, you know, when you're
not letting out any sound, but you're crying, And that's
exactly what happened, like when you're struggling tied up. That's funny.
We're just trying. I start talking about John Wayne Gacy's
victims as well while we're at it. I don't now,
but that's common stuff. Like I don't I don't harbor
anything for that as a matter of fact, right, I
think you're right. I don't think it's a I don't
feel like I was like a mass murderer when I
was a kid or anything. You know, I worked for
a guy or I had a friend. I won't say
who that I worked for, but his brother used to
torture him when he was younger. Yeah, yeah, like literally, man,
you know you got tortured, didn't You know? I didn't
get tortured, but yeah, did you gotred?
Speaker 1: We always fallow fist and cuffs and rarely see, we
never really fought like that. No one in our family
ever got like when we got into our teen years,
we would have blowout arguments.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking I could punch him in the face
one time though, when I was younger, and I did
you know who punched me right back in the face?
I did? Yeah, And I've only punched a few people
in the face since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, you punched a guy in the face
in your hand swelled up. Yeah you got his tooth
was in your back of your hand.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I was hitting him. Yeah, yeah, your hands.
This guy in the double yellow line in the middle
of the road and I was walking with a girl
and uh, she screamed and it snapped me out of it.
But I was in some kind of a blind fury
of you were like so angry you didn't even know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even I remember he told me exactly that the
next day that he was in like a blackout of
I wasn't happened to him.
Speaker 2: I mean I was drinking, but I wasn't drunk. Oh
he's dead. He's dead. I killed him, but they never
caught me. Yeah. Yeah, that's the moral of the story.
I got rid of the tooth, the evidence, get rid
of all that. It wasn't in his hand, but he
must have got like he must have. I got an
insizor right in the in the somewhere.
Speaker 1: And then I'm telling you, by the next day it
was swollen.
Speaker 2: It was like it got like bit by a cat
type swollen. It was disgusting. And then I went, yeah,
I went to the fair, the Ulster County Fair, and
I was Steppenwolf was playing like theirs, and uh, I
went to go, uh, I don't know, play one of
the games like where you throw the thing into the
fish tank or whatever. And uh, the carnie, who was
like a junkie drying out there was like, holy shit,
your fucking hand looks bad. And then I grabbed something.
It was like the Evil Dead, you know, just it
was disgusting. Man, I almost passed out. I remember the
smell of fried dough, the sound of the calliope, and
like the those light bulbs. You know, it's dressing room phones.
You know it's bad when are saying your hand looks bad. Yeah,
it's time to check in. You know. That's a good story. Man,
I never heard that part. I forgot about that. It's good, though.
I feel bad about punching the guy in the face. Yeah, yeah,
no one ever looked well some people like that. I
would feel bad too. You should feel bad. I do,
But it makes a good storm. It's great. I feel
that bad. At least you didn't get your face punched in.
Amen to that. I you know, if it's gonna go down,
it might as well be his face getting punched, you know.
Amen to that, man. And I think it says something
about that in the Bible.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you could back it up somewhere somewhere. This
is a good question going back to the show here
a little bit. So why did some of the bikes
built not go to the customer, like the Yeah, we've
addressed a Jets bike. You know, there's something that we've
made a commission.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've addressed this a few times.
Speaker 1: So nine to nine percent of the bikes we've built
really have gone towards the customers. We have a small
handful even with what my father has. But in the
early days, we built bikes as tribute in between the
bikes we were building for companies. Over a period of time,
every single bill was for a company, and quite often
they would introduce a charity, so we got paid and
we were able to help people out, if that makes
any sense, you know.
Speaker 2: And so but the ones we kept are like the
MLB bike I got back through a sweepstakes. They did
a sweepstakes on the MLB network.
Speaker 1: People want it. I bought it back from them. The
build off bikes. I did my deal so I could
keep them. A lot of people know about the Yankees'
bike here because that got damaged me and my father
restored it, kind of tweaked it, and I ended up
buying that one back. So you know, there's a handful
of bikes out there that we have that were either
some sort of tribute, like on my father's side, like
the fire bike.
Speaker 2: Like no one bought the fire bike.
Speaker 1: We just built that to pay our respects to the
to nine to eleven and the three hundred and forty
three firemen that died in it. And so you know
some of that stuff like that that my father has
a lot of those bikes. That's why he has so
many of those because that first season we built a
lot of bikes like that was more entertainment without the
without the marketing side of it, without these corpor Once
the company started coming in and realized what the show
was and the ratings was, we pretty much did mostly build.
I mean, we did charitable stuff still, but it became
much more corporate and those bikes lived with the corporations because,
to be honest with you, they still use those bikes
for marketing and advertising. The bike never like that it's
a character from the show. So just like say the
Miller Electric bike, that was like an early and that
was a really good brand because we were using the
Miller Electric welders forever and so that bike now still
travels around. People see it and they remember it being built,
so it has a marketing you know, then it starts
up a conversation and then they're using it as a
marketing tool.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's like how you get brands in people's mouths, and
that's that's how they do. So these bikes really they
work forever. It's crazy, you know.
Speaker 3: And I think with that, Paul, just being here at
your showroom when you know there's people coming in the summer.
They I've heard some people ask.
Speaker 2: Well how much is it? Is it for sale? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well they don't know what I'm doing here because
I got like this crazy building full of signs and
these wild motorcycles and I'm in the middle of Long
Beach Island where no one thinks I belong, you know.
Speaker 2: Just they're like, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: And then they think, well, you must sell motorcycles, you
know if they're not familiar, and I just sell hats
and t shirts. Yeah, these bikes are not for sale. No,
they're not for sale. I'm trying to Actually, I would
you know, I've talked about this. I wouldn't mind getting
a few back. I just don't want to pay the
Paul Junior price because.
Speaker 2: Right, oh you got to go through like a third party. Yeah,
some guy who was sweatpants. I wonder if Nate. I
wonder if Nate make some phone calls for me. Yeah,
see what we can do. Nate's got money on his voice.
You need someone like me to knock on the door. Yeah,
even though we're recognizing Yeah, let's just cut him a breake, honey,
you hate that bike anyways. Good.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of people here are asking, like,
getting the crew together for another build?
Speaker 2: Is that something you guys would do? I mean I
would do that. I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: Even when Rick was hero was thinking maybe, uh, you know,
I hadn't really seen him in so long, and I
really couldn't help but think about the potential for doing
something together again. I don't know if like a whole
build like we did on American Chopper, but even to
have do little product jicks together and stuff would be fun.
You know, everybody's getting a little older. It's nice to like.
Speaker 2: Collaborate, Yeah, collaborate, maybe help each other out a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, Rick, he's he's doing his distillery, you know,
stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Maybe do something for that can help him drink it
and I can help him drink it.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, he still hasn't set me any samples.
So doing anything with Rick I'm not now, I'm not
doing anything with Rick. Yeah, No, I mean I would
like to do something like even with then and Cody,
like all these guys if and I've thought about this
because it would be cool to get everyone back together
and do like.
Speaker 2: A legit big build. It's just logistically very challenging, but
I think it would make great content. I think the
fan base would love it, especially if we got back together.
I'll tell you why. Sure, you figure out something that
you could build a little quicker or just a part
of him.
Speaker 1: No, it's fine, but tell you why, because I feel
like the fun is still there.
Speaker 2: You see how me and him are together and we
like to have fun.
Speaker 1: You bring all these other guys in and that that
dynamic comes right back into play.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right away from twenty years ago, ten years ago,
are goofing around, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Rick's roll would be the same when Vin's
here as it was back in the day. It's just
it's just personalities and the way we talk, you know.
I think Vin would have so much fun on this podcast, dude.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, it'd be cool. I don't I should
have elaborated. If you guys like spend a week and
just did it, you know, like the you know, Vinnie
remembers everything. And he and I traveled together a lot. Yeah,
so you know we were like the B squad, right yep,
and we traveled quite a bit. And he he whenever
I go to his shop, he reminds me of the
things that we used to do.
Speaker 2: I remember a lot of them. Sometimes they need a
bell rung, and some I don't remember at all. You know,
he's clear. Yeah's it's been like that. Vinnie Renny remembers everything,
even from when we were younger. He remembers everything. You know.
My brother Danny's like that. We're talking. We were dogging
to how he stirs the pot. But he's like that.
He remembers, like he.
Speaker 1: Remembers my stats from football, what games we played, who
we played. I can't it's all just one game in
my head, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Pretty much. He also used to pick winners for my dad,
right gambling. Yeah, it was it was like six. Yeah,
we jumped.
Speaker 1: Because when it came to the memory thing, my brother
Danny has a really good memory.
Speaker 2: For perfect or pure photographic Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that, like that's what makes Vinnie such a
good mechanic, because when you teach him something, he retains it,
and then he probably improves upon it or he applies
it in different areas, and you know, you build upon that.
You know, that's part of being having a good mechanical
kind of mind, especially for different types of cars and engines,
and you have to have an aptitude for that type
of stuff and a memory, I think is really important.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 2: He's a dedication to doing the right job. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, doing the correct job, doing the job right. Yeah,
doing the job right, yep, Yeah, definitely. Do you guys
ever go back and watch old episodes of the show.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really, but I saw the Black Widow episode.
I gotta tell you, I love watching old episodes and
I never do. I don't know why, really, I didn't
never liked watching them before, But now, like I watched
the Black Widow episode, the first one hour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and man, dude, we should watch them.
Speaker 1: Pretty far removed, right, You're completely removed. You're watching it
for like almost a different person.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I am. We all know, we all are,
you know, I know? Is it twenty years now some
of those Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like perspective is, like me and Dad aren't in that position.
I'm watching it almost just like almost purely as a viewer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no fresh show. Yeah, it's like the show
changed for me, dynamic changes. What do you like about
it when you go and see it. I love seeing
myself young.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not that I like I feel any
kind of way like oh I got to be young.
I just like seeing myself at that stage, with the
way I talked, the way I looked, how much weight,
much more weight I had, you know, like it's how
we were, you know, and it's like we're I like
how you know, I was watching like a clip the
other day that we posted, and I'm just I keep
like we're yelling across the shop or something, and I'm
just looking so young.
Speaker 2: You know. I had my hair, I had a vitality, vitality.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest with you, it's been like how
many people can say that their history has been preserved
in this capacity in which ours has for like well
over a decade of our adult lives.
Speaker 2: Think about it.
Speaker 1: That is like there's like three hundred episodes or however
many episodes we did chronologically, I mean for ten years.
Speaker 2: It went on. So if you starting to begin and
go to the end of We're ten years older. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I think that's like, that's a massive body of
my life. Yeah, you know, with some really high light moments. Sure,
it's a transition for being a young man to a
middle aged man.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: No, that's good, old fart, old fart man. A lot
of people are saying, how good you look, Mike. They're like, man, Mike,
they're lying, nah, I've been seeing that, like amost almost
every video we put up that has you in it,
they're like, mikey looks so good.
Speaker 2: It's like and they only because I used to look
so bad. Right now I look so so really well.
Speaker 3: I think you and I were talking off cameras like
it's it's not so much what you are doing, but
what you what you aren't doing anymore, because obviously we
talked to you know, you're not drinking anymore. But you
know a lot of people were wondering, like popping. Yeah, no,
more of the hard stuff, huh.
Speaker 2: And more of the hard stuff. Yeah. I ruined it
for myself. Yeah yeah, I can't even have a fucking beer. Yeah. Yeah.
Everybody was dancing and dancing and having a good time.
At the my niece's sweet sixteen the other night. And
it's not that I feel like I really want to drink,
it said, I'm not in the same everybody. Everybody's in
a better mood. Oh, they're in a way better mood
than me. I mean really, that's the skinny of it.
I won't deny that, but I mean, I'm not in
a bad mood, you know what I mean, it's just
you're on a different page. Yeah, And a lot of
people don't take me up on being a d D.
You don't drive anyways, they do. But this, uh, what
was I going to say? Oh the other day I
was at a friend's house and his girlfriend was there
and I don't know why, but she poured these shots
of red wine that were like two ounce or you know,
like the party shots that were plastic and I was like,
I don't drink and she's like, come on, it's just
a sip. And then I pan mind it, you know.
But it's just so some people don't understand it all. Yeah,
they just think you're weak, Yeah, which is partially correct.
Speaker 3: Well, I know, you know some people will and be like, oh,
just wine, and it's like you've gone so many years.
What would one even do, Like, if I'm gonna have one,
I'm gonna want twenty.
Speaker 2: The next thing, you know, the table's flipped over. Oh yeah, yeah,
it's either flipped over or I'm under it with no clothes. Yep.
I lost all my money in poker to one of
my friends. You know, right, you still have a friend.
We'd get drunk and we'd cheat each other at blackjack.
Oh yeah, every weekend and one of them, one of
us would wind up with the other one all their money.
It's rotten.
Speaker 3: We talked about you guys, talked about Hudson, Paul's son.
Oh yeah, man, I've only been working with I've only
been working with Paul for a couple of years. And
that guy, that kid's get yeah old bean sprout man.
Speaker 2: Yeah he is.
Speaker 3: He's giant, does he? He doesn't show any interest or
does he know about the show? We talked about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wat, he doesn't know.
Speaker 1: He doesn't watch it. He doesn't really care. You have
knows he knows what I have? Zero riz zero mad,
he said, zero riz. No, No, he never watches The
show Man and I don't ever try and get him to.
You know, I don't really care because Eventually he'll know
how cool I am, you know, and uh, you know,
But for right now, I just like him the way
he is. Man, I'm not trying to make him feel
any kind of way. He knows because we travel and
you know, he sees the what people come up and
we take you know, random places all the time, at
restaurants or wherever. So it's not like he last night
at the restaurant people wanted photographs, right, Yeah, he thought
that was pretty cool. Actually, yeah, I think so, you know,
he he I'll pull him in. He kind of likes
I pull him in.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: He's not a hamm or anything. He just likes that
he's with d Yeah that's cool and that's so that's cool.
So it's good.
Speaker 2: Eventually he'll watch it. I think he'll enjoy it. You
try to give him a little slack to learn, like
figure out what he likes.
Speaker 1: I think if it was different people and not us,
like if someone else had done American Chopper like the
way we did and it was removed, I think he
would like that show because you see how he is
with that stuff.
Speaker 2: He likes process. He likes dynamic like our you know,
patient kid, Yeah, and tedious and patient. Yeah, we watched
the Silent Film the other day. It was like an
hour and thirteen minutes. He liked it. He liked it really.
Yeah for a kid, you wouldn't think that, No, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: But he's got like a he's just interesting like that. Yeah,
very very creative mind, very creative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was he in the minecraft, right, Yeah, he's
in the mind because that movie just came.
Speaker 2: He just came out. Yeah, not yet, we have.
Speaker 1: We were we were at the sweet sixteen party for
my nieces the day it broke every Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks phenomenal. It looks like a great movie,
you know, like this, the way it's done, the characters
they picked to play.
Speaker 1: The roles, it's j Jesus. We were actually thinking about
maybe going tonight.
Speaker 2: We should just go. We should go. Let's go. I'll
go see theater. You know. It's easier than watching the
game get played, because it makes me sick after like
twenty minutes. It does.
Speaker 1: It gets your equilibrium kind of like you know, if
they're moving around too fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they spin, but I guess you get used to that, right,
Otherwise kids would be puken all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know I was always against video games,
but I feel like in in certain measure it's good.
And I'll tell you his reading is improved because he
has he's had to read things in order to play
the game, and it's forcing them. So I think it
really helped him along, you know. It gave him like
a practical application to like learn to read.
Speaker 2: He read the whole Silent film. Oh he did. Yeah,
he's been doing great with that stuff. Man. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons we moved here because when
we came here, we were having he was he was
struggling a little bit in Montgomery. Now this is three
years ago, so he was much younger. But once we
came here, Man, it just in the past year he's
really come around and he's like straight a's now. And
that's the reason why we came to the It's.
Speaker 2: Good just for the schools here. It's the CIR. It
is the CIR. Schools are really good here.
Speaker 1: They are and it's ten kids, two teachers, you know.
I mean it's it's it's better than some private schools.
I'll tell you that much from it right now.
Speaker 2: It really is. He gets any everything he needs, no shit,
and he loves school.
Speaker 1: Can't even believe it. Man, I just hated school. I
mean I hated school in a way that just I
would like try and be pretend I was sick all
the time when I was a kid, you know.
Speaker 2: And he loves it, man, social does can't imagine, you know,
is that really hated school?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot when it comes to developing
it because it was an uphill battle for me. I mean,
I wasn't good academically, and we had a lot going
on as kids, So I feel like things were a
little tough at home, and so we had like a
lot of stress and I just and I was the oldest,
so probably saw more early on, and that just always
was carried with me. So I brought it to school
with me, you know, and I just didn't feel secure.
Speaker 2: I think you bring it home, it flows downhill, you know.
Beat up his younger brother.
Speaker 1: I really I wasn't bringing up, so he's wondering if
he should be first? Like what have I blocked out
of my mind?
Speaker 2: All? What kind of horrors? Uh?
Speaker 3: This is a cool picture of someone sent let me
get the name here, Shelley. She found these at an
antique store and she bought them. Check these out. You
guys were Pez dispensers. We want we're antique.
Speaker 1: I got, I got, I got, you know, yeah, I
think so. You know what's so interesting about these pet dispensers.
We were the first.
Speaker 2: Living Pez dispensers. They took a chance on us.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, all the other Pez dispensers that
they had done, people had already passed on so that
they couldn't tarnish the Pez name. That was their that
was their branding theory. And when they came to us,
the show was so big.
Speaker 2: I think they just threw their morals out the window.
Not really, but you know, they were like, we're gonna
take a chance on you guys, and they may have
made us the first living Pez dispenser. So we were
alive while we were a Pez yep. And I never
got a DWI never got tarnish it. Well, how about that.
Speaker 3: All never got arrested for what he used to do. Well,
that's cool. That's a little fun fact about that. So Shelley,
hang on to those Pez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hang out of those they're gonna be I'll tell you,
I'll be honest with you. I bet you really can't
find them. And And here's the thing too, Shelley, be
careful with that because if you bump them, one or
two will come out, and if you don't want to
open it, if it's still sealed, it may not be.
Speaker 2: Then you're gonna just it's gonna look terrible. There's no
way to get us back in the in the compartments.
That's the collection dealer guy.
Speaker 1: That's right, because you've had that, I think, Yeah, when
they're all intact like that, I think that's much rarer
than other ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where fall seniors on his side, you know, and
you want to keep it sealed, right, So, yes, it
looks good.
Speaker 1: You don't need to take them out. It looks it's
like it's already framed up right in the case.
Speaker 3: So you thought it was cool looking to post that
picture up because it's a it's a great picture, and
they're in good shape, you know.
Speaker 2: It's in the box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got like, yeah, once I've been pulled up
here here, I got like cases of them. I could
sell them. I could sell them to you hitting more.
It's a really good condition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said, Like the lens of the plastic in
the front hasn't yellowed right, not on those you know
what bike is that, Paul? That is no idea.
Speaker 1: Oh it's some random just a yeah, it's like everything,
you know, like a t Rex with a paint, nothing
like gotcha, nothing purpose built, I mean, nothing like theme.
We use a lot of generics back then because there
was a separation between American Chopper, yeah, the television show
and Orange County Choppers, you know what I mean yep,
So we couldn't use like the fire Bike on that
we would need to get permission from Discovery. So for
a while we weren't able to use the bikes, and
then we did this co branded deal with them, and
then we were able to both use the bikes, and
then we supported them they supported us, meaning.
Speaker 2: The two brands.
Speaker 1: But all the while, Dude, Orange County Choppers remained ninety
five percent of the market and American Chopper did pretty well,
but it never was able to keep up with our authenticity.
Speaker 2: Of what we were.
Speaker 1: You know, people wanted the shirts we wore, the hats
we wore. They didn't want some variation of it, and
we were very sick.
Speaker 2: They wanted the OCC logo and brand as opposed to
the American Chopper.
Speaker 1: And it's wild to man because it's simple logo American Chopper.
Speaker 2: They must have done a bad job promoting. I don't
think so. I think we did a good job. That's
the difference. You know.
Speaker 1: We we marketed ourselves with we just said, you know
what we were coming from the mentality of like when
you go to the motorcycle shows, everyone wears their own
shirts for their own companies. So when we came into television,
we had a mentality like we're branded. You know what
I'm saying it is, but you know, we just carried that.
That that translated through the show. And then those simple
shirts with the sword on the back and the OCC
logo on the front was like king dude, one color,
simple as you can make a shirt.
Speaker 2: We'll have three of those, right and they're tathered. I
can't wear them out of the house. Oh really, rags, rags,
but really the most comfortable shirt of Wow, those are
the first shirts we ever made. I think you guys
were shooting for the stars there. The first one went
to China. No no, no, you didn't go to China.
Speaker 1: No, we didn't go to China, but we were the
first shirts we ever made to sell. We brought to
Daytona and it was of my Spider Man bike, which
precedes the Black Widow. And it had the logo in
the middle of a spider, a spider in the middle
of a logo. And and that was our first shirts
ever and nobody even knew who we were when we
brought those out. We barely sold any And then when
the show hit, we did the occ logo with that
sword on the back. Black shirts, white print, simple, you know,
pimp shirt, pimp shirt.
Speaker 2: It was pimp it was by by today's standards of design.
It's kind of streamlining, cool looking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we got to talk about Paul Senior.
I know he gets brought up a lot. I can
tell you from a fan's perspective, right. I was watching
one of the episodes, I think when you guys went
on when Leno and he's backstage and he's like tasting
some of the food.
Speaker 2: And spitting it out. I don't know what it is
doing on camera. Yeah, and he's like making a famous
thing to do. I just thought it was so funny
he did that. Yeah, his entire iron working career too.
This guy Bob, remember Bob, Yeah, yeah, Bob. He told
me that like one time. My dad just took an
apple from him, took a bite out of it, and
then threw it against the wall next to him. And
when he was telling the story, he was he didn't
think it was funny, you know, like he thought it
was absolutely most ridiculous thing anybody had ever done. But
I started laughing, Yeah, Dad, it was funny. That kind
of stuff is, I gotta tell you, man.
Speaker 1: Certainly, our sense of humor comes from our father on equivocally,
the what we think is funny, how we say things,
how we tell jokes, all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there's a dynamic, right, it's all a little sick.
I think we watched him speak a lot of AA
meetings growing up, Right, we went to a lot of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I don't think that's where we learned it.
I think we learned it just at dinner time before bed,
you know. Yes, so right, I'm chasing you back to
your bed down the hallway to whack you think.
Speaker 2: About how much AA taught you as far as telling
a story beginning, middle and end. Yeah, I try not
to leave you out in key details that are frustrating.
There were a lot of those stories, Like everybody was
a storyteller there back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I just thought that was an interesting kind of influence. Yeah,
maybe not dad so much, but meeting. Yeah, and then
going to a meetings as kids. You're not supposed to
do that. Well, they were kids, they were like Alatine,
they were, but we'd see it on an open meeting, right,
I'm pretty pissed off to that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My wife's being you know, like, hey, you can't, you
can't talk about what you're heard in the meetings.
Speaker 2: You're right, had all the names, right, they were like gangsters,
you know, Anxiety John Yeah, yeah, had a last name.
You're right in the room, angry Freddy as angry fred
leaving the fuck alone. He's only been sober ten years.
His wife and kids fucking hate him. They wanted to
kill him or die right, oh man, but really good
stories in there, you know. Yeah, so I think with you.
When I was in rehab, I tried telling some of
those stories and they'd blow the whistle. They'd be like,
oh no, glorification, glorification, Like what the fuck? Man? I
can't express how much, you know, just rolling up, you know,
you feel it like kind of the glue is still wet,
but it's dry, and put that thing in your mouth
and like the first pull you know, is that how
you're talking? Man? You were ruining people, they were probably
And I was in with a lot of heroin addicts, yeah,
or or or oxycon. Oh yeah, those are tough man. Yeah.
I was only in there with two drunks and one
looked like Johnny Cash. Really. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I'm
all better now. Good. That's a good thing.
Speaker 3: And I'm watching your dad and just cracking up because
I'm like, that is the stuff my dad does.
Speaker 2: Did you guys? Hear that a lot where it's like, man,
that just reminds me of my family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that dad reminds everybody of their dad.
And because you know, especially from that generation of fathers,
it was a it's a different generation. They really they
were brought up different. What was acceptable was a whole
different thing. And they didn't give his They didn't care
as much about what you thought. That way everybody's worried
these days.
Speaker 2: About the greatest generation. Didn't give you want to nurture them. No,
they were like iron you get a whack in front
of other people. They wouldn't even think for no reason,
for no reason, so other people know that whack your
kids like they do.
Speaker 1: No, they were never bad. My father was not like that.
He you know, he was probably tougher verbally growing up.
Speaker 2: His upbringing. Oh yeah, his upbringing. I think his upbring
was different.
Speaker 1: The kids got beat in my father's generation, and that
was a way of, you know, the old school way
of like making sure they were going to turn out okay.
Speaker 2: He stayed in line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think some people got ruined in the process,
to be honest with you, Oh yeah, but they didn't
know their parents didn't know any better.
Speaker 2: See where you couldn't put your kids on anything. Like
everybody's got their kids on everything now, you know. Yeah right, yeah,
But like the hyperactive kids aren't as prevalent anymore, you know.
And I think if I had one of those, I
beat the ship out of him today, you know. And
I wouldn't let him take any any of those pills,
just you know what I mean, just to be a
good parent. Well, I'll tell you, man, I bet you would, Mike,
I bet I would. I probably would, Man, take them,
take the pills, take the sleep.
Speaker 3: Your dad was jacked, man, and like he still is
if you see clips, he still is.
Speaker 2: But there's a scene and you're in it. You're a
fan of the show. Yeah, and you you were why
I brought Nady. You were. So there's the scene where
you're in the gym with him that I don't trust
you anymore.
Speaker 3: Had he always been I mean, he had to have
always been working out, because you or is in a
mix of him constantly working out and just having this
natural like strength and build because yeah, no.
Speaker 1: He always worked out. Well, no, he didn't always work out.
He drank a lot back in the early days, and
he worked a lot. But you know, when he got sober,
I was ten, so that was forty years ago, and
at that time is when he started paying attention to
his health. He started working out, made gym equipment for
the basement and got pretty pretty beat big man. When
I was in my teen years, actually when I was fourteen,
we had a pretty extravagant gym.
Speaker 2: We did homemade. We did yeah all together, Yeah, like
all weird stuff. I thought everybody had him in the basement,
you know, they just have a dumbbell or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no machines and everything, because he'd make it. He'd
make everything angle iron tubing, so he made all the machines.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So all of our equipment he made it the
steel shop, even made stuff for the gym later on
in the in the school. But like, you know, as
far as bench and you know any you know, dip
bars and you.
Speaker 2: Know, cable machines, he made all that he did. We
never bought that. He would bolt it right to the floor.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty cool man. That's all we ever used.
Bars and yeah, cables.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now did you guys like, because you know you're seeing
your dad and he's got all this stuff, did that
influence you guys at all?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: I started working out with him when I was like
like thirteen or something, fourteen, and then we had a
powerlifting team. We traveled everywhere and all these different meats
for like two years.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, dude. We were in drug Free Powerlifting Association,
that's right. And I got all kinds of records.
Speaker 1: I got state and national record for bench press when
I was fourteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bench press like six and seventy five pounds. No,
I think I did.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: No, when I was fourteen, I benched like three fifty
five what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had mute and I was fourteen? Were you serious? Yeah? Yeah,
he's always walking around with like a vest on, like
a leather vest with like Gene Simmons kind of you
were were team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just when I when I was in
my when I was in high school, I benched more
weight than in any of the football players in high school.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: When I was in middle school, I out benched everyone
in high school pretty much.
Speaker 2: Were you like, yeah, yeah, I was like, I don't know,
I don't even work and play pickleball. That's all I do.
I should I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to get back into the gym because I
feel like I got to start building that up because
it's going to be harder and harder to hold on
to it as I get older, you know. Yeah, but yeah, man,
we traveled. We had a great team of people. We
won a lot of meats.
Speaker 2: Then a lot of people farting high protein would We
had a tuttle shuttle. We had the van, had a
van with all the TV inside v c R shuttle. Man.
Speaker 1: That was my high school that was my high school ride.
That's what I brought my senior year. That's how I
got back and forth to school. That was quite a fun,
probably a shagging spirit we're not talking. I don't know anything.
I was too young.
Speaker 3: Were you involved with the lifting too, I mean that
blows my mind, but I didn't know any of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were. We were hardcore, man. Yeah, I think
all of our friends, everybody was just something I think
we did because there wasn't much to do, and then
you'd spend your other time like polluting your system, you know,
drinking forties outside the dollar fifty movie. So it kind
of like and you wouldn't even head out then, you
know what I mean. Because you were young, you could
bounce kind of bounce back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, I remember, like just man just playing football and
working out and travel in and powerlifting.
Speaker 2: They were we would do different We would do the.
Speaker 1: Triple lifts, deadlift, squad and bench as well, but mostly
bench press competitions.
Speaker 2: They were all over.
Speaker 1: It was popular back then, like because it was like
a thing to do, you know, and man, it was
all kinds of crazy.
Speaker 2: We go to all these different crazy events in the team.
We would have so much fun on the road, man, Yeah,
make the Collis was so much fun. It was a
sky the cause he he had a good bench. He
was a big Greek guy. Oh dude, let me tell
you something. He was like the funny you know when
people have no filter at all and it's just hou
yeah yeah yeah, like like yeah, but just saying crazy
things and being really funny, you know, like in public
and stuff. Yeah. We had a fun travel. We had
a good team. Man, you should have Nick on. That
guy will talk for six hours. Yeah you will, Yeah
you will, right, Yeah, you're gonna have to. Man, they
eat blue jays over there, like I shouldn't see sparrows.
Yeah they did, Man, I saw blue jays really geez
Okay though, oh gosh, man, Nick would be He's the
kind of guy that he would like go into the
house and then you would walk down the hallway and
he would like be he would be taking a dump
with the door open.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He never it didn't matter if there was twenty people
there company. Yeah. I don't know what that is. Some
people can't because I my old roommate he always left
the door when he was taking a ship and he
just couldn't ship without the door open. Wow. Yeah, Like
there's a certain feeling of openness and freedom that leads
into the next room that helps your balance things move. Yeah,
I feel what the fuck are you doing because I'm
sharing rent with this guy. You know, what are you doing? Yeah?
It was Andy? Yeah, oh boy, you shouldn't have said
his name. He's knocking. And Andy ended up being one
of our guys yep, on the crew, a premiere cameraman, right,
but he came Yeah, but he was at first, he
was a PA. First, he was a PA worked up
camera assistant, and now he is not only a cameraman
but a director. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, So he came up through the show. A lot
of people came up through the show. Yeah, they got
their careers started on American Chopper yep.
Speaker 2: And they owe us, they owe us money. We should
have a call in right now, yeah, yeah, caller. Yeah.
What about sports? You said I played football. I was
like a good football player. What another position?
Speaker 1: I'm full back and linebacker inside linebacker, full back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I played well. So in my school we had my.
Speaker 1: Senior year, we had like eighteen kids on the team
and we played we'd play schools that had like fifty
four seventy four kids four strings, right, yeah, and I
remember we played like Monroe, Woodbury and the ref But
you know, we came out to the field to do
like the coin.
Speaker 2: Toss rival team, right, yeah, league team that would win
the States Lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like they were just so much bigger than us.
And you know, the ref said, hey, listen, okay. You
know however it shook out. He said, look, if you guys,
if anyone gets hurt, you got to forfeit the game.
Speaker 2: That's how we started the game.
Speaker 1: Wow, because we couldn't have less than eighteen kids to play.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. And how do you do
that with football?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh dude, it was brutal. But I loved it, man.
I love football. I loved I loved fullback. I love linebacker.
I was captain of the team from from what I
started playing till my last senior year. So I was
got of the team every year from I think I
started playing in what sixth grade and stopped playing, and
you know, lave my senior year.
Speaker 2: Wow, captain fullback.
Speaker 1: So you're scoring touchdowns and tacks, crushing heads, getting concussions,
breaking fingers.
Speaker 2: He was an animal. Yeah, it sounds like I was
an animal. He was an animal.
Speaker 1: I had like a you know, I was really hard
to take down and I hit people as hard as
I could every time, and it would wear people out sometimes.
Speaker 2: I even wore myself out a few times. Sure, Sure,
I remember one time you got hit and you had
a concussion. That it did probably a couple of times. Yeah,
but it was on like a kickoff. That's when you
could really melee, you can, that's where you get Oh no, No.
Speaker 1: They moved me up to varsity and just for a game,
and they would put me on special teams and uh.
And I was like it was like a kickoff return, dude,
And I was like watching.
Speaker 2: The guy running with the ball. I was back a
little further, dude, and some big guy just level beating
first play varsity. Oh man cleaned my clock. Dude, I
was out. I mean he must have saw mark, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So but I was a big kid man. I was
always Uh. I was always really strong and fast.
Speaker 2: For my side. I think you should have went to
the hospital that time. Yeah, I probably should. My ears
was still his hands, he just had I felt bad
for him. I remember, like, holy shite, like tunnel back
in the game. No, but this was before concussions message,
before concussions were expected. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then like like heat exhaustion was what you
expected during practice. You were practicing now like, good lord,
if it's like ten percent humidity, they bring in and
they sit you down, we're going to we're going to
the basement of them, which I understand people did you
know sometimes kids overheat or stuff. It's it's there's it's
been a little unsafe in the past. But we certainly
come from that that old school way of you know,
doing uh, you know, triples in the summer ninety degrees
when we were playing we're in camp for football, you know,
or the bull ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, law that did they Yeah, we just keep crushing.
The table blows. Yeah, Like the coach gives everybody a
number in a circle and the guy in the middle
was chopping his legs, going in a circle himself, and uh,
at random he gets hit. Yeah, so you get blind
sided one. Oh yeah, man, I can't see where that helps.
But it was nice hitting somebody. You know, so you
played too, I did, but I didn't like it. It's
not a killer, man, not a killer, a killer killing.
I'm a killer. He channeled it into a pickleball. Right
right now, I am stuffing out of like eighty five
year old women. It's true, it's true. Have you checked
out the new indoor one. I was there the other day.
How is it? That's great? Man?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I was there right now. No offense
to you, fellas. Yeah, No, it's really good man. It's
it's beautiful inside. It's five minutes from here, and it's
you know, conditioned, air conditioned and heated in the winter,
so no wind, no wind, it's nice. Actually, I just
got back in. I took two months off. I got
like a pickleball elbow thing that, and then we got
busy with trying to get out of our house and
buying another house, and so I just took them two
months off and I just got back into it. And
I wasn't sure if I was going to get back
into it, but I'm pretty I'm already hooked. Yeah, And
I was overdoing it.
Speaker 2: So I needed the two months off because for like
a year, I was just I was playing way too much.
Speaker 1: I got good, but it takes its toll, you know
what I mean. Like I would play two hours hard,
and then they would be like, hey, we got these
guys coming to you, gotta you want to stay and play,
and I'd end up playing like four hours like that stuff,
and it's too much. And I and I overdid it,
So I'm trying to go like every other day.
Speaker 2: Now. No, that's still good. Yea active, Yeah, that's it.
That's it. I gotta just move. But I felt so
good being there.
Speaker 1: It realieves a lot of stress too, because I'm a
very physical player, so I go, I go for everything
over the court, you know, the stressful. Yeah, but no,
when it comes to football, man, you know, Michael would
have been really good, but he just didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't have He didn't like to hurt people. No,
I don't want to hit somebody. You gotta you gotta
be okay with her back football. Yeah, it's funny. You
want to hit your friends so bad? Yeah yeah, yeah,
you don't feel as bad. No, no, because you're like
something they said last night, take it out on him. Yeah, right,