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Hey, guys, I just wanted to welcome you all to the Paul Junior Podcast. We're down here in Long Beach Island, New Jersey and our new
location, and this is our first podcast here and I'm pretty excited. So
here we go. So, Paul, speaking of the showroom, I mean,
obviously you look around as a ton of stuff. Tell everyone what people
can check out when they come here. Yeah, you know, when you
come visit the showroom down in LBI. First of all, we got the
Black Widow, we got the MLB bike, we got Build Off one, Build Off two, and the Yankees bike. And more recently this car,
this Zephyr, we built for American Collector's Insurance, which is looking pretty tight right now. And I collect all this crazy early transportation in Americana. I
mean, it's just everything from some of it's one hundred and twenty five thirty years old. I think what drew me so much to all this transportation related
stuff is it reminds me kind of what I do now with motorcycles. It's
all about marketing and advertising, right, So when I build a bike for MLB, I'm trying to sell the message of their brand through my creative process.
Which is really just rolling advertising. And all these really cool visuals,
all these really cool porcelain signs, painted tin signs, even this Hudson sign over my head. All this stuff is really all pointing to the same direction
as we're taking people today, which is it harkens back to one hundred years or better of American advertising. When did the collection start? Has this been
ongoing or something recent? You know, it's funny this collection. When did
this collection start? Really probably about eight years ago. And the funny thing
is, as long as I've been doing design work, it was lost on me forever. Like the stuff around me right now, in my mind at
one point in time was kind of junk. It didn't have any bearing on
how I had no feeling about it. And then I got into collecting cars,
believe it or not. First, and it was shortly after the show
went off the air, and two was about two thousand and maybe thirteen or fourteen, and man, I just got this bug. And I saw this
buick. We were up in upstate New York at a car show, and
I saw this buick and I was like, man, I love that thing.
And so I started looking for one, and I bought one and the next thing, you know, I got into Hudson's and I had a massive collection of hunting cars and I hunted cars down My wife will tell you I didn't collect them. I hunted them very rare cars, Hudson especially from the
thirties, and man, I found all the rarest cars out there and I bought them, and I had a big collection of them. Slowly I sold
them and then so I got that collecting bug bad and then it started.
Then I started in with Signs and realized, oh my gosh, me and Signs have a lot in common. And that was it. Once I got
into signs, the hooks were in and that then I just got out of control. Because everything I do is a little extreme, to be honest with
you. And once I got into this and I really understood what I was
looking at, and I started to really appreciate and love the history of these things, I got so invested in here I am today, and I've really narrowed the collection down to only the most rare and unusual pieces and the best looking, if that makes sense. Graphics is a big part of how of
what's valuable about these collectibles, and so it's just been a passion of mine that quite often gets out of control sometimes and with that, each one really has its own story behind it. I've seen you explain this to people when
when they come in and check it out. Yeah. I got to be
honest with you, I've overpaid for some of this stuff because of the I got with it right, like I bought the story. But that's important to
me because now if you walked in here, I could probably spend two hours telling you every aspect of the history of every piece that I have. And
I love it to be honest with you, Like I'll spend an hour with someone and just walk them around my showroom and talk about the zeppelin that was built by Goodyear, talking about the sign that came off the Iroquois beer factory up in Buffalo, New York, my huts and signs, my Indian stuff.
I mean, there's so much history in here, it's crazy. And
with that, you know, when people come here, You've told me you want them to leave with an experience. You have all these antiques, but
as you mentioned, you have the motorcycles, you have a whole car in here. You're gonna walk people through they can come and meet you, right,
So that's the whole experience. Yeah, come check it out. Yeah,
I would say what we really created here in Long Beach Island, at this showroom in particular, is an experience. You could see the bikes,
you can see the signs. I'll quite often be here to talk to you
about them. We just introduced the Zephyr that we just built for American Collector's
Insurance. And it's interesting whether you're a huge fan of the show, which
people who come in and get to see the Black Widow it's like a dream of theirs mostly, or just a little kid who's never seen one episode but sees the MLB bike because they love baseball, or sees the Black Widow and they see the chrome webs and they think in terms of Spider Man and things of that nature. There's you know, it's a wide open, imaginative place
that really creates i would say, an experience for people that maybe they have never gotten before. And then if you look right over here, you know,
your wife's boutique room is astorind pretty cool. So something for you know,
the whole family. Yeah, yeah, certainly. So. We got
a really unique setup here. We got my showroom and then we got a
nice big opening in the wall, and then my wife's showroom essentially her boutique, And last year was the first year we had her up and running all summer, and it was really remarkable. I'd be standing here, I'd watch
a whole family come in and the guy starts looking around and the next thing you know, the wife just beadlines right for the boutique, and it really it gives us something to give to pretty much everyone in the family. It's
a nice family experience. Isn't that what LBI is all about here too.
I think a lot of people want to know what drew you to LBI in New Jersey. Yeah, all those years in New York, You're in Jersey
now. Yeah. It's weird, man, I'm in New Jersey now.
I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but I'm here. I do love
Long Beach Island for the fact that it is very family oriented. That's what
drew me down here. I never even heard of LBI until I met my
wife, Rachel, back in two thousand and seven. After a few years
of dating. She brought me to the island and I just you know,
we always went to like Point Pleasant or Seaside. That was it for us.
Coming from New York, we never got down this far, which really isn't that much further, but you know, you take the causeway over and you're on an eighteen mile island. You go left nine miles, you go
right nine miles, and from pretty much any rooftop on the island you could see the bay in the ocean. So it's a very quaint, very kind
of small community, but it offers a lot, and it's the darling of New Jersey in my opinion. I see people come here and they're like,
we never knew this was here. Especially during COVID, everyone who could not
fly came to this island and then they bought houses and it just really I think there was a boom during COVID because they rented the first year and bought the next year. And we saw that with people that we know, and
it just really grew. It's becoming more and more a year round here.
But yeah, going back to it, you know, when me and Rachel got married in twenty ten, we lived in Montgomery for all these years, and we bought a house down here in January of twenty before COVID hit, and that was it for us. We started these businesses and for the past
two years we've lived on the island. We love the schools here. The
schools are quaint, they're small. There's ten kids in my son's class,
which is huge for me growing up not being academically strong, being maybe in a school where there's like twenty five kids in a class and feeling a little lost. Here he gets all the attention he needs, and we love that.
The teachers are great, and frankly, the people here are fantastic.
And really in just a few weeks, you know, come Memorial Day weekend is when this whole island really starts getting busy, and you really want to encourage people. Hey, if you're in town with your families or whatever,
come yeah, say that they might be able to meet you. Yep,
yep, yeah, Memorial Days coming up. And I got to tell you,
like, this is a fantastic island to visit. There's so much to
offer here. You got Fantasy Island down the amusement park at one end.
The other end you got you know, beech Haven. I mean, Beach
Haven's been well, wait a minute, Fantasy Island, and then what's the other end, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So on one end of the island, you kind of. You have Beach Haven, which has fantasy Island
for all the kids, amusement park, a lot of walking traffic, and then you go all the way down to Barnegat Light and it's just like old LBI. Just it's a lot of trees, older houses. It's got a
whole different vibe. So it's so weird from one end of this island to
the other. These little townships all have their own flavor, so there's something
for everyone here. And certainly the ocean is spectacular. I mean, I've
been all over the world. I don't know that I've ever seen nicer beaches.
I don't even know why I'm saying this, because we like it to be a little quieter than it is in the summer. But the truth is
you can come down here. I'm in the showroom quite often, people can
meet me. You know, I'm in and out. But man, last
year I met a lot of people, a lot of fans. And really,
there's so much nostalgia right now for the show because we've been around twenty five years, being the first reality show, being around for so long and having that family dynamic. It just I'm amazed by the stories I hear from
people about how American Chopper has really affected their lives on an overall basis.
Yeah, does that ever get old? Because I've seen people in here families
and they see you and they're like, you don't know what this show did for me. This is before the Internet, this is before all this stuff
came out. I mean, that's got to be a great feeling when you
hear that from people stopping them. Yeah. You know, when I look
at the impact American Chopper has had on the globe, really, I mean certainly here in the States, but because we had such a global audience, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, people have such positive things to say.
How you know, we've really motivated people to be what they are today.
I know that sounds weird, but whether either welders or lawyers, somehow, in some way, especially in the create the idea of people tapping into their creative process, our show showed them that it was okay to do that, and then it was also okay to not have a perfect family dynamic, and so I think that combination was very endearing, and that's I think that's why we we've had so much staying power, even compared to other shows of our time period, we seem to stick for people, you know, we have
we're almost like family to the people that come in here, and it shows every single time they walk in. It's almost like you hear the same exact
thing every time. So that's that's a real that's a great honor, and
you know, we're just excited to have a location like this where people could come and visit. You know, and with American Chopper, you know,
it was so raw and authentic and just real. You know, it was
very real what everyone saw. And here you have this podcast now where it's
almost like you get to be your raw, authentic real Yeah. Do you
see like how you know the Yeah? You know, I think this podcast
is good because it does it does kind of release me to be myself.
I think maybe I've been kind of conservative and in the way I do thing, especially from a social media standpoint. That's just my nature. But I
think people are interested in hearing, you know, not just the motorcycle guy or the son, but certainly the father and husband kind of where things are at today, what's going on, what's important. Because everyone who watched all
those years ago when I was pretty much a kid, have all grown up with me now, and the relatability is off the charts because we're all married, we all have kids, we all got problems, right, So that I think that's that's gonna be a lot of what we talk about on this podcast. Yeah, and you know with that, of course, you are
a dad. You know, you have a son. Talk about the relationship
you have with Hudson and now that's been he's you know, still young figuring things out. But what's it like being a dad? Yeah, you know,
it's interesting. I love being a dad. It's my favorite thing.
I gotta be honest with you. I love spending time with my son.
I wait, I make breakfast for him every morning, I bring him to school and pick him up every day. That's pretty remarkable really, And you
know, everyone knows of the tumultuous relationship I've had with my father through the years, and sometimes, you know, you can only do so much because it takes two people to have a relationship. But certainly I've looked at some
of the things that maybe didn't work for us, and I've said, I'm not doing that. So I've really been like very conscious of being there,
loving on my son, maybe too much, sometimes not so much. But
he's an only child, so you know, me and my wife are like with him. If he's not in school, we're together. And so but
it's a great dynamic, and you know, in a lot of ways, I've learned what not to do from my father that And again that's not a knock on him. I'm not trying to beat up on him. But you
know, I don't think my father had a great upbringing as far as like he only has to work with the tools that he has in his hand, and I feel like growing up he didn't. He wasn't given much, and
so I think that's a hard thing to carry into adulthood than you become a father and you try, because he certainly did try, and we had great times growing up. But you know, as things progressed in the years or
you know, our dynamic got tougher and tougher, and so I think he I think he has always been up against a lot my father. That's the
way I would That's the way I would look at it. So from that
standpoint, I don't really look at our dynamic and have animosity. I just
look at it for what it was and say, how can I learn from this dynamic and not pass that on to my son. And don't you feel
like times have changed nowadays too, because just even with my group of friends, it seems like dads are making way more commitment to be with their kids.
They're spending times with their kids. Would say, you're seeing it,
yeah, you know, I think I think we are today seeing dad spending more time with their kids. You know, I think about when I was
a kid, dad's worked, they weren't home mostly, they're working two jobs almost always. They they were trying to provide, and they had an imper
way of doing it, you know, I mean, think about it, like things are so different now. Not that people don't work hard, but
I think there's a real conscious there's so much more education in the area of family dynamic and what's healthy and what's not. Back in the day, I
don't think there was as many tools out there. And for me, we've
been able to tap in a lot of that and understand that, hey, this is what's important. And I got to tell you something more recently.
Man, don't blink, because my son is now nine years old, and we've been saying this from day one, like he's going to grow up fast and he's halfway to eighteen, and we just look at him and we're like, man, and he's tall, he's like the tallest kid in his class.
So he's like, looks like he's two years older than he is.
And so we are really trying to cherish every moment. You know, I
will say this, The one thing I do is love on him a lot.
I love on him. I tell him I love him, probably too
much. He's probably tired of hearing it. But I think that's a really
important aspect because you could be imperfect as a father, but if your kid knows how much you love him all the time, I think it goes really far. And doesn't it go even further to be present too, Yes,
I mean just to be there, like you're picking him up, waking up with him. You're there. He's gonna look back and say, dad was
there. Yeah. I think you're right. Man. You know there's no
replacement for your time, and to be there for your children is everything.
You don't have to do it perfectly, You just have to be there and work through that relationship because in your absence, it's not good to be absent from that situation. And I know some people have to travel, some people
have jobs that cause them to be everywhere, but you know, and in that case, it is what it is. But man, I'll tell you
you can't get you can't get time back. I'm telling you you can't get
time to Look. I'm fifty, right, I'll be fifty this year.
When this show started, I was twenty five, right. So that gives
you some perspective, like life is short and it goes quickly. So I
think you got to really be focused on your priorities, and you know, family is number one. Do you think you became a dad and like a
great time too? Do you think do you think you know when he was
wi you were still on the show? Yeah? Right. You know it's
funny because I always felt like i'd be a dad young. I thought I'd
get married young, and it just never happened. And I always was like,
I don't get it. I'm built for marriage and kids. I really
was like that. But at the same time, the early years of American
Chopper, really that whole first ten year run, boy, we were on the road. Man, it was there was no room for kids. When
I look back, and certainly now I'm in a older dad. I had
him at forty but I'm totally settled. I have him at forty, I'm
settled things. I could kind of make my own schedule, which is really
nice, and do what I want to do. I'm self employed, and
so it gives me total freedom to be and do whatever I want to be and do. Concerning being a father, the years of American Chopper, in
the pure chaos of the situation would not afforded me that. So these things
happened for a reason. And it's all like divine appointments, you know.
And so you know, of course your dad and now you're also a husband, and you're juggling a business too, and I think a lot of people out there are just like they struggle with that. You know, what's your
take on that, based on the things that you've experienced juggling all the things that you got going on. Yeah, yeah, you know, juggling business
and family can be tough. Fortunately, we work from home. We do
a lot of creative stuff, and me and my wife do everything together.
So she's like we are like the dynamic duo. We're like a powerhouse couple
when it comes to anything. So we both have our giftings. I will
say at times it is hard to put work aside because we work so closely together all the time, so like the day's over, but it's not really over almost ever, and we could always be doing more work. And so
sometimes we got to manage that when it comes to our son and making sure, okay, he's home from school. We know, we got to finish
this probucce, but we got to make time. So it's I feel like
it's a balancing act for us, you know. Yeah, And you know
with that, it's like you've been able to make it work. What would
you tell people who haven't or struggled or they're just like man, overwhelmed by it because you have business experience, experience all that. Yeah, you know,
I got to tell you, I'm very fortunate because there's people out there, Like I said, both parents work and they have to right some two jobs. Both of them work two jobs and they got three kids, and
they're trying to make it all work out. But the truth is that it's
very hard probably for them to find a balance, you know, And I feel and I feel bad for that situation because the truth of the matter is the parents are doing the best they can. They're trying to provide the best
life for their kids. But there's no way they're not missing out on certain
aspects of their life that frankly, you just can't get back. You can't
turn back the clock. So you know, it's funny, this is this
is the way I would describe life. Right. Someone said before me and
Rachel got married to a friend of mine said, listen, let me give you some advice. And I've given this advice to people all over. Anytime
someone says they're getting married, make sure you're a present for your wedding because so many people, is so much hype, and there's so much planning, even for the guys. You know, I know the women do a lot
of the planning most of the time, but like and then the day comes and it's overwhelming and it's over and you're like, what just happened? And
so you know, someone said that, and I would say that that for life, that same exact thing, because I applied that to when we got married. We had the best wedding in history. It was the best.
We enjoyed every moment of it. We were very present, very conscious of
everybody there and the fact that this is only for a moment and we should enjoy it. Life is kind of the same way. It's only for a
moment, and we should enjoy it and we should make sure our priorities are right. Nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect, believe me. But those are
things that I think that people should really be working on. Dude, you've
gotten and you look like you're in great shape here. Yeah. I think
a lot of people are wondering Paul working now. Paul run Yeah, I
know, I know, Yeah, you're doing something a little interesting. I
don't know how much you want to go into here by a new sport you've yeah picked up. Yeah, you know. It's funny. I've in the
past couple of years, I've gotten heavily into pickleball. Nobody knows that about
me because I never told anyone until just now. But you know, we
had a guy coming into the shop who would pick my guys up at the airport. Right. This guy's name is John, and he would drop he
would bring the guys in from the airport when we were building bikes, you know, fly branded in a lot, my sheet metal guy, and he'd say, hey, Paul, come on, we got to play some pickle ball, you know, And I'd be like, John beat it, man, get out here with this pickleball stuff, because I just didn't even know what it was, you know. But eventually they put courts in by our
house and we went down there to check it out, and me and my wife joined a tournament first day before we even picked up a pickleball paddle, and gave us some motivation to kind of get in it. And we got
into it. Man. And for about a year I played pretty consistently several
days a week, and I was into it. But it wasn't until about
a year into it that I started getting better and better that I realized that this thing had almost no end to it, that I can continue to improve.
And then that was it. Man, it just got me, like
the signs. I mean, it just got me like everything else. It's
like building motorcycles, collecting signs, and pickleball are like my three crazy obsessions almost. But the byproduct of that has been phenomenal because it's given me.
Well, first of all, let me just set the floor. I've had
type two diabetes for about a decade now, and I really wasn't doing anything from after high school until three years ago, and that wasn't good for me, you know, And I wasn't going to the gym. I had a
gym membership. I was paying fifty bucks a month for nothing. And once
this pickleball thing kicked in, man, all of a sudden, I was getting in shape. I wasn't. I wasn't really trying to get in shape.
I know that sounds crazy. I just got way into the whole idea
of it, and before you knew it, I was like, I got lean, I got strong. I realized I could start keeping up with my
nine year old all of a sudden, which really was a big aspect.
And here's a sport that I like scoffed at for years and now I'm obsessed with it. And it's something that I could play at a very high level
that there's really no end to. And so now I'm like, man like,
I'm like, i'd like to be a pro. I don't want to
go on a circuit. I just want to play at that level. And
you know what, it gave me my competitive edge back that I had in high school. Right, I powerlifted won all kinds of trophies. When I
was fourteen, I won state and national bench press records. I played,
I was captain of the team all the years of middle school. In high
school, right, I played full back. In linebacker, we had the
fastest four by one one hundred in the area, like the I was used to winning. And then high school ended. I didn't go to college because
I worked for my father, and that was it. I lost my competitive
edge from that perspective, you know. Now I applied it to building and
competition and stuff like that. I pushed myself, but it wasn't in physical
you know. And all of a sudden, I'm like beating people that would
beaten me last year. And now I'm into my third year and now like
you know, so it's really building up in me. This whole idea of
get it back, and that's our theme. Get it Back is the theme
we're going to talk about even on this podcast, and it's going to be the it's still going to be the Paul Junior Podcast, but we're going to have a theme going of get it back, where we talk to people who have maybe at times felt like they couldn't do that, maybe they're overweight, dealing with health issues and stuff like that, and got into a sport of some sort and how it changed their life and it's never too late. To
get it back. That's the message. Because here I am at fifty and
I'm lean, and I'm fast, and I keep up with my son, and I'm having fun at a sport that I can play competitively, and there it's actually a pro sport. So I'm pretty excited about it. And I'm
actually three weeks I've been out because I hurt my shoulder a little bit.
I haven't had too many injuries, which is great, but I'm pretty pumped to get back into it. And of course, like you said, there's
the physical side of things, right, and how you get all these physical benefits. But also, like you said, you're closing in with fifty,
and this is a time where I think a lot of people don't really take it, you know, they start taking their health for granted. Yeah,
you said, you got a young kid, you got to move around.
But as much as the physical, how much does this help you mentally too, to get out there and exercise and be active outside. Tell me about
that side of things. Yeah, you know, the mental side of getting
in shape and getting out your you know, life can be challenging, relationships, business, all the dynamic, and if you don't have a physical outlet, it could really build up in the ways of high blood pressure, anxiety, to pressure, you name it. I mean people are, especially at
my age fifty, a lot of people have closed the door on the idea that they can well, frankly get it back. And the truth is you
can in all kinds of ways. For me, it's been pickleball. So
it's never too late. It really is. And I'm living proof. And
you know the weirdest thing. I didn't set out to get in shape.
It just happened through me getting involved in pickleball. And then once you then
you realize that the byproduct of it is you being healthy and fit and frankly being around a lot longer potentially for the people you love. It's it's a
pretty awesome thing and anybody can do it's And that's the thing I'll say about pickleball. It is the most inclusive sport in the world. It's also the
fastest growing sport in the world. And you know, the inclusion is what
I love about it because of the age and demos all all over the place, and people play it competitively. You show up, there's always people there.
It's a very inexpensive sport. You don't need a lot of gear for
it. It also has a spectacular social aspect. You meet new people.
I didn't set out for that. I'm not really looking to meet new people,
but I did, and it's been enriching for me. And I think
for a lot of people, especially coming off the heels at COVID, people are very you know, introvert from that whole situation still and so and I think I think during COVID, pickleball really exploded because it's something almost anyone can play, and it was an outdoor activity, so it was okay to do it, and people really got hooked into it at that point in time.
So I think that's what's caused the explosion. But certainly I would recommend it
for anyone to at least try. Some people play at a high level,
some people play recreationally just for fun and whatever about it is that draws you to it, I'd say, at least give it a shot. And I
think it's interesting. And you know, like you said, it's type two
diabetic. You know that's that can lead to so many issues. How's this
helped, I mean with your abeties? Yeah, you know, so being
a type two diabetic for all these years, the pickleballs helped tremendously with my A one C. It's just brought my A one C down certainly on a
daily basis. It's you know, with diet and exercise, and I'm not
always great on my diet, so the exercise really helps, you know.
Uh, It's just it's made a huge difference in my overall feeling, how I sleep, you know, basically, it affects every aspect of your life.
Very cool. Let's get back to the showroom. Here's some of the
builds you got. Obviously you mentioned when I first came the Black Widow Band
there it is. It's like so iconic. It's what really launched American Chopper.
Do you have a favorite here in the showroom or like one that stands out or has some meaning to you? You know, it's interesting, it's
everybody always asks my what's my favorite bike? It's just a common question.
People are so curious about that because I think for themselves, they probably have multiple bikes that they really love, but quite often they have one they love the most, and usually it's because of the theme, and it's because they related to that bike more than any other bike, whether it be the three hundred and forty three firemen that died in nine to eleven, that tribute or The Black Widow, which was the first of the series, which really grab people because it was the first episode. It's kind of what got them hooked
on American Chopper or MLB because it represents all of Major League Baseball. But
for me, you know, the only way I could describe it is they're all like kids. Not only have one kid, but I can imagine if
I had five kids, I would love them all, right, But they're just different, right, they all have different personalities, they have different meanings.
And I'm talking about the bikes, not kids. You know. Like
MLB to me is like one of the best branded bikes we've ever done.
It's so clean, it's so cris it's so right, exactly what they were asking for. And then you have like the build Off bike here in the
showroom, the first build off against occ and Jesse James that was live in Vegas at the Hard Rock. It was the most pressure I've ever felt in
my life in a competitive situation, and what you see is a product of that. We went above and beyond two times to make sure that we were
going to walk away with a win. That's how invested I was in that
particular bike, you know, and then the black widows. Just my,
it's like the firstborn. You know, it's not really because I built bikes
before it, But when I look at it, I say, man, that's like that's the first that's my first born. So and I got to
tell you that's just sitting here in the showroom bikes I'm looking at. I
mean, there are so many bikes that mean so much. The bike that's
in the nine to eleven memorial that represents the New World Trade Center, that was such a tremendous honor to have any part in, never mind to build it, and then now lives and it lives down in the memorial, lives down in the museum, which is phenomenal. You know. Then we got
the Statue of Liberty bike it's at the Statue of Liberty. I mean,
we've got some stuff out there that they've been kind of become national monuments or at least reflective of national monuments, which to me is huge. So they
all have these different purposes. All the charitable ones make a wish. I
mean, come on, you know, it's just things of that nature.
They're invaluable in a way, right, So, but it is all a big body of work that really represents twenty five years of doing it, you know, and with all that, do you ever look back and you're like, man, the global impact that these motorcycles have had. You know,
you're represented brand, you're telling a story. Yeah, and they've stood the
test of time all these years later too, you know, yeah, you know, the global impact of American Chopper to me is kind of like staggering.
I don't know that there's ever been another show like it. There's been
great shows, there's been shows that have been around for a really long time, but we were just pioneers in our approach in what the show was.
Frankly the first reality show. I think you can check that against anything and
realize that, yes, there was like Big Brother and Survivor, but was that a reality show like ours? No, it wasn't. Those were you
put, you know, people that you know aren't going to quite get along in a room together or on an island, and you're gonna have fantastic television.
This was cameras showing up in a dingy little shop in Montgomery, New York, in some kind of basement that flooded and you know, and we started building amazing things and the family dynamic was never seen before on television, the outrageous fights and things of that nature. So the impact that it's had
is it's beyond my comprehension. And I see what people say and do for
the show, what they think, they you know, how it impacted them.
But I don't think I have any sense of really the reach and scope of what American Chopper has meant globally. And with that, you know,
the whole cast and your family too, what's the what are those relationships like?
Still? You know, I think after all these years, people wanted
to know. Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, man,
team cast, we had like twenty characters on American Chopper. You know,
obviously me, Mikey, and my father were the main characters, and you had like Vinnie, Rick Cody, and then you had like ten other characters that people really liked because a lot of people related to the guys that weren't involved as much, but they related to their personalities, and so we just had such a tremendous dynamic and character base. And you know, it's
funny because even at the time you saw other networks, including Discovery trying to recreate it, because how can you blame them, because it was like it was on fire and they just couldn't recreate it. They wouldn't get three episode
off the ground and the show was canceled and that you could see they were trying to get people to argue like us. The level of authenticity that came
from us, I think it really spoke to the staying power of the show.
People just got invested early. They liked it, they didn't like it,
whatever it was about it, they couldn't stop watching. And you got
to remember too. But it's not like today where there's a million points of
content both. I mean, internet wasn't what it is today. You had
to go to Discovery Channel at nine o'clock on Monday nights and there was no DVR, we didn't even have high def television yet and watch American Chopper and that's what people did. And that's where you were able to quantify these big
numbers for our ratings that we got back then. You know, So,
guys, I really appreciate you listening, and you know, my idea is to be doing more of these. I mean, there's so many things to
talk about. I got a lot going on in this head of mine,
and I feel like I have a lot to say, and I haven't really said a lot in a long time, so I think it could get interesting.
I have all kinds of ideas for guests for the podcast, everywhere, from different characters from American Chopper that I'm sure you guys would love to hear me interview, to different celebrities, different athletes, different people in the area of health and wellness. I think we can be pretty diverse in this podcast
and have a little something for everyone, So I appreciate you listening and stay tuned.
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